Award-winning showbiz entertainers, Corky Hale and Charlotte Rae, will perform in a show emceed by Carl Reiner, with Jeff Lass serving as Music Director. The show, "A Festive Evening For Westside Center for Independent Living," is a benefit for (WCIL), a non-residential center dedicated to empowering all people with disabilities so that they achieve and maintain self-sufficient and productive lives. The event will be held on Friday, June 20, 2008 at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club; 340 North Maple Avenue (between West 3rd Street and Alden Drive); Beverly Hills, CA 90210. The event will begin at 5:00 p.m. with Cocktails, followed by Dinner, Entertainment and Dancing.
Carl Reiner will serve as Emcee of the event. Renowned jazz pianist, harpist and singer, Corky Hale, and comedic actress and singer, Charlotte Rae, will perform. Jeff Lass serves as Music Director. Ruth Kraft serves as Event Chair. Tickets are $250 each and free parking is available behind the club and at the Maple Parking Lot across the street from the center. This event is open to the general public. Attire is California Casual. For tickets and further information, please call Robin Hargrove at 310-568-0107, ext. 24. For further information on the Westside Center for Independent Living, please visit the website www.wcil.org <http://www.wcil.org>.
Aliza Barzilay, Executive Director of the Westside Center for Independent Living, said: "The Independent Living Movement philosophy is as relevant today as it was when it began in the 70's. I eagerly look forward to this wonderful event which will support what we do here at the center on a daily basis."
Her sold-out performances at the Oak Room at the Algonquin in New York, Davenport's in Chicago, the Cinegrill in Los Angeles, the Plush Room in San Francisco, and Pizza On The Park in London have led Los Angeles Times' jazz reviewer Don Heckman to observe that Hale is "more than a triple threat," and Philip Ellwood of the San Francisco Examiner noted her performance is "one of cyclonic proportions." On November 22, 2007, Corky Hale made her debut at Carnegie Hall as a Soloist with the New York Pops Orchestra, under the baton of Guest Conductor, Barry Levitt.
Hale's harp, piano and vocals can be heard on her current CD, "CORKY" on the GNP Crescendo label. Since 2000 Hale has produced and performed her star-studded show "Corky Hale and Friends: From Tin Pan Alley to Beverly Hills," at the Beverly Hills Civic Center. In March 2003 her "Salute To Hollywood Songwriters" opened the newly restored Ferry Building at a Gala for San Francisco's "Raising Hope" charity, and in 2002 her show opened the 25th Anniversary Season of the 1,000-seat La Mirada Theatre.
In 2003, Corky Hale added theatrical production to her activities, when her show, "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" broke box office records at the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Florida. In 2000 she was the associate producer of the hit show, "Fully Committed," which played at the Coronet Theatre in Hollywood. She also produced three other hits – 1998's "Lullaby Of Broadway" at the Tiffany Theatre in West Hollywood, voted one of the "10 Best Shows" of the year by the Los Angeles Times and produced a concert version of the show starring Sally Kellerman. Hale also produced "Give 'em Hell Harry," starring Jason Alexander at the Tiffany Theatre in Los Angeles in 1992.
In addition to her musical accomplishments, Hale jokingly considers herself the ultimate cook-housewife. She has been happily married for 35 years to songwriter Mike Stoller of the team Leiber & Stoller, whose show Smokey Joe's Café broke the record as the longest running musical revue in Broadway history.
Hale is very involved in numerous charities and political groups, one of them being Angel Harvest, which she introduced to Los Angeles from New York's City Harvest. Angel Harvest picks up overages of food at top restaurants and major events such as the Academy AwardsÒ and movie premieres, which otherwise would have been discarded, and delivers them to various shelters for battered women and children, indigent seniors, veterans in rehabilitation and the working poor.
She has always been interested in politics and was one of the first white students to join the NAACP while a freshman at the University of Wisconsin. She speaks Italian, French and Spanish, and has an apartment in Italy. Hale serves on the national advisory board of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), the national advisory board of Planned Parenthood and the California board of the Women's Reproductive Rights Assistance Project (WRRAP). She and her husband are strong advocates of the Southern Poverty Law Center and serve on the board of The National Coalition to Ban Gun Violence.
Charlotte Rae (Actress and Singer) is a multiple Emmy Award-nominated actress ("Queen of the Stardust Ballroom" and "The Facts of Life") and singer who is best known for her portrayals of Edna Garrett in the television sitcoms "Diff'rent Strokes" and "The Facts of Life." She also appeared in the "The Facts of Life" television movies, one in 1982 and another in 2001.
A stage actress since the 1950s, Rae appeared in the Broadway productions of "Three Wishes for Jamie," "The Threepenny Opera" (appearing as Mrs. Peachum opposite Lotte Lenya as Jenny and Bea Arthur as Lucy Brown), "Li'l Abner" (creating the role of Mammy Yokum), "Pickwick" (Tony Awardâ-nomination for Best Supporting or Featured Actress in a Musical) and "Morning, Noon and Night" (Tony Awardâ-nomination for Best Actress – Dramatic). She also starred as Berthe in the musical "Pippin" at the New Jersey Paper Mill Playhouse in 2000. In 2007 she appeared at The Plush Room in San Francisco for several performances.
In 1955 she released her first, and only album, "Songs I Taught My Mother," which featured satirical, risqué and naughty songs by composers, including
Sheldon Harnick, Cole Porter, Ogden Nash, Rodgers & Hart and Marc Blitzstein, who wrote the song, "Modest Maid," especially for Rae. The album was recently re-released and is available at www.barnesandnoble.com <http://www.barnesandnoble.com>. Also in the 1950s, Rae made numerous appearances on the "Ed Sullivan Show."
Rae appeared in early seasons of "Sesame Street" as Molly the Mail Lady. Other television appearances have included: "Sisters," "101 Dalmatians: The Series" and "The King of Queens." Her first significant success was on the sitcom, "Car 54, Where Art You?," playing the role of Sylvia Schnauser. She recently finished a film with Peter O'Toole and Marsha Gay Harden, "Christmas Cottage," which will be released in November 2008. She has a cameo role in the current Adam Sandler film, "You Don't Mess With The Zohan."
Rae was born Charlotte Rae Lubotsky in Milwaukee, WI, the daughter of immigrants Esther (née Ottenstein) and Meyer Lubotsky, a retail tire business owner. She was married to composer John Strauss, with whom she had two sons, and was divorced in 1976. She has three grandchildren. Her classmates at Northwestern University included Cloris Leachman, Paul Lynde, Charlton Heston and Patricia Neal.Reiner subsequently served in World War II, first training as a radio operator in the Air Force, followed by an assignment to Georgetown University to study French in order to become an interpreter, then as a tele-type operator in the Signal Corps and later as a comedian and actor with Maurice Evans' Special Services Entertainment Unit. He toured the Pacific for 18 months in G.I. Revues.
Upon his honorable discharge in 1946, he won the leading role in the National Company of "Call Me Mister," and after three more years in various Broadway musicals, joined Sid Caeser and Imogene Coca on "Your Show of Shows."
In 1958, his first novel, Enter Laughing, was published. An autobiographical work, the book chronicled Reiner's frustrations as a young machinist helper in the millinery trade and his eventual entry into show business. The book subsequently became the basis for a Broadway play (adapted by Joe Stein, and a feature film, directed and co-produced by Reiner) of the same name.
In 1961, Reiner conceived "The Dick Van Dyke Show," which would become one of the most famous and best loved sitcoms in television history. Of course, audiences have never forgotten his co-starring role on the show as the toupee-wearing producer, Alan Brady. That same year, he wrote his first feature film, "The Thrill of It All," for Doris Day and James Garner.Videos