Saratoga Ballantine & Dea Lawrence

Los Angeles, California, United States

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TROUPERS, a documentary feature about actors over 80 in Hollywood

“Troupers” Director’s Notes Saratoga Ballantine and Dea Lawrence   For the past seven years we’ve been on the long journey of making the documentary feature, “Troupers” “on the side” of our careers as actors and businesswomen. The original concept was to shoot a short and take a couple of weeks to edit it, but once we started filming, the stories were too rich to contain to 20 minutes. Thankfully our 12 troupers opened up their homes to us and we quickly uncovered that once someone hits 80, their filter fades away and they tell you just how it is and was.   Shot in Hollywood and Palm Springs, with the exception of actors we had worked with, most of the performers came from the address book of Ceil Cabot, Saratoga’s spirited and talented mom. Her father is Carl “The Amazing” Ballantine, so it was easy to grab shooting time with him as long as we took him out for a delicious uncomplicated meal afterwards. Once Army Archerd from Variety found out about the project he insisted we include the gifted Allan Rich.   Running around Hollywood with a camera, typing up every word we shot ourselves,  combing through hundreds of photos and clips, while continuing our demanding day jobs had it’s downside. One afternoon in Jane Kean’s perfectly appointed living room in Toluca Lake, Dea keeled over in a faint from hunger. Harold Gould set up some of his shots himself; from her sofa, Betty Garrett took us through an archive of her personal photos of her days at MGM; we were barred from shooting Kaye Ballard in her dressing room at the Palm Springs Follies and then escorted off the property during an attempt to salvage our aborted shoot!                  The project really came to life when we brought Gabe Miller onboard as our editor and associate producer. We’d sit with him in the evening and cut and then cut again. Associate producer Jeff Chayette’s artistry added dimension to the photos, graphics and opening montage, as well as his original recording of “Ja-Da”. And how lucky we are that Golden Globe nominated composer, Rolfe Kent, gave us his time to create the score for the movie.        We laughed a lot, cried a bit, and fell in love with these showbiz survivors and hope you will too.

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