30 - Last visit with Mickie 1989

THE RITZ CARLTON, Washington D.C.

     When my brother, Mickie, was living in Washington DC and dying of AIDS, we went to see the brilliant cabaret artist Julie Wilson at the Ritz Carlton.  It had started snowing and a lot more was on the way, and only about a dozen people showed up.   Mickie still lived in his apartment just around the corner, and I was staying nearby at a cheap hotel whose name I have since forgotten.  

Julie Wilson w/ signature boa and gardenia

      Julie Wilson was one of those Gotham sophisticates I had read about as a child in my Aunt Martha’s old New Yorkers. She was the undisputed queen of the New York hotel supperclubs, reigning supreme at the St. Regis’ Maisonette in the 1950’s, later at the Algonquin’s Oak Room. 

     Even though she never had more than a discreet following outside of New York City, I knew all about her.  I had gone to see the movie “This Could be the Night” just to catch her supporting role as a night-club singer.  The 1950’s censors had quite a tussle with MGM over the film’s plot which revolved around if, when, and with whom Jean Simmons was going to lose her virginity.

     At the Ritz Carlton we all chatted between Sondheim songs –Mickie and I and Julie and Billy Roy, her longtime accompanist and song stylist.  It was the first time I had heard “I’m Still Here.” I have heard it many times since, but Julie Wilson’s rendition remains by far the most accomplished.*

      Throughout the evening Mickie laughed so loudly that it embarrassed me, but he really enjoyed himself.  It was our last visit together, and I’m glad I have that memory.   I never had much of a friendship with Mickie (unlike his twin Dickie with whom I have always been close), but we were able to mend our fences in his final years. 

Mickie w/twin brother Dickie 1955

Our parents were not good about Mickie’s illness.  AIDS was naturally not an easy thing for them to deal with in 1986, particularly I suppose in the rural south. They were so afraid of what people would say, so prepared for a kind of rejection of themselves as well as of Mickie, that they probably never really saw that theirs was the only lack of acceptance of all our extended friends and family.  Everyone else was wonderfully supportive.

 

     That night at the Ritz Carlton I asked Julie Wilson something about the movies she had made in Hollywood.

     “MOVIES?” she laughed.  “Nobody’s ever asked me about them.   I don’t even remember those movies myself.” I told her I had seen “This Could be the Night” more than once (I didn’t tell her I was still a child at the time).  I think she was more bewildered than pleased, but she was warm and pleasant to talk with. 
  

Wilson in movie still with Anthony Franciosa and Paul Douglas

     I suspect they realized that Mickie was sick, and maybe that it was such a special treat for him to be drinking champagne at the Ritz Carlton, listening to her torch songs and generally still being alive.  She and her pianist joined us at the break, and both let out great whoops  when they heard I lived in Paris.  They said they had both dreamed of living there, but neither had ever gotten around to doing it.

Mickie around 1974

 * * * * * * * *

 

*Here’s a link to Julie Wilson singing Sondheim’s “I’m Still Here!”  She is accompanied by the late Billy Roy who was there the night Mickie and I heard her at the Ritz Carlton.  I guarantee you won't regret it (click on photo):  

Your input is welcomed:  hotel-musings@hotmail.fr

Next Friday:  "Hotel dramas:  fire, water and a bloody Fall!"

29 - An Encounter With Keith

THE GRESHAM PALACE FOUR SEASONS, Budapest

Keith  (photo by Musictimes)

       Arriving at the Gresham Palace from Budapest Airport, we saw huge crowds camped on the hotel grounds.  We knew they weren’t waiting for us, so we figured someone important must be coming or going.

The Gresham's special grill doors

 Much later, en route for the fifth floor swimming pool, we noticed large gilded double doors flanked by two men standing guard.  Just as we turned the corner, the doors opened.  

I could glimpse what was undoubtedly the royal suite and out marched single-file a procession of the most eccentric and oddly attired older gentlemen.    At least one of them seemed to be wearing  a clown’s wig, and the four men made me immediately think of the Marx Brothers. 

The Gresham Palace Budapest 2007

As we approached, Brenda, who was holding my hand, gave a tug, and I saw she had run nose-to-nose into Keith Richards.  It was the Rolling Stones, who were nearing the end of yet another triumphant world tour.  

  “Well, hello,” said Brenda in her rather confident, British matter-of-fact manner.  “How very nice to see you.”  I hadn't yet twigged on, and momentarily thought she had run into an old friend.

Keith Richards probably thought the same thing.  He appeared genuinely taken aback, as though he should know this rather elegant older woman --indeed just about his own age-- who showed no signs of being a tongue-tied groupie.

  “Well, hallo to you,” he said.  “How ARE  you?  How are you DOING?”  His darkly died hair struck out in all directions from under the ubiquitous bandana.

                                                                       

“Oh, never better,” said Brenda.  “So good to see you.”

“Good to see you again,” said Keith, clearly straining to remember the identity of this Anglo-Saxon couple in their swimming robes on the fifth floor of the Budapest Gresham Palace. 

 Just as we began to move away, he called after us, “and …. really, we MUST quit meeting like this!”  

That's Brenda in the Gresham Palace lobby

The Gresham Palace seen at twilight from the Chain Bridge

SIDEBAR:  A look at Budapest's special architecture  

The Danube, Budapest

On my first visit in the 1970's, the building facades were so dirty and gray that the specialness of the city's skyline was almost completely camouflaged. Today the transformation is spectacular.

On my most recent return in 2008, I was surprised to see how beautifully and colorfully the city had been restored since the disappearance of the so-called "iron curtain".  

 

 

I photographed buildings that appealed to our aesthetic senses, but it never occurred to me to find out the names or histories of what I was photographing.  So here are a few anonymous but often colorful and original buildings, frequently representing the turn-of-the-century art-nouveau era when Budapest was very much the fashionable place to be and to be seen.      

Your input is welcomed:  hotel-musings@hotmail.fr

Next Friday:  "Last visit with Mickie"

  [Photos are mine, unless otherwise credited]

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

Budapest was also featured in:  blog No. 20, "Decaffeinated coffee ... in Hungarian?" Jan. 11, 2013 (to access, click on above title).

28 - Ginger and me !

THE SAVOY and THE DORSET SQUARE HOTEL, London

Ginger Rogers in Drury Lane dressing room 1969

Seen in her "bow gown" donned solely for curtain calls (Google photo)

 

     My arrival in London 44 years ago coincided --by sheer coincidence, I might add-- with that of Ginger Rogers, who had contracted at a record-breaking salary to star in the Broadway musical "Mame" at the Drury Lane Theatre.   

Southampton arrival with 5th husband Bill Marshall

     Disembarking at Southampton from Cunard’s spanking new QE2, one hundred-odd members of the press and a few celebrity guests joined her for the trip to London on the "Mame Express," a vintage train rented for the occasion with a champagne fountain and showing the 1935 Astaire-Rogers film “Top Hat.”

     The whole over-the-top entourage headed for the Savoy Hotel where Ginger was shown into her new digs, rebaptized the Ginger Rogers Suite.  She remained in her six-room apartment there for over a month.   

      The exact same week found me arriving (via Reykjavik, Luxembourg and Paris) to make my life in London, fresh off Icelandic Airways, which in those days was pretty much the polar opposite of an oceanliner crossing. 

     I initially stayed at the Dorset Square, at that time still an inexpensive, exceedingly simple neighborhood hotel.  It was there by the sheerest luck that I discovered directly across the square a grand, though tired Georgian mansion.

     Gilbert, the owner-landlord, was a somewhat down-at-the-heels aristocrat, who barely managed to make ends meet by renting out most of his home.  He had once worked for the BBC, and tended to speak with his teeth clenched and mouth almost shut.  He sounded to my ears much like the Duke of Windsor.  

Gilbert, Dorset Square 1969

     I rented an undistinguished room with an inefficient gas heater requiring a steady stream of sixpence pieces.
  

Jon

     It was there that my path sort of crossed that of Ginger Rogers.   Jon, a singer in “Mame,” lived across the hall.  As I was out of work and almost out of money, he arranged for me to have occasional employment as “dresser” for six of the company dancers. 

I was only needed for certain afternoon performances, and the pay was way beneath minimum wage (I seem to remember it being one pound per performance!).  It was a union regulation that someone be present in each dressing room to make tea and sweep the floor.  As it turned out, I didn’t know how to make tea, and I was told not to bother with the broom.  It was just one of those crazy union rules that required a presence.  I loved every minute of my brief life in show business.

In rehearsal (Google)

     During much of the show I enjoyed watching the musical numbers from the wings.  Freshly embarked from my native North Carolina, I have rarely felt so sophisticated and worldly as I did standing backstage at the Drury Lane Theatre.

     Ginger was the toast of London and "Mame" the flavor of the month.  Though I frequently captured a glimpse of the aging star and occasionally caught bits of her conversations with others, our paths still didn’t officially cross quite yet.

     It was many months later, after having found employment at United Press International, that I actually had an unforgettable (for me, not for her) dinner-interview with the Academy Award-winning actress.  It was at the then-trendy restaurant Inigo Jones, and I recall her ordering a “rare-rare” steak which she then proceeded to send back for being too rare.  

      I particularly remember her telling me that the "dear Queen" (she tended to overuse adjectives like "dear" and "sweet") had told her that she and her little sister Margaret had seen all of the Astaire-Rogers musicals as little girls in the palace projection room.

     One thing about wire services, they do service the world, and my little article, which was a  lesson in banality, was nevertheless picked up by hundreds of newspapers across the globe.  This was obviously more a tribute to G.R.'s star power than to any journalistic prowess on my part.

Ginger with Mom on opening night (Corbis Images)

     As an indirect result, I later found myself tête-à-tête with the actress at her luxurious St. Johns Wood apartment.  For reasons which I will spare myself the embarrassment of explaining, she had invited me there for tea.  

With Queen Elizabeth II and singer Tom Jones (Google)

     I offered her some hippy "love beads," made from watermelon seeds which my Greensboro friend Dottie Benjamin had given me.  I think she didn't quite know what to say, so she called her old Polish maid in to take a look.  

      I fear they may have exchanged knowing glances about the mental equilibrium of her guest.  Whether that was the case or not, I was fairly crazy at the time, and suffice it to say, I did not manage to cement a lasting friendship. 

     That was the last I ever saw of G.R., though I followed her waning career with enthusiasm, always tending to think of her a little like an old friend. 

 SIDEBAR:  Rediscovering the Dorset Square

Dorset Square, winter 2007 (photo by  Rob Skinner)

I stayed at the Dorset Square again when I returned to London in 1986, and it had recently been tarted up to the point of being totally unrecognizable.

It’s a shame I didn’t take any photos when I first stayed there in 1969.  Despite its rather fashionable address, it was then a very basic, bathroom-down-the-hall-style dump.

View of the square from room 105

 When I rediscovered it in the 1980’s, it had become the height of chic, one of London’s first boutique hotels.  It was already internationally on the map, as the regular, quirky little ads in the New Yorker attested. 

It was then I learned that the Dorset Square, itself --a private, gated park with key for residents-- was the original Lord’s cricket ground until 1811.  It was here that the first Eton versus Harrow cricket match was played in 1805, an annual sporting event continuing today, though no longer at this location.  

Mixed cricket match circa 1900

Back in 1986 I remember a rather haughty young French girl worked at the desk, and I overheard her interacting with a backpacker off the street.  I assume he had asked the price of a room, that it wasn't the first time returning clients had been surprised by the hotel's transformation, and she seemed to assume the new price would not be acceptable.  I don't remember how much it cost in those days, but she added in a snippy manner for all to hear:  "And yes; that is the tarif for one night and NOT a week."

Despite that desk clerk’s demeanor, I enjoyed staying at the Dorset Square on increasingly frequent trips to London throughout the late 80’s.

Just this year the Dorset Square has amazingly made Tatler Magazine's coveted list of "the 101 best hotels in the world."  It has indeed come a very, very long way.

Brenda at the Dorset 2009

Your input is welcomed:  hotel-musings@hotmail.fr

Next Friday:  "Keith Richards at the Gresham Palace"

[Photos are mine, unless otherwise credited]

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

The Savoy Hotel was also featured in sidebar for blog No. 13, "Kaspar, the Savoy's Black Cat" Nov. 11, 2012; and blog No. 27, "Stompin' at the Savoy," March 8, 2013  (to access, click on above titles).

27 - Stompin' At The Savoy...

THE SAVOY HOTEL, London

The new Savoy:  view from the mezzanine

 I finally spent the night at the Savoy!

When I moved to England in January of 1969, “Swinging London” was at its zenith, and the Savoy was generally conceded to be THE show business hostelry.  From Noel Coward to Marlene Dietrich to the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, they all made their way sooner or later through the Savoy’s imposing revolving doors.

After a few months of professional floundering, I managed to find employment at United Press International in its waning years as an international news agency.  My job there was officially a desk one, but occasionally allowed me to do feature stories, sometimes of my choosing.

Mercouri, Never on Sunday (google)

Yoko & John (photo George Konig)

 Which accounted for my finding myself sometimes  in more or less direct contact with a handful of show biz luminaries, including Ginger Rogers, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Elizabeth Taylor (at the apogee of her beauty) and the glamorous Greek actress Melina Mercouri who pinched both my cheeks and said “Oh, how I adore Americans!”  Then, again, did she REALLY pinch my cheeks?  It was one of those film launch cocktail parties for the press, and sometimes I wonder if my memory is to be trusted. 

 Whether walking or riding the No. 13 bus to work just off Fleet Street, I would pass in front of the Savoy’s long driveway off the Strand.  It never occurred to me to look inside.

My life in London was a series of exhilarating discoveries, and I was happy there.  But when I moved to Paris two years later, I hardly ever looked back.  I didn’t return to England until 1986, and this time I did take a stroll through the Savoy’s commanding lobby.  

Mirror effect, Savoy Men's Room 2012

 By now a full blown hotel passioné, I remember trying out their sumptuous toilets.   I was not expecting the old attendant, who in a frenzy of unsolicited attention, proceeded to turn on the water faucet, offer me a hand towel, brush my shoulders –everything but comb my hair and straighten my tie.

Completely taken unawares, I was unprepared with an appropriate gratuity, and consequently unable to enjoy all of this tender loving care. 

I only had a one-pound note which was way too much 30 years ago, but I dropped it in his dish just the same.  It kind of spoiled that first Savoy visit, as I was convinced the veteran gents' attendant had taken me for a hillbilly tourist who didn’t understand the currency.

* * * * * * * *

By the turn of the 21^st century the Savoy was showing distinct signs of fatigue. In 2007 it closed for an extended, major facelift.  As one international financial crisis followed another, and the renovations failed to get off the ground, it looked for a while as though the hotel were never going to re-open.

But re-open it did, in the Fall of 2010.  The brochure and web site looked stunning, but the prices were higher than ever, and it was not until last October that we finally found a price commensurate with our possibilities. 

Brenda, stompin' ...

 We jumped at the “Sunday Night Special,” which proposed one of their less sensational rooms at a relatively reduced rate along with dinner and breakfast for two.  It meant checking out on Monday (I seem to remember a late check-out among the perks) and moving to a decidedly more humble establishment.

The room was fine, but not quite the mind-blowing experience for which I had hoped.  The food was equally acceptable, perhaps even a bit better. The hotel, itself, however, was really gorgeous, probably better than ever before.  The personnel  was first rate.  Bellboys, doormen, the executive staff, everyone with whom we came into contact gave proof of really serious training and excelled in making guests feel important and appreciated.

So now I’ve finally done it,  I’ve spent the night at the Savoy.  I’ve eaten in their restaurants, sampled their chocolates, investigated their pristine new toilets* (see Hotel Loos photo album, top right), and taken endless strolls throughout their lobby.

It was fun.  I approve.  But the wait was just too long.  I built up too many hopes, and despite a great Sunday evening stay, I can’t banish the Peggy Lee song from my mind:   Is that all there is? :

“If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing … if that’s all there is.”

Important Lalique $130,000 crystal fish fountain sculpture, centerpiece of Savoy entrance

* now manned by young attendants who limit their guest interaction to pointing the way to handtowels.  Their presence is a discreet one, and for someone of my advanced years, they hold no powers of intimidation.  I don’t even remember whether there is any longer a tip dish.

SIDEBAR:  London Photo Album

Here are a few miscellaneous snapshots from that first year in London.  As in the Paris album a couple of years later, the photos were taken with the old box camera that my Greensboro friend, Dottie Benjamin, had given me when I left North Carolina  looking for "something else."

Doris Danvers (left and right) was the landlady who succeeded Gilbert (above) when I left Dorset Square for a room in nearby Harley House.  Doris was a likeable wheeler-dealer who rented a large luxury apartment, then sublet all the four bedrooms. My room looked right into Regents Park which was quite special.   She, herself, slept on an overstuffed red velvet sofa in the living room.  In fact, I seem to remember the whole living room pretty much covered in red velvet.

When she learned that I was about to interview Ginger Rogers, I was catapulted to the rank of star boarder.  She was G.R.'s greatest fan, and whenever a guest or potential renter arrived, I would  always be introduced as the American gentleman who had interviewed Ginger Rogers!

                                                          

Piccadilly Circus, time of the hippies

Baker Street

* * * * * * * * * *

My "local" was a singalong pub where I was probably its youngest regular.  Many of the clients had been coming since the war, and the music often dated from that period.  It was there that I discovered "We'll Meet Again" and "The White Cliffs of Dover."  In looking back over the photos, I feel a certain sadness as I realize that I am undoubtedly the only one still alive.

Your input is welcomed:  hotel-musings@hotmail.fr

Next Friday:  "Ginger and me!  Still in London"

[Photos are mine, unless otherwise credited]

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

The Savoy Hotel was also featured in sidebar for blog No. 13, "Kaspar, The Savoy's Black Cat," Nov. 11, 2012; and No. 28, "Ginger and Me," March 15, 2013  (to access, click on above titles).