Quote

One of the things I had a hard time getting used to when I came to California in '78 was Santa Claus in shorts.

When I was a teeny little girl, I was in dancing school, and I sang. We had to put a dance to a song, so I went to the 10-cent store one day and looked at all the sheet music. It was all laid out, and I picked 'Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries.'

I was always singing and dancing for my mother when I wasn't glued to the television watching I Love Lucy or the Carol Burnett Show.

When I was ten, I had a weird cinema party where I invited everyone from my street to come. I pretended I was an usher and tried to sell them all popcorn.

I had always sung in choirs. Even when it was something to be laughed at or made fun of, you know, in school. And I was always the kid who was picked at the Christmas concert to sing the solo, you know, while the other kids snickered in the front few rows.

I couldn't live on the singing at first, so I worked as a cleaner, in a launderette, in a garage, face painting and doing the windows of shops at Christmas, 'cause I had been to art college.

Getting to do 'December Songs' in a cabaret-style format was so interesting because it's like a one-woman song cycle that actually tells a story. It feels like a theatrical experience more than a cabaret because I didn't talk in between. We went from one song to the next, nine songs in a row - bam - I told the story in half an hour.

I was on a TV show about dancers for two and a half seasons called 'Bunheads' on ABC Family, and that was really fun for me because I'm a dancer in a real life.

I remember driving to North Carolina when I was a little girl in a snowstorm to get down to my mom's family in the Carolinas. There were chains on the car - it was the late sixties - and we were just singing in the car. Christmas carols.