Aaron Ball:
From Boggy Creek to Carnegie Hall,
Defying the odds and breaking through barriers is something Aaron Ball does not shy away from. Born in Texarkana in 1970, he became a child-star, acting in many of the movies produced by local movie-maker, Charles B. Pierce. His father, John Ball, was an artist and worked as art director for Ledwell Advertising, where he met Pierce, who hired him to work on his movies. So Aaron was accessible for any scene that required a young male child.
By 1979, Aaron had travelled with his dad to movie sets all around the country, and had acted with “The Six Million Dollar Man” and two of the original “Charlie’s Angels” episodes.
“In ’77 we went to Montana to film Gray Eagle; ‘78 we filmed ‘The Norseman’ in Florida, starring Lee Majors; and in ’79 we filmed “The Evictors” in Monroe, Louisiana with Jaclyn Smith,” Aaron recalled. “In Florida I met Farah Fawcett, who was married to Lee Majors at the time.”
After “The Evictors” wrapped, the Ball family moved to Memphis, then later to Kansas City, Missouri. There, John took a job as an artist for Hallmark Greeting Cards in its corporate office. He was soon promoted to manager and given an office “the size of a shoebox,” Aaron recalls his father lamenting. It wasn’t long before John started a new division of Hallmark, and named it “Shoebox Greetings.”
It was John that was responsible for hiring comedians Kevin Ahern and John Wagner, who eventually created the star of the greeting card company — Maxine — the salty, gray-haired woman that drips sarcasm into every special occasion. The “tiny division of Hallmark” was an international hit.
When his parents divorced, he chose to stay with his father, while his mother, Deborah Nelson Ball Accornero, moved to Orange, California, and remarried. Instead of going to college after high school, Aaron took a job as a data entry clerk at Argus Management, LLC, a company that provides management services to healthcare organizations. Within 15 years he was traveling as a corporate trainer.
Tiring of the traveling lifestyle, Aaron left the company in 2006 and moved to Houston, where he managed Legal Eye Video. The company was created to film court-admissible videos of litigation depositions and documentary films.
Two years later, in 2008, Aaron’s life changed completely at the age of 38 when Hurricane Ike and a motorcycle accident struck at the same time.
“I had an accident, and only had a fracture. But the power at the hospital went out due to the storm and I laid on a gurney in the hallway for two days before a doctor could see me. It really was like a third-world situation,” he said. “They released me on crutches at night, while there was a curfew, so a cop took me home. I went straight to bed.”
Three days later his roommate found him — still in bed — delusional. He had caught a superbug infection in the hospital and was now septic. “They gave me only two days to live. I had to have high-risk surgery with a 20% chance of surviving it,” he said. “The surgery resulted in a stroke, with 2% chance of being able to function again. I spent four months in the hospital relearning everything. After a year and a half of convalescing I still used a walker and had a service dog.”
The stroke had robbed Aaron of his short-term memory and he became frustrated. He had to relearn even the simple things like walking and talking. “It was easier to learn musical phrases than talk so I started with singing and worked up to talking. I had always loved opera, so I practiced it,” he said.
That extended healing time gave him the opportunity to think about what the next chapter of his life would be. “I developed a new relationship with God and I went back to school. I had learned a new way to process information — it was like having a dual processor, with both sides of the brain working at the same time.”
Little did he know that his life was about to drastically change again in 2010, this time for the better. “I went to California to meet with film director Paul Bunnell, to work on the movie ‘The Ghastly Love of Johnny X,’” Aaron said. “I developed and played the character of ‘Mr. Projector’ and I also acted and directed the ‘Behind the Scenes’ footage for the DVD.”
The movie, touted as the “only dark comedy sci-fi parody musical,” starred Will Keenan, Creed Bratton (of “The Office” fame), Paul Williams and Kevin McCarthy. Although it wasn’t a successful commercial film, it quickly gained a cult following and gave Aaron another acting role for his resume.
Director Bunnell’s wife was a costume designer and had a friend she felt was right for Aaron, so she invited him to the screening party in September 2010. “I wasn’t looking to date anyone, but at the party we found each other and became inseparable, and never looked back,” Aaron said.
Three years later, at the 2013 Costumers Guild Awards Banquet, Aaron proposed to Randall Christensen, the Emmyaward winning designer of “Dancing With The Stars.”
“I’ve never known anyone like him. Bob Mackie was his fan. Randall designed in Mackie’s style for dancers and helped bring glamour back to TV, and won the Emmy for the first season in 2006” he said. “Even Bob said Randall is the next Bob Mackie.”
During their time together, Aaron received both his Bachelors and Masters from California State UniversityNorthridge.
In 2016 he performed the role of Don Giovanni during graduate school and began performing with the Long Beach Opera, and later the Independent Opera Company of Los Angeles. During his career, he has performed in many shows in both California and New York, but said Don Giovanni is his favorite role.
Randall had left “Dancing with the Stars” following the 12th season in 2011 after being diagnosed with cancer. It is a “rough show to design and produce costumes for,” Aaron said. “He was given carte blanche and didn’t cut corners. He made every single costume on the show — two live shows a week — and not one wardrobe malfunction in 12 seasons.”
Their relationship ended on June 16, 2019, when Randall died after a cancer-related procedure went wrong.
While Aaron took time to grieve, he has also kept himself busy with his opera singing, and taking over Randall Designs based in Phoenix, Arizona. This is where the designer created his works; among them, the ice-dancing uniforms for Olympic gold medalists Charlie White and Meryl Davis. He has also designed ballroom gowns for feature films — one was even worn by Jennifer Lopez in “Shall We Dance.”
“Aaron Harvey is now our lead designer. He was Randall’s protege and has been able to seamlessly carry on Randall’s work,”
said Aaron, who flies to Phoenix to work one week every month.
In September of last year, Aaron performed a solo concert at Carnegie Hall that will possibly become an annual performance. “It was so exciting,” he said. “The President and First Lady of Ecuador, with full security detail, took up the whole front row.”
He has had steady concert and opera gigs, and has started a new freelancing career narrating and producing audiobooks. He is also teaching voice lessons.
Earlier this year, Aaron attended the premiere of “The Legend of Boggy Creek” in Dallas, held at the Texas Theatre in the Oakcliff District, where Lee Harvey Oswald was captured. Eight years ago he was in that very building taking part in a Q&A for the “Johnny X” movie.
Last year, Aaron came back to Texarkana for “The Legend of Boggy Creek” restoration premiere at the
Perot Theatre, June 14-15.He was part of the program.
Now Aaron sees himself as “a testament to the human beings ability to transform.
“I have the gift of sight — knowing what are the things most valuable in one’s life,” he said. “That’s because I’ve had to completely tear down and build up myself. I was given the chance to build things the right way.”
(To see Aaron’s Opera schedule, or to watch videos of his performances, go to aaronballbaritone.com online.)