The tax revolt, he believes, "should definitely come to New York. You cannot expect to live as sinfully economically as we've lived, and avoid a rampage. The politicians have brought this upon themselves. And don't let them get away with telling us that they have to cut police, firemen, and sanitation before they cut themselves, because they don't.
"When John Lindsay was mayor, he flung back his head and inhaled the vapors of the 1960s. And it was left, baby, left. He bet his presidential hopes on that. But in the last mayoral election, it was the conservatives who did the best. Koch was the most conservative Democrat running."
His anticommunist sentiments come to the surface when the subject turns to the 1980 Olympics. "I think we should have never allowed it in Moscow on the grounds that we have never had the Olympics in a dictatorship in the modern era. I'd like to see the athletes of the world say, 'We're not going to Moscow to play sportive games by rules when the Russians live in violation of the rules of civilization itself.' Russia is guilty of the world's worst cast of unsportsmanlike conduct. … Yes, we should pull out. But the Olympics is small potatoes. I say, start a new United Nations for the free countries of the world — a UFN, a United Free Nations, which shall be an association of all nations governed by law, of all free democracies that want to remain free. In 1945, we did not seek to build a fraternity of dictatorships where tinhorn tyrants would outvote democracies 10 to one."
Barry has lived on the West Side ever since he came to the city from Greensboro, North Carolina 21 years ago, and now occupies a 17-room penthouse overlooking the Hudson River. "The West Side and the East Side are like East Berlin and West Berlin in terms of the rigidity of lifestyle," he says. "There's a feeling on the West Side that we don't have to impress each other. We know where it's at."
Recently divorced from his Swedish wife, Barry makes frequent overnight trips to Sweden to see his children. He has to be back at the WMCA studio on Sunday at 11 a.m. for his four-hour live show with guests. Two weeks ago, he asked Robert Violante, who was shot and partially blinded by Son of Sam, what it felt like to be shot in the head. Questions like this tend to provoke as many listeners as they fascinate, and that is why Barry prefers not to be too specific about his address.
"I don't do a Merry Mailman kind of show," he says with a half-smile."One of my fantasies is to have a hit man from the Communist Party, theNazi Party, the PLO, and the Black Panthers approach me from fourdifferent directions and fire all at once — and I duck."
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WESTSIDER SUZANNE FARRELLStar of the New York City Ballet
5-19-79
She arrived in New York like a fairy princess — a wondrous creation whose beauty and talent left audiences gaping in astonishment. At 16, she became the youngest person ever to join George Balanchine's New York City Ballet, and at 19, she was promoted to the rank of principal dancer. Since that time, 14 seasons have come and gone, but Suzanne Farrell, the girl from Cincinnati, is still the darling of America's foremost ballet company.
In a dressing room interview last week at the New York State Theatre, the slender, angelic-looking Miss Farrell spoke at length about her public and private life, quickly revealing the two qualities that have enabled her to remain one of the world's top ballerinas for so long. First is her boundless energy; second is her genuine love for people and the world of ballet. Warm, funny, and articulate about her art, she discussed with enthusiasm the upcoming television special,Choreography by Balanchine, Part One, which will be aired May 23 on Channel 13.
"This is one of four programs we taped in Nashville," she said, in a voice as clear and melodic as an actress's. "The name of the ballet I'm in isTzigane; the music is by Ravel. We did the finale before the beginning because they wanted to let go the four extra couples that were needed for that part. It was very strange — like having dessert before the meal." She laughed lightly, tossing back her long, silky brown hair. "The TV studio is very small, and the camera sees things differently than the audience sees when you're on stage. Things that are done in a circle look like an oval. And diagonal movement has to be done in a straight line."
Suzanne's brightest moment in the program is a solo at the beginning, which she performs to the music of a solo violin. "One of the things I like about doing ballet on television is that you can reach many people who have never seen live dance before. About two years ago I got a beautiful letter from an older man in Oklahoma who was certainly not in the habit of writing fan letters. Now, every time I tape a new program, I think of that man.
"Tziganeis one of my favorite ballets, because it was the first one that Balanchine choreographed for me after I returned to the company in 1974."
In 1969, Suzanne left the New York City Ballet and spent the next four seasons with Maurice Bejart's Ballet of the 20th Century in Brussels, Belgium. When she finally wrote to Balanchine to find out the chances of dancing with him again, he simply asked when she could start.
"In Brussels, the type of ballet they're used to is different, so they react differently. If you were to give them a beautiful, wonderfully stark ballet, with little costume and scenery, they might not take to it as much. … But it was a good thing to have in my career. I demand that I get something constructive out of any situation. Because life is so short that you can't afford to not give everything, every time you go out there."
For the past 10 years she has been married to Paul Mejia, a former dancer who is today the artistic director and choreographer for the Ballet de Guatemala, one of Latin America's major companies. Although the couple must undergo some long separations, their marriage is a happy one. Spending time alone at her Lincoln Center area apartment does not bother Suzanne. With a steady diet of exercise classes, rehearsals and performances, and her nine pets (eight cats and a dog), Suzanne has little time to be lonely.
"When I have a free night, it's terrible," she lamented, "because every time the phone rings, I think, 'Oh no, they want me for a performance.' I dance just about every night. By the time I go to bed, it's about 2 o'clock. I happen to get up about 6. … On Monday, my free day, I teach at the American School of Ballet. It's such a shock to do two performances on Saturday and Sunday, and none on Monday. It's hardly worth it, because the body can't adjust. … I have always thought that actors have it easier than dancers, because it doesn't matter so much how tired your body is: all you need is your mouth."
A Westsider for most of her career, Suzanne lists reading and cooking as her preferred pastimes: "I'm a great short-order cook. I think if I weren't a dancer, I'd be a waitress." Two local restaurants she likes to frequent are Rikyu (210 Columbus Ave.) and Victor's Cafe (240 Columbus).
Asked about her salary, Suzanne admitted that "you'll never make a lot of money in ballet. It's something we do because we love it, and we have to do it to be happy. … The sole attraction is working for Balanchine and the New York City Ballet: that's something you can't put down in dollars and cents. I just assume that the company is paying us as much as they can." She smiled radiantly and added: "Most dancers wouldn't know what to do with a lot of money anyway, because they wouldn't have time to spend it."
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WESTSIDER JULES FEIFFERScreenwriter forPopeye the Sailor
11-5-77
Imagine a movie starring Dustin Hoffman as Popeye the Sailor and LilyTomlin as his girlfriend Olive Oyl.
Anyone who has seen the old Popeye cartoons, or the new computer animated ones, might think that the fighting mariner does not have the dramatic qualities needed for a full-length film. But according to Westsider Jules Feiffer, who is now writing the script forPopeye the Sailor, the original comic strip in the daily newspapers was the work of "an unrecognized genius." E.C. Segar created Popeye and drew him from 1924 to 1938. After that the character changed. Feiffer finds the original strip to be his biggest source of inspiration.
"The cartoons," says Feiffer, sitting on one arm of a chair in his Riverside Drive apartment, "exploit the violence between Popeye and Bluto. That was never part of the strip. It's more along the lines of the traditional cartoon of the 1940s, which could find nothing more interesting than one character dismembering another. I didn't find that funny when I was a kid and I don't now."
Feiffer developed his unique style of humor long before he sold his first cartoon. Today, though still perhaps best known as a cartoonist, he has gained a reputation as a playwright for both the stage (Knock, KnockandLittle Murders) and the screen (Carnal Knowledge). He is also a respected prose writer, having recently published his second novel,Ackroyd.
A product of the Bronx, Feiffer recalls that after graduating from high school he went through "a series of schlock jobs to buy food and drawing materials. And long periods of unemployment." He planned all along to become a cartoonist. "I was prepared," he says, "for the eventual success which I was certain was going to happen if my work remained true to myself."
Feiffer spent several years as an assistant to other cartoonists and attended two art schools. Still, no one would publish his work until a day in 1956 when Feiffer, age 27, took a batch of his best 'toons to the office of a new, relatively unknown weekly calledThe Village Voice. They loved his work, and he became a regular contributor.
"All other publications at that time had their own idea of their readership. And editors insisted on tailoring stories to their own taste. TheVoice," says Feiffer, "existed for the artist's taste and the writer's taste. It was a time when McCarthyism and the blacklist were rampant through every strata of society."
TheVoicewas then the only publication of its kind. It wrote about dissent; it was considered revolutionary, and Feiffer's weekly cartoons helped it to maintain that image.
Success came quickly to Feiffer after he joined theVillage Voice: "It happened faster than I thought. It was only about three months or so before my work came to be talked about, and publishers began to offer book contracts." Syndication took place a few years later. Now the cartoon is carried by somewhat over 100 publications in every country of the western world and several in the Far East.
Feiffer's cartoon takes him one day a week to conceive and draw. During the other six days he works on his latest writing project. For three years — until it was published this past summer — that project wasAckroyd, an unconventional detective-type novel in which the characters are too human to keep their traditional roles as props for the detective's cleverness. The book is less suspenseful than a standard detective novel, but more revealing of human nature.
One of the things that has been in my work for many years," says Feiffer, "is people's need to communicate with each other not directly, but in code. … Coded language is used to guide our lives, to frame our relationships with people." Feiffer's main character takes the name Roger Ackroyd and tries to become a private detective. Instead he gets "so intertwined with the coded life of his clients that he works on that for the rest of his career."
Ackroydgot extremely mixed reviews. "It's what I'm used to," notes the author. "Some reviews have been glowing. Others wondered what the hell the book was about and why I bothered to write it." Feiffer takes the good and the bad in stride, remembering what happened when his first play,Little Murders, opened on Broadway in 1967.
"It got all negative reviews and closed in a week," he recalls. "It was immediately done in London after that, which started the revival, because it was done very successfully. Then it was brought back to New York the following year and it won all the awards." In 1971 it was made into a successful film starring Elliott Gould and Marcia Rodd.
An occasional theatregoer, Feiffer ends the interview on a customary depressing note, saying that he is generally disappointed by even the biggest hits in town.
"I don't think of myself as a Broadway playwright," he says. "I'd be ashamed of that title. I don't think the Broadway theatre is very interesting or has been for the last 20 years."
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EASTSIDER GERALDINE FITZGERALDActress, director and singer
3-15-80
Anyone hearing her rasping, throaty, Irish-accented voice for the first time might think she were suffering from laryngitis. But those who have come to love and admire Geraldine Fitzgerald over the past 40 years hear nothing but earthy humanity in the voice. One of the most versatile actresses in America, as unorthodox as she is gifted, Miss Fitzgerald at 66 remains at the height of her career, constantly juggling a variety of projects, as she says, "like somebody cooking a meal with many courses."
We're sitting in her Upper East Side living room, which is decorated in white from floor to ceiling — carpet, chairs, tables, sofa, and even the television. The only picture is a childhood portrait of her daughter Susan Scheftel, now a 27-year-old graduate student.
"I like light unimpeded," explains Geraldine, her rosy face breaking into its customary smile. "And if everything is white, it's different in the morning and it's different in the middle of the day, and it's different all the time."
A slender, handsome woman with a penchant for long flowing skirts and bright lipstick, whose straight gray hair descends halfway down her back, Geraldine is soon talking aboutMass Appeal, the two-character play that she is directing at the Manhattan Theatre Club; it will open in mid May. "It's by a very young author called Bill Davis. We did it last October at the Circle Rep Lab, and it was very successful, but it needed strengthening points. So Bill has just completed the ninth draft. … Milo O'Shea is going to star in it. He's Ireland's premier comedian and a magnificent dramatic actor too."
Miss Fitzgerald's next acting role will be in a play titledEve."It's about a woman who runs away from home to seek her own internal freedom, like Nora inA Doll's House. The only difference is, she's my age. So of course her options are few. And she goes right down to the bottom: she becomes a derelict. And then slowly, slowly, slowly she comes up to find some kind of strength and independence. It's a drama, but a very comedic drama."
Her third major project at the moment is to prepare her acclaimed one woman show,Street Songs, for a small Broadway house such as the Rialto.
She started to take singing lessons about 10 years ago, and introduced her one-woman nightclub act in 1975, employing her remarkable acting technique to make the songs personal and moving. She has performed the act at Reno Sweeney, at Lincoln Center, in a one-hour special for public television, and at the White House for President and Mrs. Carter.
"I don't sing what's called 'folk songs.' People think I do. I sing songs that are very — winning. Because the songs that people sing when they're on their own — whether singing in the streets, singing in the shower, singing in the car — they do not sing losing songs. We didn't know that for a long time. 'We' is Richard Maltby Jr., who didAin't Misbehavin'. He's my colleague and partner and he directed it.
"At first we couldn't understand why a marvelous song like 'Loch Lomond' was sort of rejected by the audience, and then a song like 'Danny Boy', that you'd think everybody's sick of, was acceptable. Well, 'Danny Boy,' believe it or not, is a winning song. At the end of it, the girl says, 'Even if I'm dead, if you come back and you whisper that you love me still, I'll hear you in my grave.' And then I'll know that you'll be beside me for eternity. Whereas 'Loch Lomond' starts off so well, but each verse says 'But me and my true love will never meet again … "
She began her acting career at the Gate Theatre in Dublin while in her teens, came to the U.S. in 1937, and acted with Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre on the Air before heading for Hollywood, where she made such classic films asDark Victory, Watch on the Rhine, andWuthering Heights, for which she received an Oscar nomination. In 1946 she settled on Manhattan's East Side, and has been based there ever since, although she frequently returns to Hollywood to act in movies.
Perhaps even better known for her stage roles, she names Eugene O'Neill's poignant, autobiographicalLong Day's Journey Into Nightas her favorite play. When it was revived Off Broadway in 1971, her portrayal of the morphine-addicted Mary Tyrone became the biggest hit of her stage career. Miss Fitzgerald has recorded this play and others for Caedmon Records.
Married to Stuart Scheftel, a wealthy executive and producer, she has one son from a previous marriage, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the hugely successful young director who was nominated for a Tony Award forWhose Life is this Anyway?Miss Fitzgerald is the first actress ever to receive the Handel Medallion, New York's highest cultural award.
If Geraldine has one regret about her career, it is that it took her "so many decades to get up the courage to sing. Everybody told me not to, because I have such a funny voice. … Then I realized that I needed a vehicle for expressing what I feel about the world and about people that was very flexible, and was mine. And if the audience would put up with the harsh sounds, then I could use it. And evidently they can, so if they can now, I guess they always could."
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EASTSIDER JOAN FONTAINEActress turns author withNo Bed of Roses
12-30-78
The Oscar statuette stands on the end of a shelf about eight feet off the floor, partially obscured by a row of books, its gold surface gleaming dully in the subdued light of the room. Below, in one of the apartment's four fireplaces, a small log is softly burning. This room, like the rest of the large, immaculate home, is furnished in the style of an early 20th century country manor. Here, in the heart of the Upper East Side, Joan Fontaine has spent 15 years of an immensely productive life. I take a seat on one side of the fire, and Miss Fontaine faces me from the opposite side of the room, her slender, regal form resting comfortably in an antique chair, to talk about her best-selling autobiography,No Bed Of Roses(Morrow, $9.95). Published in September, the book has already sold more than 75,000 copies in hardcover.
As the title implies, Miss Fontaine's life has been one long roller coaster ride of triumph and tragedy. During the 1940s she received three Oscar nominations for Best Actress in the space of four years, and won the award forSuspicion(1941). She had the joy of raising two children — one of them adopted — but the disappointment of four divorces. Her mother, who died in 1975, was the best friend she has ever known, yet both her father and her stepfather gave her nothing but unhappiness, and she never had a close relationship with her famous older sister, Olivia de Havilland. In fact, the pair have not spoken in years — for reasons clearly explained in Fontaine's book.
A fiercely independent woman who has flown her own airplane and taken part in international ballooning competition, she has suffered through numerous illnesses and injuries that brought her close to permanent disability or death. These are the elements ofNo Bed Of Roses, a disarmingly frank memoir that is frequently unsettling but never boring.
"The fan mail for this book is getting to be enormous," says Fontaine, still radiant at 61. "A lot of people identify with the illnesses, or with trying to bring up children alone. Some people empathize because they had harsh relations with their siblings. A lot of men have told me they cried at the end, in my epitaph to my mother. And then of course, I have heard from a lot of people who wanted to be actresses, or actors."
Did she write the entire book herself? "Every single word. I wouldn't let them touch one of them. … It's not a sordid book; it's not tacky. One reviewer said it was immoral. I don't think I can figure that out. If you ask me, it's rather religious."
The words come out like perfect silver beads. She has always been a formidable presence on the screen, and is no less so in person, as she gives her unrestrained opinions on every topic introduced.
Marriage, says Fontaine, is "waiting on — or waiting for somebody." Asked whether she believes two average people can remain happily married for a lifetime, she replies: "It depends how hypocritical they are, and how much lying they want to do. … I think the word 'love' means an entirely different thing to a woman than it does to a man."
Her classic movies, includingRebecca, Jane Eyre, Suspicion, andThis Above All, are frequently seen on television now, but Fontaine has little respect for television as a medium: "I consider it nothing more than B pictures. I think we took a little more care with B pictures; the actors and actresses got a chance. In a television film, if the actor slips on a word, to hell with it. We'll cut around it."
Earlier this year, Fontaine appeared in the made-for-television movieThe Users, starring Jaclyn Smith. She could do many others, but prefers to be choosy. "The quality of the scripts is so poor. I think it's the taste of the times. It's a brutal world; it's a vulgar world. … It's quite different from the romance of Jane Eyre. I don't think I could act those roles. I'd rather sit in my library in front of the fire."
In truth, she has little time for sitting around: her acting talents are too much in demand, in dinner theatres and in college auditoriums around the country. Recently she returned from a three-month working trip. In February she'll be opening in Dallas. "I haven't decided on the play yet," she says.
In spite of her words, she somehow comes off as being thoroughly charming. A highly sociable woman who loves to attend cocktail parties and make new acquaintances, Fontaine is also a gourmet cook. "At Christmas I cook for about 75 people. No one married can come. I'm thrilled that one of my friends has just gotten divorced. Now she can come." Among the Eastside restaurants that Fontaine visits frequently are 21 and the Four Seasons.
When she has time to herself, Fontaine enjoys reading literature and adapting it for her lectures. "I lecture on many subjects," she says. "I do the entire Jane Eyre — all the roles. It takes about an hour and a half. It's more like a film reading than a lecture. I do one on American poets, and one on Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning — all their own words. Then a new one has crept up — if I may say so, by popular demand — called 'The Golden Years.' I tell how to do it — how to make these years the best. I've never felt so happy or so free or so contented as I am now." born 10-22-17
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WESTSIDER BETTY FRIEDANFounder of the women's liberation movement
7-14-79
One of the most-discussed nonfiction works published in 1978 wasThe 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in Historyby astrophysicist Michael H. Hart. He writes: "My criterion was neither fame nor talent nor nobility of character, but actual personal influence on the course of human history and on the everyday lives of individuals." Seven native-born Americans were included in the 100, and whenPeoplemagazine requested Hart to expand his list of Americans to 25, the first name he added was that of Betty Friedan, who, he said, "through women's liberation, has already had a greater impact than most presidents."
The book that did most to trigger the women's movement was Friedan'sThe Feminine Mystique(1963), a brilliant analysis of the postwar "back to the home" movement, when women were led to believe that they could find fulfillment only through childbearing and housework. That myth, said Friedan, resulted in a sense of emptiness and loss of identity for millions of American women. Her book became an international best-seller, and has been translated into more than a dozen languages.
ButThe Feminine Mystiquewas only the first of many contributions that Friedan has made to the women's movement. In 1966 she founded the National Organization for Women (NOW), which today has more than 70,000 members and is by far the most effective feminist group in the world. She has written a second book,It Changed My Life, made countless appearances on radio and television, and become one of the most sought-after lecturers in the country. Despite her public image as a hard core activist, Betty Friedan at 58 is a charming, decidedly feminine woman who enjoys wearing makeup and colorful dresses. In an interview at her brightly decorated apartment high above Lincoln Center, she reveals that these two aspects of her personality are not at all contradictory.
"The women's movement had to come. It was an evolutionary thing," she says, in robust, throaty, rapid-fire bursts of speech interspersed with long pauses. "If I had not articulated these ideas in 1963, by '66 somebody else would have. I think that it's good that I did, because what I had to say somehow got to the essence of it, which is the personhood of woman, and not what later obscured it, with a woman-against-man kind of thing."
It was largely through the lobbying efforts of NOW that the U.S. Senate last October approved a three-year extension of the deadline for ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). So far, 35 of the required 38 states have voted for the amendment. The new deadline is June 30, 1982.
"There's no question that three more states will pass it by that time," says Friedan. "But it's not going to be easy, because there are these well financed right-wing campaigns trying to block it. They understand that the ERA is not only the symbol but the substance of what women have won — that it will give them constitutional underpinning forevermore, so that they can't push women back to the second-class status of the cheap labor pool.
"The ERA will not do anything dramatic — like change the bathrooms — but it will ensure, for example, that women have their own right for social security, which they don't have now. You have to realize that the reactionary forces in this country are using the sexual issue as a kind of smoke screen, to create a hate movement. They're the same forces that tried to prevent labor from organizing, that burnt crosses on lawns in the South, that painted swastikas on synagogues. … NOW has made itthepriority, because if the ERA is blocked, it will be the signal to take back everything."
A woman who smiles and laughs easily in spite of her intensity, Friedan prefers to be called not Miss, Ms., or Mrs., but simply Betty. Born in Peoria, Illinois, she majored in psychology at Smith College and graduated summa cum laude. In June, 1947, after moving to New York City, she married Carl Friedan, then a theatrical producer. Three children later, the Friedans moved to the suburbs, and it was there that she formulated the ideas forThe Feminine Mystique.
Divorced since 1969, Friedan maintains a very close relationship with her children, who are at Columbia University, the University of California, Berkeley graduate school, and Harvard Medical School. A Westsider since 1964, she runs in Central Park for an hour each day.
Of the half dozen major projects she's involved in at the moment, the most significant is her new book,The Fountain of Age."It's about the last third of life," she explains. "I call it the new third of life, because many women have only begun to discover that it exists."
Asked about her chief pleasures in life, she replies with obvious satisfaction, "I like parties, I like my friends, I like talking, I like dancing. … One thing I've discovered is that the stronger you get, the more youcanbe soft and gentle and tender, and also have fun. Idemandmy right to be funny and to have fun, and not just to always be deadly serious."
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WESTSIDER ARTHUR FROMMERAuthor ofEurope on $10 a Day
10-8-78
His name rhymes with "roamer" and that's an accurate description ofWestsider Arthur Frommer, author ofEurope on $10 a Day.
In 1957, when he wrote the first edition,Europe On $5 a Day, Arthur was a dedicated New York lawyer. But the book became so popular that he finally decided, after much agonizing, to leave his law firm and become a full-time travel writer. Every year in the past two decades, Arthur and his wife Hope have revisited the 17 European cities covered in the book; they have distilled the wisdom from thousands of letters received from readers; and they have revised and updated the famous travel book for the new edition each spring. It is still the world's best selling guide to Europe.
"This is not necessarily the glamorous occupation that some people imagine it to be," says Arthur, biting into a sandwich as he, Hope and their daughter Pauline invite me to join them at the dinner table at their Central Park West home. "One of the hazards of being a travel writer is that when you're on vacation, you're always checking to see where the bargains are, or whether the restaurants are worth their reputation. I've visited so many exotic cities of the world that for me, the best way to relax is to stay home."
Due to a miscommunication on my part, I arrive on an evening exactly one week later than the Frommers have expected me, yet they manage such a warm welcome that I end up staying three hours. They seem to have plenty of time to talk. Still, there is a reminder throughout the evening that they lead very busy lives — the constantly ringing telephone.
One reason for my lengthy visit is that it takes place on the same night as the second heavyweight championship boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Leon Spinks. Arthur and I sit on his living room couch, watching the fight live on TV with great interest, rooting for Ali and resuming our interview between the rounds. Ali, who had lost the first fight with Spinks the previous February, beats him handily this time.
"I'm a workaholic," confesses Arthur, excusing himself while he gets up to answer another call from overseas. An energetic, detail-oriented man, Arthur once worked 12 hours a day writing legal briefs and eight hours a day on his book. Today he is the head of Arthur Frommer Enterprises, an international corporation that includes a publishing company, a charter service and four hotels — two in the Caribbean and two in Europe.
Publishing remains his biggest enterprise. He publishes 30 to 40 travel guides each year, ranging in subject matter from the Far East to New York City.Europe On $10 A Dayhas for many years been co-authored by his wife Hope. "While Arthur is on the streets grubbing for bargains," she says, "I'm in the museums."
With her own career as an actress and director, Hope does not fly the Atlantic quite as often as her husband. Says Arthur: "I go to Europe like other people commute to Long Island. Sometimes I go without even a change of clothes."
Twelve-year-old Pauline Frommer made her first trip to Europe at the age of two and a half months. Bright and precocious, she seems a natural to succeed her father in the business one day.
Arthur Frommer's success story began shortly after he graduated from Yale Law School in 1953. While serving in the Army in Europe, he used every weekend to travel. "At the end of my stay in the Army," he recalls, "having nothing to do, I sat down and wrote a little volume calledThe GI Guide to Europe. It was written strictly from memory; it had no prices or phone numbers. I went home and started practicing law. Then I got a cable saying that all 50,000 copies had sold out immediately."
Arthur used his first summer vacation from the law firm to go back to Europe and rewrite his travel guide, for civilian readers. It became "a monster which ate up my life." But he has never regretted his choice of careers.
"The book coincided with a revolution of American travel habits," says Arthur, not giving himself credit for being a prime force behind this revolution. "When I was in college, it was unheard of for young people to go off to Europe. It was too far, too expensive. The students of the early 1960s became the first students in history to travel in great numbers to Europe. Many people think the country was greatly changed by this massive travel."
Arthur and Hope moved to the West Side in 1965, just after their daughter was born. Among their favorite neighborhood businesses: DelPino Shoes, which has some of the lowest prices in the city for quality Italian footwear, and the Jean Warehouse, where Pauline buys many of her clothes.
These days, while Hope is busy directing a play by Pamela O'Neill, Arthur is working on several new projects. One is a course he will be teaching at the New School starting in February. Titled "Great Cities of Western Europe," the course will concentrate on urban problems and their political and social solutions.
But Arthur's biggest ambition these days is to expand his company's week-long chartered tour of Jerusalem into a two-week package for Jerusalem and Cairo. Such a tour, he believes, would help create a bond of understanding in the Middle East.
"It's a dream of mine," says Arthur, "that we might be a force for peace sometime. It may not happen overnight, but I'm sure it will come."
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EASTSIDER WILLIAM GAINESPublisher and founder ofMadmagazine
9-15-79
Madmagazine, an institution in American humor ever since it first appeared in 1955, is one of the few publications on the newsstand that carries no advertising. In the past few years, rising costs and changing tastes have driven Mad's circulation slightly below two million, but publisher William Gaines has no plans of giving in to commercialism.
"I was brought up on a newspaper calledPM," recalls Gaines, an instantly likable native New Yorker who looks like a cross between Santa Claus and a middle-aged hippie. "It sold for a nickel while everything else was two cents. Its policy was to take no ads, and I was kind of brought up on the idea that it's dirty to take advertising." His face breaks out in merriment, and he laughs the first of many deep, rich, belly laughs that I am to hear that afternoon.
"I don't think your publication's going to want to print that, so you'd better leave it out. Um, so I, I. … I mean, it's not —" he sputters, before quickly recovering and driving the point home with his customary journalistic finesse. "As a matter of fact, if you're going to take ads, I think the way your people do it is the way to do it. If you'regoingto take ads, give the publication away. But if somebody's putting out money, it's not right. It's like going to the movies and seeing a commercial. Television, fine: you're getting it free."
We're sitting in his somewhat disorderly Madison Avenue office, which is decorated with paintings of monsters, huge models of King Kong, and a collection of toy zeppelins suspended from the ceiling. When Gaines is asked about lawsuits, his eyes sparkle with glee.
"We have been sued many times. We've never been beaten. We had two cases that went to the U.S. Supreme Court. The first was on Alfred E. Newman (the gap-toothed, moronic-looking character who appears on the magazine cover). Two different people claimed it was theirs — a woman by the name of Stuff and a man by the name of Schmeck. Neither one knew about the other one, and we didn't tell them. It was pretty fun when they all got to court and found that both of them were claiming to own Alfred. Through a series of decisions, the Supreme Court decided that neither one of them owned Alfred, and we were free to use him.
"The other case was when Irving Berlin and a number of other songwriters suedMad, because we used to publish a lot of articles of song parodies which we'd say were sung to the tune of so-and-so. And they took umbrage to that. They said that when people would read the words, they were singing their music in their heads. The judge ruled that Irving Berlin did not own iambic pentameter."
The son of a prominent comic book publisher named M.C. Gaines, William planned to become a chemistry teacher when he returned to college after World War II. Then his father was killed in an accident, and Gaines decided to enter the comic business himself. "I started putting out some very undistinguished, dreadful stuff, because I didn't know where I was going. After three years, Albert Feldstein (Mad'seditor) joined me, and we just had a rapport right away. We started putting out stuff that we had a feeling for — science fiction, horror, crime."
These comics, known as E.C. Publications, are today worth up to $200 each. Classics of their genre, they became the target of a Senate subcommittee on juvenile delinquency. Largely because of public pressure, Gaines dropped all of them exceptMad, which he changed from a 10 cent comic into a 25-cent, more adult magazine. The complete E.C. works have recently been reprinted in bound volumes.
A divorced father of three, Bill Gaines hates exercise, and drives the 18 blocks each day from his Eastside apartment to theMadoffice. His favorite hobbies are attending wine and food tastings, and visiting Haiti. "I've been there about 20 times. It's a wild, untamed place. Something in my nature is appealed to by that kind of thing. … They have no maliciousness toward tourists. I was almost shot there twice, but it was by mistake."
Things are so relaxed around theMadheadquarters that eight out of the nine full-time staffers have been with the publication for more than 20 years. "Our writers and artists are free-lancers," says Gaines. "Most of them have been with us 20 years also. … We get quite a few unsolicited manuscripts, but most of them, unfortunately, are not usable. Every once in a while we'll get one, and then we've got a big day of rejoicing. … We're always looking for writers. We don't need artists, but youneverhave enough writers. And we firmly believe that the writer is God, because if you don't have a writer, you don't have movies, you don't have television, you don't have books, you don't have plays, you don't have magazines, you don't have comics — you don't have anything!
"We don't assign articles. The writers come to us with what they want to write, and as long as it's funny, we'll buy it. And we don't care what point of view, becauseMadhas no editorial point of view. We're not left, and we're not right. We're all mixed up. And our writers are all mixed up — in more ways than one."
died 6-3-92. born 3-1-22.
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WESTSIDER RALPH GINZBURGPublisher ofMoneysworth
7-8-78
Less than two months ago, the U.S. Supreme Court passed an edict allowing the police to raid the files of newspaper offices in search of information relating to a crime. "If they came here, I'd stand at the entrance and block their way," says Ralph Ginzburg, gazing out the window at his suite of offices near Columbus Circle. "I don't care if they arrest me," he adds in his thick Brooklyn accent.
The owlish-looking Ginzburg means what he says. He's the publisher ofMoneysworth, which is mailed each month to 1.2 million subscribers. It is the most successful item he has ever published, but there is no doubt that he would risk losing it and going to jail, because Ginzburg has done so already. In a flamboyant career marked by much notoriety, he has emerged as one of the most important figures of his generation in expanding the freedom of the press.
Of the six magazines and newspapers that Ginzburg has founded, none has caused such a stir as his first one,Eros, which lasted from 1962 to 1963. "It was the first really classy magazine on love and sex in American history," he says. "I signed up 100,000 subscribers right away, at $50 a year. Many leading American artists contributed to it. The big difference is that it was sold entirely through the mails. Our promotion of subscriptions through the mail got a lot of complaints."
About 35,000 complaints, in fact — more than the U.S. Post Office had ever received up to that time. Ralph Ginzburg was charged with sending obscene material through the mails, andEroswas forced to suspend publication while the debate went on. Most Washington lawyers, after examining the magazine, concluded that it was not obscene. But the case became a political issue, and in 1972, 10 years after the so-called crime had taken place, Ginzburg was ordered to serve an eight-month term at the federal prison in Allenwood, Pennsylvania. His imprisonment led to a nationwide outcry by intellectuals and public officials.
Not long after the demise ofEros, Ginzburg started another magazine calledFact. It, too, ended over a lawsuit. This time the plaintiff was U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater. He sued the magazine for $2 million on the charge of libel, and was awarded $65,000 in damages. "It was a compromise, as jury decisions frequently are," remarks Ginzburg. "Unfortunately I didn't have very much money back then, and it wiped us out."
Describing the case, he said: "In 1964, when Goldwater was running for president, he advocated the use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam. I thought the guy was out of his mind and I wondered if anyone else had the same suspicion. … We polled all the members of the American Medical Association who were listed as psychiatrists and asked them if they thought Goldwater was fit to be president. We printed their replies and their long-distance diagnoses … "
Both theEroscase and the Goldwater case made the American public examine some far-reaching questions: What is obscene? What is libelous? Ginzburg helped to establish new definitions for these terms, and in so doing, widened the power of the press.
Avant-Garde, his third publication, existed from 1967 to 1970. "It was born during the Vietnam uprising in this country," he explains. "It was a magazine of art and politics, and had no ad revenue."
In the same year thatAvant-Gardefolded, he began a newsletter calledMoneysworth. Soon it expanded into a full-sized newspaper. "It was launched," says Ginzburg, "because we felt that the only existing periodical in the area of consumer interest —Consumer Reports— wasn't broad enough. Spending money is more than buying appliances."
WhileMoneysworthdoes carry many valuable tips on personal finance, it also has a considerable amount of sensationalism that would seem at home in theNational Enquirer. Even so, Ginzburg's managerial skills, his nonstop working habits, and his literary expertise — he has written several books — have madeMoneyswortha winner. Using the same staff of 40, along with many free-lance writers, he now publishes two other monthly newspapers as well,American Businessand Extra!
He has been a Westsider for 15 years, and his publishing company,Avant-Garde Media, is located on West 57th Street.
If Ginzburg has a single goal right now, it's "to saved up enough money to enable me to put out a periodical exactly likeAvant-Gardewas. It was pure pleasure for me: there was no commercial compromise. But even though this is a multimillion-dollar corporation here, I can't afford it at the moment. … Money is important in publishing. I have to spend 99 percent of my time and effort chasing the buck. I guess I'm lucky. Most people spend 100 percent of their time that way."
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EASTSIDER LILLIAN GISH 78 years in show business
1-5-80
D.W. Griffith, the father of motion pictures, used to say there were only two people who outworked him — Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish. Pickford, who died last May, made her final film in 1933. But Lillian Gish never got around to retiring. At 83, she is perhaps the most active living legend in America.
Sipping tea at her Eastside apartment, which is decorated like a Victorian drawing room, Gish appears to have defeated time. Her clear blue eyes, porcelain-smooth complexion, and slender, girlish figure have not changed all that much since she rose to international stardom in Griffith's controversial 1915 classic,The Birth of a Nation. She also starred in his 1916 filmIntolerance, a box office failure when released, but later recognized as a masterpiece.
An animated speaker who makes sweeping gestures, she still has the crystalline voice and flawless enunciation that enabled her to make the transition from silent films to talkies and Broadway shows in the early 1930s. The 1978 Robert Altman filmA Weddingmarked her 100th screen appearance.
"I've never worked harder in my life than I have in the last three or four years," says Miss Gish, who, during that period has made her singing and dancing debut in Washington's Kennedy Center, hosted a 13-week series for public television,The Silent Years, appeared in an ABC-TV movie of the week, and toured the world three times to present a one-woman show that combines film clips with narration. Her autobiography,The Movies, Mr. Griffith and Me, has been translated into 13 languages.
"I dedicated the book to my mother, who gave me love; to my sister, who taught me to laugh; to my father, who gave me insecurity; and to Mr. Griffith, who taught me that it was more fun to work than to play," she recalls with merriment, describing how her mother wound up in the theatre around 1901 due to financial need. Five-year-old Lillian and her 4-year-old sister Dorothy soon followed in the business. "We didn't use our real names because we didn't want to disgrace the family. … They used to have signs on hotels: 'No actors or dogs allowed.'"
She never got a chance to attend school. "I loved the bookBlack Beauty, and everybody would read it to me on the train or waiting for the train. Well, I finally had it read to me so much, I knew it by heart. And that's how I learned to read. When we were travelling around, mother would always take her history book. When we were in historical places, she'd take us to where history happened."
At the height of her silent film career, Lillian received 15,000 fan letters a week, many from overseas. "Silent films are the universal language that the Bible predicted would bring about the millennium. … When Mr. Griffith made his first talking picture in 1921, he said, 'This is committing suicide. My pictures play to the world. Five percent of them speak English. Why should I lose 95 percent of my audience?'
"One of the things I'm trying to do now is to bring back silent films and beautiful music. I'm doing it with my filmLa Boheme, which was made in 1926. I've done it in the opera house in Chicago with an organist, and at Town Hall here. Harold Schonberg of theNew York Timesgave it the most ecstatic review."
Her credits include an honorary Oscar award, dozens of major stage roles, and a movie that she co-wrote and directed. But Miss Gish, with characteristic modesty, prefers to talk about her friends and family. Bitterness and complaint are alien to her nature, although life has not always been easy. She never married, and her mother, to whom she was highly devoted, spent the last 25 years of her life as an invalid. "But she was never unhappy," testifies Lillian. "She was always the first to laugh, and the gayest."
Following her mother's death in 1948, the apartment was given to Dokey, her nurse, who died the following year. Then Lillian and Dorothy Gish shared the apartment until Dorothy's death in 1968. Although Lillian now lives alone, she has no opportunity to be lonely. Besides work, travel, and reading — her favorite activities — she has 13 godchildren.
One thing that helps keep her young, says Miss Gish, is her intense curiosity. "I was born with it, thank heavens. I feel sorry for people who say they're bored. How in the world can anyone be bored in the world today? How can fiction complete with what's going on?"
A few of her films, have been lost forever, since no original prints exist in good condition. Most, however, are still shown around the globe, which explains why her autobiography is available in such languages as Burmese and East Malaysian. The Museum of Modern Art on West 53rd Street has one of the country's finest collections of vintage Gish films.
One of her upcoming projects is a movie based on a story by the Danish writer Isak Dinesen, scheduled to begin shooting in Europe this winter. Another is a television pilot to be shot in California for Julius Evans.
Asked to name some of the things she is most curious about today, Miss Gish quickly replies, "Naturally what's happening in Cambodia — how they're going to solve that problem. Those poor children. It breaks my heart. … And who's going to be our next president. We've come to the point where we should have two presidents, I think — someone to look after the world and somebody to look after us."
died of natural causes 2-27-93. born 10-14-1893
WESTSIDER MILTON GLASERDesign director of the newEsquire
2-11-78
Two decades beforePlayboyfirst hit the newsstands, there was only one men's magazine in America. A generation of schoolchildren grew up speaking its name in hushed whispers, though anyone reexamining those early issues today could hardly understand why. The magazine wasEsquire.
Its popularity has dipped somewhat in recent years, butEsquirestill sells one million copies per month. And it still has the reputation of being the most tasteful, literary, and sophisticated publication for the American male. If some people have complained that it has not kept up with the times, they won't be able to say that any longer — not sinceEsquirebecame the property of Clay Felker and Milton Glaser, the publishing team who madeNew Yorkmagazine into one of the best-selling weeklies in the city.
With Felker as editor and Glaser as design director,Esquirewill have a totally new look starting with the February 14 issue. It will have a different size, binding, shape, length, and contents. It will also change its name toEsquire Fortnightlyand appear 26 times a year instead of 12.
"The newEsquirewill be ungimmicky, easy to understand," says Milton Glaser, taking a half-hour break from his numerous artistic projects. He is as animated as his enlarged signature, which glows from a custom-made neon lamp on the wall beside a Renaissance Madonna and a framed Islamic drawing.
The first thing you notice about Glaser is the colored handkerchief adorning his jacket pocket. Then you notice how relaxed he is, and how easily he smiles.
"The name of the game is to get an audience that identifies with the magazine and feels it's on their side. People buy a magazine because it's of considerable interest to them, not because they get a deal on the subscription. … What you want to do is to find the right-size audience, made up of people who believe in the values that the magazine reflects."
The originalEsquire, Glaser points out, helped to glamorize the rich, privileged man of the world — the man who had arrived, who knew his place in the world, and whose greatest desire was to surround himself with the symbols of wealth, such as fancy cars and beautiful women.
Today, says Glaser, the American male no longer measures success by symbols alone. Rather, he aims for self-development, for the richness of life itself — professional, personal, physical, intellectual and spiritual.
Clay Felker writes, in a yet-unreleased editorial inEsquire: "We will explore how a man can develop a more rewarding life with the women and children in his life. … I seeEsquiremagazine as a cheery, book filled, comfortable den, a place of wit and sparkling conversation, of goodwill and genial intelligence, where thoughtful discussions take place and wise conclusions are reached."
Milton Glaser is probably the best-qualified artist in America to redesignEsquire. Besides his success withNew Yorkmagazine, which began as a Sunday supplement to the oldNew York Herald Tribune, Glaser has designedThe Village Voice,Circusmagazine,New Westand two of France's leading publications,L'ExpressandParis-Match.
Glaser's posters have sold in the millions. He has put on one-man exhibitions in the U.S., Europe and the Middle East. (He believes, in fact, that his work is more appreciated abroad than at home). He has designed everything from stores to toys to new typefaces.
He is a faculty member at both Cooper Union and the School of Visual Arts. He is responsible for all the graphic design and decorative programs at the World Trade Center. Two volumes of his works have been published —Milton Glaser: Graphic ArtsandThe Milton Glaser Poster Book.
In addition, he is a noted food critic. For the past 10 years he has co authored and constantly updated the best-selling Manhattan restaurant guide,The Underground Gourmet.
A native New Yorker, Milton Glaser has fond memories of his boyhood in the Bronx. He especially likes recalling an event that took place in 1933 — the year thatEsquirewas founded.
"When I was 4 years old, a cousin of mine said, 'Would you like to see a pigeon?' He had a paper bag with him and I thought he meant there was a pigeon in it. But then he took out a pencil and drew a picture of a bird. I was so astonished that you could invent reality that I never recovered from it. The only thing I wanted to do in my life was to make images."
Milton and his wife, Shirley, moved to the West Side last August. "I guess it was the opportunity to find the right physical space. I like the neighborhood because of the mix of working class, middle class, and upper class. … That really is the richest thing the urban scene offers." The number of Westside restaurants listed inThe Underground Gourmethas sharply increased over the years. Among his favorite dining spots of all price ranges are Ying's on Columbus Avenue (at 70th St.), the Cafe des Artistes (1 West 67th St.), and the Harbin Inn (2637 Broadway).
Look in any New York subway station and you'll see a poster advertising the School of Visual Arts. It shows two identical men in a room. One is lying on a bed and the other is floating in the air. The caption reads: "Having a talent isn't worth much unless you know what to do with it." Milton Glaser, the designer of that poster, is a supreme example of a man with many talents who knows what to do with all of them.
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WESTSIDER PAUL GOLDBERGERArchitecture critic for theNew York Times
12-3-77
"What is architecture? It's the whole built environment. It's the outside of a building, the inside, the function; it serves social needs, physical needs. … And a building has an obligation to work well with the buildings around it — at least in the city."
The speaker is Paul Goldberger, architecture critic for theNew York Times. His immaculate suit and tie, refined manners, dry wit, and somewhat formal way of speaking seem to mark him a Timesman even more than the carefully researched, colorfully written articles that have poured out of his pen in the last four years.
As a critic, Goldberger is accustomed to vocalizing opinions and facts in equal measure. His open-mindedness on architectural styles is demonstrated by his apartment, a lavish, ultramodernized suite of high ceilinged rooms inside one of the oldest buildings on Central Park West. The interview begins with a trick question: "What is the third tallest building in New York?" (Answer: the Empire State Building.) He fields it without cracking a smile.
"I guess the question is, do you consider the World Trade Center two buildings?" he says. "I guess it's like asking whether Grover Cleveland was two presidents or one because he served two non-consecutive terms. … The World Trade Center was not necessary built functionally or very pleasing aesthetically. It was built as a kind of symbol of power by the Port Authority. I'm used to it now; human beings can adapt to anything. I even like going to the restaurant at the top and the restaurant at the bottom. It's the floors in the middle I don't like."
He points to the new Citicorp Center on East 53rd Street as an example of modern architecture at its best, and the mosquelike Cultural Center at Columbus Circle as an example of the opposite. "It's pretty horrible," says the critic, agreeing with a newspaper writer who recently labeled the Cultural Center one of the 12 ugliest buildings in Manhattan. "It's a very silly building; it's so obviously dumb. But it doesn't particularly bother me. It's almost innocent, it's so silly."
Lincoln Center, too, draws his barbs. "I find it very pretentious. Rather boring, really. It's a set of imitations of classical themes. The buildings are an unfortunate compromise because the builders were afraid to build something really modern, or to design something that really looked like a classical building. … There's a feeling that they sort of want to be modern and sort of want to be classical and end up being a very unsatisfying compromise."
A New Jersey native who developed a passion for architecture in his earliest years, Paul Goldberger attended Yale University and then worked as a general reporter for another newspaper. Several years later he became an editorial assistant for theTimes. In 1973 there came an opening for an architectural writer, and because theTimesknew of his background, Goldberger was given the first shot at the job. "It was fabulous," he recalls, because it was what I always wanted to do. And it was very much a matter of luck — of being at the right place at the right time." His articles appear most often in the dailyTimes; Louise Huxtable remains the chief architectural writer for the Sunday paper.
Why would a sophisticated Timesman choose the West Side over the East? "There are many more wonderful buildings on the West Side," says Goldberger. Unfortunately not many of the buildings on the West Side have been kept up as well as the East Side. … In terms of apartment house architecture, Central Park West is probably the best street in New York. It has all the grandeur and beauty and monumentality of Fifth Avenue and it also has the relaxed atmosphere."
There's not one West Side," he continues. "There's at least 10. Around here is one neighborhood. Riverside Drive is another. Up by Columbia is another. … One of the reasons I like my own neighborhood is because though it is very much West Side, it's handy to the East Side and midtown. I walk through the park all the time."
Any chance that Manhattan's skyscrapers will eventually weigh down the island? "No," replies the critic emphatically. "First, the island is very, very solid rock and nothing could cause it to sink. The other factor, especially today, is that buildings are not all that heavy, because they're being built with lighter materials and more modern engineering methods. So a huge new building like the Citicorp, which is 900 feet high, is not any heavier than a building 500 feet high built 30 years ago. And since we don't have earthquakes, this is probably the safest environment in the world to build a skyscraper."
Although studying and writing about architecture is "more than a full-time job," Goldberger manages to keep abreast of the legal aspects of buildings as well, including tenants' rights, rent control, zoning laws and redlining. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission is another of his interests. "I think landmarking is crucial to the city," he testifies. "A city exists in time as much as space. It's the mixture of new and old buildings that gives the city life and vitality."
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EASTSIDER MILTON GOLDMANBroadway's super agent
4-14-79
"Pardon me — just one more call to make," said Milton Goldman, pushing the buttons on his nearest desk phone. "Go on, you can ask me questions at the same time," he added, holding the receiver to his ear.
"Are you the biggest theatrical agent in the world?" I said. He returned my gaze evenly.
"Others have said it. It would be immodest for me to say it — but I probably am," said Goldman, who by this time had reached his party and was inviting the young actress on the other end to a Broadway opening that night. He chatted with her for several minutes, his Jack Bennyish voice breaking occasionally into rich laughter.
Sitting upright behind a desk-sized table covered with papers, folders, notebooks and play scripts, the ruddy-complexioned, jacketless Goldman looked far more relaxed that I had expected of a man who, in his 32 years as an agent, has handled the careers of close to 5,000 actors and actresses. Among those he has helped "discover" are Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Grace Kelly, Lee Marvin, Charlton Heston and Faye Dunaway. And though Goldman has become a celebrity in his own right, he still exudes the low-keyed charm of a friendly neighbor talking over a fence.
The appearance is no deception: he owes his success not to high-pressure tactics, but to an encyclopedic knowledge of the theatre on both sides of the Atlantic, a keen judgment of which shows are best for his clients, and a long-proven record for trustworthiness. By title, he is vice president in charge of the theatrical division of International Creative Management, which is matched in size only by the William Morris Agency. Unofficially, he serves as father confessor, rabbi, psychiatrist, and best friend to many of the top stars he represents. Attending the theatre up to five times a week, he is always on the lookout for new clients. His weekends are devoted to reading and casting new plays.
"I can't resist talent, and when I see a talented young actor or actress, I want very much to help realize their potential by opening as many doors as I can for them," he explained, gripping the arms of his chair. "I don't think of my job as work. For me, it's fun. And I never know where the one begins and the other ends. Because I'm that lucky individual whose private life and public life are one and the same thing."
Every year he takes a vacation to Europe on the Queen Elizabeth II. "I'm in Paris for a week and London for about three weeks." In slow, carefully chosen sentences, he stated, "I represent many English clients because my knowledge of the English theatre is probably better than anyone else in the American theatre. Every year in London, I get the same suite in the Savoy Hotel and give great parties. I go to at least eight plays a week — sometimes as many as 10. So I get to see all the plays in London. And I know all the English actors and they know me." Among his British clients: Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir Ralph Richardson and Sir John Gielgud.
"American performers excel in the musical comedy theatre, where dancers and singers also very often are fine actors. This is not true in England. Dancers are especially hard to cast in London, though I think that is changing now. … It's sad that the American theatre can't support serious plays. They're either musicals or they're comedies. I think a healthy theatre should be able to support the works of serious playwrights. This season, we happen to have on Broadway an important play by an American playwright — Arthur Kopit'sWings, which stars our client Constance Cummings, who is an American actress who went to England and made her reputation abroad, and has now returned here to great acclaim."
A native of New Brunswick, New Jersey, Goldman witnessed his first Broadway show in the summer of 1929, and from that day forward, the theatre was his passion. For 10 years he worked as a tire salesman at a family-owned business. Then, through his friend Arnold Weissberger, a noted lawyer, Goldman was offered a job as a theatrical agent at no base salary, but with a $25 weekly expense account and a 25 percent interest in any clients he signed up. Success came to him almost at once.
A lifelong bachelor, Goldman today shares an apartment with Weissberger on the Upper East Side. His favorite local restaurant is the Four Seasons. "I go there all the time for lunch; that's my main meal of the day. I think it's the best restaurant in the world."
The actor's life, he believes, "is a sad and a difficult one. Every time you get a good part, the next part has to be bigger — more money. As you reach the top, it becomes tougher and tougher to get those parts." Nevertheless, Goldman does not find his own job at all frustrating.
"Pressures? Yes, there are many pressures. But I have said this before: there are so many rewards for me when I see a client in whom I believe get a great break in the theatre or films of television. It's a source of great satisfaction. And with the number of clients I represent, each day brings some rewards. That's why I've often said to clients: 'I have many lives to live.'"
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EASTSIDER TAMMY GRIMESStar ofFather's Dayat the American Place Theatre
6-23-79
Tammy Grimes is one of the few Broadway stars to have received Tony Awards in two categories — for best Musical Comedy Actress inThe Unsinkable Molly Brown(1961), and for Best Dramatic Actress in Noel Coward'sPrivate Lives(1969). In a sense, she is Molly Brown personified — a powerful stage presence whose charm, beauty, and pure talent make her shine in every production she takes part in, regardless of the overall merit of the show itself.
Her disappointments have been, at times, as spectacular as her triumphs. For example, there was her shot at network television in the early 1960s,The Tammy Grimes Show, which lasted only 11 episodes because, she says, "the writing, the concept, and the talent never really got together. And I blame myself for that. Because if your name's up there, you are responsible for the product."
Her marriage to actor Christopher Plummer ended in divorce after four years, but had the happy result of producing a daughter, Amanda Plummer, who is now a successful actress herself.
Tammy played Molly Brown on Broadway for the show's entire two-year run, but the movie role went to Debbie Reynolds. She got some rave reviews for her acting in a Broadway thriller namedTrickthis year, but the show closed within weeks. When that happened, she quickly started working on a new show,Father's Dayby Oliver Hailey, that is scheduled to open on June 21 at the American Place Theatre on West 46th Street.
"It's about three women who get together on Father's Day," says Miss Grimes in an interview at her Upper East Side apartment. "They live in the same building, and they're divorced. It shows how the three of them are coping with the situation. My feeling is that they don't want to be divorced. It's a very well-written play — a comedy. … It's at the same theatre whereIn Cold Storagestarted."
The interview takes place in her softly decorated bedroom looking out on a garden. Tammy is propped up on pillows beneath the covers, smoking a cigarette and sipping a bottle of Tab as she apologizes for her condition. "It may have been the caviar I had last night," she says, cheerful in spite of her discomfort. Her pixyish features expand easily into a grin, and at 45 she has lost none of the childlike playfulness that first propelled her to stardom. But the most surprising quality about Tammy Grimes is her throaty British accent. Although she has done little work in England, her normal speaking voice is far more British than American — a fact which, for some reason, she strenuously denies. "I spent a lot of time doing British comedy," she explains, "but I don't sound British!"
A native of Lynn, Massachusetts — "I just happened to be born on the way home from a party" — she grew up in Boston and decided early to become an actress. When she was 16, Thornton Wilder saw her in a production of his classic play,The Skin of Our Teeth. He declared: "Young lady, even Tallulah Bankhead didn't do the things you did to the role." By her early 20s she was performing in numerous Off Broadway shows. A singing act she developed for one of New York's leading supper clubs won her a rave review inLifemagazine, and shortly after her 25th birthday, she received her first starring role on Broadway, in an ill fated Noel Coward production calledLook After Lulu.
The following year, 1960, sawThe Unsinkable Molly Brownreach Broadway. It was the most expensive musical ever mounted until then, and became a smash. Tammy played the role 1,800 times; she missed only 13 performances. "I believe that if you can speak, you should be up there," she says. "Even today, people will stop me and say, 'We came in from North Carolina to see you, and when we got to the theatre, you weren't there.'"