CHECK OUT Annie Gaybis’s Story

Originally published in Orlando Voyager  •  October 14, 2025

Today we’d like to introduce you to Annie Gaybis.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?

I have been a performer since childhood. While some of my best friends in elementary school were in the Brownies … my version was going to the Debbie London School of Dance.

When my girlfriends got dropped off by their parents on Saturdays to walk around Reisterstown Plaza — a very popular indoor mall — and couldn’t understand “why” I never wanted to go … the reason was simple: I had discovered dance and acting.

A true Baltimorian, I was lucky enough to have this gifted acting teacher, Ed Golden, at The Creative Arts Workshop. I studied there through 8th grade. He was a very distinguished, educated theater director and went on to start the first professional repertory theater in Baltimore — Center Stage — that is still there to this day.

There might have been eight of us in his class — all girls — and he heard each of us “speak.” He mentioned what his class was going to be about, and one of the major things he planned to do was “to rid us of our Baltimore accents.” He then looked over at me and said, “I will be his biggest challenge.” After class, we talked about it — “What was he talking about, a Baltimore accent?”

Well, THANK GOODNESS, he found me at an early age and trained me right out of the whole thing. In fact, I was asked to be in many of his Center Stage productions and had to get my equity card in order to comply with union rules. Similar to asking “WHAT is a Baltimore accent,” I then had to ask, “WHAT is a union? There is a union for actors?”

I was in 8th grade at the time, and I remember how my father had to have it explained to him by the acting coach I was now studying with, Viviane Shub, that this was an honor. I was the only one in her acting class at Center Stage to be personally asked to perform in the mainstage rep shows — but one HAD TO PAY INTO A MEMBERSHIP TO JOIN AEA to get paid by the theatre. He understood, shook his head, looked at me, and filled out my paperwork.

I was then studying dance with Wally Saunders, who had the greatest dance studio. He also had the Wally Saunders Dancers — the youngest one became me at fourteen. It was 90% adults and a few high school juniors and seniors. Goldie Hawn was in his dance company previous to me and would drive from Washington, DC just to be part of it.

We danced on local television, ballgames, fireworks at Memorial Stadium. There were no recitals — just opportunities to perform, from operettas like The Merry Widow to corporate events.

I was not old enough to drive, so most nights I would be driven home by Wally and his mother, who ran the front desk. I don’t know who wanted me to get my driver’s license more — it’s a toss-up between my father (who had to pick me up from the theatre downtown), me, or Wally.

The reason I got into this so very young was that my mother passed when I was five. According to one of my aunts, I shied away from things like shopping — and I guess she felt shopping was a “WOMAN’S RIGHT OF PASSAGE.” So my Aunt Ruth gathered me up one day for me to see my cousin do a solo at Miss Debbie’s. I couldn’t believe how beautifully my cousin danced to “Maria” from West Side Story … met Miss Debbie with her flaming red hair — she was like my Auntie Mame — plus she had a daughter, Lois, who was just about my age. And my life went in a path that I had no idea where it would lead … but it led into more unions and a career that I am proud of.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?

I don’t think “anything” you do — whatever path you choose — doesn’t have its ups and downs. Armed with a BA from Emerson College — a college that Ed Golden had recommended to my father — and money saved completing Bunny College at the Playboy Club in Boston, I became Bunny Lara.

It was within walking distance from the college during my summer break between junior and senior year, and I worked right up to graduation. I thought I would be employed by Playboy in New York. I settled into a fifth-floor walk-up above a Smilers on 46th and 8th — first, last — bought a chest of drawers, a futon, a couple of plates and pots and pans, a couch and TV, and a landline … and boy, did all that money I saved dwindle.

I had headshots taken in Boston and my résumé run off and bought the two newspapers for theater work in NY — SHOW BUSINESS and BACKSTAGE — and went to AEA’s local office to read the notices put up for auditions. There were no computers; there were no cell phones. I registered — I think they were called ACTORPHONE — where they would take messages for you, kind of like “Bells Are Ringing.”

After I had met the Bunny Mother at the New York club and thought I would be starting there in about three weeks, I got lucky. I somehow met someone who knew someone named Phil Shapiro, who repped many people as their manager. He told Tom and Jan Finnan about me. They choreographed many things, including the line dancers at the Elmwood Casino in Windsor, Ontario.

I wasn’t sure what a line dancer exactly was but was told it was very glamorous and a significant professional credit for my résumé. They were looking for a couple of girls to replace those who left. Later that night, I got a call — two of the girls were leaving their lineup and they took me sight unseen. Of course I have a passport? A passport? You need a passport to go up to Canada?

I applied for a passport but had to get there fast for rehearsals, so I ended up in their car, driving through the border covered up as they went past customs. Then my passport was sent to Phil Shapiro’s office about three weeks later and sent up to me. By that time, I was working as a glam line dancer. I worked there for three months and, in that time, the headliners — for those who may remember — were first the duo Sandler and Young and then Anne Murray.

There were rules. Since we all had nice rooms and meals in the casino (not just in the employee cafeteria) as well as workout space during the day in their ballroom, when you came down for anything, you had to come down in “full makeup” — not “stage makeup” — to keep that illusion of the showgirl if you were eating, drinking, or just walking around, and always neatly dressed. I would put my lashes on in the morning for breakfast (or whenever I sauntered down) and red lipstick, and kept it all on until I added my stage makeup for two shows a night.

That was my first pro job coming to NYC. I developed a club act with arrangements where I could just sing if the stage was small OR sing and dance if the stage was large enough. I worked a bunch for Johnny Martinellis agency. Without a car, I’d take a commuter train and be picked up early for rehearsal; at night another entertainer with a car would drive several of us back to the city — we all chipped in for gas. Sometimes there was drinking on the way back, including the driver … and with those winding, curvy Catskills roads, I was in complete fear. Sometimes I stayed the night at the resort and, in the morning, a valet would drive me back to the train if I got bad vibes about the driver’s condition.

One New Year’s Eve at Mt. Airy Lodge, I wasn’t going back with the designated driver — an entertainer with a rowdy group — and they were sold out at the resort. I slept in a corner of the lounge next to my charts (15-piece charts each), my costume in a zip-up plastic bag, my makeup and shoes in a travel case, purse on the carpet, plus a pillow and blanket until morning.

I did do off-Broadway at the Actors Playhouse: “Tidings, Comfort and Joy,” a too-hip-for-the-critics play in which Jesus was a hip speaker of truth in the ’70s and I, as Mary, worked as a go-go dancer in an East Side lowlife club. I then went onto Broadway in the revival of “Oh! Calcutta!” where I stayed for a year. I won the title “Miss Broadway” — not for being the greatest at song and dance, but a beauty pageant held at the Huntington Hartford Night Club — and that’s what got me to HOLLYWOOD.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?

I am proud that I sustained work after arriving in Hollywood and renting my first apartment — again with no furniture. As soon as I signed the lease, I was offered a long-running revue entitled “City Lites” at the legendary Flamingo in Las Vegas. If I started as a showgirl, I could be the stand-by for the female headlining singer and perform that role once a week on her day off — and the entertainment director promised she wouldn’t be there long because of her high-roller boyfriend who liked to take trips.

My Variety agent, Jerry O’Farrell, who had gotten me the audition in LA, knew of the situation and said he wasn’t lying to me. I left my empty apartment and moved to Las Vegas; soon after I got going in the show, my showgirl time dipped and my singing as her stand-by increased. Within maybe six weeks — there I was — the headlining singer. Just in time for my father to show up … and with the second show topless, he didn’t need to see me in more of the same after “Oh! Calcutta!”

I have danced and acted in bunches of movies (listed on IMDb), traveled with my club act through Japan, Germany, England, Monte Carlo, Aruba, Puerto Rico, etc., opened for well-known comedians (numerous times onstage at Dangerfield’s in New York working with Rodney), and worked with Milton Berle, David Brenner, Jackie Vernon, Jack Carter, Phyllis Diller, Des O’Connor, etc. Through a misreading of an audition in Los Angeles I ended up dancing and acting with the Los Angeles Opera to such an extent that I finally moved across the street from the Dorothy Chandler.

I was proud to receive the Certificate of Esteem from the Department of Defense for doing my own USO show — a 35-day tour of Thailand, the Philippines, and the Marshall Islands. It was a wonderful opportunity to do something for people serving our country, and I am very proud of that.

Sometimes when something didn’t feel right I went with my gut — and sometimes when I didn’t, I wished I had. I had a friend, Jody Barry, an entertainer in his own right, who wrote these words:

SHOW ME THE BUSINESS OF SHOW BUSINESS AND I’LL SHOW YOU NO BUSINESS AT ALL!