Quick Review

How I Lost 10 Pounds in 53 Years: A Memoir, by Kaye Ballard (with Jim Hesselmann)

Doing a couple of things I almost never do here: first, here's a picture of the book with the hideous discount sticker still right there on the dust-jacket, and second, I felt obliged to acknowledge the "as told to" coauthor straight from the get.  The book's not new, it was published by Back Stage Books in 2006.  I missed it at the time.  I found it on the discount shelf at Half Price Books, for just $5.99.  I'm a fan of Kaye Ballard, so I don't tell this to embarrass her, but rather because it seems to me typical of this great entertainer's somewhat spotty luck in finding the audience she deserves.  Her nice coauthor I'll get to directly, but first, a quick review of the lady's career and my appreciation thereof.

I remember Kaye Ballard from television; costarring with Eve Arden on the Desilu sitcom, The Mothers-in-Law,  guest appearances on The Lucy Show and the like, singing on variety shows and talk shows like The Mike Douglas Show and Merv.  She was delightful; always funny, a great comedian and raconteur.  She's got great pipes, and she could always belt a show-tune with the best of 'em, but after years in vaudeville, nightclubs and Broadway, she also knew how to break your heart until it fit hers perfectly when she sang a torch-song, and when it came to clever lyrics and patter-songs and the like, there's been no one to touch her save a few of her idols like Bea Lillie and Martha Raye.  As a kid, I found her fascinating; she was a big, warm, noisy and funny lady, not unlike a kid herself -- still, evidently at 88 -- and I would defy anyone to not have fun listening to her tell a story about her beloved Italian grandma, Nana, or workin' all the stops of a Cole Porter tongue-twister.

Next for me as Ms. Ballard fan, came the hit Broadway production of Gilbert & Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance -- or rather a noisy, vulgar travesty of Gilbert & Sullivan, in which Kaye and George Rose were the only bright lights in a sea of very dim bulbs indeed.  I don't even remember who played the principle juveniles, only that they were terrible.  It was the early Eighties, and early days yet for personal microphones and electronic sound in the American musical theater.  The electrified orchestra, the chorus and the leads all sounded uniformly loud and inexplicably unintelligible.  It was ghastly.  The only relief for the audience from out of this hideous cacophony came whenever Rose's crisp and comic Major General made an appearance, and even better, when Kaye Ballard came on as Ruth.  I can close my eyes still and hear her big, beautiful voice telling the story of  "When Fred'ric was a little lad."  Other than the turns by the two ol' pros then, a grave disappointment throughout.

Ms. Ballard's had a lot of those; personal, professional and romantic.  She's been, more often than not, the best thing in bad shows, the star of good shows that didn't run, or the instigator of projects that just missed the right moment.  (A musical album based of Charlie Brown cartoons?  A Fanny Brice musical?  Anyone?  Oh, no, you go on.) She's never really been alone -- always surrounded, it seems by friends -- but that's the way she's had to go.  Which brings me to my other, best Kaye Ballard memories: the Ben Bagley records I collected with the devotion of a convert and fanatic when they were reissued on CD back in the day, and specifically the Cole Porter recordings, and Kaye Ballard's contributions to same, which taught me that one need not be Mabel Mercer to slay the people with Cole.  It's still Kaye Ballard's voice I hear when I warble to myself, "Tale of the Oyster," and when I want to break my own heart with a smile, I hear her singing "I Loved Him But He Didn't Love Me."  Those records made me the queen I am, people. "When I Was a Little Cuckoo," indeed.  (Those records were also where I first heard Blossom Dearie and Bobby Short, among others.  Nobody, I learn from Ms. Ballard's book, made a dime, but, oh, how grateful I am to the memory of the producer, Ben Bagley.)

And now I'm grateful to yet another theater queen I might otherwise never have known, Ballard's coauthor, one Jim Hesselman (cute) who managed somehow to tether the then just cresting octogenarian tornado that is Ms. Ballard long enough to get her story down in print.  My sincerest thanks, Mr. Hesselman, wherever you are now.  This book was like spending a wonderful, long, cool afternoon with the great lady, by the pool in her Palm Springs retreat, listening to stories about her Nana, and pals like Noel Coward, Judy Garland and Fred Ebb, etc.

If Kaye Ballard never quite had the luck, what she did have was an undeniable talent, or rather a whole collection of 'em: for comedy, singing, acting, friendship, cooking and life.  It's clear it must be a great pleasure to know the lady better.  It's certainly been a pleasure spending time with her autobiography.  Glad to know you, Kaye!  Love you.