Zadora Brings Her Musical Bio to S.D.

Pia Zadora will bring her new original autobiographical musical to the Spreckels Theatre for a one-week run beginning July 31.

“Too Short to Be a Rockette!” premiered at Miami’s Coconut Grove Playhouse in June, where it played to good houses despite mixed to negative critical reviews, including one comparing the show to “vanity publishing.”

The show tells the story of Zadora’s life in show business, complete with four singer-dancers, 22-piece orchestra and a musical score written by Larry Grossman, with lyrics by Buz Kohan. Zadora was born Pia Alfreda Schipani (her mother’s maiden name was Zadorowski) in New York to a musician father and a mother who was a wardrobe mistress. Burgess Meredith cast her in her first play, “Midgie Purvis,” opposite Tallulah Bankhead, and she went on to star in several more. Her friends, Meredith, George Burns, Frank Sinatra, Milton Berle, Bea Arthur, Marvin Hamlisch, Tommy Lasorda and Zadora’s mother all appear on video screens throughout the musical.

Over the years, Zadora has waged a lifelong struggle to be taken seriously. For a long time, she became the butt of many jokes in Hollywood from the likes of Johnny Carson and Steve Allen. She won two Golden Raspberry awards as worst actress for “Butterfly” and “The Lonely Lady,” movies produced by her multimillionaire husband, Menachem Riklis. But she has also had some well-reviewed concerts, particularly 1985’s Pia and Phil album--Zadora backed by the London Philharmonic. And, after she belted out “The Man That Got Away” on the Tonight Show, Carson did apologize. That’s in the show too.

Performances of “Too Short to Be a Rockette!” will begin July 31, and performances will run 8 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2 through Aug. 9. Tickets are $12.50-$32.50. At the Spreckels Theatre, 121 Broadway, San Diego, 235-9500.

Gary Smith, who is producing the Democratic Convention in New York, will direct, and his Emmy-award winning Smith-Hemion Productions will produce the $600,000 show, as in Miami.