From Middlemay Circle to the Marquee: Pia Zadora’s Queens Roots

Pia Zadora’s career has long been reduced to a late-night punchline—a cautionary tale of 1980s vanity projects, bought awards, and commercial blunders. Yet behind the tabloid noise sits an unexpected, far more disciplined origin story. Before she became a target for Johnny Carson monologues or the patron saint of the Razzies, she was Pia Alfreda Schipani, a shy girl navigating a double life between the red-brick quiet of Forest Hills Gardens and the grimy grind of the Manhattan theater world.[1]

Middlemay Circle and Stage-Door Roots

Though born across the river in Hoboken on May 4, 1954, Schipani spent her childhood tucked away in Queens.[2] Forest Hills Gardens wasn’t an ordinary suburb; developed in 1909 by the Russell Sage Foundation, architect Grosvenor Atterbury, and Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., it was a meticulously planned oasis of winding roads, Tudor facades, and heavy green canopies designed to keep the city at arm’s length.[3]

Her home sat on Middlemay Circle, a secluded loop off the main drags.[2] Inside, however, the atmosphere was far from pastoral retreat. Her father, Alphonse Schipani, was a working Italian-American violinist scraping out a living in Broadway pit orchestras and commercial studios, eventually playing on soundtracks like The Wiz and Fame.[4] Her mother, Saturnina “Nina” (née Zadorowski), worked backstage as a wardrobe supervisor for the Metropolitan Opera and Broadway houses.[5] Show business on Middlemay Circle was not treated as glamorous stardust; it was an exacting trade where punctuality, stamina, and union dues paid the bills.[6]

When Pia later needed a stage name, she cut down her mother’s Polish maiden name to “Zadora,” keeping her working-class maternal roots firmly attached to her marquee billing.[2]

The Nuns, The Commute, and Fiddler

The tension between the quiet enclave and the commercial stage surfaced early. Schipani attended Our Lady Queen of Martyrs School over on Ascan Avenue, an institution that turned out neighborhood kids from all walks of life—including, later, actors David Caruso and Ray Romano.[7]

In class, young Pia was painfully withdrawn. Her quietness was so severe that the nuns worried she had developmental delays.[6] Saturnina’s fix was characteristically blunt: she dragged the six-year-old into acting classes and open auditions to forcibly break her out of her shell.[6]

Suburban normalcy ended right there. By age seven, while other kids were riding bikes along the brick pathways of the Gardens, Pia was riding the E train into Manhattan with her mother in tow.[5] Saturnina routinely marched the child to the front of union unemployment lines, demanding early clearance because the girl had an afternoon bell to make back in Queens.[5] Parochial school soon gave way to professional tutoring, the Lincoln Square Academy, and the High School of Performing Arts.[2]

Her early stage work was high-caliber. At age seven, she shared a Broadway stage with Tallulah Bankhead in Midgie Purvis (1961).[8] Three years later, she was cast as Bielke, Tevye’s youngest daughter, in the original 1964 Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof.[8] For two years at the Imperial Theatre, she shared cues with Zero Mostel, who nicknamed her his “little shiksa” and taught her stage presence, while stagehands kept watch over her arithmetic homework between curtain calls.[2] That same year, she made her screen debut as Girmar in the holiday oddity Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, belting its theme song and unknowingly securing her first slice of camp history.[1]

Backlash and Survival

In the 1970s, the artisanal stage path was abruptly upended. While touring regional theaters, Zadora met corporate mogul Meshulam Riklis, thirty years her senior. They married in 1977.[5] Riklis decided his new wife should be a megastar, bankrolling an aggressive push that plastered her across billboards as the “Dubonnet Girl” and financed the 1981 drama Butterfly.[1]

When Zadora walked away with the 1981 Golden Globe for New Star of the Year amid rumors Riklis had treated voters to Vegas junkets, Hollywood erupted.[1] The Razzies pounced, handing her Worst Actress and Worst New Star in the same breath, and late-night television treated her as a stand-in for unearned privilege.[1] Exploitation films like The Lonely Lady only fed the fire.[2]

Yet instead of folding under national ridicule, Zadora leaned on the tough hide she’d developed commuting out of Queens as a kid. She had genuine chops and refused to disappear. She leaned into self-parody with John Waters in Hairspray (1988) and poked fun at herself in The Naked Gun 33⅓.[1]

More importantly, she returned to music. Pivoting away from dance-pop, she hit London studios with the London Philharmonic Orchestra to record Great American Songbook standards on Pia & Phil (1985) and I Am What I Am(1986).[2] Critics were stunned to find she could actually sing. Frank Sinatra took note, hand-picking her to open for him and Don Rickles on tour, which finally won over even skeptical television hosts like Johnny Carson.[9]

Breaking the Cycle

Zadora stepped back onto Broadway in 1995 for Crazy for You, but life took another turn with the birth of her son Jordan in 1997.[8] When he was diagnosed with developmental challenges, Zadora did what her own mother never would have considered: she walked away from the business entirely for fifteen years.[9] Having spent her own childhood shuffled between rehearsals and dressing rooms, she opted to give her son the calm, unhurried youth she had lost.[9]

She returned to the spotlight only when Jordan reached high school, setting up a steady, intimate cabaret residency, Pia’s Place, at Piero’s Italian Cuisine in Las Vegas in 2013.[9]

Looking back, Zadora has always credited Queens for keeping her intact through decades of brutal industry weather: “When I was younger, I was kind of like a horse with blinders… I was this little Polish girl from Queens and my mother was this tough stage mother and she just pushed me through.”[2] The manicured calm of Middlemay Circle gave her a sanctuary; her mother gave her the armor. Between the two, Pia Zadora ended up outlasting the jokes.[6]

Sources:

[1] KATZ, E, NOLEN, R D. The Film Encyclopedia[EB/OL]. 7th ed. (2012)[2026-09-28]. https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-film-encyclopedia-7th-edition-ephraim-katzronald-dean-nolen.

[2] POP CULTURE CLASSICS. Pia Zadora: On Singing, “Lonely Lady,” Santa Claus Conquers[EB/OL]. (2014).

[3] FOREST HILLS GARDENS FOUNDATION. Grosvenor Atterbury and the Forest Hills Gardens Experiment[EB/OL].

[4] DISCOGS. Alphonse Schipani Discography: Vinyl, CDs, & More[EB/OL].

[5] BROWN, P H. The Dubonnet Girl’s Million-Dollar Break[EB/OL]. The Washington Post, (1982-02-14).

[6] ZADORA, P. Interview on “Too Short to Be a Rockette”[EB/OL]. Syndicated Television Broadcast, (1992-05-30)

[7] OUR LADY QUEEN OF MARTYRS. Parish and School History[EB/OL]. (2025).

[8] THE BROADWAY LEAGUE. Pia Zadora – Broadway Cast & Staff[EB/OL]. Internet Broadway Database, (2026)[2026-09-28]. https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/pia-zadora-65715.

[9] KATSILOMETES, J. At Piero’s, Pia Zadora Finds a Home for Her Songs and Stories[EB/OL]. Las Vegas Review-Journal, (2014-01-19)