When I was a little girl, I discovered that I loved performing. Acting, singing, reciting made me happy. Some of what it took to be comfortable with it I got from my mother, who acted and taught elocution before she became the stay-at-home mother of nine.
Perhaps it was because I was one of nine siblings, that I enjoyed standing out a bit, something hard to do in such a large family. When I was young and part of that big gang, I enjoyed it. We had a lot of fun together.
But as I got older, I was dying to find out what it would be like to go to a place where nobody had ever heard of me, or anyone related to me for that matter. Since I studied French in school, I thought I would go to Paris. Instead, at age 26 I ended up in the “Paris of South America,” Buenos Aires, Argentina.
It was September, 1971. A friend, whose idea it was, persuaded me that Spanish would be a far more useful language than French in the United States. So off we went and it changed my life and my life’s direction.
Buenos Aires is a beautiful but complex city. I got a job at the American School in the upscale suburbs there. I taught fifth grade and thoroughly enjoyed it. Because the school required that half the day be taught in Spanish, and I was not yet facile in the language, I was free in the afternoon. I joined a theatre company and took singing lessons and performed in musical plays, in English of course.
It took me two full years to save enough money for a ticket home, but I still had no idea what I would do once I got there, so I consulted Dr. Pedro Manasse, a psychiatrist in Buenos Aires, to help me think about my future. He gave me a couple of tests, nodded his head in understanding and we began. We got through all the details of my being raised in a very strong family, my education, work history and personal life.
Finally, one day I told him I was taking singing lessons and wanted to think about that as a career. He erupted: “No, no, no. That would be so wrong for you, you are too bourgeois, you would not last in that.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Paula, remember those tests I gave you and when I asked you to draw a picture of a pig? What did you draw?”
“I drew a head, I did not know how to draw the rest of a pig,” I answered.
“Exactly”, he said. “That told me you are ruled by your head and not your emotions as all artists are.”
Oh, did we argue.
“If you were meant to sing, you would have been doing it from the age of 18, no matter what anyone else said,” he continued.
I admit, I thought about that. Then he said, “If you can’t keep it as a hobby then give it up entirely.”
When I had saved enough money to go home and our time was coming to an end, he said, “I know what you should do when you go home, you should talk for a living. I never met a better talker and the United States will have many jobs that require that.”
When I arrived back in the U.S. and turned on TV, I saw there were women on TV as hosts and reporters. I had not seen them there before I left.
“I want to do that!” I said to myself.
It wasn’t easy to get there, it took me five years of trying, but I was finally successful and my broadcast career lasted for 25 wonderful years. I even met my wonderful husband at my first TV station. Thank you Dr. Pedro Manasse.
And now I sing, as a hobby, in the Island Community Chorus, and performing still gives me joy.
Paula Lyons lives in Vineyard Haven.
This article appears in October 2 2026.
we all love you, Paula Lyons! No mater how you would have done it, I am sure you would find your place in the media industry given how comfortable you are in the front of the camera when its starts rolling way better than any average joe around it.