Serving Celebrities: The Complete Collection (12 page)

Helping the Mick

W
hen I lived in New York City I was like a man caught behind enemy lines. Coming from Massachusetts, I couldn’t give up my allegiance to the Red Sox, Patriots and Celtics (It’s a sickness, like still loving the father who promises you a Harley and ends up sticking you with an old Schwinn every single year) so that I became a foil to every Yankee, Mets, Jets, Giants... and Lakers fan (No one rooted for the Knicks, even then). Most Yankee and Mets fans jumped lines so often it was easiest to consider most New Yorkers a fan of the team that was winning at the time. This was in the mid-eighties, so everyone was a Mets fan. Except for my friend, Rico -- he was one of the die-hards that rooted for the Yankees, even when the Yankees were no good.

Rico loved his Yankees, I suspected that he slept in pin-striped p.j.s. He knew every no-hitter in the bombers history, unlike most Yankee fans, who knew of the championships and pennant winners but still thought that Thurman Munson was the legal name of the dad on
The Munsters
. When the Sox played the Mets in 1986, Rico took the Israel position during the Iraq/Iran war -- he wasn’t rooting for anyone, he just hoped they would nuke each other into oblivion (Rico was the guy who said to me, “I can’t believe it, I’m going to see the Red Sox win the World Series in my lifetime,” as Ray Knight came to the plate -- I still hold him responsible for whole debacle). He was a good guy to be walking up Lexington Avenue with that day.

It was very windy, as we headed uptown to a friend’s apartment. When we got to Fifty-ninth Street, in front of Bloomingdale’s, we noticed three people searching the sidewalk. One of the men was older, in his fifties or sixties, with a young man and an attractive young woman. Rico slipped over to the young woman, who looked like a shampoo model as the wind blew her hair back. “What are you looking for?” asked Rico. The woman looked up at him and answered, “He lost a contact,” indicating the older man, searching the street. I looked over at the older man, as he lifted his head and the avenue wind shifted the hair out of his face -- that’s when I recognized Mickey Mantle.

I went over and helped Mickey look for his contact lens. While Rico kindly assisted the girl. Rico was a babe hound, sniffing out all the females in the immediate vicinity. “It blew that way,” Mick said, with still a trace of Oklahoma in his speech. Mick, myself and the younger guy searched the street looking for the tiny piece of glass. At one point Mickey reached down and I thought that he had found something (this was back when contacts were expensive) but turned out to be nothing. We searched quietly, everyone looking for a needle in a wind tunnel. Eventually, Mickey straightened up and said, “I guess it’s gone now.” He thanked us, and he and his friends continued off, west on Fifty-ninth.

Rico and I continued up Lexington. I looked over at Rico, figuring that he was in Yankee heaven -- having helped the Mick, one of the greatest Yankees ever. Finally, I had to ask, “Cool, huh?” He looked over at me and smiled, “Yeah...she was beautiful.” “What?” I thought. “Not the chick, “ I said, thinking that he was putting me on, “I mean Mick.” Rico shrugged, “All you Micks look the same to me.” “Not an Irish Mick -- Mickey Mantle.” Rico looked confused. “Mickey Mantle what?” he asked. I stopped, surprised, “You do realize that the old guy was Mickey Mantle, don’t ya?” Rico looked at me -- more confused. “What old guy?” he asked. “The old guy who lost his contact -- it was Mickey Mantle.”

“No way, man,” he exclaimed. “I didn’t even look at him...the babe was hot.” “That might have been Mick’s woman,” I added. We continued up the avenue, every once and a while Rico would shake his head and ask, “Are you sure that was Mickey Mantle?” I assured him that it was. “How would you know,” he asked, “You’re a Red Sox fan.” “I had his baseball card when I was a kid -- I loved that card.” “Wow, you really had a Mickey Mantle baseball card?” Rico asked. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I answered. “I bet you could sell that card for a hundred bucks,” Rico continued, ignoring my request not to talk about it.

“Do you still have it?” he asked, as we turned down Sixty-third Street, to Stephanie’s apartment. “No,” I mumbled. “You didn’t lose it, did you?” He asked, incredulously. “No,” I mumbled again. “You didn’t throw it away?” “No,” I answered, and truthfully said, “I traded it for a Bernie Carbo card. I thought he was going to be the next Yastrzemski.” Lucky Rico, he had something to laugh about the rest of night, even if he did miss Mickey Mantle. I may have lost Mickey’s card but I helped him try to find his contact lens... while the dumb Yankee fan was trying to pick up his girl (or, most likely, his daughter).

Here’s to You, Mrs. Garfunkel

I
n 1981, I attended the big reunion concert of Simon and Garfunkel in Central Park. My girlfriend and I had just moved to New York City from Lawrence, Massachusetts, and this was the first big-city thing we did. It was a great show and fun to be part of such a historic concert -- we were both big fans.

Years later, when Art Garfunkel came to stay at the Sunset Marquis, I was looking forward to waiting on him and his family. The first time I served them dinner was in their villa, it was what you would think dinner with the Garfunkels would be like. Art was very sedate and quiet at the table with his son, who looked just like him (at the time, I think he was about three years old) and Art’s wife, Kim, who was smokin’ hot. Kim had to be in her twenties and gorgeous. They were very nice to me as I set up the meal and served the food.

The Sunset Marquis had all these crazy rules on how you were to approach and serve the guests. Most of the rules were pretentious and some were down-right ridiculous. You had to refer to every person by the name on the hotel’s registry. Since we had a lot of celebrities staying there and they would often use pseudonyms and we would have to refer to the celebrity as Mr. Porter, even though everyone knew it was Phil Collins. Chris Robinson, of the Black Crows, liked the name Rusty Dental-tools -- which is a lot to say when you have keep referring to him as Mr. Dental-tools. Another dumb rule they had, was that you were not to serve food near the pools or the Jacuzzi, with a tray. I guess years before, a waiter served a lunch at the villa pool, slipped and had fallen in. The hotel had to close pool and drained it, to get it cleaned. So now no one was allowed to serve food at the pool with a tray -- stupid.

One of the things that I did enjoy at the Sunset Marquis was chasing the people who were swimming naked after hours, out of the pools. Most boaters will tell you that alcohol and water don’t mix; I would say alcohol, water and clothes usually don’t mix either… especially if you’re in twenties and think you’re beautiful. As soon as most of the twenty year-old models and their boyfriends got a few drinks in them and spotted a pool, their clothes would almost fly off and they would be instantly impelled to skinny dip.

I had taken on a special mission unbeknownst to the Marquis’ management that I was going to keep both pools, the main pool and the pool in the villas, safe from skinny-dippers… and I was valiant to my effort. I would lie in wait behind some bushes as the nubile young women would undress… then as soon as they all got naked and were splashing around in the pool, I would approach with as much authoritarian air as I could muster to inform them that they had to get out since there was no lifeguard on duty. I would then stand over them as the climbed out of the pool and dejectedly started to dress. I made sure that there was no way they could fall in and drown, endangering the reputation of the hotel or leave it liable to accidental death lawsuits. If need be I could dive in and save any smokin’ hot, naked babe in trouble, using whatever I could remember from the Junior Lifesaving classes I took when I was eleven. Some of the ladies would ask me to turn around while they dressed, I would have to remind them that I had to make sure they were safe.

If by chance, there was a giggling group of guys swimming alone in the buff, I would take a different tact -- by calling security and letting them handle it. Usually a good, “Senator ____, you have to get out of the pool,” would suffice but it wasn’t really my job and I was very busy. The women needed to be handled swiftly before they bumped their heads or their husbands or boyfriends arrived.

I took this responsibility seriously; so when the room service waiter, Ernesto, came into the kitchen later that night, and announced “Hey, Mrs. Garfunkel is swimming naked up in the villa pool.” I knew what had to be done -- to make sure that Mrs. Garfunkel was safe. Who knows when she ate last (though I did serve her dinner about four hours before) -- she could get a cramp… maybe the water was really cold (as it usually is
not
in the middle of summer in L.A.) and could she get hypothermia -- who knew what kind of physical shape she was in (even though I think I’ve mentioned a number of times that she was smokin’ hot)? These were all the reasons I was making up in my head as I stalked to the villa pool. I also thought I would take a meal of angel hair checca and a glass of wine, on a tray with me when I went (they call it multi-tasking). After I saved Mrs. Garfunkel, I would deliver it the meal to the starving guest in 2A.

When I finally got to the pool, I was ready to shut the door on the moonlight frolicking, when I saw something that turned my world upside down -- literally. Either Ernesto was setting me up or he didn’t realize that the smokin’ Mrs. Garfunkel was wearing a
flesh-colored bathing-suit…
and that the only one who was naked was Mr. Garfunkel -- who was standing on the pool steps when I walked in on them.

All I can remember is a high-pitched scream -- I can’t remember whether it was Mrs. Garfunkel or myself... or I guess, it could have been Art, also. Because at that moment I stepped on very wet patch of patio and noticed a familiar pair of shoes against the L.A. skyline -- they were my shoes. The next thing I heard was the wine glass and checca bowl crashing onto the brick patio. The Garfunkels hurried over and helped me up (Art was kind enough to have wrapped a towel around himself before running over). I thanked them and gathered up the broken dinner and went back to the kitchen, disappointed and bruised but thanking my luck that none of the glass went into the pool -- stupid rule.

A few hours later, I noticed that I had dried blood in my hair. It obviously came from the shock of seeing Art in the buff -- it made me bleed from my ears… or it was hard tomato sauce from the spilled pasta. But it still didn’t stop me from patrolling the pools for careless skinny-dippers -- it was a selfless-mission, you know. “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you -- ooo, ooo.”

Bill Cosby and the Pudding Kid

W
hen I was employed at the Sunset Marquis, I would go into work somewhere around three in the afternoon. After changing into my black pants, white shirt, bowtie and white serving jacket, I would make my way to the butler’s pantry. The first thing I would do is check the vacancy list, a computer generated list off all the hotel guests. On this day I was pleased to find that Bill Cosby was staying in one of the villas that I would be servicing that night -- cool.

I’ve been a big fan of the Cos for most of my life. Like many of my generation, I spent Saturday mornings watching
Fat Albert
and I have fond memories of listening to Cosby’s early stand up albums,
Wonderfulness, Bill Cosby is a Very Funny Fellow and To Russell, My Brother...
So the prospect of actually waiting on or meeting Doctor Cosby thrilled me.

It was a slow a night when I got a call from room service telling me that Mr. Cosby’s villa ordered a cappuccino. “Great, here I go,” I thought, no problem. I went to the cappuccino machine in the butler’s pantry and made up one of my best capps, wrote out the check and excitedly went off to Bill Cosby’s villa.

I knocked on the door and announced, “It’s your butler,” as we were instructed to do for any room we were about to enter. Sure enough, there he was, himself, smiling that smile, Cool Cos. “Bring it in,” he said. I past him in the doorway and walked into the large foyer. “I would like to have it in the living room,” He added. I headed to the living room, on my way I told him that I was a fan and loved his early comedy albums. “That’s very kind,” he said looking down at my masterpiece of steamed milk and espresso that I placed on the glass coffee table. I could tell right away he wasn’t impressed with my handiwork. “No, no, no….” he exclaimed. “I told them over the phone that I wanted a separate glass of steamed milk, a cup of espresso, a side of cinnamon and a spare empty espresso cup.” I grabbed the offending cappuccino and headed to the door. “I’ll fix it, sir,” I said. I could hear Bill in the living room, stating, “I told them just how I wanted it made!”

I stormed back to the butler’s pantry. I knew exactly what happened since it had happened many times before. Sandra, who took the order in room service got off at seven, it was probably taken on her way out. Realizing it was the fixings for a cappuccino, she just ordered it from me not telling me how he asked for to be made in a specific fashion. Besides, she was done for the night and probably didn’t care. I remade the contents of the cappuccino and hurried back to Bill’s villa, hoping he wasn’t still mad.

Bill was waiting for me at the door, opening it before I could I knock… “It’s your…” Bill stood in the doorway, “You got it right this time?” “Yeah, I’ve got it. They didn’t tell me how you requested it.” I carried the cappuccino to the glass coffee table again and placed the tray with the cappuccino fixings, down. Cos sat in a chair and poured some of the steamed milk into the empty espresso cup. “See,” he said, with a familiar expression on his face. “We pour the milk into the cup, followed by just a little coffee.” Bill poured a small amount of espresso into the cup. “So that I’m not up all night,” he added a small amount of sugar and cinnamon, dashed on top. I stood there dumbly and watched him make his cappuccino. “Then some sugar and finally some cinnamon on top,” Bill finished making his cappuccino.

Suddenly, I realized why the expression on his face looked familiar, it was the same expression he had when he telling the kids in those pudding commercials how to eat their pudding. When he finished, he took a sip of the cappuccino and then looked up at me and smiled, “Just like that!” You’ve all seen the expression on his face, whether it was in the commercials, or on
The Cosby Show
with his television kids, or even in
I Spy,
when he was proved right. Here I was, a little pudding boy, smiling back at him and feeling like a moron… and I didn’t even get pudding.