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When I got to the theatre, my heart sank. There was a very long line of young actors—male and female—waiting outside to audition for Mike Nichols, the director; Saint Suber, the producer; and Neil Simon. Then a man came out to the line and gave us each a number that signified who we would be reading with. My partner was Marty Milner. I didn’t know him then, but years later he would have a successful TV series called Route 66.

But that day we were two little nobodys among hundreds of nobodys. We finally got in and read for Mike Nichols. He was extremely encouraging and kind. He laughed at what we did, and when we were finished he hopped onto the stage, gave us notes and asked us to do it again. That was a good sign.

The next day I got a call to come back. After reading for them just one more time, I was told I had the part. I was beyond thrilled—that is, until I found out that I hadn’t been reading for the New York replacement after all. Penny Fuller, Ashley’s understudy, had been promised that plum. Instead, I was being offered the year-long national touring company.

I turned it down. My agents were stunned and asked me why.

“I just cannot travel this country for a year being compared to my father,” I said. “I’ll go crazy giving interview after interview answering questions in every city, not about my work, but how it feels to be Danny Thomas’s daughter. It will be a nightmare for me. It will kill my spirit.”

My agents threatened that I would never again be taken seriously after turning down such a break. That stopped me.

“Let me ask you something,” I said. “Who did the great Anne Bancroft part for the national company of Two for the Seesaw?”

Silence.

So I didn’t do it.

Months later, I read that they were casting for the London company of Barefoot. I knew that would be just what my spirit and I needed—to get out of the country, go where my father wasn’t so well known, and stand or fall on my own. I wanted to try out for it, but I was afraid my agents had had their fill of Barefoot and me and wouldn’t be supportive.

I paced in front of a phone booth in Greenwich Village and finally got the guts to call Mike Nichols at his office at Warner Bros. I feared he wouldn’t take the call—but he did. I asked him if he remembered me. He did. I asked him if there was a chance I could read for the part of Corie for the London company.

Silence.

“What a good idea,” he said.

I don’t know if it was the sweat from my hands or the tears from my eyes, but everything was so slippery that I actually dropped the phone. I got the part and went to London.

We had a terrific cast. English actor Dan Massey played the Robert Redford part, and Kurt Kaszner and Millie Natwick had come from the New York company to re-create their roles. We “toured the provinces,” as they say, trying out the play in Bournemouth, Brighton and South Sea. They’re summer resorts, really, so most everything was closed up, and our only entertainment was each other. So we all hung out together and became close friends. (Dan and I became even closer.)

Giving ’em hell as Corie in Barefoot in London.

I’ll always remember the opening night at the Piccadilly Theatre in London. The audience laughed nonstop, but nothing was as funny as what happened just offstage. Dan was a terrific actor, but he had a hard time with the last moment of the play, when he had to laugh hysterically as he drunkenly headed for the door. Everything had gone so well up until then. We were on the five-yard line, and I remember thinking, Go for it, Danny! But that night when he opened the door, Kurt was standing on a chair—out of the audience’s eyeshot—bent over, and all you could see was his bare butt with a daisy sticking out of it. Dan laughed hysterically all right. Only problem was, I had to chew off half my cheek not to laugh, too. God, it was a funny sight.

It was a great night. My parents had flown over for the opening, and it was

a triumph—for Neil Simon and all of the actors. At the end, the ovations seemed to go on forever. My dear