Show Is Over for Singing Sisters Who Lost Suit

The sisters, sipping their soup and picking at their salads, barely resemble the glossy publicity photographs they have dutifully toted along in a battered briefcase.

Certainly the pair still look like performers.

Still pretty, yes. Still stylishly slim--and then some. Still wearing artfully applied cosmetics that almost conceal dark under-eye circles and the telltale tracks of stress. Almost.

The Buckelew sisters--Aleta, 34, and Sonya, 37--still smile on command. But the wattage of their once-photogenic grins has dimmed.

It has been almost a month since the two Thousand Oaks women lost their celebrated sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit in federal court against pop music star Tony Orlando, best known for his hits of the 1970s. In the suit, the two claimed Orlando mistreated them and made crude sexual remarks.

But what caused the Buckelew sisters to lose the spark that garnered them backup singer jobs in Branson, Mo., and Nashville is still very much up for debate--despite the unanimous jury verdict in Orlando’s favor.

Orlando’s attorney emphatically denies that the sisters suffered through any untoward comments or experienced a hostile work environment while working at the Yellow Ribbon Music Theater in Branson in 1993 and 1994.

The sisters, Kansas City lawyer Brian J. Niceswanger claims, are spoiled dilettantes who quit Orlando’s show because the work was too strenuous. Then, looking for a quick buck, they concocted claims of sexual harassment and discrimination against their boss, he contends.

“This definitely is not a situation where two sisters were chewed up and spat out by the industry--far from it,” Niceswanger said. “It’s a situation where you had people who were not experienced professionals who basically didn’t have the experience that would allow them to perform and progress . . . on an ongoing basis.”

Over the $6.95 salad bar special at Marie Callender’s on Thousand Oaks Boulevard, the sisters presented a different picture--recounting their experiences as employees of the flamboyant performer who hit it big with songs including “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Old Oak Tree,” “Knock Three Times” and “Candida.”

The Buckelews--who haven’t decided whether to appeal the federal jury’s decision--said they have become the classic cautionary tale of how the entertainment industry scoops up young women and then discards them.

Since leaving Branson, the women have lived with their parents in Thousand Oaks. Sonya is now in flight school, hoping to be a pilot. Admittedly adrift, Aleta is working a temporary data-entry job.

“We have no desire to work in music again,” said Sonya Buckelew, nervously fiddling with her blond-streaked, waist-length hair. “This has killed it.”

The sisters once lived to harmonize and dance on stage.

After beating out about 200 potential backup singers for the job, the Buckelew sisters were hired in April 1993, to succeed Orlando’s original backup duo, Dawn, when the Branson venue opened.

While Orlando’s representatives now say the pair were too green for the job, the sisters were not without professional experience.

Sonya and Aleta Buckelew started singing when they attended Thousand Oaks and Westlake high schools, respectively, forming with friends a band called Cowboys From Mars.

After a stint at community college, the duo moved to Nashville and bought a home with their parents’ help. In between taking classes, they worked for about six to eight months for country star George Jones, Tammy Wynette’s ex-husband, who sang “He Stopped Loving Her Today” and “A Good Year for the Roses.” They toured the United States and Europe with Jones, whom they describe as a perfect gentleman.

Their work wasn’t particularly lucrative, nor was it always regular, but it brought them in contact with genuine country talent. They also sang backup for Lee Greenwood (“God Bless the USA”) and B.J. Thomas (“Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head”).

Despite their relative inexperience, the women were hired because Orlando “likes to pick young talent and nurture them along,” said the singer’s publicist, Rob Wilcox.

Orlando was unavailable for comment because he was rehearsing for Tuesday’s debut of the new Talk of the T.O.W.N. Theatre, which he is opening in Branson with Wayne Newton.

Regardless of why they were picked, the Buckelews said they were thrilled with the job offer. They left Tennessee and headed toward the Ozark town known as a quieter, more conservative Nashville.

Once in Branson, the schedule was grueling.

They rehearsed about two weeks in advance of the July 4 opening. Then the routine became a pair of two-hour performances plus rehearsals six days a week.

And Orlando was, by all accounts, a demanding boss.

“Tony is a perfectionist,” Wilcox said. “Maybe the Buckelews found a problem with someone who demanded the very best. You don’t stay a star in this business for 30 years if you don’t demand excellence. Maybe they had a problem with that.”

The sisters said they were well able to keep up with the schedule--as evidenced by the fact that they lasted a season and then some, during years when Orlando was lauded as among Branson’s best entertainers.

“It was so ludicrous to say we weren’t experienced,” Aleta Buckelew said. “We had toured--been on the road, on the bus--before for months. That experience far outweighs staying in one place all the time. . . . We never had trouble with our male bosses until him.”

The sisters contend Orlando’s demands escalated into sadism and cruelty--most of which was aimed at women.

“It was like we’d been hired into a dysfunctional family,” said Sonya Buckelew, who likened their mental plight to that of battered wives. “You could see the devil in his eyes.”

They say Orlando would berate them in front of the audience. Offstage, he would scream at the top of his lungs and air disputes with one staff member in front of the entire crew. By their accounts, Orlando would crudely tell them to flaunt their breasts and would ask them if they knew how sexy they were.

“At one point, I said, ‘I don’t think you’re treating us with the respect you give the males,”’ Aleta recounted. “And he screamed, ‘If you don’t like it, you can leave.’ ”

Which they did.

After a week’s worth of testimony, those claims did not sway a federal jury of five men and three women in Springfield, Mo.

“The claims that he made any sexually oriented or sexually explicit statements, they were categorically disproved at trial,” attorney Niceswanger said. “That side of the case was sheer fiction--not a single witness came in and corroborated it, even though the statements were allegedly made in front of other people.”

However, the stronger half of the case was the sexual discrimination claim, said the sisters’ Kansas City lawyer, Lynne Bratcher, who requested that the Buckelews be awarded $50,000 each for pain and suffering.

The thing that made the sisters drop weight, vomit and experience nightmares was the cruelty aimed at them, Bratcher said.

“I think the jury was very attentive to the evidence,” she said. “My interpretation of their verdict was summed up when one of Tony Orlando’s attorneys said they felt he was rotten to everyone, not just women.”

Given the nature of the entertainment industry, either version of the case is plausible, said former studio executive Linda Buzzell, a psychotherapist who runs the Entertainment Industry Career Institute in Beverly Hills.

Some people simply are not prepared for the physical or mental rigors of the entertainment industry, which often include abusive--or near abusive--bosses, she said.

“It’s very hard work, and some people are not cut out for it,” she said. “I’ve seen clients who have been yelled at, screamed at and had telephones thrown at them. Maybe part of that is because our business is such an emotional business.”

At the same time, because the supply of ambitious actors, singers and writers so vastly exceeds the demand for new talent, abuses can occur, she said.

“A lot of young, innocent people get into this industry and aren’t prepared for the level of exploitation that does happen,” she said. “There’s such a feeling that ‘There are 10 more where you came from, so I don’t have to worry about treating you well.’ That they can use you up and throw you out when they’re done.”

Either way, it will likely take time for the sisters to regain their self-esteem and luster, Buzzell said. They may bounce from job to job until they can find something that satisfies their need to perform and interact with others without facing routine criticism.

“If someone has had a dream since they were really young--and it turns out that this dream isn’t going to work, there’s a real crisis that goes on,” she said. “You have to do a whole lot of soul-searching before you build a whole new dream.”