Iris Karen Lallo

Iris Karen Lallo was born on February 9th 1948 in Brooklyn New York to her beloved & extremely proud parents Charles & Gertrude Weiss. She was the youngest of two daughters & idealized her older sister Joyce who was 6 years her senior.

Growing up on the east coast was so much fun for her. She enjoyed the chilly snow filled winters with sledding & ice skating on frozen ponds along with her older sister Joyce & many of their cousins. Summers were spent in upstate New York in the Catskills renting out the family bungalows to the summer vacation visitors. Exploring the beautiful terrain collecting flowers, family cookouts & making new friends every summer was a season she always looked forward to.

As a young girl she took a variety of lessons in the arts; the piano, ballet, jazz, & ice skating, where she truly excelled & flourished. Her older sister Joyce on the other hand, who also really, really loved these activities, unfortunately had two left feet, & her teachers would tell my grandparents they should probably save their money. “But Iris,”they would say, “now that’s a child with some natural talent.”

She was also a very beautiful child with glorious chestnut brown hair & a pair of matching big brown eyes, who was always cheerful & smiling, & oh so charming. Even back then, she had an outstanding & extroverted personality, & incredible sense of style.

She was the youngest of the cousins & often could be considered as somewhat of a pest as she always wanted to be a part of the fun with the older family children, who perhaps thought she might slow them down. But Iris, being Iris, would wiggle her way in anyway with her charm & charisma.

Her family decided to move across country from the East Coast to the West Coast to California in 1966 which happened to be her senior year of high school. She was not thrilled about moving to California because she was an East Coast girl at heart & especially because it was her coveted senior year.

However, being the resilient person that she was, she quickly adapted to her new life and new home in Encino, California. The beautiful weather & all of the glorious West Coast amenities she soon grew to love.

After graduating from Birmingham High School in 1966 she decided to enroll in beauty school. She absolutely fell in love with hairstyling & found her niche & embarked on a career as a beautician. She loved styling but her passion and expertise was hair color.

My grandparents who had a long history on the East Coast in the bakery business, brought that love for baked goods with them when they moved to California. My grandparents fondly known to all that knew them as Uncle Charlie & Aunt Gertie, opened up the Buttercup Bakery inside the world famous Piggly Wiggly market in the heart of Encino on Ventura Boulevard. That is where my Mom worked along side her parents, her sister Joyce & her Aunt Faye and Uncle George while she attended Beauty school. I suppose this where my Mom developed her sweet tooth!

My Mom was blessed with yours truly at the ripe old age of 22. She was married for 6 years but when that dissolved she decided she wanted to move from the Valley to Westlake Village to be closer to her beloved sister Joyce & her brother-in law Artie.

So in 1975 she made the move, first renting a condo on the beautiful lake in Westlake Village then in 1978 she was able to purchase her very first home in Newbury Park as a single mother accompanied by her 8 years old daughter. My mother was a longtime resident of the Conejo Valley for 48 years, where she lived & worked in many different capacities in Thousand Oaks & throughout the Ventura County.

Her love for all things beauty & my Aunt Joyce’s nack for business brought them together as business partners where they purchased a franchise store from The Merle Norman Cosmetics company. At one point they were running three studios: one in Agoura, one in the Janss Mall, and one in the Oaks Mall.

Beauty pageants became a huge part of her life starting in 1989 the year I became Miss Conejo Valley. My Mom & Aunt Joyce found their lane, & beauty pageants became her world. In 1992 my Mom & her sister Joyce expanded their business relationship from cosmetics into a production company called Cameo Productions as co-partners & co-directors of The Miss Tri-Counties USA Pageant. For over a decade they produced beauty pageants working alongside young girls & young women focusing on beauty, brains & good stewardship. They were literally a one-stop shop. They were in their glory, providing the girls with stunning evening gowns for competing, perfecting their make-up & hair, & honing in on how to interview in a professional manner showcasing your best self. Their pageant productions were so elaborate with all the lights, & cameras & they always had so much fun coming up with each years pageant theme. They treated each pageant like it was a Broadway production, embracing every contestant with open arms & supporting them with so much love & encouragement that the contestants would come back year after year just to enjoy another incredible pageant experience. Together they mentored, trained & became incredible friends for decades with their contestants, their reigning title holders, and their families.

Friendship was at the core of who my mother was. She was so unbelievably fun, loyal, kind, thoughtful & made every single person she encountered feel, supported & loved. When she spoke with you, you had her undivided attention. She made you feel like you were the only person that existed. She was your biggest supporter, your biggest cheerleader, & always had the perfect words of encouragement that came straight from her heart.

She collected friends like someone who enjoyed collecting their favorite treasures. And boy did she ever treasure & value her friendships. Friendships lasting decades, cultivated and established in respect, loyalty, support, encouragement & of course laughter.

My Mom may not have been able to tell you what she had for breakfast the day before, but she could effortlessly remember every beauty queen from over 3 decades ago. She could tell you the color dress they wore, if their hair was in an updo or down, & if they flubbed their on stage completion question.

She was a walking encyclopedia of reality television. It was her favorite guilty pleasure of binge watching & yelling at the TV while she watched the cast do ridiculous things. She could tell you every single person's name, who they were hooking up with, & she would have so many details of each person's personal life that you would of thought she just spent hours with them chatting on the phone.

Speaking of chatting, my Mom was an unbelievable social butterfly. Anywhere she went, the bank, the grocery store, the DMV, just anywhere out & about, she would effortlessly strike up conversations with anybody. Sometimes even exchanging numbers while getting a mani/pedi with a gal in the chair next to her that she had just met, with promises of let’s do lunch.

My Mom did not know how the heck to use her cell phone. She would always tell you her phone was going nuts & that her phone didn’t work. She never thought for a moment that perhaps the issue was that she did not know how to manage the phone settings. Her text messages were legendary. Most of the time it would be easier to decipher Morse Code than one of her texts. However, she was an expert & loved sending adorable texts from the GIF’s section from her cell phone app.

My mom was the QVC shopping network Queen. The last call logged on her phone while here on earth was a mid-night call to QVC! She literally was keeping this company in the top 100 slot on the Nasdaq. Anytime you would go over to her house, there would be dozens of boxes barricading the door, & you had to strategically maneuver around them to get in. And often I would say “NOW what did you buy!” And she would always play it off, “Oh those are all going back to QVC." And I would reply, “Oh really, well it looks like they haven’t even been opened yet." And she would flash me that Iris look, & playfully tell me to shut up & mind my own business.

There were so many times she would call or text with such urgency to hurry & call her back where you would think it was an emergency, & I would ask, What is it? What’s wrong? And she would frantically ask, pink or purple? X-small or a small? Hurry I only have ten minutes until the QVC special is over.

She was so obsessed with QVC, that one time when she was watching the network, there was a segment where they were having on air customers calling in & the network would play the callers voice for the broadcast. So as she was watching a segment like this, & listening to the on air customer rave about this particular product, she thought, “Why does that voice sound so familiar?" Finally at one point the customer said this is "Joyce calling from Newbury Park, California". And my mom got hysterical laughing & shouted with immense excitement at the TV SIS!? And then my mom only wanted to know, why her sister didn’t give her a shout out on National TV!

My Mom & her sister Joyce were legendary. Together they were a comedy show on steroids! Everywhere they went all kinds of shenanigans would ensue. I fondly referred to them as Lucy & Ethel. They were six years apart in age but anyone who knew them all agreed they were one person, one soul. You could not say Iris without saying Joyce & vise versa. They would finish each other’s sentences or be talking in synchronicity. It drove me crazy! But they were hilarious. No matter what the situation Joyce would always side with her sister & my mom would always side with my Aunt Joyce. Even my poor Uncle Artie, would get Trumped if the two sisters had to choose. I have never seen a bond between two sisters like the bond they had. They were stuck together like glue.

My mother was always manicured from head to toe. She would refer to this look as being pu putzed. I think that was her own made up Jewish word for FABULOUS. But fabulous she was. You didn’t know quite where to look first, as her bedazzled outfit matched seamlessly from her handbag to her shoes, to her earrings, & necklaces & bracelets & everything in between. She would always top off the look with a spritz or two of her favorite fragrance ETERNITY by Calvin Klein. You could smell her essence before she even came around the corner.

She loved to always tell my girls and I how hot she used to be, always emphasizing the O in HOT. She would pronounce the O like if you were trying to make sure your breath was fresh.

She would often tell my girls & I she got flirted with or asked out on a date by a stranger she met somewhere that day. My girls & I would just crack up how she would re-tell these stories. Then we would ask her then why didn’t you accept the date, & she would always say ahh.. they were too old!

My mom loved young people. She was always so hip and cool & fashion forward & she just always clicked with young people. She loved to hear their stories & what was going on in their lives & only wanted to know where things were going with whoever they were dating at the time, or if their was a ring in the near future, otherwise she’d tell them kick him to curb girl, don’t waste your time.

She had a wicked sense of humor. Unbelievably witty & quick in her responses. She was so detailed in her recollection of the story she would be telling you, which would typically start with “do you remember when…" & she would recount the story with such detail & humor & you would find yourself laughing so hard that your stomach would hurt, & if you were lucky, you made it to the bathroom before you peed your pants!

My mother was obsessed with Cher. When I was little, Donny Osmond & Cher were my favorites. Every Friday night at 8 pm you could find us snuggled up on the sofa watching Donny & Marie & on Sunday we’d be back in the same spot, singing along with Sonny & Cher “I Got You Babe .” I would sing Sonny's part & of course my mom HAD to sing Cher's part. My mom really looked a-lot like Cher, & she just absolutely LOVED when people told her that.

Cher was a spokesperson back in the 90’s for Equal sweetener doing a series of television commercials. I resembled her a little bit, but not like my mother. Anyway, at that time, I was going out on commercial auditions & I just so happened to get chosen to be one of two girls that was being considered to be Cher's body double for her hands in one of these Equal commercials. When I told my mom this, I think she screamed so loud you could hear her in Japan. This audition was very unique because they wanted me to come to set at Universal to meet Cher & for the producers to see my hands up close. Now, I knew this was a once in a lifetime opportunity for my Mom to get to see her idol in person so I said “Ok, you can come along, but you need to be quiet & don’t freak out” She promised, so off we went. The entire way there in the car, she could not stop talking she was sooo.. excited, “Oh my god, what you think she will be wearing?”Oh my god, do you think her hair will be straight or curly? Oh my god… Oh my god…I said, MOM… you promised you will be good". And she said “Oh I will, I will, I will I promise. So when we got there Cher was on set sitting in front of the cameras & the lights, the make-up and hair people were touching her up, & all we could see from where we were standing were Cher’s elbows to her hands. In alllll my life, I had never seen my mother so limber, as she stretched her neck as far as it would stretch so she could try to get a better glimpse of her idol. Needless to say, they ended up choosing the other girl, so we were told thank you for coming as they gestured us to the door. As I started for the door, I looked behind me to make sure my Mom was in tow. She was not. She was still facing the direction of Cher, frozen in place like a statue, & I whispered, Mom…Mom…MOM. Finally my third call, to her broke her out of her trance, & I waved with my hand "Come on let’s go…” her poor little face was so pathetic as she flashed me her pouty sad face, she literally was teary eyed & whimpering the entire car ride home.

My mother dedicated her entire life to me. I was always her entire world. That is, until one day when two new little people came along & became her universe. And their names are Cambria & Aubrey. My beautiful daughter Cambria was born in 1998 & soon followed another beautiful daughter, Aubrey in 2001.

My mother always loved rough & tough. Rock music, Harley Davidson Motorcycles, & her low rise bell-bottom snug fit leather pants. She desperately wanted a boy & got me, & had high hopes for a grandson, but got two girly girls. Needles to say, she got over it real quick & had a blast spoiling her granddaughters with all things girl. At holiday time, & the girls birthdays, she got strict instructions from me not to go overboard with gifts, & no toys with a million pieces. But I always spoke on deaf ears, because she regularly ignored my requests for this. She spoiled them rotten, & her life got 100 shades brighter when she became a grandmother. She never missed a talent show, always arriving with a huge beautiful bouquet of flowers. She never missed trick or treating, never missed a cheerleading or dance performance. And never arrived without a face beaming with joy & her signature bouquet of flowers. She was so proud of her grandchildren. She was one of those people that just oozed delight at the sheer mention of their names. She never had only one picture of them in her purse, she literally carried a mini photo album with her, just in case someone asked if she had a picture. She taught them to be respectful. To be honest. To be kind. To always take care of their mommy, and above all else, to idolize Cher.

My Mom’s signature goodbye she would pantomime. She would point to her eyeball for I, she would circle her heart for love, then she would point at you, finishing off with blowing kisses. She was so warm & affectionate & so unbelievably genuine & kind. She had an incredible sense of humor & fun was her theme of life. Her sheer presence lit up every room she entered.

We always think there is going to be another tomorrow. One day we are here, another day we are not.

If I could turn back time…

I would have told her, that your time here on earth mattered & your legacy of kindness, generosity & endless laughter will live on.

Iris Karen Lallo was born on February 9th 1948 & she received her angel wings on July 12th 2026. I hope heaven is ready, because they better brace themselves up there for some unbelievable fun.

Rest in Laughter…

I love you mom💜

My Grammy was truly my best friend. We loved our long phone calls, laughing about our day, eating Chinese takeout, and watching shows together. She was the kindest, most selfless person I’ve ever known, always making sure everyone around her was loved and taken care of. She always told me, “You’re my best friend, Cambria. When you need me and I’m not here anymore, look up. I’m the star you see in the sky.” My best friend forever, I’ll miss you until I see you again.

~Cambria

My beloved Gammy brought so much joy, love and laughter into my life. She had a personality big enough to fill any room, but her heart was even bigger. She had a way of making everyone around her feel so loved and special. I will forever be grateful for the privilege of being her granddaughter. My life will be a little less bright without her, but her love will remain in my heart forever.

~Aubrey

We always think there is going to be another tomorrow.

If I could turn back time…

I would tell you how much I appreciated you. How much I loved you. I would have given you more hugs. I would have called you back sooner. I would not have rushed to get off the phone.

If I could turn back time..

I would have said yes to coming over, simply to just hang out with you.

I would have done more for you. I would have made sure I was holding your hand when you took your last breath, and told you how much I was going to miss you, and it was ok for you to go. That your time here on earth mattered, and your legacy of kindness, generosity and endless laughter will live on.

If I could turn back time…

I would have reminded you how deeply you touched so many people’s lives in more ways than you ever knew.

I would tell you how grateful I was for all the special and unbelievably thoughtful things you always did for my girls and I. And I would thank you, for how loved and adored you always made us feel.

If I could turn back time…

I would have told you that this is not goodbye, and I will see you everyday when I look into my children’s eyes, because your blood runs through their veins. I would have told you, how strong and how brave you were, and how proud I was of you.

If I could turn back time…

I would tell you not to be scared, auntie Joyce will be sure to come get you. The legendary two peas in a pod will once again be re~united, and I know the two of you will pick up right where you left off.

You’re free now. Free from all pain, and discomfort. Your body was ready to go home. Your mission completed. You always brought so much joy, laughter and sunshine wherever you went.

If I could turn back time… oh…

If I could just turn back time.

Rest in laughter.

I love you mom.

~Joli

A Celebration of Life For Iris Karen Lallo will be held at the Granddaughter's Residence, 303 Encino Vista Drive, Thousand Oaks, CA 91362, on August 9, 2026, beginning at 6:00 pm, and the family kindly asks that all guests attending wear Iris' favorite color: Purple.