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WOOLLEY 2/2/2013 6:26:49 AM
For Thanksgiving 2012 my wife, Sam (our dog) and I visited our daughter, Alex, her husband, Phillip (an Endodontist doing residency at UAB-Medical) and their 21 month-old son, Hutson, our unspeakably cute grandson.
As I had never seen their rented condo in Birmingham, I looked forward with keen anticipation to this brief visit. It was our plan to remain in Birmingham until the Monday after the holiday.
Lo and behold, our close friend in Toronto, the widow Debi Elliott, decided at the same time to marry our other close friend, Bob Fleming, also of Toronto.
Debi, while married during days of yesteryear to the late Gordon Elliott (a dear, dear friend), plus Bob Fleming (while he was married to Sharon) vacationed at Kennebunkport, in a rented beach house with Debi and Gordon’s daughter Amanda, and the Fleming’s two children, Kirsten and Matthew (all three youngsters assorted pre-pubescent ages). .
This was in 1985, and of course we brought along 7-month-old daughter, Alex (now twenty-seven; she’ll be 28 on Feb 20!), who sat whimpering in the back seat while I tried to explain (without success) to a Secret Service agent why I needed to speak with then-president, George H.W. Bush, who was in residence at his Kennebunkport compound.
“You got an appointment?” the agent politely asked
“No,” I replied. “Just happened to be in the neighborhood.”
“Well, I’m sorry, sir—”
“But as a tax-paying American citizen, I insist on having words with my president! What am I to do?”
“You might start,” he sagely explained, his pleasant smile no longer in evidence, “by just turning your car around — and leaving.”
This year, 2012, we enjoyed a Thanksgiving turkey and all the trimmings at our daughter’s place in Birmingham. Tuesday, however, my wife flew out to Toronto, as Debi claimed there could be no wedding if my wife were not present (I will never understand the female mind).
“You stay here at Alex and Phillip’s,” she instructed me, “and I will pick you up next week after Debi and Bob tie the knot.” (Because of my Primary Lateral Scoreless, I no longer drive and had no way of getting back to Atlanta without my good wife’s assistance.)
So, off she went to Toronto to watch Debi marry Bob, and I remained at my daughter’s for the duration. A few days after the holiday I took an ill timed tumble while getting dressed, and luckily, Alex was home and scooped me off the floor. Certain the mishap had dislocated my shoulder, she took me to a nearby Emergency Clinic where I sat in great pain while waiting to see a doctor.
Meanwhile, my good wife, thanks mainly to Delta Airlines, was engaged, unbeknownst to me, in a trip from Hell of her own. Due to the airline’s late departure from Birmingham, she missed her connection from Detroit to Toronto on the outbound. Coming back, she missed her flight from Detroit to Birmingham because of an equipment malfunction.
After Delta fed her and put her up in a Detroit fleabag, she finally got to Alex and Phillip’s condo the next day. It was not easy.
When the X-rays were viewed, Dr. George Walker (no relation, it turned out, to the actor Robert Walker) at the Emergency Clinic gave me the good/bad news. “Your shoulder is not dislocated,” he told me, “but you did manage to break your collarbone. Takes about four to six weeks to heal, and I’ll give you some Vicadin for the pain.
“Of course,” he added, in un sussurro, “you will have worse constipation than the pain in your shoulder.”
Above and beyond the call of duty, Dr. Walker called me on the phone at my daughter’s Saturday morning to see how I was doing. (Imagine a Georgia or New York MD doing that!) He asked if my shoulder still hurt. I told him I would rather have a good BM. He suggested I cease taking the Vicadin and go to ibuprofen, a non-narcotic, instead.
We did not arrive back in Atlanta until the following Tuesday evening, after I had imposed on my daughter and son-in-law’s hospitality for nearly two weeks.
Monty Woolley came immediately to mind; he was the American actor best known for the 1939 Broadway play by George Kaufman and Moss Hart, featuring a song by Cole Porter (and subsequent ’42 blockbuster movie: The Man Who Came To Dinner).
Woolley, in the script, was invited for dinner; he slipped on an ice patch out front, broke his hip and became an interminable, irascible and intolerable houseguest for a couple weeks (sound familiar?)
Monty Woolley, in 1944, was nominated for an Academy Award for his Best Supporting role in another movie, Since You Went Away, starring Claudette Colbert, Joseph Cotten, Jennifer Jones, Robert Walker and Shirley Temple (a kid named Craig Stevens also had a walk-on part).
Since You Went Away won the Academy Award that year for Best Original Music (Max Steiner) and was nominated for Best Picture and Best Actress in a Leading Role (Colbert), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Jones) and Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Monty Woolley). By the way, Barry Fitzgerald won the statue for Going My Way (and there were people still pissed off about it in 2013!).
Bosley Crowther of the New York Times wrote, “Monty Woolley makes a full-blown character of the man who comes to lodge.” The farewell scene between Jones and Walker, he went on to write, is typical of “the Hollywood tearjerker scene.”
Author’s note: that syrupy love scene was parodied in 1981’s Airplane. In real life, Jones and Walker were going through bitter divorces not long after Since You Went Away wrapped. Jones later married the film’s producer, David O. Selznick.
Alfred Hitchcock once wrote a mystery about the bearded wonder: The Murder Of Monty Woolley. It was never produced, but it did appear in Look Magazine.
That is where the similarity stops. Monty Woolley was, in real life, the wealthy scion of the Bristol Hotel proprietor in NYC. He graduated from Harvard and Yale and could boast that Cole Porter was a classmate and life-long friend. He (Woolley) appeared in more than 30 films, directed seven plays and was seen in at least three Broadway offerings.
Although Woolley passed away of a heart attack at 74 (I now have seven years on him) many younger people bitten by the theater bug, have, perhaps because of my white goatee, made the gratifying error of calling me “Monty” instead of “Bob”.
I have to remind them it was my collarbone, not my hip, which cast me in Dr. and Mrs. Phillip Faucette (and son Hutson’s) production of The Man Who Came To (Thanksgiving) Dinner.
