On a Wink and a Prayer: Transforming Your Life When Heartbreak Strikes Featuring Louise Duart Impressionist, Actress, Author, Wife and Mother
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On a Wink and a Prayer: Transforming Your Life When Heartbreak Strikes Featuring Louise DuArt Impressionist, Actress, Author, Wife and Mother Hello, Woman on Fire! It’s Debbie Phillips. Welcome to another edition of our monthly membership program in which I interview an inspiring woman who shares her life in a way that we all can learn from. The woman I’m introducing you to today is someone I first met when I saw her perform her special magic on Martha’s Vineyard. She’s had a long career in show business and continues to work. I thought it would be fun for you to hear how she found her passion, how she’s nurtured it and what it has developed into over the decades. Louise DuArt and her husband, SQuire Rushnell, are partners in life and business. They’re the co-authors of the famous book series When God Winks, and you’ve seen them on The Today Show, where SQuire has a monthly segment on godwinks. But long before Louise met SQuire, she had started a career as a comic actress and was known for her dead-on impersonations of Cher, Joan Rivers, Katharine Hepburn, Carol Burnett and many more. Possibly, the one I love the best is George Burns. In fact, when she does George Burns, I swear I can smell the cigar smoke. I think you’re going to love hearing from her. It was such a delightful interview. In it, you'll learn how she grew up shy and introverted and how the love of a teacher changed her life. She’s going to talk about the low moment in her life when everything changed and she found her passion in her career. Yes, I said the low moment, because it was in a low moment that she discovered what would end up sustaining and serving her for the rest of her life. Louise talks about her process for creating the characters that she imitates. And she talks about what happens when she meets in person the people that she imitates. You’ve got to listen to this! It's really funny. Louise is going to share how she wakes up and gets into the right mindset everyday. More then anything, please listen to how Louise has never ever given up and what sustains her to keep going. She is just such a superb role model for never giving up. I have to tell you, this interview was one of the most delightful ones that I have ever conducted. I wanted to burst out laughing. All of us in the studio did! But had we done that, you wouldn’t have heard all the amazing and funny things she shared and all the wisdom she 1 [email protected] phone: 855-WOF-LOVE fax: 508-202-0005 www.WomenOnFire.com © G R O U P M V, L L C , 2 0 16 On a Wink and a Prayer: Transforming Your Life When Heartbreak Strikes Featuring Louise DuArt Impressionist, Actress, Author, Wife and Mother had to offer. I hope you enjoy this interview. Thank you for being here. Now let’s listen in. Debbie: Hello, Louise DuArt! Welcome to Women on Fire! Louise: I am so thrilled to be here on “Maaahtha’s Vineyud.” Debbie: And you say it right! [laughter] I have wanted to interview you because I have always found you such an inspiring, wonderful human being. Louise: Thank you. I love all the women you interview, so I feel like I’m in this wonderful category. I hope I can come up to the plate and do what I need to do to inspire women. That’s my goal in life — not only to inspire women but also to let people understand that they can do anything they want. They just have to persevere; they have to have that stick-to-it-ness. They have to pray. They have to believe in themselves. Debbie: You have been doing that for a long time. You’ve had this amazing career for decades. Take us back and tell us how you got started. What got you on track to end up in television and entertainment? Louise: It’s an amazing godwink. As you know, godwinks are so much a part of our lives. Godwinks are those little coincidences that aren’t really coincidences. You know when a godwink happens. It’s like you’re sitting at the table with your grandmother, and she gives you a little wink. You wonder, “What did that mean?” But you know it means, “I’m thinking of you, kid. I love you.” That’s what a godwink is. All throughout my life, I have had godwinks, one after another. It really started as a child. I was painfully shy, believe it or not. I was the most shy kid you could ever imagine. As a matter of fact, my fourth-grade teacher came to see me when I was doing a Broadway show, and she said to me, “I can’t believe what I’m seeing! In fourth grade, I used to pick you up, put you on my lap and you wouldn’t look at anyone. I’d have to lift your chin up, and I would talk to you and say, ‘It’s OK.’” I would not talk. I was that shy. What I did was to escape in other characters. I came from a family with a domineering mother. I love her. 2 [email protected] phone: 855-WOF-LOVE fax: 508-202-0005 www.WomenOnFire.com © G R O U P M V, L L C , 2 0 16 On a Wink and a Prayer: Transforming Your Life When Heartbreak Strikes Featuring Louise DuArt Impressionist, Actress, Author, Wife and Mother Debbie: Your mother’s still alive? Louise: My mother’s 98 and a firecracker. Still alive and going strong. I have to say that she was a great inspiration for me. But she was one of those Italian Catholic mothers who thought children should be seen and not heard. She didn’t mean it in a bad way. That’s what her belief system was. So I grew up very shy. But what happened was, as I escaped in these different characters, I found I had almost this power within me. Then some kids at school would notice that I could impersonate them and their mothers. Debbie: [laughter] That probably made you really popular! Louise: This is terrible to admit, but I used to get my friends out of school by calling the nurse’s office and pretending to be their mothers. Debbie: How old were you at this point? Louise: That was in eighth grade. I could do that. I had the ability to do that. My voice was very low, even as a kid. People would call up our telephone at my mother and father’s house, and I’d say, “Hello,” and they’d go, “Herbie?” thinking it was my father. My voice for some reason, even as a kid, was very, very low. As I grew older, I would use these impressions to escape and have fun, but it changed after I was living in Woodland Hills, California, and my husband of 20 years decided he wanted to leave. Debbie: Wow. Louise: Every morning, my friends on the street in Woodland Hills would come over, and we would have a little talk with our coffee, and I would throw in these little impressions. One day I called them together and said, “We need to pray. My husband has left, and I’m afraid we’re going to lose everything.” He also had lost his job; he had some issues there. We started praying and one of my girlfriend said, “Hey, Louise, why don’t you go to one of those comedy clubs and see if you could do those funny voices for a living?” I looked at her like her cheese had slipped off the cracker. I said, “Are you kidding? I can’t go down to one of those sleazy comedy clubs and get on stage.” Remember, I was still the shy kid — only now I was a mom of two children. 3 [email protected] phone: 855-WOF-LOVE fax: 508-202-0005 www.WomenOnFire.com © G R O U P M V, L L C , 2 0 16 On a Wink and a Prayer: Transforming Your Life When Heartbreak Strikes Featuring Louise DuArt Impressionist, Actress, Author, Wife and Mother She Took a Risk and God Winked Louise: Something inside me knew that I had to do it. I knew that was the only way out. I thought if I didn’t take a chance, I was going to lose everything. I got into my car the next week and went down to The Comedy Store on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. I was the only woman standing in line with all these guys for open mic night, where anybody can get up on stage for five minutes. My knees were shaking. The MC [master of ceremonies] called my name, and he said, “Lousy DuArt.” I said, “Yeah, that’s me. Lousy.” I started making my way to the stage and the piano player was tinkling away and, unfortunately, so was I. [laughter] I got up on the stage and I did some impressions. I think I did Joan Rivers. [imitating Joan River’s voice] I loved doing Joan. Ha, ha, ha. I did Cher. [mimicking Cher] I remember I did Cher and Katharine Hepburn. [sliding into impression of Hepburn] I did a little bit of Katharine Hepburn.