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WHAT’S IN A NAME? 3/17/2010 11:31:57 AM
In the halcyon days of a misspent young adulthood, I often escaped to Ireland and the UK for extended weekends of dining and imbibing like a befuddled potentate who thought reckless good times were all life was about. I rarely spent a dime of my own meager funds while traveling first class and billeting in 5-Star hotels, and I was wise enough to know it would all evaporate like the ill-conceived will-of-the-wisp it truly was. And it did, just before the arrival of my youngest daughter.
Departing JFK Thursday afternoon and returning to Western New York late Monday afforded me three full days and nights—72 insane hours—of non-stop adventures abroad: Shannon, Limerick, Galway, Cork, Killarney, Waterford, Ballsbridge, Dunlarghie, Dublin, London, Edinburgh, Paris, Normandy . . . these were but a few of the places we haunted during numerous weekends. Hopefully, I left my mark on all of them.
On some trips, a fine fellow named Dave Warner was my companion. I say he was a ‘fine fellow’ because he was a brother scribe who had read James Joyce, W Somerset Maugham and Victor Hugo and considered them giants of literature—confused and pedantic, but giants nonetheless. Dave made his daily bread composing sports stories for the local fish wrapper.
One autumn we were in the pub at Jury’s Hotel of a Saturday afternoon, regaling our new found friends with boring stories (to them) of American football, while they celebrated Dublin’s victory that day over Londonderry. Of course, we call their brand of athletic barbarism ‘soccer,’ at which they laughed heartily and bought us draughts of Guinness.
“I’ve had it,” Dave said, after a couple hours. “Going to my room for a snooze.”
He drained his jar and sashayed out of the lounge, heading for the lobby elevators. He hadn’t been gone more than a minute when I noticed he’d left his flight bag on the floor beside his vacant stool. I could see it was open; his writing pad, old newspapers, reference materials and sundry documents protruded from under a crumpled windbreaker.
“Your old friend seems to have forgotten his office,” said my new friend, Liam Kelly, looking next to see if Warner had completely drained his Guinness. “Did I ever tell ye of the ty-am I broke Richard Harris’s nose inna rugby match in Limerick?”
“Would you have a phone?” I asked the barkeep.
“Nay. Ring t’e lad’s room from t’e hoos-phone inna lahbee. Ye know ‘is room noomber?”
There were six telephones in the alcove marker ‘House.’ The first one aroused an operator who said, “Good day tuh ye! Which room wouldja have me ring?”
“I need the room number for my friend,” I told her. “His name is Dave Warner. I don’t know his room number.”
“Sorry, sir,” she apologized. “I cannot give oot guest’s room noombers. Do ye know ‘is name?”
“Warner.”
“Aye. Would ‘ee ‘ave a Christian name?”
“Dave. David.”
“David Warner, is it?”
“Yes.”
“Let me seeeeee. . . . Yes, here ‘tis. Registered, ‘ee is, too.”
“Could you connect me with him?”
“Of course . . . but I can not tell ye ‘is room noomber.”
I assured her that was all right. “Just ring his room. Please.”
After a series of three quick and uneven ringing buzzes, the phone was answered with a solemn, slightly accented: “Hello?”
“Dave?”
“Who? Yes. . . . Who’s this?”
“Bob.”
“Bob?”
“Is this Dave?”
“Yes, ‘tis. David Warner here.”
“David Warner?”
“Yes, of course. . . . Who’s this?”
Like a bolt of lightening, it hit me, rather as if I’d accidentally switched on my electric razor after foolishly plugging it into Ireland’s 220-volt direct current system. Dave Warner—the David Warner I was talking to!—none other than the incomparable Shakespearean and Emmy winning British actor! And eventual star of the pre-James Cameron ‘Avatar.’* This, for a middle-aged theater groupie such as I, was the faux pas of a lifetime!
“I’m an American—!” I blurted.
“Hard to believe.”
“No, seriously, I mean, I’m traveling with an American, your namesake, Dave Warner, he writes for the paper—they must have rung your room by mistake! I talked to Gregory Peck the other day!”
There was a cautious pause on the line. “You know Greg Peck?” Warner asked.
“No, not really, but I had occasion to speak with him on the phone the day before he left for England to film ‘The Omen’—Jesus! You were in that picture with him!”
“True. What can I do for you?”
In fragmented, staccato sentences I told him (or tried to) who I was, how I happened to be at Jury’s, how I wanted to return my Dave Warner’s flight bag, how I’d always admired his work as an actor—and how I would love to meet him in person.
“You must have made dozens of movies,” I said. “I loved you in ‘Tom Jones’ and ‘Nightwing’—you scared the hell out of me in ‘The Thirty-nine Steps’ and ‘Time After Time’.”
He interjected when he had the chance, “Most of my work has been on the stage—Shakespeare.”
“I know!” I said. “They say your ‘King Lear’ was, to put it mildly, unsettling.”
“You saw it?”
“Well, no. . . . David, Mr. Warner, sir, I would really love to meet you, buy you a drink—” Before I could ask him his room number he suggested we meet in the lounge downstairs. He said, “Say, half five? You can tell me all about Greg Peck.”
I was reluctant to hang up. “I really want to meet you . . . ”
“And you shall.”
“How will you know me?”
He laughed softly. “Oh, I think I can figure you out.”
*David Warner starred in the 2003 Japanese version of ‘Avatar,’ filmed in Singapore but never released in the USA; he did appear, however, in James Cameron’s ‘Titanic’—neither of which were produced at the time our paths crossed. Warner asked many questions about my phone call with Gregory Peck, and I told him I’d probably write about it in 2010. “Good heavens!” he cried. “We’ll have cashed in our chips by then!” As it turns out, we’re both still kicking, even though he is ten years my junior. . . . I returned the errant flight bag to my Dave Warner the next day. “You won’t believe whom I spoke with yesterday!” I told him. “The David Warner!”
The reporter from Western New York looked at me quizzically. “Who?”
