Broadway actress, singer, comedian, documentary filmmaker and raconteur. Ann Talman is a prolific creator of works written, filmed and spoken. Born and raised in Welch, West Virginia, she joined Actors’ Equity with co-star Elizabeth Taylor in 1981 when she landed 
the role of playing Taylor’s daughter on Broadway in The Little Foxes—the experience of which is told in her most recent show,The Shadow of Her Smile. Among her other works is her solo play Woody’s Order!, which premiered at The Pittsburgh Playhouse in 2017 and went on to Los Angeles and Cleveland. Talman simultaneously wrote, filmed, edited and premiered her short, award-winning documentary Woody’s Order!, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2017. Among her other creative activities are the stage work Tales From The South, as well as a career full of film, television and other stage credits.
The Shadow of Her Smile, premiered in February 27, 2022, the 90th Birthday of film legend Elizabeth Taylor. It celebrates Talman’s 18 months on Broadway playing Taylor’s daughter, a joyous job that resulted in their life-long friendship. It was developed at Ensemble Studio Theater, where she an active member. Talman reprises the show at The Laurie Beechman Theatre on Sunday, February 26 at 7:00 PM, again in celebration of Taylor’s birthday.
NiteLife Exchange (NLE) asks Ann Talman (AT) Six Questions, Plus One:
NLE: You went from graduating Penn State University to landing the role of Elizabeth Taylor’s daughter in The Little Foxes on Broadway. You explain in your show the incredible destiny of being cast in that role. What do you make of that destiny? Was it luck or much more?
AT: Well, it is all the above and more. First, I very much believe in Destiny (with a capital D) because destiny has been a part of my identity since before the day I was born. To be correct before I was even conceived because I was “conjured” by my older brother, Woody, who was an only child and though very bright and expressive, was a severely cerebral palsied and non-verbal 8-year-old in 1956. He realized he had to convince our parents to try one more time to make a baby because he desperately did not want to be all alone in the world if anything happened to our parents. He would touch my mother’s tummy and my father’s groin and wave his hands like wands and giggle. It worked and I came along in 1957. Our parents began the family legend that he had conjured me because I had a Destiny… ”to Be thy brother’s keeper” in case anything ever happened to mommy or daddy…but don’t worry sugar…it won’t. I was nicknamed Woody’s Order!
However, in fact things did happen and I took on that destiny at 20 when our mother was killed instantly in a car accident and a few years later our father had the beginnings of dementia. I took over and was, in fact, my father AND Brother’s Keeper until both of their deaths.
But I was a born actress, singer, mimic, storyteller and all-around clown. At the age of 4, when I was “performing” the percolator, my mother gasped and said, “Oh my! Why you look like a young Elizabeth Taylor from National Velvet! Why you could almost play her daughter! Even as a percolator!” And from then on all through grade, middle and high school, college and on, when National Velvet came on TV, the next day people would come up to me and tell me how much I looked like her doppelganger from National Velvet. It even happened once on the subway in New York on my way to an audition in 1980. 
When I met Elizabeth, she gave me a huge hug, kissed my cheek and whispered in my ear, “Oh, my God! I feel like I’m looking at myself from National Velvet!” And I said without even thinking, “Why, thank you. I’ve never heard that before.”
BUT as my father a highly decorated Colonel in WWII and a renowned mining executive at USSteel, often told me, “The best things that ever happened in my career came as complete surprises. But as I look back, I see that this led to that led to that and so on and every time a door of opportunity luckily opened…I was ready and willing to walk through it.” So, for me it is destiny, luck, preparation, hard work and a willingness to never give up and to keep on studying and learning.
NLE: Looking back, what’s the most important take-away you got from those 18 months on Broadway?
AT: There were many take-aways, but because Elizabeth was a gracious and very hardworking person, she set the tone for the entire experience from day one as a great leader does. She insisted we rehearse on a Broadway stage, The Golden Theatre, so she could get used to projecting. Each and every opening night in every city, she gave 
everyone amazing gifts from Tiffany’s and that included crew and creative too. She insisted everyone be treated equally. When we flew to LA for that segment of our run, she insisted that if she flew First Class, so did everyone, or else she would sit with us in coach! And in your subsequent, life-long friendship with Taylor, what’s the most valuable/meaningful remembrance of that bond?
The most amazing aspect of our bond was that from the moment I met her at the first read-through she somehow sensed that I was motherless, and she instantly took me under her wing in a loving motherly way and she mothered me at a time in my life when I needed it the very most.
She taught me to never get a big head. She would say, “nothing lasts forever darling, especially beauty.” She showed by doing—in the love for family and her beloved children. She showed kindness to animals and even tried to give me a Burmese kitten in a litter from which she had one as well. I was heartbroken when it turned out I would have had to wait 6 months in London before I would be able to take it home with me to New York and I needed to get back when we closed to say goodbye to my dear Grandmother before she passed. Even that reminds me of her generosity because I told her often how much my maternal grandmother was devoted to “General Ho
spital” and when Elizabeth appeared as a Countess on GH while we were in LA for 4 months, Elizabeth sent my grandmother a set of “I LOVE GH” mugs.
NLE: You’re a polymath—an actor, singer, comedienne, storyteller and filmmaker.Do you gravitate more to one creative expression than the others?
AT: I try to spread myself “thick” not thin. I honestly love them all and each feeds the other. However, I have had to develop the important skill of compartmentalizing to truly get things done.
I am a spreader. One of those people who needs a huge flat surface for a desk, I often have used doors on hobby horses as desks. I need to spread all my projects out in piles so I can see them. Then I focus on one at a time, but I can move around too. I might spend a few hours on one thing like editing my next book, then I work on the pile of music staring at me because I need to learn their lyrics. Then I leave that and dive into the endless self-
promotion necessary in the business of cabaret. I might take some yoga stretches and play with my Covid, kitty rescue, Riley. Then I need a nap! Often, I will place a project pile on the bed with me so I might percolate about it while I rest. And I keep paper and pen by my bed because I do some of my best work in my dreams and I write them down immediately.
How does each activity feed me or provide satisfaction? They are all creative and that is the feed and the satisfaction. I did discover though, because I have battled severe clinical depression since second grade, believe it or not, that singing in my childhood had often been to try to drown out the constant bickering between my parents. I would go to the basement and sing along to our musical and opera LPs for sometimes 6 hours at a time.
When I realized this was borne from sadness I had to regroup. I realized when I was sick, I could not sing. It was as if my wings had been clipped because singing can be so full of joy for me when I let it. I realized I had to focus on the joy and let go of the sadness from long ago that I had associated with the act of singing. NOW I am the happiest I have ever been in my life and singing every day is as important to me as my daily dose of Prozac!
NLE: A solo show you were working on before The Shadow of Her Smile was about your brother Woody. Your plan is to write a book based on this show. What was the impetus of writing about Woody Talman?
AT: By the way, the funniest story I tell in my cabaret, The Shadow of Her Smile, is about the moment Woody met Elizabeth. It’s a doozie.
I actually began to answer this without even knowing it in Question One. Woody Talman was and will always be my most important muse and inspiration. I am a comedienne and mimic because it gave me great glee to make him laugh, especially at me. I truly adored my brother from the moment I have memory. In the magical thinking age, he was a life-sized living doll that I could help to love and care for and boy I did. I could help feed him by the time I was 5. He was very handsome and brilliant. I could get him to laugh especially by 
doing imitations of our Southern parents and all my favorite clown, Red Skelton’s, characters.
My parents were amazing storytellers and I have been writing their stories down as told since I could hold a pencil. And I recall dialogue from things that happened long ago, so I write it out. In 1994 when I was very ill in LA with my depression, which I call The Beast, I devoted any time I wasn’t sleeping, to writing down my stories on my first computer. I have always called them stories from Woody’s Order! I would read them aloud in salons and reading series during those years. In 2012, I began reading them at Tuesdays @9 a part of Naked Angels Theatre Company of which I am a Founding Member. Matt Hoverman, a member, encouraged me to study with him in his How to Create Your Own Solo Show workshops. Thus, the solo play Woody’s Order! was written over a total of 5 workshops. It premiered in Pittsburgh at The Pittsburgh Playhouse.
I did not want Woody to see the play in an audience because it was too emotional for him, so I filmed myself doing scenes from it FOR him on the stage of The Ensemble Studio Theatre, where I am also a life member. 
We used three cameras. I wove home movies and B Roll, and it became my 16-minute short documentary Woody’s Order! which premiered at The Tribeca Film Festival and continues to win awards and be seen around the world.
I have been writing the book, Woody’s Order! all my life. I know now that it needed to be lived some more before I could call it finished. That meant it had to extend beyond the passing of Woody in 2018 because only then had I completed my job as Woody’s Order! and only then have I finally been able to put myself first in my own life. I am making up for lost time and loving it.
I just returned from an amazing artist’s retreat last week. I finished editing all that is written of my book and have outlined the final section. It was the most fruitful, creative week of my life. The retreat is The Prospect Street Writers House run by Robert “V” Hansmann. I urge all writers to apply for a one- or two-week residency there. V prepares an amazing gourmet dinner each night too. Their site is www.prospectstreet.org
NLE: You moved from New York City to Los Angeles in 1991; what drove that decision?
AT: It was two parts. One was that I was coming so close for leads on TV pilots, my agents encouraged me to spend 1992 pilot season in LA. The other part sadly was that my first husband and forever best friend, Bruce MacVittie, and I needed to separate and figure out if we could repair our ten-year marriage. Within the first two weeks in LA I booked guest spots on “Seinfeld” and then “Murphy Brown.” I decided to remain in LA for a while longer. Sadly my marriage did not make it but our friendship did until his unexpected death this past May 7th, 2022.
NLE: What were your feelings about developing a Broadway career at that time?
AT: I had 3 Broadway shows under my belt. I truly wanted to do more TV, but I never gave up theatre. After a yearlong recurring role on Grandmother’s favorite “story,” “General Hospital.” My character, the mousy Nurse Rebecca Chase, who got Monica Quartermain fired, had a catfight with Brenda, was in love with Dr. Dorman who sold drugs to the middle school kids, was put into Witness Protection by Jax because though she was a suspect in Dr. Dorman’s murder, she knew in fact that it was The Tin Man! But, in 1997, I knew it was time I get back to New York and the stage where I truly belong. 
NLE: Creatively, what calls to you as a “next act?” What do you most want to accomplish in the near future?
AT: I have a few: taking The Shadow of Her Smile to Chicago on Sunday March 5 at Davenports; then Feinstein’s Hotel Carmichael in Carmel, IN on Saturday March 11, followed by Feinstein’s at Niko Hotel in San Fran, and hopefully places like Incanto in Puerto Vallarta Mexico, LA, St. Louis, Palm Springs, DC, Ptown, Pittsburgh, New Hope, Boston, London and beyond.
I also need to get the right literary agent to publish the finished the non-fiction-narrative memoir Woody’s Order! And keep doing great plays in the regions and to land my fifth Broadway show. Also I am working on a musical and have ideas about two more solo shows without music and one more cabaret titled An Hour of Magical Thinking, which is already copywritten! Lol
You can check our Ann Talmans short documentary about her brother, Woody Talman by clicking here.
