Four incidents that stay with me.
Years ago, my wife and I were going to see the Bolshoi Ballet at the Met. It was our anniversary, and we really splurged. We purchased Parterre tickets and went to Cafe Des Artistes for dinner. When we were entering the restaurant, we were having a fight, and didn't notice that they put us in a really bad table. I was about to complain, when a party of six was seated next to us. Jackie O and Maurice Temple..., Caroline and her husband, and a couple we did not recognize. We noted that they pre-ordered...their entire meal consisted of a smoked salmon appetizer and a berry-colored sorbet. We left at the same time they did, to go to the Met...they got into a limo, we walked. Well, we get to our box, and who is sitting directly to my left, same row...Jackie O. An earlier time at an ABT performance, we were waiting on an ice cream line on the plaza, and she was right behind us. Well, naturally we stood on the side eating our ice cream and to gawk...she literally took three licks and threw it out...that was, I guess, her splurging.
We sat next to Rita Moreno at an Italian restaurant next to the theatre where The Ritz was playing, long since closed. Two reactions...she definitely played the Diva...talked louder than she had to, and boy could she get into a filthy joke. My parents, much to my surprise, loved the show and thought she was great. Well, after listening to the third filthy (not dirty) joke in a row -- and this was 44 years ago, if I remember correctly, so you didn't expect to hear someone at the next table telling a filthy joke in a very loud voice -- they concluded that they had had enough of Rita Moreno that night.
We were walking along the street, probably, 40 years ago. When we see this large woman in a fur coat literally sitting on the curb. We thought there might be something wrong, some walked over to ask if there was anything we could do. She told us, no thank you. She was waiting for a friend who was quite late, was tired of standing, and just decided to sit down. Since she was large at that point, I wondered how she was going get up, but did not see.
Finally, and background is needed here. My wife's all-time favorite movie line is (said in hyper-speed)'we have the motive which is blackmail, and the body which is dead. Well, somewhere in the 70's, when we were still in our 20s, we were at the Gaiety Delicatessen on 47th Street, long since gone. Who was seated at the next table but Rod Steiger, with some other folks. It took everything in my power, being an up-tight 20-something, to keep her in her seat. She wanted to go over to his table and tell him about her favorite line. Since we were so young, I imagine he would have been graceful, but we will never know. Interestingly, a dozen years later, we were seated next to his party at a performance in London of Ghosts, starring Vanessa Redgrave. Previously that performance, we had waited on-line for a ridiculous amount of time, because some jerk at the box office window was being difficult. Well, after a good 5 minutes, he finally moved on and the line got going. It was Timothy Dalton, who was with Redgrave at the time. What a jerk.
Actually, there was one more that was kind of fun. For our 10th anniversary, we went to Barbados. At the resort we were staying at, they were filming one of those shows where a bunch of second hand third tier movie and tv actors compete in a bunch of athletic activities. There was a who's who of people who had been in TV in the 50s, all of whom I recognized by name (from watching too much TV). They included Barbara McNair (probably the most successful and still regularly working), Peter Brown from one of the westerns, Robert Horton from Wagon Train, the older son from that show Betty Buckley was in (can't remember the name), Gary Franks, who had won an Emmy for Family, but had not done much since, and a bunch of others. At the time, over 30 years ago, they were much more recently visible, and still young, so it added to the fun for most of the week.
Updated On: 8/2/19 at 11:31 AM
