Pia Zadora

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Pia Zadora

Born Pia Alfreda Schipani
May 4, 1954 (1954-05-04) (age 54)
Hoboken, New Jersey
Occupation Film, television, stage actress

Pia Zadora (born Pia Alfreda Schipani, May 4, 1954) is an American actress and singer. After years of work as a child actress on Broadway, in regional theater and in the film Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, she came to national attention when, following her starring role in the critically lambasted[1] Butterfly, she won a Golden Globe Award[2] as New Star of the Year over such acclaimed new talents as Kathleen Turner (Body Heat), Rachel Ward (Sharky's Machine), Craig Wasson (Four Friends) and Elizabeth McGovern and Howard Rollins (both in Ragtime).[3]

When her film career failed to take off, she "reinvented" herself as a singer of popular standards and released several successful albums featuring her solo performance backed by a full symphonic orchestra. Few performers have been more publicly ridiculed than Pia Zadora,[4] due primarily to the perception that her career was solely the result of her marriage to billionaire Meshulam Riklis, whom she met when she was 17 and he was 49, but also to her arguably poor choice in film vehicles (she earned two consecutive Razzie Awards for her first two starring vehicles, Butterfly and The Lonely Lady). Zadora, however, demonstrated a resilient quality and a good-humored sense of self-parody (playing herself in such comedies as Feel the Motion, Troop Beverly Hills, and Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult) that endeared her to many, including the late Frank Sinatra, who toured with her in 1990, and during her years as a singer she earned the respect of many critics who had previously written her off.[5]

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Zadora was born Pia Alfreda Schipani in Hoboken, New Jersey. Her mother, Saturnina "Nina" (née Zadorowski), was a theatrical wardrobe supervisor who worked for Broadway productions, the Metropolitan Opera, and the New York City Opera, and her father, Alphonse Schipani, was a violinist.[6][7] She is of Polish maternal and Italian paternal descent.[8][9] She adapted part of her mother's maiden name as her stage name. Zadora appeared as a child actress with legendary Broadway star Tallulah Bankhead in Midgie Purvis. She attended elementary and middle school in Forest Hills, New York, at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, the same parochial school as Ray Romano and David Caruso.

[edit] Film career

Zadora's first film appearance was in 1964's cult classic Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, as Girmar, a young Martian girl (the movie became more famous when shown many years later on the TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000). Her subsequent career made little headway until she met and married Israeli multimillionaire Meshulam Riklis in 1977. Not long thereafter, she made her breakthrough into public awareness as the "Dubonnet Girl", appearing in near-ubiquitous print ads and tv commercials for Dubonnet apéritifs. Not incidentally, her husband was a major shareholder in Dubonnet's American distributor.

Zadora co-starred with Stacy Keach and Orson Welles in the 1982 film Butterfly, with a steamy plotline revolving around father-daughter incest, and featuring Zadora singing "It’s Wrong For Me To Love You". She went on to win that year's Golden Globe Award as "Best New Star of the Year", amid charges that her wealthy husband had, in effect, bought the award with a high-profile promotional campaign.[10] Zadora's curvaceous image filled oversize billboards on Sunset Boulevard, and rumors circulated about lavish junkets to Las Vegas for members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which sponsors the Golden Globes. Not all critics were enamored of her performance, however; she was awarded "Razzies" as both "Worst New Star" and "Worst Actress" in the 1982 Golden Raspberry Awards.

Zadora next starred in the 1982 film Fake-Out (aka Nevada Heat), a zany women in prison B-movie co-starring Telly Savalas, and in the 1983 film adaptation of a Harold Robbins novel, The Lonely Lady, playing the role of an aspiring screenwriter who achieves success after surviving a sexual assault with a garden hose nozzle. She was awarded yet another Razzie, as "Worst Actress" of 1983. On the basis of her multiple awards, the Golden Raspberry Awards later named her "Worst New Star of the Decade (1980-1989)".

Zadora garnered both attention and ridicule that year by posing for the press cavorting in a public fountain and wearing a Tanga Maillot swimsuit. This resulted in many photos of her and her shapely "can" (posterior) at the homonymic Cannes Film Festival. In contrast, Newsweek published what it humorously referred to as a "rare head-on" photo of the actress.[11]

In 1988 she played a small role in John Waters' Hairspray as a beatnik. Waters has never been shy about expressing his ardent admiration for Pia Zadora's work, even interviewing her on one occasion.

[edit] Music career

She has attained some success as a singer, and has had several hit singles throughout the world. In 1984, she received a nomination for a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. Her cover version of the Shirley Ellis hit "The Clapping Song", reached the U.S. Top 40 in 1983, and she had a minor hit with a duet with Jermaine Jackson titled "When the Rain Begins to Fall" in 1984 which she performed with Jackson in the movie Voyage Of the Rock Aliens in which Zadora played a lead role. (In Germany, this song was a #1 hit for four weeks, and in France it also was a major hit.) She released Pia & Phil, an album of standards with the London Philharmonic in 1987. In 1988, she teamed with famed producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and released an album entitled When the Lights Go Out.

Later in 1994, Zadora played a small role in Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult in the final act in a comedy sketch as she sang in the Academy Awards.

An urban legend has frequently been circulated that Zadora once starred in a production of The Diary of Anne Frank, in which her performance was so bad that an audience member yelled "She's in the attic!" when the Nazis showed up. Zadora has, in fact, never acted in a production of The Diary of Anne Frank; the joke is taken from the book "Solomon Gursky Was Here" by the Canadian author Mordechai Richler. The story was also famously repeated by Bea Arthur on her "On Broadway: Just Between Friends" tour and album.[10][12]

[edit] Trivia

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • Listed as one of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1981" in John Willis' Screen World, Vol 33.
  • Auditioned for a role of Christina Crawford in Mommie Dearest (1981).
  • Her son's godfather is Don King.
  • Chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the world (1990).
  • Auditioned for the role of Rachael in Blade Runner (1982).
  • Considered for the role of Evita Peron in Evita' (1996).

[edit] Personal life

Zadora now lives with her three children (from two former marriages) in wealthy retirement, thanks to ex-husband Meshulam Riklis, to whom she was married from 1977 until 1993. Zadora gained notoriety when she and Riklis bought the Beverly Hills landmark mansion Pickfair in January of 1988 and later demolished it. The mansion, former home of early movie stars Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, was one of Beverly Hills' most famous privately owned properties. To show his "love and affection", Riklis had an oil portrait commissioned of Zadora in the nude. Visitors to the Pickfair Mansion were greeted by the portrait.[10]

Zadora's second husband was writer-director Jonathan Kaufer. They were married from 1995 to 2001.[13]

Zadora is an active contributor to both Republican and Democratic political candidates.[14]

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Television

[edit] Discography

[edit] Albums

  • 1982: Pia
  • 1983: Pia & Phil
  • 1986: I Am What I Am
  • 1988: When the Lights Go Out
  • 1989: Pia Z

[edit] Awards and nominations

[edit] Golden Globe Awards

  • Won: New Star of the Year, Butterfly (1981)

[edit] Golden Raspberry Awards

  • Won: Worst New Star, Butterfly (1983)
  • Won: Worst Actress, Butterfly (1983)
  • Nominated: Worst Supporting Actress, Fake-Out (1983)
  • Won: Worst Actress, The Lonely Lady (1984)
  • Won: Worst Actress, Voyage Of the Rock Aliens (1989)
  • Won: Worst New Star of the Decade, Butterfly and The Lonely Lady (1990)
  • Nominated: Worst Actress of the Decade, Butterfly and The Lonely Lady (1990)
  • Nominated: Worst Actress of the Century, Voyage of the Rock Aliens, Butterfly, and The Lonely Lady (2000)

[edit] Golden Apple Award

  • Won: Sour Apple (1982)

[edit] ShoWest Award

  • Won: Young Star of the Year (1982)

[edit] References

  1. ^ New York Times review of Butterfly
  2. ^ Golden Globes 1981
  3. ^ How did actress Pia Zadora ever win a Golden Globe?
  4. ^ Pia Zadora - The Biography
  5. ^ Variety review - "Too Short To Be A Rockette"
  6. ^ Pia Zadora Biography (1956-)
  7. ^ Paid Notice: Deaths SCHIPANI, SATURNINA - New York Times
  8. ^ Philadelphia Inquirer article, June 30, 1995, Page 20
  9. ^ Zadora Brings Her Musical Bio to S.D
  10. ^ a b c Jan. 20, 2007 transcript of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
  11. ^ http://www.bikiniscience.com/chronology/1980-1985_SS/PZ8201_S/PZ8201.html
  12. ^ http://www.snopes.com/movies/actors/zadora.asp
  13. ^ Pia Zadora's and Jonathan Kaufer's Relationship History on Famous Hookups.com
  14. ^ NEWSMEAT ▷ Pia Zadora's Federal Campaign Contribution Report

[edit] External links

Persondata
NAME Zadora, Pia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schipani, Pia Alfreda
SHORT DESCRIPTION Actress, singer
DATE OF BIRTH May 4, 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Hoboken, New Jersey, U.S.
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH