|
|
| Dana Hall |
I must admit I've never grown up.
All of you know I was born in 1940, but I keep on celebrating my 27th birthday to the rest of the world. Getting pretty
good at it, too.
You might remember that I was accepted at Dana Hall in Wellesley, MA, for my sophomore year. It was a superb school with
incredible teachers, and I probably crammed years of learning into those two semesters.
My favorite teacher tried to teach us how to think, a pretty big undertaking for teenagers. Her English class goaded
us into writing, but she was on to me. In June she gave me a Classic Comic Book because she knew I hadn't really read Dickens.
Perhaps it's time to try again.
|
| Rhodes School, NYC |
The next year found me in the Big Apple at Rhodes School, noted for attempting to educate aspiring actors and such. My
big crush was Tony, whose mother was an editor at Fortune, so he was offered a part-time job by Gene Gilbert, who
had discovered the youth market.
Gene was only 28, but he'd been in Reader's Digest and wanted to be in Fortune, so he offered me a
job. too. Tony and I roamed Central Park doing surveys of teens and never got mugged once.
South of the Border
In the summer of 1956, Rhodes School sent me to Mexico to attend the University of Mexico. The night before my friends
were taking me to see my hero, Louis Armstrong, at Basin Street. (Birdland?) Anyway, I was really early, so the only other
audience was a couple necking at a dark table. Satchmo and his group were so gracious, although I suspect they were surprised
that I knew all their songs. For an hour I had a private concert that I've never forgotten.
I learned to drive at rush hour in downtown Mexico City traffic in the midst of a cloudburst in a blue Ford convertible.
My driving skills were further honed on a Winnemucca, NV, ranch where the speed limit, if any, was 90. It was in a truck yet.
I never did buy a car without a clutch after that.
I graduated in January 1957 because I had a mess of credits. My Dana Hall Spanish teacher had done such a great job that
I was allowed to skip over classes. When I took the Regents exams for Spanish II and III, I got a 98 on the first and 96 on
the second. Drove the Spanish teacher nuts by translating Spanish idioms to French -- literally. Luckily, he had a good sense
of humor.
While I was working part-time and going to school, I also took classes at Berlitz and stayed up late every night watching
Steverino. Have never figured out when I slept, which started a pattern for the next years.
Backwards and in High Heels
(They say that Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels.)
In January 1967 I started at NYU, bound and determined to pursue entymology. (No, not the study of bugs.) What with one
thing and another, that autumn I ended up living near my father and his delightful Welsh wife in Wyomissing for a few months.
Couldn't find a job in Reading until -- honest -- I started teaching at the Arthur Murray Dance School. My feet grew
a whole size in the first month. When I left for New York, they helped me celebrate my 18th birthday, much to the chagrin
of the manager, who thought I was older. My favorite was the pasa doble, which is finally getting popular again. It's the
dance where the man is the matador and his partner symbolizes the cape.
|
| A Kodak moment |
Marry in Haste, Repent at the Operetta
Well, I really didn't. I met George when I was 15, and since I lived with his mother and brother after he left for the
army, it was expected that we would get engaged. We married on Friday, June 13, 1958, so I guess
no further explanation is necessary.
By the way, I made that dress with a $20 Japanese sewing machine and a silk remnant.
I worked as executive secretary to Al Aulicino, VP of Maria Bergson Associates, a firm that transformed some of Denver's
business building interiors into glory. (The cowboy was getting a makeover.) Al was not only a gourmet chef (later writing a
cook book I found in the library), but he also wrote librettos.
When I was eight-and-a-half months pregnant with Elysa, my husband took me to see Louis Armstrong in concert for my birthday.
I was sitting at the end of the aisle in Carnegie Hall, and of course, Satchmo finished the performance with "When the Saints
Go Marching In". Guess my daughter loved it, too, because she gave me an enormous kick that made me stand up. The people around
me were hysterical.
Elysa was born in March 1960 in Manhattan. What fun it was to have a little one, and a baby who was one of the first
LaMaze babies in the United States. My doctor had sent me to his wife's obstetrician, and it was an incredible experience.
When she was six weeks old, I towed her playpen and her down to off-Broadway to Al Aulicino's production of The Shoemaker
and the Fiddler, an opera based on the Sacco and Vanzetti case. Elysa was passed from lap to lap during rehearsals, and
she loved every minute of it.
|
| Elysa, aka Liisa |
Show Biz
In 1961 I went back to work for Gene Gilbert, this time doing market research analysis and writing an Associated Press
column syndicated to a bunch of newspapers throughout the U.S. My editor hated two types of people: young ones and women.
You can bet that all my good English lessons were used, and I learned more in a hurry.
It was a kick being a wannabe Brenda Starr. I got to interview a lot of teen idols, not many of whom impressed me much.
Much of the time they were so drugged up that their managers and I did a mock interview. For a couple of columns in the summer
when no one would be caught dead in Manhattan, I bought some movie magazines and did some creative writing.
The person I enjoyed most was Louis Nye, a gentleman, a gourmet, and one of the funniest people ever. I always had my
dates take me to see his shows. Oh, forgot Gene McDaniels, who made it big with A Hundred Pounds of Clay, and Gene
Pitney with A Town without Pity. And Nanette Fabares with her Australian silkies. Really nice folks.
The strangest interview was at the Brooklyn Paramount theater. I was 21, not a lot older than the crowd outside. Wearing
a hat and white gloves (remember them?) got me through to the security cop who walked me to my appointment. It was Bobby Rydell's
birthday, but even in 1961 they were suspicious of the cakes that arrived by the minute. Did we start losing our innocence
that far back?
|
