Meeting Leslie Gore

I have met very few celebrities in my life. Am not referring to the half dozen or so famous persons that most of us who live in or near New York's pulsating hub of world entertainment, Manhattan, inevitably over time (with the increased odds of the probability of such an encounter), come upon, glimpse and then pass by while we and/or they are in a crowd at a certain hailing distance. Some of the bolder among us may, with precise and proper timing, shout out a cry of friendly recognition and often the star will diffidently acknowledge your acknowledgement with a wan smile. That was similarly the case once when, while stopped for a red light in midtown, I espied the late Dom DeLuise strolling along, unmolested and minding his own business. My enthusiasm and courage were bolstered by the heady psychology of negotiating a couple of tons of sheet metal along a busy thoroughfare together with some percolative and youthful tendencies, despite a rather shy nature. But they were all almost immediately replaced by regret when the surprising timidity of the funny man was revealed. I had imagined he was always "on" in the role of his madcap, lovable buffoon persona. Instead, he politely nodded to me and seemed to wish that he had donned shades and perhaps a false beard that long ago morning.

No, the meetings that I am concerned with here are the especially infrequent ones that come from the happenstance of a certain degree of intimacy born of natural, social situations (like dinner plans), public and commercial events in circumscribed places and finally, the nature of the workplace for most of the jobs I have held through the years. To put it simply, and in reverse order of the above: driving a taxi or black car industry vehicle for hire, attending a celebrity's planned event in a small venue for publicity and sales purposes, as well as joining a small party of adoring fans and one of the objects of their affections at a restaurant after a convention of these aficionados of a classic television program, were the occasions for my encounters with these gliterati.                        

In 1973 I was an ectomorphic, spectacled young man of slight stature with a distinct physical resemblance to the late British pop rock star, Freddy Garrity of Freddy and The Dreamers. Unlike Freddy, an outgoing stage personality was most definitely not something I had in common with him, my brief episode with DeLuise in this period notwithstanding. It was my first week on the job with a N.Y.C. medallioned yellow cab company known as Scull's Angels and as luck would have it, my meter began malfunctioning after I had been driving for an hour or so. The radio dispatched call came in for a pick up on the east side on or near 57th Street and the party's name was Bacharach. I just wanted to drive as steadily, safely and as inconspicuously as possible until chance might bring me closer to the garage where I could request repairs or a replacement for the meter. Fact is, it was working, but was registering the increments of each fare far too slowly for the time and mileage logged. Again, business coming first, I concentrated on my customers/passengers and in this case, it was a tall, well dressed man who exited the glass doors of a tony building with a uniformed doorman at the ready and who smilingly and casually waved away the serviceman from the routine of escorting him to my cab, who was the focus of my attention. Several seconds later a radiant and very pretty blond woman approached, nearly petite but somehow big, accompanying a small girl who seemed lost in thought. The adults helped the little one into the rear compartment.  A furtive glance at them and I knew that my passengers were Burt Bacharach, his then wife Angie Dickinson and apparently their daughter. They gave the address and it was in Long Island City, a short trek over the 59th Street bridge and towards the vicinity of the Midtown tunnel's entrance via doubling back towards the East river's edge and then a left turn down Vernon Boulevard. House numbers soon disappeared as industrial buildings and overgrown weeds near an area of freight train tracks caused me, with my limited knowledge of the area, to ask for help. Miss Dickinson eagerly instructed me for the last several hundred yards until we arrived at an isolated, almost peaceful cul-de-sac with several boxcars at a railroad siding blocking any imagined exit without completely turning the taxi around. "You may stop right here, driver" said Mr. Bacharach. He exited the cab and went to a tiny office nearby to talk with an old man with a clipboard. Miss Dickinson was cooing to her daughter about a surprise and promising that "Dad will show you very soon." My professional air of circumspection was really just a cover for my anxiety about the meter and the fright of being in the presence of these gods of the entertainment world. I sensed that Miss Dickinson sensed my chary ways and while she respected my reticent demeanor, it was clear that the palpable charisma that beamed from her being could not let her ignore me nor be ignored. She simply leaned in closer near my opened partition window and naturally asked about the slow meter. I could barely speak, her perfume and pulchritude intensifying my self-consciousness. Somehow I managed to mumble about the defective meter and my plan to have it repaired, trying to sound off handed about it. She seemed about to ask another question, perhaps a personal, if innocent one, when Mr. Bacharach began walking towards us while waving his hand and cheerfully beckoning to his wife and child. They all met about halfway as the old man began to slide back one of the boxcar's doors. I was alone now and relieved to be so. A brief but high pitched shriek, the kind that only very young girls seem to be able to manage, was heard though the little one was obscured by her doting parents. Led down carefully from the car along a portable ramp was a shaggy dun pony dappled with white and looking a bit skittish. It was their daughter's birthday I learned and the day and its memories belonged to all of them as well as to me. It was only last year that I learned that this child grew up, was long suffering with physical and psychic ailments and died by her own hand in her forty first year, predeceasing this famous and seemingly invulnerable couple. It reminded me, as I have been reminded countless times since I first heard Paul Simon's tune on the subject, that I "don't know a dream that's not been shattered."  END OF PART 1