THE BIG APPLE

Willie wanted to try her luck in New York and after my mother died, Willie and I took off for the big bad city to tackle the big apple. With some of the contacts from the Catholic University Drama Department, we had high hopes and took off with very little money or belongings.

White with a red plaid top. The car of my life, my 1951 MG TD with Willie and groceries.

The Plaza is the best Hotel in NYC to see celebrities.

JUDY GARLAND

Anka's Gift Shop. Anka, a small but classy Romanian woman sold fancy beautiques, expensive costume jewelry, VanCleef and Arpels. She had a wind up gold bird cage with a mechanical bird inside. That bird cage attracted a young girl who said she would like to show it to her mother, but her mother wasn't talking at the moment _ _ _ she had just opened up at the Palace Theatre. !!! HER MOTHER WAS JUDY GARLAND and she was Lorna Luft.

Judy Garland's comeback at the Palace was the biggest thing to happen on Broadway in many years and coming that close to such an event almost floored me.

A week or so later, Judy Garland, her husband and Lorna came by the shop and Lorna called out and pointed to me and the bird cage.

Willie called me at the Plaza one day and asked if I wanted to go see My fair Lady with Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews. It was the hottest play on Broadway, even the actors couldn't get tickets.

At the restaurant, Willie met a millionaire, Mr Hale, who, feeling sorry for two youngsters alone in the big city decided to take us under his wings and offered to get us matinee tickets, front row orchestra. OF COURSE!!!

Willie happened to know one of chorus members so after the show we went back stage and were introduced to Julie Andrews. We had a very pleasant conversation with her and I was impressed she was about our ages maybe even younger.

After the show, Mr Hale arranged for us to meet him at the Hotel Pierre to join him for dinner. When we arrived, Mr. Hale had not yet arrived and we got a royal treatment. The waiters took our coats, seated us and brought a phone to the table. Soon Mr. Hale and another gentleman arrived and we all had dinner. Afterwards Mr. Hale asked if we "kids" would like to go to the theatre? He called a theatre with the phone and we ended up at "In the Middle of the Night" with Edward G. Robertson, with the gentle man friend acting as our escort.

After the show, our escort took us to the Hotel Biltmore for an after theatre coffee and then took us home in a taxi.

WHAT A DAY IN THE BIG CITY!!!!!

THE BIRTH OF ROCK AND ROLL

At the Broadway Central we had met and became friends with Doc Pomus and Morty Shuman. Doc lived at the hotel and was a song writer. Morty would come to the hotel and he and Doc would work together on the piano in Doc's room on songs.

Doc had polio when he was young and he wore braces and walked with crutches. Willie and I were both into classical music and they type of music Doc and Morty were doing was quite different.

We soon learned - became familiar with recording studios, music publishing companies. We started hearing names like "Atlantic Records", "Hill and Range" and went to recording sessions with young kids with names like Fabian and Dion and the Belmonts. Records were making Billboard Magazine and getting on the "charts".

The Drifters had a Doc Pomus, Mort Shuman hit - "Save the Last Dance for Me", "This Magic Moment". Fabian "I'm a Man". A singer named Elvis recorded 20 of Doc's songs including "A Mess of Blues", "Little Sister" and "Surrender". Ray Charles sang "Lonely Avenue", "Viva Las Vegas".

Doc and Morty wrote mostly Rythmn and Blues, but Rock and Roll was happening.

Willie and Doc got married and moved out of the city. Got a house on the Island and started raising a family. Willie and Doc had two children.

In later years, Willie and Doc split and Willie met an actor, fell in love and is still married today. Doc died of lung cancer in 1996.

I worked with a theatre group in Jersey. Dianna Barrymore was playing in Streetcar Named Desire. I was doing props. Did a loose pen sketch of Dianna, and a friend of mine who was also in the play showed it to her. She told me she had always wanted to be an artist, but her family wouldn't allow anything other than the theatre.

I did not take to the life of the theatre. Willi did well, she fit in and eventually hit Broadway in Fiorello and many others and still lives in New York today.

DEPRESSION AND DUDE RANCH

After Willie and Doc got married, I was alone for the first time in may life and went through a period of depression that lasted about a year. I was working as a clerk at the General Electric Company in Manhattan and I did a lot of writing. Mostly persona, exploratory writing.

After a years depression, I wanted out. Got an idea. What would I like to do that I always wanted to do. After eliminating the most outrageous - I would go to a Dude Ranch.

MY FIRST HORSE, RED

That did it! I came back with a horse. He was an older horse, a barrel racing champion named "Red". I brought him back to a stable in Bayside Queens. They kept some of the NYC police horses there. We had to walk through a couple of streets to get to a park.

There I met "Joe", a hostler (horse handler) who worked for the police department. He knew horses and began to teach me how to train them. I had ridden as a kid, riding was one of my passions.

The joy didn't last long. By the next year, "Red" had gone lame. He had navicular disease, a disease of the hoof that makes horses lame. He had the condition, but I didn't recognize it and didn't get him checked out by a vet first.

After "Red" was put down, got a palomino who was a little crazy. I got along with horses, seemed to know what to do with them. I got the palomino calmed down with a lot of gentle work and because he had a suspicious bone spur on his leg, I traded him in for a young 2 year old three quarter bred Arabian I named "Sheik".

TAKING A HORSE ON THE JOHNNY CARSON, "Whom Do You Trust" show.

An older woman brought a horse to the stable. It was an old broke down horse from the race track. She said she was going to ride the horse to California. The horse had a medical problem with his fetlocks and needed daily medication for an infection. The horse did not like many people at the barn, I never paid any mind to his threats and would walk up behind with a pat on his rump, talking as you would to a person, and he seemed to tolerate me - so I was the medicator.

Johnny Carson's agent found out about the horse and wanted the horse on the show. The only problem, was how to get the horse there. I was selected to do the transporting because of my rapport with the animal. So one day, with my best buckskin jacket and boots, I showed up at the stable and found 4 robust guys trying to load this animal into a horse trailer. It was pure pandimonium! Finally, I suggested just trying to lead the horse onto the trailer and see if he would follow. Darn if he didn't. So the horse, the trailer driver, me and the horse took off for Manhattan, with our fingers crossed that we would be able to get the horse out of the trailer when we got there.

We pulled into an alley behind the studio and wonders of wonders, the horse followed me down out of the trailer without so much as a whinny. In fact, I think the horse was scared, he kept nuzzling me with reassuring nudge on my arm. When the stage manager came and led us to the back stage area, he almost lost his fingers to a not so trusting horse. After my warning, everyone who was tempted to pet the "nice horsey" held off their temptations. Finally it was time for us to go onstage. Johnny I think was trying to be funny by trying to mount the horse so he would land on top facing the rear, but not thinking, I interjected and showed him how to get up the right way. I hope I didn't spoil his joke. It was over quickly, and the horse gladly followed me back up the ramp of the trailer and drove back thankfully with no more excitement.

The grandmother never took her ride to California - ruled cruelty to animals by a veterinarian. And my sister saw me on television in my best buckskin jacket (which was hers originally) and boots on the Johnny Carson Show.

SHEIK AND THE ARABIAN ADVENTURE....NEXT