A second famous person who I met while driving a taxi was Miss Kitty Carlisle, the epitome of urbane sophistication, actress, singer, a fixture of New York's high society, native of New Orleans and widow of Moss Hart. It was about a decade after the Bacharach/Dickinson encounter and I was at that point driving as an independent subcontractor, i.e a lessee of passenger sedans in the Black Car Industry. Also radio dispatched, the call went out on a drizzly weekday evening to go to an address on East 62nd Street., if memory serves, near Park Avenue. The wait for her to come to the cab was rather brief and she was as remarkably pleasant as she was beautifully dressed in a black dress with pearls, a small beaded pocketbook and an umbrella that was slim, black and the handle of which sparkled in somehow, an understated way that called to mind the old line: "if you have to ask the price, you cannot afford it." Miss Carlisle did not engage in chit-chat, and yet her amiability was received unmistakably with the simplest exchanges related to our business: "Driver, do you think it will rain again later?" And then as we approached her destination a mere four blocks away, "Driver, shall I take my umbrella?" "I did not hear the weather forecast, I'm sorry, Miss Carlisle." Used to making a decision with or without sufficient data, she gently handed the umbrella to me and smiled with a "Well, I won't be especially long, driver." I sensed that she did nothing that was not purposeful or well considered. It was not raining at the moment and she apparently wanted to make an appearance unencumbered by this very special bumbershoot, its elegance not likely to mark her as cautious and mundane. Still, she chose a calculated risk and entrusted me with this nonpareil accessory with no further fuss, actually, no fuss at all. I appreciated her confidence in me. There was an atmosphere of excellence that her brief presence was responsible for constructing, and I was resultantly unafraid to have become the keeper for this inestimable, personal item of this iconic lady.
The rest of the trip was uneventful. Miss Carlisle returned to the cab in less than twenty minutes and she was as pleasant as before, but she seemed to be thinking intensely about whatever she had just experienced. I was glad to have remembered returning her umbrella to her before she had to ask for it and she proffered the fare along with a gratuity that was of a stylishly, slightly more than average amount: I can only characterize it as tastefully generous. She bid me a good evening and it felt as if she meant it. The term "cloning" had not yet been invented, but the concept occurred to me that evening and I fondly imagined a world where those of Miss Carlisle's character could be reproduced instantly and voluminously.
Next, if I may proceed and eventually, anachronistically, a relatively recently eight and a half years ago I read a newspaper ad announcing the appearance in a CD/record shop in a neighborhood in Brooklyn where I was formerly employed, of the former pop singer and teen sensation, Miss Leslie Gore. She was scheduled to sign her autograph on her then, newly issued copies of a CD of her latest songs. I had clearly crossed over to the waning years of middle age with its also waning exuberance, but the chance to meet her in person presented itself and the convenience of the leisure that that particular day's scheduling afforded helped me to overcome my ambivalence about the event. In fact, my courage was no doubt bolstered by inviting two equally long-in-the-tooth pals (who also remembered the thrill of this cute, diminutive warbler of love songs of our pubescence) to come along. Miss Gore was now approaching sixty. The ancient shock we had sustained when learning of her homosexuality had long since ceased to wound any of us who may have had a crush on her…at least of those buddies within my ken. And another factor was now in play for me who was only four years her junior. My shyness, traditionally amplified by the proximity to a celebrity, had developed alongside the aforementioned ambivalence, a conflicting emotion of some animosity towards such a person. Something along the lines of "why must I bow down, as it were, before you? You are not a god, you are not my king or my queen." There was not any scene of course. It was just a matter of body language and a diffidence that I imagine the star in question was sensitive to and so I remained correct though my adulation was clearly not streaming out of my pores and the celebrated one surely did not, in my presence anyway, "feel the love." I soon realized my purpose and it was rather a selfish one. I wanted a photograph of the two of us physically together to display on my refrigerator door and nothing more. This was accomplished as per the rules of the queue for seeing her and/or purchasing her CD. As a non-buying customer I was entitled to the snapshot but no autograph. With no malice for this lovely artist of my youth, I was perfectly content for what I had obtained and about what I had not. This is how one grows old, no doubt, or so I thought as I had watched a man perhaps older than myself earlier kneel down in front of Miss Gore and talk to her as if he were praying to the Virgin Mary Herself. Mine was an admixture of pity and yes, envy, that fandom could linger so insistently in one's heart.
Now skipping back in time, the following encounter marked perhaps the beginning of this aging process that I mentioned. My cousin, a wholeheartedly adoring aficionado of the classic '60s sci-fi television series "Star Trek" had arranged for dinner at a sushi restaurant in Murray Hill. She and her friends, all equally devoted "Trekkies" had spent much of that day at the show's convention in a nearby hotel. Knowing my proximity to Manhattan, I was invited to join them for the repast. A special guest (not me) was to be included as well and when told the name, my advanced knowledge of the show was proven to be not so advanced. Walter Koenig played the role of one of the junior officers of the starship Enterprise …..To Be Continued
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