Out with the old and in with the new (3rd Blog)

After my big screen debut with "Rivals" in 1971, (which was a huge bomb), I took some time out from showbiz to discover what real life was all about. At age 18, I married a very handsome English man named Charles, a classical pianist from London who had moved to the United States to attend university. His family blood lines were directly linked to Royalty of England and for the course of our marriage I actually had the title of 'Lady'. That and a token could get me on the buss in this country. We fell madly in love and were married on June 3rd, 1972. Because he played the piano and I was a singer we formed a show band called 'High Street Kensington', named after the famous street in London. We were young and the world was our oyster, well, at least at the time it seemed that way. We traveled across the US for eight years, (five of which were great). Unfortunately the combination of our being too young and the stress of traveling all the time, constantly making replacements in our band, and the final blow of news that my mother, FiFi, was hit by a truck while crossing West 60th street back home in NYC and was rendered with permanent brain damage, completely rocked my world. Things were never the same after that day in February, 1977. It was a very sad time in both of our lives. But life moves on and so did we. Our marriage was crumbling but we stayed together and moved to Orlando, Florida and although we were not a 'couple' anymore, we continued to live and work with each other in our newly formed group, Jeanne Tanzy and High Street, working locally in the Orlando area. We landed a 'house gig' at the Hilton Inn on International Drive and by this time had many new musician friends from the area who would often times come to the club and 'jam' with our band. It was a night like this that a young trumpet player whom Charles had befriended, Larry Williams, came to the Hilton and sat in with our band. It was February 7th, 1979 and I remember that date for two reasons; it was Larry's birthday and it was the night I met his older brother Lou, who joined us at the club to wish his brother Larry a happy birthday, coming into the club with a blond on one arm and a red head on the other! I liked him right off the bat. He was tall, dark and handsome and I had to give it to him.....he had balls! We all sat and had drinks during one of our set breaks and Lou had his eye on me. We talked briefly and it was obvious to the two young ladies that were with him that they were not too pleased with the whole situation. After the break the band returned to the stage and during one of my numbers I watched the 'trio' leave the club. I thought to myself, too bad he's a playboy.....I liked him and wished we had met under different circumstances. I think the biggest attraction was that he was 
single and appeared to be a man who didn't want commitment! I'd been there, done that,.....no way would I go there again!!! The appeal was no strings.
On our next set break I asked Larry about his brother Lou and casually suggested that I wouldn't mind seeing him again if, and when, he'd NOT be accompanied with a blond and red head. I was in a frisky mood. Most probably brought on by the five Scotch's I'd comsumed during the course of the evening. Call me a bad little girl! While I was on stage performing our last set of the night, through the darkness of the club and squinting through the bright lights on the stage, I saw this tall thin man standing at the entrance, now approaching the stage area where he sat at a front table next to Larry. Guess who it was?  Apparently Larry had called his brother Lou at home and told him that the 'chick singer' liked him and wanted to meet him when he was not preoccupied with other women. The story is that Lou drove the lovely ladies to another club where they met up with some friends whereby Lou excused himself complaining of a terrible headache, went home by himself, the phone rang from his brother and hearing that I was 'interested' he hot footed it back to my club. After the gig we went to Bennigan's for late night drinks and after that I went back to his apartment. Let's just say it was a great night for the both of us :) Shortly after that night, I moved in with him, (and his insane roommate who shall remain nameless), and although I was now living with him, I was still working in the band with my (soon to be ex) husband Charles. Don't get me wrong, we planned on getting divorced months earlier, but it was cheaper at the time to remain roommates and share bills and expenses. As there was no 'other' one in either of our lives at the time, the divorce was something we could both wait on, (at that time, anyway). I can remember two weeks into our new relationship, Lou and I were lying in bed when the phone rang, Lou picked it up said 'hello' then handed the phone to me telling me it was my husband. On the other end of the phone line came this tender sweet English accented voice asking me if I was ever going to come home. It was like a spike had run through me. This man was hurting and I felt horrible. Almost as horrible as I felt when I caught him cheating on me in hotel rooms with 'tarts' he met in the various clubs we worked across the US. But I knew then that it was time for a complete clean break from Charles not only in our marriage, but also in our working relationship. On October 23rd, 1980 our divorce was final and on December 7th, 1980 I became Mrs. Jeanne Tanzy Williams.
Lou had a great ear for music and became our sound and light man in my new band, The Tanzy Band. Again, working locally, we worked together for two years when I became pregnant for our first son, Logan, born May 5th, 1982. During the pregnancy and after Logan's birth, Lou and I continued to work with the Tanzy Band. Then on August 5th, 1984 our second son, Landon was born. Soon after his birth I hung up my microphone and became a full time mom. I have never looked back with any regrets. It was a new day in my life, a brand new chapter and I really enjoyed being a mother! It was at this time that Lou, having now graduated from sound technician school with a degree, got a REAL job at Walt Disney World as a Sound Tech at EPCOT (where he worked for 18 years), while I raised our sons. Once the boys were out of diapers, I went into the food and beverage industry working my way up from waitress to Assistant Food and Beverage Director of a large hotel in Lake Buena Vista. Yes.....we had joined the ranks of normal people in normal jobs doing normal things! Gosh.....it was soooooooo normal for awhile. But when you've grown up as a child actress and some of your earliest memories are being on a Broadway stage at the age of seven, normal is a word that simply does not compute! Needless to say....I missed Showbiz. But how do I begin again? I'm 38 years old, all my 'connections' are decades old in New York City and I'm in the middle of 'bum fucked Egypt', or as the locals call it, Orlando, Florida!  H  E  L  P !!!! It was then that I made the decision to attack the industry from a different angle, not as an actress, but as the only other thing I knew well from working with my mother......personal artist management! And so in 1992 I began my new career in management, setting up my office in our kitchen armed with a Brothers Electric Typewriter, that had this new cool feature called memory that allowed me to insert whole paragraphs and move them around and hold them in a memory chip, (whatever that was),. I'm telling you, this typewriter was on the 'cutting edge' of technology. Wow.....where could I go from here?
(to be continued...)