Musical actress and writer Camille Saviola, whom her friend Harvey Fierstein called the “Italian Godmother of Soul,” died October 28 from heart failure following a brief illness. Born July 16, 1950, in the Bronx, Saviola grew up near Yankee Stadium. She graduated from the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan and dropped out of college after a year to study acting. She spent time as the lead singer of the all-female Margo Lewis Explosion, later signing with the disco label Tropique, for whom she recorded her original song “Keep on Shakin’ That Thang” (1981). Below is a taste of Saviola in rock mode, performing “Strange Times” at L.A.’s Show at Barre in 2011.
Saviola’s early theater work includes the Diva in the original Off-Off-Broadway production of the rock musical Starmites (1980). She made her Broadway debut in the Tony-winning musical Nine (1982), playing Mama Maddelena, and subsequently toured with the show as Saraghina, the role she understudied on Broadway. In 1984, she presented her solo show A Vaudeville at Manhattan Theatre Club. The next year, she returned to MTC with the solo show Secrets of the Lava Lamp. She made her Off-Broadway musical debut at the Minetta Lane Theatre as Carol in the musical Angry Housewives (1986). Below is Saviola in a 1982 commercial for Nine.
Saviola was a regular in Woody Allen’s New York movies, appearing in Broadway Danny Rose (1984), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), and Shadows and Fog (1991), but after two decades on the East Coast, she moved west to pursue more screen work, receiving an Cable Ace nomination for the made-for-cable movie Nightlife (1989). Her TV series roles include the recurring characters of Shelley Abramowitz in The Heights (1992), Kai Opaka in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993), Justice Esther Weisenberg in First Monday (2002), and Turtle’s Mom in Entourage (2006).
While based in L.A., her musical work included Bloody Mary in South Pacific (MUNY, 1990), “Poor Unfortunate Souls” on the Cincinnati Pops Magical Music of Disney album (1995), and Emma Goldman in the world premiere of Ragtime in Toronto (1996). She also starred as Nanny Boots Courreconte in the premiere of Happy Holidays (Pasadena Playhouse, 1995), Anna in The Rink (Pasadena Playhouse, 2000), and The Leader in Zorba (UCLA, 2006), for which she won a Garland Award. Below you can hear Steven Sutcliffe and Saviola in “The Night That Goldman Spoke” on Songs from Ragtime.
Saviola returned to Broadway in 2003 as Matron Mamma Thornton in the long-running revival of Chicago. That year, she also won a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for her performance as Poncia in the Lorca play The House of Bernarda Alba at Mark Taper Forum. Her most recent work includes the recurring role of Filomena in the TV series Younger (2018). Below are Saviola and Chita Rivera singing “Class” from Chicago at the 2004 Actors Fund benefit Nothin’ Like a Dame.