I dedicate this Kaye Ballard tribute to the divine David Jay Smith, who told me about the death of Miss Ballard and also Miss Channing! David Jay, take some time off for a while, I don't want to hear anything else from you for a week or more (though we've got our eye on 96-year-old Doris Day).

I'm also going to give a shout out to Dennis Samuels, who turned me on to one of Ballard's first successes, an off Broadway show called *The Golden Apple.* She introduced the song "Lazy Afternoon" in that show - - it was released as a single, and the B side was "In Other Words," aka "Fly Me To the Moon." Who would believe that it was Kaye Ballard who first sang that incredible song.

And here she is cutting it up with Merv Griffin. My favorite bit is at 7:50 when she does a torch singer with the hiccups.