Parading Jo Anne Worley

Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In fans will know Jo Anne Worley but they may not know Herminio Traviesas. Yet he had an ever greater effect on the show than Worley or any of the other cast members.

He was the NBC censor assigned to the show.

In 1970, Traviesas set his sights on one of Worley’s lines in the cocktail party segment: “Boris wanted a memento of our love, so he bronzed the back seat of the car.” Traviesas demanded it be taken out. “My job is to take out as many dirty jokes as I can,” he said. Executive producer George Schlatter sputtered: “You’re ruining the show! I've seen Dean Martin get away with worse than that.”

Whether it stayed in or out, I don’t remember, but Worley was always doing something loud and “zany,” a term that was probably passé when Laugh-In debuted in 1968. We dug out some old newspaper clippings about her last year. Here are some more. First, from King Features Syndicate papers of February 9, 1969.

A TV Keynote Feature
Laugh-In Has Bold Brassy Female To Keep Show's Tempo at Fast Pace
By CHARLES WITBECK
HOLLYWOOD.—There's always one in a crowd—the big, noisy, extrovert who helps set the room temperature. On "Laugh-In" Monday nights, the big laugher is a lady—dark-haired, boisterous Jo Anne Worley, endowed with a bray that bounces off walls, a kind of picker-upper inserted when the tempo threatens to cool off. Miss Worley's laugh is sorely needed in these troubled times, a commercial item keeping Jo Anne steadily employed except for one month during the last eight years. That's a pretty good track record for young comediennes.
Jo Anne comes by her loudness naturally, being raised on a Lowell, Ind., farm. "We did not have to worry about disturbing the neighbors," she says. "We yelled at the pigs and let go in general. Both my sister and I can never be accused of being quiet."
In Las Vegas
Laughing just comes naturally to Jo Anne. Over the Christmas holidays Ruth Buzzi, Allan Suess [sic], Dave Madden and Miss Worley played Las Vegas with bosses Rowan and Martin, performing "Laugh-In" type blackouts. Between shows the kids caught a hypnotist act and soon were on stage as guinea pigs. Ruth Buzzi went under at the count of two, even allowing the practitioner to stand on her 108- pound frame, while Jo Anne fell into a giggling spell.
"I couldn't open my eyes," she recalls. "It was a ticklish sensation which made me roar with laughter."
Jo Anne should have brought the hypnotist along on New Year's Day when she rode the Silver Slipper float in Pasadena's Tournament of Roses, because it was no fun. After finishing the Las Vegas midnight show with the "Laugh- In" gang on New Year's Eve, the comedienne took a 3 a.m. plane for Los Angeles in order to be in Pasadena at 5 a.m. She arrived at the parade formation area at 6 a.m. Both Jo Anne and her driver were unable to find the float, and officials were just as vague. The actress finally spotted the beauty, then stood by until 10:30 a.m. without coffee or any other relief, joking with the crowd.
"That was physical work," she reports. "Reacting to all those people. They wanted 'Laugh-In' gags and I did my best until I learned to pantomime, indicating a sore throat." Jo Anne was stunned by the number of youngsters who knew her name and her routines. "They know you so well," she said in awe. "Last spring Goldie Hawn and I felt we were doing absolutely nothing on the show. Then, this summer we went out on the road and discovered the 'little nothing bits' counted. The Rose Parade proved it once more."
It also taught Miss Worley a lesson about parades. Her float had mechanical troubles which almost crushed her at one point. At the end the actress dismounted with relief, thinking the worst was over, only to spend 4 hours getting out of Pasadena traffic.
“The only way they can get me back is to make me Queen,” she says.
Like many of the young comedy talents considers herself a writer, putting together her own nightclub act, using her wacky songs on "Laugh-In." Now she's reached the point in the club business where agents suggest hiring writers whose material isn't up to her standards. "They're submitting things I rejected when I was writing," she says, "and that rubs me the wrong way."
Jo Anne can't sit down and turn out material because she's trained another way—trying out gags before audiences in New York clubs like Upstairs at The Duplex where she once worked with Joan Rivers and Dick Cavett. She would chatter about her days as a door-to-door sales lady for Dabit, or her job as truck stop waitress. When the dialogue fell flat, Jo Anne mode faces, giggled and moved out among the audience, marking time while she was feverishly thinking of something. She can sweat out a crowd, but sitting down at a desk to write is simply too hard.
“I was born under the sign of Virgo,” she adds, “so I tend to be over-critical of myself.” For assurance and advice Jo Anne often consults a voice teacher who dispenses astrology lore, telling her former pupil "she can make things happen," offering general clues to future plans.
So far the voice teacher has high marks. "When I'm going out with a guy I bring him around to my friend to check him out," say Jo Anne. "It's handled very diplomatically and I can tell by her attitude if there's no future to the guy. The thing is not I get married if you can cool it.
There's another routine that should become a Worley act. Now if she can only talk it out or break the habit—sit down and let it just come out!

And now from another of the syndication services, dated May 3, 1970.

Jo Anne Worley Says: "I Want to Be Loved!"
By PEER J. OPPENHEIMER
ATTACHED to Jo Anne Worley's telephone is a sign which boldly proclaims "I AM LOVED!"—almost as if she were trying to convince herself. And therein lies the struggle of tv's "Laugh-In" star, famous for her loud, raucous laughter, feathers and fringes, and exaggerated style of comedy.
From the very beginning of "Laugh-In," which made its debut in January of 1968, Jo Anne Worley has capitalized on her special brand of camp. Her now familiar offstage whoop heralds an on-camera performance in which Jo Anne mugs, hugs, sings, dances, makes google eyes, and casually tosses off throaty comic lines.
In private life, however, Jo Anne is shy and introverted, particularly where men are concerned. She has a down-to-earth Midwestern attitude, a religious background that causes her much consternation over today's changing mores, and a yearning to be loved.
This wanting to be loved dates back to her early school days in Lowell, Ind., when she towered head and shoulders over her classmates. "It was impossible to find a boy who could get enthused about that!" she exclaimed. (Today she stands 5' 8½" and weighs 135—"I'd like 10 pounds less!") Yet when she did start to date, Jo Anne's strict upbringing ("I was brought up under the commandment 'Thou shalt not touch'") caused her to be painfully insecure.
Jo Anne's childhood prepared her for hard work all right, but not necessarily theatrical work. She was one of five children who lived on a farm. She learned the meaning of taking one's responsibility, seriously. As soon as Jo Anne was old enough, she had to help with the farm chores—milking cows and feeding livestock.

It was not until Jo Anne began to feel something of a misfit in school because of her height that she struggled for acceptance through other means. She soon discovered that a gay, loud, and outwardly assured manner could cover up a lot of inner insecurities. Before long, Jo Anne became the "star" entertainer of her high school. The fact that she was not cast as a romantic type bothered her, but she kept that fact secret. Openly, she was a-laugh-a-minute. And very popular.
After graduating, Jo Anne headed for Los Angeles and moved in with her sister, who was living there. Jo Anne planned to attend City College there and get a secretarial job on the side. But soon she got wind of some auditions, turned up for them, and was signed for a spot with the "Billy Barnes People" revue which went on tour and ended up in New York.
Finding herself out of work, Jo Anne began making the New York audition scene and found that her old Hoosier luck had not left her completely. She found work in a number of small night-club revues, which opened the door to some tv-talk shows, particularly Merv Griffin's. A major break came when she understudied Carol Channing on Broadway in "Hello, Dolly." She then went to Las Vegas to appear on the "Bill Dana Show" and landed a regular spot with Joey Bishop's, "Son of a Gun Valley Players."
During this period, Jo Anne was in a good position to hear of anything that was happening on tv. And by now she had developed her comic personality more than ever. So it wasn't surprising when a friend told her about auditions for "Laugh-In" and thought she would be perfect for it. Executive producer George Schlatter thought she was perfect, too, and hired her for the show.
Jo Anne is the only one of her family never to have married. Some day she would like to—very much. And have a couple of children. She stems from a belief in marriage, a home, a life shared.
Currently there is a man in her life, actor Roger Perry, an old friend whom she met when she first went to Los Angeles and worked at the Music Box Theatre. Time will tell whether Jo Anne has finally overcome her shyness and insecurity enough to really share her whole life and allow herself to be loved and love in return. Sighed Jo Anne, "It would be lovely to get married—if it worked out. I am really a very normal human being! Otherwise I'd be in a nuthouse."