Back in the day, Pia Zadora was the Lindsay Lohan of the world. Somehow though Pia Zadora once won an acting award. Pia's acting talent was on par with a Tori Spelling type level. Pia though did have the ability to get rich guys to date her and marry her and was willing to get naked for movies and to hop on to casting couches so she kept getting parts and kept getting headlines. Her Golden Globe was presumably because she was willing to go on dates with some of those foreign press people. On Saturday she was busted in Las Vegas for domestic violence and coercion. She is married to a Las Vegas police officer.
Classy broad.
ReplyDeleteWho did she beat up, her maid?
ReplyDeleteI bet she was drinking.
ReplyDeleteAccording to wikipedia, she starred in a movie along Orson Welles. She must have had some talent.
ReplyDeleteTori Spelling or actresses that talented can't even dream of doing something like that with some actor of that level. Not even couching casting.
Well, nobody in that house will ever bring up Santa Claus Conquers the Martians ever again.
ReplyDeleteI remember seeing some movie she was in - no, she had no talent (although her singing was better than her acting). If she was in a movie with Orson Welles, she slept with him or someone else to get the part. She was a terrible actress.
ReplyDeletePia was good friends with my ex-MIL's best friend and to say Pia was mentally unstable (at that time) would be a HUGE understatement. This story really doesn't surprise me.
ReplyDeleteI only remember her from her movie, "Butterfly", in which she plays a daughter who seduces her own dad to get her way.
ReplyDeleteNow she just seduces father figures.
I trick-or-treated her house once when I was a kid. She was a mean bitch who gave horrible candy. I just remember she was really unhappy looking and cranky.
ReplyDeleteI loooved Pia Zadora, she was a horrible actress who had a resurgence in her career by becoming a singer then after her rich husband left her she disappeared. She was such a guilty pleasure, especially when she starred in the movie, "The Lonely Lady"
ReplyDeleteYo, by the 1970s, Orson Welles wasn't exactly discriminating in his projects. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with his work as the spokesman for Paul Masson wine, which unleashed this gem into the world:
ReplyDeleteOrson Welles' Drunk Commercial Outtakes
He was also a favorite punching bag for jokes about his girth. Probably the most famous was Johnny Carson's quip that it was "so hot today, Orson Welles was selling shade." (Both snarking at his size and his willingness to sell out to the highest bidder.)
I remember she was the Nationl Enquirer darling for years.... rumor was that her very rich, much older husband "bought" her the Golden Globe because it was such a shocker she won. I remember her mostly because she and her husband bought "Pickfair" (Mary Pickford's home with Douglas Fairbanks) then tore the whole thing down & built a McMansion. Sad.
ReplyDeleteshe tore Pickfair down? what a bitch!
ReplyDeleteher mother pushed her from a very young age, she married a very very rich man at 17 or 18 her was old enough to be her father..hell her grand father..her kids must be adults...
ReplyDeleteI just remember they bought Pickfair and gutted it...Hollywood history gone for an eyesore...
"We will sell no wine before it's time"
ReplyDeleteI remember them buying Pickfair as well. I wish it was still standing
ReplyDeleteWhat Redd said.
ReplyDeleteThe person who wrote this piece isn't that of an insider.
ReplyDeletePia Zadora never had to use the casting couch and didn't keep getting parts.
She was 23 when she married a 53 Israeli businessman who owned casinos and various other companies. He bankrolled her music and her movie career, which actually consisted of three films. A fourth one was a small budget musical comedy, where her casting made at least sense.
Her three other movies had many guest stars who were happy to get checks at the time (Orson Welles, Stacy Keach, Telly Savalas, James Franciscus) because the husband wanted the films to appear legitimate prestige productions.
He even bought her Golden Globe, in one of the awards most ridiculous moments, which says something. Hubby had invited members of the HFPA to fly to Vegas, spend some time in his casino and watch his wife in concert.
After this attempt at a serious acting career, she only got a few small parts and cameos, mostly for camp value. I doubt that John Waters used the casting couch with her when she was cast in Hairspray...
So, sure, I'm happy to make fun of Zadora, but at least the Enty stand-in who wrote this paragraph should get his or her facts first, rather than a dubious comparison with Lindsay Lohan, who had a completely different career.
When have you ever known a gossip blog to be factual.
DeleteI gave up completely on the Golden Globes the year she won. It was obvious that she'd either slept with half the Hollywood Foreign Press corps, or that her rich husband at the time had bought her award, or both.
ReplyDeleteso frigging weird!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI was going to say what Angela did. And it's pretty sad to know that they HFP can be bought. That's just pathetic but then awards really mean nothing except that someone likes you. They really like you. They are not indicative of talent all the time although Meryl is worthy.
ReplyDeleteI actually loved her music. She did an album of standards with the London Philharmonic that was one of my all time favorites.
ReplyDeleteI remember seeing an ad in a magazine announcing some performance of her, and the title was something like "Pia Zadora: on the stage where she was born to be" or "in the role she was born to play" or some such nonsense. I think I was a kid at the time as I recall, and I remember scoffing and laughing at it even then. And heck, I'm 50 so how the hell old is SHE by now?
ReplyDeleteAll I know her from is Hairspray, where she was the beatnik with Ric Ocasek. Wonder who she coerced?
ReplyDeleteOrson Welles was doing voices for the animated Transformer movies when he died, so name dropping him is pretty pointless.
I think Pia has a really great voice. I always wondered why she was scorned and ridiculed.
ReplyDeleteTempestuous Grape said...
ReplyDeleteI trick-or-treated her house once when I was a kid.
That is beyond cool. I am seriously jealous!
Hmmmm. From my newly educated perspective: sounds very much like elements of MK Ultra. Butterfly. Young woman in over her head with older Israeli 'businessman' to bankroll her. Crazy behavior. Married to a Las Vegas cop? Hmmmmm. Gonna go try and find her movies. Should be edumacational. This crap has been going on a very long time.
ReplyDeletesophiab there is no mk ultra take over of hollywood you idiot conspiracy theorists need to get your heads screwed on straight
Delete:) taking direction from you would be like taking direction from a slug in sunshine. STFU. You don't exist.
DeleteTalk about a blast from the past! I was just a kid when she was famous, but even I knew she was where she was because she had a rich husband.
ReplyDeleteI'm so happy that I'm too young to know who the hell she is!
ReplyDeleteI thought she died! All I remember about her was the fact she made the Golden Globes meaningless.
ReplyDeleteAnd When The Rain Begins to Fall is still one of my 80s guilty pleasures...
ReplyDelete