Stardom, Part One

MacNeill from MacNeill & Lehrer. . . .

Rick dropped this completely deadpan and apropos of nothing about twenty years ago, as we marched up Seventy-ninth Street from the park toward Columbus, staring into the middle distance as he uttered the words, without even slightly turning his head or altering his pace or glance one centimeter. To a casual observer we might have seemed perfectly in step and involved in serious talk up until that subtle, almost imperceptible digression, but as always he was on the lookout. MacNeill seemed quite tall to me as he ambled toward us from up the block and looked a lot like MacNeill, older of course as they always appear without their make-up and having just alighted from a typical “classic” New York pre-war--  was this where he lived? The possibility of unearthing such a fascinating detail would have made it even more intimate for Rick, but my thing was always buildings and various monuments so I was much more intrigued by the architecture of that old west side palazzo than by the legendary figure of TV news who emerged from it.

It was maddening, frustrating. Made me wanna strangle him at times. Stop it, pleeeze stop this- I really do not care about MacNeill!  We were just in the middle of a conversation! He laughed off my words. I really and honestly was not into stargazing and found the practice intensely annoying, but my lack of interest never deterred Rick. He had this uncanny knack for spotting minor and major celebrities on the street, anywhere, anytime of day or night. Character actors from old Woody Allen films, those with unforgettable, distinctive weird faces made for comedy; stars of old sitcoms like the guy who played Fonzi on “Happy Days”- what was his name? Bygone news anchors whose names we never knew to begin with as they rattled on each evening with strange bursts of enthusiasm about a building collapse or the next snow storm. And now, in the flesh, a familiar, no nonsense commentator from the revered PBS itself, the network that was always so intent on projecting Integrity and trying hard to exude “balanced” credibility in their choice and handling of stories. Having once worked for a newspaper I knew of course this pretense of fairness was just a sham and that even the most dignified seeming of the media outlets were slanted in one way or another- it was inevitable. But it wasn’t about the quality of reporting for Rick, or how funny the movie or TV show really was, or how effective the politician or dastardly the gangster, it was about stardom, simple and sweet, the glow and after glow, the ambient light associated with nearness to the heavens- and in a further interesting little blip of random irony, I also found it quite amusing that even his very name had a whiff of stardust, as it just happened to allude to the dashing main character of Casablanca. We never ran across Bogey of course, his blaze having  left the cosmos long before we happened on the astronomical street scene, though we did make regular passes around the Dakota where the star had resided when still a living luminary. You never knew who would pop out of that famous courtyard, with 19^th century electrified gas lamps framing the arched entrance of its porte cochere rather dramatically on either side. Carriages once trotted through here for godsake! The edifice was complicated and amazing, evocative of another time in its eclectic design and period detail, a true classic if a bit fussy. But it was only the possibility of star studded foot traffic that mesmerized Rick.  

Rick was so infatuated with the idea of celebrity that he didn’t even have to get very close up and personal with it; just catching sight of a place where one of the “greats” had lived, or hung out, or walked a dog, often was enough to provoke a spirited mini-lecture on celebrity trivia. Early on naturally he took me to the “White Horse,” mistakenly believing I’d be blown over by first sight of Dylan Thomas’ name scratched drunkenly on the bathroom door of the famed tavern. What he didn’t count on was that every English major east of the Mississippi and a fair number west, south and north had already made the well trod pilgrimage in order to guarantee their status as bona fide member of the avant-garde in good standing. And so he  stepped up his efforts and eventually set his sights further uptown. One sunny afternoon in late spring, a short time after the “White Horse” debacle, as we strolled placidly by the Ansonia on Broadway he let it be known that here was where Evelyn Nesbitt hunkered down after her notorious affair with Stanford White. Now the Ansonia was not really my cup of tea design-wise, with its beaux-art façade and myriad turrets flaunting far too many curlicues like a giant tray of ornate pastries; in short, it was a tad too busy for my liking. And as it turned out, this juicy “fact” of star habitation probably was not even true. Although everyone from Theodore Dreiser to Babe Ruth supposedly had hung their hats at the famed residential hotel with a raft of well-known opera singers and musicians tucked ostentatiously in between, there is no real evidence of Nesbit ever having actually lived there. I know this because Rick’s mention of White’s name got me started on my own self-guided tour of the colorful architect’s famous city landmarks, and from that moment on it was only a hop, skip and a jump to my own untoward descent into the maelstrom . . . .