Well, dear readers, there are a million stories in the naked city, and this is one of them. I happened to watch four episodes of the hour-long TV show last evening and while they’re usually overwritten in that pretentiously poetic way of that era – even the episode titles reek of that – these shows are just amazing for their casts of young New York actors who got their start on the show. The three I saw were from season four. In the first of them, entitled Hold for Gloria Christmas, Burgess Meredith and Herschel Bernardi were the known guest stars, but also appearing were young newcomers Alan Alda, Jessica Walter, Barbara Dana, and Richard Castellano. Also in the cast is legendary acting guru, Sanford Meisner. And in smaller roles, actors like Gene Rupert, who’d go on to play Cliff in the first national tour of Cabaret and then stand by for Jerry Orbach in Promises, Promises. That episode was directed by Lady in a Cage’s Walter Grauman. The next episode was entitled Idylls of a Running Back (see what I mean about the titles), which starred Aldo Ray as a popular football player. In this episode, we have an “And introducing” title card for – Miss Sandy Dennis and her long-suffering boyfriend is played by – William Daniels. Both were, at the time, starring on Broadway in A Thousand Clowns. The director was John Peyser, or Uncle John as I used to call him. The third episode was entitled Daughter, Am I in My Father’s House (see what I mean about the titles) and the special guest star was Barbara Harris, who ironically would play Sandy Dennis’s role in the film of A Thousand Clowns. This one was directed by TV stalwart, David Lowell Rich. And the fourth episode was entitled And By the Sweat of Thy Brow (see what I mean about the titles) and it starred the impossibly young Barbara Barrie, Richard Jordan, and Martin Sheen. Irvin Kershner was the director – he’d go on to direct The Empire Strikes Back. I’ll go back and watch the earlier seasons (the fourth was its final season, although a spin-off of the show turned into Route 66) – some of the impossibly young actors who made their earliest appearances on the show were folks like Robert Duvall, Dustin Hoffman, James Caan, Godfrey Cambridge, James Coburn, Bruce Dern, Keir Dullea, Peter Falk, James Farentino, Peter Fonda, George Segal, Rip Torn – and that’s only the tip of the iceberg and, of course, all the big stars of the day also guested on the show. There are some wonderful location shots of NYC circa 1962.
And now, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to Gian Carlo Menotti’s symphony number one in its only performance, broadcast on the radio with Eugene Ormandy conducting. It’s a brief but nice fifteen-minute work. I also listened to the one and only broadcast performance (on the TV show NBC Opera) of Menotti’s Labyrinth – also very attractive. You can find both on the Tube of You.
Yesterday was a very busy day. I got nine hours of sleep. Once up, tons of e-mails and texts, settled on the last of the small roles but remain uncast for the duet – that should be settled today as we now finally have two candidates. I revised the episode that has the duet – in the original script the duet partner was meant to be some kind of a name performer – we had one who dropped out. I made it generic so that we didn’t need a name. That took a while and then I sent that out so the actors in that episode had the latest version. Then I had to revise the final episode of season one, basically rewriting a song Cindy Williams will be doing. It’s funnier now and has a better title. The original title had a word associated with her TV show – it never even occurred to me – but that part was an easy fix, although it required all new rhyming lines to follow it. That took a while to get right and then I had to record it so we can get the chart to Cindy. I ordered in from Paty’s – my beloved Trousdale sandwich and potato salad. The sandwich was great and perfect, but the potato salad was completely different from what it usually is – it was okay but not nearly as good. I had lots of telephonic conversations and basically from the time I got up I never stopped until I finally sat on my couch like so much fish.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do laundry and I have to attend to things so I’m prepared for Friday’s evening flight, I’ll get my suitcase out and see what toiletries I have left in the toiletries bag, hopefully we’ll cast our final person, I’ll eat, I’ll go to the mail place, and then I can watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow and Friday are more of the same, then I shall be on my way to New York, New York, the city that never sleeps. As soon as I’m settled in my room, I’ll try to get five or six hours of sleep. Somewhere in the late afternoon, we’ll all convene at Sami’s apartment, then go dine. Then on Sunday, we begin shooting.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, do laundry, attend to things, get my suitcase ready for packing, eat, go to the mail place, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to know there are a million stories in the naked city.