It’s hard to argue that the role of actress Sally Kellerman’s life wasn’t that of Maj. Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan in Robert Altman’s 1970 smash “M*A*S*H.”
The part of the hyper-sexualized nurse at a mobile Army surgical hospital during the Korean War won Kellerman her only Academy Award nomination. It so defined her career of 50 years and 55 movies that she called her 2013 memoir “Read My Lips: Stories of a Hollywood Life.”
But Kellerman says another major constant, not only in her career but her in life, has been music.
The actress says she hopes to show that in “From Hot Lips to Cool Jazz, Blues and Rock ‘n’ Roll,” a night of singing at 8 p.m. Jan. 24 at The Rrazz Room, the supper club at The Ramada New Hope.
In fact, Kellerman says music and movies have co-existed — or, perhaps more precisely, battled — in her career from the beginning.
In a recent telephone call from her home in Hollywood Hills, Kellerman talked about her dual pursuit of careers in acting and music, what it meant for her career, and the future.
Here’s an edited transcript of the call.
SALLY KELLERMAN: “I’m looking forward to the show. I love the Rrazz guys. I used to sing in their club in San Francisco.”
LEHIGH VALLEY MUSIC: Describe the show.
“Well, it’s a little jazz, a little blues, a little rock and roll. I never picked a lane, so …[Laughs]”
Describe your singing career. You got signed to a recording contract at 18?
“Right out of high school I got signed by Verve Records, a big jazz label at the time. Barney Kessel signed me – a famous jazz guitarist. And Norman Granz was head of the company. It was Ella Fitzgerald and … Mel Torme and all my heroes. And I was so scared that I never made anything.
“You know, in high school, I put trios together. I was always singing. I’d sing everywhere I went. And people said, ‘Oh, you must be so happy,’ and I’d think, ‘Huh? Happy? I didn’t even know I was singing.’
[After signing the deal] “I just disappeared into acting class, where I could be nurtured. I was such a kind of naive and kind of chubby and didn’t like myself and all that kind of stuff. So in acting class, you were there with all these other people and I felt if I had to sing, I’d be singing all alone. I didn’t know anybody. I was so young and so not developed mentally.
“So anyway, time went by and acting took off and I started making movies. And the minute I was nominated for an Academy Award for my role in ‘M*A*S*H,’ the thought in my head was, ‘OK, I got that set. Now I’m going to go work on my music. Immediately – ‘OK, done.’
“Of course, I wasn’t done. I should have waited until I won and not turned down so many big blockbusters going on the road for three months with film-makers running after me: ‘You believe in magic, you think it’ll be here when you get back.”
“My music has just been a passion that just wouldn’t die. And I never wanted one without the other. But I wanted soul, and so I wanted to be the real deal – a real singer, not just an actor who sings, you know?
So finally in 1972 you do put a record out.
“Oh yes, by then I was making ‘Brewster McCloud,’ the second film with [Director Robert] Altman. And Lou Adler produced the movie. And Lou Adler is a famous rock ‘n’ roll record producer. He produced Sam Cooke, The Mamas and the Papas, Carole King. And while he was producing Carole King … I had one song, a rock ‘n’ roll song, and I sang every night after shooting in Houston, Texas. I’d get up and Altman would be there and Lou Adler and I’d get up and sing ‘Hurt So Bad,’ a Bobby Hart song and ‘Lazy Afternoon.’
“And I’d go ‘Lou, I can do it. Lou, I can do it.’ And he said, ‘OK, I’ll make a demo with you.’ And then I got laryngitis immediately – I woke up the next morning. But anyway, he did” … she used Carole King’s rhythm section. “I could have had her playing, too, but a friend of mine said, ‘You’d better get someone you’re really comfortable with.’ So that led to my first album, ‘Roll with a Feeling,’ which is kind of Janis Joplin influenced. And I got four stars.
“But I went off making a movie. I was so thrilled I made the album, it didn’t occur to me to have to promote it. ” She says he head another actress playing the album in her room during the filming of “Slither.” “I think that was what I thought was enough for me, somebody liked it.”
“But I’ve been in Nashville, I’ve been in Muscle Shoals, I’ve been anywhere they’ll have me. My most recent CD I’m really proud of. Grammy winning Album of the Year guy [engineer]Val Garay, and I had all these great musicians from all the records up and down the ’70s and the ’80s.”
What made you finally decide to put it out?
“I didn’t just decide – I’d been working at it. I made half an album in Muscle Shoals, made a couple singles in Nashville. I was always working on it. And I played in every club, from one end of the city to the other in L.A.
“I had worked at The Roxy, a famous Los Angeles rock club, singing standards, because I didn’t know what to sing. Hal David [partner of Bacharach] put me in touch with a keyboard guy I work with named Chris Caswell – who wrote and arranged songs for the Daft Punk Album of the Year.
“That’s a funny co-incidence, cause he can play anything. He’s been Paul Williams’ keyboard player for years. I had worked with Michael Orland from ‘American Idol,’ but Hal said [assumes a stern voice], ‘You’re going to work with Chris Caswell.’ And so we did, and we just had a great association. He wrote for me — two or three songs.
“We went to a little dive called The Genghis Cohen, which seats about 50 people at the most. My older daughter loved it – she goes, ‘I love to tell me friends my mom works out at Genghis Cohen, where all the young kids with a guitar go [laughs].”
“And we just kept bring in new material constantly. “
So you continued singing throughout the height of your acting career?
“Yes, always putting some act together at a club in town. Always. Sometimes there were more people in the band than there were in the audience.”
It’s been five years since your last album. Are you working on anything new?
“Has it really been that long? Time flies. So now we’re gathering new material, and there’ll be a new CD somewhere along the line.”
Why is “M*A*S*H” still such a touchstone for your career?
“[Laughs] I know. It doesn’t matter how long the series was on or how long it’s been gone, I’ll go somewhere and hear a truck driver say, ‘Hey, Hot Lips!’ I’ve made about 50 movies – a lot of good ones and some hummers, you know along the way [Laughs]. But it just doesn’t go away.
“Robert Altman was just so good, and supportive. He was always being honored, and honored and honored and honored. When I made [the film] ‘Prêt-a-Porter’ [in 1994], he Flew me and Lauren Becall on the Concord from Paris to New York for a gathering honoring him.”
Yet you passed up the role in his film “Nashville.”
“That wasn’t a decision, that was an accident. He called me up and I was kind of believing my own publicity by now, and so he calls me one day from the set and he said, ‘Will you be in my next film?’ And I said, ‘Well, if the part is good.’ Bang! He hung up the phone, and it turned out to be ‘Nashville.’ And I should have called him back .. but he was arrogant and I was arrogant and it was just a happy little accident.
“I would have been in so many more, ’cause he was like, ‘Well, get out of it and do mine.’ But we were close right up until the day he died. And he was always into my music. He came to my shows, he hosted shows for me and he really believed in me and that meant a lot to me.”
You did a stint on the TV soap opera “The Young and The Restless” last year. How did that come about?
“They just called me and asked if I could do it. Just out of the blue. I only signed on for 10 [episodes] ’cause I didn’t know if I could hack it. But I’m going to call her today and say, ‘hey, I’ll do another 10. But it was fun.”
And if the website IMDb is to be believed, you have a bunch of movies in the works.
“I have two movies that I did in this last year and a half. In one I sing — one song.”
What made you write your autobiography now?
“It wasn’t an autobiography. It was a memoir. I was pushed into it, is the way I see it. I never wanted to write a book, and my husband said, ‘Bullsh–, you’ve been writing ever since I met you.’ It’s just a memoir – some sad things, some jolly things, some things I’ve learned. But I enjoyed it. That was a surprise.”
Anything else?
“I’ve been married to my husband for 35 years now. I have three children. My older daughter, my really older daughter, is soon to become my younger sister. [Laughs] And I have 25-year-old twins.”
SALLY KELLERMAN, From Hot Lips to Cool Jazz, Blues and Rock ‘n’ Roll, 8 p.m. Saturday Jan. 24, Rrazz Room, 6426 Lower York Road, New Hope. Tickets: $35 general admission, $45 limited up-close VIP seating. Info: www.therrazzroom.com, 888-596-1027.
