Carol Burnett was on the Leonard Lopate show today. She talked about coming to New York and living at The Rehearsal Club, the real life role model for the boarding house in the movie “Stage Door”. Of course it no longer existed by the time I was an aspiring actress. I didn’t come to New York in the 1980’s even though it was a dream of mine, like Carol Burnett, to be on Broadway. I was discouraged from the prospect as the reality seemed to be more “Taxi Driver” than “42nd Street” and I became pretty convinced I would be raped in a stairwell if I couldn’t afford to live in a good neighborhood. So I stayed in Montana. My friend came. She did fine. Maybe I shouldn’t have been such a chicken. (But that worst nightmare did happen to Kelly McGillis in while she was an acting student at Julliard.)
Tag: Carol Burnett
Character study at the bowling alley
The woman behind the counter of the snack bar at the bowling alley (where My Kid and I joined several other mothers and classmates of hers on this mid-week Veterans Day off) was the slowest counter person I have ever seen in my life. She was a cross between Carol Burnett’s Mrs. Wiggins and Tim Conway’s Mr. Tudball, a careful, deliberate, woman with a comb-over making orders of french fries and other pre-made frozen snacks one serving at a time. When it was my turn she put the frozen breaded mushrooms in the fry basket, cooked them, put them on a paper plate, and THEN put the french fries in the basket, and then the mozzarella sticks. She did this with each person’s order which she wrote out on the order slip without abbreviating any words. The kids bowled all 10 frames including the extra time spent trying to program the scorekeeper, waiting for assistance programming it, and arguments about which boy would bowl on the same lane as the girls Even then the chicken was frozen in the middle.
The woman had thin pale yellow hair, combed over and teased and sprayed and held in place with dark bobby pins. She looked to be in her 70’s (though probably closer to 80 than 60) and moved so slowly and deliberately that another, more competent senior citizen came behind the counter to assist her with the “rush”. I suppose, the Veteran’s Day holiday brought more business to the bowling alley than the Tuesday afternoon staff is accustomed to in this Brooklyn bowling alley that was last decorated in the 1960’s with pink bathroom tiles and primary colored rows of asphalt tiles.
I hope that lady is working for companionship because she’s been enjoying that bowling alley for the last 50 years and going to stop coming just because she can’t bowl anymore. I hope she doesn’t and she need the money.