100 New Yorkers of the 1970s Part 31

Reid shaves twice a day with an electric razor.

"My understudy plays Roosevelt in the show, and of course for the four performances that he's had to go on for me, he didn't shave his head,"

laughs the 55-year-old actor. "I've gotten the most angry letters from people saying, 'Well my G.o.d, can't you at least have the understudy shave his head? How dare you do that to us!'"

Asked about his qualifications for playing a billionaire, Reid says, "I don't know whether it's my look, personality, or what, but people have always thought that I've come from money. Actually, my family during the Depression was very poor."

Born and raised in Salem, Oregon, he began studying voice while a high school freshman, doing ch.o.r.es in exchange for lessons. After graduation, he was drafted into the First Cavalry Division of the U.S. Army, fought in the Pacific, then received his master's degree in voice under the G.I.

Bill. Arriving in New York City in 1951, he got a job singing at Radio City Music Hall. From there he went on to many Broadway musicals, TV shows, films and recordings. His generous income from _Annie_ enabled him, last year, to purchase the Westside apartment building in the Theater District where he's been living since 1956. "It's a rent-controlled building with 20 apartment units. This last year I lost four thousand dollars on it because of oil and everything, but I have never regretted buying it."

Some behind-the-scene stories are as interesting as the show itself. Yul Brynner, for example, has refused to be photographed with Shelton: "Maybe he's afraid if the strobes. .h.i.t our glistening heads simultaneously there will be no picture." Sandy, the dog, was discovered in an animal shelter just one day before he was due to be put to sleep. "It's that bored, I-don't-care quality that that dog has," says Reid, "that's so endearing to the audience. He lives with his trainer and owner, Bill Berloni, a marvelous young chap who found a whole new career for himself through the dog." And when the subject of orphanages comes up, Reid tells of a place called the Jennie Clarkson Home in Valhalla, New York, which he visited not long ago.

"It's not exactly an orphanage, but a temporary home for girls whose families can't provide for them. They have about 40 girls who stay in cottages with cottage parents, and they go to school there. The agency works with the family by trying to find the father a job or whatever, so the girls can finally return home. ... I was so impressed with the work they're doing. I'm trying to raise money for it."

He recalls visiting the White House to do a shortened version of _Annie_ for the Carters. "We got back at 3 in the morning, totally exhausted, but the whole day was made worthwhile when Mrs. Carter sought me out and said, 'You know, I must tell you how much I appreciate your taking your day off to come down here and do this for us. It must be a real ch.o.r.e, and I do appreciate it.' It was just a wonderful, wonderful personal thing that she didn't have to do. It's something I will always treasure."

On another occasion, says Reid, Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood came backstage after a show. "Bobby just kept crying, and Natalie finally said, 'For G.o.d's sake, Bob, stop it.' But he couldn't. Even now, I'm terribly thrilled when people come back and say, 'You made me cry.' I'm proud of that. If I can touch some response in people, and maybe open up something that they didn't even know they felt, that's a tremendous plus in being an actor."

WESTSIDER BOBBY SHORT Mr. New York to perform in Newport Jazz Festival

6-23-79

To some, he is New York City personified -- Bobby Short, the eternally youthful singer and pianist who has been packing in audiences at the Cafe Carlyle five nights a week for the past 11 years. Regarded as the foremost living interpreter of Cole Porter, Short has recorded eight alb.u.ms, published his autobiography, lectured on American music at Harvard and performed at the White House. His many television commercials have gained him national recognition in the last year or so, but he is proudest of the one he did for the "I Love A Clean New York" campaign, showing him sweeping the sidewalk with his customary savoir-faire.

Six months out of the year, he holds court at the Carlyle, a supper club at Lexington Avenue and 76th Street, where eager fans plunk down $10 for each one-hour set. Backed up by a ba.s.s player and a percussionist, the smooth, sophisticated Short sits behind the keyboard in a tuxedo, performing popular songs from the early 20th century to the present day.

Every word and every note comes out a finely polished jewel, leaving the audience with the impression that they have never heard the song before.

Four months out of the year, Short takes to the road, giving concerts from Los Angeles to Paris, often as soloist with major orchestras. The hottest and coldest months of the year -- January and August -- he sets aside for vacation, sometimes taking a house in the south of France, since he is well versed in the French language and is constantly seeking to expand his knowledge of gourmet cooking.

While in New York, he occupies a luxurious nine-room Westside apartment with 18-foot ceilings that formerly belonged to Leonard Bernstein. Here, in a vast living room with a complete wall of mirror, a fireplace and a virtual forest of green plants, I thank Short for the gla.s.s of wine that he offers me from a crystal decanter, and I begin our interview by asking about the show he's co-producing for the Newport Jazz Festival. t.i.tled A _Salute to Black Broadway, 1900-1945_, it will take place in Avery Fisher Hall at 8 p.m. on June 24, and is one of the highlights of the 26th annual jazz festival, which runs from June 22 to July 1.

"It's the chance to try my wings at something new," says the jovial musician, in a somewhat gravelly, high-pitched voice marked by flawless diction. "Also, it's a chance to inform. I suppose I'm a frustrated professor of sorts. This show is a way of stating that, in fact, there were blacks involved in productions on Broadway as far back as 1900 -- perhaps even further back. Many were performers who wrote their own material. Others were composers and lyricists whose writing was not confined to black performers. Some of them wrote for the Ziegfeld Follies."

As co-producer with Robert Kimball, Short has been "researching material to find out what's good, what's bad, what's important, and also who's around today that was in those shows." Among the performers to be featured: famed jazz singer Mabel Mercer, a longtime friend of Short's; Adelaide Hall and Edith Wilson, two of black Broadway's original stars; Nell Carter, the Tony Award-winning star of Fats Waller's _Ain't Misbehavin'_; Eubie Blake, still an active pianist in his 90s, whose currently running _Eubie!_ is the fourth Broadway show he has written; special guest artist Diahann Carroll; and the d.i.c.k Hyman Orchestra. Of course Bobby Short will be on stage too; he'll do at least five songs out of his repertoire of 1,000-plus.

Slender, debonair, and looking more like 40 than his actual 54 years, Short has been playing and singing in public ever since he made his debut at the age of 9 while growing up in Danville, Illinois. From the age of 12 to 14 he was a child star on the vaudeville and nightclub circuit. Then he returned to Danville, completed high school at 17, and began his second career. Producer/songwriter Anna Sosenko got him a job at the Blue Angel in Manhattan; after that he worked in California and France before settling permanently in New York in 1956.

A perennial name on the best-dressed list, Short says that "today I've got a tailor in New York, a tailor in London, and I buy a lot of things in between. But I've grown more sensible over the years. I no longer buy all I can get my hands on."

His secret for staying young? "Be sensible. If you use the most intimate parts of your body to make a living -- like your throat -- you can't abuse it. You can't drink too much, and you simply cannot smoke." Extremely knowledgeable about restaurants, he lists the Russian Tea Room and Pearl's Chinese Restaurant as his favorites.

His "Charlie" commercial for a cologne by Revlon has made Short one of the most recognized figures on the streets of New York, yet he doesn't mind being approached by strangers. "It's part of what I do for a living,"

he muses with a smile. "It never stops. You have to learn to live with it or get out of show business. Fortunately, I'm a very social person and I like people. I understand the need to say h.e.l.lo to someone on the street -- so I can't knock somebody for speaking to me."

WESTSIDER BEVERLY SILLS Opera superstar

9-30-78

Probably no opera singer since Caruso has made so great an impact on the American public as Beverly Sills. Even today, the mention of her name can automatically sell out a concert hall anywhere in the U.S. She has become bigger than her art, for while a few younger singers can reach the notes more easily, Sills generates a certain intense excitement into all her roles that makes every show she appears in not just an opera, but an event.

Her star vehicle this fall is an early 19th-century opera, _Il Turco In Italia_ (The Turk in Italy), written by Gioacchino Rossini prior to his masterpiece, _The Barber of Seville_.

_Il Turco_, presented by the New York City Opera for eight performances in September through November, is a subtle comedy about a flirtatious, Sophia Loren-type character (Sills) with a jealous husband. The audience will miss none of the Italian humor because this production of _Il Turco_ is in English.

"I love to do English translations," said Miss Sills last week in a telephone interview. "I believe the whole art of opera is based on communication.

I don't see how people can appreciate a comedy in a language that four fifths of the audience doesn't understand. There's only sn.o.bbery about foreign languages in this country -- not in Europe. In America, an opera is like a museum piece. But I think the great cla.s.sics like _Boheme_ and _Traviata_ don't need to be translated because everyone knows what they're about."

She performs regularly with the New York City Opera even though the State Theatre-based company is able to pay only a tiny fraction of what singers receive at other great opera houses around the world. "I made my career with them," she explained. "I sing there because of loyalty, and because I love to." She has already made plans to retire from singing in 1980 and to become codirector of the New York City Opera with Julius Rudel, the present director.

Right now she is busy studying three other roles. On December 7 she will headline the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Donizetti's _Don Pasquale_, which will run until January 20. In March she will star in a world premiere for the New York City Opera, _Miss Haversham's Fire_, based on the Charles d.i.c.kens novel _Great Expectations_. In June she will go to San Diego to perform in yet another world-premiere opera, _Juana La Loca_ by Gian Carlo Menotti.

Last season, Beverly hosted a popular television program called _Lifestyles_. This year, she said, "I'm doing something much bigger, as a result of that show's success. Unfortunately, I can't tell you what it is, because CBS will be making an announcement in mid-October."

Miss Sills said she has no plans for another book. Her first, the self portrait _Bubbles_, has sold 130,000 copies in hardcover and many times that figure in paperback since it came out a year ago. "Bubbles" was her childhood nickname. She was born Belle Silverman in Brooklyn a few months before the stock market crash of 1929. At 3 she did her first radio broadcast; at 7 she was the star of a regular weekly radio show. In her early teens she joined a touring musical company and spent the next 10 years on the road. Then she was accepted by the New York City Opera.

In her first few seasons with the fledgling company, she showed few signs of the fame that was to come. Meanwhile, she and her husband, newspaper publisher Peter Greenough, had become the happy parents of two, a girl named Meredith (m.u.f.fy) and a boy, Peter Junior.

Then the heartbreak struck. When m.u.f.fy was 2, it was discovered that she suffered from a serious hearing impairment. A few months later, the couple learned that their son was severely mentally r.e.t.a.r.ded.

For the next year and a half, Beverly abandoned her singing career and spent all her time at home. When she returned to the New York City Opera, people noticed a distinct change. Somehow she seemed to have acquired a new dramatic power. In such roles as Cleopatra in Handel's _Julius Caesar_ she dazzled both critics and public, and has done so ever since. In 1969, when she made her debut at La Scala in Milan -- Europe's foremost opera house -- the Italian press labeled her "La Fenomena."

Because of a long-standing disagreement with Rudolph Bing, the managing director of the Metropolitan Opera, it was not until 1975, after Bing's retirement, that she made her debut at the Met. The occasion caused the largest advance ticket sale in the company's history.

For the pat eight years, Sills and her family have lived on Central Park West. "I just feel that we get all the suns.h.i.+ne here," she said. m.u.f.fy has just started her freshman year at college in upstate New York and plans to become a veterinarian. Beverly's husband Peter divides his time among various business projects and the National Foundation for the March of Dimes.

Her advice for young singers trying to break into opera? "Keep auditioning," Beverly replied emphatically, "no matter how many times you're turned down. I tried out for the New York City Opera nine times before they took me. And auditions themselves are valuable: they give you the experience of a performance."

GEORGE SINGER 46 years a doorman on the West Side

12-20-77

It's a wet, stormy night on the West Side; rain is pelting down without mercy, and the wind is whipping along the edge of the park like a tornado in a canyon. A taxi pulls up in front of the Century Building at 25 Central Park West, and at the same moment a man in uniform emerges from the building holding an umbrella to escort the woman pa.s.senger to safety.

Anyone watching the scene would hardly guess that the doorman is 75 years old. But his age is not the only remarkable thing about George Singer.

During his 46 years at the Century -- longer than any other employee or tenant -- George has seen the entire history of the city reflected in the people who have come and gone through the entrance. He has gotten to know world-famous celebrities who have lived in the building, and has met countless others who came to visit -- from prizefighters to presidents.

He has watched the enormous changes of fas.h.i.+on, custom and law. And from the start of the Great Depression to the beginning of the Koch administration, George has remained the same calm, good-natured observer, seeing all but criticizing no one.

"I've been here since this was a hole in the ground," he says matter-of factly, puffing on a cigar in the outer lobby of the building, keeping one eye on the door. "It all started in 1930, when they tore down the old Century Theatre to put up a luxury apartment building. I got a job as a plumber's helper, lugging big pipes across the ground. After it was finished in 1931, I went to the superintendent and told him I helped build the Century and asked for a job. I simply had to get work, because it was during the Depression and I had my wife and two kids. ... I started as an elevator man and I worked up to the front door within a year."

In 1929 George had been earning $125 a week in a hat factory; in 1931 his wages were $75 a month for a 72-hour work week. "Our suits had to be pressed, our hair combed, shoes s.h.i.+ned. We had to wear a white bow tie, white gloves. ... If you looked cross-eyed at a tenant and he reported you to the office you were fired in those days."

During the 1930s, only about one-fourth of the apartments were rented.

Among the residents was a Mrs. Gershwin; her sons George, Ira and Arthur made frequent visits. By the early 1940s the Century Building had become one of the most exclusive addresses in New York. Heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey, Ethel Merman, Nannette Fabray, Mike Todd and theatre magnate Lee Schubert moved in during those years, along with many celebrities whose names are less familiar today -- singer Belle Baker, sports announcers Ted Husing and Graham McNamee, and world champion welterweight boxer Barney Ross.