There are still actors and singers and jugglers, but “showbiz” is no more. Showbiz was an insular world of bright lights, late nights, meals cooked on hotplates, secrets, rivalries, dazzling curtain calls… One of the few surviving members of this hermetic cult is Flo Hayle, who will perform her cabaret show “Down Memory Lane” at the Bridge Street Theatre in Catskill on April 20. This is her farewell performance; Hayle is 94.
She was born in the Bronx, into a musical family: her mother sang opera; her father led a band called the Masqueraders. Clearly, Hayle was destined for life as an entertainer. She first appeared on TV at the age of nine, at the New York World’s Fair of 1939, where the General Electric pavilion had rigged up a prototype television. “My father and uncle put me up on this little platform, and the guy turned on the camera, and there I was,” she recalls. “I didn’t know what the heck to do. The people working the camera, they just said to me, ‘Smile, little girl!’—so I did.”
As a junior in high school, Hayle auditioned for the prestigious American Academy of Dramatic Arts, which was then inside Carnegie Hall. She was accepted, and soon was studying with showbiz royalty—literally, in the case of classmate Grace Kelly. In the class above her was Don Rickles, who was not yet an insult comedian. (“At that time, he was a serious actor.”) In the class below her was Anne Bancroft, who was then Ann Italiano.
“Being a child of the Depression, I never wanted to be unemployed, so I took a job as a singing waitress in Greenwich Village,” Hayle recalls. This was at a former speakeasy called Champagne Gallery, on the current site of the NYU Law Library. There she was discovered by two Broadway producers, who took her on as a standby—”which was a fancy name for understudy”—for the lead role in a Broadway play, “Sophie,” with music by Steve Allen.
After being on the road for a month, they debuted at the Winter Garden in New York City, and the show flopped. “We opened on a Monday and closed on a Sunday.” But that’s showbiz.
Hayle was unstoppable. A friend of hers, Budd Friedman, opened the Improvisation in Hell’s Kitchen, a club where performers would sing after hours. She became a staple there—until comedians discovered the place, and the Improv became a comedy club, now with franchises in 25 cities.
Hayle went on to an illustrious career performing cabaret in high-class nightspots like Don’t Tell Mama and Freddy’s Supper Club. She also acted, directed, produced plays. The latter career led to her undoing. “Producers never, never, never use their own money. They always use other people’s money. But my business partner said, ‘Flo, we need a lot of front money,’ and at that time I was loaded.” The show—”Hell of an Angel”—failed, and Hayle went bankrupt.
In 1998, she had to leave her beloved apartment on East 63rd Street and relocate to Catskill. But a showbiz gal always lands on her feet, and Hayle started an interview show, “Arts Alive Etc.,” on Clear Channel Radio, where she spoke to old friends like Dom Delouise and Patty Duke.
“Down Memory Lane” is an autobiography in song, including the stories behind the songs. She’ll perform tunes she sang as a singing waitress, two numbers from “Sophie,” and Depression-era songs she heard as a child.
Two days after this performance, on Earth Day, Hayle turns 95.
Related Stories
This article appears in April 2024.
