then my senior year, I was head cheerleader. It was an exciting time to be a cheerleader because that was the days when Michael Jordan and Sam Perkins and James Worthy won the NCAA. The thing is, I was a Morehead finalist. My daddy went to Carolina, all his brothers went there, but they didn’t allow women back then; and all my brothers and sisters went there, so I was the last one. Anyway, they gave you a little more back then with a Morehead scholarship, so I went in as a premed major, but that…(laughs heartily and slaps her knee)…that just wasn’t gonna work! So, anyway, I ended up as a drama major, because they didn’t really have a dance department at Carolina back then. But the P.E. department had a wonderful dance program that was all ballet and modern ballet. All four years I was at Carolina, I danced with a troupe from there. The drama department there never did big musicals, but The Student Union did. I got to be in them; we did “Starting Here, Starting Now”, and when we did “Cabaret”, I got to be Sally Bowles. What happened then was I just kept getting performance work in the summers, and I thought, “How wonderful to be able to work and do what you love to do!” I think it was mostly my attitude. I don’t think I was the best in the world, but I really believe attitude is what counts the most, and being a hard worker. You have to be a hard worker to run a dance school. Sometimes I spend my whole morning preparing for the classes I have coming up that afternoon and evening. That’s OK with me because I believe in being a hard worker.
Q: What made you think you could make it in New York, when it is so competitive? Beth: Well, the week of my college graduation, I just
12 F o o t hills S p o t l i g h t F a l l 2 0 0 8 14
went up there. I really didn’t ask if I could. Of course, I was twenty-one and I could have done what I liked, but it really wasn’t like me to do something like that without consulting my family. I had met this girl from New York while I was doing some cabaret work and she invited me to come and stay with her and I just decided at the last minute to do it. Then when I got there, she said, “Why don’t you do an audition while you’re here?” So I did and I got the part and I got offered dance captain, and I got my equity card right away. Wow! (jumps up with excitement) I Know! So I called up my older brother Chip and said, “Chip, I’m in a show, will you drive over to Shelby and ask Daddy if I can stay in New York?” And he did and they were all like, “What, she’s in New York?” The show was “Give Me Gershwin” I never really thought about the competition at the time, because it wasn’t like I was pursuing this career. At that time, it felt like the career was pursuing me. I always felt that I was very lucky to have the experiences I did, not just then, but all my life, really. But then again, you have to keep an open mind; and most of all, you have to keep an upbeat attitude, it makes a big difference. I am not a competitive person, but I am a very excitable, and happy, and enthusiastic person, so I think that’s what got me through. It’s like I knew the fun that was on the other side of that audition if I could just give it everything I had. It is kind of amazing that I did all that competitive type stuff, because that is really not my nature. I don’t run a competitive dance studio, either.
(she makes scooting motions with her hands). I had the energy, but I didn’t have that focus yet. But now I was more mature and I understood things better. That’s when I got to do a show at Radio City called “Tin Pan Alley” and then I got to be in the “I Love New York Show”. It was part of a big campaign to promote tourism in New York and it was sponsored by the airlines. That was the most wonderful job ever, because we did segments of different Broadway shows that were running at the time. We took it on tour to different European cities like Madrid and Paris. And it was an open-ended return ticket flight, so if I wanted to stay an extra week or so, I could, as long as I was back in New York to fly out again to the next stop. I was like, “Yeah! I need to do this now!” It was crazy, but what an exciting experience. I was twenty-four years old and I was getting paid to do this wonderful work. We got to perform at the White House; Reagan was president then. I did some children’s television, “Reading Rainbow” with Levar Burton. I went to San Francisco and did a show with Joe Spano, who used to be on “Hill Street Blues”. Then I got back to Broadway; I did “Gigi” with Betsy Palmer. Actually, I was in rehearsal for “Gigi” when I got a call that there was an open audition for “Cats”. I went and there were literally five hundred women there. They would put us through a few moves, then cut some, then we’d sing a little bit, over and over until there were only fifty of us left. Well, they weren’t hiring for the show at that moment, but they told us they would keep our names on file. So, I was actually
Q: What was it like to live the life of a Broadway Star? Beth: At that time, the world was like this to me (makes a large swooping motion upward and outward with her arms). It was all out there to be experienced and I was grabbing at everything I could. I went on the road with the Gershwin show and then from there, I just kept getting work. Once you start working, as you work with people then they go on to do work, and you might get called. Because people would prefer to work with you when they know they can expect good work from you. When I got back to New York after the Gershwin tour, I was on a scholarship from a dance studio there. I think I was a little more mature then, because I was more focused. When I was younger it was all Yeah, yeah, yeah ballet, or Yeah, yeah, yeah gymnastics
www. foothillsspotlight. com