The JOY OF BROADWAY
Davis Gaines, the original ‘Phantom of the Opera,’ joins local Broadway legend Joy Valderrama Abbott in concert Saturday
By Alice Keesing
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at the remarkable age of 107. That’s when Abbott started returning home again, to spend her summers in Hawaii where she is, once again, Joy Valderrama, the girl from Wahiawa with the beautiful smile and fun-loving heart.
She describes a modest upbringing where she and her three sisters were raised on the virtues of education and fitness. Their mom Justine was a restaurateur, their dad Pedro a boxing and tennis coach. Sister Ruth went on to study at Juilliard, Grace is in real estate in California, and May Ann coaches tennis at Mililani and is married to Keola Beamer.
“It was loving,” Abbott says of their childhood home. “Every Sunday we’d have a musicale. My sister would play the piano, and I would sing some songs, and we’d listen to operas.”
The young Valderrama started in theatre at age 5 when she was recruited by a visiting variety club. She breaks into song, “The go-od ship Lol-ly-pop ... I was the Shirley Temple of Hawaii.”
Thanks to her family’s hard work, Abbott attended Punahou before going to Temple University in Philadelphia, where she earned a bachelor’s in education. The belle from Hawaii was also inducted into the Sports Hall of Fame, undefeated in college tennis. Before she became Mrs. George Abbott, she enjoyed success as a businesswoman, performer and coordinator-director of fashion productions. Her passion, though, has been her singing. Just this year she released the jazz CD For All We Know with Punahou schoolmate Betty Loo Taylor, the queen of Hawaii’s jazz keyboard.
“You should see them when they’re together,” Gaines remarks. “They just giggle like little schoolgirls.”
Abbott hoots in agreement and begins to tell some wicked tales of the hijinks that the two septuagenarians are still up to.
Taylor will accompany Abbott and Gaines at the Broadway Reflections concert, along with Carol Anderson, a longtime collaborator of Gaines’.
Both Abbott and Gaines are more than happy to lend their star power to the local performing arts scene. Gaines says he was blown away by performers in a recent visit to Manoa Valley Theatre.
“That’s what you get in community theatre,” he says. “People who do it for the love of it, for the passion of it.”
The money raised by the concert will be used to create opportunities for young Hawaii people in all fields of the performing arts.
“I think this is the beginning of great things,” Akuna says. “Joy is very excited about the foundation and she knows everybody on Broadway, as well as half of Hollywood.”
Abbott references herself as a septuagenarian but she’s got more energy than some people half her age. Back surgery means she can’t play tennis anymore, but she loves a round of golf, a game that her late husband taught her. And she has a fistful of irons in the fire as she works to further her husband’s legacy. She’s working on a biography on Mr. Abbott as well as a couple of other “big, big” projects that she’s just busting to talk about but cannot - yet.
“It’s a great life, show biz, theatre,” she sighs contemplatively. “But it’s also nice to come home to Hawaii and let your hair down and eat all the ...” she stops and groans “... oh my god I can’t get into my gown ... all the sushi and mochi and ...”
Gaines jumps in: “‘And, oh Davis, we’ve got to go to Zippy’s!”
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