Frank DiLella, TV’s NY1 hotshot, does news, views, schmooze and Broadway interviews.
Theater seats are small, jammed together, if somebody behind you sneezes, it travels all the way to Greenpoint. Rearranging seats may take until I allow my gray roots to actually show before theater owners figure this out. How will this work?
Frank: “They’ll advertise, but to rearrange plans they can’t open yet. There’s singers close together, dancers on top of one another, backstage techies, orchestras. In Australia, theatergoers are wearing masks.”
What about the theater’s new social justice movement?
“Actors stand with their brothers. All equal for everyone whether you’re black, Latino, gay, etc.
“It’s not all glamour backstage. During Hurricane Katrina, everyone focused on the death toll, but Liza Minnelli kept saying, ‘What about kitty-cats. We have to help the kitty-cats.’ Asking me to her apartment for more interviewing, she said to bring my camera, lights, all the gear so I could tape her. I showed up. On time. Lugging all the equipment. She wasn’t even there.
“And Elaine Stritch? In curlers, wearing stockings, no pants, not dressed, she said: ‘My costume’s not ready. I can’t remember my lyrics. People think show business is glamorous. It’s not.’”
For DiLella, the stage is his life. He saw his first show at age 6. “Phantom of the Opera.”
A theatergoer recently told me: “I remember seeing ‘Phantom.’ So thrilled I couldn’t stand it. And then, across my shoes, a mouse skittered. I screamed. Our whole row lifted their feet up. Wow, do I remember seeing ‘Phantom of the Opera.’”
That performance little Mickey was the Phantom.
Saved from maize maze
We just lost Pulitzer Prize winner Lucinda Franks. A memory: She and husband Robert Morgenthau, NYC’s former DA, had this enormous farm in East Fishkill, NY. The flowers, crops, bushes, trees, vegetable gardens, animal pastures, huge property included a gigantic cornfield. It was a maze. They said I needed a map. I said, “I know my way.” They said I needed a guide. I said, “I know directions.” They said I needed a compass. I said, “Please, I can get through corn ears.”
As the sun dimmed, I panicked. I’d been around, up, down, left, right. No way to exit this endless maze — where the corn was as high as an elephant’s eye — and I was totally hidden. My screaming eventually led to rescue.
She saved me — but we’ve lost her.
Another TV Abbey
Big-selling novel “Loch Down Abbey” is becoming a Brit TV series. “Downton Abbey”-ish, it’s set in 1930s Scotland in wherever’s Inverkillen and where some disease that’s not today’s pandemic is raging.
It’s for a small screen and about a haute class English family, the kind whose pinkies stick out when balancing a cuppa. There’s a murdered lord. A housekeeper who knows something. Everyone’s in lockdown. The murderer’s inside. We’re talking hisses, secrets, murmurs, whispers, stares. Already a sequel’s being written.
Original sins
In playing cards, each king represents a historic ruler: Spades, King David; Clubs, Alexander the Great; Hearts, Charlemagne; Diamonds, Julius Caesar … In Shakespeare’s time, mattresses were tied on. Ropes tightened made the bed firmer. Thus the phrase “good night, sleep tight.”
Babylon 4,000 years ago. The bride’s father gave new son-in-law mead, a honey beer. The calendar being lunar based, it was the Honey Month — a k a the honeymoon … Old England’s pub ale was in pints and quarts. The barkeep told unruly customers: “Settle down. Mind your pints and quarts.” It begat “mind your P’s and Q’s.” And cup handles had whistles. For a refill, they’d whistle. It begat “Wet your whistle.”
USA’s great. Citizens buy mutual funds with unemployment checks.
And not only in New York, kids, not only in New York.
