PROFILE : Marjorie Lord Volk Makes Room for Benefits

In 1976, actress Marjorie Lord Volk was wondering what she would do with her life after marrying Harry Volk, the banker who helped finance the Music Center and who is now chairman of the Weingart Foundation, which gives away millions of dollars to Skid Row causes and the homeless.

“I thought--you work, you earn money, you prove yourself,” she said. Immediately after her marriage, however, she found herself in demand, mostly because of her husband’s reputation, she thinks. “I did not have the respect then that I do now for people who volunteer--giving their time, their money and their creativity. But I’ve met some wonderful friends. You know, the acting world is very insular, and this (her marriage) has opened up new worlds that I would not have sought after; I knew they were there, but I did not know they were there for me.”

This week, the actress, best known for the role of Kathy, the wife of Danny Thomas in “Make Room for Daddy,” will star as volunteer chairman of the Joffrey Ballet’s Patron Nights. The first one tonight celebrates the opening of the Joffrey Ballet LA/NY winter season with “The Nutcracker” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Volk will also chair the Patron Series opening night of the spring season May 2 with a black-tie dinner-dance in the Grand Hall and the May 20 picnic supper with Gerald Arpino and the Joffrey Dancers preceding “Romeo and Juliet.”

Last year’s Patron parties netted about $300,000. Volk hopes for as much, from underwriters and from the patrons who will pay $1,000 each for the series. To help her, she recruited Ruth Shannon, Peggy Parker and Lara Ladd for assistants. “It takes a lot of thought and effort,” she said.

“For me, the ballet is a labor of love. . . . In the world today, we are all so busy feeding the poor and the hungry and sick, but we have to nourish their souls with the arts and give them something to look forward to in life.” Through the financial support of Gary Winnick, she notes, the entire Pavilion will be opened for a matinee next Wednesday for the underprivileged.

Volk also has made her mark in the city as chairman of a recent benefit for the Friends of the USC Library and as a volunteer for Banning House’s Floriade.

“There aren’t enough hours in the day,” she said. She’s also co-writing a script. Two years ago she did a TV film and a TV pilot. She also is following the acting career of her daughter Anne Archer, who has completed two new films and was nominated for an Oscar for her supporting role in “Fatal Attraction.” Says Volk: “She’s a hard worker, and she was exposed to it through me.”

Born and raised in San Francisco, Volk studied dance and acting from the age of 3. When she was 16, her family moved to New York, and she played the lead ingenue on Broadway for four months in “The Old Maid” with Judith Anderson. She then toured 10 months. She was married to Broadway actor John Archer for nine years before they divorced and then 17 years to Randy Hale, an actor and son of the prominent San Francisco retailing family.

As a widow, she met Harry Volk, a widower. Leaving the acting world, she says, “is a little painful, because it is all I wanted and I struggled for, and I never thought I would pull out of acting. But I wouldn’t want to be struggling as an older actress. I would rather retire graciously.”