A voice-over coach to the stars, she now rescues horses.

Alice Whitfield is our guest this week on Nevada Week In Person.

♪♪♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week In Person is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

-Welcome to Nevada Week In Person.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, she'd work on Broadway and have a one-woman show at Carnegie Hall.

She's a professional voice-over coach who has a passion for providing a safe home for rescued horses.

Alice Whitfield, CEO of HAV Horse Rescue Las Vegas, welcome to Nevada Week In Person.

(Alice Whitfield) You're even more beautiful here than you were over there.

-You're talking about in the green room?

-Yes, I am.

-When you told me a small part of your life story.

-Yes, I did.

The rest was, "Could I please have your body when you're done with it?"

Come on.

Got to be accurate.

Got to be accurate.

-Help me understand.

So I'm thinking Broadway, big city, jam packed streets, and then horses.

-Yep.

-Where did-- where did you start?

-I started at the Ocala Stud farm.

I was filming a movie.

I was, just had a bit part in a movie.

-So the acting career came before the introduction to horses?

-No.

This was just a thing where they said, Could you be the makeup artist?

Take a brush and just do this.

So I had two little scenes, and I was stuck in Ocala, Florida.

Not the best place to be stuck.

Nothing personal.

So I would get in the car and leave.

I said, Am I done?

You don't need any shots?

Boom.

And I went to the Ocala Stud farm, and I volunteered.

I said, Listen, I'll shovel all your manure if you let me ride.

And they said, Oh, well, can you break?

And I'm going, Break?

Sure I can break.

Great.

Absolutely.

You can ride if you can break and clean.

-What does break mean?

-To break a horse is take a wild animal who's never been on a lead or on a harness and make them accessible-- -You didn't know how, but you said you could.

-At all.

Oh, I said I could, yes, absolutely.

You lie.

That's what you do, especially when you want something real bad.

-So much for being accurate.

-Yeah, well, the accuracy came later, because I did learn.

I learned a lot.

And love, love.

And as a kid, summer camp horseback riding.

So it was all-- it all related.

And then living in Manhattan, where do you ride your horse, Central Park?

No.

So-- -That's why I couldn't understand the connections.

-I know.

-How did you get that role, though, the small makeup role?

-A friend of a friend.

We were doing a movie about the Presidio trials in California, and it was written by George Tabori, who was the husband of Viveca Lindfors.

Probably your audience is much too young for these names, but they were big names back then.

And it was an important subject, so a friend of mine funded the whole movie.

-How old were you at this point?

-Um, 24?

-And I ask because at 15 you were in the performing arts industry.

-Yes, I was.

I started singing with the Ralph Flanagan Orchestra.

I was 15.

I don't know how my parents let me, but they did, on weekends.

I went to school during the week, didn't tell anybody.

My mother said, Don't you dare say.

-Why?

-Well, 15 years old, going out with a 42-piece orchestra and playing gigs all over.

Come on, 15?

Back then 15 was, You go to your room.

That's what-- you know.

Very strict.

-Well, imagine that type of experience for you at that young of an age.

-Didn't think about it.

-How do you think it impacted you?

-I go, What the hell happened?

How did that happen?

My mother was a strict British lady, and my pop wasn't.

I'm my daddy.

And so he said, Go, let her go.

Let her go.

So it was a whole big thing.

And I went.

-How did that even become a possibility for you?

Who approached you?

-Well, I had a cousin who was so nuts.

Her name was Myra.

She wore her hair in a big bun.

She goes, Listen to me, Alice Berman--that was my name--you are too good to be here.

You have to be working.

You have to get into the union, and then we're going to start getting you gigs.

I said, I play the ukulele.

-You're a young teenager at this point.

-Fifteen.

I said, I play the ukulele.

No, you have to play-- I know, you play the maracas?

I go, No.

You shake them?

No!

No, no.

"Zic-a-ta, zic-a-ta, zic-a-ta."

I'll teach you.

We went down to the union floor.

They said, What do you play?

I said, The maracas.

Play'em.

"Zic-a-ta, zic-a-ta, zic-a-ta."

Union card-- Next?

-Wow.

-Yep, got started.

Never picked up maraca again, ever, but that's how it started.

-You'd go on to have a one-woman show at Carnegie Hall.

-Yes, I did.

And that was following a huge, huge successful off-Broadway show on Bleecker Street called Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris.

And it was, at first, nothing.

And when Clive Barnes came and reviewed the show for the New York Times, you couldn't get a ticket.

It was over the top.

They had a big board outside the Village Gate, which was where we performed downstairs, and the sign was, "Sign up if you have seen the show more than 10 times."

And then there was another board, "Sign up if you've seen the show more than 50 times."

And people would get free tickets after 50.

And we had people lined up.

The show was huge.

And there are still road companies of the show still going on to this day.

-What do you remember about those times?

-I hated it.

-Really?

-Yeah, hated every minute of it because, show business, while it was in my blood--because I was born with perfect pitch, which is a curse--you walk out of more concerts, more Broadway shows, out.

If anybody sings a slightly bit off, it's like chalk on a blackboard to everybody else.

To me, I get up and leave.

So, you know, it was just a matter of, I was there.

I'll do it.

Okay, let's go.

I wish I could tell you I even auditioned for the show.

I didn't.

-What didn't you like about it?

-The people and the way it's conducted.

I learned a tremendous amount from a man named Jamie Hammerstein, who was Oscar Hammerstein's son.

We wrote a show together, an off-Broadway show together, and when we were sitting and auditioning people to be in my show and Jamie's show--he was about six-foot-seven, and he had his feet stretched way out--he goes, Call in the next.

People would come in and audition.

He'd say, Thank you.

Out.

And he sit up, and he said to me--he called his father "my old man."

He never said "my father."

The old man.

And he said, Whitfield, you know what my old man said?

He said, I'll never use him again, never, unless I need him.

And that's show business: I hate him.

I don't want him.

Come on back.

It's good.

We're going to work together now.

It's not my thing, not my-- I think you can tell, the 10 minutes that I know you, I don't, you know, I don't abide by it.

So that's what Hollywood is like.

That's what New York theater is like.

I don't like.

-Real quick.

What was the last concert you sat all the way through?

-Um, what did I sit though?

Believe it or not, the revival of Damn Yankees, where Jerry Lewis played--the original part was played by Ray Walston--the part of Applegate, and Jerry Lewis was in it.

I said, I got to just check this out, you know?

And it was wonderful.

And Bebe Neuwirth was in it, and it was really great.

-How many years ago was that?

-Um, well, I guess maybe 25-30 years ago.

What kept me in the theater was not that.

Five rows in front of me sat Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, and I wet my pants.

I mean, I was completely, Oh, my God!

And sweet, kind people.

You can't imagine.

At intermission, the usher came by and said, Would you like to come out before the lights come up?

And they go, No.

Why?

-So you did like some aspect of Hollywood?

-Yes, but-- oh, no, a lot of aspects of Hollywood.

My son's been in Hollywood, you know, for a number of years.

-Let's go on to that, because you have coached him in voiceovers.

I mean, so many celebrities.

-Yes.

-But your son, what has he accomplished?

How would you describe what he's done?

-God Almighty.

He did his first voiceover at 12.

He left Colgate University at the end of his-- the beginning of his third year on a full scholarship, and he said, You know, I don't really-- I could go out and do commercials and acting.

I said, Good.

Bye.

And I let him leave.

And he went out, and I'm saying to myself, Good luck.

I'm not helping him, because it's just the wrong thing to do.

So I didn't.

And as I might have mentioned, the phone rang in my house.

I pick it up and go, Hello.

That's when we had this instead of this.

I said, Hello.

Yes.

Mitchell Whitfield, please.

I said, Who's calling?

His agent.

I said, Mitchell-- -Quickly list some of his biggest accomplishments, because we've got to get to horses.

We've got about four minutes left.

-That's it?

In total?

-Uh-huh.

-My Cousin Vinny.

Friends.

He's a regular on Friends.

He played Stan in My Cousin Vinny.

He's Donatello in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the voice of.

And please, horse rescue, more important than anything else.

-Let's go to that.

-Please, I beg you.

-What are you doing?

Where are you doing this?

-Kyle Canyon.

Why?

Because I adore horses.

I love them.

And my husband said to me, What is your-- What's on your bucket list?

I said, I want to support a charity with animals.

And the first one that we found, and that's where everything came from was Christy Stevens at Hearts Alive Village right here in town.

She was operating in a strip mall with three little stores, running out and rescuing animals--cats, dogs, you name it--in her car, out, and bringing them all in to these storefronts, and we fell in love with her and her motto, which is, Any animal, any animal must come to us.

We will take them.

And to this day-- we built her a veterinarian clinic.

She's fully staffed.

People love Hearts Alive Village, and we pattern ourselves after that.

We're looking for people who-- to come up and just see what we have at Horse Rescue.

-"To come up," because where are you located?

-We're on Kyle Canyon.

And if you go to our website, which is havhorserescue.org, you will find Sharon McGarry, who runs the place with a whip.

Not for the horses, for the people.

And you have to see it to understand.

You have to see it to understand.

It's spectacular.

It's like the Fontainebleau on Kyle Canyon.

It's magnificent.

-How great is the need for this rescue?

-Unbelievable.

-How so?

-I'll tell you that 98% of the horses that we have have been surrendered by people.

And I must, I must read this.

On the first page of our website: We want to acknowledge the owners who unselfishly have surrendered their horses to us, knowing that their loving animals would have a second chance by living at HAV Horse Rescue.

These owners are well-meaning and caring people who want the best for their horses, but due to financial hardship or long-term illnesses or death, it's impossible for them to properly care for their horses.

We take their trust in us very seriously.

We deeply thank them all.

And that's the first page of our website.

-I noticed that, because it pops up, actually, as you click through several tabs.

Why is it so important for you to give that message?

I mean, are these people facing criticism for having to give up their horses?

-No, but they feel guilty themselves.

They've had horses all their lives, and suddenly they can't take care of them.

They either have financial problems, health problems, sudden death, or a family dies and children are left and they don't know what to do because it's not their thing.

And 98% of them come to us.

2% are sad cases that I don't like to talk about, but we rescue them all.

And we have a sanctuary for those who are not rehomeable.

But the ones who are, are trained by Erica, our trainer.

And so if you love a horse and you want to adopt, when you come up, you're completely vetted out.

Sharon won't let you-- until she knows your dress size, you don't get a horse.

But everyone is completely vetted out.

And then if you love a horse but you need some help, you get the trainer.

-Alice Whitfield, thank you so much for joining Nevada Week In Person.

-Thank you so much for having me.

It was fun.

Thank you.

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