Kelly Bishop. Portrait of an Actress and Dancer.

Kelly Bishop (formerly "Carole Bishop") was born February 28, 1944, in Colorado Springs, CO. Sometime during her childhood, the family moved to Denver, where Kelly first encountered ballet. Inspired by the movie The Red Shoes and encouraged by her mother Jane Bishop, a former dancer, she seriously began studying ballet. At first, with her own mother as teacher until a more suitable ballet school could be found. "My mother was just as 'Sheila' [A Chorus Line] describes her," she said in an interview. "She was determined that I'd dance, from the moment she had a girl."

In 1953, the American Ballet Theatre (ABT) opened a branch in Denver. Francesca Romanoff (Kelly's teacher) encouraged her to audition since her husband Dimitri, was a teacher and director at the ABT. He subsequently became Kelly's mentor. However, when she was 14, the school closed. Consequently, Kelly's mother decided to follow the Romanoffs to San Jose, California, in order to make it possible for her daughter to continue her training.

New York, New York - It's a Helluva Town

As soon as Kelly graduated from High School in 1962, she travelled to New York to pursue dancing as a profession. She had her doubts in the beginning but the desire to become a dancer far outweighed her fears. "I wanted to get there. I wanted to study there. I wanted to get into a ballet company," Kelly recalled. She had been promised a spot in the American Ballet Theatre Corps. Nevertheless, a political rivalry between the Romanoffs and ABT major-domo Lucia Chase, prevented her from moving directly into the company. "It was my first shock [to learn] that you don't get the job that everybody says you're going to get." Instead, she landed a scholarship with the ABT theatre school, where she continued her training. Unable to earn her living with a scholarship alone, Kelly successfully auditioned for the Radio City Music Hall Ballet ensemble. "Putting those pointe' shoes on five times a day, your feet are raw enough as it is. I had never really liked pointe' work all that much anyway. It was very painful for me. Finally I thought, I just don't want to do this. I don't want to have to sleep every night with my feet up on the wall to keep the throbbing out of my toes."

Luckily, she got a job as a dancer in the show Wonder World choreographed by Michael Kidd at the 1964 World's Fair in New York. "It was an enormous show. It had thirty-two dancers and thirty-two singers and thirty-two swimmers and motorcycles. I loved it. I loved those gypsy dancers. This is a world of people who are kind of funky and fun; an easygoing bunch of people. I liked the dancing, too. I found myself getting into jazz very easily. [...] I wanted to be in that world, so I moved in a completely different direction."

From Ballet to Broadway Gypsy

After the world's fair, Kelly became a Ron Lewis Dancer and worked in different nightclubs in Lake Tahoe and Las Vegas. Although working as a 'Las Vegas Show Girl' - doing two shows seven days a week - was strenuous, she enjoyed it. "God, to be a Ron Lewis dancer was a terrifying and wonderful thing. [...] It didn't stop from the beginning till the end. You'd never dance for him without working everything - your head, your eyebrows, your smile, your shoulders. It was the hardest and the best. When you weren't dancing, you slept. There was nothing else you could do, because you were so tired."

When she was injured, she took painkillers to continue dancing. There are rumours that she became addicted and she acknowledged that "my 'show pill' made the pain go away. It was my own choice but I was kind of hooked at that point, because it was the only way I could keep the pain away. [...] We didn't know. People were not aware then. Unfortunately, that tended to happen with most of the dancers."

After two and a half years in Las Vegas, Kelly couldn't climb the ladder any further unless she danced topless-something she didn't want to do. So, she returned to New York in 1966 and joined a summer stock tour run by Guber, Ford & Cross. In 1967, she finally landed her first Broadway role in the musical, Golden Rainbow. "She stole the show doing a fabulous solo with a whip," remembers her colleague, Larry Merritt.

Kelly's next role was in the musical Promises, Promises (1968). There she first worked along side choreographer Michael Bennett and other future A Chorus Line cast-members. However, auditioning for Promises, Promises turned out to be a negative experience not only for her but for other cast members as well. "The final audition for Promises was seven hours, an epic. [...] I was angry when I got the job. I thought, 'Isn´t this wonderful? I´m going to make $150 a week, and I´ve just given them $5,000 worth of training," Kelly remembered. But it was during that show that "Michael said dancers really could act."

The musical Rachael Lily Rosenbloom and Don't You Ever Forget It (1973), a show that for various reasons never opened, was also fraught with anxiety. Dancer, Michon Peacock recalled, "It was a horror story, with stars and writers doped up and freaked out. The two directors treated people terribly, and were actually nasty, particularly to the dancers. Whatever their knowledge of their craft, it was certainly hidden by the way they handled things. They used the dancers mainly as scenery, and felt that dancers didn't know how to sing or talk, and had no minds. Everybody was very unhappy - it was a real personal insult considering the talent in that company."

Fate Intervenes: A Chorus Line

After that disaster, Kelly toured with the musical, Irene in 1974, a job she only took because she needed the money. It was not long after, that Kelly's big breakthrough came with the role of Sheila Bryant in A Chorus Line.

In January 1974, a group of 18 dancers met to dance and talk about their lives a whole night long. Dancers Tony Stevens and Michon Peacock, who had cut their personal losses out of the Rachael Lily Rosenbloom fiasco, initiated this project: "We wanted to show the many aspects of dancers, and to show what dancers could offer, instead of just being scenery on stage," said Peacock. The original idea "was trying to get professional dancer-actor people together to be able to do productions as a resident company," stated Kelly Bishop. Michael Bennett, also a participant, soon, took over the 'choreography' of the project.

He developed the musical A Chorus Line out of the dancers' life stories during two workshops. While the dancers were involved in the development just as Bennett or composer Marvin Hamlisch and songwriter Ed Kleban were, they were asked to sign a contract between the two workshops stipulating that they sell the rights to their life stories for one dollar. Though everybody realized it wasn't the fairest deal, everybody signed it. "I felt - and it was probably true - that Michael Bennett didn't need me in order to do this show," said Pricilla Lopez. "But I wanted to be a part of it, so I felt that if that was the price I had to pay, it was okay." Thommie Walsh stated with some bitterness: "Basically we were cheated out of a lot of money [...] People are living in houses in the Hamptons because of A Chorus Line. None of us are."

Kelly (still known by her legal name Carole) played Sheila, whose character was based mostly on her life, just like most of the others of the original cast. 'Her' song was At the Ballet, which she performed with Nancy Lane and Kale Cole. Since her voice was the weakest of the three, the choreography was arranged so that she always would be the one who stood closest to the microphone. "No one ever knew that when she was strolling she was actually getting to the mic - but that's what she was doing," stated Sound Mixer Otts Munderloh, who actually asked Bennett to remove Sheila. "I had a confab with Michael and begged him, 'Isn't there any way you can move Sheila to be right on the foot mic?' He hemmed and hawed, but he did, in fact, move Sheila to foot mic number two."

1976, a year after the premiere of A Chorus Line, the musical became a full-fledged success earning numerous Tony Awards Nominations. More than one actor was awarded with the 'Oscar of Broadway' and Kelly was one of them, earning her Tony for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. "When they said, `And the winner is Kelly Bishop´, I was shocked. But you could see on my face an almost imperceptible nod of my head as if to say, `That's right´", she remembers fondly. "I did float. It was bizarre. Talk about walking on air. All I remember feeling was the heat, the warmth. There was a spontaneous reaction, from the balcony more than anything. There was a roar. It was more than applause; it was a physical sensation, the sound that was coming at me. Of course with the television lights and my own heightened sense of emotion, when I hit the stage there was this - whoa. And I just remember, it was like standing on the hottest day on the beach with the sun beaming down. And I was so happy. I couldn't do anything wrong."

Encouraged by her success on Broadway, Kelly decided to concentrate on a career as actress "and once I convinced the world I could do it, I gave up the dancing." However, her withdrawal from A Chorus Line wasn't as unspectacular as it might sound.

After almost a year and a half in the show, Kelly asked the producers for a raise, which they refused. Colleague Justin Ross said: "It was nothing unreasonable; she had been doing the show a long time and just wanted a perk. They refused her, and she became preoccupied with it. She stepped forward to begin her monologue, and suddenly said, 'Zach, I have to leave. I can't talk to you any longer. I'm sorry.' Joe Bennett, who was playing Zach, said, 'Sheila, if the light's bothering you, we can change it,' to try to get her back into the lines. She paused at the proscenium and said, 'I have to go. I'm sorry,' and exited. Thommie Walsh, who was close to Kelly on and offstage, said, 'Zach, I think I better check on Sheila,' which left two gaping holes next to each other on the line. No one had any idea that this was going to happen, including Kelly. Zach cut to Kristine, skipping 'At the Ballet,' and you could hear pages flipping wildly in the pit. After that, Sheila didn't exist, and some of her lines were given to other people."

Later Kelly confessed, that she might have overrated the possible effects of her Tony-Award - and she wasn't the only one who had some problems with the success of A Chorus Line. Although the Musical wanted to turn one's attention to the line: the dancers, their talent and inequity, it did little to help the participants leave the shadows of their dancers' lives. A Chorus Line was the star, not the dancers in it. "Some felt they had given away their lives to the show, been exploited or used by it, and were left feeling uncertain of themselves and their careers when they left the show. Some felt abandoned, deeply resentful and hurt by Bennett after A Chorus Line. Being in the show, each cast member was placed in an awkward position", Ken Mandelbaum wrote in his book A Chorus Line and the Musicals of Michael Bennett. "Most had never had a speaking part in a show before and had never in any way stood out from the ensemble. A Chorus Line made each seem so special that it became very difficult for them to return to being anonymous chorus dancers thereafter. Returning to the chorus was also perceived as a downward career move. Cast members hesitated to leave the show, wondering whether they would ever get another chance to show off their personalities, acting skills, and singing voices. The expectations set up by going from chorus dancer to principal player in A Chorus Line were, in many cases, never fulfilled." For Kelly A Chorus Line was "a wonderful way to say, this is what I gave so many years to. This is what it's really like."

Moving On

Kelly, who had been the first of the original cast members to leave A Chorus Line, made her screen debut in the drama An Unmarried Woman in 1978. Afterward, she mainly got cast as Moms, just like in the movie Dirty Dancing. "I have played a couple of nice moms in my career," she stated. "But, in my opinion, playing nice is a complete bore - the nastier they are the more fun they are." Other movie roles included Zelda in Miami Rhapsody and Ray Stern (another movie Mom) in Private Parts.

Apart from her movie roles, Kelly continued to work in television. However, the series she starred in were short-lived: The Thorns (1988) "survived" only 7 episodes until ABC cancelled it and My Wildest Dreams (FOX, 1995) made it up to 5 episodes till they banished it from the screen.

Despite her parts in films and TV, Bishop loves her work on stage. She played many roles just as Bea in Precious Sons (1986), Grace Duncan in Pterodactyls (1993) or Annie Robbins in Proposals (1997). In Six Degrees of Separation (1990) she played Kitty on Broadway and took over the leading role after Stockard Channing departed. In the filming of the play (1993), Channing again played the lead Ouisa Kittridge while Kelly only had a (very) minor part.

At the filming of A Chorus Line some years ago (1985), neither she nor any other member of the original Broadway ensemble were cast. A TV-Interview, in which director Richard Attenborough explained this decision, Kelly commented: "He said, 'Those people are all in their late thirties by now, maybe their forties. This show is about kids breaking into show business.' I almost ruined the television set! I jumped up and stomped around the living room. Breaking into show business? Breaking into show business! He doesn't even know what the show's about! It's not about that!"

She picked the filming to pieces, too. "When I left that film I said to my husband, 'It's amazing. Millions of people have seen this show and understood it. Blue-collar workers, people without an education, saw A Chorus Line and understood it. The two people who did not get it are the director and choreographer of that film! It was the skeleton of A Chorus Line. There was nothing there. There was no flavor, no taste, no beauty. Just bones. They just ruined it."

Enter Emily Gilmore

While Kelly Bishop was brilliant in many leading and supporting roles; it wasn't until 2000, when she finally became familiar to larger audiences through the series Gilmore Girls. For her performance of Emily Gilmore, she earned some nominations - namely, the Golden Satellite Award in 2003 and 2004. However, others always won the awards. "With all the attention paid to the two younger Gilmore Girls, it is almost easy to overlook the she's-so-good-it-looks-effortless abilities of Kelly Bishop. The episode where she allies with Lorelai to annoy her mother-in-law is Emmy worthy," remarked Jimmi Manning of Primetime.

"I would have to say that our similarities begin and end with the fact that we're both female," Kelly stated about her part. "There isn't much about Emily to love, and I like to think the opposite is true of me."

Not only Kelly but her colleagues, too, affirm that she and Emily couldn't be more different. Yet this difference is also a benefit, as Lauren Graham confirmed: "Kelly's sort of warmth comes through and you have to have that somewhere in, you know, a character like that. I think, if it didn't, Emily would feel like a character, which she never does."

According to the critics, "Kelly Bishop is one of the unsung heroines of network television," the Guardian (2005) wrote, for example. And Amy Sherman-Palladino, the 'mother' of Gilmore Girls, recently called Kelly Bishop and Edward Hermann "the king and the queen of my life."

Off-Stage and Off-Screen

In 1981, Kelly Bishop married her second husband, TV-host Lee Leonard (her first marriage to Peter Miller ended in divorce in the mid-seventies). Leonard said the most difficult interview he could be offered would be one with his wife.

Along with their dog, Annie and their cats, Roxie and Henry, they live in South Orange, New Jersey. In a recent interview, Kelly says that her love for animals "is something that was instilled in me at a very young age. Surprisingly, as disfunctional as my family was... and as despicable as my father was, in many ways. He and my mother were both very good with helping sick animals. They were never like 'don't bring that hurt animal into our house.' They showed me how to care for all different kinds of animals. We had birds that were injured... cats... dogs. I have the greatest respect for animals. They really do understand us. They know what we want and what we're asking for. I believe they help humans live better lives. I really hate it when someone say's 'oh, those stupid, dumb animals.' I always say to that person 'Do you speak dog?'. I accredit animals for keeping me going when times were bad. I respond to them."

Kelly is not only an animal lover ("I'm such an animal lover that it's almost dangerous"), but an activist involved in the protection of animals and a member of organizations such as P.E.T.A. (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), the ASPCA (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) and the New Jersey Animal Coalition.

Protecting animals is something she is clearly committed to, even in the face of strong opposition. "Actress Kelly Bishop is apparently something of an animal rights activist and, specifically, an expert on controlling deer population. Hunting, of course, is simply cruel, she tells the New Jersey Star Ledger", joked Brian Carnell in February 2005, after Kelly had spoke against the purposeful hunting of deer.

A critic that presumably did not put her off by her opinion and engagement. "I'm a very strong woman and have very strong opinions". Something, which wasn't always like that. "I was timid when I was a child. I didn't like feeling that way. My mother was a rather timid woman and I used to feel for her because she was taken advantage of." This maybe one of the reasons why she is critical of 'weak' people. "I think I'm a lot better now that I'm older, but I was very unsympathetic to what I considered weak people. I wanted to slap them rather than help them out. I wanted to say, 'Get out of my way. Stop being weak'." [...] "Anger is such a great motivator."

A Life in the Theatre

Despite her success with Gilmore Girls, Kelly Bishop mainly considers herself a theatre actress. "Theatre is the purest performing [...] I'm not knocking television actors, because there's always a lot for me to learn about camera acting, but theatre has been my training, it's been my home for many years," she said. "So many people in Hollywood, the pretty young ones particularly, come to be stars and very often become stars, and they don't have the hard knocks [of theatre training] ... You build up a foundation based on experience, and some of the bad plays that I did -- I've often said it was the bad jobs I learned the most from."

She admires actresses like Ruth Gordon, who revived their careers and met with great success in later life. Kelly herself said, "I would love to be that kind of character actor. I would be very happy to have that toward the end of my life." TV-husband Edward Hermann commented that with a simple "And so you shall, you sweet old-fashioned thing, you."

Even though her career wasn't picture-perfect, she nevertheless seems not to regret the choices she made. In a recent interview, she emphatically stated, "It's not an easy life. It's not one I'd really encourage anybody in. Some people have a love for it and they'll do it, and they're going to do it anyway whether you discourage them or not. Those are the people who should do it."