Breaking into the film industry (2nd Blog)

After The Dick Williams' Kid Singers group, now a teenager, I began working in the commercial and film industry. As my moms personal management business was growing, so were the calls into her office for talent. By 1971 FiFi had a dozen signed clients and was getting the respect of top agents and casting directors in New York. Still in high school, I would rush home from school and help mom 'man the phones' which started to ring like crazy! My sister Jan Tanzy had long since left the business and I was now the only soldier left standing. Although I was a talented kid, mom always seemed to push me aside. I often felt like 'Louise' in the show 'Gypsy', wanting her mother Madame Rose to notice her. It was ironic that Jan actually played the role of 'Baby June', the daughter of 'Madame Rose', who 'Rose' felt, was the only one with real talent. Poor 'Louise' always got pushed into the background until she finally broke away from 'Rose' and became 'Gypsy Rose Lee'....the stripper! I'm happy to say that I didn't have to shed my clothes to get my mothers attention. Mom finally woke up and realized that her neglecting me and my talent was an emotionally bad thing to do to me. Finally, after agents begging her to let ME audition for things, she began to work for me.....not against me. I don't think she did this deliberately. I think that she was so sad and disappointed that my sister Jan left the business, that she honestly felt she was doing the right thing; protecting me from the horrors of 'showbiz'.

Around this time my mother met a woman by the name of Sandy Garrison, who was a casting director. Sandy went back many years in the industry having been an assistant casting director on the Brando film "On The Waterfront". Sandy was now working with casting director Louis DiGiamo getting ready to cast "The Godfather". Because of Sandy's friendship with my mom, Sandy asked mom to help her cast a lot of the 'extras' in the film. Because there were so many of them, I jumped in and handled a lot of the booking and scheduling of the extras with them. I dicovered that I enjoyed the production side just as much as I did the performing side. But it was something I would keep on a back burner for many years.

In 1971 another business associate called moms office, a gentleman by the name of Arthur Allan Seidelman, who was casting a film entitled "Rivals", which had attached comedian Robert Klien and the brilliant actress Joan Hacket. I was 15 at the time and was to audition for the lead role of 'Mary', (the babysitter), which Arthur wanted me to audition for. The role was that of a 12 year old little girl. Although I was a bit too old for the part, Art insisted that I come in and read for it anyway. The script was written and (eventually), directed by Krishna Shaw. A lovely Indian man. On my first audtion I came in looking as young as I possibly could. Even flattened my tiny breasts under my dress. Krishna loved my reading but admitted that I was too old for the role. (Guess I didn't get the part....ya think?) About three days later Arthur called my mom at her office and told her that Krish, (nick name), really loved my reading and that he was really torn because I was a few years too old for the role. So Arthur came up with this crazy idea; unbeknownst to Krish, Arthur dropped my name into the final auditions callback sheet. The day of the final auditions I dressed in a little girls school dress, wore my long black hair in braids dawned with bows in them, Mary Janes and ankle socks with lace trim. To complete the look I came into the studio licking one of those giant color wheel lollipops. This, of course, was Arthur's idea. When Krish looked up at me from the pile of headshots on his table he broke out in laughter. He then shook his head back and fourth, looked up at Arthur and said; "I wonder whose idea this was?" Then he smiled at me and said; "OK, OK, you got the part". He then added, "when you leave this room, do not tell anyone what I just told you". You see, there were many young kids in the waiting room on call backs for the role, which of course, out of courtesy, Krish would have to continue auditioning that day.
After I left the Variety Arts building I remember I skipped down the street laughing, pulling the bows out of my hair and on the corner, threw the lollipop into a trash can.

We shot the whole film in New York City out of an apartment on the upper west side and on locations throughout New York. I had the fourth staring role and it was a great experience for me. I loved working on camera. The film was about a precosious nine year old boy, played by Scott Jacoby, whose father had died and his mother was a sort of snub nosed society woman who ran an art gallery in the city. Because of the close relationship between mother and son, when Robert Klein's character enters the picture as the new man in mothers life, this smart ass little precocious child gets ideas about getting rid of this new man in his mothers life. In my role as Mary the babysitter I had a topless scene with young Scott Jacoby. It was quite an innocent scene between two young kids discovering the excitement and sexuality of their little bodies. The day of the shoot for that scene I was very scarred. So much so that on the first take when I had to drop my dress and take off my tiny trainers bra, I fainted dead on the floor. It was, of course, a closed set, meaning no one but actively needed crew would be there. But of course the crew that remained, i.e., camera man, boom operator, director, script girl, lighting men, etc., etc. was quite enough to make me feel, well.... strange to say the least! After I came too... the camera man admitted to having no film in the camera for that first take. Guess he instinctively knew it would be a wash. By the end of that days shoot I was pretty relaxed on set even in my nudity and actually traded jokes with the crew. Krish was a wonderful director but unfortunately, although the script was decent, the production was low budget and it turned into a pretty poor grade 'B' movie. But the joke of it was, me and Scott Jacoby ended up being nominated for 'Best Child Actor' that year by the Academy. The category of 'Best Child Actor' was dropped before the award ceremony but I still have, to this day, the beautifully embossed letter from the Academy telling me of my nomination!

Although my 'nude' scene was quite well done and 'innocent', my mother and I agreed to never tell my Catholic, Italian raised father Eugene about it. Mom and I went to the Hollywood premier of the film and to show you how low budget the film was, on the same night of the premier in Hollywood, the film was also being shown in a drive-in theatre in Los Angeles, and God knows how many other drive-in theatres throughout the US! During the showing in the theatre that night, when 'that scene' came on the screen, my mother shouted out, "Good God, look at the size of your breasts!" Needless to say the theatre filled with laughter and it certainly broke the tension I had inside of me in anticipation of seeing the scene for the first time on a 70 foot screen!


My mother FiFi passed away in 2007 and my father Eugene Tanzillo passed away at the age of 93 in 2009. BTW....he never did find out about 'that scene'! Although he did see it on network TV many years later, the scene, of course, was edited out because of it's content. Another interesting point about it is that because I was under age at the time, it would now be considered 'kiddy porn'. So although I never became a 'stripper', I can honestly say I was probably one of the first 'child porn stars'! LOL


Foot Note: Even the smallest of breasts look extremely large on a wide screen!

The Child Performer ( 1st. Blog)

My name is Jeanne Tanzy, I was born and raised in New York City and grew up as a child performer having worked on Broadway and in TV, Films, Commercials, Voice Overs, Print Work,...you name it, I did it! Judy Garland who sang the song, "Born In A Trunk", is just about the way my childhood began. For those of you who don't remember Judy Garland....well she was the young girl in "The Wizard Of Oz" who wore the Ruby Slippers. It comes on TV once a year so I'm sure you've seen it. In fact, I actually worked with Judy Garland.....but that's another story later on. The very first Broadway show I ever did was the national tour of the original company of "Gypsy", with Ethel Merman in 1961. I was seven years old at the time and I got into the show because my older sister Jan Tanzy had the lead role of 'Baby June'. Because my father Eugene (Tanzillo), had to work, my mother had to take me on tour with my sister. As to not make the tour uneventful for me, (or unprofitable), my mother FiFi Tanzy asked the producer, David Merrick, if he could put me in the show, to which he agreed. I ended up playing the role of the 'Hawaiian Girl', a bit part in the opening scene of the show. I stood on stage with a bunch of other kids, it was supposed to be a kiddy show audition for the character Uncle Jocko, each kid wearing some crazy costume, me wearing a grass skirt and a tiny little bra with flowers all over it. The little boy that stood next to me in the line up of kids would pull on my skirt every night until finally one night I left the stage with my ass exposed to the audience! We traveled all around the US and played some really great cities; Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, San Fransisco, and a bunch of other places that are now a blurr to me. I loved traveling and I really loved being on the stage! So you can say that at the tender age of seven, I KNEW what I wanted to do for the rest of my life......be a Performer! I say performer because in those days nobody was just an Actress, or a Dancer or Singer. You had to be what we called a 'triple threat', meaning you had to do everything well. (If you wanted to work, that is). After the tour ended I begged my mom to put me in classes for dance, acting and singing, which she did. I knew that if I wanted to succeed in 'showbiz' I would have to have real talent! So I danced and I sang and I even brought tears to the eyes of my acting teacher. By the age of 10 I was ready to conquer the world!

By the time I was 13 years old I had five Broadway shows under my belt. I played the role of 'Rowena' in a 'flop' called "Once For The Asking", which to my recollection, closed the night after opening. It was a bomb! Then came the musicals "Bajour", where I played 'Marfa', the Gypsy daughter of Actor Hershal Bernardi and Actress Antonia Rey. It was about a gang of Gypsy's settling in Manhattan whose only agenda was to rip off the good people of New York City! It was a great show with fantastic chorus and dance numbers, one of which, "I'm Mean", sung and danced by Chita Rivera was a show stopper! Unfortunately....it too was not a big success. I think we lasted 4 months on Broadway!

Not wasting any time, I went from "Bajour" to the original musical, "Anyone Can Whistle", which starred Lee Remick, Angela Lansbury and Harry Guardino. The show was political and way ahead of it's time. It too closed after a short lived run on Broadway. But the show was not forgotten and many years later many company's have since performed the show to fantastic reviews. The old saying is true; being at the right place at the right time! The world was not ready for this show back in 1966!




























My career was really on the move and as soon as that show ended, I landed the role of 'Jesse Oakley', sister to 'Annie Oakley', played (again) by Ethel Merman. It was the twenty year revival for Merman, who had originated the role in 1947. The show opened at the State Theatre at Lincoln Center in 1967 and was so successful that we went on tour with it, brought it back to Broadway for a limited engagement, and then it was made into an NBC TV Movie of the week Special! It was such a success that, at the age of 13, I was able to buy myself a mink coat!! OK....so I was a tad precocious for my age. But hey.....I was working and earning a living!

By the time I was 14 years old, now at that 'between age', between child and teenager, my work on Broadway was now fading in the background. Too young to play an ingenue and too old to play a child. It's that time in an Actors career where you either push through it or fall off the face of the earth. I was very fortunate because around that time I auditioned and got hired to be in a group of kid singers called 'The Dick Williams Kid Singers'. Dick was the older brother of Singer Andy Williams, who at that time, had a weekly television show called the Andy Williams Show.

Below: Singing with Soupy Sales.


Above: Singing with Steve Lawrence. I'm the long haired brunette just to the right of Steve Lawrence with the black circles running down my dress.


It was during this time, (late 1960's - early 1970's), That I worked on many television shows with the group to include The Andy Williams Show, The Steve Lawrence Spectacular, The Soupy Sales Show, and a Hullabaloo Christmas Special with Jerry Lewis. (Who is not a big fan of kids!) We recorded several albums as a singing group, one of which was
"Little Kids Sing For Big People".

But the greatest experience of all for me, and still is to this day, was the week of Christmas, 1967 when the Kid Singers worked in concert with Judy Garland at the (then) new Madison Square Garden at the Felt Forum Theatre! It was a week I will never forget for as long as I live! For that engagement we brought into the group Judy's son and daughter, Lorna and Joey Luft, who sang and danced with us in the concert show. We did all the old great songs including 'Swanee River', and the show ended with Judy singing 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow', (from the Wizard Of Oz), which brought tears to everyone including myself as I sat on the stage to her right as she sang it. She liked me for some reason, as we had spoken backstage before the opening number, even asked me if she looked OK.....and of course she did! You see, the theatre was so new they didn't have mirrors in the dressing rooms yet! I had a huge lump in my throat as I told her how beautiful she looked in her red satin dress covered with sheer red chiffon! I couldn't believe how nervous she was as she waited for her cue from the orchestra, (a cue they ended up playing several times before she could walk out onto the stage). So when she turned and looked at me square in the eyes and held my chin in her hands as she poured out the final bars of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow", I did a very unprofessional thing......I cried.

Judy performed that opening night but got very sick the next day and had to cancel the rest of the weeks shows. I felt so sad for her....cause she looked so very weak and frail. It was around this time that my mother, FiFi Tanzy had gone into business as a personal artist manager. I had been attending the Professional Children's School on West 60th street, a school designed for professional children which offered a correspondence course for kids who had to go out of town to work in the business, i.e., out of town try outs, as we call them, before we bring a show back to New York and the critics! But now that I was not traveling as much as I had in the years before, my mom decided to open her business out of our apartment in West 58th Street. After school I would come home and help her man the phones. I learned a great deal about the 'business' of the word 'show business' from her. She is gone now, as is my father and not a day goes by that I don't find myself remembering her words and well.......becoming my mom! We always say Lord don't let me become my parents......but we do! It was after the concert that Judy and I really became friends. She invited me to her hotel suite at the Sherry Netherlands several times and I have a confession.....we often had drinks and got blasted together! She was an incredible woman with incredible stories about how she grew up in the industry. It was a sad story she told. The abuse and misuse of the young performers by the big studios back in the day. Uppers in the morning and downers in the evening to help them sleep. Thank God since that time laws have been past with regard to under age children in show business. Unfortunately there is still abuse and it often comes from their very own parents. But that's another story I will tell in later Blogs. It involves my work in the music industry and boy groups that I had a large hand in developing. But I'm getting way ahead of myself. I will always say my life has been very blessed having worked with some of the greatest of greats in the entertainment industry. I have so many stories to follow and I hope that whoever reads this Blog will 'tune in the next time', as I have a few surprises left to tell. Let's just say my career hasn't ended yet, nor has my story!

JT