PATRICIA NEAL AND LUCY

Remembering Patricia Neal on the day of her death, August 8, 2010.

The only time I met her was at the opening of The Rink on Broadway. I escorted Lucy who hated going to opening nights almost as much as she hated getting out of her jogging suit and leaving her beloved backgammon table. But Liza had called Lucy in New York and begged her to come:

"Oh, mama, mama, you've just got to be there, please mama I need you there, oh please". "Why the hell do they all call me mama", Lucy lamented after she got off the phone, but begrudgingly she went, and looked like a million bucks that night. Anyway, the opening night audience was appropriately star studded ( I was the only one there I never heard of) and Patricia Neal happened to be sitting to my left, and Lucy to my right. Icon heaven I was in. They were holding the curtain unusually long even by opening night standards, and the rumor had it that Michael Jackson was on his way to see his pal Liza, but his hair had caught on fire earlier that day while filming a Pepsi Commerical. "How the hell long does it take them to put out his head", Lucy commented in hardly a stage whisper. I could care less; I was chatting up Patricia Neal all the while fantasizing about her having sex with Gary Cooper. To add insult to injury, every once in a while I would turn to Lucy to tell her how excited I was to be sitting next to a real star! "What the hell do I look like?" You know what I mean, Lucy, a movie star. You did a TV sitcom...A long time ago. "You little shit". We had a great time that night, we did.