The smile remained on his face, and he began to use his hands with much expression as he continued. "I carry the music inside me. I want to touch inside the heart of the public. That's what I always aim for. My music is sincere. It is very human. I believe it should be listened to closely. That is why I play concerts."
He was, in fact, the first prominent flamenco guitarist to go solo. Until Montoya started giving one-man concerts in 1948, flamenco was strictly a music to accompany singers or dancers, who added to the rhythm with castanets, snapping fingers and feverishly clicking heels. When faced with Montoya's guitar alone, the audiences did not catch on immediately. But as soon as they learned to appreciate the full range of his artistry, his career was assured.
Many of the sound effects produced by a whole flamenco group can be duplicated by Montoya alone. His left hand can play a melody and tap out a rhythm independent of what the right hand is going. To add to the excitement, Montoya never plays a piece the same way twice. One reason is that improvisation is the essence of flamenco. Another is that he has never learned to read music.
"Flamenco guitar is more popular than ever right now," said Montoya. "Young people like it; I perform at a lot of colleges. I also perform with many symphony orchestras to play myFlamenco Suite.
That composition, which Montoya co-wrote and premiered in 1996, is the first flamenco piece ever to be written for a full orchestra. The guitar sections, appropriately, allow for some improvising. Other works by Montoya, mainly his arrangements of age-old gypsy themes, have been transcribed and published for the benefit of fellow guitarists. However, as Montoya pointed out, "the style you can write. But all the notes — it is impossible. So, my written works are simplified."
Born in Madrid, he took his first guitar lesson at the age of 8, and by his early teens was performing regularly in cafes. He toured extensively until World War II broke out, when he more or less "settled" in New York. In truth, he has never been content to settle anywhere. He spends several months each year in Spain. And when he's on tour, said his wife, "he gets restless staying around the hotel, and likes to visit all the sights in the area."
Sally Montoya, a slender, graceful native New Yorker who met Carlos while her father was working for the Foreign Service, was once a Spanish-style dancer herself, but gave it up because "I obviously didn't dance as well as Carlos plays. I'm a casualty of his success." The couple has two sons.
Except for travel, Carlos Montoya has few interests outside his work. "Music and family — that's all," he said quietly. "To be an artist, you must be a slave to the instrument and to the public. To play the guitar is a serious thing — not a game. To me, it is a complete life."
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WESTSIDER MELBA MOOREBroadway star releases ninth album
10-14-78
When Melba Moore recently dropped out of her co-starring role in the Broadway hit musicalTimbuktu, there was a lot of speculation as to the reason why. Some observers suggested that Eartha Kitt, the biggest box office draw, did not like to share the billing with a performer of Melba's caliber.
Melba herself has a simpler explanation: seven months of one show is enough, and she had too many other things to do — promoting her new album, preparing for another Broadway musical, doing her first lead role in a movie, going on a concert tour, making guest appearances on television, and taking care of her 16-month-old daughter Charli.
"Honey, I could join the Olympics with all I do," says Melba one afternoon at the comfortable midtown office that is used as the nerve center for her multiple activities. She is dressed in a striped hat, a white shirt and a bright red necktie. Easing her slender form onto the couch, she looks smaller, younger, and more beautiful in person than her photographs indicate. I remark on her flashy necktie, and Melba, using her hands expressively while she speaks, tells with amusement how she saw it on the collar of a salesman at Fiorucci's and said to him, "I want that tie."
Melba's first professional stage role was inHair; from 1968 to 1970 she rose up through the chorus to win the female lead. "I have no hard-luck stories," she says, in her clear, nearly accentless voice. "FromHair, I went right intoPurlie." That was the role that earned her the 1970 Tony Award for Best Supporting Actress and the New York Drama Critics' and Drama Desk Awards.
Melba was born 32 years ago on West 108th Street. Both her parents were entertainers, and Melba began singing at the age of 4. At college she majored in music, and upon graduation, taking the advice of her parents to "get some security," she taught school for a year. But soon a burning desire to get into show business took hold of her, and she quit teaching. "Ever since that day," she recalls, "even before I got my first singing job, the whole world looked better to me."
It was while working as a studio singer that she was given an audition forHair, and since then her story has been a virtually unbroken success. Melba has starred in numerous television shows, including her own summer series for CBS and an ABC special on the life of abolitionist Harriet Tubman. Better known for her singing than her acting, Melba has recorded nine albums and has received a Grammy nomination. Her most remarkable vocal feat, however, was probably her one-woman concert at the Metropolitan Opera House in December 1976, which won her rave notices from every music critic in town. In the concert, she performed everything from ballads to rock to opera.
"Singing opera actually rests my voice," says Melba. "It's like doing vocal exercises." Equally at home in a nightclub or a concert hall, she has demonstrated her four-octave range with many of America's leading orchestras.
Her new album, released late in September by Epic Records and titled simplyMelba Moore, contains both disco songs and straight ballads. One of the cuts, "You Stepped Into My Life," is out as a single. Another cut is "The Greatest," from a film about Muhammad Ali. "No, I didn't sing it in the movie, but I am an Ali fan. I'm a fight fan. I turn on the cable and watch everyone — flyweights, everybody. People I've never hard of."
Her new movie,Purlie, in which Melba will recreate her Broadway smash success, is scheduled to begin filming this November in the countryside of Georgia. Melba plays the orphan Lutibelle Gussiemae Jenkins. After the movie, she will devote most of her time to a new musical,Harlem Renaissance, which is planned to reach Broadway next spring.
The day after she quitTimbuktu, Melba headed for Acapulco to be one of the judges in the Miss Universe Pageant. "They said there were going to be 600 million people watching, so I made sure my nose was powdered. … They worked us from sunup to sunup, but I did manage to get a little suntan," she says teasingly, showing me a patch of light brown skin directly under her top shirt button.
Married for the past five years to restaurateur Charles Huggins, Melba is overjoyed to have a child at last — "we have been waiting for her" — and spends as much time as she can with her daughter. A Westsider off and on for most of her life, Melba is fond of shopping at Vim and Vigor Health Foods (57th Street near the Carnegie Recital Hall), then going next door to the Merit Farm Store, where she buys her favorite junk food.
Of all her accomplishments in the last 10 years, Melba is perhaps proudest of her involvement with an international television series for children,Big Blue Marble, which is currently being shown in 78 countries.
"I'm very much into international things," says Melba, "I have appeared in some of the segments, but basically my role is to let people know about it. … In some way, we hope that the program can help promote peace and understanding to these children — while they're still at a vulnerable age."
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WESTSIDER MICHAEL MORIARTYStar ofHolocaustreturns to Broadway inG.R. Point
5-5-79
When Michael Moriarty rose to national stardom last year with his chilling portrayal of SS Officer Dorf in the NBC miniseriesHolocaust, his performance was witnessed by some 120 million Americans. His current vehicle,G.R. Pointat the Playhouse Theatre on West 48th Street plays to a maximum audience of 500. Yet, in the lead role of Micah Bradstreet, a wet-behind-the-ears soldier from rural Maine, Moriarty delivers what Clive Barnes of theNew York Posthas said is "the best performance, so far, of his career."
G.R. Pointis a play about the Vietnam War and its effects on those who are forced to partake in it. Set on a strikingly designed stage built to resemble a devastated hillside, the play demonstrates how each of the eight characters manages to cope with his predicament in his own way. Its message is summed up in the final words of the drama, spoken to Micah as he departs for the U.S.: he is told to "count the living, not the dead."
"One of the main reasons I wanted to do this play is that it affirms life," says Moriarty, in a dressing room interview just before a performance. "It doesn't take any specific political stance, but it doesn't avoid any of the horrors of war. Its only stance is: in the end, what overcomes the situation is love. And love sometimes shows itself in the strangest, most bizarre ways."
He is tall and solidly built, looking somewhat younger than his 38 years, and though his demeanor has an edge of shyness to it, Moriarty's penetrating eyes reveal that much is going on beneath the surface. Asked about his personal views on Vietnam, the actor replies, "I'm not an intellectual, so I have no specific feelings about it." But his conversation soon reveals him to be a deep thinker and a wit besides, whose remarks are tempered as much by humility as by professional instinct.
"Whatever I could say about the war has been better stated by David Berry, the playwright. I'm able to show my emotional response to the war through Micah Bradstreet. … I'm not trying to influence anyone in any way in particular. I do think the play tells the truth about Vietnam. So the more information people have, the better decisions they can make."
Moriarty's decision to become a dramatic actor can be traced to his undergraduate days at Dartmouth College, when he was overwhelmed by Paul Scofield's performance inLove's Labor Lost. Following graduation, he won a Fulbright Scholarship to attend the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. In 1974, after years of perfecting his craft in theatres across America, he picked up the first of his two Tony Awards for his performances inFind Your Way Home. Equally skilled at television acting, he is the recipient of two Emmys, including one forHolocaust.
A Detroit native of Scandinavian and Irish ancestry, Moriarty attends Catholic mass regularly, and finds much inspiration in the Bible, both spiritual and literary. His chief hobby is music: he is a polished singer/pianist/songwriter who frequently performs in the city's leading nightclubs between acting assignments. Asked whether he would consider teaming up with octogenarian blues singer Alberta Hunter at the Cookery in Greenwich Village, he replies with a laugh, "That's very heavy company. I'll cook and she'll sing." He usually practices in the morning. "I'll ramble over the piano and play some easy music. It's purely according to my libido. You might call it ad libido. Hey, not bad! How's that for an album title?"
Another of his talents is writing plays. Although hesitant to discuss this up-and-coming aspect of his career, Moriarty finally admits that one of his plays was recently read dramatically at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey, under the direction of Ben Levit. "It was none of my doing. I sat back, and it all happened before my very eyes. I was astonished, and pleased, and proud, and in no great hurry to see it produced except by this director — if he wants to."
Long a devotee of Shakespeare, Moriarty founded his own non-profitShakespearean company, Potter's Field, in 1977. He and his groupperform free each Sunday in Central Park near the statue of Sir WalterScott, weather permitting.
In response to a question about the West Side, where he has lived for the past five years, Moriarty says that "you can walk one block and encounter everything the world should either be proud of or ashamed of." His favorite local restaurants include Coq du Vin on 8th Avenue and O'Neal's Balloon at 6th Avenue and 57th Street. "Pat O'Neal and I crack jokes about my career as a waiter. I worked at O'Neal's off and on for about four years. I was terrible! They kept me on out of sheer compassion. I guess I became an endearing lunkhead."
Other goals? "None that I'd care to mention," says Moriarty, smiling softly. "All the other ones are neurotic, and I don't want to expose them. I've done it too often. In my neuroses, I think, 'Gee, I'd like to do that or this.' But in my higher self, I have no unfulfilled needs."
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WESTSIDER LeROY NEIMANAmerica's greatest popular artist
1-27-79
Like Norman Rockwell before him, LeRoy Neiman has the distinction of being one of the very few American artists whose work is familiar to practically everybody in the country — rich and poor, black and white, urban and rural, educated and illiterate.
This is as far as their similarity goes, however. Rockwell, who died in November, 1978 at the age of 84, was known for his meticulously detailed, placid portraits of American family life, while Neiman has built his reputation on action-filled scenes composed of bold splashes of color. Rockwell's career started and ended at theSaturday Evening Post; Neiman's began atPlayboyand has reached its zenith in an entirely new medium — television. His televised mural of the 1976 Olympic Games was seen by an estimated 170 million people.
One of the most commercially successful artists in the world, LeRoy Neiman has spent the last 18 years living and working in a huge apartment/studio just off Central Park West. His original paintings command up to $50,000 each, but the larger portion of his work comes out in the form of limited-edition serigraphs (silkscreen prints). A single piece of silkscreen art generally yields some 300 prints, each of which sells for about $1,500.
Neiman's eye-catching style is admired everywhere. His posters and calendars are best-sellers in Japan; several of his painting are on permanent display at the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad. He was the official United States artist-in-residence for the last two Olympics and will be for the 1980 Games as well. Although best known for his sports pictures, Neiman is also a renowned portraitist who specializes in famous faces. He is attracted by drama and excitement of any kind, whether found in a tavern inhabited by the Beautiful People, in a heavyweight fight, in a world chess championship, or, as television viewers witnessed last January, in a Super Bowl. Neiman sat on the sidelines of that contest drawing pictures of the game in progress, using a computer-controlled electronic pen and palette. The pictures were then flashed onto the television screen.
"It's painting with light," explains Neiman one morning in his studio, taking a break from the half-dozen oils and acrylics he is working on. "It gives you the same sense of creation as any other art medium. You're building and creating an image of your own that wasn't there when you started. The only limitation you ever have in doing a work of art is yourself."
Starting this month, Neiman's work has become a regular feature ofCBS Sports Spectacular. At the beginning and end of each program, Neiman's paintings are interspersed with photographs of athletes to form a moving collage of colors and shapes. The artist has been contracted to make six or seven personal appearances on the program over the next year, in which he will demonstrate the art of drawing sports in action.
Neiman is a suave, sophisticated man who loves his work and loves to talk about it. Dressed in a fancy denim-style suit, with a long, thin cigar protruding from under his handlebar moustache, he expounds on a score of subjects as if he had all the time in the world. In the adjacent room, the telephone rings almost unceasingly. It is answered by his assistant, who calls out the message to him. More likely than not, it is a request for Neiman's artistic services.
"I sketch all the time," he says. "A sketch is not necessarily a study to me. It's a record — something to consult with. I sketch an awful lot in public. Because when I go someplace and I get bored, I sketch. Everybody forgives me for it. They think I have an uncontrollable desire to draw."
His style, says Neiman, "came out of nowhere. It happened very suddenly, about 1954, just before I started withPlayboy." That magazine recently honored him with an award for being one of the five most important contributors in its 25-year history.
During his childhood in Minnesota, recalls Neiman, "I was always drawing pictures and getting special treatment at school — showing off, copping out of other things. … I lived a couple of years in England and France." since moving to New York, he has been a constant Westsider. Central Park, says Neiman, "is the West Side's front yard, but the East Side's back yard."
Neiman's latest one-man show is an exhibit of approximately 50serigraphs, etching, and drawings at Hammer Graphics on East 57thStreet. Part of the proceeds from sales will go to the U.S. OlympicCommittee.
"I turn most things down, because they're not stimulating and inspiring," says Neiman matter-of-factly. "Money isn't enough stimulus to do something I don't like. … I work very hard. I fool around a lot too, but I don't go on vacations. I don't have hobbies. I put my vices within my craft."
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WESTSIDER ARNOLD NEWMANGreat portrait photographer
12-1-79
When theSunday Timesof London decided to hire someone to photograph 50 leading British citizens for a show at England's National Portrait Gallery, the venerable newspaper caused something of an uproar by choosing an American for the job — Arnold Newman, one of the world's most important portrait photographers for the past 30 years.
The 50 portraits, whose subjects include Sir Lawrence Oliver, Sir John Gielgud, Sir Alec Guinness, Henry Moore, Lord Mountbatten and Harold Pinter, were exhibited last month at the Light Gallery on Fifth Avenue, and have just opened in London. Meanwhile, the book version of the prints, with extensive commentary, has been published this month asThe Great British(New York Graphic Society, Boston, $14.95). The photographs, like those found in Newman's three previous books and in his hundreds of assignments forLife,Look,Newsweekand other publications, are far more than mere portraits. Rather, they are profound artistic statements, in which the background of the picture often symbolizes the person's achievement.
"I don't use props: I use reality," explains Newman, taking a break at the West 57th Street studio he has occupied since 1948. On the wall are pictures — he prefers that word to "photographs" — of Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Eugene O'Neill and four American presidents; Newman has photographed every president since Truman.
Big, burly, mellow-voiced and casually dressed, Arnold Newman at 61 looks like an aging beatnik. His quick wit and ready laugh mask a perfectionism that has characterized his work ever since he turned to photography in 1938. His ability "to make the camera see what I saw" showed itself almost at once. In 1941 he held his first exhibition and sold his first print to the Museum of Modern Art.
"I could have made, over the years, a hell of a lot more money than I have, simply by doing more commercial work and cashing in on my reputation. But that doesn't interest me," he reflects, puffing on his ever present cigar. "I mean, money interests me, but I'd just see my life being wasted."
Specializing in portraits of artists, he studies the work of each subject intensely beforehand so that the essence of the artist will be distilled into the photograph, by subconscious as well as conscious effort. On the side, he does enough commercial work to support his own artistic efforts. But over the years, the two have somehow merged: "I'm forever being commissioned for things I'd give my eye teeth to do, and paid very well for it. Recently I went out to do a photograph strictly on my own of somebody I admired, and I hate the picture. Yet the day before I did a picture for money which I think is one of my best pictures in the last three years."
In 1953, he went to Washington to photograph 15 U.S. senators forHolidaymagazine, including John F. Kennedy — then a political unknown who was sometimes labeled the Playboy senator. "Years later," recalls Newman, "I was photographing President Kennedy on the White House lawn. He turned to me and said, 'Arnold, whatever happened to that first picture you took of me?'
"I said, 'Well, Mr. President, we did 15 senators, and they found out they had one too many for the layout, so they dropped the one least likely to succeed.'
"And you have to understand: we were surrounded by secret servicemen, and Pierre Salinger, his press secretary, was there. Well I thought I'd get a big yack, because Kennedy had a marvelous sense of humor. But instead, his face went rigid. And I — I absolutely turned ice cold. The Secret Service men turned around and gave me a 'How stupid can you be?' look.
"A bit later I managed to get into Pierre's office and started stammering and apologizing. Suddenly Pierre started breaking out in laughter. I said, 'What the hell's so funny?' He said, 'He was pulling your leg! He's been walking all around the White House for the last 30 minutes, telling that story on himself.'"
After the assassination, Newman was called to the White House again to photograph the official portrait of Lyndon Johnson. "He could give an angel an ulcer. … I didn't get paid for the picture, not even my expenses. It cost me a fortune."
Arnold and his wife Augusta have been married for 31 years; she runs the studio and works closely with him. Their two sons, Eric and David, are professionals in neurology and architecture, respectively. The Newmans' favorite neighborhood restaurants include Rikyu and Genghiz Khan's Bicycle on Columbus Avenue, and the Cafe des Artistes on their own block.
Asked whether he eventually plans to pursue other areas of photography besides portraits, Newman shakes his head. "The whole history of painting was changed by a man who used the same materials as everybody else did — the same brushes, paints, canvas, and subject matter," he explains. "So why do we say that Cezanne revolutionized painting? It's his ideas. I deal with ideas too."
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EASTSIDER EDWIN NEWMANJournalist and first-time novelist
8-11-79
"When you achieve a certain prominence on television," says NBC'sEdwin Newman, "publishers come to you and ask you to write books.Then you go round in circles for a while, and finally say, 'Gee, I'd liketo write a book, but I don't have the time.'"
Six years ago, the award-winning broadcast journalist decided to find out if he was bluffing himself. He spent seven months of his spare time writing a book calledStrictly Speaking: Will America be the Death of English?Published in 1974 when Newman was 55 years old, it became the nation's number one best-seller for non-fiction. His follow-up book,A Civil Tongue(1976), was another best-seller.
Now Edwin newman has written his first novel,Sunday Punch(Houghton Mifflin, $9.95). Published in June, it has already gone through two printings in hardcover, totaling 60,000 copies. TheAtlantichas described the book as "a Wodehousian excursion that is lighter than air and twice as much fun as laughing gas."
In a leisurely interview at his Rockefeller Plaza office, the author comes across very much as he does on television. His leathery features expand easily into a smile as he delivers, in his slow, concise, foghorn voice, comments that are as thought-provoking as they are witty.
Sunday Punch, he says, "is the story of an extremely thin, tall, British prizefighter named Aubrey Philpott-Grimes who comes to the U.S. to fight because he can make more money here than in Britain. The more money he makes, the higher taxes he can pay, and Aubrey is a great believer in paying taxes. He is tremendously interested in economics, so that if he is brought to the microphone after a fight, he'll probably start talking about structural unemployment and floating exchange rates, rather than talking about fighting. … The book allows me to comment on the United States from the view of an outsider."
His fascination with the cultural and linguistic differences of the U.S. and England dates back to the late 1940s, when Newman left his job with the Washington-based International News Service and moved to London. There, he found work as a "stringer" for the NBC network, and when he was invited to join the full-time staff in 1952, he remained at the British capital for five more years. In 1961, after serving as NBC bureau chief in both Paris and Rome, he returned to his native Manhattan and settled into his present Eastside apartment with his English wife, Rigel. The Newmans' daughter Nancy was educated entirely in England.
A harsh critic of the state of the language in America today, Newman is the head of the Usage Panel for the American Heritage Dictionary. He is always being sent examples of poor English. "Do you want to know what accountability is?" he says, his eyes crinkling with amusement as he takes a letter from his desk. "This is from a teachers' committee in Kalamazoo, Michigan. 'Accountability is a concept that, when operationalized, finds the interrelatedness and parameters of responsibility shaped by individuals within the system.'
"It seems to me there are two movements going on that affect language in the United States, and it's curious that they would be going on at the same time, because in a way they conflict with each other. One is the increasing use of jargon and pomposity, which can partly traced to the size of the government. As the government grows, this kind of language grows. … The more technical they make the language sound, the more money they're likely to earn.
"Then you have the influence of the social sciences, where exactly the same thing goes on. People attempt to take familiar ideas, small ideas, and in some cases no ideas, and make them sound large by wrapping them up in grandiose language.
"The other movement that is going on is based on the notion that correct, specific, concrete language doesn't matter very much. What matters is that your heart be in the right place. … This idea was thoroughly welcome to many people in education. For one thing, it means that you have less written work to correct. And also, of course, if you don't have to teach correct English, you don't have to know it."
During his 28 years as an NBC news correspondent, Edwin Newman has excelled in so many areas that he has become known as the network's "Renaissance man." One of the most quick-thinking ad-libbers on the air, he is frequently called upon to do live "instant specials" of breaking news. He moderated the first Ford-Carter debate in 1976, has hosted theToday Shownumerous times, has covered six national political conventions and reported from 35 foreign countries. Each Monday through Friday, he is heard on both radio and television across the U.S. in a series of news briefs.
His biggest project at the moment is a two-hour, prime-time documentary on U.S. foreign policy, which is scheduled to be aired early in September.
"I think in some way," concludes Newman, "I fell into the right profession. Somebody said — I think it was H.L. Mencken — that you go into the news business because it gives you a front-row seat. And he might have added that not only does it give you a front row seat, but you get the seat free."
born 1-15-19
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EASTSIDER LARRY O'BRIENCommissioner of the National Basketball Association
2-16-80
Fame rests lightly on the shoulders of Larry O'Brien, who was raised on politics in his hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts and never sought elective office for himself, yet became one of the Democratic Party's most influential spokesmen for nearly two decades.
As a campaign manager, he propelled John F. Kennedy into the Senate and then into the White House. He served as postmaster general under President Johnson from 1965 to 1968, and was twice named chairman of the Democratic National Committee, a post traditionally given to the party's foremost political strategist. His name loomed large in the Watergate hearings, for it was O'Brien whose office was broken into by the original Watergate burglars.
He was in the news again in 1974, when, having retired from politics, he published his autobiography,No Final Victories. Expecting to be out of the public eye after that, O'Brien was astonished to be offered the job of commissioner of the National Basketball Association. Now midway through his fifth season, he has not only resolved the major disputes that threatened the future of professional basketball, but has brought a new vitality to the sport.
The NBA's headquarters, a plush suite of office high above Fifth Avenue, is silent and practically empty on the afternoon of my appointment with the commissioner. A gregarious host, he talks about basketball and politics for nearly two hours in his effusive manner, while chain-smoking low-tar cigarettes. He is a hearty, husky man with a basso voice that rarely alters in pitch, and is as casual as a bartender.
Brought up in the town where basketball was invented, the son of Irish immigrants, he worked his way through law school by tending bar in his father's cafe in the daytime and taking classes at night. One of the most trusted of politicians, known for his uncommon organizational abilities and his gift for compromise, O'Brien is a fascinatingly long-winded conversationalist who speaks with many digressions.
"The sports commissioner is somewhat unique. First of all, you are paid by the owners, and you are expected to be as responsive as you can to the fans — to do everything possible to ensure that the game is presented in the best conceivable way to the fans, and the most exciting and interesting manner, because after all, this is business."
During the Kennedy and Johnson White House years, he served as presidential liaison to Congress and helped win passage of the Peace Corps, Medicare, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As commissioner, his authority is all-powerful. "It goes to supervision of every aspect of the game, on and off the court," he explains. "It goes to determining even what time games are played and who plays them."
Attendance in the NBA has risen considerably this year; O'Brien cheerfully attributes it to the resurgence of the Boston Celtics and the improvement of the New York Knicks.
Recently Dallas was granted a franchise to create a new NBA team, the 23rd in the U.S. "If there were further expansion beyond 24 teams," O'Brien predicts, "I think it would take on an international flavor. … There are a number of countries in Europe that are playing quality basketball at the professional level. I envision that by the mid-80s, you would find countries in Europe that could be competitive with us. Probably the first step would be only exhibitions, but I can see it reaching a point where you could give serious thought to establishing another conference perhaps."
Larry and his wife Elva have been married since 1944; their son Laurence III is a Washington-based lawyer. An Eastside resident during most of the last seven years, O'Brien recalls the Watergate break-in with grim humor. "We didn't have anything in the office anyway. We were practically bankrupt. I thought, maybe there's a typewriter missing. … I was a disbeliever. It took a long time for it to penetrate that this was real. … My best recollection of that period is that I was very depressed, in the sense of what effects it was having on our system of government.
"When I was on my book promotion tour, people would ask, 'How does it feel to be a politician?' as if it was a dirty word. I have always been proud of being a politician, and I've never felt otherwise. But I found that all of us involved in politics were painted with the same brush."
His mood brightens when the subject returns to basketball. Speaking of the recent backboard-shattering antics of "Chocolate Thunder" Darryl Dawkins, O'Brien reports that the star "said that he certainly could adjust his dunk shot to prevent further incidents."
The most difficult aspect of his job so far, says O'Brien, has been to enforce the compensation agreement that players and owners signed four years ago. "Compensation means that when a player has terminated his contractual obligations to a club, the new club that acquires him must make compensation to the other team, and work that out between them. And then if the two teams fail to reach an agreement, the case comes to me and I determine what compensation is appropriate. In making the losing club whole, I can assign draft choices, players, money, or any combination thereof. It's extremely difficult — weighing players against players, and deciding how much money is valid compensation. There's no sure way of doing it, unless you were Solomon or you had a crystal ball as to how it would turn out."
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WESTSIDER MAUREEN O'SULLIVANGreat lady of the movie screen
3-4-78
As recently as 10 years ago, most of the motion pictures filmed in this country had a single run at the theatres, and then were seldom seen or heard from again.
Television has changed that. Now, with longer broadcasting hours and the abundance of new channels, vintage movies are enjoying a second life, often with a bigger audience than the first time. Maybe that's why the name Maureen O'Sullivan is practically a household word even today. Between 1930 and 1965 she made dozens of films, ranging from Marx Brothers comedy (A Day At The Races) to classics of English literature (David Copperfield,Pride and Prejudice) to Tarzan films, in which she played Jane.
But unlike so many of her contemporaries, Maureen is neither dead nor retired. She maintains a busy schedule of acting, writing, traveling, and enjoying her status as a mother of five and a grandmother of many.
Maureen shows me around her large, beautiful apartment facing Central Park, right across the hallway from Basil Rathbone's last home. "I keep this part for the children," she says, indicating a section of several rooms. There are photos of her children everywhere, including a good number of her actress daughters Mia and Tisa Farrow. Mia lives in England and Tisa is in California, but they still get together frequently.
"I'm doing an autobiography now. It's about halfway done. My agent has the manuscript. But I'm not writing any more until I see if there's any interest in it. … I started it two years ago, then put it away. I wasn't even interested in it myself. Then a friend of mine, John Springer, had me to lunch. He said, 'You ought to do an autobiography.' I said I had already started one. … So I went back and worked on it some more, and condensed it into 10 pages. I had to do it myself — every word, syllable, comma."
She recently spent five weeks in upstate New York playing one of the leads inThe Glass Menagerieby Tennessee Williams. The critics had nothing but praise for her portrayal of the ambitious mother, and one described Maureen's acting as "genius."
The stage is not the only place where Maureen employs her dramatic talents. Shortly after completing the Williams play, she went to Albany, New York to do a reading fromThe Wayward Busfor the state legislature. "They're trying to get a new bill through Congress to get money for a program for more halfway houses for women alcoholics," she explains. "I believe in that kind of thing."
One of the last plays she did in New York City wasNo Sex Please — We're British. It was a hit in London, and the preview performances were doing well enough in New York to call for an official Broadway opening. "Then [drama critic] Clive Barnes came to the producer and said, 'If you have an opening you'll have a disaster, because the critics won't like it.' And he was right. As soon as the reviews came out, the theatre emptied. In the previews, the audiences loved it. The critics made a big thing out of opening night. In London, I don't think the public pays that much attention to the critics. The average person there doesn't read the reviews."
Perhaps it's the singing lessons she has never stopped taking that account for her pure lyrical speaking voice, which is still as sweet as it was when she made her first film,Song of My Heart, nearly 50 years ago. Though Maureen's soft British accent gives no hint of it, she was brought up in Dublin, Ireland. While working as a young actress in England she was discovered by an American producer and brought to the U.S. to do her first movie with famed tenor John McCormack. After that her career blossomed.
Any comment on the Tarzan films for which she became famous? "I made five. They have been remembered. I'm glad to be remembered for something. Let's leave it at that."
These days, while Maureen is waiting to hear about her autobiography, she is working on some short stories. Two have appeared in theLadies' Home Journal. "I have no special goals," she says. "One thing leads to another. Supposing my theatrical career came to an end, I'd like to open an antique shop in Vermont, and write, and paint — I always have — and sew. If you can do one art, you can do them all. It's different ways of saying the same thing.
"I'm a special type of grandmother. At the theatre, I like to take the children backstage. And in New York, I take them in a horse and buggy around the park, or for tea at the Plaza. In that way, I can bring color into their lives."
Maureen has been a Westsider for the past 15 years. "I'm very fond ofMal the Tailor, on 72nd near Columbus. And Mr. Walsh the florist.O'Neal's Balloon. The Pioneer Market. They're all on 72nd Street. That'smy beat."
She walks toward the window. "I love this view. The park is different every time of the year. Now it's all covered with snow. Pretty soon the buds will be all over the trees." She smiles contentedly. "I really think that if I had to leave the West Side I'd leave New York. Because to me, this is New York."
Hannah and Her Sisters.
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WESTSIDER BETSY PALMERStar ofSame Time, Next Year
4-1-78
"Oh, do you take shorthand?" said Betsy Palmer as we sat down in her dressing room to chat between shows. "I could always read and write shorthand. I worked for the B & O Railroad as a stenographer before I went away to school and learned acting. I guess if I had to, I could brush up and go back to it."
It's most unlikely that she'll ever have to. Even if her Tony Award winning play,Same Time, Next Year, should happen to close, Betsy would find herself swamped with offers for choice acting roles. But her hit show about the lighter side of adultery won't be closing for a long time yet. It is currently being made into a film starring Ellen Burstyn and Alan Alda.
"A lot of people think of me as a personality rather than an actress, and when they come to see me they expect to see that personality," says Palmer, who has one of the more recognizable names and faces on Broadway. "Mostly people know me from panel shows. It's been a double-edged sword for me. When they see me doing something that's really dramatic, they say, 'My God, she can act!'"
She has made countless appearances onWhat's My Line?,Girl TalkandThe Today Show, but to most television viewers she is best remembered as the bright, beautiful, All-American girl who for 11 years was a panelist onI've Got a Secret.
During her years of TV stardom Betsy was doing plenty of serious acting — everything from Shakespeare to Peter Pan to Ibsen. She has made five Hollywood films and performed the lead in numerous Broadway shows, includingSouth Pacific,Cactus Flowerand Tennessee Williams'Eccentricities of a Nightingale. Few of her roles, however, have been as demanding as Doris inSame Time, Next Year.
To begin with, she and her co-star, Monte Markham, are the only characters in the play. Second, the play's action takes place over a period of 25 years, in which Doris goes through momentous changes. In doing this transformation smoothly, Betsy creates a character so believable and lovable that the audience forgives her for cheating on her husband, which she does one weekend a year in order to meet her lover George.
"Doing the play takes all my energy.I'm a single woman now, and have been for three years. But if I were involved with somebody now, it would take up a lot of my energies. So it doesn't bother me; when the time comes for me to be involved, I will be. Right now, I'm really quite satisfied to come here six days a week and have a fantasy life. It has all the good things in it and none of the bad things. … It gives you such a rainbow of colors to express yourself within, that I find it terribly rewarding and gratifying. I am never bored with the show."
George, like Doris, is married and has three children, and he too goes through drastic changes of attitude during the time period from 1951 to 1976. But while George wins the audience's respect and sympathy, Doris steals their hearts.
"I get out there and I feel such love. All of a sudden they begin to adore her. They're watching her spread her wings and finally fly. … The adultery is done with such taste. You see two people who really love their respective mates, and their children."
In her cozy backstage room at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, which is decorated with Christmas lights, Betsy demonstrates an overbubbling friendliness and an extremely fluent style of speech. An interview with her is both a pleasure and a challenge, for she talks about each subject with an enthusiasm that makes it hard for anyone to interrupt and go on to the next question.
Her memories of those panel shows? "You know, we used to doSecretright in this theatre. We must have done it here five, six, seven years easily. There are a lot of guys here now, on the backstage crew, who were here withSecret. It's nice to be working with them again. … But I'm not interested in the past. The past is an illusion, as is the future."
Betsy has been an off-and-on Westside resident ever since she first came to New York in 1951. When doingSame Time, Next Yearshe is subletting a friend's apartment on Riverside Drive. Her 16-year-old daughter frequently comes down from Connecticut to spend time with her on the West Side.
"I've lived on the East Side but my preference is the West Side. Let's face it, Broadway's on the West Side. Where Broadway is is where my heart is." Flowers by Edith (69th and B'way) is one of Betsy's best-loved Westside establishments. "I've become very good friends with her. I've gone to her house to parties."
In response to an obvious question, Betsy scolds gently: "Never ask an actress what she's going to do next. Opera stars say, 'You know, I've got this opera lined up, then this one, then this,' but an actress doesn't usually know. … I just hope that the next play I'm able to do will have a lot of humanity in it, like this one. It's not enough to get a bunch of laughs. You've got to be touched inside."
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WESTSIDER JAN PEERCEThe man with the golden voice
3-22-80
In December 1979, in a benefit concert at the Alvin Theatre, about a dozen Broadway stars of the past and present strode to the microphone to sing some of the songs they made famous. John Raitt, Alan Jones, Jack Gilford, Michael Moriarty, Delores Wilson and others received waves of enthusiastic applause from the packed house. But when a short, stocky, barrel-chested man with thick eyeglasses and a nose like Jimmy Durante's shuffled to center stage, the audience didn't merely cheer: it erupted. And when 75-year-old Jan Peerce finished his two arias, he was prevailed upon to give the only encore of the evening. Appropriately enough, his choice was "If I Were a Rich Man" fromFiddler on the Roof, the show in which he made his Broadway debut at the age of 67.
Although Peerce has been one of America's most beloved singers for almost half a century, it was not for sentimental reasons alone that he was treated with such acclaim that evening. He still has one of the clearest, strongest, sweetest tenor voices in the business, and his repertoire is enormous. Besides arias and showtunes, he performs ballads, German lieder, French contemporary songs, cantorial and oratory music with equal facility. In order to keep his voice in top form, he now limits his concerts to about 50 a year, but last summer, on a tour of Australia, he did 17 concerts in 21 days.
"I vocalize every day of my life, I keep observing the laws of decent living, and I face every booking as it was my first," he says in a recent telephone interview, contacted at his Westside apartment. "I believe in the adage that the show must go on, but you must not go out at the expense of your health, or impair the quality of your voice by singing against nature."
This fall will find him doing a one-man show at Carnegie Hall. In addition to his regular schedule of cross-country concerts, he makes cruises of the Caribbean several times each year aboard the SS Rotterdam.
His parents were Orthodox Jews who had immigrated from Russia, and they were able to afford violin lessons for him by taking in lodgers at the Lower East Side apartment where he grew up. Born under the name Jacob Pincus Perelmuth, he began his career working primarily as a violinist and bandleader in the Catskills. In 1929 he married his childhood sweetheart, Alice Kalmanowitz, and three years later was discovered by the great showman Samuel "Roxy" Rothafel, who hired him as a featured singer at the new Radio City Music Hall.
"People on Broadway said I belonged in opera," recalls Peerce, "and opera people said I belonged on Broadway. But when Roxy gave me my break, things began to happen. And then came Toscanini. He hired me to sing with his NBC Symphony of the Air. And when he accepted me, that sort of clinched things. People said, "If he's good enough for Toscanini, this guy must be good.'"
For 15 years, Arturo Toscanini preferred Peerce to all other tenors in the world. Meanwhile, in 1941, Peerce had joined the Metropolitan Opera. There he sang the major tenor roles up until 1968, when, after losing the sight in one eye, he retired from the Met and began to concentrate on recitals. In 1976 he published his memoirs,The Bluebird of Happiness, named after his recording that has sold 1.5 million copies. Peerce has made dozens of other recordings, including many complete operas.
A deeply religious man, long noted for his humanitarian efforts, Peerce is particularly supportive of Bonds for Israel. "My wife Alice is the only woman on the board of governors. She's the chairperson," he says proudly. "It's to help Israel build and keep building, and develop to the point where she belongs. She's growing beautifully, and she will grow even more."
The Peerces, who have two daughters and a son, maintain a house in New Rochelle as well as the Westside apartment that they have had for the past 15 years. Although Jan Peerce stopped playing the violin long ago, he is still a dues-paying member of the local violinists' union. "One day I asked them if they could give me an honorary membership," he chuckles, revealing his famous offbeat humor. "They said they were very sorry, they couldn't do it. I said why not, and they said, 'All our honorary members are dead.'"
Another time, when he was the guest of honor at a dinner party, the hostess, seated next to him, chatted with such energy that Peerce had trouble getting in a single word. He got his chance when the waiter brought around a tray of assorted salad dressings. The gabby woman asked, "Mr. Peerce, how do you usually eat your salad?"
"In complete silence, madame," he replied.
Of the dozens of conductors he has worked with, Peerce is quick to name Toscanini his favorite. "First of all, he was a great man, and second of all, he was a genius musically. He had no tricks, except that he had a certain vision about the music. He made everybody sing or play as the composer meant it to be. And that was the secret of his success. He was an inspiration to anybody who worked with him or under him."
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EASTSIDER GEORGE PLIMPTONAuthor, editor and adventurer
2-2-79
It was an unusual statement to come from a man who has made a career out of fearing nothing. "I'm scared to death every time I sit down at a typewriter," confessed George Plimpton, who, in his 20 years as America's foremost "participatory journalist," has played football with the Detroit Lions, fought the light heavyweight champion of the world, pitched to major league baseball players, raced cars internationally, and performed with the New York Philharmonic as a percussionist.
"Sometimes you can do it, and sometimes it's not there," continued Plimpton, leaning back in the desk chair at his Eastside apartment. "It's very hard to work alone. There's the television set, and all these books, and your son and daughter in the next room. Sometimes I have to get away. So I go to bars and I sit in a corner and write. You're trapped in there. There's nothing else to do but write."
As we sat talking, the telephone rang frequently, and Plimpton, apologizing for the interruption, spoke to the callers with widely varying degrees of enthusiasm, but was consistently polite, urbane and witty. I noticed a hint of an English accent in his voice — the result of his early education at St. Bernard's School on the Upper East Side, followed much later by four years of study in England. It is easy to imagine him stepping into a boxing ring like an English gentleman, calmly lacing on his gloves for a friendly bout.
Which is precisely what he did in 1959 when, for the purpose of one of his countless stories forSports Illustrated, he took on Archie Moore, then king of the light heavyweight division, for a three-round exhibition match in New York. Since that time, Plimpton has never lost his interest in boxing. A close friend of Muhammad Ali's who has followed the champion around the world, he made Ali the chief character of his bookShadow Box, which came out in paperback this month from Berkley. As with most of Plimpton's works, the story is told with an abundance of humor.
Currently at work on three new books, Plimpton emphasized that he writes on many subjects outside of sports. A lifelong friend of the Kennedy family, he has co-authored an oral history volume titledAmerican Journey: The Times of Robert F. Kennedy. He is an associate editor ofHarper'smagazine and a regular contributor to theInternational Food & Wine Review. His first love, in fact, seems to be not sports at all, but theParis Review, a magazine for up-and-coming serious writers that he has edited since its creation in 1953. One of the most important literary magazines in the English-speaking world, theParis Reviewis published four times a year as a 175-page journal devoted almost exclusively to fiction and poetry.
His hair is mostly silver now, and there are creases starting to appear on his ruggedly handsome face, but Plimpton, at 52, is still the same larger than-life, charismatic figure he has been since he came to national attention in 1961 with the publication ofOut of My League, a book about his foray into major league baseball.Paper Lion(1966), which told of his brief career as a quarterback with the Detroit Lions, cemented his reputation as the nation's most realistic sportswriter. His other books includeThe Bogey Man,One More July, andMad Ducks and Bears. As a lecturer, he is in demand all over the country. He and his wife Freddy have been married for 11 years.
Born in New York City, he grew up around 98th Street and 5th Avenue, attended Harvard University (where he edited theHarvard Lampoon), and spent three years in the Army before heading for England to study at King's College, Cambridge. During an Easter vacation there, he joined some friends in Paris to discuss the launching of the literary magazine he has guided ever since.
In 1979, said Plimpton with a grin, "I'm supposed to manage the New York Yankees for a day, and go through the whole procedure of being fired by George Steinbrenner. I hope it's followed by a beer commercial with Billy Martin."
Asked about his attachment to the East Side, Plimpton stressed his fondness for the city as a whole. "In the last couple of years, there's been an enormous rebirth of excitement about living in the city. … I think Mayor [Ed] Koch has a lot to do with pulling it up. He seems to fit everywhere. If I saw him twirling up a pancake dough in a pizza shop on Broadway, or driving a 5th Avenue bus, or carrying a briefcase into 20 Exchange Place, I wouldn't be surprised. He's a quintessential New Yorker."
When my visit with Plimpton was about to end, I couldn't resist testing him with my favorite sports question: "Who was the only man to play for the Boston Red Sox, the Boston Patriots and the Boston Bruins?" He couldn't guess. The answer, I told him, was a guy named John Kiley, who played the national anthem on the organ.
But Plimpton got the last word in.
"Who was the only man to play for the Boston Bruins and the BostonCeltics?" he asked. I said I didn't know. He smiled and replied: "GeorgePlimpton."
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EASTSIDER OTTO PREMINGERRebel filmmaker returns withThe Human Factor
1-26-80
On the cover of his 1977 autobiographyPreminger, he is described as "Hollywood's most tempestuous director" and "the screen's stormiest rebel." But today, at 73, the years appear to have caught up with Otto Preminger, the Austrian-born director and actor who came to the U.S. in 1935 and met success after success, both in movies and on Broadway.
He became the first producer/director to make major motion pictures independently of the giant studios, and with such films asForever Amber,The Moon is BlueandThe Man with the Golden Arm, won precedent-settling battles with censorship boards that established new artistic freedom for filmmakers.
Between 1959 and 1963 he produced and directed, in succession,Porgy and Bess,Anatomy of a Murder,Exodus,Advice and Consent, andThe Cardinal. After that his career took a dip, and since 1971 he has released but a single movie,Rosebud(1975), which marked the screenwriting debut of his sonErik Lee Premingerand the acting debut of a New Yorker named John Lindsay, the city's former mayor.
In February, Preminger's 33rd film,The Human Factor, is scheduled to open in New York and across the country. Based on a best-selling novel by Graham Greene,The Human Factoris the suspenseful story of a black South African woman (played by fashion model Iman) who marries a white secret agent (Nicol Williamson). Filmed mainly in the English countryside, the movie deals with the agent's allegiance to the man who helps his wife to escape from South Africa. Persuaded to become a double agent, he ends up in Moscow, separated from the one person he loves. The novel's title underlines the fact that bureaucracy can never be all-powerful: there is always the human factor.
Preminger, seated at his huge palette-shaped desk of white marble in the lavishly furnished projection room on the uppermost floor of his Eastside town house, admits that he sank over $2 million of his own money into the picture when his signed backers failed to come through. "Everybody in Europe lies about money," says Preminger in his deep, German accented voice. "I originally wanted to sue them, but suing doesn't make sense unless you are sure they have money. So I inquired from my Swiss lawyer, and they didn't have money in Switzerland. You see, in Switzerland, the advantage of the Swiss law is that is you sue somebody, all his assets are frozen immediately. … Luckily enough, I had two houses that I wanted to sell in the south of France. … At least I own the whole film. The question is now only: Will the picture be a big success as I hope, or not? That is always the main thing."
The nattily dressed Preminger, a tall, large man whose distinguished features and totally bald head give the opposite impression of his slow movement and somewhat frail appearance, revealed that the film's African scenes had to be shot in Kenya rather than South Africa "because they said they must see what I am shooting, and if they don't like it, they will confiscate it. They said, 'People in bed you can't shoot.' Then I went to Kenya, where there is a black government, and they didn't even ask for the script. They said I could have anything I want."
Asked whether any memorable events took place during the filming, Preminger snaps, "Even if there were, I don't remember. After I have made a picture and I have seen it maybe two, three times with an audience, I deliberately detach myself, because I don't want it to influence my next picture. As a matter of fact, a few months ago, my wife was dressing to go out, and I turned on the television and saw one of my old pictures. I recognized it, but we had to leave before it was finished. I still don't know how it ends."
As for Preminger's love life, he writes in his autobiography: "I have a reputation with women which is not entirely deserved, though it is true that I had my share of them, some of them stars."
In 1944 he had a three-week love affair with Gypsy Rose Lee that resulted in the birth of his son Erik Lee Preminger. The boy didn't find out the identity of his real father until the age of 18. They were reunited four years later, and liked each other immediately. Preminger legally adopted Erik, who is currently in Los Angeles writing a biography of his late mother.
Preminger and his third wife, a former costume designer named Hope Bryce, to whom he has been married since 1959, are the parents of 19 year-old twins, Victoria and Mark. An Upper Eastsider for two decades, Preminger includes among his favorite restaurants Caravelle, Le Cirque and 21, where agent Irving "Swifty" Lazar once broke a glass over his head that took 51 stitches to close.
An unabashed admirer of luxury, Preminger remains unruffled when questioned about how his fancy Eastside pad is in line with the philosophy stated in his autobiography that "my real reward is my work itself. Success matters only because without it, one cannot continue to work."
"I could live without it," he says with a shrug. "I like to give my family luxuries, but I could easily live in one furnished room and be also happy."
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WESTSIDER CHARLES RANGELCongressman of the 19th District
8-26-78
The dividing line of New York's 19th Congressional District twists and loops through upper Manhattan like a traveler who has lost his way. From the corner of 62nd Street and Central Park West, the boundary turns sharply at Amsterdam Avenue and extends northward to 164th Street, then follows the East River shoreline south to Roosevelt Island, taking in all of Harlem and a large chunk of the East Side.
This is the area that U.S. Congressman Charles Rangel has represented ever since he was sent to Washington in 1971, after defeating the colorful and controversial Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in the Democratic primary. Today, as firmly in control of the seat as Powell was during his height of popularity, Congressman Rangel stands virtually unopposed in his quest for a fifth term.
"I have received the Democratic endorsement, the Republican endorsement, and the Liberal endorsement," says Rangel one Friday afternoon at the towering State Office Building on 125th Street. "I am assuming that the Socialist Workers Party and the Communist Party will be filing. They normally do. In the last election I got 96.4 percent of the vote."
Whereas the late Powell had wide appeal only among the city's blacks, Rangel gained the support of many Harlem residents plus a large majority of liberal whites on the upper West Side. It was they who provided him with a 150-vote margin of victory over Powell in 1970. In the present 95th Congress, Rangel has had the most liberal voting record of any congressman from New York state. And while he has continued to give a great deal of attention to Harlem's problems of health care, unemployment and drugs, Rangel has recently had more demands placed on his time as a member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. The first black ever to serve on the committee, he is currently 11th in seniority and will be seventh in the next Congress.
In his New York office, where he generally spends two days per week, Rangel appears surprisingly fresh and relaxed at the end of a working day. As we settle into the interview, the elegantly dressed congressman with the graying moustache and the rasping voice proves himself very much the politician. He uses each question as a springboard to launch into his favorite topics — for example, his access to President Carter.
Because of his various committee assignments and his strong support of most of Carter's policies, says Rangel, "I am forced to meet with the president more than probably many other members of Congress. I often stop by the White House on my way to the office." Rangel also likes to talk about Chip Carter, the president's son, who is involved in a project called City in Schools, designed to upgrade the neighborhoods outside certain schools. Chip has taken a special interest in Harlem, and one school in particular near Morningside Park. "I am confident that with Chip Carter's help, and with my help, Morningside Park will soon show some improvements. I hope that Columbia University will assist us too."
When asked about the unusual shape of the 19th Congressional District, Rangel says, "The reason for it is that as we find populations expanding, we don't find the size or the numbers of the members of Congress expanding. We used to have half a dozen members of Congress representing different parts of Manhattan. Now we're down to three — me, Green, and Weiss. If you break it down, you can see that Adam Clayton Powell's district used to be just Harlem."
As a member of the House Select Committee on Narcotics and Drugs, says Rangel, "I have gone to Moscow, to try to encourage them to do more in the area of controlling opium. I have been to Thailand for the same reason. … That's one area in which I have great disappointment in this administration. I find efforts of Nixon's to be greater than Carter's. The Office of Drug Abuse was disbanded by Carter."
Another field in which he finds Carter at fault is health care. "I support Kennedy's proposal," said the congressman. "There's no question that, for anti-inflation reasons, the president has put his national health program on the back burner. But to think that any program could be directly controlled by economic needs rather than by the medical needs of the people is something I cannot accept."
The ultraliberal Rangel, one of the most vociferous supporters of U.S. Ambassador Andrew Young, still lives in the same building where he was born 48 years ago, whenever he's not in Washington. He dropped out of high school to enlist in the Army and spent four years compiling a distinguished service record, including a presidential citation and three battle stars. Once he returned to New York, Rangel completed high school, went to college, and entered law school on a full scholarship. He was admitted to the bar in 1960; in 1966 he was elected to the first of two terms in the New York State Assembly.
Married and with two children, Congressman Rangel believes that his future lies primarily in the Ways and Means Committee, which handles such giant concerns as taxes, trade, health insurance, social security and welfare. In order to maintain his popularity throughout the 19th Congressional District, he must continue to support those programs that benefit his constituents in both Harlem and the Upper West Side. How can this be done? "If we're going to use the tax system to make incentives for the business community to help the economy," he replies, "we need to bring the disadvantaged into the mainstream."
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WESTSIDER JOE RAPOSOGolden boy of American composers
2-23-80
Sing, sing a songSing out loud, sing out strongSing of good things, not badSing of happy, not sadSing, sing a songMake it simpleTo last your whole life longDon't worry that it's not good enoughFor anyone else to hearJust sing, sing a song.
Joe Raposo wrote those words, along with their music, on a January morning in New York City, about 10 years ago. "It was," he recalls, "as succinctly and as economically and precisely as I could embody a philosophy of life in a song. 'Sing' is my philosophy of life, period. … I remember leaving the studio and walking up Sixth Avenue saying, 'If that isn't a hit song, I know absolutely nothing about it.'"
The boyish, roly-poly, 40-year-old songwriter, whose incredibly crowded career has included the writing of five movie scores and more than 350 songs recorded by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett and Tom Jones, was right about "Sing." When Karen Carpenter's single went platinum in 1974, that was only the beginning.
"It's one of the most recorded songs in the world," says Joe. "I think there are something like 180 versions of it, in just about every major language. … Lawrence Welk recently did this hit parade of songs of the decade, and the number one song of the decade was 'Sing.'"
We're riding in a limousine along Fifth Avenue. Joe has requested to be interviewed while he attends to some gift shopping. Because of a temporary leg injury, he has hired a limousine for the afternoon. As we go from store to store, Joe greets the merchants by name, then answers questions into a tape recorder while waiting for his merchandise.
Long noted for his musical versatility, Raposo grew up in Fall River, Massachusetts, the only child of a classical musician father and a piano playing mother. "I learned counterpoint at the age of 6 or so by wandering around the concert hall as my father rehearsed Mozart." His parents taught him piano, violin and bass viol. At Harvard University he began to write and direct his own musicals. Soon after moving to New York City in 1966, he had all the work he could handle as musical director, composer and lyricist for both television and the stage. He is the recipient of three Emmy Awards and an Oscar nomination. As a record producer, he has won four Grammy Awards.
"It's Not Easy Bein' Green," one of many songs he wrote for theSesame StreetTV show, has become the international anthem for the Girl Scouts of America. Another Raposo hit, "You Will Be My Music," brought Sinatra out of retirement several years ago. HisSesame Street Feverdisco album has sold more than a million copies.
An album of all-Raposo music recorded by the Boston Pops in 1976 led to a commission from the Boston Symphony Orchestra for an orchestral and choral work. The result is a 12-to-14-minute oratorio titledFrom the Diary of Johann Sutter, about the man whose quiet farm became the epicenter of the California Gold Rush.
"It's the darndest story ever. Because it tells how a man who's a tremendous idealist came to this country from Switzerland to found a new utopian agrarian state, with cattle and fields of grain, and vineyards. … When the Gold Rush started, Sutter's whole society was ruined. And it is an incredible parallel for our time, in that our pursuit of material goods tends to make us forget all the natural, beautiful things that surround us.
"Sheldon Harnick has done a wonderfully literate libretto. It premieres this spring in Boston. Sheldon and I have been talking about the possibility of expansion, but we have a musical to write first based onIt's A Wonderful Life, the Frank Capra movie."
At the same time, Raposo is collaborating with Hal David on another musical and writing songs for a sequel toThe Muppet Movie. But with all his success, Joe admits to having "a trunk of songs that are unrecorded, and many of them I feel are right up on a par with anything I've ever done. But they sit there and nobody grabs them. You have to wait. … A lot of people think, 'Oh, if I only had the talent to write a hit song.' But writing a great song isn't enough: you have to get the right recording at the right time."