Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 14, 1990 TAG: 9006150605
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The elegant, low-key hostess at The Library appears far removed from the tinsel worlds of German opera ballerina or television star.
Elisabeth Lile has been both - and more - in a two-continent odyssey of glamour and hard work, a winding path she traced to the popular South Roanoke restaurant she runs with her husband.
"Everything is an exchange in life," Mrs. Lile observed. Those who go after career and money, she said, must give up time and relationships.
She turned her back on her movie and television career when the "Sonny and Cher Show" ended its second season because it had become "a different world . . . an unreal world."
Money, recognition and excitement are behind her now, Mrs. Lile said, but "our marriage is extremely important to us." The Liles have their relationship, work that keeps them together, time for other interests and for her, an opportunity to study.
Elisabeth Lile was born in Germany, youngest of three daughters of a diplomat and a ballerina who had danced with the Berlin Opera during the 1920s.
Her father disappeared in the chaotic closing days of World War II, most probably at the hands of the invading Russians. She doesn't remember him because "I was only 3 years old when he saw me last."
In a reversal of the usual pattern, Mrs. Lile's mother had an American mother. Mrs. Lile explained her grandfather was a German actor who married and took to his homeland an American girl he had met when his company toured this country.
Mrs. Lile said her mother tried to take the family to the United States, sending her oldest girl ahead to live with relatives in Davenport, Iowa. Their move was delayed when a spot was found on her mother's lung and by the time tuberculosis had been ruled out, her family situation had changed.
The former ballerina had opened a dancing school in Dusseldorf, and life for young Elisabeth and her sister Kati revolved around the ballet.
Mrs. Lile was 17 when her mother died. She said she and her sister tried to run the dancing school, but they were too young and inexperienced.
Kati went on her own to New York, where she quickly won a place in the corps de ballet at the Metropolitan Opera. "What she did, I wanted to do," Mrs. Lile said, but her guardian forebade such a daring journey.
So she danced with ballet companies at opera houses in Dusseldorf and other German cities. Two days after her 21st birthday, she boarded a ship to the United States.
She spend about nine months in New York, "scared to death." Unable to find work as a dancer, she became a file clerk with Remington-Rand and "filed and filed."
She barely knew the language, Mrs. Lile said in her now precise English, but she knew the alphabet.
In her spare time she auditioned. She was on a waiting list for a vacancy at Radio City Music Hall when she received a call from the Metropolitan Opera to dance at a festival it sponsors each summer at Central City, Colo. Anther dancer there suggested that she try her luck in Los Angeles.
She landed a job as a dancer two days after her arrival. She danced in nightclubs in Los Angeles and Reno and appeared in summer stock before she broke into television and films.
Mrs. Lile said she was the in the movie "Hello, Dolly" and several Elvis Presley musicals. She appeared regularly in such television series as "The Vic Damone Show," "Hollywood Palace" and, for two years, the "Jim Nabors Show."
Nabors introduced her to Rodney Lile in 1970.
Lile, a native of Roanoke, went to work in a Washington cafe after his graduation from Virginia Tech. He recognized Nabors outside the restaurant and invited him in for late night coffee. They talked for several hours, and Nabors invited Lile to Los Angeles.
Lile began driving the next day and wound up as a guest in Nabors' home. The couple met at a party Nabors gave that included members of his cast.
Lile worked at a variety of jobs, while his bride joined the "Sonny and Cher Show" as dancer and assistant choreographer for another two years.
But she became disillusioned as the stress of show business took a toll on her marriage. Dancing is well-paid, she observed over coffee at The Library, but it's strenuous and insecure. She had been fortunate to find so many good jobs.
It also "dawned on me that I was uneducated," knowing only dancing all her life. She wanted to go to college and "will probably go forever."
Within a few hours of finishing the final show of the second season, Mrs. Lile and her husband headed to Washington and "a rude awakening" about her marketable skills outside of dancing. She took a series of jobs, such as waitress in a pizza parlor, and the Liles remodeled and sold an old house.
They visited Lile's family in Roanoke so often during their two years in Washington that they decided to move here.
They bought a 30-acre Bedford County farm and restored its dilapidated house themselves. Then they sold all but 19 acres and moved to Blacksburg. They farmed and went to school and held various jobs.
A good friend, Mrs. Lile said, told them last year about his dream of owning a top-drawer restaurant like The Library at Myrtle Beach, S.C. Lile had a reputation as a gourmet cook and the friend asked them to help run such a place.
"We jump from one thing to another," Mrs. Lile said, and then decided "why not?" So they were off to Myrtle Beach to learn about the restaurant. For the last nine months, Lile has been in the kitchen each evening as she welcomes the diners.
They begin work at 4:30 p.m., leaving the restaurant near or after midnight, enjoying being together and being their own bosses. Her husband has found an outlet for his creativity in the Continental dishes on their menu and some additional specialities he tries most evenings.
Daytime belongs to them. Lile, "a farmer at heart," works in the garden while his wife who has taken some course at Hollins College, reads and studies.
And she keep up with her dance. Maybe someday, she said, she will dance again closer to home.
by CNB