Ballard stars with Georgia Engel, Mimi Hines, Darlene Love and Lee Meriwether in “Nunsense: 20th Anniversary Tour” at the Auditorium, Jan 13-18.
You’ve been in show business for more than 60 years. In an age where fame is so short-lived, any secrets to your staying power? You know, that’s why I’m doing this show. The four women I’m working with, they’re so professional and they know what they’re doing, and that’s what it’s about. I mean, I’m 77 and I still think, “Oh my God, I’m still doing this.” There’s no trick really, just the need to pay the rent. And when I started out, we weren’t making the kind of money that [actors] are making today. We just loved it and honestly, I’m happiest on the stage.
You started out in the early days of television, “The Phil Silvers Show,” “The Doris Day Show” and your series “The Mothers-In-Law”–shows now considered classic. What’s your take on today’s TV? I find so much of TV disappointing. I can’t believe what they accept on TV today. They resort to gross humor to get a laugh. And everything’s about sex. Are we that frustrated as a country?
Is there anything on TV that you like? “Dateline,” “60 Minutes” and “Biography” on A&E. And “Ellen,” I think her show is wonderful. [As for reality TV], Doris Day and I were talking after seeing a really raunchy show and she said, “I’ve had enough of reality. Diarrhea is part of reality too. And I don’t want any part of that.”
Any favorite show? “Saturday Night Live.”
Really? With as much as they push the envelope? Those [actors] really hit it on the nose and are really funny; they are really talented. But I think they still go too far. Sometimes they go that extra mile that just crosses the line [of good taste] and I don’t know why there isn’t anyone telling them you can’t go that far.
You’ve been on more than 150 talk shows. Do you miss that circuit? Leno won’t have me on; Letterman turned me down. I don’t forget that when [Letterman] first started, he said he didn’t want anyone on the show over 40. I wonder how he feels now that he’s 56. I’m disappointed, I feel I do have something to say [with my career background]. But unless you’re plugging something or you’re a real beauty and a size four, you don’t get on. Everyone is plugging something these days. It used to be that you were on a talk show to be entertaining.
You were on “The Rosie O’Donnell Show.” You don’t know what Rosie did for me and I haven’t even told her. You know, I had breast cancer and I was walking out of Broadway Cares (a benefit for an organization of actors united to fight AIDS) and she ran into me and said, “Kaye Ballard! Do you want to be on my show?” It was such a lift–that recognition at a time when I needed it. She doesn’t even know.
You’ve done it all: TV, stage, film, music. Anything you still want to accomplish? I haven’t had that wonderful TV show, that wonderful Broadway show, that wonderful film yet. There’s nothing that I’ve been really satisfied with. But as long as I breathe, it might happen. It happened to Jessica Tandy. She won an Oscar late in her life.
