Friday, March 9, 2012

When [Mature] Ladies Meet


Hot off the Twitterline, this piece of gripping news from @JoanCollinsOBE: "Leaving NY, I popped by a cocktail party and literally bumped into Dr. Ruth!"  With pic to prove it, no less.

I think the most salient fact about this riveting image is that the age difference between these two is (are you sitting down?) five years.  And that's if you believe that Joan's telling the truth about her age, which, given the modus operandi of fierce creatures such as she, might be a stretch.

Dr. Ruth fun fact:  during a lean period back in the late '80s, I was working switchboard (and oh, was I working it) in the office of a Noted Person.  One fine morning, I picked up the phone to hear a cheerful Teutonic "Good morning!  Eeees N.P. zere?  Eet's Dr. Ruth!" (and she sounded just as insanely cheerful as she did on her then-omnipresent radio show).  Sure it is, I thought, and promptly reamed out the caller whom I presumed was one of my more antic acquaintances making fun of my starry but pedestrian gig.  I hung up just in time for the N.P. to bounce into the room and let us (I the as it turned out quite temporary temp and his social secretary) know that he was waiting for a call but had to run out, and please tell Dr. Ruth he'd call back before lunchtime.

A time of day I never again saw in those very nice offices on the Upper West Side...

7 comments:

  1. Well played, Muscato. Well played!

    Throughout most of the aughts, I was very involved in an advocacy group for survivors of clergy abuse.

    We were doing a press event with the NJ State Attorney General. Journalists were instructed to not photograph from certain angles to protect those abuse survivors in attendance who were in a designated area because they had opted to not be photographed.

    A photjournalist ignored the request (or perhaps hadn't heard it). I took it upon myself to walk over, rip him a new one, and all but toss him bodily out of the room.

    I wondered why he was so calm in the face of my rather excessive and unnecessary anger. I was later informed of just who he was. I suppose that his years surving the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia contributed to his indifference at my little outburst.

    Yes, I had attempted to eject the now-deceased, award winning NY Times photjournalist Dith Pran, known to most through Haing S. Ngor's Academy Award winning portrayal of him in 1984's The Killing Fields.

    The press liasion for our group was just thrilled with me that afternoon.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dr. Ruth, I hasten to add, is a mere 4'7" in height. Or she was, anyway. She's probably shrunk over the years. But what of Miss Collins? The old girl must be wearing some serious heels!

    ReplyDelete
  3. More interesting, of course, is the fact that you follow Joan Collins on Twitter!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow - Dith Pran. I guess after Pol Pot, not much bugs you - although I'm sure that if anyone could intimidate, it would you be you (as Dame Edna would say, I mean that in a supporting, loving way, of course).

    And Thom, you are characteristically generous in your interpretation of "interesting". I actually loathe Twitter, but have to use it at work, and so on my own time have developed the most eclectic set of Followees that I can. Joan's a good egg, Morgan Fairchild really is smart, but I finally had to unfollow BD Wong because he's such a pill. On the up side, I know what Lynda Carter's up to, and that's go to be worth something!

    ReplyDelete
  5. No! I'm so sorry to hear about BD Wong. He always seemed like such a sassy little bit.

    ReplyDelete
  6. He does nothing but retweet praise from fans about his new TV show, which sounds tiresome in the extreme.

    Although, now that we're at it, I had a friend in NY who dated him, and he was in fact a pill.

    Fab in "M. Butterfly", though - have to hand him that...

    ReplyDelete
  7. I pretty much stopped using twitter when frequency of Cher's nightly twitfest ended.

    ReplyDelete