Scenes from an Interview: Riselle Bain

Faithfully Traveling the Rivers of Life

by Gus Mollasis

As a Hollywood child actor, Riselle Bain first hitched her ride not to a star but to a river—the Nile River to be exact.

That’s when young Babette Bain was cast as Little Miriam in The Ten Commandments. Yes, that Ten Commandments. The one starring Charlton Heston as Moses and directed by Cecil B. DeMille.

While her first acting role didn’t have a lot of lines, it was important to the story. Crucial in fact.

In her small part as Little Miriam, Babette Bain played a big part in the future Israelite leader’s life. As his sister, she’s responsible for seeing that Moses floats in his basket safely down the river to freedom. Without Moses’s successful river journey, there is no deliverance of the people of Israel through the Red Sea.

Today Little Miriam is all grown up and goes by Riselle Bain and not Babette. She lives near the water in Sarasota. Still, she remembers her part in this perennial 1956 Hollywood classic, still shown multiple times during every Easter and Passover garnering big ratings during these celebratory seasons.

In her brief yet important scene, Bain flawlessly delivers her line before delivering Moses to the people. Her mother, Yochabel, played by Martha Scott, says, “God of Abraham, take my child into Thy hands that he may live to Thy service.”

Little Miriam bowed her head and prayed silently while Yochabel prayed verbally – and then Miriam says, “But, mother, we have not even given him a name.”

Her mother assures her, “God will give him a name,” before gently and carefully pushing the basket towards the Egyptian palace and the Nile River with one final instruction, “Follow it, Miriam. Watch it from the reeds. See where the Lord will lead him.”

Almost whispering, to keep quiet from being overheard by any Egyptians, Little Miriam obeys answering, “Yes Mother,” as she looks and watches her unnamed little brother’s arc being discovered by Bithiah.

On this day she would make a name for herself. So much so that even Cecil B. DeMille himself noticed and would forever remember her.

Years later, Riselle remembers that time well. She reads a passage called “Work Towards a Career” from her treasured journal titled “Tots to Teens” from a time when she auditioned for Paramount Studios. Her words preserved in her journal almost like commandments.

“I was auditioning for a film called Poppa’s Delicate Condition starring Fred Astaire in which I would play his young daughter. I went before the studio heads. I had done small parts in pictures since I was six. As my singing and dancing developed, I became known to several people in the movie industry. When I was eight and half, I was called by Paramount’s talent scout to sing “Birth of The Blues” with no accompaniment, but they still seemed to be impressed.”

After further impressing them with her varied talents, the studio heads told her they’d get back to her and not to feel badly if she wasn’t chosen because “a lot of people with talent are overlooked.”

Babette was very glad that ordeal was over. When she got home, the phone rang, and a nervous Babette answered. “It was Paramount Studios saying that I was going to be signed for a term contract.”

“Lucky to get the contract, unlucky in getting the part. The film they had me in mind for to play Fred Astaire’s daughter was shelved because Mr. Astaire had a conflict in his schedule,” she recalls.

While that part didn’t happen, she did her best to prepare by attending school at the studio for six months.

“During that time I became friendly with the late Cecil B. DeMille, who always stopped to say hello to me in the commissary each day. He never passed me up and even sometimes lifted me and kissed me and called me his “Little Miriam.”

Babette Bain was born in Los Angeles. Her father was working in the movie industry after his prize fighting career ended, while her mom was a homemaker and a bookkeeper.

“My father probably gave me his talent and his strength. My mother gave me her goodness. By kindness and goodness, I mean someone who would not hurt other people.”

Talent, strength and goodness—they are attributes that sum up Bain, a diminutive yet powerful force of nature—that have helped her run smoothly, strongly and effortlessly through her life—just like a great river. No matter the tides.

Bain has wondered if her becoming a cantor was a calling, considering that both her Jewish parents were not practicing nor religious.

Today Cantor Riselle Bain is part of the Jewish clergy through Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, the American Conference of Cantors, is founding member of the Bay Area Cantorial Association (BACA), and is a member of the Sarasota-Manatee Rabbinical Association. Since June 2015, Cantor Bain has served as the spiritual leader for Temple Israel of Highlands County.

“When I was young girl, I didn’t go to Sunday school,” says Bain. That wasn’t a part of my upbringing. I would read things on our history. I had a little children’s bible. If it was Passover or Hanukah, if my parents were not going to do it, I was the one who would do a little something myself in the kitchen.”

She even had a club. “My club was between me and God. I would write out my thoughts to God, who was in my club and my fellow club member.”

Whenever she would go to a friend’s bar or bat mitzva she would sit in the sanctuary and start crying pretending she was davening. “So, when people ask me if it’s a calling, I wonder about that. Just as I wonder about being chosen to play Little Miriam. That was kind of when the seed was planted.”

The show business seed was planted by her mother who had registered her with one of the local Hollywood agents.

“I auditioned at Paramount Studios with a lot of other little girls. Anassociate producer named Henry Wilcoxon came in, looked at me and said, “Little girl, put the sweater over your head.’ So, I put the sweater over my head. That’s when he let all the other little girls go.”

“He took me by the hand and took me to the sound stage where they were filming The Ten Commandments. He brought Cecil B. DeMille over to me and Mr. DeMille asked me if I knew a poem. I said, yes. I recited the poem “Daffodils”. And in that beautiful and iconic voice of his, he said, ‘You got the part.’”

Not intimidated by the set, the part or even the great man who has a lifetime Achievement Award named after him, Bain describes herself as being precocious as a child.

“If there was anything they wanted me to do, I would do it.”

Sure of herself, focused and confident. That certainly describes her when she auditioned to sing at the Moulin Rouge in Hollywood for the proprietor and alleged mobster Frank Sennes.

“When I went to audition for him, I was singing, and he started talking to someone. I said, ‘I’m singing, and you need to listen to me.’”

Whatever the part and in whatever part of her life that she was playing, the tiny Bain packed a talented and powerful punch—for a film, a song or a dance number—reminiscent of her famous father, boxer Abie Bain.

For the acclaimed 1962 boxing film Requiem for a Heavyweight, Anthony Quinn told the press he modeled his character, Mountain Rivera, after Bain by copying his same rough voice and mannerisms. Bain had a small role in the film and worked as a technical advisor so much so that Anthony Quinn lived with Abie Bain while making that film. Now that’s dedication.

Abie Bain played no small role in his young daughter’s life, leaving and making an impression on her that she will always remember.

“My father thought I was the greatest thing that ever happened and would push me in front of everyone.” It’s the kind of thing that gave the young actress confidence when she stepped into her ring and into a pool of water on the set of The Ten Commandments.

“They were filming two sections. One where I’m following the basket down the river and they had a screen behind me with the river and bulrushes. Then another where I’m in this giant den of water with bulrushes. And Cecil B. DeMille would be directing me, ‘Now turn around and wave bye to your mother.’ And then when I got to where Bithiah was he wanted me to have different reactions showing how I was worried, concerned and I didn’t know what was going to happen and happiness when I saw her pick up the baby. He was directing me through that whole time and while he’s directing me he’s very stern.”

Looking back Bain remembers, “He must have liked what I did. When I was under contract we would go to lunch every day at the commissary and he would come over and introduce me to everyone. He was a different person. On the set he was all business. He was very nice to me. I remember meeting Mitzi Gaynor, John Derek, Debra Paget, Rhonda Fleming, Ursula Andress and Pier Angeli all at lunch.”

While Bain’s time shooting The Ten Commandments lasted a mere few weeks, the impression the film made upon her lasted a lifetime.

“I led a very different life from kids who grow up normally.” Little Miriam remembers when that epic film opened in Hollywood and she was at the premiere. “It was a big deal. The lights. The curtain was amazing. Cecil B. DeMille was there. My mom and dad are there with me and they are happy. I loved it when my little moment on screen came on. I love it every year I see it.”

With The Ten Commandments under her belt, her parents thought there would be a lot more to come with all the singing and dancing lessons that she had taken.

Bain did get bit parts in The Silver Chalice and The Egyptian and was an extra in Judy Garland’s A Star is Born, while also playing a part in Artists and Models with Dean Martin.

“Dean Martin was so nice. In fact, I went to school with Dean Martin’s daughter Deana. “I went to school with a lot of kids who were in the business—Groucho Marx’s daughter, Carl Reiner’s son Rob, and Oscar Levant’s daughter who was darling. I also went to school with Richard Dreyfuss. We did Anne Frank together in an acting class in which I played Anne Frank.”

Bain danced with Bob Hope in the film Beau James, strangely playing a bi-racial child in a career that hasn’t been short on showing a wide range. “They were looking for a girl to do a challenge dance with Bob Hope in this film where he’s campaigning and goes to Harlem. They couldn’t find anybody, knew me and that I was studying with Nick Castle, who was one of the most prolific tap dancers.”

Bain sang a duet with Rosemary Clooney on a show called Shower of Stars that featured Bob Hope and Marge and Gower Champion. She landed parts in Broken Arrow playing a Native American girl and also performed on the popular Ben Casey Show. She also got to dance to the “Swanee” number with Judy Garland on the set of A Star is Born.

“Judy Garland was so nice and warm. She liked my dad. My father actually introduced me to her at a wonderful Italian restaurant in Beverly Hills,” recalls Bain.

“Liza Minelli came on the set of A Star is Born that day. Years later in New York while I was taking my exams for the cantorate, I went back to the school where I took dancing classes. Liza was there taking lessons from the same teacher. I said to her, “You may not remember this. Years ago, I was one of the kids in that Swanee number and you came on the set that day.’ Liza excitedly replied, ‘Oh my-gosh, I remember, I remember.’ She was as sweet as she could be.” 

The same can be said about Bain. There is a sweetness that invites both stranger and friend alike into her world.

In a career that has twisted and turned, it hasn’t always been easy, yet it’s been a life that has flowed easily enough because the person at its center is grounded, possessing faith that has always carried her down the river.

A world where she has played the title role of Eva Peron in the first national tour of Evita, worked with showbiz greats such Bert Lahr, Buster Keaton, Paul Newman, and Bob Denver in motion pictures, television, and theater.

Those days represent many good memories. Now further down the river in her life, Bain is a combination of the collective talents that she was blessed with and that she’s cultivated along the way. A passion still burns in her to perform and she still performs today. But it’s different.

“For years I went back and studied so that I could get my credentials to be a cantor, so while I am still singing and dancing, I’m not doing it in a theatrical way. What I call it is devekut.”

“In devekut your whole focus is not on doing things. You focus on what the prayer means. You try to connect to the divine source. In a sense I don’t think of it as performing, I think of it as connecting with your own drop of what the divine is within you, while also reaching up.”

Today Cantor Riselle Bain still fondly remembers the little girl in her, who played Little Miriam and helped Moses find a way home.

“The creative arts are spiritual. If you are doing something and the actor is really connected to the person and what that person is going through, it is a kind of a divine connection to a soul. You put your whole self into it.”

She’s certainly has done that playing both parts she was meant to play, guiding people safely down their spiritual rivers both on the screen and down the stream of life, serving people and giving them what they need. Just ask Cecil B. DeMille and the Man upstairs!