On this date in 1954, comedic actress Julie Lynn Halston (née Abatelli) was born in Queens, N.Y., to Julia and Rudolph Abatelli. Her father was a distributor of tobacco and candy products. The family moved to Commack, Long Island, when Halston was 4.
She attended the “very strict” Christ the King Grammar School, which she later described as “really a nightmare.” Still, there was a time when she wanted to be a nun. “When I was really small, about 7 or 8 years old, I was obsessed with the movie ‘Song of Bernadette.’ And I was also obsessed with the movie ‘Gypsy.’ And literally it was Nun, Stripper, Nun, Stripper, Nun, Stripper. So I thought becoming an actress was a good middle ground.” (Theater Mania, Feb. 25, 2010)
She felt better about her secondary education at Holy Family High School in Huntington. “It was a very liberal secular school, like a country club. You really did get a fabulous education.” She then earned a B.A. in theater arts in 1976 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., and married James Halston, a senior editor at McGraw-Hill, later that year. They divorced in 1982.
“After my divorce, I needed a job desperately and I said, ‘Oh my God, I can’t be an actress any more. I have to work,” Halston said. “So I got this job on Wall Street as a librarian, even though I didn’t have a library degree.” She worked for several years as “Little Miss Research Manager” with the investment firm Brundage, Story & Rose while continuing to act. (New York Times, Feb. 2, 1992)
Halston first earned plaudits through performances in the comedy plays of writer-performer Charles Busch, then wrote a series of one-woman shows that led to the successful Off-Broadway production “Julie Halston’s Lifetime of Comedy” in 1992, the year she married Ralph Howard, an awarding-winning New York radio personality. They were together until his death at 77 from pulmonary fibrosis in 2018.
She appeared in numerous stage productions on and off Broadway after “Julie Halston’s Lifetime of Comedy” and in one interview called Joan Crawford “my Bible. … I’m also going to make it my mission to continue this incredible live performance tradition of great plays, great new plays and great plays in the classic canon. It’s been going on for thousands of years. I don’t want it to die. It so enriches your life. It’s my church.” (Cultural Attaché, Oct. 15, 2022)
In 2026 she reiterated, “Theater is my church and in its noblest form, theater is a service. It is a place to learn, to connect with others, and to experience joy as a performer and an audience member. And if it’s particularly wonderful, we’re all going to have this incredible experience at the same time.” (New York Times, Jan. 3, 2026)
Halston also has 45 film and TV credits as of this writing. Perhaps most famously, she played socialite Bitsy von Muffling in TV episodes of “Sex and the City” in 2002-03 and its sequel “And Just Like That…” that aired in 2021-25.
She has received four Drama Desk Award nominations for her Broadway performances and in 2020 was the recipient of a special Tony Award for her advocacy in raising awareness and funding for the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation.
Halston co-starred in a 2026 New York City revue titled “Finding Dorothy Parker” that brought back to life the often-acerbic Parker witticisms that made her famous before her death in 1967.
PHOTO: Halston in 2022; photo by Gene Reed under CC 4.0.
