New York is an amazing city, and I lived and worked there for five years with enough experiences to write a book! These are two of them. I was working at Crown Publishers for two years before I moved to Greece. One of the books that I was working on was titled “Whatever Became of…?” by Richard Lamparski. It was a series of 10 books about faded celebrities and public figures. He lived in New York and somehow had connections to get info on these people. I was doing the page layout when I saw a racy picture of a glamorous actress, so I had to read her impressive bio. She had been a B-list actress (not A-list, like Marilyn Monroe), but in several movies, even with A-list Rex Harrison. She had retired, married a wealthy man (a Mr. S******), and was living in New York City. This was BEFORE cellphones, there were thick yellow phone books, so I opened it looking up all the S*****s until I saw a residence in Grammercy Park, with their phone number. Grammercy Park is a historic, serene, upscale neighborhood of brownstones, trees and a so-named park. Exclusive real estate, with exclusive residents.

I turned to my colleagues in the art department, starting with my cool boss Mike Perpich, a hulk of a man, a war veteran from Yugoslavia. In my southern accent, I said, “Y’all,… you won’t believe this…but X**** Y**** lives just two miles from here; what if I call her up? Whatta y’all think about taking her out to lunch one day?” They all agreed, “Let’s try it!”…so I called her! She answered the phone herself! Here I am a TOTAL stranger…“Halloo Miss X****, my name is Carol C., I am a book designer at Crown Publishers, I am working on a book, and YOU are IN this book!”  “Really, what kind of book?” she asked, since she had NO clue about the book. We chatted for a bit, then “A few of us in the art dept. would like to take you out to lunch.” She replied, “That would be lovely,” so we set a day and time. Mike, Paige and Carol hailed a Checker cab, which took us to her address. I think I went up to the door to introduce myself to her, she got into the cab; I did introductions all around, and we took off, laughing from the ‘git-go’. She was very elegantly dressed and coiffed, subdued and tasteful, nothing like the photo in the book. We went to an upscale restaurant, which she could have easily afforded to pay for all of us, but we had invited her, so we treated, and had a fun lunch. She regaled us with raunchy tidbits and gossip from Hollywood while we drove around the city. Our ‘lunch hour’ lasted four hours, but the boss was IN on this. She gave us autographed pictures of herself as a parting gift; we all hugged, then went back to work. Soon after this, I left New York, moved to Greece, so we never saw her again, but I KNOW that she had as much fun as we did that day!

Schaefer beer, founded in 1842, put on big-name music concerts in Central Park as the SCHAEFER Music Festival. Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Frank Zappa, Ike and Tina Turner, Carly Simon, B.B. King, etc. were some of the performers. Ike and Tina played on July 2 and 3,1971, and I wanted to go there! You won’t believe it; the tickets were only one or two dollars! But they were sold out. I called the ticket office, but they said, “Sold Out, only press allowed”. Quickly thinking I said, “I’m a magazine designer, can do a feature on her.” Then they said, “Send us a double page spread from your magazine, as a sample. What is the name of your magazine?” I promptly lied, “The Arts Review.” Then, breathless, I turned to my buddy Jeff (the boss’s son) “We have to hurry! We hafta produce a double-page spread of our magazine to mail to the ticket office to get Press Passes, then we can go for free, and have front row seats! We enlisted the help of Carole, a medical illustrator, whose desk was near mine. She did a 7x9 realistic drawing of Tina Turner dancing, with motion lines and costume details. I did the page design, with folios 22 and 23, with a page header, The Arts Review / June 1971. I wrote the copy about something ‘legit’ in the art world. Our art wing secretary typed it up, then I did the cut and paste (the real old-fashioned way, by hand with an X-Acto knife, tweezers and glue). We went to a lot of trouble creating this mock magazine, while “pretending” to work. It came together nicely. We made a xerox and mailed it to the ticket office, using our real names and the real address of our office, just not the real name of our office. Sure enough, we received two official press passes! Jeff and I went to the concert, in great seats, 10 feet from the stage; up close and personal with the amazing Tina, gyrating, singing and performing. Ike played guitar and stayed in the background. Unbeknownst to us, ABC was filming the performance for a TV special on them! It was an unforgettable evening!

Carol Veliotis is a local columnist for The Covington News. She can be reached at carol.veliotis@gmail.com.