Ildy Lee A lady of many voices
Ildy Lee at her home in Palos Verdes Estates. Photo
Ildy Lee wants to take us on a voyage, and I’m here to help with the itinerary and to get you to the right gate for boarding. As usual with Ildy, it promises to be a picturesque flight with scenic views from every window.
In more prosaic terms, the longtime Peninsula resident is giving a concert on June 26 at Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes. It’s an encore performance, even though the original event took place 11 years ago. As before, the concert has two parts.
“In the first part,” Ildy explains, “I am taking my audience on a musical tour around the world, and I sing in 12 languages.”
In Hungary, Ildy Lee is known as Lady Los Angeles.
Because Ildy is Hungarian by birth, the first songs are in Hungarian. She’ll tell her audience about her life as a child and why her family left for France. Her next songs, then, are in French. Since she’ll also sing in Italian, Spanish, Croatian, Swedish and Russian, among another language or two, one can deduce which countries we’ll be visiting.
“They can even sing along with me,” she adds. “I sing in the native language of each country.”
One nice thing about this show, she’s told us, is that there’s no jet lag.
Ildy laughs. “I should put this in.”
“The second part of the show is going to be original songs. I studied at UCLA; that’s where I learned my craft. I write in three languages, Hungarian, French, and English, and I’ve written more than 500 songs in those three languages. One of my songs helped build a home for blind children in Mexico City. Another was on the Jerry Lewis Telethon.”
Others were composed for charitable events, several of which she has hosted at her home overlooking the cliffs of Palos Verdes Estates. Ildy does this, she says, to inspire people, and “because we in the entertainment business are role models.”
Ildy Lee, teaching Hungarian history to local high school students.
Barclay, Borromeo, Bradbury
Although Ildy mentions attending UCLA to hone her songwriting skills, her involvement in music and with musical success goes back several decades. For her 16th birthday, her father bought her a guitar and then told her, “My daughter, you have talent, the world is waiting for you. Go out there and make a difference!”
And, living in Paris in the early 1960s, that’s what she set out to do. She was signed by Eddie Barclay of Barclay Records (others on the label included Charles Aznavour, Jacques Brel, and Stéphane Grappelli), and the aspiring artist wrote, recorded, and released several songs. It was the era of Françoise Hardy, Claude François, and Johnny Hallyday. Early photos of Ildy Lee show us a young woman who’s no less stunning that Bridget Bardot. However, with few exceptions, such as “Dominique” by The Singing Nun, French pop stars rarely received airplay in the United States. On the other hand, go to Europe and you’ll always hear American pop.
For a while, at least, Ildy lived a fairytale life. She’s written a book about it, too, called “Perilous Journey,” with a subtitle that says it’s an “Autobiographical family saga through Nazism, Communism, Paris and Hollywood.” So far, it’s only been privately printed but Ildy’s hope is not only for a major publisher but a film deal as well.
Although I’ve not read the manuscript, I’ve known Ildy for several years and can say without hesitation that she’s quirky and a little eccentric, and at this point the reader may be thinking, Hold on, is this journalist her friend or her enemy? But in my eyes these are compliments and admirable traits, for there’s no one else quite like Ildy Lee.
Ildy in one of her many guises, this time as Elvis Presley. She sings and performs many songs by The King of rock and roll.
For example, how many women do we know in their 70s who can perform as an Elvis Presley impersonator on the one hand and on the other serve as the current president of The American Institute of Fine Arts? She is also the outgoing president of the Southwest Manuscripters and has been hosting a regular program for Hungarian television (“Four million people are watching me weekly.”).
Ildy’s book of verse, “Summer in Italy,” is a poetic evocation of time spent in that Mediterranean country during the latter 1960s. It hints at having been a romantic escapade with maybe too many bittersweet memories.
Of course, the unnamed young man wasn’t simply a gondolier or a waiter at an outdoor cafe: “You are the prince of the province,/ I am Juliet, you’re Romeo/ Your bloodline owns the land, the trees/ On this island of Borromeo.”
The volume of poetry is dedicated to Ray Bradbury, who gave Ildy “A goodbye kiss so tender, not an act of folly/ Much sweeter than the one from Salvador Dalí.” The painter Dalí, as Ildy has explained elsewhere, gave her the sort of rough, tongue-probing kiss that would have landed him in the headlines had he done that today. But what can we say about that mad genius? Some friends and I once sent Dalí a letter in a Ziploc sandwich bag.
A four-song 45 rpm single written and recorded by Ildy Lee, released on Barclay Records in 1963.
Designer of dreams
Each year, the Palos Verdes Art Center holds its “Palos Verdes Dream House Raffle” and it’s an exciting lottery with thousands of people hoping for one of the many prizes, even if “the dream home” itself eludes them. The 16th annual drawing recently concluded, but it all started with Ildy Lee: “I am the one who did the original dream home,” she says, “because I remodeled homes also.” After she remodeled the home it was sold to the Art Center, and a tradition was born.
Ildy also remodeled the home where she and her husband George have lived for 25 years. Altogether, she says she’s lived on the peninsula for about 35 years.
One last thing that should be emphasized is Ildy’s generosity, which has been acknowledged near and far, including certificates of recognition from the City of Los Angeles, given by former Mayor Tom Bradley, and the County of Los Angeles, given by Mike Antonovich (the latter on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution).
A 45 rpm single recorded by Ildy Lee on Barclay Records.
Evidently they realized the good that Ildy has done for the larger community.
As an entertainer and public figure, she points out that, “We have to be careful what we are giving to the public because we have responsibilities, and my responsibility is to make people understand that we are on this planet to help each other, to be kind to each other, and to bring love. Love to me is the most important thing, and this theme is across all my work, in my books, in my poetry, and in my songs. I want to touch lives, and I think I accomplish that in my endeavors and concerts.”
She works hard at it, too. Ildy often gets by on just four hours of sleep (emails from her come at all hours of the day or night), but when we consider how much she continues to be involved with it’s no surprise.
She mentions that her television program in Hungary is watched by people on all sides of the political spectrum, which doesn’t seem like an easy feat to achieve.
“My motto,” she explains, “is that politics divides people, sometimes in a very mean and ugly way, but the arts that I represent unite people. That’s why art is extremely important in our lives.”
Ildy Lee performs a “Musical Tour Around the World” as well as original songs on Tuesday, June 26, at 7:30 p.m. in Wayfarers Chapel, 5755 Palos Verdes Drive South, Rancho Palos Verdes. Tickets, $25, with an after-concert reception. (310) 377-1650 ext. 2.