Today we’d like to introduce you to Annie Gaybis.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I have been a performer since childhood. While some of my best friends in elementary school were in the
Brownies …my version was going to the Debbie London School of Dance. When my girlfriends got dropped off by their parents on Saturdays to walk around Reisterstown Plaza a very popular indoor mall AND couldn”t understand “why” I never wanted to go..the reason being .because I had discovered dance and acting. A true Baltimorian I was lucky enough to have this gifted acting teacher Ed Golden at The Creative Arts Workshop. I studied there thru 8th grade. He was a very distinguished educated theater director and went onto start the first professional rep theater in Baltimore .. Center Stage that is still there to this day. There might have been eight of us in his class …all girls….and he heard each of us “speak.” He mentioned what his class was going to be about and one of the major things he planned to do was “To rid us of our Baltimore accents.” He then looked over at me and said “I will be his biggest challenge.” After class we talked about “What was he talking about a Baltimore accent?”
Well, THANK GOODNESS, he found me at an early age and trained me right out of the whole thing in fact I was asked to be in many of his Center Stage Productions and had to get my equity card. in order to comply with Union rules…..similar to asking “WHAT is a Baltimore Accent” I then had to ask “WHAT is a Union? their is a UNION for ACTORS? ‘” I was in 8th grade at the time and how I remember how my father had to have it explained to him by the acting coach that I was now studying with Viviane Shub that this was an honor and I was the only one in her acting class that I was now taking at Center Stage to be personally asked to perform in the mainstage rep shows but that one HAD TO PAY INTO A MEMBERSHIP TO JOIN AEA to get paid by the Theatre.. He understood, shook his head, looked at me and filled out my paperwork. I was then studying dance with Wally Saunders who had the greatest dance studio. He also had The Wally Saunders Dancers…the youngest one became me at fourteen..it was 90% adults and a few high school junior and seniors…..Goldie Hawn was in his dance company previous to me and would drive from Washington DC just to be part of it. We danced on local television….ballgames …fireworks. at Memorial Stadium….their was no recitals just oppt to perform from operettas like The Merry Widow .to corporate events. I was not old enough to drive so most nights I would be driven home by Wally and his mother who ran the front desk. I don”t know who wanted me to get my drivers license more ..its a toss-up between my father..who had to pick me up from the theatre downtown…me or Wally. The reason I got into this so very young was that my mother passed when I was five. According to one of my Aunts I shied away from things like shopping…and I guess she felt shopping was a “WOMANS RIGHT OF PASSAGE” so my Aunt Ruth gathered me up one day for me to see my cousin do a solo at Miss Debbie’s…I couldn”t believe how beautifully my cousin danced to “‘Maria” from West Side Story…met Miss Debbie with her flaming red hair..she was like my Auntie Mame plus she had a daughter…Lois who was just about my age…and my life went in a path that I had no idea where it would lead…but it led into more Unions and a career that I am proud of.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I don”t think “anything” YOU DO whatever path you choose does not have its “ups and downs”..armed with a BA from Emerson College ..a college that Ed Golden had recommended to my father and money saved completing Bunmy College at The Playboy Club in Boston ..I became Bunny Lara. ( again had to have a sort of employee card that again was almost like another union)..it was in walking distance from The College during my summer break btwn my junior and senior year and I worked right up to graduation. Thought I would be hopefully employed by Playboy in New York…I settled into a fifth floor walk -up above a Smilers on 46th and 8th…1st ..last…bought a chest of drawers…a futon…a couple of plates and pots and pans ..a couch and tv…and a land line .and boy, did ALL that money I saved dwindled. I had headshots taken in Boston and my resume run off and bought the two newspapers for theater work in NY.. ..SHOW BUSINESS and BACKSTAGE….and went to AEA”s local office to read the notices put up for auditions…..their was no COMPUTERS….their was no CELL PHONES…I registered I think they were called ACTORPHONE….
where they would take messages for you kind of like “Bells Are Ringing”….and after I had met the BUNNY MOTHER at the New York Club. and thought I would be starting there in about three weeks…I got lucky…..I somehow met someone who knew someone named Phil Shapiro who rep’d many people as their manager……he told Tom and JAN FINNAN about me. They choreographed many things including the line dancers at The Elmwood Casino in Windsor Ontario.. I was not sure what a line dancer exactly was but was told it was very glamourous and a significant professional credit for my resume. They were looking for a couple of girls to replace those that left. Later that night I got a call from them… two of the girls were leaving their line -up and they took me sight unseen. Of course I have a passport? A passport? You need a passport to go up to Canada? I then asked if I had to join a Union which they thought was enormously funny….I applied for a passport….but had to get there fast for rehearsals…so…I ended up in their car…driving thru the
border covered up as they went past customs….and then my passport was sent to Phil Shapiros office about three weeks later…and was sent up to me…by that time I was working as a glam line dancer…..I worked there for three months and in that time the headliners for those that may remember were first the duo Sandler and Young and then Anne Murray…. and their were rules….since we all had nice rooms and meals in the Casino and not just in the employee cafeteria as well as workout space during the day in their ballroom..when you had to come down for “anything” you did there you had to come down in “full make-up” not “stage make-up” but they wished to keep that illusion of the showgirl if you were eating, drinking…or just walking. around and always neatly dressed….I would just put my lashes on in the morning for breakfast or whenever I sauntered down and red lipstick and kept it all on till I added my stage make-up for two shows a night. That was my first pro job coming to NYC. I developed a club act with arrangements where I could just sing if the stage was small OR I could sing and dance.if the stage was large enough. I worked a bunch for Johnny Martinellis agency …where ..since I didn”t have a car or transportation….either I could take a commuter train and be picked up at the station way early to make sure I was there for rehearsal but at night it had to be arranged that some other entertainer with a car would pick up some of the acts from nearby resorts and drive us back to the city. We all gave him some $’s for gas. And sometimes…there was drinking on the way back…including the driver. The Catskills was an hour and a half to two hours. winding and curvy….so sometimes I was in complete fear. Sometimes I just stayed the night at the resort…and in the morning one of the valets would drive me back to the train station if I got bad vibes about the drivers condition. One New Years Eve….at Mt Airy.Lodge..I was not going back with the designated driver ..an entertainer himself with his already rowdy group ..well, it was New Years,…and they were sold-out at the resort…so I slept in a corner in their lounge next to my charts…15 piece charts each of them…my costume in a zip-up plastic bag my make-up and shoes in a travel case..with my purse on the carpet next to me along with a pillow and blanket until morning. I did do off- Broadway….at The Actors Playhouse I did “Tidings, Comfort and Joy” a too hip for the critics play in which Jesus was a hip speaker of truth in the 70″s and I as Mary worked as a Go-=Go Dancer in an Eastside Lowlife Club. .
I then went onto Broadway in the revival of “Oh! Calcutta!” where I stayed for a year. I won this title “Miss Broadway’ NOT for being the greatest at song and dance but it was a more or less a beauty pageant held at The Huntington Hartford Night Club AND thats what got me to HOLLYWOOD.
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Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am proud that I sustained with work after arriving in Hollywood and renting my first apartment AGAIN with no furniture. As soon as I signed the lease I got offered to do a long running revue entitled “City Lites” at the legendary Flamingo in Las Vegas. I was promised if I started as a “showgirl” I could be the stand-by for the female headlining singer and get to perform that role once a week on her day off and the entertainment director promised me she would not be there long because of her high -roller boyfriend who liked to take trips. I spoke to one of my Variety Agents Jerry O’ Farrell who had gotten me the audition in LA and he said he knew of the situation and he wasen”t lying to me. So I left my empty apt and moved to Las Vegas and soon after I got going in the show…my showgirl time onstage took a significant dip and my singing as her stand-by became more and more until within mebbe six weeks and there I was. the headlining singer….just in time for my father to show up….since the second show with the showgirls on stage was topless….and I knew after Oh! Calcutta! he didn”T NEED TO SEE me in more of same. I have danced and acted in bunches of movies which are listed on IMDB…have traveled with my club act thru Japan, Germany, England, Monte Carlo, Aruba , Puerto Rico etc opened for alot of well known comedians including numerous times onstage at Dangerfields in New York working with Rodney, and have worked with Milton Berle, David Brenner, Jackie Vernon, Jack Carter, Phyliss Diller, Des O’Connor etc..Thru a misreading of an audition in Los Angeles I ended up dancing and acting with The Los Angeles Opera to such an extent that I finally just moved across the street from The Dorothy Chandler ..I was proud to receive The Certificate Of Esteem from The Department of Defense for doing my own USO show …a 35 day tour of Thailand, The Philippines and The Marshall Islands.
It was a wonderful oppt to do something for people serving our country and I am very proud of that.
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
Sometimes “when ” something didn”t feel right I went with my gut…and sometimes when I didn”t I wished I had.
I had a friend Jody Barry an entertainer in his own right who wrote these words:
SHOW ME THE BUSINESS OF SHOW BUSINESS AND I’LL SHOW YOU NO BUSINESS AT ALL!
Image Credits
I have sent two e-mails stating I have full use of my images. I am not savy eno9ugh to upload but I have sent them to you David
