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 Like being on vacation
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| View of the East River from 83rd Street looking southeast across to Roosevelt Island and the Con Edison plant to the 59th Street Queensboro Bridge, a lone sailboat heading north (in the far mid-right of the picture). 7:15 PM. Photo: DPC. |
August 18, 2010. Humid-ish but not so bad, yesterday in New York.
I uncharacteristically didn’t have a lunch date (second day in a row), and it was like being on vacation. As we head into the final days of summer (to Labor Day) things seem quieter than ever in New York, and the one drawback of the luxury of having one’s own column/platform/whatever is that you have to write it.
The people who can be good subject matter are out of town. The people who can’t be are in their apartments or offices. I have gone out to dinner several times, with old friends, which is a pleasure but it doesn’t necessarily make interesting reading for a “Social” Diary.
Last night I went to dine at Chin Chin with Philip and Joan Kingsley and Pax Quigley. The Kingsleys are semi-new friends. Joan and I were in Summer Stock together in Lake Placid back when we were almost minors (and minor actors, as it would turn out). Our friendship was renewed, however, only last year. Joan is now a therapist and has been practicing in London for quite a few years. She told me that most of her clients are men and their approach to their problems is quite different from the American male’s approach. Why that is, we don’t know. I’d guess: mother.
Philip, who is a native Londoner is very famous in his field as a “trichologist” or, as many describe him, a Hair Doctor. It’s a most interesting profession and he is a most likeable fellow, naturally courtly and gracious. A good doctor, with a gentle voice and manner, and a resolute approach to his work that is reassuring. Famous movie stars and stage actors and politicians and prime ministers in London and New York take appointments with him all the time. Famous Hollywood blondes never miss one.
Interesting professions aside, the couple are very comme il faut, as one of my fancier (European) friends says to describe people whom she finds very comfortable company. With the Kingsleys there is never a lull in the conversation, and laughter often emerges just when it gets most serious.
Pax and I are old friends from Los Angeles, although she moved her residence here a couple of years ago. We met over the phone through a mutual acquaintance about 1980. She was working at Playboy Magazine in their corporate public relations.
Naturally she had stories about the Mansion (and this was when I was living out there). Everybody who has had a long relationship with Playboy has stories because Mr. Hefner actually lives that life that was originally marketed as the “Playboy Philosophy.” And although it has lost its mojo over the years, Mr. Hefner has evidently not lost his.
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| Pax Quigley, DPC, and Tobie Roosevelt |
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Pax wrote a book called Armed and Female which was published in the late 80s and has sold several hundred thousand copies. She had a career for a time as a teacher. Gun teacher? Shooting teacher? I don’t know. It’s not a subject I’ve ever liked. It’s very emotional. The only history I’ve had with guns is historical rather than experiential: my grandmother shot my grandfather to death, in the presence of my father, then a teenager, 95 years ago; and it is safe to say that that one single gunshot reverberated through three generations and hundreds of lives. Without discussing it.
So we’ve rarely discussed it. Guns; Pax and I. However, it remains a pertinent subject and from the point of view of single (or even married) women, or even men; a lot of people would like to know, should know “how” to use them safely -- cautiously and defensively if it comes to that (which is what my grandmother claimed in her defense). And so it is best to learn from someone who can teach it since owning a gun can be a very dangerous, even useless thing.
The conversation at THE table last night took in none of the above subjects as we talked non-stop about people we know, have known, met, heard of, know people who know. Yada Yada to some but music to our ears last night on these slower days of summer with a delicious meal before us.
Aside from the little I have to report, I did love Liz Smith’s column Monday on Wowowow.com about Patricia Neal. I met a her a couple of times here and in California, although just in passing. She also lived two blocks down the avenue from me. Occasionally I’d see her coming out of the local hairdresser’s and we’d exchange hellos. Her life was an incredible saga and there’s no other way to describe simply and accurately. A kid from Kentucky who went out into the great world and had it all, good and bad; came close to death, or at least totally infirm, and triumphed, both physically and spiritually.
I knew the story of her famous love affair with Gary Cooper when I lived in Hollywood because that was like a town scandal that remained in memory until all the principals died. Cooper almost left his wife for her. Gary Cooper’s daughter Maria Cooper Janis, ironically, became a good friend to Patricia later in her life, and not out of disloyalty to her own mother. I also came to know her beautiful daughter Tessa Dahl who has also had a very dramatic life (and, like her mother, has a great natural beauty). Check out Liz’ column.
And, while you’re over at wowowow.com reading Liz, also check out my friend Margo Howard’s latest dispatch on the Blago verdict out in Chicago. A wry reporter with a sharp eye, she’ll give you something to laugh about and think about. |
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