Journalism, drama

Her first interest was journalism, but a teacher at Creston High School encouraged her to think about after she performed in a school production of “The Little Dog Laughed.” Wallace received a full scholarship to Parsons College in Fairfield, where she majored in theater and English, and loved the college’s emphasis each summer of the performing arts. In 1963, she was in “The Music Man,” and a year later appeared in “Brigadoon.”

The day of her graduation, Wallace was on her way to New York City with $150 in her purse. It was all she had left over, after school expenses, of a $5,000 inheritance from her grandfather.

She arrived in the Big Apple as a self-described 5-foot-8 (“with hair, 6 feet 2 inches”}, 220-pound “fatty,” but over a five-year period erased 100 extra pounds.

To make her way, she worked as a substitute schoolteacher, typed scripts, sold linens, worked in summer stock and did commercials. She performed for a year at a Greenwich Village nightspot, and then she and her four fellow entertainers founded The Fourth Wall, an improvisational group.

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