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Pa. Lottery benefits these older actresses

Local film/theater vets supplant Gus the Groundhog.

Watch out, Betty White. It's hot in Philadelphia, too.

Locals may recognize the city as a theater powerhouse and a movie backdrop, but some may not know we have our own set of Golden Girls.

These four doyennes of drama - for years amassing individual acting credits - recently appeared for the first time together in a Pennsylvania Lottery commercial. (Gus the Groundhog was retired last month to better show how the Lottery benefits older Pennsylvanians.) They played, incidentally, four older Pennsylvanians.

But these women, who describe their ages "from 65 to death," don't subscribe to a senior existence - hence their refusal to give exact ages. When Ginny Graham, Ruth Leon Weiman, Nell Johnson, and Sylvia Kauders get together, the talk revolves around casting calls, agents, and future gigs.

But what's more impressive than their stamina is that these women, competitors often auditioning for the same, and often scarce, roles, are unabashedly supportive of one another. They hug, talk, laugh, and lunch - a kinship they say does not exist in cities like New York, where the competition isn't always so personable.

"We genuinely like each other," said Kauders, born and bred in Philadelphia and the only one of the foursome to have worked on Broadway. She appeared in the 1982 production of Torch Song Trilogy, and was the original Bubbie in the Off-Broadway 1985 production of Crossing Delancey.

Mike Lemon, local casting director for the lottery commercial, said he was delighted to work with these "dynamos" again (he has known all of them since the '70s), his job made easy because of their talent and professionalism. "They know what you need to get the job done," he said.

That's because, despite a late-life entree to the performing arts, these women have impressive resumés.

Kauders, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and for more than 20 years the city's special-events director, has had roles in films including Witness, American Splendor, and The Wrestler. She appeared in Sex and the City and had an ongoing role playing Millie Conte, a neighborhood friend of Tony Soprano's mother, in The Sopranos. Her latest is a role in a yet-to-be-released film produced by the Coen brothers called Inside Llewyn Davis.

But Kauders shows no interest in slowing down. "I still have a play left in me," she said.

For Nell Johnson, of Overbrook Park, her initial interest in plays was writing, not performing. It wasn't until she was well into her 40s after having worked as an executive secretary that the acting bug got her.

"I was a late bloomer," said the soft-spoken great-grandmother of five.

Johnson says finding roles as an older African American has always been her greatest challenge. Yet her acting credits belie those struggles: She appeared in the Bruce Willis thriller 12 Monkeys, and played Aunt Jones in the 1999 film The Sterling Chase. Like the others, she has also done a litany of voice-overs in commercials for companies such as McDonald's and Acme.

Ruth Leon Weiman's first dream was to be a ballerina. But the demanding and often lonely life of a dancer, coupled with a serious leg injury just before her college graduation, shifted her focus to acting.

She married shortly after graduating from Temple University with a degree in theater and speech, but her career took a backseat to suburbia, where she raised five sons. At 36, after the birth of her fifth, her husband encouraged her to go back to acting.

Weiman said her acting was never a struggle because she didn't need to work to "put food on the table. It was what I knew how to do," she said.

The Wynnewood grandmother of 13 did local theater, background work in popular soaps such as One Life to Live and All My Children, commercials, and industrial films as well. And from 1998 to 1999, her coiffed hair landed her a modeling job on QVC for hair products. Her tresses were shown before and after using the products being promoted.

Ginny Graham, too, took time off for marriage and children. The Drexel Hill native studied acting right out of high school at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York and starting working at age 20. Her entrance in the 1946 Miss America Pageant landed her work in Philadelphia doing commercials. Shortly after, she took 20 years off from her career, to raise her eight children and many foster children. Now a mother of eight and grandmother of eight, she thrives on the camaraderie and the artistic satisfaction she gets from working.

"I never made it to Broadway but I did what I had to do and put my family first," she said. Graham's credits include small parts in three M. Night Shyamalan films, a long-running stint in Shear Madness at the Kennedy Center in Washington, and local theater productions and commercials.

While the women's paths to success have been varied, they all lament the dwindling roles for older women.

"Older women are the backbone of our society," Kauders said, "and yet their place in the media is sorely lacking." Kauders is actively working with the Greater Philadelphia Film Office and with the Women's Committee of the Screen Actors Guild to encourage writers to develop roles for them.

But as long as there is work, each says she will continue to audition for the parts that do exist, and celebrate whoever lands them.

"No matter how old we get, we all love this acting business," Kauders said. "It's in our souls."