Director Lisa D’Apolito follows up her documentary Love, Gilda with another film about a female television icon. Shari & Lamb Chop tells the story of ventriloquist Shari Lewis and her most famous puppet/partner Lamb Chop. New interviews that include family members, modern ventriloquists/puppeteers, and magician David Copperfield alongside archival material of Shari is edited together to present a delightful remembrance of a sweet, driven woman who made her mark in a male-dominated field.
Buy Shari & Lamb Chop DVDShari’s father, Abraham Hurwitz, was a famous, local magician in New York City known as “Peter Pan the Magic Man.” Her mother, Ann, Ann Hurwitz, was a pianist and a music coordinator for the New York Board of Education. With that parentage, Shari was destined for a life in the arts. She was trained as a dancer, but broke her leg. While recuperating, she was given ventriloquism books and was later taught by vaudevillian ventriloquist John W. Cooper.
Her first TV appearance was on Arthur Godfrey Talent Scouts, a talent show which she won, and then got her own show, Facts ‘n’ Fun. An appearance on Captain Kangaroo led her to develop a softer puppet, which became Lamb Chop. She had puppets as well Hush Puppy, Charlie Horse, and Wing Ding. The documentary tracks her various shows, but in the early ’60s, she got canceled as children’s television moved from live action to animation.
She left New York for Hollywood and took on acting jobs. working as an actress. She appeared on on variety shows as a singer, dancer, and magician, but people wanted Lamb Chop. She developed a Vegas nightclub act and Lamb Chop became risque. Unable to find consistent work, she added conducting to her repertoire and learned Japanese to expand her audience. In the ’90s, she had a career resurgence. In 1992, she developed Lamb Chop’s Play-Along for PBS to great success and critical acclaim and then created The Charlie Horse Music Pizza in 1998.
Her personal life would have similar highs and lows. Her first husband Stan Lewis was her childhood sweetheart. He worked on The $64,000 Question, which washit by a cheating scandal that got show canceled. Concerns that Stan would tarnish Shari’s TV career led to their divorce. Her second husband, Jeremy Tancher, was a TV producer when they met. He became a New Age publisher and embraced many counterculture ideas, which Shari did not. Jeremy made selfish decisions that could have ended their marriage. Her daughter Mallory began working with her mother on Lamb Chop’s Play-Along and that strengthened their bond. In 1984, Shari dealt with breast cancer, and in 1998 was diagnosed with an inoperable cancer and given six weeks to live.
Shari & Lamb Chop shines a well-deserved spotlight on a pioneer in children’s television. She created programs intended to engage her viewers rather than pacify them. Her life story offers a great example of what one can do with determination, hard work, and belief in oneself.
