You began your artistic journey by taking dance classes. How did that path lead you to study with the legendary Martha Graham in New York?
Well, I started dancing at the University of Illinois, primarily to get out of the gym. I walked down the hall, and I found this dance class that was just so amazing to me. I had never been exposed to it. It was my first love. So I went back that summer to Chicago and started taking classes. I found my way to various different teachers, and then I found out about Martha Graham and thought, "I'm going to New York." So I took my—I don't know—100 dollars, with my hair tied up very tight, and I went there. We were modern dancers; we didn't talk to the showbiz kids. Very funny, really, if you think about it. So, I studied with Graham and a number of other wonderful teachers at that time in New York. But pretty soon, it wasn't as exciting.
How so?
The field became difficult. We were dancing for each other up at the YMHA, because the whole explosion of dance had kind of calmed down. And so I was getting very sad. It's hard to have a broken heart over one's first love. And people kept saying, "Come to an acting class." I would say, "I'm not an actress; I am a dancer." But I went to one class, and I fell in love all over again. I had never imagined myself as an actress. I wasn't one of those kids who entertained the family; I was one of those kids who sat in the corner and read all day long. Today, they would call me a nerd (laughs). They called us bookish. All I did was read—in Chicago, in the dark, or at nighttime—all these wonderful, wonderful books.
I imagine that was quite a catalyst for your imagination...
Exactly. I realized later that—didn't I play all those characters when I was reading them? All that stuff sort of served as fuel for the actress in me later, because—wasn't I, Anna Karenina, standing in the train station, waiting for him to come, and he doesn't show up? All those very, very passionate novels. I read a lot of fiction—just everything that had print, even the milk carton.
Before getting into acting, you spent some time modeling for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. What drew you to that world?
It sought me out, and it was wonderful, because I was able to pay for class. I learned a lot about how clothes are made, what to wear, and all of that. But the work itself wasn't anything I was going to attach myself to the same way. I didn't have a passion for it. I just was very lucky to be able to do that, because it paid my way. And I was, you know, always paying my own way.
How do you remember your time being instructed by Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio?
I spent about a year and a half in Lee Strasberg's class. I tried to get into his private class—and I did—which was not easy to do. I had to go, and he sat you on a stool, walked around you, and scared the hell out of you. I knew that he was a very brilliant teacher; I'd heard all of that. But I spent a year and a half in all these different classes because I knew I didn't know how to do it. I was not a born actress. What do you mean, "walk and talk"? Oh, I was just scared. But when I went out for the first three auditions, I got all of them. In just one week, I got a Broadway play, a television show, and a live television show. It was one of the last things done "live from New York."
Around that time, when you were doing the modeling, you signed up for acting classes, where you met Martin Landau, who would later become your husband. What were those initial impressions of each other?
He was the best actor in the class, and they'd get him up first to show all the rest of us, who didn't know what we were doing, what we were supposed to be doing. I mean, he thought I was a model—you know, easy to be dismissed as a blonde model. And I thought he was a wild person. But he was very attractive because he was young and crazy, and so was I at the time. And that's where we kind of found each other. We started hanging out, and pretty soon we got married. And that tour we did from New York—all 26 cities across the country—was our honeymoon.
What was that tour like?
We were two actors getting paid, thinking, "Wow, this is very exciting." And we were saving our money, taking our dog, and going across the whole country, being very well received. Then the play ended in San Francisco, and then Los Angeles. Television was burgeoning here; it had just started, and nobody knew what to do. The studios were very frightened, like they are now. It was another kind of moment where technology had changed everything, and the studios were grappling with what to do. Meanwhile, they started producing television and said, "Oh, this works. We make money on television." And we were here.
Were you able to get roles right away?
Martin was immediately cast—one role after another—because there were 26 Westerns on the air at the time. And he could ride a horse (laughs). But that was a good thing. He had ridden a horse in New York, Eastern-saddled, but he learned fast what to do here. They wanted New York actors because we could learn dialogue—or so they thought—and that was true. So we both started working, one show after another.
In 1959, you landed your first recurring role on the series Richard Diamond, Private Detective, playing David Janssen's love interest. Did you feel prepared to work in television during those early years?
I was totally frightened. Martin immediately adjusted to film—he understood it fast—but I struggled to understand the limits of it. All of it was almost overwhelming, but I'm a fighter, and I hung in there and learned, sometimes at other people's expense, meaning I really didn't know at first how to deal with film. At that time, you couldn't make certain things, you couldn't talk over another person, and there were different requirements in the sound department. Now, when some of those old black-and-white shows show up, I go, "Oh, I was okay. I wasn't so terrible." Anyway, then I was working, working, working. I must have done—I don't know how many—television shows before Mission: Impossible.