Tag: NYC

Career Woman-Housewife of the Year: Arlene Francis

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We recently stumbled across a pristine edition of the inaugural issue (February 1955) of Chic, a diminutive publication touted as “the Purse Size Magazine for Women.” We usually think of 1955 as just a bit outside our era of focus, but this cute little pub has a number of fun stories in it, so we’ll be sharing them with you sporadically in the coming days and weeks. First up, a small tribute to one of our favorite gals, Miss Arlene Francis…

Full-time career woman, Arlene Francis, star of NBC-TV’s daily show Home, is the wife of producer-actor Martin Gabel and mother of 7-year-old Peter Gabel. Arlene’s two men demand a good deal of her time and what’s more, they get it in spite of her heavy schedule. It takes some doing to be both a full-time career woman and housewife, but she does it by careful planning. For, she maintains, “I find that the more I have to do, the more I am able to do. By properly organizing my time, I can accomplish more than I otherwise would if I had plenty of it. The more free time we have, the more, I think, we all tend to procrastinate and put off till tomorrow what we really could do today more efficiently.”

Here is Arlene’s daily stint:
7:00 to 7:45—Breakfast with Peter, who reads her the latest sports news. he attends classes around the corner at New York City’s Hunter School for Advanced Children. Orders food for the day and plan dinner menu.

8:00—Arrives at studio for Home rehearsal.

11:00—On the air.

12:00—Takes a break for lunch and for interviews with the press, sponsors, photographers.

1:30—Goes into rehearsal for next day’s show.

5:00—Leaves studio for home and dinner preparations.

5:30—Dinner with Peter and Martin

7:00—Martin leaves for his job in Broadway play Reclining Figure. Arlene and Peter play together and watch TV or red aloud.

8:00—Tucks Peter into bed, relaxes with a book, and retires usually by 10:00.

Friday is a special evening. She meets Martin after the show for a midnight movie.

Saturday she shops, plans menus, catches up with household chores and goes to the park with Peter. Sunday is the family’s day together until 6:00 p.m. when she leaves to rehearse for Soldier’s Parade on ABC-TV, on the air at 9:30 (EST). Then she dashes to the CBS-TV studio for What’s My Line? which goes on at 10:30 (EST).

Lauren Bacall: Goodbye to a Glorious Gal

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The world lost a wonderful woman with the passing of the great Lauren Bacall.

We’ve told the story before, but what the heck: We’ve always felt a certain connection to Ms. Bacall because we were neighbors for a few months when we first moved to New York City straight out of college.

We initially got settled here after the move from Oklahoma City by subletting an apartment from a pal for the summer; it was a small office, really, that wasn’t intended (or zoned) to be a residence. One room, plus an entryway, a closet and a good-sized bathroom, but no kitchen (we ate a lot of peanut butter that summer).

But we didn’t care because it was located on 72nd Street, just east of Columbus Avenue, which anyone familiar with Manhattan knows is just down the street from the Dakota, storied digs of the rich and famous and home to Bogie‘s best gal.

We never spotted her on the street (don’t think we weren’t keeping a constant eye out), but we mailed her a picture postcard of one of her classic Hollywood headshots and she sent it back to us, autographed (see above).

That was a grand day.

We also stood in line at the TKTS booth to get cheap tickets to her triumphant run in Woman of the Year on Broadway. We waited after the show for her to emerge, and when she did, she passed no more than a two or three feet from us. We didn’t get to speak to her, alas, but it was a kick just to be that close. We were brand new to NYC, after all, and as devoted movie buffs, she was like royalty to us.

She was quite a dame and we’re sorry to see her go, but we’re grateful that she had such a good, long run.

Rest in peace, Ms. Bacall, and thanks.

Our Evening with Kitty Carlisle

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Did we ever tell you about the time we met Kitty Carlisle? No? Well, let’s rectify that right now.

In 2005, we attended a screening of June Moon at NYC’s Film Forum. It’s a 1931 adaptation of a play written by George S. Kaufman and Ring Lardner that hadn’t been screened since its initial run more than seventy years prior.

To mark the occasion, Anne Kaufman Schneider, Kaufman’s daughter, and James Lardner, Lardner’s grandson, were on hand.

And so was Kaufman-Schneider’s pal, Kitty Carlisle-Hart, who was then just two months away from turning 95. She was, of course, the widow of former Kaufman collaborator Moss Hart.

We thought the world of Hart (still do)—Kitty was one of our favorite New Yorkers, and, since she was seated directly behind us, we decided to turn around and tell her as much.

“Thank you, dear,” she said when we told her it was an honor to be sitting in front of her. “I do hope you’ll try to scrunch down in your seat so I can see the movie.”

We promised to do our best.

A few minutes passed, and we felt a finger tapping on our shoulder. We turned around.

“May I have some of your popcorn,” Ms. Carlisle-Hart asked, pointing at the nearly full bag of popcorn on the floor next to our seat (we were both seated on the aisle).

“By all means—have just as much as you like.”

And she did just that, reaching over and grabbing a handful of corn several times through the course of the picture.

We were thrilled. Someone who once starred opposite the Marx Brothers was sharing our popcorn! And we were impressed, too—we hope, when we’re 95, we’re still up to bending over and snagging some popcorn from a bag on the ground.

We spent most of the movie contorted every which way in order to keep our fat head from blocking Ms. Hart’s view of the screen, and after the final credits, we turned around and asked her if our efforts had been successful.

“I didn’t miss a thing,” she said effusively. “Thank you so much!”

We chatted briefly for a moment or two more, and we screwed up enough courage to ask her if she would consent to our conducting an interview with her one day soon, if we could find a publication interested in running it, and she readily agreed, telling us how we could contact her if and when the time came.

Later, we spoke to Ms. Kaufman-Schneider, thanking her for the Q&A she had participated in after the movie. She was great—whip-smart, opinionated (she hated the movie, and wasn’t afraid to say so), frank, and witty.

She asked me if we weren’t the young fellow whose popcorn Kitty had been filching; we admitted that we were.

“I don’t know what to do with her,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “She said to me, ‘I’m hungry, and this nice young man has some popcorn,’ and I couldn’t talk her out of it.”

We assured her that we had been pleased to share our snack and thanked her again.

We never managed to conduct that interview with Kitty; she passed away just short of two years later and we somehow didn’t manage to get our ducks in a row in time. But we’ll always treasure the memory of our encounter with her.

And we figure that, if there’s an afterlife (and we’re inclined to think there is), we’ll have someone to show us around a bit. Surely she won’t mind introducing us to the Marx Brothers, for starters, and to our favorite What’s My Line panelist, Arlene Francis. Kitty, of course, was a regular panelist on To Tell the Truth, but she was a guest panelist on What’s My Line more than once, and we’d bet our bottom dollar that she and Arlene got along like two peas in a pod.

We figure it’s the least she can do. After all, we shared our popcorn with her, right?