September 29 ~ Stan Ziegler

Today is my friend Stan Ziegler’s birthday.

Stan played a role in the psychodrama that was my second junior-year Whiffenpoof tap. (They audition today.) Admittedly, it was a very difficult choice that year. Ironically, I may have ended up creating the formula they reportedly used. The problem was there were too many musically qualified Spizzwinks. I think we had nine. And my changing classes had made it even worse than it would have been.

Today there are many more informal singing groups at Yale. But then there were seven all-male groups, I believe. The unwritten rule, was that at least one singer would be selected from each group. Since there were fourteen Whiffs, if all nine Spizzwinks were tapped that would exclude one of the other groups. It was a politically impossible situation.

I remember Jon Nygaard came to see me in my dorm room, to use me as a sounding board. I said it was obvious: the highest number of Spizzwinks they could select would be seven. They couldn't take all. And it would be cruel to take all but one.

Then I casually let drop: “If it came to a choice between Stan Ziegler and me, I would prefer they take Stan.”

I figured I was the most obvious choice to be tapped as a Whiffenpoof. After all, the people selecting were from my own original class. And I had previously been pre-tapped to be pitchpipe (director) of that group. I thought I had sufficient leverage to make a difference.

When Marie Bronson (my 79 year old friend and summer landlord, whose husband Clarence had been Yale Class of 1900) heard what I had said, she implored: "Don't do that Rob. It will impact all your class reunions. You'll end up regretting it for the rest of your life."

I thought I had leverage. They heard: I really wasn't interested. I had taken them off the hook—and inadvertently ended up sinking George Hardy’s chances too.

The reason I said what I did about Stan was that he was out of the country and needed, I felt, to be connected with some organization on his return. Stan was taking a Junior Year Abroad, studying with Anna Freud in London and with another woman psychologist in Norway. Yale didn't have a Junior Year Abroad Program for credit. As my brother Sherry had studied in Paris for a year on his own, and then had to continue for two more years at Princeton, so Stan would normally have been required to take two more years at Yale. But Stan –as anybody who knew him—had chutzpah up the kazoo. He had a New York State disability scholarship for his asthma. He used to run around the block before his annual interview, in order to be sufficiently winded. When he was accepted at Cornell –and should have been required to attend to get the New York Scholarship— he got his sister –who was a senior at Cornell, and a student member of the admissions committee— to get him unselected. He then pleaded his case to the scholarship board, and talked his way to a New York sponsored scholarship out of state. I should have known Stan could take care of himself. He ended up getting full credit for his year in Norway (where he also learned how to knit – I still have mufflers and mittens he designed and knit for me).

The reason I made my offer was that just before spring break, Stan's father had committed suicide on the second anniversary of Stan's mother's natural, if painful and unexpected death. I thought it absolutely essential that Stan not be alone his senior year. As it turned out, Stan already had other people advocating for him. My offer was a futile and unnecessary gesture. He even had one of the slots in Skull and Bones.

Then senior year he was so busy…I never saw him.

But after college, he became one of my best friends and maintained that special relationship with Mrs. Bronson until her death at the age of ninety-seven.

Stan later became a successful teen psychologist with a celebrity clientele, which included Jason Gould and Greg Louganis. (Once he talked to me about autistic patients. Not familiar with the term, I thought: can there be art without neurosis?) He was a friend of Paul Petersen, who had been Jeff on the Donna Reed Show. Paul had formed a support group for former movie and TV child stars—a group for which Stan was a consultant. He also had been a guest on several TV talk shows, including Oprah. The last time I saw Stan, I visited him at his new home in West Hollywood, when he took a group of troubled teens to Tippi Hedren's Big Cat Shambala Preserve. The final time we talked was Christmas Eve 1994, when I was home between services.

Stan and I were friends until his death – can it be?—nearly seventeen years ago. I went to his memorial service in West Hollywood. George and I were asked to join the Whiffs there in singing the Whiffenpoof song. It was only the second time I had ever sung it. (At Yale, only Whiffs sing it.) The first was back in the summer of 1969, on the first Spizzwink tour to California. It was in a VW bug with Russ Thomas and Bill Correll, who had just been tapped for the Whiffs of 1970, and Jon Nygaard, who along with me was considered likely for the Whiffs of ‘71. We realized that we had a quartet, so up in the hills above Saratoga, we sang: "To the tables down at Morys……"

(BTW I finally became a member of the Whiffs of '72 when I went back to my 40th Class Reunion in New Haven last June. My official Whiff name now is Rob "More Cow" Bell -- a reference to a classic Saturday Night Live skit.)

Stan had been very sick for years with Crohn’s disease. I think it had originally manifested after his mother's death. He was valiant, and put up with excruciating pain. At his memorial service, his own therapist implied that Stan had committed a passive form of suicide. Evidently, he had had a major attack, and decided not to call for help. He had been in the hospital so many times, he just didn't want to go through it again. I can't begrudge him that.

At the memorial service, I saw his sister and met his nephew. Stan had had a troubled relationship with his only nephew. Both parents were brilliant. The boy was rather dull. Stan's sister was a deputy district attorney in Brooklyn and a law professor. Her ex-husband had been the chief prosecutor in the ABSCAM case, and had worked on the defense team for Claus von Bulow.

Only a few weeks after Stan's service, I heard from John Rouse, I think, that tragedy had struck again. Stan's nephew had been learning how to drive with his father at the Westport, Connecticut Yacht Club. Evidently, he put the car in reverse by mistake, and backed off the dock. His dad got out. He drowned. I wrote a note to Stan's sister. But what can you say?

APRIL IN NEW YORK

I had a wonderful time last weekend in New York City and New Haven. I took the red-eye from SFO to JFK on Wednesday April 1 -- arriving at 7:00 a.m. I probably had only two or three hours sleep. My friend Mary Ellen met me at the Jamaica Station, and we took the train to Penn Station. From there we dropped off my luggage at my nephew Sheridan’s building in Tribeca, then went to St. John the Divine. We discovered there was no 9:00 a.m. service -- the next was at 12:15-- so we went for coffee near Columbia. 

Years ago Mary Ellen had worked at a Jewish Student Center near campus and we stopped by to see the exterior of the building. Afterwards, we explored the campus. I was especially impressed with the domed McKim, Mead, and White main administration building. It was glorious, early spring day. Daffodils and tulips were in full bloom-- though leaves on the trees had yet to open.

We returned to St. John the Divine and went to the 12:15 mass in the small chapel at the very end of the apse, behind the main altar. There were fewer than ten congregants. I mentioned the anniversary of Dennis’ death to the priest. He asked for volunteers to read, so I read the first lesson and Mary Ellen, the prayers of the people. My friend Jeffrey joined us after his class that morning. It was an appropriate way to commemorate Dennis.

From there we went for another coffee and cherry pastry at a Hungarian café  nearby. Jeffrey lives only a few blocks from Columbia. He had to grade some exams so wasn’t able to join us for the afternoon.

Mary Ellen and I decided to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Jeffrey recommended taking a bus, which went by the top of Central Park and down 5^th Avenue. It gave a marvelous view of 5^th Avenue. I particularly wanted to see the newly reopened Greek and Roman wing at the Met. I hadn’t realized that the old one had been completely demolished and this was a brand new addition. It is absolutely splendid! The architecture, mosaic and marble inlaid floors set off the outstanding collection beautifully! Mary Ellen took my picture by a handsome bust of Constantine. 

Then Mary Ellen treated me to a delightful lunch on the first floor restaurant near the French and Italian sculpture court. Nearby were several remarkable Canova’s.

Afterwards we returned to my nephew’s apartment and visited his charming wife Sylvie, their Swiss houseguest also named Sylvie, and their enchanting French cat (from whom I still have several flea bites on my hands.)

Sheridan and Sylvie live at a fabulous location on Park Place– just three blocks from City Hall, two blocks from St. Paul’s church, one block from the Woolworth building and three blocks from ground zero—the site of the old World Trade Center Towers. They are very close to most subway lines. 

After a nap, I headed off to 23^rd Street to meet Jeffrey before coming back to dinner at Sheridan and Sylvie’s. Jeffrey met me by a vitamin store and we walked the few blocks to The Players on Gramercy Park.

In 1888, Edwin Booth, America’s pre-eminent Shakespearean actor, and fifteen others including Mark Twain and General William Tecumseh Sherman, founded the Players. Modeled after London’s famed Garrick Club, The Players was the first American “gentleman’s club’ of its kind. 

(So they say on their website. Though San Francisco’s Bohemian Club, of which I am a member, was founded in 1872. Its four pillars are Music, Literature, Drama, and the Fine Arts and we have lots of lawyers, doctors and architects as members.)

The purpose of the Players; “The promotion of social intercourse between members of the dramatic profession and the kindred professions of literature, painting, architecture, sculpture and music, law and medicine, and the patrons of the arts…” 

The Players is located in a Greek revival townhouse facing historic Gramercy Park. Jeffrey checked our coats at the front desk, obtained a key to the park and took me for a tour with the statue of Edwin Booth in the center. Then thanks to reciprocity between the clubs, Jeffrey took me on a brief tour of the National Arts Club next door to The Players. It’s located in former Governor Tilden’s house. Samuel Tilden, of course, received the majority of popular votes in 1876, but --as in 2000-- was denied the Presidency.

One Thursday each month, The Players have a gathering for members, and I was fortunate enough to accompany Jeffrey on such a night. We had cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, while listening to fellow actors sing show tunes with an accompanist on an upright. Jeffrey showed me some drawers with a collection of plaster life and death masks including John Keats, Edmund Burke, Goethe & Schiller among several others. He also showed me the room on one of the top floors, where Edwin Booth died. Jeffrey will be co-directing a play written by a fellow Player to be performed at the National Arts Club in a few months.  

My nephew Sheridan works nearby, so he joined us for a few minutes, while we stayed behind conversing with some of the distinguished elder members.

Then we scurried back to Sheridan and Sylvie’s apartment on Park Place to meet my friend Mary Ellen, my niece Allison Martin, nephew Matt Collins and his friend Jan. Sylvie had prepared many different hors d’oeuvres, which constituted an exotic and complete meal.

Late as it was, I decided to accompany my niece, nephews and friends to the Tribeca bar about seven blocks away where architect Matt acts as security doorman a couple nights a week. I had quick tonic and lime, then headed back to Sheridan and Sylvie’s to get a decent night’s sleep in their bedroom (while they graciously slept on an air mattress on the living room floor) to prepare for the journey to New Haven and the 95^th Anniversary Spizzwink(?) Reunion-- the original purpose of the trip.