Since Sardi’s Restaurant
is our favorite place on Earth
to eat,
drink &
be merry in,
I placed a phone call
to one of his dearest friends:
Max Klimavicius,
the owner of Sardi’s.
Max and Doug have this thing going on…
Max was a student of Doug’s and I figure he must have really been fond of him, since he drove from Manhattan to Armonk, to take lessons & play golf with him.
After a few minutes of catching up, I unloaded my stupid idea on him. “I want to have my husband immortalized.
No, I don’t want him to live forever…
for ten minutes.”
I think I stunned him a little,
but he bounced right back.
In the history of Sardi’s, Doug is the only person who:
3. Never sat for the artist, Richard Baratz, for the
actual creation of the caricature.
actual creation of the caricature.
Max and I worked feverishly to provide all of the photos that I could dig up, that Mr. Baratz could compile into some semblance of Doug’s actual likeness.
He would fax me drafts,
I’d scream in horror & we'd go back to the
literal drawing board, from there.
Mr. Baratz took our wedding picture,
cropped me out
& put a Ben Hogan visor on his head.
His beautiful tuxedo became a white
Fairway & Greene golf shirt
and history was complete.
As June 3 was approaching,
the birthday boy’s big day,
His parents would journey up from
Shelter Island
to be with their second-born male, on the day he was produced. We would have dinner at the restaurant and then go see a Broadway show.
I made all of the plans for the evening, but could not secure the tickets to the show we wanted to see. Max was kind enough to make a call and took care of the arrangements.
The morning of his birthday, as he’s
leaving for work, my beloved reviews the plan that we HE decided on:
“My folks will arrive around 1:00 p.m.
I’ll be home by 3:30 p.m.
We leave at 3:31 p.m. Got it?”
Check.
Whatever you say, M’Lord…
Well, his folks arrived ON THE DOT.
We walked out of our front door,
at precisely 3:31 p.m. & 7 seconds.
The minute we slammed
all four car doors,
all Hell broke loose.
You have to know & love Doug, to appreciate his good points, as well as his idiosyncrasies…
...which are sure to get him killed by me,
one of these days.
He has the patience of a…a.uh....
Nope. There’s just no word that exists, that’s appropriate to insert.
He is the most impatient person in the world.
If traffic should arise on his path to a final destination, you should just politely
ask to be let out of the car &
figure out another way to get there.
ask to be let out of the car &
figure out another way to get there.
Or you’re going to jail.
Jus’ Sayin…..
He is the kindest, most wonderful man in the world...but, when he loses his cool...
I want to stick a fork in his forehead.
I’ll still love him forever…
that has nothing to do with it.
Doug’s succinct plan of leaving at 3:31 p.m.
was to get us down to Sardi’s, sipping martinis
by 5:00 p.m., the very latest. Relax with a cocktail or two,
in the Club Bar, on the second floor...
(it's simply sublime....)
When Monty Python's SPAMALOT was on Broadway, it was directly across from Sardi's,
at the Schubert Theatre.
There was NOTHING like the experience of having a cocktail in hand, staring at a
large, white Killer Rabbit,
from that perspective.
in the Club Bar, on the second floor...
(it's simply sublime....)
When Monty Python's SPAMALOT was on Broadway, it was directly across from Sardi's,
at the Schubert Theatre.
There was NOTHING like the experience of having a cocktail in hand, staring at a
large, white Killer Rabbit,
from that perspective.
...then on to a nice,
leisurely "pre-theatre"dinner,
leisurely "pre-theatre"dinner,
downstairs in the main dining room…
...grab a taxi to the theatre for
an 8:00 p.m. curtain...
Piece of cake.
Yeah, right.
At 5:00 p.m.,
my husband is ripping his hair out,
because at approximately 3:32 p.m., the sky opened wide while we were on the
Taconic State Parkway,
rendering any of the somewhat decent drivers
on the road, into blithering morons.
Hell, we haven’t even entered Manhattan
‘proper’ yet….
We’re sitting behind some Schmoe whose EZ Pass is not functioning properly, at the Henry Hudson toll booth.
‘proper’ yet….
We’re sitting behind some Schmoe whose EZ Pass is not functioning properly, at the Henry Hudson toll booth.
It didn’t’ really matter much, as the car in front of the Schmoe wasn’t making much progress, anyway.
Doug’s father is sitting in
my normal co-pilot’s seat,
trying to gently coax his son
off the interior roof of the Chrysler.
“Dougie…relax. There’s nothing you can do about the traffic…we’ll get there.”
Nope. Useless. My father-in-law had possession of his son in a house in Mineola,
long enough to know
when to call a subject quits.
After three thousand years
in the car with Doug...
...we finally pull up in front of Sardi’s.
He let his parents and me out,
to go occupy our lonely, unoccupied table
to go occupy our lonely, unoccupied table
while he parked the car, across the street.
He comes in, fifteen minutes later,
all beaten up by the rain
& the congestion from the sea of umbrellas on the streets of Manhattan.
He’s a happy camper.
Then Max reminds me of something that
I never heard him say in the first place:
We have to physically pick
the tickets up at
‘Will-Call’.
The kicker to this stupid story is that they have to be gotten from Will-Call by a certain time or they go to ‘Will-Sell’….Oh no…
Doug drags himself up from the table,
goes to the coat-check to retrieve his
Titleist, thirty-five-person-capacity golf umbrella
& heads back out onto the angry,
wet streets of Manhattan.
At the Will-Call window of the theatre, he produces himself, along with proof that he is, indeed, the psycho that appears in the picture
of his I.D.
(don’t know if they even checked it.)
They say, “That will be $450.”
“Whhhhhhhaaaaa,” he later told me, was all he could manage to get out of his mouth.
Apparently, his time-constrained stupid wife, failed to mention to him that the tickets had to be paid for, prior to leaving the theatre with them in hand.
He said that as he went for his wallet,
credit card with him.
Oh, God. This is going to be ugly for me.
Luckily for my continued survival,
he found his AMEX...
secured the tickets...
& ran all the way back to Sardi’s,
in the pouring rain.
He comes back and finds us with damn-near empty drinks in our hands, sitting at our table:
Dead-Center...Front of the House,
with Susan Lucci &
her husband, Helmut Huber,
her husband, Helmut Huber,
sitting to our immediate right.
On the main wall, staring back at the precise location of where Doug has been specifically seated, is his framed caricature, awaiting his eye.
Well, Helen F'ing Keller
would have found it faster.
He looked EVERYWHERE,
except where he should have.
The poor birthday boy was so agitated, from
The Plan
bursting into flames
on the West Side Highway,
that we made certainly certain that the perfect martini, perfectly chilled, would be awaiting his annoyed lips.
We just couldn’t say anything…
he had to find the drawing himself.
But what a pain in the ass he was.
His parents agreed.
He’s bitching up a storm, about the disaster of getting here...
in the monsoon,
to go get the tickets.
His father is giving it his all,
looking the walls up & down.
“Boy, can you believe how many caricatures
there are in Sardi’s?”
there are in Sardi’s?”
THERE'S NO reaction from Doug, except
for the steam coming out of his head.
Dad takes a bigger gulp of his cocktail &
gives it another go. God Bless his tenacious soul...
“Wow...I've never noticed
Christopher Walken's picture, before tonight!
(Our 'acting-major' Son does a major kick-ass
take on Walken, so this was big...)
Poor Christopher Walken
happened to be...unfortunately for him,
happened to be...unfortunately for him,
temporarily located
next to the aggravated,
only non-Equity member, ever on the wall.
STILL, NOTHING.
Doug is not even lifting his eyes off of
his martini glass,
when his father finally, desperately throws out:
“DOUG, who the hell is that on the wall????”
Doug looks up, completely annoyed that he has to deal with one more iota of data input on this magical birthday of his &
suddenly bursts out laughing.
After a good 15 seconds, Max removed my beloved husband from the Wall of Fame,
placed Doug, in Doug’s hands &
kissed him on the cheek.
I drank the rest of my dinner.
His next birthday?
He got an f’ing tie.
He got an f’ing tie.
Be Sure To Tell Max & Sean...
....Susan & Doug sent you…..
In the heart of New York's Theater District, Sardi's has been the toast of
Broadway for 90 years. Located at 234 West 44th Street, the restaurant is open Tuesday through Sunday for lunch and dinner. Late supper is served from Tuesday through Saturday.
telephone 212.221.8440
212.302.0865 fax
I Will Always
Love My Lucy!
When I Was A Naughty Little Girl,
"Losing Lucy"
Was My Punishment….
& That Was 20 Years, After Her Debut!
~SusiTheJ~
