Age: 45.
Birthplace: Brooklyn, N.Y.
Current home: Pacific Palisades, Calif.
Marital status: Divorced once.
Child: Jennifer, 16.
Working on: Costarring with Patty Duke as a contemporary Auntie Mame in
”Karen`s Song,” a new Saturday-night sitcom for Fox Broadcasting.
Worst job: At a club in a Chicago suburb. It was 30 below zero, and there was no heat. I had the flu, and only two people showed up, but the owner made me sing anyway.
Worst date: In college I was invited to Harvard for a weekend by a boy I had a crush on. He ignored me all weekend, and I wandered around Cambridge by myself. Then I cut my leg shaving and had to go to a hospital.
The book I`ve been recommending lately is: ”The Kennedys and the Fitzgeralds,” by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Favorite performers: Judy Garland and Marlon Brando.
Favorite childhood memory: Giving my first public performance, in ”South Pacific” when I was 9 at Camp Chanawah.
Personal heroes: Golda Meir and my parents.
Every New Year`s I resolve: To lose weight.
Nobody knows I`m: Lainie Levine.
If I could do it over, I`d: Listen to advice.
I tried to teach my child: That people have frailties and faults. They`re just human. If you don`t learn that, you`re constantly disappointed.
The worst advice my mother ever gave me: She told me people were either good or bad. She never told me about the grays in life.
I knew I was a grown-up when I: Went bankrupt 10 years ago.
My most irrational act: Flying to Australia to perform when I had a broken leg and was deathly ill. I almost died.
The worst time of my life: From 1969 to 1970. My career was failing, my health was failing, my finances were failing and I had nowhere to turn. But I`m a survivor; I kept on going.
My friends like me because: I can laugh at even the most tragic events.
Behind my back they say: ”She`s killing me with her energy.”
