Portia Nelson
Encyclopedia
Portia Nelson was an American popular singer, songwriter, actress, and author. She was best known for her appearances in the most prestigious 1950s cabarets, where she sang an elegant repertoire in a soprano noted for its silvery tone, perfect diction, intimacy, and meticulous attention to words. In 1965 she portrayed the cantankerous Sister Berthe in the film version of The Sound of Music
; on TV’s All My Children
Nelson played the long-running role of nanny Mrs. Gurney. Her book of poetic musings, There’s a Hole in My Sidewalk: The Romance of Self-Discovery, became a mainstay of twelve-step programs.
. (The Danish family name of Nielsen had been anglicized before her birth.) Her Mormon
family owned a farm; her father was also a railroad worker. At a young age, Nelson taught herself to play piano; after two years at Weber College in Ogden
, Utah she quit school and moved to Los Angeles.
; and since Nelson needed a job, they hired her to come on the road as their secretary. In the months that followed, she took one of her first steps as a musician by writing a few vocal arrangements for the group.
Back home in Los Angeles in early 1946, Nelson worked briefly as secretary to film director André de Toth
; she held another secretarial job in the publicity department of United Artists Pictures. Around that time she adopted the name Portia, a nickname that friends gave her based on her love of the popular radio soap opera Portia Faces Life
. Portia was known for occasionally sitting at pianos on the lot and demonstrating songs, and word of her vocal talents spread. Actress Jane Russell
was then on the lot making a film, Young Widow
; one day they talked about songs they both liked, and Nelson performed one at the piano. “What the hell are you doing pounding a typewriter?” said Russell. “You should be singing.” Nelson would later work for Russell as a vocal coach. Said the actress after Nelson’s death: “She had a high, clear voice, with such intonation and shading! Her lyrics were sung with such understanding that you felt you’d heard a poem sung.” (Russell would later sing a song co-written by Nelson, “The Gilded Lily,” in the 1952 film Montana Belle
.)
Through the actress Ida Lupino
, Nelson met Nick Arden, a lyricist who was planning to open a small nightclub in Sherman Oaks, California. She and Arden teamed to write a song, “It’s as Simple as That.” Nelson recorded the demo, which reached the hands of singer Jo Stafford
; on October 18, 1946, Stafford recorded the ballad for Capitol
as the B-side of “September Song
.” The disc didn’t chart, but once his nightclub had opened Arden hired Nelson to make her debut there as a singer. Her accompanist was Walter Gross
, a former staff pianist at CBS radio and the composer of a standard written that year, “Tenderly
.”
; singer-pianist Bobby Short
entertained. Recalled Short in his 1995 autobiography Bobby Short: The Life and Times of a Saloon Singer: “Portia walked onto the floor of the Gala, tall, poised, goddesslike in floating chiffon – and singing in a way that was all her own. She was a smash.”
It was at the Café Gala that Nelson was heard by Herbert Jacoby, the owner (with Max Gordon) of Manhattan’s preeminent cabaret, the Blue Angel. Jacoby invited her to sing there. In January 1950, Nelson moved to New York; soon after she was performing on one of the Blue Angel’s four-act bills. She would sing there on and off until 1959, sharing rosters with Carol Channing
, Pearl Bailey
, Imogene Coca
, Orson Bean
, Wally Cox
, Harry Belafonte
, Johnny Mathis
, and other budding stars. Nelson sometimes performed in the front lounge, where her accompanist was William Roy
, a young pianist and composer who was just beginning a fifty-year career as a musical director for many of cabaret’s greatest performers.
In 1951 Nelson would also appear at the New York lounge Celeste, accompanied by songwriter and pianist Bart Howard
, who soon became the emcee at the Blue Angel. At Celeste, Nelson performed many of the songs (including “In Other Words,” later retitled “Fly Me to the Moon
”) that she would gather on her album Let Me Love You: Portia Nelson Sings the Songs of Bart Howard. She championed Howard for the rest of her career. The singer had made an auspicious recorded debut with the album Love Songs for a Late Evening, released in 1953 by Columbia’s Masterworks division, normally reserved for classical artists. The New Yorker
reviewer Rogers Whitaker wrote in his liner notes: “One has only to hear the delicate phrasing and effortless command of melody to understand why she could immediately create such a stir."
. The singer was heard on Roberta
, The Boys from Syracuse
, On Your Toes
, and Oklahoma
. A recording of Noel Coward
’s Bitter Sweet
, which featured Nelson and singer Robert Rounseville
, remains unissued; according to Nelson, its release was nixed by Coward, who disapproved of it. Nelson’s other early recorded work includes the 1956 album Autumn Leaves (on the Dolphin label); she also wrote arrangements for the album Stritch by singer-actress Elaine Stritch
, released on Dolphin in 1956.
In 1954, the singer had originated the role of Miss Minerva Oliver in The Golden Apple
, John Latouche’s musical adaptation of Homer
’s Iliad
and Odyssey
. The Golden Apple opened off-Broadway at the Phoenix Theatre, then moved to Broadway’s Alvin Theatre, where it ran from April through August. The next year she contributed material to the Broadway review Almost Crazy, which lasted just sixteen performances. Nelson continued to sing at the Blue Angel and other cabarets, including New York’s Bon Soir and Downstairs at the Upstairs, the Colony in London, and Bricktop’s in Rome. In 1959, Nelson hosted her own musical radio show, Sunday in New York, produced by Allen Ludden
; it was named after a song of hers that was recorded by one of her great influences, the venerated cabaret singer Mabel Mercer
. Tracks from the series would later comprise Nelson’s 1994 CD, Sunday in New York
, released on the Lockett-Palmer label.
, Debbie Reynolds
, Marlene Dietrich
, Julie Andrews
, and others) and as vocal coach to such actors as Rod Steiger
. She also became an actress who specialized, inadvertently, in roles of nuns. In The Sound of Music (1965), Nelson played Sister Berthe, who saved the von Trapp family in pre-World War II Austria by sabotaging a Nazi car. Nelson uttered the memorable line, “Reverend Mother, I have sinned.” The next year she appeared as Sister Elizabeth in the film comedy The Trouble with Angels. On an episode of TV’s The Big Valley
, Nelson portrayed Sister Benedict. She appeared in the movie Doctor Dolittle
and worked as consulting producer and writer for the 1969 TV special, Debbie Reynolds and the Sound of Children. During her L.A. years, Nelson studied painting with celebrity portraitist and art teacher Richard McKenzie, who was Fred Astaire
’s son-in-law and who owned an art gallery in Beverly Hills. In honor of Nelson’s repeated castings as a nun, the gallery hosted an exhibition of nun paintings by Nelson and other artists.
When her friend Rock Hudson
was preparing to record his first and only album, Rock, Gently: Rock Hudson Sings the Songs of Rod McKuen
(on the Stanyan label) in 1970, Nelson coached the actor vocally. Another friend, the actor, screenwriter, and novelist Tom Tryon
, cast her as the busybody Mrs. Rowe in the 1972 film version of his thriller novel, The Other
.
wrote: “With silver hair rising to a peak atop sleek chiffon and mile-long pearls, Miss Nelson is as graceful and refined to observe as she is to listen to.”
, a musical by Stephen Schwartz
and Joseph Stein
. The show was Broadway-bound, but closed in Washington, D.C. before its New York opening. Nelson continued to act, taking on roles in the soap operas The Doctors and All My Children (in which she played the recurring role of nanny Rachel Gurney) and appearing on numerous TV commercials. She was also seen on an episode of the sitcom Chico and the Man
and in the movie Can’t Stop the Music (1980), which starred the Village People
.
in the film Good Will Hunting
(1997). Nelson turned the book into an off-Broadway musical, presented at the York Theatre in Manhattan. One of her poems, “Autobiography in Five Short Chapters,” went on to become a highly popular self-help and recovery text:
I
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost ... I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes me forever to find a way out.
II
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place.
But it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
III
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in ... it's a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
IV
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
V
I walk down another street.
The poem (which was often uncredited to Nelson) was adopted by motivational speakers and reprinted in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
by Sogyal Rinpoche
, as well as in the foreword of TV actress Roseanne Barr
’s autobiography, My Lives. Jazz singer Dianne Reeves
set the poem to music and recorded it as “The First Five Chapters” on her live CD In the Moment
(2000).
, the mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne
, a close friend of hers, sang the song that would become Nelson’s trademark, “Sing a Rainbow.” Nelson had written it in the ‘60s and dedicated it to Horne’s bi-racial daughter Angela. In 1996, Nelson’s “As I Remember Him” was voted Song of the Year by the Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs (MAC). That year, Backstage magazine honored her for lifetime achievement at its annual Bistro Awards. Also in 1996, DRG Records issued This Life, a CD of her original songs as sung by cabaret artists Margaret Whiting
, Jaymie Meyer, Amanda McBroom
, Ann Hampton Callaway
, Deborah Tranelli
, Nancy LaMott
, and Nelson herself. DRG also reissued Nelson’s three solo albums of the 1950s. In early 2001, she was honored at a MAC/ASCAP Songwriters’ Showcase in New York; around that time she made her last appearance at a performance of a revue of her songs, This Life, at the New York cabaret Don’t Tell Mama. By now her cancer had recurred, and the singer died in her apartment on March 6, 2001. At her request, Nelson’s ashes were spread by friends and family at the Kolob Canyons
in Utah's Zion National Park
, one of her favorite childhood recreational spots. Also per her wishes, the singer's writings, photographs, recordings, press clippings, and personal memorabilia were donated to the New York Public Library
to establish the Portia Nelson Archive at the Library for the Performing Arts in New York City.
Filmography
TV work (partial list)
The Sound of Music
The Sound of Music is a musical by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers...
; on TV’s All My Children
All My Children
All My Children is an American television soap opera that aired on ABC from January 5, 1970 to September 23, 2011. Created by Agnes Nixon, All My Children is set in Pine Valley, Pennsylvania, a fictitious suburb of Philadelphia. The show features Susan Lucci as Erica Kane, one of daytime's most...
Nelson played the long-running role of nanny Mrs. Gurney. Her book of poetic musings, There’s a Hole in My Sidewalk: The Romance of Self-Discovery, became a mainstay of twelve-step programs.
Early life
The youngest of nine children, Nelson was born Betty Mae Nelson in Brigham City, UtahUtah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
. (The Danish family name of Nielsen had been anglicized before her birth.) Her Mormon
Mormon
The term Mormon most commonly denotes an adherent, practitioner, follower, or constituent of Mormonism, which is the largest branch of the Latter Day Saint movement in restorationist Christianity...
family owned a farm; her father was also a railroad worker. At a young age, Nelson taught herself to play piano; after two years at Weber College in Ogden
Ogden, Utah
Ogden is a city in Weber County, Utah, United States. Ogden serves as the county seat of Weber County. The population was 82,825 according to the 2010 Census. The city served as a major railway hub through much of its history, and still handles a great deal of freight rail traffic which makes it a...
, Utah she quit school and moved to Los Angeles.
Professional start
While attending an LDS Church service in L.A. in 1945, Nelson met the King Sisters, the popular swing-era vocal quartet, also from Utah. The sisters were employed by bandleader Alvino ReyAlvino Rey
Alvin McBurney , known by his stage name Alvino Rey, was an American swing era musician and pioneer, often credited as the father of the pedal steel guitar...
; and since Nelson needed a job, they hired her to come on the road as their secretary. In the months that followed, she took one of her first steps as a musician by writing a few vocal arrangements for the group.
Back home in Los Angeles in early 1946, Nelson worked briefly as secretary to film director André de Toth
André De Toth
André de Toth was a Hungarian-American filmmaker, born and raised in Makó, Csongrád, Kingdom of Hungary Austro-Hungarian Empire. He directed the 3-D film House of Wax, despite being unable to see in 3-D himself, having lost an eye at an early age. He is known for his gritty B movies in the western...
; she held another secretarial job in the publicity department of United Artists Pictures. Around that time she adopted the name Portia, a nickname that friends gave her based on her love of the popular radio soap opera Portia Faces Life
Portia Faces Life
Portia Faces Life is a soap opera which began in syndication on April 1, 1940. It was broadcast on some stations that carried NBC programs, although it does not seem to have been an official part of that network's programming...
. Portia was known for occasionally sitting at pianos on the lot and demonstrating songs, and word of her vocal talents spread. Actress Jane Russell
Jane Russell
Jane Russell was an American film actress and was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s....
was then on the lot making a film, Young Widow
Young Widow
Young Widow is a 1946 drama film directed by Edwin L. Marin, starring Jane Russell and Louis Hayward. It focuses on Joan Kenwood, a young journalist who can't get over her husband's death in World War II...
; one day they talked about songs they both liked, and Nelson performed one at the piano. “What the hell are you doing pounding a typewriter?” said Russell. “You should be singing.” Nelson would later work for Russell as a vocal coach. Said the actress after Nelson’s death: “She had a high, clear voice, with such intonation and shading! Her lyrics were sung with such understanding that you felt you’d heard a poem sung.” (Russell would later sing a song co-written by Nelson, “The Gilded Lily,” in the 1952 film Montana Belle
Montana Belle
Montana Belle is a 1952 western film directed by Allan Dwan and starring Jane Russell. The story is a fictionalised biography of Montana outlaw Belle Starr.-Plot:...
.)
Through the actress Ida Lupino
Ida Lupino
Ida Lupino was an English-born film actress and director, and a pioneer among women filmmakers. In her 48-year career, she appeared in 59 films and directed seven others, mostly in the United States. She appeared in serial television programmes 58 times and directed 50 other episodes...
, Nelson met Nick Arden, a lyricist who was planning to open a small nightclub in Sherman Oaks, California. She and Arden teamed to write a song, “It’s as Simple as That.” Nelson recorded the demo, which reached the hands of singer Jo Stafford
Jo Stafford
Jo Elizabeth Stafford was an American singer of traditional pop music and jazz standards and occasional actress whose career ran from the late 1930s to the early 1960s...
; on October 18, 1946, Stafford recorded the ballad for Capitol
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...
as the B-side of “September Song
September Song
"September Song" is an American pop standard composed by Kurt Weill, with lyrics by Maxwell Anderson, introduced by Walter Huston in the 1938 Broadway musical Knickerbocker Holiday. It has since been recorded by numerous singers and instrumentalists...
.” The disc didn’t chart, but once his nightclub had opened Arden hired Nelson to make her debut there as a singer. Her accompanist was Walter Gross
Walter Gross
Dr. Walter Gross was a German physician appointed to create the Office for Enlightenment on Population Policy and Racial Welfare for the NSDAP...
, a former staff pianist at CBS radio and the composer of a standard written that year, “Tenderly
Tenderly
"Tenderly" is a popular song published in 1946 with music by Walter Gross and lyrics by Jack Lawrence.Copyright 1946 by Edwin H. Morris & Company, Inc....
.”
Early cabaret work
After leaving Nick Arden’s, Nelson continued to work day jobs, while singing sporadically. In 1949 she performed at the Café Gala, a cabaret on Hollywood’s Sunset StripSunset Strip
The Sunset Strip is the name given to the mile-and-a-half stretch of Sunset Boulevard that passes through West Hollywood, California. It extends from West Hollywood's eastern border with Hollywood at Harper Avenue, to its western border with Beverly Hills at Sierra Drive...
; singer-pianist Bobby Short
Bobby Short
Robert Waltrip "Bobby" Short was an American cabaret singer and pianist, best known for his interpretations of songs by popular composers of the first half of the 20th century such as Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Noel Coward and George and Ira Gershwin.He...
entertained. Recalled Short in his 1995 autobiography Bobby Short: The Life and Times of a Saloon Singer: “Portia walked onto the floor of the Gala, tall, poised, goddesslike in floating chiffon – and singing in a way that was all her own. She was a smash.”
It was at the Café Gala that Nelson was heard by Herbert Jacoby, the owner (with Max Gordon) of Manhattan’s preeminent cabaret, the Blue Angel. Jacoby invited her to sing there. In January 1950, Nelson moved to New York; soon after she was performing on one of the Blue Angel’s four-act bills. She would sing there on and off until 1959, sharing rosters with Carol Channing
Carol Channing
Carol Elaine Channing is an American singer, actress, and comedienne. She is the recipient of three Tony Awards , a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination...
, Pearl Bailey
Pearl Bailey
Pearl Mae Bailey was an American actress and singer. After appearing in vaudeville, she made her Broadway debut in St. Louis Woman in 1946. She won a Tony Award for the title role in the all-black production of Hello, Dolly! in 1968...
, Imogene Coca
Imogene Coca
Imogene Fernandez de Coca was an American comic actress best known for her role opposite Sid Caesar on Your Show of Shows....
, Orson Bean
Orson Bean
Orson Bean is an American film, television, and Broadway actor. He appeared frequently on televised game shows in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, including being a long-time panelist on the television game show To Tell the Truth....
, Wally Cox
Wally Cox
Wallace Maynard Cox was an American comedian and actor, particularly associated with the early years of television in the United States. He appeared in the U.S. TV series Mr. Peepers , plus several other popular shows, and as a character actor in over 20 films...
, Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte
Harold George "Harry" Belafonte, Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, actor and social activist. He was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s...
, Johnny Mathis
Johnny Mathis
John Royce "Johnny" Mathis is an American singer of popular music. Starting his career with singles of standards, he became highly popular as an album artist, with several dozen of his albums achieving gold or platinum status, and 73 making the Billboard charts...
, and other budding stars. Nelson sometimes performed in the front lounge, where her accompanist was William Roy
William Roy
Major-General William Roy FRS was a Scottish military engineer, surveyor, and antiquarian. He was an innovator who applied new scientific discoveries and newly emerging technologies to the accurate geodetic mapping of Great Britain....
, a young pianist and composer who was just beginning a fifty-year career as a musical director for many of cabaret’s greatest performers.
In 1951 Nelson would also appear at the New York lounge Celeste, accompanied by songwriter and pianist Bart Howard
Bart Howard
Bart Howard was the composer and writer of the famous jazz standard "Fly Me To The Moon", which has been performed by singers Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Nancy Wilson, Della Reese, Diana Krall, June Christy and Astrud Gilberto...
, who soon became the emcee at the Blue Angel. At Celeste, Nelson performed many of the songs (including “In Other Words,” later retitled “Fly Me to the Moon
Fly Me to the Moon
"Fly Me to the Moon" is a popular standard song written by Bart Howard in 1954. It was originally titled "In Other Words", and was introduced by Felicia Sanders in cabarets...
”) that she would gather on her album Let Me Love You: Portia Nelson Sings the Songs of Bart Howard. She championed Howard for the rest of her career. The singer had made an auspicious recorded debut with the album Love Songs for a Late Evening, released in 1953 by Columbia’s Masterworks division, normally reserved for classical artists. The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
reviewer Rogers Whitaker wrote in his liner notes: “One has only to hear the delicate phrasing and effortless command of melody to understand why she could immediately create such a stir."
Theater and other recordings
Nelson was also a frequent participant in a series of recorded re-creations of classic musicals, produced by Columbia president and producer Goddard LiebersonGoddard Lieberson
Goddard Lieberson was the president of Columbia Records from 1956 to 1971, and from 1973 to 1975. He was also a composer, and studied with George Frederick McKay, at the University of Washington, Seattle....
. The singer was heard on Roberta
Roberta
Roberta is a musical from 1933 with music by Jerome Kern, and lyrics and book by Otto Harbach. The musical is based on the novel Gowns by Roberta by Alice Duer Miller...
, The Boys from Syracuse
The Boys from Syracuse
The Boys from Syracuse is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart, based on William Shakespeare's play, The Comedy of Errors, as adapted by librettist George Abbott. The score includes swing and other contemporary rhythms of the 1930s. The show was the first musical...
, On Your Toes
On Your Toes
On Your Toes is a musical with a book by Richard Rodgers, George Abbott, and Lorenz Hart, music by Rodgers, and lyrics by Hart. It was adapted into a film in 1939....
, and Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
. A recording of Noel Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
’s Bitter Sweet
Bitter Sweet
Bitter Sweet is an operetta in three acts written by Noël Coward and first produced in 1929 at Her Majesty's Theatre in London. It ran for a very successful 967 performances....
, which featured Nelson and singer Robert Rounseville
Robert Rounseville
Robert Rounseville was an American tenor, who appeared in opera, operetta, and Broadway musicals.-Career:Rounseville was born in Attleboro, Massachusetts. He made his Broadway debut in a small role in the Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart musical Babes in Arms, then appeared in other musicals in...
, remains unissued; according to Nelson, its release was nixed by Coward, who disapproved of it. Nelson’s other early recorded work includes the 1956 album Autumn Leaves (on the Dolphin label); she also wrote arrangements for the album Stritch by singer-actress Elaine Stritch
Elaine Stritch
Elaine Stritch is an American actress and vocalist. She has appeared in numerous stage plays and musicals, feature films, and many television programs...
, released on Dolphin in 1956.
In 1954, the singer had originated the role of Miss Minerva Oliver in The Golden Apple
The Golden Apple (musical)
The Golden Apple is a musical adaptation of parts of each of the Iliad and Odyssey epics of Homer, with music by Jerome Moross and lyrics by John Treville Latouche...
, John Latouche’s musical adaptation of Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
’s Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
and Odyssey
Odyssey
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...
. The Golden Apple opened off-Broadway at the Phoenix Theatre, then moved to Broadway’s Alvin Theatre, where it ran from April through August. The next year she contributed material to the Broadway review Almost Crazy, which lasted just sixteen performances. Nelson continued to sing at the Blue Angel and other cabarets, including New York’s Bon Soir and Downstairs at the Upstairs, the Colony in London, and Bricktop’s in Rome. In 1959, Nelson hosted her own musical radio show, Sunday in New York, produced by Allen Ludden
Allen Ludden
Allen Ludden was an American television personality, emcee and game show host, perhaps most well known for hosting various incarnations of the game show Password between 1961 and 1980.-Early years:...
; it was named after a song of hers that was recorded by one of her great influences, the venerated cabaret singer Mabel Mercer
Mabel Mercer
Mabel Mercer was an English-born cabaret singer who performed in the United States, Britain, and Europe with the greats in jazz and cabaret. She was a featured performer at Chez Bricktop in Paris, owned by the hostess Bricktop, and performed in such clubs as Le Ruban Bleu, Tony's, the RSVP, the...
. Tracks from the series would later comprise Nelson’s 1994 CD, Sunday in New York
Sunday in New York
Sunday in New York, filmed in Metrocolor, is a 1963 American comedy film directed by Peter Tewksbury and starring Jane Fonda, Cliff Robertson, and Rod Taylor. It was one of Fonda's earliest films, and she was called "the loveliest and most gifted of all our new young actresses" by Newsday...
, released on the Lockett-Palmer label.
Move to Los Angeles
Her cabaret career, like the scene itself, was starting to wane, and in 1960 Nelson moved to Los Angeles. There she maintained a dual career as a writer of special musical material (for Carol BurnettCarol Burnett
Carol Creighton Burnett is an American actress, comedian, singer, dancer and writer. Burnett started her career in New York. After becoming a hit on Broadway, she made her television debut...
, Debbie Reynolds
Debbie Reynolds
Debbie Reynolds is an American actress, singer, and dancer.She was initially signed at age 16 by Warner Bros., but her career got off to a slow start. When her contract was not renewed, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer gave her a small, but significant part in the film Three Little Words , then signed her to...
, Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
, Julie Andrews
Julie Andrews
Dame Julia Elizabeth Andrews, DBE is an English film and stage actress, singer, and author. She is the recipient of Golden Globe, Emmy, Grammy, BAFTA, People's Choice Award, Theatre World Award, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award honors...
, and others) and as vocal coach to such actors as Rod Steiger
Rod Steiger
Rodney Stephen "Rod" Steiger was an Academy Award-winning American actor known for his performances in such films as On the Waterfront, The Big Knife, Oklahoma!, The Harder They Fall, Across the Bridge, The Pawnbroker, Doctor Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night, and Waterloo as well as the...
. She also became an actress who specialized, inadvertently, in roles of nuns. In The Sound of Music (1965), Nelson played Sister Berthe, who saved the von Trapp family in pre-World War II Austria by sabotaging a Nazi car. Nelson uttered the memorable line, “Reverend Mother, I have sinned.” The next year she appeared as Sister Elizabeth in the film comedy The Trouble with Angels. On an episode of TV’s The Big Valley
The Big Valley
The Big Valley is an American television Western which ran on ABC from September 15, 1965, to May 19, 1969, which starred Barbara Stanwyck, as a California widowed mother. It was created by A.I. Bezzerides and Louis F. Edelman...
, Nelson portrayed Sister Benedict. She appeared in the movie Doctor Dolittle
Doctor Dolittle
Doctor John Dolittle is the central character of a series of children's books by Hugh Lofting starting with the 1920 The Story of Doctor Dolittle. He is a doctor who shuns human patients in favour of animals, with whom he can speak in their own languages...
and worked as consulting producer and writer for the 1969 TV special, Debbie Reynolds and the Sound of Children. During her L.A. years, Nelson studied painting with celebrity portraitist and art teacher Richard McKenzie, who was Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
’s son-in-law and who owned an art gallery in Beverly Hills. In honor of Nelson’s repeated castings as a nun, the gallery hosted an exhibition of nun paintings by Nelson and other artists.
When her friend Rock Hudson
Rock Hudson
Roy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...
was preparing to record his first and only album, Rock, Gently: Rock Hudson Sings the Songs of Rod McKuen
Rod McKuen
Rod McKuen is an American poet, songwriter, composer, and singer. He was one of the best-selling poets in the United States during the late 1960s. Throughout his career, McKuen produced a wide range of recordings, which included popular music, spoken word poetry, film soundtracks, and classical music...
(on the Stanyan label) in 1970, Nelson coached the actor vocally. Another friend, the actor, screenwriter, and novelist Tom Tryon
Tom Tryon
Tom Tryon was an American film and television actor, best known for playing the title role in the film The Cardinal and the Walt Disney television character Texas John Slaughter...
, cast her as the busybody Mrs. Rowe in the 1972 film version of his thriller novel, The Other
The Other
The Other is a 1972 psychological horror film directed by Robert Mulligan, adapted for film by Tom Tryon, from his bestselling novel. It stars Uta Hagen, Diana Muldaur, and Chris & Martin Udvarnoky.-Plot:...
.
Return to New York
In the 1960s Nelson had sung little; her only album of that decade, Picadilly Pickle: Lady Nelson and the Lords, was a rock-and-roll spoof on which Nelson played Vox organ and didn’t sing. Around 1971, she returned to New York and made a rare cabaret appearance at the short-lived club Mary Mary, owned by singer-actress Mary McCarty. In 1976, with a cabaret renaissance underway in New York and other cities, Nelson made her official singing comeback with an engagement at the Manhattan club Brothers & Sisters; thereafter she sang at other New York clubs (The Ballroom, Ted Hook’s OnStage, Freddy’s Supper Club) and at the Mocambo in San Francisco. Reviewing her appearance at The Ballroom, Rex ReedRex Reed
Rex Taylor Reed is an American film critic and former co-host of the syndicated television show At the Movies. He currently writes the column "On the Town with Rex Reed" for The New York Observer.-Life and career:...
wrote: “With silver hair rising to a peak atop sleek chiffon and mile-long pearls, Miss Nelson is as graceful and refined to observe as she is to listen to.”
Acting work, 1970s-1980s
From May through November 1976, Nelson played the small role of Therese, a spinster, in the touring company of The Baker's WifeThe Baker's Wife
The Baker's Wife is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and the book by Joseph Stein, based on the French film La Femme du Boulanger by Marcel Pagnol and Jean Giono...
, a musical by Stephen Schwartz
Stephen Schwartz (composer)
Stephen Lawrence Schwartz is an American musical theatre lyricist and composer. In a career spanning over four decades, Schwartz has written such hit musicals as Godspell , Pippin and Wicked...
and Joseph Stein
Joseph Stein
Joseph Stein was an American playwright best known for writing the books for such musicals as Fiddler on the Roof and Zorba.-Biography:...
. The show was Broadway-bound, but closed in Washington, D.C. before its New York opening. Nelson continued to act, taking on roles in the soap operas The Doctors and All My Children (in which she played the recurring role of nanny Rachel Gurney) and appearing on numerous TV commercials. She was also seen on an episode of the sitcom Chico and the Man
Chico and the Man
Chico and the Man is an American sitcom which ran on NBC for four seasons, from September 13, 1974 to July 21, 1978. It stars Jack Albertson as Ed Brown , the cantankerous owner of a run down garage in an East Los Angeles barrio, and Freddie Prinze as Chico Rodriguez, an upbeat, optimistic Chicano...
and in the movie Can’t Stop the Music (1980), which starred the Village People
Village People
Village People is a concept disco group that formed in the United States in 1977, well known for their on-stage costumes depicting American cultural stereotypes, as well as their catchy tunes and suggestive lyrics....
.
Writing/personal
Nelson was a cancer survivor, having conquered breast cancer after a mastectomy in 1973. Four years later, Popular Library published Nelson’s milestone book, There’s a Hole in My Sidewalk: The Romance of Self-Discovery. (Beyond Words Publishing reissued it in 1993.) Its cover appears on a poster displayed in the office of Sean McGuire, the fictional psychologist portrayed by Robin WilliamsRobin Williams
Robin McLaurin Williams is an American actor and comedian. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance...
in the film Good Will Hunting
Good Will Hunting
Good Will Hunting is a 1997 drama film directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Matt Damon, Robin Williams, Ben Affleck, Minnie Driver, and Stellan Skarsgård...
(1997). Nelson turned the book into an off-Broadway musical, presented at the York Theatre in Manhattan. One of her poems, “Autobiography in Five Short Chapters,” went on to become a highly popular self-help and recovery text:
I
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost ... I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes me forever to find a way out.
II
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place.
But it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
III
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in ... it's a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
IV
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
V
I walk down another street.
The poem (which was often uncredited to Nelson) was adopted by motivational speakers and reprinted in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, written by Sogyal Rinpoche, gives a comprehensive presentation of the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, exploring: the message of impermanence; evolution, karma and rebirth; the nature of mind and how to train the mind through meditation; how to follow a spiritual...
by Sogyal Rinpoche
Sogyal Rinpoche
Sogyal Rinpoche is a Tibetan Dzogchen Lama of the Nyingma tradition. He has been teaching for over 30 years and continues to travel widely in Europe, America, Australia and Asia...
, as well as in the foreword of TV actress Roseanne Barr
Roseanne Barr
Roseanne Cherrie Barr is an American actress, comedian, writer, television producer and director. Barr began her career in stand-up comedy at clubs before gaining fame for her role in the sitcom Roseanne. The show was a hit and lasted nine seasons, from 1988 to 1997...
’s autobiography, My Lives. Jazz singer Dianne Reeves
Dianne Reeves
Dianne Reeves is an American jazz singer. She currently lives in Denver, Colorado.-Early life:Reeves was born in Detroit, Michigan to a very musical family. Her father, who died when she was two years old, was also a singer. Her mother, Vada Swanson, played trumpet. A cousin, George Duke, is a...
set the poem to music and recorded it as “The First Five Chapters” on her live CD In the Moment
In the Moment
- Personnel :* Bret Garner - Vocals on "Steppin' Out"* Anthony Green - Vocals on "Soundtrack to the Soul " and "Move"* Collette Marino - Vocals on "I Like the Way"* Amy Michelle - Vocals on "Honestly" and "Strum"...
(2000).
Final years
In the early ‘90s, a bout with throat and tongue cancer – which Nelson, who never smoked, blamed on her years of singing in smoky nightclubs – robbed her of her soprano voice. Within a couple of years she had resumed singing in a low, husky speech-song style, while devoting more attention to her songwriting. By the end of her career Nelson had written hundreds of songs, as well as scores for various book musicals and animated films. All went unproduced, but Nelson was lavished with accolades for her accomplishments. In October 1992, the Mabel Mercer Foundation honored her with its Premier Cabaret Classic Award. On January 20, 1993, at the inauguration of President Bill ClintonBill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
, the mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne
Marilyn Horne
Marilyn Horne is an American mezzo-soprano opera singer. She specialized in roles requiring a large sound, beauty of tone, excellent breath support, and the ability to execute difficult coloratura passages....
, a close friend of hers, sang the song that would become Nelson’s trademark, “Sing a Rainbow.” Nelson had written it in the ‘60s and dedicated it to Horne’s bi-racial daughter Angela. In 1996, Nelson’s “As I Remember Him” was voted Song of the Year by the Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs (MAC). That year, Backstage magazine honored her for lifetime achievement at its annual Bistro Awards. Also in 1996, DRG Records issued This Life, a CD of her original songs as sung by cabaret artists Margaret Whiting
Margaret Whiting
Margaret Whiting was a singer of American popular music and country music who first made her reputation during the 1940s and 1950s.-Youth:...
, Jaymie Meyer, Amanda McBroom
Amanda McBroom
Amanda McBroom is an American singer, songwriter and cabaret performer. One of the songs she has written is "The Rose", which Bette Midler sang in the film of the same name...
, Ann Hampton Callaway
Ann Hampton Callaway
Ann Hampton Callaway is a multiplatinum-selling singer, composer, lyricist, pianist, and actress. She is best known for writing and singing the theme to the TV series The Nanny, writing songs for Barbra Streisand and starring in the Broadway musical Swing!.-Career:Callaway was described by the New...
, Deborah Tranelli
Deborah Tranelli
Deborah Marie Tranelli is an American actress and singer.Tranelli is best known for her recurring role in the television series Dallas as Phyllis, secretary to Bobby Ewing . She appeared in the series from 1981 to its end in 1991...
, Nancy LaMott
Nancy LaMott
Nancy LaMott was a singer, popular on the New York City cabaret circuit in the 1990s. LaMott performed twice at the White House for President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton...
, and Nelson herself. DRG also reissued Nelson’s three solo albums of the 1950s. In early 2001, she was honored at a MAC/ASCAP Songwriters’ Showcase in New York; around that time she made her last appearance at a performance of a revue of her songs, This Life, at the New York cabaret Don’t Tell Mama. By now her cancer had recurred, and the singer died in her apartment on March 6, 2001. At her request, Nelson’s ashes were spread by friends and family at the Kolob Canyons
Kolob Canyons
Kolob Canyons is the northwest section of Zion National Park of Utah, United States. The Kolob Canyons are part of the Colorado Plateau region of the park and are noted for their colorful beauty and diverse landscape. This part of Zion National Park is accessed by a park road about 20 miles south...
in Utah's Zion National Park
Zion National Park
Zion National Park is located in the Southwestern United States, near Springdale, Utah. A prominent feature of the park is Zion Canyon, which is 15 miles long and up to half a mile deep, cut through the reddish and tan-colored Navajo Sandstone by the North Fork of the Virgin River...
, one of her favorite childhood recreational spots. Also per her wishes, the singer's writings, photographs, recordings, press clippings, and personal memorabilia were donated to the New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
to establish the Portia Nelson Archive at the Library for the Performing Arts in New York City.
Works
Discography- Solo albums
- Love Songs for a Late Evening (Columbia Masterworks ML 4722; CD reissue: DRG 91451) Recorded 1952
- Autumn Leaves (Dolphin 4; CD reissue: DRG 91442) Recorded 1955
- Let Me Love You: Portia Nelson Sings the Love Songs of Bart Howard (New Sound NS 3002; CD reissue: DRG 91442) Recorded 1956
- Sunday in New York (Lockett-Palmer CD LPR 941402) Recorded 1959
- Picadilly Pickle: Lady Nelson and the Lords (Dunhill/ABC DS-50028) Recorded 1967
- Guest appearances
- Oklahoma!Oklahoma!Oklahoma! is the first musical written by composer Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs. Set in Oklahoma Territory outside the town of Claremore in 1906, it tells the story of cowboy Curly McLain and his romance...
(Columbia Masterworks ML 4598; CD reissue: Sony 92867) Recorded 1952 - On Your ToesOn Your ToesOn Your Toes is a musical with a book by Richard Rodgers, George Abbott, and Lorenz Hart, music by Rodgers, and lyrics by Hart. It was adapted into a film in 1939....
(Columbia Masterworks ML 4645; CD reissue: Stage Door Records 9002) Recorded 1952 - RobertaRobertaRoberta is a musical from 1933 with music by Jerome Kern, and lyrics and book by Otto Harbach. The musical is based on the novel Gowns by Roberta by Alice Duer Miller...
(Columbia Masterworks ML 4765; CD reissue: DRG 19073) Recorded 1952 - The Boys from SyracuseThe Boys from SyracuseThe Boys from Syracuse is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart, based on William Shakespeare's play, The Comedy of Errors, as adapted by librettist George Abbott. The score includes swing and other contemporary rhythms of the 1930s. The show was the first musical...
(Columbia ML 4837; CD reissue: Sony Broadway SK 53329) Recorded 1953 - The Golden AppleThe Golden Apple (musical)The Golden Apple is a musical adaptation of parts of each of the Iliad and Odyssey epics of Homer, with music by Jerome Moross and lyrics by John Treville Latouche...
(RCA Victor LOC-1014; CD reissue: RCA Victor Broadway 09026-68934-2) Recorded 1954 - The Sound of MusicThe Sound of MusicThe Sound of Music is a musical by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers...
(RCA Victor LSOD-2005; CD reissue: Sony Legacy 88697 79086 2) Recorded 1965 - The Baker’s Wife Mini-Album (Take Home Tunes THT 773) Recorded 1977
- This Life: Portia Nelson – Her Songs and Her Friends (DRG 91445) Recorded 1996
- Oklahoma!
Filmography
- The Sound of MusicThe Sound of MusicThe Sound of Music is a musical by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers...
(1965) - The Trouble with Angels (1967)
- Doctor DolittleDoctor DolittleDoctor John Dolittle is the central character of a series of children's books by Hugh Lofting starting with the 1920 The Story of Doctor Dolittle. He is a doctor who shuns human patients in favour of animals, with whom he can speak in their own languages...
(1967) - The Mystery of the Chinese JunkThe Mystery of the Chinese JunkThe Mystery of the Chinese Junk is Volume 39 in the original The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories published by Grosset & Dunlap.This book was written for the Stratemeyer Syndicate by James Duncan Lawrence The Mystery of the Chinese Junk is Volume 39 in the original The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories...
(1967) - The OtherThe OtherThe Other is a 1972 psychological horror film directed by Robert Mulligan, adapted for film by Tom Tryon, from his bestselling novel. It stars Uta Hagen, Diana Muldaur, and Chris & Martin Udvarnoky.-Plot:...
(1972) - Can’t Stop the Music (1980)
- Rage of AngelsRage of AngelsRage of Angels is a 1980 novel by Sidney Sheldon. The novel revolves around young attorney Jennifer Parker, as she rises as a successful lawyer after being framed for threatening the chief witness against a Mafia boss by mistakenly giving him a dead canary with a broken neck which in turn leads to...
(1983)
TV work (partial list)
- The Steve Allen Show (1952)
- TonightThe Tonight ShowThe Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...
(1953) - The Big ValleyThe Big ValleyThe Big Valley is an American television Western which ran on ABC from September 15, 1965, to May 19, 1969, which starred Barbara Stanwyck, as a California widowed mother. It was created by A.I. Bezzerides and Louis F. Edelman...
(1967) - Chico and the ManChico and the ManChico and the Man is an American sitcom which ran on NBC for four seasons, from September 13, 1974 to July 21, 1978. It stars Jack Albertson as Ed Brown , the cantankerous owner of a run down garage in an East Los Angeles barrio, and Freddie Prinze as Chico Rodriguez, an upbeat, optimistic Chicano...
: “Reverend Bemis’s Alter Ego” (1976) - ABC Weekend Specials: The Ghost of Thomas KempeThe Ghost of Thomas KempeThe Ghost of Thomas Kempe is a novel for children by Penelope Lively published in 1973. The novel won the Carnegie Medal in 1973.-Plot summary:...
(1979) - The Doctors (1981)
- All My ChildrenAll My ChildrenAll My Children is an American television soap opera that aired on ABC from January 5, 1970 to September 23, 2011. Created by Agnes Nixon, All My Children is set in Pine Valley, Pennsylvania, a fictitious suburb of Philadelphia. The show features Susan Lucci as Erica Kane, one of daytime's most...
(1983–1991)