Sippican Cinema Series Co-host Diane Kelley

They say on average, people explore four different careers in their lifetimes. This can be an interesting metamorphosis. That certainly holds true for Interior Designer Diane Kelley who first landed a job out of college as a Television Co-Host with Dana Hersey on TV 38’s Movie Loft & Company in Boston. Dana hosted Movie Loft some 10 years prior to being joined by Diane. On the program, they provided an inside look behind the scenes of the featured movie with interviews of Actors, Producers and Directors. They also had a fascinating “Where Are They Now” segment, which Diane and Co-Host Anne Converse plan to revise during the Sippican Historical Society’s new venture, the Sippican Cinema Series.

As a teenager, Diane found her first job in broadcasting at WGCH radio in Greenwich, CT performing “Rip and Read” headlines from the AP (Associated Press) wire on-the air. This sparked a deeper interest in the field of broadcasting culminating in a college degree majoring in Public Communications where she also studied Film. In addition to working as Co-Host with Dana, she worked in many facets of the industry for 10 years as “talent” in Radio and TV commercials as well as industrial videos, voice-over work and print modeling. She also made a TV pilot in New York called National Times, a comedy takeoff of Saturday Night Live, and was cast in the role of a Reporter in LA for the National TV premiere of Matlock, starring Andy Griffith. This performance merited her membership in the Screen Actors Guild.

Diane discovered work behind the camera such as writing and producing was far more compelling than on-air talent. With a penchant for design and a noticeable void in programming, she created a new show called Open House, which was hoped to be the first TV series on Interior Decorating. Diane pitched the concept to Oscar winning production house, Concepts Unlimited in Manhattan who loved the idea and they set about shooting the pilot. They secured British author Mary Gilliatt as the host who had written 26 books on Interior Design and devised a three-pronged approach to promote a TV Series and Video Series with books as well. However, the executives in New York did not think a series about Interior Design had any broad appeal to viewers and passed on the project. Now of course, there is an entire network devoted to this field. “Unfortunately, we were slightly ahead of our time”, Diane lamented.

Diane performed on-air again, this time as a decorating contributor on b with Eileen Prose on the ABC network, WCVB-TV in Boston. This cemented her passion for Interior Design. When she chose to settle down and start a family in Portsmouth, NH, she developed her own Interior Design business, DK interiors, during which she contributed as a columnist in the Home Department of New Hampshire Magazine.

Later, she was asked to write a story about her husband David Risch’s harrowing passage aboard Corsair in the 2009 Marion to Bermuda Race. The article, “Lost at Sea” was published in Ocean Navigator Magazine. It was then she discovered her passion for writing, much like her mother Marilyn Kelley who had just penned a true story about their family’s entanglement with an international mafia con-artist. The Non-Fiction book entitled, For Love and Money, The Brazil Affair, published by Amazon, is available online.

Everyone agreed the Brazil story would make a great movie. At the urging of an agent, Diane joined the Harvard Square Screenwriters to learn this specialized craft and wrote the screenplay, The Brazil Affair. Diane also discovered that like fashion, films have trends and right now Hollywood is not interested in stories about Upper Middle-Class families. Diane continues to fine-tune her craft, working on the screenplay outlines of this, and several other true stories.

Before the Covid plague, Diane enjoyed hosting small movie screening parties with friends. Fortunately, humans are resilient and resourceful, and Diane is grateful for this opportunity provided by Leslie Piper, the Director of the Sippican Historical Society, to reinvent their popular movie series via Zoom meetings with Co-Host Anne Converse. “I know a little about reinventing yourself. It makes you sharpen your pencil, examine your passions and create a new, finely tuned model for your next act. The same is true for the Sippican Cinema Series. When this Covid cloud lifts, we look forward to exploring new movie viewing possibilities outside. Maybe we could call it, The Stars under the Stars! It’s an adventure to think about the opportunities we may not have devised without being challenged”.

Television Co-Hosts Dana Hersey and Diane Kelley on TV 38’s Movie Loft & Company in Boston

Diane, in the role of a Reporter in LA for the National TV premiere of Matlock, starring Andy Griffith.

Diane wrote the screenplay, The Brazil Affair based on The Non-Fiction book entitled, For Love and Money, The Brazil Affair.