As a television performer, she has appeared as a guest star in dozens of dramatic series, situation comedies, and variety shows. She has played numerous Shakespearean roles, made five movies, done a great deal of radio work, and recorded numerous albums, including several for children. An animal lover, she gives her time freely to such groups as the American Horse Protection Association and Friends of the Animals.
Tammy has been at her present East Side address since 1969. Though she likes to cook, she also frequents many restaurants including Veau d'Or and Gino's.
Asked to evaluate her career as a whole, Tammy notes that all but one of the shows she has done "seemed to open and close in a natural way. There's always a reason why a play ends prematurely. … It's nice to please the public, but you can't constantly be thinking that they will accept this but not something else from you. You have to go by your feelings. If something is good, the public will go to see it."
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WESTSIDER DELORES HALLStar ofYour Arms Too Short to Box with God
5-21-77
It's just after 10 on a Wednesday evening when Delores Hall steps out of the Lyceum Theatre's stage door onto 46th Street. At least 20 fans are waiting; they give a cheer as she emerges and rush toward her. Delores Hall smiles broadly as she autographs their programs, for these fans are hers. She has worked hard to become a Broadway star, and now inYour Arms Too Short to Box with Godshe is precisely that.
"No, I'm not really tired," says Ms. Hall a few minutes later over a snack at the All-State Cafe. "I'm still at a peak of energy from the show. That was my second performance today, but I could do another one if I had to."
Asking Delores about her earlier days brings a flood of memories and laughter. She's a happy, bouncy woman and seems as pleased to talk as any friendly neighbor. "When I was 3 I discovered I had vibrato," she recalls. "My mother taught me everything I know about singing. I can remember her hitting me in the stomach, showing me how to breathe. But whatever she did, she did it right. I was 4 when I first sang in public; they stood me on a table. I can remember some people throwing 50-cent pieces."
Born in Kansas City slightly more than 30 years ago, Delores grew up with music in her ears. Her father played the bass for Count Basie, and her mother was — and still is — a missionary in the Church of God in Christ, which produces gospel singers the way southern universities raise football players. Young Delores began singing regularly at the church services — an activity she continued when her family moved to Los Angeles. When Delores entered college she formed her own gospel group, an act so popular that she soon left school to become a full-time musician. Later, Harry Belafonte invited the Delores Hall Singers to tour with him for six months.
"Harry is a beautiful man," Delores grins. "He came to the show a month or so ago, and afterwards he went backstage and somebody introduced us. He said, 'Miss Hall, I've heard so much about you,' and then he screamed, and we jumped into each other's arms.
Delores has lived in New York since 1969. Five years ago she moved to the West Side. "People are so much warmer here," she says. Her remarkable singing has won her parts in half a dozen Broadway shows, but withBox, for the first time, she suddenly found herself the star of a hit production. Clive Barnes, in a highly positive review in theNew York Times, declares: "Miss Hall has the audience in the palm of her voice." The all-black cast of this musical adaptation of the Book of Matthew has been packing the Lyceum since Christmas, and advance ticket sales go to October.
In spite of Ms. Hall's unbroken musical success, her life has not been without personal tragedy. Just before the Broadway premiere ofBoxlast December 22, she suffered the heartbreaking loss of her only brother, a minister. "It was very hard to open the show," she recalls, "but I got through it with the help of God."
Delores lives on West 72nd Street with her husband of seven years, Michael Goodstone. Whenever she can, Delores joins Michael at temple in Westchester County: "I find it very uplifting spiritually, because I believe God is everywhere." Each Sunday the couple both attend the Church of God in Christ. "Some people call it the Holy Roller church," she explains. "After the service, we go downstairs for a piece of the best fried chicken."
Ms. Hall's face glows with pride when she speaks of Deardra, her 14 year-old daughter from a previous marriage: "My daughter is a singer, too. She won the music award from her school." Deardra is hoping to enter New York's High School of Performing Arts this fall.
Plans for the future? Delores would like to try grand opera someday — possibly the role of Aida. And a new record album is not far off. Several years ago she recorded her first album for RCA. Since she began drawing national attention inBox, some tempting offers have come in from recording companies, and her manager is in the process of negotiating a contract. The new album may be either gospel or middle of the road: "I'm praying very hard, so it depends on what the Lord says."
But for the moment, Delores Hall is well satisfied at filling the Lyceum Theatre seven times each week. "This show I love so much," she says, her eyes sparkling, "because it takes me home."
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WESTSIDER LIONEL HAMPTONKing of the Newport Jazz Festival
6-24-78
The world's greatest celebration of jazz, the Newport Jazz Festival, will get off the ground on June 23 — its 25th consecutive year. During the 12 day festival, in indoor and outdoor settings all over Manhattan and beyond, the most important names in jazz will stage nearly 30 major musical events.
More than half the concerts, appropriately enough, will take place on the West Side, in Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall. And just as appropriately, this year's festival will be dedicated to a Westsider whose life has been an inspiration to millions of people, not only for the great music he has created, but for a heart as large as the Grand Canyon. To call him merely a giant of jazz could be an understatement, because they don't come any bigger than Lionel Hampton.
Ask a dozen people what the name Lionel Hampton means to them and you're likely to get a dozen answers — all of them correct. In his 50 years as a professional musician, "Hamp" has used his remarkable gifts humbly, wisely, and unselfishly.
Music historians will always remember him as the man who introduced the vibraphone into jazz. This he accomplished in 1930, while playing with Louis Armstrong. Ever since, Hampton has been known as the world's foremost master of the instrument. He is also a leading drummer, pianist, singer, arranger, bandleader and composer. At 69, he continues to work nearly 50 weeks out of the year, taking his band to every corner of the U.S. and Europe. But whether he's making a live recording in a nightclub or performing his own symphonic works with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Lionel Hampton glows with a spiritual energy that extends far beyond his music.
It's 2 o'clock in the afternoon when I arrive at Hampton's neat, modern apartment overlooking Lincoln Center. I sit on the sofa talking with Chuck Jones, his public relations man, and a few minutes later Hampton emerges from the bedroom and plops down on the sofa beside me, wearing a dressing gown, slippers, and the famous smile that no one can imitate. After the introductions, I ask about his most recent concerts.
"I'm still trying to get myself together," he says almost apologetically in his rich Southern drawl. "We just got back from a six-week tour in Europe. We played all over Scandinavia, Germany, Southern France.
"When I was in Chicago this week, at the Playboy Cub, they gave me a new set of drums, with lights inside. I push a button and the whole drum lights up. I'm going to use them for Newport. This is the latest thing. It will blow their minds. We open on July first in Carnegie Hall and I'm bringing back a lot of veterans from my band."
He grew up in Chicago, but because of the gang fights in his neighborhood, Lionel's grandmother sent him to a Catholic school in Wisconsin. There a nun taught him to play the drums. The youngster learned fast; when he was 15, he made up his mind to head for the West Coast on his own, to pursue a jazz career. At the train station, he promised his grandmother that he would say his prayers and read the Bible every day.
Some 15 years later, Hampton was invited to join the Benny Goodman band in New York. His acceptance of the offer had great social significance, for it was the first time that blacks and whites played together in a major musical group.
>From 1937 to 1971 he lived in central Harlem. Then, after moving to the West Side, Hampton decided that he wanted to help upgrade his old neighborhood, so, on the advice of Governor Nelson Rockefeller, he raised $1 million in seed money and filed an application with the Urban Development Corporation for some new housing. Today there are 355 families living in the Lionel Hampton Houses at 130th Street and 8th Avenue." I was just designated the land right next to it," he says proudly. "We're going to break ground next year. It will be 250 family units, dedicated to my late wife Gladys. The Gladys Hampton Building."
A friend of many important public figures, Hampton has never lost his affection for Richard Nixon: "When I was a kid in California, President Nixon was our congressman. Then he became our senator. He was a good man and a good politician. He helped the blacks a lot; he helped the Spanish. I campaigned for him when he ran for president. … What happened with Watergate, I don't know. That's high politics. But I know I always had high esteem for him."
In a political campaign last year, Hampton threw his support behind Ernest Morial, a black man who was running for mayor of New Orleans. Before Hampton stepped in, Morial was sixth in the polls. "I sent my P.R. man Chuck Jones down there to put some life into his campaign. Chuck put a thousand placards all over town and went on all the radio stations, and I played at a Morial for Mayor music festival. He came in first in the primary and then he won the election."
My questions are finished. I get up and shake Lionel's hand, telling him that I've always loved his music. He dashes into his bedroom, bringing out four records for me to take home. He shakes my hand twice more.
On my way to the door, I ask him one last question: Does he still have time to read the Bible every day?
"Yes," he replies, grinning, "That's what I was doing when you came here and that's what I'm going to do after you leave."
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WESTSIDER DAVID HAWKExecutive director of Amnesty International U.S.A.
3-11-78
During the final days of World War II, a captured resistance member sat alone in a black prison cell, tired, hungry, tortured, and convinced of approaching death. After weeks of torment, the prisoner was sure that there was no hope, that no one knew or cared. But in the middle of the night, the door of the cell opened, and the jailer, shouting abuse into the darkness, threw a loaf of bread onto the dirt floor. The prisoner, by this time ravenous, tore open the loaf.
Inside was a matchbox. Inside the matchbox were matches and a scrap of paper. The prisoner lit a match. On the paper was a single word: "Coraggio!" Courage. Take courage. Don't give up, don't give in. We are trying to help you. "Coraggio!"
The prisoner never did find out who wrote the one-word message, but the spark of hope it provided may well have saved his life. The story is told inMatchbox, the newspaper of Amnesty International U.S.A., one of the largest branches of the worldwide human rights organization that received the Nobel Peace Prize for 1977.
David Hawk, executive director of Amnesty international U.S.A., sits behind his desk on a weekday morning talking about how the group originated and what it has done to earn the prize.
"It was started in Britain in 1961 by a lawyer named Peter Benenson," says Hawk, whose name belies the fact that he has been involved in civil rights for nearly half of his 34 years. "It started over a trial that was going on in Portugal." Benenson launched a one-year campaign to call attention to the Portuguese prisoners.
Soon the idea became so popular that a permanent organization was created. Chapters sprang up in other countries, and members began to work toward freeing "prisoners of conscience" on every continent. In the past 17 years, Amnesty International — or "Amnesty" for short — has aided in securing the release of nearly 13,000 individuals who were imprisoned not for crimes, but for personal beliefs that went against their governments' official policies.
"We're a nuisance factor," says Hawk. "We organize letter-writing and publicity campaigns on behalf of individual victims of human rights violations. It's the letters and the publicity that are Amnesty's tools for securing their release or bettering their conditions while they're in. At first it sounds strange to think that people sitting in living rooms in the United States can help someone in a fortress prison on an island in Indonesia, or in Siberia. … You deluge certain people with so many letters that eventually it becomes an issue. Then the government asks, 'Is holding this person worth the trouble?' And on occasion, the answer is no."
The secret of Amnesty's success is its huge number of volunteers — 170,000 in 78 countries — who work on the case of a particular prisoner for years if necessary. They send letters and telegrams not only to government officials, but also to the prisoner himself. At times they send packages, or give financial aid to his family, or arrange for legal aid.
A 100-member research team in London makes sure that every new case is thoroughly documented before assigning it to an "adoption group" of 12 to 20 people. This group generally receives the names of three prisoners from three different political systems, and meets once a month to work on the cases until a result is obtained.
The Riverside adoption group, dating back to 1966, was the first one established in the U.S. Today there are more than 100 in 32 states. All of these are monitored by David Hawk and his staff of 20 full-time workers at their Westside office. The $750,000 annual U.S. budget comes from members' contributions, foundations, and church agencies.
Hawk assumed the leadership of A.I.-U.S.A. in 1974. "In the early '60sI worked in the civil rights movement in the Deep South," he recalls."From 1967 to 1972 I was one of the organizers of the MoratoriumAgainst the War. Then I worked in the McGovern campaign."
At about the same time he graduated from Union Theological Seminary, and from there went to Oxford University in England, where he found out about Amnesty International. Returning to the U.S., he applied for the vacant post of executive director and was accepted. Ever since then he has been a resident of the West Side. David's wife Joan, a potter, is the editor ofMatchbox.
Hawk's biggest concern these days is to focus attention on the human rights covenants that President Carter has signed and is planning to send to the U.S. Senate for ratification. The covenants are worded almost the same as the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed in December, 1948. "Put into treaty form," explains Hawk, "the articles will carry more weight. It's very important for governments to agree among themselves that they shouldn't torture their citizens, and should give them fair trials, and should provide food and housing and education for their citizens. Amnesty wants all governments to ratify the treaty."
Anyone interest in volunteering some time to this worthy organization should write to: Amnesty International, 2112 Broadway, Room 309, New York, NY 10023.
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EASTSIDER WALTER HOVINGChairman of Tiffany & Company
12-22-79
When Walter Hoving took over as chairman of Tiffany and Company in 1955, he gave his designers one simple rule: "Design what you think is beautiful and don't worry about selling it." The rule applies as much to store's eye-catching Christmas display windows as to the three floors of jewelry, silver, china, and crystal at the corner of 5th Avenue and 57th Street. Hoving's unique combination of business wizardry and impeccable taste has paid off dramatically: since he joined the company, Tiffany's annual sales haver gone from $7 million to $73 million.
A tall, soft-spoken, former Brown University football star whose unlined forehead and vigorous appearance belie his 82 years, Hoving has a voice like Jimmy Stewart's and kindly yet authoritative manner. On his conservative gray suit is a tiny silver pin with the words "Try God." Leaning back in the comfortable desk chair at his vast, teakwood-paneled office at Tiffany's on a recent afternoon, he answers all questions thoroughly and unhesitatingly.
"We don't think in terms of price at all. Whatever we sell has got to be up to our standard in quality material, quality workmanship, and quality of design. … You see, you've got to have a point of view in this thing. That's all we've got is a point of view, and we stick to it."
What he calls a "point of view" others would simply define as "taste." And Hoving is well qualified to have strong opinions in this area. At the age of 30, three years after joining R.H. Macy and Company, he was already a vice president and merchandising director. At that point, says Hoving, "I realized that design was going to be a coming thing, and I really didn't know much about it. So I matriculated at New York University in their arts department, and I took courses on period furniture, old silver, historic textiles, color and design. It took me three years, twice a week at night. … Then, of course, I could learn by going into people's homes that were beautiful, in England and France, at museums — wherever I was. You learn if you have a basis. And so I advise anybody who comes into this business to get knowledgeable about decorative arts."
After leaving Macy's, he climbed steadily, becoming vice president of Montgomery Ward, president of Lord & Taylor, and president of Bonwit Teller. Upon arriving at Tiffany's, one of the first things he did was to discontinue selling anything that didn't conform to his esthetic standards, regardless of profit.
The current 180-page catalogue lists almost 100 items under $25, along with such unabashed luxuries as a porcelain dessert service for six priced at $4,200 and an unpriced "seashell" necklace of 18-carat gold with diamonds set in platinum. Tiffany's carries no synthetic gems because, according to Hoving, "everything here is real," and no men's diamond rings because "we think they're vulgar." He adds: "I dropped antique silver. I saw no reason why Tiffany should carry it. You can get antiques anyplace. Our job is to make antiques for the future."
Since 1963, Tiffany has opened branch stores in five other cities. Several floors in the Fifth Avenue headquarters house artists, engravers, clockmakers and jewelry craftsmen. There is also a Tiffany factory in New Jersey.
The author of two best-selling books,Your Career in BusinessandTiffany's Table Manners for Teenagers, Hoving is a deeply religious man who has long been actively involved in charitable work. He is a co founder of the Salvation Army Association of New York, and gives his time to the United Negro College Fund, the United Service Organizations, and, most recently, a home for heroin-addicted girls in Garrison, New York, which has been named in his honor.
When a friend at St. Bartholomew's Church asked Hoving to make her a pin reading "Try God," he got the idea of selling the pin at Tiffany's and giving the proceeds to the Walter Hoving Home. So far, 600,000 have been sold.
Jane Pickens Hoving, his wife since 1977, is the founder and chairman of an organization known as Tune in New York, which matches volunteers to jobs best suited for their talents and interests. It is about to open a headquarters at 730 Fifth Avenue, across from Tiffany's.
His son Thomas Hoving served as commissioner of parks for New YorkCity and for many years was director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.He recently wrote a book on Tutankhamen and has another book in theworks.
An Eastsider for over 50 years, Walter Hoving walks more than three miles a day between his home and office. He frequently mixes with customers in the store, and one of his favorite anecdotes is about the time he spoke with a woman who was registering her daughter for wedding presents. "The woman said that she and her husband wanted everything to come from Tiffany's because they were sure if it was from Tiffany's it would be all right," relates Hoving. "I said, 'What does your husband do?' She said, 'He is a letter carrier.' Well, I felt better than if I had sold Mrs. Astorbilt a million-dollar diamond ring."
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EASTSIDER JAY JACOBSRestaurant critic forGourmetmagazine
2-9-80
It is a familiar scene to New York restaurateurs: an out-of-town visitor arrives clutching a magazine, turns to an article, and orders the items that have been underlined. Whether the magazine is current or several years old, the chances are that it isGourmetand that the article is a review by Jay Jacobs,Gourmet'sNew York restaurant critic since 1972.
Its monthly circulation of 600,000 makesGourmetthe most widely read food publication in the English-speaking world. But Jacobs, who is responsible for writing three lengthy reviews per issue, is quick to point out that, in spite of his knowledge of the business and his love of cooking, he would never consider opening a restaurant himself.
"I think everybody born in this century has fantasized about a restaurant, but I think it would be insane," he says in a voice as rich and mellow as vintage port. "One of the great tragedies of the restaurant business is that people who cook well at home often think that's all it takes. … If you've got any interest in food and the least bit of talent, you can probably cook a better meal for four people than you'll ever get in any restaurant in the world — if you want to invest that kind of labor and time, and concentration. But there's a huge gap between doing that and serving anywhere from 70 to 130 people at night, all wanting different dishes. It becomes a tremendous problem of strategy and logistics."
Affable, low-keyed, and very small of stature, Jacob displays a wry wit while telling how he began his career as a painter, cartoonist and illustrator before turning to full-time writing in 1956. For years he worked mainly for art publications, and he still writes a bimonthly column fortheArtgallerymagazine. His first book, a quickie titledRFK: His Life and Death, came out in 1968. He is also the author ofA History of Gastronomy,New York a la Carte, andWinning the Restaurant Game(McGraw-Hill, 1980).
Winning the Restaurant Gameis an extremely humorous and entertaining volume that is notable for its exotic vocabulary. However, the book's message is not to be taken lightly — that restaurant dining is a complex game in which the best players can expect better service, better food, and the lasting affection of the owner. All the conventions of dining out, including who to tip and how much, are discussed in depth. Among the subchapters are "Humbling the Opposition," "The Uselessness of Menus," "Addressing Flunkies," and "Securing Advantageous Tables."
His next book,Winning the Kitchen Game, is due from McGraw-Hill next winter.
Jacobs dines out at least once a day while in the city. He visits restaurants several times before doing a review — always anonymously, and generally accompanied by others. "My job," he says, "is to find worthwhile places that our readers will want to go to. The magazine's policy is not to do unfavorable reviews. If I think a place stinks, I don't go back and I don't review it. … Most of our readers are knowledgeable about food, somewhat self-indulgent, affluent, and well-travelled. When they come into New York, they don't want to find some cut-rate taco house, and they don't want to know about the bad places. They're only in for a few days, and they want to hit the high spots.
"The daily press have a different readership and a different function. … When they do a favorable review, it can damage a restaurant in that it generates a sudden spurt of interest that the restaurant can't handle."
The father of four boys, Jacobs is a very sociable person who enjoys throwing parties for 50 to 60. To prepare the food, he says, "I lock myself in the kitchen for three or four days."
HisGourmetreviews are so detailed that Jacobs gets letters from readers across the country who tell how they have recreated a night at the Four Seasons or 21 "by analyzing what I have written, and approximating the dishes." But what makes his job particularly gratifying is the restaurant people themselves.
"I'm very impressed by these restaurant guys. If you travel in Europe you see them when they're 13 years old, schlepping suitcases in some motel and dreaming of the day when they open their own restaurant. They usually come out of small towns or even villages, and don't have the benefit of birth or upbringing or schooling. And the next thing you know, it's 30 years later and they can converse very adequately with Henry Kissinger or Jackie Onassis or anyone else, and maintain a business and make it work."
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WESTSIDER RAUL JULIAStar ofDraculaon Broadway
5-26-79
"It's nice to be a vampire eight times a week," says Raul Julia, the star ofDraculaat the Martin Beck Theatre. Last October he took over the role made famous by Frank Langella, and now Julia — pronounced "Hoo lia" by his Puerto Rican countrymen — has developed a cult following of his own, in this classic remake of the 1927 Broadway hit.
Some critics have said that the sets and costumes by Edward Gorey are the centerpieces of the show, more so than any of the performers. But Raul Julia is rapidly becoming a local matinee idol, drawing fan mail by the bagful and constantly meeting crowds of autograph seekers outside the stage door.
In his portrayal of Count Dracula, Raul takes on many characteristics of a bat. He hangs over the mantlepiece at strange angles and whips his dark cloak through the air like a bat's wings. When entrapped by three desperate men holding protective crosses and religious relics in front of them, he changes into a bat and flies out the window at the stroke of dawn.
In the dressing room prior to a performance, without his makeup, he looks neither sinister nor magnetically attractive, but seems almost boyish. His wit is matched by his humility: Raul is aware that his name is not yet a household word. Not many people realize, for example, that his natural speaking voice has the same lilting Puerto Rican accent heard everywhere in the streets and subways of New York. When asked how he accounts for his flawless onstage pronunciation, Raul shrugs and says with a grin, "Well, that's acting."
Like Richard Chamberlain, who in 1970 played Hamlet with great success on the British stage, Julia is equally at home in British and American plays. He has starred in many of Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival productions, and has received three Tony nominations for his dramatic and musical roles on Broadway.
He sips a glass of apricot juice while a makeup artist brushes his jet black hair straight back and starts to darken his eyes. Removing his shoes, Raul tells all sorts of little anecdotes about his life as the famous Count.
"I usually eat very little during the day. I go to sleep at about five, sometimes six. Maybe I'm getting a Dracula schedule," he says with a laugh. "Some people who see the show write and say they're going to keep their windows open at night.
"Dracula is a myth, although some people think there actually are vampires. Bram Stoker really created the character of Dracula, taking legends from different parts of the world, like the stories of sailors who had been stricken by bats, appearing on deck the next morning, all pale, without blood in them.
"I hear that Bela Lugosi was buried in a Dracula costume. I also hear that Boris Karloff came to the funeral home to visit him and looked down at the coffin and said, 'You're not kidding are you sweetie?'"
Dracula the character is more than 500 years old; Julia the actor declines to give his age. "Actors should be ageless," he says. "You see, what age does, it limits you to a certain category." He doesn't mind telling his height, however. "Eight foot four," he quips. "No, six two."
He was, in fact, born 30-odd years ago in San Juan. In 1964, after graduating from the university there, he was performing in a local nightclub revue, and comedian Orson Bean happened to be in the audience. Bean urged him to come to New York, and introduced him to Wynn Handman of the American Place Theatre. Although he had not studied acting formally, Raul's natural ability and his versatility soon began to pay off. Within two years he was playing lead roles for Joseph Papp.
Married for the past three years to dancer/actress Merel Poloway, Raul devotes a great deal of his spare time to a charitable organization called the Hunger Project. "The purpose of the group is to support anything that will help bring an end to hunger by 1997. Our goal is to transform the atmosphere that exists now,. That says that hunger is inevitable. All the experts and scientists agree that we have the means right now to end the starvation on the planet."
A resident of the Upper West Side for the past 10 years, Raul has two major projects coming up — the title role of Othello for Shakespeare-in the-Park this summer and a movie calledIsabel, which he will film in Puerto Rico this spring: "I wanted to be in it because it's a totally Puerto Rican venture, and I want to encourage the beginning of a quality movie industry."
Raul appears to be utterly at ease as he prepares to make his stage entrance in the middle of the first act ofDracula. I have time for one more question: "Is the acting life everything you hoped it would be?"
Raul wraps the cloak around himself and heads out of the dressing room.He looks back at me and smiles. "Yes," he replies. "Nowit is."
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EASTSIDER BOB KANECreator of Batman and Robin
3-24-79
At the 1939 World's Fair in New York, a time capsule was filled with memorabilia thought to be representative of 20th-century American culture, and scheduled to be opened by historians 5,000 years later. Among the objects chosen was a comic magazine that had appeared for the first time that year, the creation of an 18-year-old artist and writer named Bob Kane. Whoever chose the contents of the time capsule must have been prophetic, because today, 40 years later, few characters in American fantasy or fiction are so well known as Kane's pulp hero — Batman.
"It was a big success from the very beginning," says the cartoonist, a tall, wiry, powerful-looking man of 58 whose tanned, leathery features bear a striking resemblance to those of Bruce Wayne, Batman's secret identity. "Superman started in 1938, and the same company, D.C. Comics, was looking for another superhero. I happened to be in the right place at the right time.
"The first year, Batman was more evil, more sinister. My concept was for him to scare the hell out of the denizens of the underworld. And then the second year, I introduced Robin, because I realized he would appeal to the children's audience. That's when the strip really took hold."
The walls of his Eastside apartment are covered with vintage hand-drawn panels by America's most famous cartoonists, and Kane, with his casual attire, his broad New York accent, and his habit of twirling his glasses around while slumped far down in his easy chair, would not seem out of place as a character in Maggie and Jiggs. Yet he likes to consider himself a serious artist, and has, in fact, had some notable achievements in his "second career," which began in 1966 when he resigned from D.C. Comics, on the heels of the successfulBatmanTV series.
"I got tired of working over the drawing board after 30 years. I wanted to be an entrepreneur — painter, screenplay writer, and producer." Since that time, he has built up a large body of work — oil paintings, watercolors, pen and ink sketches and lithographs, most of them depicting characters from Batman. They have been purchased by leading universities, famous private collectors, and New York's Museum of Modern Art.
As a writer, Kane has created four animated cartoon series for television, has penned a screenplay for Paramount Pictures,The Silent Gun, has written an autobiography titledBatman and Me(due to be published next year), and has completed a screenplay for a full-length Batman movie. Recently, he has also emerged as an active participant in charitable causes, such as UNICEF, Cerebral Palsy and the American Cancer Society.
>From March 16 to April 8, the Circle Gallery at 435 West Broadway in SoHo will exhibit a one-man show of about 40 Kane originals. Says Kane with his typical immodesty: "I'm probably the first cartoonist to make the transition to fine art. When you do hand-signed, limited editions of lithographs, you are definitely entering the world of Lautrec and Picasso and Chagall."
Kane has lived on the East Side for the past 15 years and has no plans to leave. Asked about his early years, he tells of growing up poor in the Bronx. "I used to draw on all the sidewalks, and black out the teeth of the girls on the subway posters. I used to copy all the comics as a kid, too. That was my school of learning. … My greatest influence in creating Batman was a sketch by Leonardo da Vinci of a flying machine, which I saw when I was 13 years old. It showed a man on a sled with huge bat wings attached to it. To me, it looked like a bat man. And that same year, I saw a movie calledThe Mark of Zorro, with Douglas Fairbanks Senior. Zorro fought for the downtrodden and he had a cave in the mountainside, and wore a mask, which gave me the idea for Batman's dual identity and the Batmobile."
As might be expected, Kane takes much pride in his lifelong success. "Batman has influenced four decades of children," he declares. "It has influenced the language. … It has influenced people's lives whereby it gives them a sense of hope that the good guy usually wins in the end. And mainly, the influence has been one of sheer entertainment. I feel that most people would like to be a Batman-type superhero, to take them out of their dull, mundane routine of everyday living. … My greatest thrill comes from my 5-year-old grandson. Little did I know when I was 18 that one day I would see my grandson wearing a little Batman costume, driving around in a miniature Batmobile and yelling 'Batman!'"
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WESTSIDER LENORE KASDORFStar ofThe Guiding Light
1-20-79
For the pat few months at least, the hottest soap opera on television has been CBS'The Guiding Light, which reaches approximately 10 million viewers nationwide. The show has 22 regular characters, and right now the one who is getting the most attention is Rita Stapleton, a beautiful but deceitful nurse who recently brought up the ratings for the week when she was raped by her ex-lover on the night before her engagement to another man. It was all in a day's work for Westsider Lenore Kasdorf, who portrays the popular villainess.
"This is definitely a job, and you get the feeling of a schedule, of punching in and punching out, of rolling it off the presses. But you put in your creative element too," says Miss Kasdorf, taking a break between scenes at the studio. With her soft hazel eyes, pearly teeth, finely chiseled features, and billowing brown hair, she is nothing short of stunning — an impression that is heightened by her throaty voice and by the red sweater that covers her ample figure.
Being the star of an hour-long "soap" means that Lenore often has to work from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. inside the mazelike studio, so that in winter, an entire week may go by when she doesn't see sunlight. Although she receives a tremendous number of fan letters, Lenore does not have time to answer most of them.
"I'm not a letter writer anyway," she explains. "There are times when someone is so sincere that you feel you really want to respond. I have had people send me a dollar check for postage. My heart goes out sometimes; I get guilty when I read my mail. This audience is very responsive. They love to comment about the show. I get a lot of identifying mail. Some people say, 'You're like the sister I wish I had.' Sometimes there's strange mail. Sometimes there's lewd mail, which is removed before I can read it." She laughs vigorously. "That's fine with me, because then I can enjoy all my mail."
Asked about which part of the Upper West Side she lives in, Lenore declines to say. "I have some fans who would follow my footprints in the snow. You have to be careful. My husband and I tend to stay in the neighborhood a lot, and I'd hate to ruin our indiscreet little way of getting around. … In New York people are used to seeing Al Pacino walking down the street, or Jackie O. shopping at the corner. But out of town — at first they're not sure if it's you. A lot of people come up to me and say, 'Do you ever watchThe Guiding Light? You look so much like that girl.' I usually tell them who I am. I can't see any point in lying. Face it, that's part of the reason we're doing this. I'm sure there's a ham in every actor, whether they're shy about it or not."
Her husband, actor Phil Peters, recently won the part of Dr. Steven Farrell onAs The World Turns, another CBS soap opera. Within a few weeks, however, there was a change of writers. "The new writers wanted to bring in their own characters," says Lenore, "so on the show, Phil just disappeared in the night. He never showed up for his wedding. All the other characters were saying, 'Where could he be?'" She laughs at the recollection of what happened soon afterward when she and her husband were visiting Fredericksburg, Virginia: "A woman came up behind Phil while we were eating dinner, and said, 'Shame on you! How could you run off on that pretty little thing?'"
Born 30 years ago on Long Island, the daughter of an Army officer, Lenore grew up in such diverse places as Tennessee, Indiana, Virginia, Germany and Thailand. After graduating from the International School in Bangkok, she "got out of the Army" and returned to the U.S. to attend college in Indiana. There she began to do local TV commercials, and was so successful that she decided to try her luck in California. Quickly she became an established television actress, winning roles in many prime time series, includingStarsky and Hutch,Barnaby Jones, andIronside. While performing for a small theatre company she met Phil Peters. Phil wanted to come to New York to work in the theatre, and, with some reservations, Lenore came with him. Although Phil does not have a regular acting assignment at present, Lenore points out that "actors are never out of work. They're just between jobs."
The Guiding Light, says Lenore, "was originally a religious program on the radio, where the moral of the story was an enlightening lesson for everybody." Since moving to television in 1952, the show has changed considerably in content, but, according to Lenore, it still contains many lessons that are relevant to modern living.
"You can tell from mail that you do help people, whether you mean to or not," says the actress with obvious satisfaction. "I've gotten letters saying, 'Seeing Rita through that difficulty has enlightened me about my own situation.' She has not helped by example, because Rita doesn't always do things right. But she shows how much trouble you can get into by behaving the way she does, and in that way I think she helps people avoid the same mistakes."
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EASTSIDER BRIAN KEITHBack on Broadway after 27 years
12-29-79
On January 1, 1980, the curtain will finally ring down onDa, Hugh Leonard's strikingly original and poignant drama about a man's fond memories of his working-class Irish father.Dawon four Tony Awards in 1978, including Best Play. Since July 30, the title role has been ably filled by Brian Keith, an actor perhaps best known for playing "Uncle Bill" in the situation comedyFamily Affair, one of television's most popular shows from 1966 to 1971. Recently he has been seen in the TV specialsCentennial, The ChisholmsandThe Seekers. In his long, illustrious career, the 57-year-old actor has starred in four other TV series and appeared in more than 60 motion pictures.
During the late 1940s, when he worked primarily on Broadway, Keith rented an apartment on East 66th Street with a fireplace and kitchen for $70 a month. Leaving for Hollywood in 1952, he eventually married a Hawaiian actress, and nine years ago became a full-time resident of Hawaii.
"I hadn't been to New York for years and years and years, and when we came here for a vacation last winter, I saw a play every night for a couple of weeks," says Keith. "Dawas the only one I thought I'd really like to do sometime." Not long afterward, Barnard Hughes, the Tony Award winning star ofDa, decided to tour with the show, and Keith was offered a five-month contract to replace him. Delighted with the chance to return to Broadway in such a compelling role after a 27-year absence, Keith quickly said yes. Bringing his wife and children to New York for an extended visit, he again chose the Upper East Side as a place to live.
A big, brawny 6-footer whose deep, gravelly voice and slothful mannerisms somehow bring to mind a friendly trained bear, Keith normally spends the time between his matinee and evening performances sleeping on an Army cot in his dressing room. On this particular day, he is sitting in the sparsely furnished room with his shirt off, smoking a cigarette and answering questions about his career. His initially gruff demeanor soon gives way to laughter, sentiment, hopefulness and cynicism in equal measure. A no-holds-barred conversationalist, he talks about the acting life with a rare frankness.
Taking over the role of Da with only about 20 hours of rehearsal, says Keith, was "just a matter of trouping it." He didn't find the task too difficult, partly because of his Irish background. Asked how far back his ancestry goes, Keith laughs and says, "How far back? If you go back far enough, you never stop. I'm Irish on both sides. On my father's side they came over in Revolutionary days. On my mother's side, five or six generations. It stays, though. The first time I went to Ireland, I felt the whole deja vu thing. I knew what I'd see around the next corner when I walked."
He was born in the backstage of a theatre in Bayonne, New Jersey. "I was there about a week. I'm always getting letter from people saying: 'I'm from Bayonne too!' My parents were actors, so we went everywhere. … I went to high school in Long Island. Very … very nothing. And I didn't care a damn thing about acting."
>From 1945 to 1955 he served in the U.S. Marine Corps as a sergeant in the Pacific campaign. "When I got out of the service, I was just banging around, looking for a job. I didn't have an education or anything. A guy offered me a part in a play and I didn't know whether I'd ever get another one. But I did, so it's been very nice. Very lucky. It's unlike the usual struggle that people go through."
When the conversation lands onMeteor, his latest movie, Keith declines comment, choosing to speak instead ofThe Last of the Mountain Men, a feature film that was completed in July and is scheduled for a Easter release. "Charlton Heston and I co-star. It's about two trappers in the West in 1830, and what happens to them when the beaver period comes to a close. The two guys are like Sundance and Butch. But damn well written. It's one of the best scripts I ever read. Heston's kid wrote it. He worked for a couple of years up around Idaho and Montana as a river guide. There's not a wasted word in the script."
Many of his films and TV shows Keith has never seen. "If it's some piece of junk, I don't see why I should bother. It's bad enough you did it. But to live through it again!. … You can't sit around and wait for something you think isworthyof you."
Brian and his wife Victoria have two children. Mimi, his daughter from a previous marriage, is a member of the Pennsylvania Ballet Company. Between acting assignments, says Keith with affection, he spends most of his time "raising the damn kids. It's a 24-hour job. We do a lot of outdoor stuff, because in Hawaii you can, all year round. We go on the beach and camp out and all that crap."
He finds that being based in Hawaii causes no problems with his career. "It doesn't make any difference where you live," Keith growls softly. "People live in London, in Spain, in Switzerland. You don't go around looking for jobs. You wait till your agent calls you and you get on a plane and go. You can be halfway around the world overnight, from anywhere. It beats Bayonne."
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WESTSIDER HAROLD KENNEDYAuthor ofNo Pickle, No Performance
7-22-78
In the early days of Harold Kennedy's theatrical career, he was involved in a play written by Sinclair Lewis, who may have been a great novelist but was no playwright. Kennedy was talking with Lewis one evening before the play opened when a young student approached the famous author and politely asked for an autograph. Lewis took the piece of paper the boy offered him and wrote on it: "Why don't you find a hobby that isn't a nuisance to other people?" He handed it back unsigned.
But the boy got even. The play opened a few nights later and was a total disaster. Lewis was sitting gloomily in the dressing room after the final curtain when a note was hand-delivered to him by an usher. He opened it and read, in his own handwriting: "Why don't you find a hobby that isn't a nuisance to other people?"
The story is one of dozens told in Harold Kennedy's book,No Pickle, No Performance, published this month by Doubleday. The book is a fascinating collection of true-life anecdotes stored up by Kennedy during his four decades in the theatre as a director, actor, and playwright on Broadway and across the country. The subtitle of his book is "An Irreverent Theatrical Excursion from Tallulah to Travolta," and he has written chapters about his experiences with both of these stars, in addition to Orson Welles, Charlton Heston, Thornton Wilder, Gloria Swanson, Steve Allen, and others who are less well known today but were legends in their time.
Its book is dedicated to actress Renee Taylor, who refused to come on stage during a play's opening night until she got a pickle with her sandwich, as she had during the previews. The coffee shop that had provided those sandwiches was closed, and the curtain was held while a prop man got in his car and went searching for the holy pickle. It arrived seven minutes after the advertised curtain time, and the show went on.
Unknown to Taylor, the stage crew was so enraged by her antics that they performed "a little ceremony" with the pickle before giving it to her. Gloria Swanson later said: "Poor Miss Taylor. Can't you see her shopping around to every delicatessen in New York complaining that she can never find a pickle to match the caliber of the one she had in New Jersey."
I meet the author on a recent evening at Backstage on West 45th Street. "The thing about this book," he says, "is that whether people know the actors or not, they find the stories amusing. You know, I never thought of writing these stories down. I used to tell them to other members of the company over drinks after the show, and everyone loved them. But I'm an actor, and I thought what made them funny was the way I told them. I didn't know how they'd look in print. A good friend of mine finally convinced me to write about a hundred pages, and I said, "If anyone wants it, I'll write the whole thing." The first publisher I sent it to — Doubleday — accepted it."
Those who have seen portions of the Ginger Rogers chapter in a recent issue ofNew Yorkmagazine might think the book is malicious, but this is not the case. Says Kennedy: "It just tells what happened, and some people come out better than others."
The chapter begins: "It seems that Ginger Rogers never smiles. It may be that someone has told her it would crack her face. It may be more likely that she's a lady devoid of one smidgin of one inch of a sense of humor." The author describes her as "colder than anyone else I had met. Totally unlike her screen self — which only goes to prove what a good actress she is."
He reveals Rogers at her worst when she attempts to make an actor out of her no-talent fifth husband, G. William Marshall, at the expense of Kennedy and everyone else in the cast. The couple were still on their honeymoon, and Rogers demanded that Bill be given the role of her leading man inBell, Book and Candle. The results were disastrous. Detroit's leading critic wrote after the opening: "The program lists Mr. Marshall as having been acquainted with many phases of show business. Last night he showed not even a nodding acquaintance with any of them."
Kennedy writes at the chapter's end: "Hopefully Ginger will find another husband. As it turned out, the last one apparently worked out worse for her than it did for me." Rogers is apparently considering a lawsuit against the author.
Still very active in the theatre at 64, Kennedy is undertaking three productions this summer —Barefoot In the Parkwith Maureen O'Sullivan and Donny Most,The Marriage-Go-Roundwith Kitty Carlisle, andBell, Book and Candlewith Lana Turner. He is directing all three and acting in two of them.
Two years ago he directed John Travolta for a summer stock company that opened to hordes of screaming teenagers in Skowhegan, Maine. Whenever Travolta made in entrance or an exit, Kennedy tells in the chapter titled "John Who?", he caused such a commotion that the play virtually came to a halt. "John is a darling. He's such a lovely boy," says the author. "He'd kiss me full on the lips when we met and parted. And I say that with no sense of implication. In the theatre, we've always been relaxed about an expression of affection. … I thought inSaturday Night Feverhe was a star in the old tradition — in the tradition of Tyrone Power. … I couldn't call John intelligent, but he'll own the movie industry in two years. And he has things in his contract that no other stars have had, like approval of the final cut of the movie."
A native of Holyoke, Massachusetts, Kennedy worked his way through Dartmouth College and the Yale School of Drama "and came out with a profit." In 1937 he moved to New York; he has lived on the West Side ever since. Among his close friends are some of the merchants and artisans in his area. "They care about theatre and they know we have special problems," he says. "There's Mal the Tailor on West 72nd Street, for example. If I'm doing a play and need something right away, he'll drop everything and take care of me."
No Pickle, No Performancehas already received many favorable reviews and has been partially reprinted in theNew York Post. Kennedy is planning to hit the talk shows soon with some of his leading ladies. What seems to be uppermost in his mind at the moment, however, is whether Ginger Rogers will sue for libel.
"I kind of wish she would, just to get some publicity for the book," he muses. "Of course, she's a fool if she does, because she'd never win, and the people who haven't heard of the book will rush out and get it. … But I can say one thing: if there's a package from Ginger waiting for me in my dressing room, I'm going to have it dumped in water."
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WESTSIDER ANNA KISSELGOFFDance critic for theNew York Times
6-9-79
It was 3 p.m., and as usual, Anna Kisselgoff was sitting before the computer-typewriter at theNew York Times'newsroom, putting the finishing touches on her latest dance review. She had spent the morning doing research, and had arrived at theTimesbuilding around noon to begin writing the article directly on the computer terminal, using her notes taken the night before at a dance performance. At 8 o'clock that evening, she would be attending yet another performance, but for the moment at least, Miss Kisselgoff had a little time to herself, and when we sat down to talk in her three-walled cubicle office facing the relatively quiet newsroom, she seemed noticeably relaxed and cheerful, notwithstanding the pile of opened and unopened mail piled high on her desk.
"We get no help: that's the problem," she said, in a clear, even voice with a tone that recalled Mary Tyler Moore. "We have one secretary for nine people in the arts and architecture department. She's terribly overworked," Anne went on, sweeping her hands like an orchestra conductor toward the stack of mail. "You're looking at what's left after I've thrown away half of it. I make up the review schedule for the week based on these releases."
Petite, attractive, and looking somewhat younger than her 41 years, the effervescent Miss Kisselgoff soon got to the root of her problem.
"This time of year, everybody wants to be reviewed. The tragedy is that dancersdowait until the spring, and then they give their one-shot concert that they have been preparing all year, and it's on the same night that 17 other dancers are giving theirs. I think it's suicidal. … We have three dance critics at theTimes— Jack Anderson and Jennifer Dunning besides myself — and in the spring, all three of us are working every day, and we still can't keep up."
Anna herself attends up to nine performances a week during the busy season. Besides her regular pieces in the dailyTimes, she is responsible for a long, comprehensive article in the Sunday edition. "There has been a tremendous increase in dance activity in the past 10 years," she explained. "In 1969, the year after I joined the paper, I was asked to do a rundown of dance events, and I found there was not a single week in the year that was free from dance. That was the first time it happened.
"I think the decade of the 1960s had something to do with it. That was when choreographers like Balanchine and Merce Cunningham, who used pure movement, became most popular. The audience that came to see them was a new audience that was already comfortable with abstraction. They didn't require story ballets. One of the problems with dance in the past was the people thought they wouldn't be able to understand it. But if you like plotless ballet, you don't have to understand any more than what you see. I think Marshall McLuhan was right: this is the age of television. This generation is used to watching images without getting bored."
She has no favorite dancers, but her favorite choreographers come down to two — George Balanchine and Martha Graham. "You don't have any young choreographers now who are really the stature of the old ones. I can't give a reason why, except that it happened historically that the 1930s turned out to be the most creative period in dance — not just in the United States, but in most parts of the world. That's when the modern dance pioneers became active. People like Martha Graham are revolutionaries, and you just don't get them in every generation. … This applies to the other arts as well. Who are the great opera composers of today? And frankly, are there any Tolstoys?"
Born in Paris, Anna arrived on the Upper West Side at the age of one. She attended Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania and later spent four years in Paris as a general reporter for several English-language newspapers, but otherwise she has been a lifelong Westsider. Dance has always been one of her prime interests: she studied ballet for 10 years while a child, and remained an avid fan long after realizing she would not become a professional dancer.
In the mid-1960s, Anna wrote an article on a major dance festival for the international edition of theNew York Timesin Paris. This led to similar assignments. In October 1968, shortly after she returned to Manhattan, theTimeshired her to assist chief dance critic Clive Barnes. She quickly found herself writing many first-string reviews, and when Barnes resigned almost two years ago, Kisselgoff was named to replace him.
One of the disadvantages of her job, Anna pointed out, is that she is frequently approached by strangers at intermission. "I feel that everybody who agrees or disagrees with me can do so by mail. I don't want to have long discussions with people I don't know, because I think it's an invasion of my privacy as a person."
The advantages, however, far outweigh the inconveniences. "I can even enjoy bad dance," she quickly added. "That's why I'm very happy doing this job. The day that I'll no longer be interested in watching a dance performance, I think I should quit and go on to something else."
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WESTSIDER GEORGE LANGOwner of the Cafe des Artistes
8-4-79
George Lang, artist and perfectionist, could have become a success in any of a hundred professions. In 1946, when he arrived in the U.S. from his native Hungary, he got a job as violinist with the Dallas Symphony. But Lang soon discovered that the orchestra pit was too confining for a man of his vision. He might have turned to composition or conducting; instead he decided to switch to a different field entirely — cooking. Today, at 54, he is the George Balanchine of the food world — a "culinary choreographer" with an international reputation for knowing virtually everything relevant that is to be known about food preparation and restaurants.
Lang's imagination,Gourmetmagazine once wrote, "is as fertile as the Indus Valley." This imagination, combined with his keen intelligence, his concern for details, his natural versatility, and his seemingly endless capacity for work, have enabled him to rewrite the definition of the term "restaurant consultant."
As head of the George Lang Corporation, a loosely structured group of associates that he founded in 1971, he commands $2,500 a day plus expenses for jetting around the world, giving advice on restaurant and kitchen design, menu planning, and every other aspect of a restaurant from the lighting to the color of the napkins.
His large-scale projects in the past few years include food consulting anddesign for Marriot Motor Hotels, Holiday Inn, the Cunard Lines, andPhilippine President Ferdinand Marcos. He was the chief planner for TheMarket, a three-level, 20-shop marketplace in the East Side's CiticorpCenter. In 1975, when he took over the West Side's famous Cafe desArtistes, the business quadrupled within weeks.
A prolific author as well, Lang has written several books and hundreds of articles for leading publications, including theEncyclopedia Britannica. His column, "Table for One," is a regular feature ofTravel & Leisuremagazine. He has bottled burgundy under his own label, arranged parties for the rich and famous, and served as consultant forTime-Life'sseries on international cookery.
His office has a miniature garden in the middle; the wall are lined with 5,000 catalogued cookbooks. He comes sailing into the room and takes a seat at his semicircular desk, which all but engulfs him. Short in stature, bald as a gourd, he moves with a darting energy that sees him through 20 hour workdays with as many as 30 food tastings. His softly accented speech is the only thing about him that is slow, because Lang chooses his words carefully, aiming for the same perfection in English as in everything else. Although modesty is not one of his characteristics, he gives full credit to his staff for being equal partners in his corporation's success. There is a feeling of camaraderie in the air, as if all are members of a single family.
The Cafe des Artistes, he admits, was a moderately successful French restaurant for 60 years before he took it over. "But it needed spiritual changes as well as physical changes. And — let me underline this and triple-space it — excellent food. You cannot chew scenery. We maintain a certain kind of formal informality, which simply means that anyone can come, dressed any way they want, as long as their behavior will justify their white tie or dungarees. I could raise the prices by 50 to 100 percent overnight, and I wouldn't lose a single customer. But feel an obligation to New York City and the restaurant industry to maintain what I call reasonable prices."
His corporation also owns the Hungaria Restaurant at Citicorp, which has a gypsy orchestra from Budapest, and Small Pleasures, a pastry shop in the same building. However, Lang stresses that "98 percent of our business comes from consulting. I always think in terms of problems and solutions, because every restaurant must be designed to suit the needs of a particular market. At Alexander's, for example, we came up with a restaurant where you could have a reasonably pleasant luncheon for two to four dollars."
Still an ardent music lover, George Lang plays the violin whenever time permits. He recently acquired a Stradivarius and says with a laugh, "I'm threatening to get back completely to shape and play a concert."
Lang enjoys the European atmosphere of the West Side, where he has lived for the past 30 years. Among his favorite Westside restaurants: the Moon Palace on Broadway, Sakura Chaya on Columbus, and Le Poulailler on 65th Street.
His latest endeavor is a 4-to-6-minute TV spot titledLang at Large, which is broadcast twice a month on the CBS network showSunday Morning. "It's part of my new career," he announces joyfully.
Asked about which aspect of his work gives him the most satisfaction, Lang ponders for a moment and concludes: "It would be easiest for me to say that my biggest thrill is to see an idea of mine become a three dimensional reality, especially if it may be a $50 million project. But actually, an even bigger thrill for me is to go to an obscure place in the world, and see a bit of improvement in people's lives through the effort of someone who was my former disciple."
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WESTSIDER RUTH LAREDOLeading American pianist
12-30-78
She has frequently been called America's greatest female pianist — a title which, as recently as the 1960s, almost any woman would have coveted. But when the year is 1978 and the musician is Ruth Laredo, this "compliment" brings a different response.
"I have mixed feelings about it," says Miss Laredo, sitting back on the couch of her West Side living room. "I would really rather be known as an American pianist. Being female doesn't preclude playing some of the most powerful sounds on the piano."
Her words are backed by accomplishments. In October, Ruth came to the end of a four-year project to record the complete works for solo piano by Sergei Rachmaninoff, the late Russian-born composer who emigrated to the U.S. after the Revolution of 1917. Almost all of his piano works were composed before 1910, and they rank among the most technically difficult pieces ever written for the instrument. Laredo is the first person in history to record the piano solos in their entirety. Columbia Records will release the final three discs of the seven-album set in early 1979.
Slender, graceful, and radiantly attractive, Laredo is still adjusting to her recently acquired status as a major international artist. For 14 years she was married to the acclaimed Bolivian-born violinist, Jaime Laredo, and during most of that time she was known primarily as his accompanist. Shortly after their marriage broke up in 1974, her career began to soar. That year the first of her Rachmaninoff recordings was made, and it won rave reviews. Her Lincoln Center debut with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in December 1974 caused such a sensation that she was quickly signed up to perform with the Boston, Philadelphia, National Symphony, Cleveland, and Detroit orchestras. "After 15 years," recalls Ruth, "I was an overnight success."
Now, at 41 — but looking considerably younger — she can look back on four years of unbroken triumph. Following a recital at Alice Tully Hall in 1976, theNew York Timesreported that she "operated within a relatively narrow range — from first-rate to superb." Her talents have been constantly in demand ever since across the U.S. and Canada. During the 1976-77 season she had over 40 concerts, including tours of Europe and Japan. This season she will perform in Japan and Hong Kong.
Although her repertoire includes piano works spanning the last 250 years, Ruth has concentrated largely on Rachmaninoff and Scriabin, a Russian composer of the same era. She has recorded five albums of Scriabin's piano solos. "It's such strange music if you haven't heard it before," she says. "I gave some concerts of Scriabin at Hunter College, and talked about each piece before playing it. I was kind of a crusader at the time for his music. It was very rewarding for me. I think people are much more familiar with Scriabin today than they were 10 years ago.
"One thing I love to do is to talk to the audience after a concert. There's a certain feeling of distance sometimes between the audience and classical musicians, which need not happen."
On most days, Ruth practices at one of her twin grand pianos from about 10:30 in the morning until 3:30 in the afternoon, when her 9-year-old daughter Jennifer gets home from school. The walls of the Laredos' living room are covered with neatly framed fingerpaintings that Jennifer created. "She's intellectually brilliant and lots of fun. I take her to concerts with me when it's possible. When I gave a talk on Rachmaninoff to the cadets at West Point, they all called her 'ma'am.'"
A native of Detroit, Ruth began studying piano at the age of 2, performed with the Detroit Symphony at 11, and entered the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia at 16. There she met her future husband. During their years together, Ruth longed for a solo career, but it somehow eluded her. "I played with Leopold Stokowski and the American Symphony in the 1960s," she says. "There was a major concert I did at Carnegie Hall then, but nobody heard about it. I think that women are being accepted on their own merits today. They weren't given a chance until recently."
Ruth keeps fit by riding her bicycle almost every day. She is a fan of the New York Yankees — "I saw all the World Series games" — and likes to do photography when she has the time. A Westsider ever since she moved to New York in 1960, Ruth lists Fiorello's (on Broadway across from Lincoln Center) as her favorite restaurant. When she needs music supplies of any kind, she goes to Patelson's (56th Street and 7th Avenue). Says Ruth: "It's a gathering place for musicians. The people who sell music there are very friendly and very knowledgeable. … They sell records there. They sell my records."
Asked whether men might have an inborn advantage at the piano, Ruth denies the suggestion vigorously. "Of course not," she replies. "I can't imagine why a man should play the piano better than a woman. At West Point, the women do everything the same as the male cadets except boxing and wrestling. Women might have smaller fingers on the average, but as far as strength, speed, and dexterity are concerned, it's impossible to listen to a recording and guess whether it was played by a man or a woman."
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EASTSIDER STAN LEECreator of Spiderman and the Incredible Hulk
1-13-79
With the current rage over Superman due to last year's hit movie, many people will purchase a copy of the comic for the first time in years, and may be disappointed to see how much it has changed. Once the largest selling comic book hero on the market, Superman was knocked out of first place long ago by Spiderman, the creation of a 56-year-old native New Yorker named Stan Lee. Besides selling about one million Marvel comics each month, Spiderman appears as a daily strip in some 500 newspapers around the world.
But even without this giant success, Stan Lee would be rich and famous. His fertile mind has also given birth to the Incredible Hulk, the Fantastic Four, Captain America, Doctor Strange, and a host of other modern-day mythological figures. As publisher of Marvel Comics, he rules over an empire that branches out into dozens of areas — prime-time television drama, animated cartoons, hardbound and paperback collections of comic reprints, novels about Marvel characters, toys, games, posters, clothing and much more. Most of these spin-off products are the work of other companies that have bought the rights, but Stan Lee remains the creative force behind the whole operation, as I discover during a meeting with Lee at the Marvel headquarters on Madison Avenue.
"I think the title of publisher is just given to me so I can have more prestige when I'm dealing with people," says Lee in his clipped, precise voice, as he stretches his feet onto the coffee table of his brightly decorated office. "I'm a salaried employee of Marvel — your average humble little guy trying to stay afloat in the stormy sea of culture. The company owns the properties, of course, but I have no complaints. I don't think I could have as much anywhere else. … My main interest is to see that the company itself does well and makes as much money as possible."