A Voice, and Words, to Remember

My father, the actor Lionel Stander, would have been 109 years old yesterday. Though he died in 1994, his indelible presence and words live on.

In mid-October I was contacted by Scott Dawson, who was going to play my dad in a staged reading of the Eric Bentley play, "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?" in Ithaca on November 6. Mr. Dawson wrote in an email, "The timing of the reading is especially important, given the political climate we find ourselves in. I am honored to have been cast to read Lionel’s testimony before HUAC, and as such have been trying to learn as much as I can about him."

Along with photos of Dad testifying at HUAC in 1953, I sent Scott these tips on how to play him: "Beyond the voice, there was my father’s larger-than-life presence. He never just walked into a room, he ENTERED it. Leading with his massive chest, he strode in and OWNED that room, and was the center of attention. Always. (Note his entrance in 'A Star Is Born.')" [Complete movie is here; Dad's first scene is at 44:43.]























I was disappointed that travel plans precluded my attending the reading; according to Mr. Dawson it went very well. Two days later (on my birthday...ugh), Donald Trump was elected president. Now some of my father's words ring out more loudly than ever.

 From his 1953 HUAC testimony:

"I know of a group of fanatics who are desperately trying to undermine the Constitution of the United States by depriving artists and others of life, liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness without due process of law ... I can tell names and cite instances and I am one of the first victims of it. And if you are interested in that and also a group of ex-fascists and America-Firsters and anti-Semites, people who hate everybody including Negroes, minority groups and most likely themselves ... and these people are engaged in a conspiracy outside all the legal processes to undermine the very fundamental American concepts upon which our entire system of democracy exists."

From a 1993 interview in the book TENDER COMRADES: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist by Patrick McGilligan & Paul Buhle:

"Right-wingers, unfortunately, are never in the closet. They're all out night and day campaigning, making noise, joining moral majorities and moral rearmaments. They're actually an immoral minority, but they're always out there. The left should only be so active."

Mike Kellin, who played my father in a 1979 production of Are You Now or Have You Ever Been? (with Liza Minnelli in a cameo as Lillian Hellman), nailed his voice and mannerisms. However, the costume, coif and beard (!) were all wrong. I went to a performance; Dad was horrified when I told him his character wore a garish plaid sports jacket. The lengthy scene, which starts at 1:12:19, is electric, funny and ominous.

Who's the Goat?

After more than a year of silence, I thought my father's 106th birthday would be a good day to start posting to this blog again. Especially since I acquired this photo yesterday. 

One would think that the headline for the caption that ran with the above photo would be something like "Oh, You Kids!" But one would be very wrong. Here's what's on the other side, date stamped Aug 6 1940:

MOVIE COMEDIANS CAN'T STAY MARRIED

LIONEL STANDER divorced Mrs. Lucy Stander in 1936. He charged she was hostile and belligerent and would call  him names in the presence of their friends. She also told him, according to his complaint, that she was tired of him and regarded her marriage as a handicap. The Standers  had been married eight years.
(Copyright 1939, Register and Tribune Syndicate Photoservice)

Why would such a story run four years after the divorce and some two years after my father had married again? Dad was still appearing on radio but his movie career had plummeted since 1938, when Columbia Pictures chief Harry Cohn called him a "Red sonofabitch" and said that any studio that renewed his contract should be fined $100,000. Consequently Dad was in just two pictures in 1940, down from eight in 1936. What an odd coincidence that just eight days after the above photo was stamped, "secret" testimony about him was leaked to the press in Los Angeles.

"HOLLYWOOD STARS ACCUSED AS REDS BEFORE GRAND JURY," trumpeted the New York Times on August 15. "The testimony identified the following as Communist members, sympathizers or contributors: Lionel Stander, actor; Jean Muir, actress... The witness who gave the Hollywood names was John R. Leech, alleged former 'chief functionary' for the Communist party in Los Angeles... Mr. Stander, himself, in recent appearances before the grand jury denied he ever knew Mr. Leech or was a member of the party."

Yahrzeit - Ahead & Behind theTimes

My father died 17 years ago today. November 30 is also Mark Twain's birthday. I imagine Dad would have liked to be linked to Twain, however tenuously. Funny... I just now remembered that I read THE INNOCENTS ABROAD the one time I visited Dad at his home in L.A.

In his early years in Hollywood, Dad lent his voice to various progressive causes, which got him branded as "a Red sonofabitch" (allegedly by Columbia Pictures honcho Harry Cohn), then tailed for decades by the FBI. The sign proclaiming "SCHOLARSHIPS NOT BATTLESHIPS" in this photo from 1937 (below) would have been perfect for an anti-Vietnam War demonstration--or an Occupy rally now. Alas, Dad and the other peaceniks were proved wrong four years later, when battleships became vastly more necessary.

PEACE "STRIKE" OFF CAMPUS AT U.C.L.A.

Westwood, Calif.--More than 1000 students of the University of California at Los Angeles walked off the campus in a peace strike as part of a nation-wide demonstration called by the United Student Peace Committee. --PHOTO SHOWS-- Lionel Stander, cinema actor, as he addressed the crowd of strikers, while standing on a truck parked near the campus. 4-22-37

Another Piece of History

My latest acquisition (above) is an AP Wirephoto of my father from 1953. Caption:

NEW YORK, May 6--Rep. Harold Velde, left, (R-Ill. chairman of the House Unamerican Activities Committee, points a warning finger at witness Lionel Stander, seated at right, during the actor's testimony here today. Stander refused to tell the committee at an open hearing whether he had ever been a Communist. He said he was not now a Communist, but refused to say whether he was a party member between 1935 and 1948. Rep. Morgan M. Moulder (D-Mo.) sits beside Velde.

That appears to be the infamous Roy Cohn standing in the back at left.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Lionel Stander (center) in "The Big Show-Off"

My father would have been 103 years old today (the simplest date of all: 1/11/11). My latest acquisition of Lionel Stander memorabilia is a publicity still from The Big Show-Off, released in January 1945. I haven't seen it, but per the synopsis it seems to be a typical Republic Pictures "B" movie. Its one claim to fame is that it stars Dale Evans just before she hitched up with Roy Rogers.

I visited my mom and stepfather in Maine two weeks ago. While I was doing my morning stretches, I suddenly noticed a book, which I'm sure had been on the same shelf for 20 years: BUILDING A CHARACTER.

"Huh," I thought. "This might be useful in writing fiction." (I've been working on The Great American Potboiler, in fits and starts, for several years.)

I pulled the book down, and saw that the author was Constantin Stanislavski, inventor of "The Method" espoused by Jacob & Stella Adler, and countless other of Dad's actor friends. I opened it and was surprised to see that it was from the New York Public Library's Bloomingdale Branch, on West 100th St.

Even more surprising, my father's temporary library card was in the pocket, with our old West End Avenue address and phone number--proof that he had indeed moved back in with Mom and me. The book was borrowed Dec 16, 1961, and due on Jan 26, 1962. The overdue fine is 5¢ "per calendar day." That's almost $900 by now, so this is a very valuable book.

I felt a mental connection with Dad when I started reading BUILDING A CHARACTER: this was a book that he went out of his way to read. The Dewey card is stuck between the first two pages of Chapter Four: "Making the Body Expressive." Did Dad get bored and stop there? That chapter is a bit of a slog. But he was such a voracious reader--often a book per day--and Stanislavski's work so important that I'd like to think he read all the way through.

As luck would have it, today I found a bit on YouTube from "The Danny Kaye Radio Show," in which Kaye hilariously explains the Stanislavski Method to my father, who was a regular on the show. What I miss most about Dad is his voice, which is like no other. (I've never heard a credible imitation. When I was little my mother took me to the doctor because my voice was hoarse. Turned out I was trying to speak like Daddy.) So it's wonderful to be able to hear him long after his death--and long before my birth. He gets a few lines to set up the bit, then it's all Danny Kaye. Listen:

Yahrzeit #16

Lionel Stander (1908-1994) in 1936.
Photo for Columbia Pictures by Irving L. Schaffert.

My father died 16 years ago today. Unaware of the date, yesterday I rearranged the Dad Wall in my dining area. More than two years after acquiring the above photo (part of a large lot) I read the caption on the back:

Eager to preserve his new furniture as long as possible, eccentric Lionel Stander, most popular of Hollywood comedians, selects this strange pose for purpose of relaxation and reading. Whether the book's more interesting read sidewise is a question only Stander can answer. His latest Columbia picture is "Cinderella Man," directed by Frank Capra and starring Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur. Lionel recently moved into a renovated farmhouse in the center of Hollywood, modernized for him by R. M. Schindler.

"Cinderella Man," retitled "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town," was named Best Picture of 1936 by the New York Film Critics and the National Board of Review. Capra won his second Oscar for directing and Cooper was nominated as Best Actor. My eldest half-sister was 3; my mother was 2.

The man who "modernized" Dad's house was noted architect Rudolph Michael Schindler, an associate of Frank Lloyd Wright and Richard Neutra. According to this list, in 1935 Schindler remodeled a house for "L. Stander, 2006 La Brea Terrace, Hollywood" and "Apartments for L. Stander, Los Angeles." Wish I knew the story behind those apartments.

The house takes a good satellite picture:
OMG, it recently sold for $3.75M! Here's the realtor's listing:

COVETED GATED LA BREA TERRACE PRIVATE COMPOUND
4 Bedrooms/4.0 Bathrooms/3,753 Sq. Ft/23,070 Sq. FT. Lot
Rarely are homes available in this private neighborhood. On over half an acre of private gardens is this fine home. Large LR w/ fplc, formal DR, kitchen with best appliances, play room, FR, library w/ fplc. Master with balcony, fplc, sitting area, bath with spa tub. Pecan floors throughout. Pool, outside fireplace, guest house with LR, kitchen, 1BD and 1BA and 2 separate garages for 4 cars. RECENTLY LISTED FOR $5,500,000, CURRENT PRICE MAKES THIS PROPERTY AN OUTSTANDING VALUE IN TODAYS MARKET.

Looks like an old farmhouse all right, but the windows were changed:

The interior doesn't look nearly as snazzy as in 1936:

Top of the Morning!

I thought I'd seen everything; then the above item showed up on eBay. Yes, that would be Lionel Stander as Max in "Hart to Hart" on a child's spinning top, made in Argentina. Bizarre, huh?

I'll pass (the image is enough for me), but you can bid on this precious objet here.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Bigmouth

My latest find is a perfectly preserved copy of the June 7, 1936, issue of newspaper supplement Screen & Radio Weekly. It contains a profile of my father, who at age 28 had recently appeared in his first feature film, "The Scoundrel." Apparently he was the same loud dresser and talker--and spendthrift ("Anyone who lives within his means suffers from a lack of imagination.")--in youth as he was in his later years.

I didn't scan the fuzzy photo that headed the article; the one just below is a 1936 publicity still from "More than a Secretary." However, the cartoon is within the same section of text as the print version.

Who IS That Guy?

The Name Is Lionel Stander and Here Is His Story, Which Should Answer a Lot of Fans’ Questions

By Barbara Barry

“Madam, what you think of my work is exquisitely unimportant.”

His voice has all the romantic timbre of a rip-saw howling its way through a stubborn pine knot. But, since his pioneer screen appearance, as the dogmatic poet in “The Scoundrel,” men, women and children have been nudging one another, pointing (in a manner that would certainly upset Emily Post) and demanding: “Who IS that man?”

Lionel Stander is the name, folks, and it’s almost as surprising as the Broadway hillbilly suit he was wearing the first time we caught up with him on a Columbia studio set.

Briefly, Stander was born on the wrong side of the New York tracks, which doesn’t bother him a bit. His first job was that of office boy in a window shade factory, and bothered him even less.

Without in the least appreciating the honor, he found himself shoved into college plays at the University of North Carolina, where he was striving to polish off the rough edges of a Bronx education. And one sip of the thespic nectar was enough to send him galloping for home, to hang around the casting offices until the breal reak came along.

“I played everything from thunder and lightning, off stage, to dead bodies falling out of secret panels,” he said. “One night, I landed on a carpet tack and they found out I had a voice.”

“Is that what you call it?” we wondered.

“And, in no time all,” he ignored us, “they handed me a part with one whole ‘side’!” Page, to you all.

That was the beginning of a colossal career. He met Ben Hecht, and Ben faithfully promised him a part in his new show, “The Great Magoo.”

But came the opening night, with Stander viewing the remains from a gallery seat. A lone, rugged individualist.

“It was a crushing blow to the Stander stamina,” he assured us. “But, when the show folded, seeral weeks later, I stowed my gloating in an old gloat bag that I usually carry in case of fire (shades of Joe Cook!) borrowed all the high-powered clothes I could find, and went down to sympathize with Ben.

“Ben was in his office, playing tick-tack-toe on the backs of his creditors’ statements, when I sauntered in, looking like a glorified chorus boy in my borrowed finery.”

With an ill-suppressed groan of anguish, Mr. Hecht looked at Mr. Stander. “What are you laid out for?” he asked. “A Mardi Gras? Why, I knew you when you were an unemployed actor, cooling your round heels in the lobby of the Billy Rose office.”

Mr. Stander looked right back at Mr. Hecht. “Yeah?” he said. “And I knew you ‘way back when you wrote ‘Erik Dorn’—and if you can sell out, why can’t I?”

So, on to “The Scoundrel,” and the eventual nudges, and pointing fingers. And Hollywood.

Stander is the wordiest guy we’ve ever met up with. Big words he uses, dragging hard on them and tingeing them with a quantity of smooth sarcasm We let them fall (those we missed, and they were plenty), feeling that the end must be along about here, somewhere. But no. On and on he talked. And when he’d used up every word in the dictionary, he made up more. Hand embroidered. Extravagantly hyperbolical. Whe-e-e!

After his success in “The Scoundrel,” Stander visited an old vaudeville pal who was living in a cheap hotel in one of the less imposing sections of New York.

Coming down in the elevator, well after midnight, he found himself the object of the elevator boy’s furtive scrutiny. It was pretty disconcerting, but Stander’s a big fellow and felt quite able to cope with any situation, either of brain or brawn.

Suddenly, the elevator slowed down between floors. The good looking though slightly dissipated lad turned to him.

“Your hair is like a tortured midnight,” he said earnestly, almost yearningly.

Stander gasped. His eyebrows flew up and disappeared [illlegible] the “tortured midnight.” That pugnacious lower lip slid out another inch.

“But as we slid down the two remaining floors, it suddenly dawned on me that the kid had merely quoted one of my lines in “'The Scoundrel.'”

“As he was on night duty, and I didn’t have anything particular to do, we got to talking. And, do you know, that small-time elevator operator turned out to be one of the most interesting and intelligent people I’ve ever met?”

It’s a small world, I guess. Or, is it?

Remember the rocky-throated menace that scared the daylights out of small children, on Fred Allen’s radio program several years ago? That was Stander.

He had written a script for radio purposes and peddled it practically all over New York before Allen got hold of it and liked it well enough to invite the author in for an interview.

“Mr. Stander?” Fred said politely.

“Right!” rasped Mr. Stander.

Allen blinked and bounced back in his chair. “Whew!” he exclaimed. “Say that again, will you?”

“Right!” grated the obliging Mr. Stander.

“That’s fine,” Allen smiled. “I wasn’t sure. I mean, that really did come out of you, didn’t it?”

So, the Allen Hour acquired a human buzz-saw and Stander liked the idea so well that he stayed with it for over two years.

“Then the cinema got me,” he said archly, “and here I am. Prostraing myself upon the glorified altar of Art and Frenzied Finance!”

We were off again, and it was way past tea time, too.

Stander is absolutely in favor of Hollywood. So much so that he has already built a home for his wife and two-year-old daughter, who, he says, “Seems to be perfectly normal in spite of her father.”

He draws an amazing salary for one who has been milking the Golden Cow for such a short time, and he would spend every bit of it if it weren’t for his manager, who sees to it that the Stander income is wisely invested.

“I’m on the dole,” he grimaced. “The guy knows me better than I know myself, so all I get is a weekly allowance. And, when that’s gone, I either have to hibernate or pan-handle until next week’s check comes around.

“I need a wet nurse,” he went on, “and it’s comforting to know that I won’t be mowing lawns at the poor house a few years from now when Hollywood gets tired of me.”

But Hollywood doesn’t tire easily of such unique personalities. In fact, the entire populace (with the exception of Uncle Herman, who is laid up with laryngitis, right now) is actually howling for “more Stander.” So, you’re safe for a while, methinks.

Who is that man? Ask no more, kiddies.

He’s a double G man (gerund and genitive); a new Gabriel over ennuied Hollywood. Or something.

At the Cinema with Dad & Me

UK film magazine The Big Picture has an article about my father, Lionel Stander (above in "The Loved One"):

The Horror of the Hollywood blacklist changed not only American film, but also American society forever.

Jez Connolly of The Big Picture also did an online interview with me: First Person

In Cheery Siberia (aka Denver, CO)

An arctic blast hit Denver over the weekend. It snowed yet again last night--snowfall #9 since October 8, for those keeping score. When I got up this morning it was 3°F outside. The thermometer outside my dining room window registered a sultry 20° a little after noon. When last I looked it was 10°.

Sunday night I watched Silk Stockings, with songs by Cole Porter, starring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. (Fun fact: costar Janis Paige was married to my father's double-cousin Arthur, whose parents were Dad's paternal aunt and a Stander cousin.)

And what song could be more appropriate to the frigid weather than "Siberia," sung by Joseph Buloff, Jules Munshin & Peter Lorre:

When we’re sent to dear Siberia,
To Siberi-eri-a,
When it’s cocktail time ’twill be so nice
Just to know you’ll not have to phone for ice.

When we meet in sweet Siberia,
Far from Bolshevik hysteria,
We’ll go on a tear,
For our buddies all are there
In cheery Siberi-a.

When we’re sent to dear Siberia,
To Siberi-eri-a,
There’s a most delicious bill of fare,
You must try our filet of polar bear.

When we meet in sweet Siberia
To protect us from diphtheria,
We can toast our toes
On the lady Eskimos
In cheery Siberi-a.

When we’re sent to dear Siberia,
To Siberi-eri-a,
Where the fresh salt air makes us feel so fine,
It is fresh salt air from our own salt mine.

When we meet in sweet Siberia,
Where the snow is so superia
You can bet, all right
That your Christmas will be white
In cheery Siberi-a.

Here's the number (stop at 2:31):

Yahrzeit #15...and A Day In Court

Lionel Stander (l) in a 1961 production of The Policemen, directed by Leonidas Dudarew-Ossetynski.

My father died of cancer 15 years ago today. We were a continent apart then--he in L.A. and me in Maine. There were times when he went years without seeing, or even speaking, to me. But now he's a constant presence in my life, due to the dozens of photographs on the walls of the "Dad Gallery" in the upstairs hallway. I see him when I first wake up in the morning and just before I go to bed at night, which rarely happened during my childhood.

The newest additions to my ever-growing collection of Lionel Stander images came via email a few weeks ago. Early this year a woman in California named Valerie Hunken found me via Google. She was going through the possessions of her late father, the actor and stage director Leonidas Dudarew-Ossetynski. Among them were some stills from a 1961 Off-Broadway production of The Policeman, with my father. Would I be interested in those photographs?

Of course I would, I wrote her. I hadn't known anything about The Policemen or Dudarew-Ossetynski. (I learned from Google that he was born an aristocrat in Wilno, Poland--now Vilnius, Lithuania.) The only shows I recalled Dad being in the early 1960s were The Conquering Hero (memorable because Tom Poston held a puppy that peed on his hand during a rehearsal in Philadelphia), Brecht's Arturo Ui and Luther. The latter two were directed by Tony Richardson, who went on to cast my father as Pierpont Mauler in a London production of Brecht's St. Joan of the Stockyards, then broke the Hollywood Blacklist by putting him in the The Loved One (still one of my all-time favorite movies).

Months went by and I forgot about Hunken. Then out of the blue the photographs arrived on November 12th, four days after my birthday. And who else should be in some of the photos than Jack Gilford, whom I first knew as the nice man in the Cracker Jack commericals. (I still remember the lyrics!) He was also blacklisted, though not as long as my dad if he was doing commercials when I was very young.

Rehearsal of The Policemen. Director Leonidas Dudarew-Ossetynski is atop table, Lionel Stander is seated at center, Jack Gilford is standing at far right.

Speaking of the Hollywood Blacklist, along with 31 others I signed on to a Brief of Amici Curiae of Victims of the McCarthy Era in the U.S. Supreme Court case, Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project. I received a PDF of the brief today from the attorneys. It argues that the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA):

threatens once again unconstitutionally to interfere with the rights of free speech and association. AEDPA's vague ban on 'assistance' and 'advice' is essentially no different from the McCarthy Era attempt to root out association with and advocacy for groups unpopular with the government.

One of the key lessons from this era is that when the federal government fans the flames of public passion by enacting overreaching criminal statutes, staging congressional hearings, and investigating the loyalty of millions of American citizens, it implicitly condones and sanctions retributions against individuals, such as Amici. Eventually, our society and this Court understood that these consequences were uncceptable. We should not make these mistakes again.

To my surprise and amazement, Dad and I are mentioned in the brief proper, which all nine Supreme Court Justices (or at least their clerks) will have to read. How cool is that?

In the Appendix, the List of Amici Curiae has biographical notes. Here's mine, drafted by the attorney and amended by yrs truly:

Bella Stander is the daughter of the late Lionel Stander, a film, stage, television and radio actor who was active in many progressive social and political causes. Stander was first subject to an early “blacklist” in the 1930s because of his active role in progressive trade unions and anti-Fascist organizations. Although he was publicly cleared of accusations of being a communist by the Los Angeles District Attorney in 1940, years later he was again accused of being one. He was subpoenaed to appear before HUAC in 1953, and as a result was blacklisted from radio, TV and Hollywood. Lionel Stander sparred vigorously with the Committee, defending his Constitutional rights and denouncing HUAC for trampling them, which made front-page news from coast to coast. Columnist Walter Winchell, who had supplied material on Stander to the FBI, then demanded that he be ousted from his role in the touring production of “Pal Joey.” J. Edgar Hoover wrote in his FBI file, which covers some 30 years: "Be certain Stander doesn't use FBI to regain respectability."

I didn't light a Yahrzeit candle tonight, but I think the above will burn a bit longer.

IN MY FATHER'S SHADOW: Orson Welles's Daughter Speaks

"Ignore your children and they will be obsessed with you for life."—Alain de Botton

From the moment I saw In My Father’s Shadow: A Daughter Remembers Orson Welles in the Algonquin Books fall catalog, I knew that I must read the book and speak to author Chris Welles Feder. As the daughter of actor Lionel Stander (a contemporary of Welles), I wanted to learn how Feder managed to survive with—and more often, without—a famous, larger-than-life father.

A few days before she took off for California to start her book tour, I reached Feder by phone in her New York City home. The voice that greeted me was so youthful, I found it hard to believe it was coming from a 71-year-old. I started off by asking why she wrote In My Father’s Shadow....

Read more at Wild River Review

Photo of Chris Welles Feder © Gregory Downer

A Blacklist is Born

From the New York Times, June 27, 1941:

My father, who belonged to Actors Equity and was a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild, in August 1940 was named as a Communist Party member in "closed" grand jury testimony that was leaked to the LA Times the next day.

From the New York Times, February 3, 1942:

In May 1953, in the middle of the roadshow run of "Pal Joey" (in which he was the Equity rep) Dad was called to testify before the Dies Committee in New York.

One Degree of Shock

"It's been a long time. How are you doing?" my old (actually young) osteopath in Charlottesville asked me at his office this morning. He hadn't seen me in more than three years.

"I'm alive," I said.

He chuckled. A few minutes later, after he'd looked over the many pages of reports detailing the injuries I suffered in May 2006 and the many surgeries since, he said, "You're lucky to be alive."

"Yes," I answered. "It's been bad, but at least I'm here."

A few minutes ago, I read the news that 45-year-old actress Natasha Richardson died today from an unspecified head injury suffered when she fell during a ski lesson on Monday. According to the Quebec ski resort's spokeswoman, quoted in the NYT, “It was a normal fall; she didn’t hit anyone or anything. She didn’t show any signs of injury. She was talking and she seemed all right.”

In early August of 2005, I was in London and went to the theater with my long-lost cousin Larry. I'd gotten tickets to see "The Home Place" with Tom Courtenay, who'd acted with my father in the mid-1960s. I'd bought the cheapest tickets, but through some fluke was upgraded to mezzanine seats.

There were very few people in the mezzanine, so Larry and I moved up to the first row, by the railing. A couple of minutes later, he nudged me and gestured to the section to our right.

"Who are they?" he whispered.

I looked over to see a very glamorous couple getting seated. He was tall and craggy-handsome, with light-brown hair. She was gorgeous: blonde, tan, impossibly thin and dressed in impossibly spotless white from head to toe. Very L.A., I thought.

"You can tell they didn't take public transportation to get here," I muttered. (Larry and I had arrived via Tube.)

Then I looked a little harder.

"Oh, my God," I said. "That's Natasha Richardson and Liam Neeson. Her father Tony directed my dad in 'St. Joan of the Stockyards' in this theatre--or one just like it--in 1964, and in 'The Loved One' in 1965."

"Wow," breathed Larry.

After the play, we went backstage to see Courtenay, whom I'd been in touch with beforehand. Who else should be there but Richardson and Neeson, so I had a little chat with her. When I approached, she looked grim, probably thinking I was a fan, but warmed up when I told her of our connection. We exchanged names and everyone shook hands all around, greatly impressing Larry.

I then had a little chat with Courtenay, especially admiring the kiddie-print pirate sheets on the twin bed in his dressing room. Then the three famous people got into waiting limousines, and Larry and I walked to the Palms of Goa restaurant, where we ate cheap (for London), spicy food and marveled at our brush with the stars.

And now today Natasha Richardson is dead from a seemingly minor head injury, and I'm alive after a major one that left me with a concussion, PTSD, broken facial bones and nerve damage. The "family statement" to the news media from Liam Neeson came via Hollywood publicist Alan Nierob, who announced my father's death nearly 15 years ago.

It's all too close for comfort. But at least I'm here.

Poor Old "Pal"

Lionel Stander as Ludlow Lowell in the 1952-53 revival of "Pal Joey." The photo is unmarked and I didn't identify it conclusively till recently. But I knew from the Sagittarius on his tie that Dad was acting (he was a Capricorn and dressed soberly--at least till the late 1960s). He met my mom while playing the show on the road after it closed on Broadway.

Last March I borrowed an old copy of the book Pal Joey from a friend in New York. I quoted some choice passages in Pal Joey: Still Wise After All These Years. Little did I know that a revival of the musical was in the works.

Well, the reviews are coming in and let's just say they're...unflattering. Ben Brantley's assessment in today's NY Times begins: "How did a racy little ditty about girl-chasing turn into a dirge?" Worse, he uses the T-word to describe the production:

The vultures of Broadway — those kindly creatures who perk up at the first scent of a turkey carcass — have been circling “Pal Joey”...

Ouch! Unless there's some major retooling, the vultures probably won't be circling more than a month or so.

Out of curiosity, I checked the Internet Broadway Database to see how long the revival ran in which my father appeared: 540 performances, from January 1952 till April 1953. Wow! And he got 4th billing. (Elaine Stritch, then in her 20s, is near the bottom.) Now Daniel Marcus, the guy playing Ludlow Lowell, is #11 in the cast list. Obviously the character has been downgraded; Brantley noted that the book had been rewritten. In marked contrast to Brantley, in 1952 the NYT's Brooks Atkinson pronounced the show a "brilliant production." (He lauded Stritch's "caricature of a tough columnist" and Dad's "unctuously ferocious gangster.") Another NYT reviewer termed it a "happy restoration." I'll bet the current company is wishing for praise like that.

In Memoriam

London 1968

I just realized that it's November 30, which means that my father died 14 years ago today. By coincidence, I was scouring the New York Times online archives for family information, prompted by a woman who recently got in touch with me, claiming kinship. As it turns out, we're technically not related (she's my 2nd cousin's 2nd cousin, and worked for his mother in NYC 50 years ago) but I consider her family all the same. Given how often the Standers married their cousins back in Latvia--and even in the UK & US--for all I know she and I could have some common blood.

One of my searches turned up a Sunday NYT magazine article from June 9, 1968: "How Revolution Came to Cannes" by Harvey Swados, about the 21st International Film Festival. It contains this wonderful passage:

But no matter how they got themselves up, the girls found it difficult to compete with the men. The male birds of paradise, preening themselves in flowered prints and ruffled cottons and silks, were simply more interesting. Unquestioningly the fashion king of the festival was Lionel Stander, the gravel-voiced movie comedian, in triumphant re-emergence from his years of obscurity after the era of the McCarthyite blacklist. The actor, who will surely never see 60 again, appeared in a succession of brilliant costumes. One evening, he surpassed himself in a blue and white brocaded Nehru suit, set off with freshly bleached hair, ruffles and Miles Standish pumps with giant silver buckles. He was rewarded by the greeting of a dazzled friend: "Lionel, you have never looked more beautiful!"

Few who admired the rejuvenated movie star were aware that among the girls whom he outshone was an extremely attractive, extremely mod girl with short-cropped blonde hair and a short-skirted white dress who was not a girl at all but a transvestite. It should give one pause when even a transvestite can be upstaged by a super-elegant male in full plumage.

Actually, my father had turned 60 five months previously. In late December of 1968, I stayed with him and his 20-something then-girlfriend at the Dorchester Hotel in London. I have vivid memories of his sumptuous, wildly colored threads and her micro-mini skirts. Also of the clove cigarettes they smoked, which I was terrified were marijuana.

He's wearing the pilgrim shoes in the picture at top, which is much the worse for having spent the intervening years in a billfold-size photo album. That's me, age 13, on the right. Can you believe I thought I was fat? (I wore those green jeans with a matching sweater to school just once, whereupon I was known for years as "the Jolly Green Giant.") On the left is my friend Tory, who lived near the Dorchester. Dad's suit was of pumpkin-colored velveteen, the shirt striped bright blue. He cut quite a figure on Carnaby Street. "Your old man's a real swingah!" he crowed.

Several years later, I asked his 20-something last wife what happened to all those marvelous clothes. I was particularly fond of an enormous black cape, with a scarlet lining if memory serves (below, with London g.f.).

"Oh," she said in her Dutch accent, "I got rid of them. He looked like a feg."

Hardly:

Rome 1969

Virtual--and Visual--Treasure Trove

The LIFE magazine photo archive, with millions of photos (some never published), is now online--and best of all, searchable--via Google. Start looking HERE.

I searched for "stander" and found pix of my father I'd never seen before. The one above is by famed photographer Gordon Parks, taken in May 1950 on the NYC set of St. Benny the Dip. Dad played one of a group of cons (a "dip" is a pickpocket) who disguise themselves as clergymen. He's flanked by Roland Young (misidentified in archive caption as Charles Ruggles; I sent Google a note) and singer Dick Haymes.

Interracial Reading 2

Look how diverse I am!

Inspired equally by Carleen Brice's new blog, White Readers Meet Black Authors, and Stephen Colbert, here I am with NO PLACE SAFE by Kim Reid and NATIVE SON by Richard Wright.

More props: I did the first print interview with Edward P. Jones for THE KNOWN WORLD.

Coincidentally, my father was involved in the 1941 Broadway production of "Native Son." According to Hazel Rowley's biography of Richard Wright:

For once, the Mercury Theatre had no trouble attracting funding. Not with the name of Orson Welles -- the biggest man in Hollywood -- attached to the play. Lionel Stander, a left-wing actor known for his fundraising skills, easily persuaded the Hollywood investor Bern Bernard* to produce fifty-five thousand dollars.

Not so coincidentally, Kim Reid is a consulting client and fellow member of the Denver Literary Ladies Luncheon, as is Carleen.

*the show's associate producer, per Internet Broadway Database

Out of the Vaults

Since today is the 8th and my birthday, here's a photo of my dad that I recently bought in a batch from a collector. Alas, there's no caption or date on the back. All I know is that it's one of a series of publicity stills taken by a professional photog.

Edit: Note the cigarette; he died of lung cancer.

Thursday Disaster!

Thanks to Google Alerts, I just found out that someone posted a tribute to my father on YouTube, "Character Actors: Lionel Stander," a mishmash of scenes from the 1976 disaster pic The Cassandra Crossing. Dad plays a Swiss (!) train conductor named Max (also his character name in "Once Upon a Time in the West" and "Hart to Hart," and maybe others), with no attempt made to disguise or explain his New York accent.

The movie, with a screenplay cowritten by Tom Mankiewicz, is so God-awful that it's comical; "Murder on the Orient Express" it ain't. Even more fun is to be had in spotting the all-star cast: Richard Harris and Sophia Loren as a crime-solving couple named Jonathan and Jennifer (more shades of "Hart to Hart," some episodes of which were directed and written by...Tom Mankiewicz), OJ Simpson, Ava Gardner, Martin Sheen, Lee Strasberg and Burt Lancaster.

Enjoy groaning:



Duh...I never thought to search YouTube for the Old Man. Turns out he has five pages of vidclips (a distressing number of which are from "Hart to Hart"). Here's one that's intentionally funny, the trailer for Polanski's "Cul-de-Sac":