I Remember Me

by Carl Reiner

  PART 2

  OUR FIRST ENCOUNTER

  When I arrived at Allaben Acres, I had two things on my mind: doing well as an emcee and sketch actor and getting laid—the latter being my first priority. I don’t mean to present myself as a lothario, for if truth be told—and that is what I am attempting to tell—up to then, I had been romantic with but three women. I had been deeply in love with all three but bedded only one.

  My first afternoon at Allaben Acres was an exciting one. I met the top banana, Bernie Hern, who described some of the sketches we would be performing in the variety revues. Bernie was a talented comedian whose politically left-leaning monologues were funny, original, and loudly appreciated by our audiences.

  Before hiring on as Bernie Hern’s second banana, I had been a serious actor. In two seasons as a resident member of the Rochester Summer Theater in Avon, New York, I had performed leading roles in twenty-two legitimate plays. After my second summer at this rustic, open-air theater that was built between two empty grain silos, I was hired to tour with the Avon Shakespeare Repertory Company. That the word Avon appeared in my first two incursions into professional theater, I took as a good omen. Little did I know how good an omen or what a pivotal role the Bard of Avon would play in my young life.

  Bernie Hern was my first comedy mentor, and I am grateful to him for that and beholden to him for acting as the best man at my one and only wedding.

  Estelle and I were married by the clerk at New York’s City Hall. Bernie and his wife, Mary, were our two witnesses, and when the clerk asked, “Is there anyone present who knows of any reason that these two should not be joined in holy wedlock? Speak now—” Bernie raised his hand.

  “Any reason?” The comic, could not resist asking, “Well, I know a—uh…”

  “Yes?” the flustered clerk asked, staring at Bernie.

  Bernie thought for several seconds, shook his head, and then waved his hand and said, “Never mind, not that important—go ahead, Judge!”

  What better way to start a marriage than with a big laugh. After we left the justice’s chambers, the four of us started to laugh, and we continued to laugh all through our wedding breakfast.

  It is interesting to note that my wedding took place in Manhattan at 100 Center Street, in the very same building that housed the first acting class I ever attended. I was all of seventeen when I enrolled in the free WPA government-sponsored drama program. For those who loudly advocate “getting the government off our backs,” I say, I am here because my government invited me onto its back, and for that, I will be eternally grateful.

  My very first day at Allaben Acres, and days before my first encounter with the one who was destined to be my wife, I found myself seated on a veranda after dinner, chatting with a tall, pretty girl. I don’t remember much of what we talked about, but I do remember that her name was Claire Faust—yes, Faust was her actual surname. I had no doubt that Claire Faust would make an exciting sexual partner, and I felt that her name being Faust boded well. Did not Mephistopheles offer Faust a wish? Could I not act the devil and offer this female Faust a wish, and if her wish were to sleep with me, I would most certainly grant it.

  For an hour or so, Claire and I sat on a canvas settee with our feet resting on the porch railing. She was friendly and asked a lot of questions, which I answered while checking out her long legs. I concentrated on the four inches of bare calf that were visible between the tops of her socks and the bottoms of her slacks. When I complimented her on her colorful socks and commented on how very white the exposed portion of her calves was, I learned that this young lady was not only pretty but perceptive.

  “Look,” she said simply, “I am here for the day, and even if I were staying, I am not interested in starting any kind of relationship. My life has been a roller coaster ride, and I am just getting over a bad hump.”

  I confess that the words bad hump might not be verbatim, but I could not resist. Actually, Claire did tell me that she had recently broken up with her boyfriend.

  “If you are looking for a companion,” she suggested, “a friend of mine is due here soon, and you might want to introduce yourself to her. Her name is Stella, Stella Lebost. She’s a terrific gal.”

  PART 3

  STELLA AND CARL’S ACTUAL MEETING

  Stella Lebost and I met in the resort’s grand ballroom during the first Saturday night dance. The large room was filled with guests dancing to the soulful music of Sidney Bechet and his orchestra. If by chance you have forgotten or perhaps never knew of Sidney Bechet, he was, besides being a virtuoso of the soprano saxophone, one of the trio of history-making New Orleans musical pioneers who introduced Dixieland and jazz to the world, the others being trumpeters Jelly Roll Morton and Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong.

  Our company’s scenic designer, Paul Petroff, and I were standing just below the bandstand and chatting about my forthcoming duties as an emcee, when he stopped and waved to someone.

  “Hey, Carl,” he said, looking past my shoulder, “my new assistant is walking toward us—she was supposed to be here last week. Her name is Stella Lebost.”

  Stella Lebost, I thought, she’s the terrific gal Claire Faust told me about…

  “Stella doesn’t know anybody here,” Paul said. “Ask her to dance—be nice to her!”

  Those last four words were words I never forgot. With his suggestion, be nice to her, ringing in my ears, I turned to see who it was he wanted me to be nice to—and what I saw approaching us was a smiley-faced girl with a really fine figure. I thought, I would like to be nice to her!

  Paul introduced us, and I did what I was instructed to do. I started being nice to her. I told her that Claire Faust had said we should meet, and I was happy that we did. As far as asking her to dance, that was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. I was never much of a ballroom dancer. I was, however, a good jumper. I could jump three feet in the air and make my legs move crazy fast. I had no trouble dancing to make people laugh, but keeping the beat and staying in rhythm had always been a challenge for me. Tonight, however, the gods were smiling down on me! As I took her hand and led her onto the floor, the music stopped, and a ten-minute break was announced.

  I feigned disappointment and, by affecting a credible English accent, I channeled my favorite actor, Ronald Colman, and suggested “we retire to the patio and breathe some of your exhilarating, American mountain air.”

  Stella welcomed my suggestion, as the ballroom was stifling hot. Although my British accent was impeccable, I suspected Stella knew I was not a worldly Beau Brummell but a naive Bronx bumbler.

  I remember Stella and me sitting side by side on a canvas glider and each, in turn, asking all the obligatory questions that would necessarily come up on a first date—and this was, by any description, a first date. It was then I learned that Stella was sometimes called Estelle and that her mother preferred calling her that. I thought, If her mother prefers Estelle, then I prefer Estelle, and from that day forward, I called her Estelle. I was happy not to have to call her Stella, because Stella was the name of the tragic title character in the tearjerker film, Stella Dallas. Stella was played by Barbara Stanwyck, a gifted dramatic actress but just not my type. Decades later, when assembling footage for the Steve Martin film, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, I used clips of Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, and I found her to be more attractive than I did when I was a callow youth.

  I have a fair ability to dredge up details from my long-term memory, and some of the words I now attribute to Estelle may not be totally accurate, but the words I used to court her seventy years ago are almost verbatim, and forthwith, you will see why I can make that claim.

  In telling Estelle my life story, I opted not to linger on my earlier days working as a delivery boy in the millinery and dress trades. Instead, I described fully my tour of our southern colleges as an actor with the Avon Shakespeare Repertory
Company. I proudly listed the roles I played and the plays in which I appeared: Orlando in As You Like It, Antipholus of Ephesus in The Comedy of Errors, Claudius the king in Hamlet, and Lucentio in The Taming of the Shrew.

  Estelle seemed impressed by my résumé and did what I had hoped she would: ask if I would recite some of Shakespeare’s words. I happily obliged—not with words I had done on tour but with snippets of speeches from Romeo and Juliet—a play more appropriate for my purpose.

  I moved close to Estelle, rested my chin on her shoulder, and quietly whispered Romeo’s words into her ear.

  “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, which is sick and pale with grief,” segueing to:

  “Ah, see how she leans her cheek upon her hand—Oh, that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek.”

  Estelle seemed to enjoy my edited and whispered version of the balcony scene. She did not pull away or ask me to stop, so I continued by sighing, “Ah me…” just as Juliet had.

  “She speaks!” I responded as Romeo. “Oh, speak again, bright angel, for thou art as glorious to this night, being o’er my head, as is the winged messenger of heaven, who stares into the white-upturned, wondering eyes of mortals who fall back to gaze on him, as he bestrides the lazy pacing clouds and sails upon the bosom of the air.”

  I am not sure of the sequence of these speeches or of the exact words, but I do remember quoting one or two of the star-crossed lovers’ more famous exchanges:

  “What’s in a name? Would not a rose by any other name smell as sweet?”

  “Juliet, call me but love and I shall be new baptized.”

  After rereading the above, I know I have misquoted Shakespeare but, on that balmy evening, whatever words I whispered into Estelle’s delicate, well-sculpted left ear had an even more positive effect than I ever dreamed they would have.

  PART 4

  SHAKESPEARE DID IT

  My rendering of the Bard’s poetic prose into Estelle’s accepting ear softened her heart enough to accept a few gentle kisses from me—and an invitation to go for a walk.

  We soon found ourselves strolling, hand in hand, on a path that led us into the woods behind the dance hall. We walked, or more accurately hiked, over a long stretch of unfriendly terrain, hoping to find a setting more romantic than the busy-bodied hotel patio. Miraculously, deep in the hills of the Adirondacks, while looking for a neat patch of lawn to stretch out on or a friendly tree to sit under, we came upon a log cabin, a dilapidated, abandoned, real log cabin!

  Estelle didn’t have anything in her eye except me

  It was here in this rustic, one-room, Lincolnesque abode that Estelle and I spent every free moment of every day of the two idyllic months we worked at Allaben Acres. It is hard to believe, but our hideout was so well hidden from view that no one in the camp knew of its existence—neither the owners nor any of the guests—and we were not about to tell anyone about our precious discovery. Every time we made our way down the gully and approached our love nest, we feared that interlopers might have appropriated it. As far as we were concerned, this land and cabin were ours! We had found it, and we were its legal squatters. For the fifty-five blessed days we spent at Allaben Acres, no one contested our proprietary rights. The rough-hewn structure became the first and most treasured of the many abodes Estelle and I shared for the next sixty-five years.

  PART 5

  HER UNSUSPECTED TALENT

  Among the many things I learned about Estelle at our secret lair was of her deep interest in the arts and her being a graduate of New York’s National Academy of Design. I learned too that she loved jazz and the blues and enjoyed nothing more than listening to recordings of great jazz artists—in particular, Billie Holiday. Estelle spoke of how thrilled she was to have seen Billie Holiday perform at a Fifty-Second Street New York jazz club. It was there that she first heard “Lady Day’s” moving rendition of “Strange Fruit.”

  I later learned that “Strange Fruit,” the powerful, socially significant song about lynching, was written by our staff songwriter, Lewis Allen, nee Abel Mirapol, who taught English at the Bronx’s Dewitt Clinton High School.

  One Saturday night after the performance of our weekly musical revue, Estelle’s unsuspected talent came to light. Sidney Bechet and his band, besides playing the overture and providing the music for our weekly show’s song-and-dance numbers, also performed a Dixieland medley that featured a solo on his signature soprano saxophone. The thrilling mix of soaring notes he produced invariably brought down the house. When the show was over, Bechet and his band had a need to unwind, which they did in an empty, garage-like shed that abutted the dining hall. After playing for our comedy revue, featuring songs like “Oh, You Can’t Make Love in a Bunk for Eight,” these gifted jazz men were in need of a show tunes antidote.

  To hear some of the finest Dixieland jazz improvisations outside of New Orleans, the cast and crew and other music aficionados crowded into that shed. I, who was not yet a jazz buff but a dedicated Estelle buff, found myself at her side that memorable night.

  Sidney Bechet, after leading his band in performing a couple of wildly exciting Dixieland classics, including “When the Saints Go Marchin’ In,” switched gears and began rendering a slow, sensuous introduction to “Lover Man.” Estelle was, by nature, reserved and shy, but for some reason, on this night, her shyness fell away, and she started to sing. It seemed as if she had channeled Billie Holiday and delivered a spot-on rendition of Billie’s iconic classic. Bechet and his band members did not react. None of them looked up to see who was bending and caressing those sweet, pure notes; they just continued playing. When the song ended, Bechet’s trombonist, the great Sandy Williams, lowered his mouthpiece, looked at me, and then slowly enunciated the following four words: “Dat lady should reeecaawed!”

  Fifty-six years later, in 1996, Estelle did “reeecaawed” “Lover Man” and include it in her first album, which was appropriately titled, Just in Time.

  PART 6

  SUMMER SCHOOLING

  Estelle Reiner at The Gardenia

  At age thirteen, I announced at my bar mitzvah, “Today I am a man!” which I have already documented, but it would have been more appropriate had I waited to say those words after my two-month learning experience at Allaben Acres. In that summer, thanks to the following staff members: Bernie Hern, the “mentoring mensh” of a comedian, who taught me about political humor and how to perform sketch comedy; and Vivien Rifkin, the gifted concert pianist who convinced me that, with proper coaching, I was capable of singing the lead roles in productions of Earl Robinson’s The Ballad for Americans and George Kleinsinger’s I Hear America Singing.

  My heartfelt thanks and undying gratitude would have to go to Paul Petroff, who suggested that I “be nice to” his new assistant. Had I not heeded his advice, I would not have developed, among other things, the social conscience that ultimately became part of my psyche.

  It was from Estelle that I learned about the progressive forces in our country and their struggle to spotlight the inequities that existed in the world and how these injustices might be corrected. Underlining the theme of chapter nineteen, “Do You Know Any Commies?”, I learned at Allaben that people who were called “left-wingers” were not the ogres that the reactionary commentators constantly pilloried on their radio programs.

  In those days, and probably today as well, when two people meet at a resort and spend their days and nights together, the most oft-asked question by one of the romantics is, “Will I see you in the city?”

  I was a politically naive young man, and thanks to Estelle, who I continued to see in the city, I slowly learned to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys and my ass from my elbow.

  PART 7

  “WILL I SEE YOU IN THE CITY?”


  When the summer ended, Estelle and I went to our respective homes in the Bronx—I to my parents’ three-room apartment, located at the corner of 180th Street and Arthur Avenue, and Estelle to her mother at the Pickwick Arms, an English-style architectural gem that was located at 3224 Grand Concourse, off Mosholu Parkway. In order to visit Estelle, I had my choice of riding on two separate bus lines or traveling by subway. Either way, it took at least thirty minutes to get from 180th Street to 203rd Street, but it was worth it. After seeing someone for sixty consecutive days, twenty-four hours a day, it was difficult to adjust to communicating by phone or seeing each other only once a week.

  We were both in the process of looking for jobs. Estelle had been trained as an architectural draftsman and was trying to reconnect with her old firm. I was frantic about finding a job, because greeting me when I returned home was a letter from the government that started with the word “Greetings!” and went on to inform me that I was eligible to be drafted into the army. It was 1942, and while I was blithely entertaining the guests at Allaben Acres and falling in love, our nation was at war with Germany, Italy, and Japan.

  My brother Charlie, who was three years older than I, had been drafted and was seeing action in North Africa as a member of the Ninth Division, Thirty-Seventh Infantry of the First Army.

  While at Allaben, I had written him that I was seeing a wonderful girl, and it might be something serious. In a return letter, my caring brother said that he was happy for me, wished me luck, and enclosed a packet of government-issue rubbers “just in case…!” He also found it necessary to inform me that if I wanted to re-order, the packet of three cost a dime.

  When I was called up, I was hoping to be assigned to Special Services, where I would be able to use my talent as an entertainer. I knew my chances would be improved if I were a member of a theatrical union like Actors’ Equity. To be eligible to join, I would have to have acted in a Broadway show or at least contracted to do so.