My Mom Dreamed Of Getting On ‘The Price Is Right.’ I Never Imagined What Would Happen When She Did.

I left Pennsylvania for Los Angeles on a sunny early October day in 1981. It took us four days to cross the country with my clothes, toiletries, and Schwinn bike hanging off the back of the trunk. My dad’s light green 1971 Chevy Impala with snow tires and 100,000 miles on it made it effortlessly. Eight months later, my mom and dad flew out for their first visit to Los Angeles. 

Their trip was partly to visit me, my Italian parents’ youngest daughter, who dared to leave Western Pennsylvania for a chance at a different life. Weeks before I was to leave, I witnessed Mom mopping the kitchen floor, crying and saying, “Why you gadda move a so damn a far away? Why can’t you be like a your brothers anna stay here and get a married? Your father was gonna build you a nice a lilla house right beside ours, so you could a be close. You’re my lilla gal a — you can’t a leave!”

I knew there was no way I was going to win this fight, so I said the words she’d wanted to hear for a decade: “But Ma, if I move to Los Angeles, you can visit and finally be on The Price Is Right!”

It was as if the tears immediately reversed course. She stopped mopping, looked up at me, beaming, and said, “Really Franzy, you ting I have a chance?”

I reassured her, “Of course, you have as good a chance as anybody!” 

So, their trip was also to see if a dream could come true. For years, my mother talked about wanting to be a contestant on The Price Is Right. It may have started as a last grasp at the fame she dreamed of as a young woman when everyone told her she resembled silent film star Pola Negri. Or maybe she just thought Bob Barker, the game show’s host, was cute. But after a lifetime of not being valued by her parents — and underestimated by everyone else — I think my mother was out to prove something. 

People in our little town thought she was a dreamer. One woman in her 500-card club even said, “And what makes you think you have a chance?” My mother was furious. “How dare she say datta!” Mom was adamant she was getting on that show to prove everyone wrong for ever doubting her.

As we waited in line at CBS Studios, Mom was like a little kid. Grabbing my arm every few minutes she said, “Frenzy, you think a dey call onna me?” Then, looking heaven-ward she said, “Jesus, please if a dey call onna me, tella me what a to say. Frenzy, what if I get a tongue a tied? Jesus please, you put a da words in a my mouth … OK?”

Jesus and I had our hands full that morning with questions and requests. My non-showbiz-loving dad trailed behind us muttering, “What are you so excited for? It’s only a stupid TV show.”