by Fay Jacobs
“Who’s Angela Lansbury?” she asked. It was opposites attracting. She’d seen a touring musical or two but was by no means the theatre nut I was. For my part, I got to learn about softball.
In July 1983, on our way home from a week in Provincetown, I snagged tickets for a just-opened revival of Mame, with Angela re-creating her role. This was just before she became a household name in TV’s Murder, She Wrote. Maybe Ms. Lansbury had insufficient star power for a new generation, or maybe rock musicals were eclipsing the golden age classics, but, after glowing reviews but disappointing box office numbers, the show had already posted its closing notice.
But it didn’t disappoint me. Bonnie and I cheered for the joyous and faithful revival, starring my favorite performer. I wondered if the producers remounted the show just so Bonnie and I could share an experience that had meant so much to me.
As Bonnie and I built a life together, Angela Lansbury solved scripted murders. She spent the next dozen years as sleuth Jessica Fletcher, winning Emmy Awards and entertaining millions. Only after the series ended, and she took a good long time off, did she make her way back to Broadway.
It was the new millennium by then and we were all getting older. If Bonnie and I were headed for our 60s, Angela was entering her 80s. When it was announced she’d return to Broadway in the two-woman show Deuce, about aging tennis rivals, we knew we had to be there. After all, how many more times would she appear on the Great White Way?
Plenty, as it turns out. Deuce was an anemic vehicle, panned by critics who raved about Angela anyway. It was bliss watching her verbally decimate the show’s second character, as she used some quite un-Lansbury language. Shockingly fun.
Her next vehicle was the comedy Blithe Spirit and again we ran to Broadway. “After all, she’s at least 83 by now. This could be her last show.” Ha! Next came the role of the Countess in Sondheim’s A Little Night Music. Bonnie and I started to joke about going broke on her farewell performances.
Then, back in December 2010 came the piece de resistance. A friend asked me to volunteer backstage at the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, DC. Songwriter-lyricist Jerry Herman, who wrote Mame, Hello Dolly!, and La Cage Aux Folles was an honoree. Nobody knew yet who’d be on tap to give tribute and perform for Jerry, but we had mighty high hopes.
It was still hush-hush the week before the event when a clue came from a member of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington. The group was invited to perform “The Best of Times is Now” from La Cage. Penciled onto their sheet music for the verse were the names Chita, Carol and Angela. Chita Rivera? Carol Channing? Angela? I was a wreck with excitement.
My friends and I were assigned as escorts to the stars set to appear in the tribute to Jerry. Other cast members included Christine Baranski, Christine Ebersole, Matthew Morrison from Glee, and many more. Other tributes were going out to Sir Paul McCartney and Oprah, so this was not going to be a lightweight evening backstage. But for me, being in the wings with Angela Lansbury would be a fantasy come to life.
Volunteer rules were strict: no photos, no special requests, just do your job and be professional. On the rehearsal day before the Honors show, I arrived at Kennedy Center early to escort a college chorus from Oprah’s Alma Mater to their rehearsal. When my job was done I walked down the hall to one of the rehearsal rooms. As I approached, my friend Patrick appeared, with none other than Carol Channing on his arm. Frail at nearly 90, her wigged head and artfully made up countenance still presented a confident, bigger than life Dolly Levi.
“Miss Channing, this is my friend Fay.”
And in that inimitable voice, with its liquid vowels, Miss Channing said, “Hell-yow, Fay,” as if she’d uttered ‘Hell-yow, Dolly,” and I thought I’d melt to the floor.
I followed Patrick and Carol into the rehearsal room, where I stopped and stared. At the piano stood Angela, tall and elegant in a brown tweed blazer and perfectly pressed trousers. Chita Rivera stood beside her in a stunning black turban and a flowing black outfit. Miss Channing slowly made her way to them.
Next, came one of the kindest, most generous moments I’ve ever witnessed, as superstars Chita and Angela helped the slightly befuddled Channing with the words and simple choreography for their musical number. With a Broadway legend on each arm, Carol Channing, at least a legend and a half, came alive—and the trio brought down the room. No doubt, bringing down the house would come later.
A lot of wondrous things happened that day and the next. As I was introduced to Angela Lansbury by her escort, I tried not to be a blubbering fool. She looked so energetic and youthful for 84, with her ramrod posture, and quiet, graceful demeanor. I wound up having a short conversation with her during a break, mentioning my Actor’s Fund experience at Mame. Angela was gracious and sweet to me, then smiling broadly but with melancholy, she spoke of her bosom buddy Bea Arthur who had recently passed away.
By Sunday morning, the day of the show, the pace quickened. At dress rehearsal all afternoon, I found myself milling about backstage with the casts of all the tributes, plus the elegant Caroline Kennedy, the lovely Jennifer Hudson, and the surprisingly grumpy Chris Rock.
As the curtain rose that night, Angela, dressed in a shimmering silver outfit, began the Jerry Herman tribute standing at a lectern, summarizing his musical career. When a five minute video came on, the stage lights dimmed and Angela walked backstage left and stood right next to me. When the film highlighted Jerry’s ambitious flop Dear World, Angela shook her head, looked at me and said, “They just didn’t want to see Auntie Mame look so frumpy.”
Instantly, I was that 20 year-old, with my standing room ticket, watching Dear World and thinking the exact same thing.
As I stood in Angela’s shadow in the wings, we watched Carol Channing open the musical part of the tribute with, what else, “Well, well, Hello, Jerry…” followed by singers and dancers celebrating his best words and music. Chita Rivera swept onto the stage from the opposite side, singing a song from Dear World. On the first notes, she gazed directly, with great affection, at Angela in the wings before turning her head to the crowd.
Minutes later, Christine Ebersole and Christine Baranski took the stage to sing “Bosom Buddies.” The instant the intro began, Angela smiled and began moving to the music. So did I. She glanced at me to her right, winked and started mouthing the words, adding some in-place choreography. And for about a minute and a half, the two of us stood together, miming the number and smiling like fools.
I’ve struggled to find the perfect words to describe how I felt during those 90 seconds, but I can only come close. Thrilled, of course; bursting with emotion, sure; a life cycle of emotion spanning more than 40 years from my scared and conflicted youth, to my secure, satisfying present. Absolutely.
For the tribute finale, it was left to Angela, Chita and Carol, backed by the Gay Men’s Chorus to sing Jerry’s words that probably do sum it up for me. “The best of times is now.” And Angela Lansbury has been with me for almost the whole ride.
I never did volunteer again for Kennedy Center. I just didn’t want to clutter up the memory of that night. Long may my idol wave, long may I rave. To my mind, we’ve always been bosom buddies.
February 2012
FORTY YEARS OF OSCAR SNARK
It’s an amazing insight when you realize you’ve been eating, drinking and suffering along with the Oscar telecast with the same people for almost 40 years. At first revelation you think, “How is this even possible?” Then you go to “Damn, we’re old,” and finally you settle into “Isn’t this absolutely wonderful.”
So it was on the afternoon of Feb. 26 when I realized I’ve been “doing the Oscars” since the mid-1970s with my pals Don and Lee. In a stunning example of “The more things change the more they stay the same,” our lives, hometowns and even my sexual orientation changed (okay, revealed itself!) in the interim, but we are still sitting through the Sunday night telecast drinking, laughing and making snarky comments.
Frankly, the tenor an
d quality of the comments has remained biting and hilarious (at least to us), even though the term snarky wasn’t even invented when we started bitching and moaning about the jokes and fashion faux pas. But, as it is now defined—snark•i•lyadverb, Rudely sarcastic or disrespectful; snide—we believe our prior performances were plenty snarcastic.
Our run began in 1974 when Nixon left and Cuckoo’s Nest was Best Picture. Coincidence? That was followed by host Bob Hope (with Farrah Fawcett’s gorgeousness leaving a snark free zone), then Johnny Carson hosted through 1981. For reference, that was the year that Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder did “Ebony and Ivory.” When Bonnie joined Don, Lee and me in 1983 (I missed current events that year, as I was besotted with young love!), and our new quartet watched Meryl win her first for Sophie’s Choice.
We forged ahead in my 40th year, with Cher’s strategically placed sequins to discuss in ’88 as she won for Moonstruck, then ’89 with Demi Moore in a bustier and biker shorts. What was she thinking? When was it that Cher wore her black winged feathered dress? By the mid 90s we were starting to weekend in Rehoboth and sometimes the Oscar parties, hosted on TV by Billy Crystal, were here in our weekend places. Such was ’95 with Forrest Gump, as host Whoopi tried to curb her raging snark and stay out of trouble. She did not.
It was in 2000, Bonnie and I were Rehoboth full-timers by then, when Angelina showed up all Goth with her blood vial. The next year singer Björk wore that ridiculous swan dress with the dead bird around her neck and the outfit was parodied so brilliantly by Ellen DeGeneres, at her Emmy host job right after. I’m sure we were off the scale on the snarkometer that night.
And so it went, as Don and Lee moved to the beach full-time as well, and we watched a parade of Oscar hosts, more Billy Crystal, some gorgeous superstars—notably Hilary Swank, Julia Roberts, and Halle Berry looking hot, with George Clooney, Ralph Fiennes, and Colin Firth captivating the boys.
Through the years our food and beverage choices changed—unrepentant carbs and comfort food when we were puppies, healthier eating in the mid-years, and now back to comfort food again, but with guilt.
Every year since the beginning we’ve had ballots and quizzes compliments of Don, and every year we agonize over the same question: Do we select who we think will win, or who we want to win? For years we had prizes, too, but that seems to have stopped since we are all trying to winnow down our clutter.
So here we were again in 2012. Somebody said, “Nothing like a red carpet show to remind us that actors need writers.” And we were glad we weren’t hosting since Billy Crystal was looking very, very puffy.
“Don’t look in the bathroom mirror,” somebody added.
Then, iPad addicts that we’d become, we discovered we could augment our own snarkiness by logging on to Snark Food, a website for “freeing your inner snark.” Several people posted comments like “Handlers should run with these movie stars like at the Westminster Dog Show,” and “Billy may be late tonight, he’s coming all the way from the 80s.” My favorite was “Billy Crystal has had so much work done he’s looking like Kim Jong Il.”
Funny, but nobody dared look in the mirror.
March 2012
THE BEST OF TIMES IS NOW
The wedding wasn’t supposed to be that big a deal—just a smattering of family and out of town friends to join us for the Jewish wedding we never got to have. What could be so difficult? Now that Delaware had a civil union law, we’d make our 2003 Canadian wedding official here at home.
The escalation began when the rabbi and her soon-to-be-wife sat sipping wine with us, asking a few questions.
“Are you going to have a Ketubah?”
Bonnie, a Jew for a couple of minutes now, knew exactly what that was. Me, a Jew from birth, not so much. A Ketubah is a marriage contract, kind of a pre-nup, without talk of finances, with beautiful artwork and prose, to be signed by the couple, witnesses, and officiant.
“Great, where do I get one, Ketubahs R Us?”
I wasn’t far off. Ketubahs.com had zillions of pretty pictures, with gooey wording at equally gooey prices. They offered overnight shipping. What? For shotgun weddings?
There actually were two choices of wording for same-sex couples, but neither prose recognized the 30 years Bonnie and I have already been together, which we wanted to note. So, going rogue, we wrote our own words, and had graphic genius Murray Archibald superimpose the copy on a pretty picture we’d taken. Voila! Ketubahs really are us.
Of course, we wanted to have the ceremony at the community room at CAMP Rehoboth, figuring a few hors d’oeuvres, a little bubbly, and music by iPod. Brides plan, friends and wedding planners laugh.
Within a few weeks of the ceremony I had hired a piano player and gotten into a discussion with my step-mom Joan about the kind of flowers we were having.
Joan: “What kind of flowers are you having?”
Me: “Flowers?”
So I called my pal Chris Beagle, the wedding planner, for advice. He discussed so many options my head exploded.
Me: “Okay, Uncle! Will you be my wedding planner and do the flowers?”
Chris: “Sure. We’ll need two large arrangements and one at the table with the guest book.”
Me: “Guest Book???”
So I found myself at Michael’s Crafts in the Wedding aisle, alongside several size four teenage brides-to-be picking out guest books. They all assumed I was the mother of a bride, or omigod, grandmother of a bride. I haven’t felt so out of place since I accidentally wandered onto a softball field.
Chris: “I know Mixx is catering, but who’s handling the table cloths?”
Me: “Table cloths?”
That’s when I turned it all over to Chris—caterer liaison, flower arrangement, and even the construction of the wedding canopy or Chuppah—you can pronounce it properly by clearing your throat on the “Ch.”
By the day before the wedding, the rabbi reminded me we needed a glass for Bonnie to stomp at the end of the ceremony. I wandered around Pier One, feeling up the glassware to find the most delicate glass to smash. We didn’t want Bonnie stomping the thing with her dress shoe and honeymooning at the ER with shards in her instep. I found a perfect cheap champagne flute. The clerk must see this a lot, because he didn’t look at me like I had two heads for buying a single glass.
That afternoon I got a phone call from an old friend, about to address our wedding card.
Friend: “After the wedding will you two be hyphenates?”
Me: “No, I think we will still be homosexuals.”
By Monday evening, 24 hours and counting, Bonnie was calm but I was nervous. Not about the marriage. After thirty years, the only nerve-wracking part would be trying to remember our wedding anniversary. Which is why the event was on a Tuesday. Long ago we had deemed March 27 as our anniversary date and this year, our 30th anniversary, it would also be our big fat Jewish wedding. We are too old to memorize a new date. I was just nervous about logistics. I wanted to get hitched without a hitch.
My sister Gwen: “Are one of you staying at a hotel tonight? You aren’t supposed to see the bride before the wedding.”
Me: “Puleeeze.”
On Tuesday morning, my wedding planner called.
Chris: “Do you need anything?”
Me: “Xanax.”
And so it went. Cool cucumber Bonnie even went to work for part of the day, while Bridezilla here anxiously entertained visiting family and friends.
Then, at 5 p.m., after Bonnie and I dressed, we made sure we had the rings in our pockets and the delicate wine glass wrapped in a cloth napkin. That’s so we wouldn’t have to spend months picking glass shards out of the CAMP carpet.
Zero hour. Bonnie calmly announced she’d get the car from the garage and meet us on the driveway. Exiting the garage she backed right into the side of my stepmom’s car. Not nervous?
She ran to the front door, horrified, wondering if she should be the runaway bride. Then we made our first vow of the day, agreeing to keep
the incident secret until later. To that end, it was like a sitcom as we hustled Joan and Gwen into the car, shielding their view of Joan’s dinged bumper. Get me to the church on time!
The room at CAMP looked gorgeous. Chris got his inner gay boy on, having built the most amazing canopy and making the room look country club elegant and not the least bit Vegas wedding chapel tacky.
The crowd was joyous, happy for us and happy that such a ceremony was legal in Delaware. Bonnie and I felt blessed to be in the company of family and longtime friends who traveled to Rehoboth from the likes of New York, Virginia, DC, and even Nova Scotia, despite it being a Tuesday.
And Rabbi Beth did an incredible job. She invited friends to provide blessings and allowed us to sip Châteauneuf-du-Pape wine instead of Manischewitz since to my mind, nobody should start their next 30 years with wine that tastes like Robitussin. The rabbi quoted from the Bible as well as songwriter Jerry Herman, with his lyrics “The Best of Times is Now.”
Yes it is. Mazel Tov to all the couples who have come before us and all those to follow.
And for the record, Joan’s car wasn’t badly damaged. We joked that ours was the first Jewish wedding where we smashed a glass and a Prius.
April 2012
CAMPFIRE GIRLS
Temperanceville? Really? Have you met me?
When RV-owning friends asked us to caravan for a weekend in Temperanceville, VA, the very name Temperanceville gave me the yips. Had the historic town, associated with the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, ever lifted its prohibition policy?
Hey, I’m a fair weather camper. Take away my Cosmopolitan and it’s just rehab with mosquitoes. I called the campground asking if evil liquor would be allowed to touch our lips there. From sounds in the background, not only was it allowed, it appeared to be encouraged.
