63 - Looking back at Venice ... and Paul Newman

 

Newman circa 1975 (Spokeo photo)

     By the advent of my thirties, I had resided and traveled in several countries on both sides of the Atlantic; I was beginning to speak a semblance of fluent French, and had acquired an interest and a certain experience in art and theatre.  YET,  in many areas I remained extraordinarily green.   In some ways I was like the most Ozarkian hillbilly, just slightly camouflaged behind a more urbane mask.

I remember on my first trip to Venice, I was traveling alone, and had reserved my hotel through a travel agency.   It was a small, unexceptional hotel among thousands.  Though I have long since forgotten its name, I did at least know that much when I arrived at St. Mark's Square.  I knew the hotel was in the neighborhood, but hadn't the minimal savvy to even note its complete address.  

 

Pigeons on St Mark's Square 1976

  To be fair with myself, I had understood the address to be "St. Mark's."   However, I had only the name of the hotel, but no street number.   I didn't understand that St Mark's denoted a whole, vast neighborhood, far larger than all of Aberdeen, and not a precise street.
 

As I had a horror of being taken for a tourist (as if I would have ever been taken for anything other in a city of which there is little else), I didn't carry a map.   So with  neither the full address nor a street map, I proceeded --suitcase in hand-- to spend the next hour or more meandering around, in and out of every little side street off the mind-bogglingly enormous Piazza San Marco. 
  

If my memory is to be relied upon,  I think at some point when I was just about to drop from exhaustion and/or divulge my true identity as a TOURIST by asking help in English, I suddenly saw my hotel in the distance.  The only really crazy part of this story is that at the time I don't think I found anything particularly peculiar in my behavior.  It is today that I look back on it in dismay, and am grateful that I somehow, gradually got my act together a bit better in the decades that followed.

Paris 1976, Gare de Lyon.  Ready to embark

 on the Simplon Express for a first trip to Venice

While dragging my suitcase through the narrow streets around Venice's major piazza, I made an unexpected sighting: the actor Paul Newman.  He was strolling around Saint Mark's with a young woman who I later learned was his daughter.  

I did NOT ask Paul Newman if he knew where my hotel might be located.  I didn't ask him anything, though I certainly could have, as the international superstar was nonchalantly wandering about, anonymously, totally unimpeded by any sign of fan recognition.   That is, no one except me seemed to be paying him the slightest attention.  

The world of movie stars is a volatile one,  however.  After I checked into my  hotel, and went back out into the neighborhood to look around, I again spotted P.N.   This time, everything had dramatically changed.  In the span of about a half hour, he was now surrounded by a really enormous crowd.  Virtually unable to take a step, it was only thanks to a hefty contingent of local carabinieri  that he was separated from the growing mob, and escorted back to his hotel.

For the record, his hotel was the Gritti.    I had never heard of it then, and for a number of years afterwards I always associated The Gritti with Paul Newman.

* * * * *

Ever since the Paul Newman connection, I dreamed of one day staying at the Gritti, myself.  And of course I did.  It was not too many years later, I found a special off-season rate for a back room and took it for just one night before catching a train for Rome.  It was the time the hotel was flooded (see musing No. 31 "Fire, Water, and a Bloody Fall"), but that was only one of the inconveniences from that trip.  There was also a 24-hour transportation strike, and the following day all trains out of Venice were cancelled.  

I had no choice but to stay another night, and unfortunately an additional 24 hours at The Gritti --promotional special or not-- was financially out of the question.  So I had to move myself down the street to one of the city's  more modest and least expensive hotels, The Do Possi.  I don't know how it is now, but at the time the only thing to recommend it was the price.  It was a depressing comedown after my night at the Gritti.   

 I learned one thing that trip:  when you have to go from one extreme to the other, it's a lot better to do it the other way around!   

October 2013, on the Academia bridge ... 35 years later (photo Brenda P.)

That's all folks ... It's the end of the season

Another season of hotel musings now comes to an end.  I hope there will be other musings in the future, but for the moment I'm not quite sure.   I'll take a  break, and in the Autumn I'll see where my creative juices lead me.  

In the meantime, many thanks to all who have followed my posts these last two years.  Some of my old friends and a few new ones met out there in cyberland have been particularly loyal and supportive.   It's been a rewarding and sometimes cathartic experience.   I hope this will just be an au revoir!

 

Your input is welcomed:  frank.pleasants@libertysurf.fr

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

The Gritti Palace was also featured in blog No. 10 "Danny, the Night Porter", No. 17 "Celebrating the Holidays Away From Home",  No. 23 "Mrs. X at The Gritti", No. 31 "Fire, Water and a Bloody Fall", and No. 48 "Back to Venice ..." (to access, click on titles).

10 - Danny, the Night Porter ...

THE GRITTI PALACE, Venice circa 1990 
 
 

Anonymous oil of the Grand Canal (collection Marion Vu Dinh)

   

   On one of my early stays at the Gritti, I had a wonderful package which included full breakfast and lots of perks –flowers and wine and cheese and fruit.  It was the week before Christmas and I was one of their rare clients.  Everywhere I turned the staff amazingly called me by name.  I honestly wondered if they didn’t have cue cards hidden behind their work stations.

The Gritti, Christmas 1992

The first night I enthusiasticly set out with my special Gritti pass for the grand old municipal casino.  When I tried to withdraw $100 from a nearby money machine  I watched in horror as a message flashed in Italian informing me that my card had been SWALLOWED !

Returning to the hotel, broke and dejected, I hinted to the management side about an advance to be added onto my bill.  This was met with a politely chilly fin de non-recevoir.

Concierge's corner

My first room at the Gritti

Now, you understand the executive branch of luxury hotels is there to manage the accounts, and they don’t always have too much contact with the guests.  The concierge staff, on the other hand, is there primarily to serve, to make everyone happy, and in the process make as much money as they can.

The night concierge was a roly-poly, ever-smiling career man who had truly found his calling.  He looked much like a younger Danny de Vito and plied his trade with enthusiasm and joy.

The real Devito (google photo)

Observing the unsuccesful encounter with the director and sensing my drama, he discreetly asked how he might help.  “You probably can’t,” I said, “unless you have the keys to the bank.”

He understood everything without my needing to explain further.  “How much do you need?”  he asked with a twinkle.  “One hundred?  Two hundred?”  

Apparently the concierge staff keeps its own cash box for just such “investments.”  I can no longer remember the sum, but it was a reasonable godsend, and he seemed thrilled to pack me off to the casino.

The Venice Casino, housed in the elegant 15th century Palazzo Vendramin

I only played black jack at the time (I later gave up all gambling when I woke up to the realization that I was much too poor to lose).  On this particular evening I managed miraculously to play for a couple of hours before leaving with precisely the same amount with which I had arrived.

I had been churning over in my mind just what sum would be an appropriate tip.  The problem was temporarily resolved, as on my return I had no choice but to report that I had neither won nor lost, and could only return the loan which I did poste-haste.

Having recovered my bank card the next morning, I planned to leave a gift, but Danny was nowhere to be seen, and I am none too proud to admit that I didn’t look too diligently for him.

The following year, returning from the casino well after midnight, I found Danny at his post.

“Do you remember me?” I asked.  It was one of the rare times I had actually won a nice sum, and I was quite exhilarated.  “And do you remember loaning me the money last year?” 

“Indeed I do,” replied Danny, breaking into a big smile.

“Tonight I won 400 dollars,” I said, “so here is half for you.”

Gianni

I later wondered if  I had perhaps been a bit excessive. 

On my next visit to the Gritti, however, I had reason to be really satisfied with my gesture.   When I asked Gianni, the head concierge, why I had not seen “Danny,”  he explained that the hotel was in mourning, because the much loved night porter had recently been discovered dead at his post, having succumbed to a heart attack in the early hours of the morning.  He was only 48.  

      

A fading photo album of my first Venetian memories

 Here are a few photographs from my first trip to Venice in the mid-seventies.  They were taken in November, and the grain and fading colors now tend to enhance the drama of my first impressions of this supremely grand canal city.

I have known Venice under every season (except the height of summer, which is surely to be avoided if possible).  These photos reflect my favorite season, Winter.  It can be bitterly cold, but unlike Paris, there is often a vibrant winter sun.

Whatever the light or whatever the temperature, Venice remains a city of great mystery and elegance.

 




 





A city of canals is also a city of bridges....

Pigeons on the Piazza San Marco

My first Venice hotel was a nondescript walkup without lobby, with 

 view on the back of an old church.  Doesn't sound like much on paper!

READER COMMENT –Letter from Joel Fletcher  

Here’s a witty reaction to today’s piece from Fletcher, art dealer and writer, author of “Ken and Thelma” (Pelican Publishing Company).

      Another lovely posting, Frank, that takes me back to places I have been.

     I never stayed at the Gritti, never even peeked into the lobby. Funny that I cannot even remember which hotel we stayed in when I took my parents there in 1963.

     My happiest memory of Venice is from a dozen years later when I was having lunch in the American Bar with a dear old friend, Guelfo Frulla, the recently retired head of Stanford in Italy, and we ran into an American Professor Guelfo had known at Yale.

     I don't recall his name, but he was well past middle age and had the blackest teeth I had ever seen on a human. He was writing a book (that he never finished) to be called Venice as a Mirror about American artists who lived in Venice. He was totally obsessed by gondoliers and after lunch he introduced us to one who took us on an hour-long gondola ride through the back canals of Venice. It was like being in a completely different city.

     On that same visit, I went to Peggy Guggenheim's palazzo, which had only recently been opened to the public, and as I was buying a catalogue from a dowdy woman dressed like a maid, I realized that it was Peggy herself.   

     While she was making change, she put down a pad on which she had been writing and I glanced down to see a scribbled recipe for Hungarian goulash.  Years after that, I was reading  an article in the New Orleans Art Quarterly by one of her former curators that described a dinner party Peggy had given for the Hungarian ambassador at which she had served a goulash that made everyone ill!

 

Peggy, looking anything but like a maid  (D.Seymour photo)

-o-

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

Next Friday:  "Intermezzo ... between hotels in the 1970's"

 [Photos are mine, unless otherwise credited]