Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 11, 1992 TAG: 9203110079
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Just for the record, she also was wearing golden shoes with anklets that were indescribable, golden sleeve garters, a rope of imitation pearls swathed around her middle like a Christmas tree swag, and a funny-looking purse.
Oh, and the boa had tassels on it.
She also wore lace half-gloves and a golden tiara.
Lady Luck by this time is something of a blowsy, blond legend in Virginia.
She does commercials for the state Lottery Department, and they have been so popular that even people who wouldn't dream of betting on Lotto recognize her.
The commercials are shot out West, and she gets $1,500 a spot plus residuals. Lady Luck, a California resident, said residuals for a one-state commercial don't add up to a lot.
Lady Luck charmed a number of people Tuesday; she's very good with crowds. She joked, signed autographs and posed for pictures with her public in the food court on Roanoke's City Market.
The idea behind her Western Virginia tour - she started in Roanoke and will be in Bristol today - is to promote playing Lotto by mail.
In the Winnebago, rain pattering on the roof, Lady Luck refused again to give her age.
She said that people who work in casting - she has made a career of acting and commercials - tend to categorize actors when they know their age.
A gentleman does not guess at a lady's age, and she took care of that problem: "Say I'm 100 years old, but don't look it," she said.
Nevertheless, someone suggested she was, maybe, 50. "Definitely under 50," she said quickly.
Lady Luck, who is fast on her feet around reporters, immediately turned a question about her feelings about Australians winning a $27 million Virginia Lotto jackpot into a theory about her missing wand.
Although she has never been to Australia, she said she might have dropped her wand on those lucky Aussies while she was flying over.
This coincided nicely with a commercial in which she reports her wand stolen and describes it to a policewoman as "star on a stick."
Somebody in the Winnebago asked her if she had really lost her wand.
"I got a bridge I'd like to sell you," she said, then apologized for being naughty.
She has a new wand now.
If you are fan of the Lady Luck commercials, you have to ask why she is wearing golden shoes, instead of the pink ones she wears in the commercial in which she loses a heel.
"To tell you the truth," she said, "the pink shoes hurt like the dickens."
She said she doesn't wear the Lotto finery all the time, but she is careful about wearing tight-fitting leggings in the Deep South. She did that one time when she was in Birmingham, Ala., for a one-woman show and found that people down there "tend to think you're a loose woman if you wear leggings."
It is not an easy life. She described one other commercial: "I'm, like, an Eskimo. My mother wouldn't recognize me."
Lady Luck put up her hood and went to meet her public on the sidewalk in front of the food court.
It was not long before Donna Zebrasky of Vinton came along and said, "You're so much cuter in person. You're darling." This tended to accelerate the visit.
Soon, she was inside the food court doing autographs and posing for Polaroid pictures with children. She called the boys "Champ." She also posed with grown women.
Nobody said much about Lady Luck's jewelry - which included a golden dollar sign with phony gems in it.
Or the new wand that has a shamrock in the center.
by CNB