Shari Lewis Biography

Fast Facts

• Won a New York International Film Festival Gold Award for "Lamb Chop's Play-Along․"
• First introduced Lamb Chop on "Captain Kangaroo" in 1957, which earned her a morning television program on NBC called "The Shari Show․"
• Started out performing in summer stock and touring stage companies, appearing in productions of "Damn Yankees," "Funny Girl," and "Bye, Bye, Birdie․"
• Learned how to play the piano and violin from a young age and picked up ventriloquism naturally, later receiving coaching from a former vaudevillian after her father thought he heard a voice coming from her closet
• Quote: "Musical training teaches something that is seldom learned in any other manner: namely, that if you stick to what you are trying to do, you will, eventually, 'get it․'"
• Quote: "We all have many characters within us․ The lucky people are those who get a chance to be childish now and nurturing then and bold and vulnerable at other times․ I just happen to have given them all names, and I talk to them․"
• Wrote 60 books for children, including "Magic for Nonmagicians," "Things That Kids Collect," and "One-Minute Bedtime Stories․"
• Best known as a ventriloquist and television host who was the original puppeteer for Lamb Chop, Charlie Horse, and Hush Puppy on shows like the Emmy-winning "Lamb Chop's Play-Along․"
• The idea for "The Charlie Horse Music Pizza" came from a conversation with her husband, publisher Jeremy Tarcher, in which they figured out that children's favorite things are music, pizza, and the beach
• Once appeared before the House Telecommunications Subcommittee in Washington, D․C․ in 1993, where Lamb Chop gave an emotional speech about why the Government should care about children's television