--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung <no_re...@...> wrote:
>
> Judy,
> 
> I'm touched that you responded fully.  Maybe we have
> something going that we can continue here.
> 
> I would assume that fairness requires that you get to
> ask questions, too, instead of risking that this become
> an "Edg grills Judy" event.

Edg, I'm sorry, but I'm not the least bit interested in
grilling you. If I ever do have a specific personal
question about you that I'd like answered, I assure you
I won't hesitate to ask it.

> Your turn!  Talk about a melding of "truth or dare."
> Heh, maybe my newbie questions are far more acceptable
> now, eh?

Not to me.

> And, neat work history.  I'm envious of your insider-
> shop-talk scenarios -- you must have heard tons of
> stories about the goings on behind the curtains of
> theatrical circles.

You betcha.

I was working in NYC theater--all off-Broadway except
for the "Mame" stint--from 1964 to 1970; also in 1958
as a volunteer for the NYSF when I was in high school,
befoe the family moved to Boston; and for a bunch of
Boston productions during my senior year there, mostly
for pay.

This period was when many of the folks who have since
become  big stars of Broadway and Hollywood were just
starting out. I was tempted to reel off a list of names
of the people I worked with whom you'd recognize, but I
restrained myself (except for Celeste Holm, because I
wanted it to be clear I wasn't dressing Angela Lansbury,
the original Broadway Mame).

But now I'm tempted beyond endurance, so I'll mention
just one: Dustin Hoffman asked me for a date when he was
in a weird play called "Harry, Noon, and Night" at the
American Place Theater in NYC, where I was doing
wardrobe.

http://www.americanplacetheatre.org/stage/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=125&Itemid=28

http://tinyurl.com/arvd3e

I turned him down because at the time I was having a
heavy-duty affair with the company electrician. (Full
disclosure: Hoffman was known at the time as a skirt-
chaser. None of the skirts I knew were interested. He
was short and funny-looking; and in this play he had
the role of a neurotic crippled Nazi faggot, so he
wasn't exactly carrying around a romantic leading-man
aura.)

The electrician, in stark contrast, was *hot*.

Oh, OK, one more, though not about an up-and-comer.
I did wardrobe for one other Broadway production, I
just remembered--a two-week revival of "Harvey" in
1970, starring Jimmy Stewart and Helen Hayes.

(I should point out that wardrobe staff, while
absolutely essential members of the backstage crew,
are not exactly high in the theatrical hierarchy,
especially on Broadway.)

Not much of a story, but an encounter I treasure:
As wardrobe lady for "Harvey," after the play started
each evening I didn't have anything to do until the
act break. One evening I was sitting on the stairs
that went up to the dressing rooms reading a book
when Jimmy Stewart came down the stairs for one of
his entrances. When he got a couple of steps below
the one I was sitting on, he paused, turned around.
and gravely said, "Good evening," with a little bow
of his head.

I said, "Good evening," and he asked me what I was
reading. I told him (can't remember what it was now),
and he said, "Are you enjoying it?" I said yes. He
said, "Waall, good!" and continued majestically down
the stairs.

That was my only personal encounter with him during
the run of the play. What got me was that he was so
utterly *Jimmy Stewart*. And theatrical etiquette
most certainly didn't require him to greet me at all,
much less have any conversation with me. It also occurs
to me just now that the reason he went down a couple of
steps before he turned was so his face would be on the
same level as mine, rather than looking down on me from
above. Just perfectly spontaneous courtesy, and the
most amazingly unassuming natural dignity.


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