Every so often, throughout my life, this woman has popped up on my television. Maybe I saw her first on the Tonight show with Johnny Carson? I don’t know. I always thought she was unique and very funny, and I was happy to watch anytime she randomly showed up (yes, in the dark ages before video-on-demand). Even this past year, when she popped up on my YouTube feed, I watched and even shared some clips with my comedian friends (true story!).
So when I had an opportunity to interview her this week, I jumped at the chance. But I had no idea what I’d learn!
Prepping for the interview, I did a deep dive into her life, and I was shocked. There was so much more to this talented person than I ever knew! – Multiple Broadway shows, a dancing career, a writer and performer in TV, Movies and author of several books. She even had a Las Vegas theater built FOR HER. Yes! A 1500 seat theater, which she filled during her 12 year run (it’s also the longest-running solo comedy show in Vegas history).
Boy, I felt dumb for not knowing anything at all about her huge background.
But it gets even more interesting:
Rita grew up in Florida, and her mother passed away when she was 13. This was part of a snowball that inspired Rita to double up on her education workload and graduate from high school early.
At age 14, she took a trip with her best friend to New York, where she auditioned for the Radio City Rockettes and was asked for a callback. She didn’t get to audition again, as she needed to go home to Florida. But the next year, upon graduating from high school, she demanded of her father that he let her go alone to New York to pursue her career.
So there she was, alone at age 15 and getting a room at the Barbizon Hotel for Women. Buying Backstage and Show Business newspapers, and running out to auditions. But this didn’t last long, as within 3 months she booked the national tour of Zorba, with Chita Rivera and John Raitt!
And months later, when the tour ended, she went right into the Broadway cast of Promises, Promises.
I asked Rita how all of this happened. For Zorba she says, “I’ve been studying dance since I was four. And I guess it's a little bit that I was the right size and had the right hair color. And I was a good dancer. And they just said, let's hire her! So I just remember calling my father collect at the payphone downstairs at the Barbizon Hotel ,saying, I'm going around the country with these people…”
StageBuddy: “By the time you went into Zorba, you were only 16 and cast as a swing covering for all of these performers. How did they cast such a young person with all of this responsibility?”
Rita Rudner: "They obviously didn't know how old I was! Nobody asked me. I wasn't even Equity. I just auditioned from an open call.”
StageBuddy: “And for Promises, Promises?”
Rita Rudner: “My friend Spencer Henderson, who was a dancer in Zorba, recommended me to audition for a replacement in Promises, Promises. So I went right into Promises.”
From there, Rita went on a streak of Broadway shows. Follies, The Magic Show, Mack & Mabel, So Long, 174th Street, and a six year run as “Lily St. Regis” in Annie.
It was during this run of Annie that she had the time, and wisdom, to look at her career trajectory and think about her future. As a dancer, she often faced thousands of other dancers at auditions. What if she could find a niche that didn’t have as much competition? And also didn’t have as much of an age cap as dancing?
That’s when she thought about comedy.
She calculated that her odds were significantly better attempting stand-up comedy, a field that, in the late 1970s, severely lacked prominent female voices—noting the scarcity of female comedians compared to the abundance of dancers.
This pivot was not an artistic outburst, but a disciplined intellectual decision. Remember that she graduated high school early? And that she studied dance since age four? – She has always been rigorous and demanding of herself. Precision, timing, and repetition—core elements of ballet. She took these elements and translated them into joke writing.
Rita Rudner: “I went to the Lincoln Center Library in Manhattan,” and she went there day after day, studying how to write a joke. Pulling apart the material of Woody Allen, Jack Benny, and more. And then she started taking her first 5 minutes of standup out to the clubs.
Rita Rudner: “I would go from Annie to the Improv, and then take the bus across town to Catch. Sometimes I would just go home because my slot wasn't until 2am. – I was out every night at comedy clubs.”
StageBuddy: “That’s amazing that you were going straight from your Broadway show to your comedy gigs. I guess there was a lot of sitting around waiting to go on?”
Rita Rudner: “You're not alone. I found it very comforting to go to comedy clubs and to see all of my friends. I wrote jokes with a woman called Marjorie Gross, who later was writing on Seinfeld and wrote a lot of sitcoms. And we would sit there and craft jokes together. And I would listen to other people's acts and try to figure out why a joke worked one night and it didn't work another night. So it wasn't boring. It was fun. And it was an education.”
I would love to write here about each step in Rita’s life. But she’s already written her own books on that!
But I WILL encourage you to go see this amazing lady at 54 Below this coming October 10th and 11th (2025!) – She’s a joy to watch and totally worth your time.
I’ll leave you with this little passage from our conversation. I asked Rita about writing twice for the Academy Awards show, both for Steve Martin and Whoopi Goldberg:
Rita Rudner: “With Steve, he called me and he said, I like your jokes. You want to write the Oscars? I said, yes! – Six months before, we would start meeting, along with John Max and Bruce Vilanch. First once a month, then once every two weeks, once a week, and then every day. And it was really, really fun. He had a nice chef and we had really great food and we laughed the whole time. And I looked forward to it.
The thing about comedy is – it's really fun.”
