| The First Year is the Wackiest
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| Photoplay
September 1958 by Dorothy Day |
| "It was a wonderful wedding." Steve fills the gap while Eydie goes to put her dress away. "To start a wonderful year." "Would you like to see the wedding pictures?" Steve produces an enormous white leather album. "This is the best album either of us will ever make," he says. There are dozens of pictures with the rabbi who performed the ceremony, with each other. "And here's the best pose of all." Steve points out a picture showing him carrying Eydie over an imaginary threshold. "Like grooms are supposed to do," he says. In fact, for Eydie - as well as for Steve - the glow looks like it's never going to wear off. At the last Academy Award presentation, Eydie rushed up to Red Buttons to congratulate him on receiving the supporting prize. "Isn't it wonderful," she said, "the most wonderful year ever for the both of us. You won an Oscar and I won a Steve!" Finally, Eydie returns with a white bridal Bible in which are pressed the carnation Steve wore at the wedding and a pink camellia from her bridal bouquet. She even has kept the framework of the bouquet. There are pink bows and clusters of white net rosettes sparkling with sequins. Tenderly she returns it to its box. As Eydie retreats to put the precious bouquet back in its proper place, Steve produces a lovely crystal cigarette box and tray, Steve Allen's wedding present. "Eydie loves glass," he says. "Yop." Eydie is back. "And I can see right through you, boy." "This is another one of our treasures," she says. She shows us a color photo of Judy Garland. It is inscribed: "To darling Eydie and Steve. From your fan Judy." Eydie explains the inscription, "She came to see me when I played the Coconut Gove in California and I visited at her house while I was there. We became close pals. She's the greatest!" |
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| "She certainly is a great entertainer," Steve says. "And speaking of entertainers my mother and father should be in show business - sort of like a Jewish version of Lucy and Desi - only my mother's fatter. But smart! She recently passed her driver's license test. My father has a great sense of humor. For instance, take a look at this clock." He indicated a fine old French piece, delicately encrusted with etched bronze designs. Its face is fragile crystal and it is edged in a narrow band of gold. It is not a clock anybody would mistake for an everyday timepiece. "Well, my father took one look at it and said: 'it's okay. But it's five minutes slow. Does it have an alarm?'"
Recently Steve's folks moved from Brooklyn to a New York suburb. There his mother revels in a new kitchen, quite different from the old-fashioned on she had for so many years in Brooklyn. "But she still makes the same wonderful dishes," Steve says. "I'm drooling," interrupts Eydie. "We had stuffed cabbage last time we were out there. Did we eat well that day! On holidays we like to visit both sets of parents. So, we go to one for lunch and the other for dinner. We have big family parties. My sister and her children, Steve's and their kids. Twenty people...a small party. Fun!" "Eydie's mom's got some reputation as a cook, too," says Steve. "She's known from one end of the Bronx to another as a champ at making roast chicken with liver stuffing. Of course," and he pats his stomach, "Eydie is a good cook, too. She cooked a wonderful lunch today. We split a steak, figs and that pink rice she makes. It's the end! You'd really love it." "Could be," puts in Eydie slyly, "you could burst." Then more seriously, "But we're both on a diet. When you're happy it's so easy to take on weight." "You're thinner," says Steve. "You unhappy?" "You're thinner, too," she relies, poking him in the tummy. "Nothing but skin and bones. How you must hate me! I can't stand it any longer!" she suddenly says and jumps to her feet. "What, my hating you?" Steve calls after her as she runs into the dining room. "No," comes a faraway voice, "the tray." There is a moment's banging and scraping and a sad - faced Eydie pokes her head around the door jamb. "Is it sticking to the wall?" asks Steve eagerly. "Yes," says Eydie, "but now it's upside down!" Eydie and Steve's chief aim seems to be to please each other. Eydie readily admits she dresses to please Steve. He likes blue and white, and soft pastel shades. Occasionally, she likes to wear a flaming red sweater. Steve bows to this feminine departure. "And she goes to the tailor with me," Steve says. "She knows fabrics. Her father is a custom tailor. I don't know how I managed to order a suit before Eydie helped me out." "Actually, he lived in a nudist colony," laughed Eydie. For a moment, they talk about their career plans. "We don't want to be a team exactly," says Eydie. "We want to stand on our own feet. It's great fun working together like on the Steve Allen replacement show now. Steve is so good at comedy. He writes a good deal of his own material." "Eydie writes some of it too," puts in Steve. "You look pretty cute when you do a soft show," comments Steve. "You look like a singer dancing," Eydie retorts. There are so many unusual pieces in the apartment. One is a huge metal stork which peeks out from enormous metal leaves, and they've panted it chartreuse. Steve is quick to give its history. "We weren't expecting the stork, but one day this one flew in. We think it is a fugitive from the Bronx Zoo." All of these unusual treasures in their current home will surely be retained when they get their dream house. This they plan on for the not too distant future, a spacious spot where they can raise their children. "We want," says Eydie, "a rambling type of house that looks like it's growing right out of the ground. And an old-fashioned garden - very romantic! " "Just promise me one thing," Steve says to Eydie. "We won't have to hang the clown tray in the dining room of our 'dream' house." "Oh, but we have to," she cries. "You know how I love clowns." "That's why she married me," Steve says in mock despair. "She adores clowns." "But next time, Buster," she says, grabbing the lapels of his coat and staring him straight in the eye, "we don't go lazy and leave it hanging upside down the way it is now! " "Gotcha!" he answers, enveloping her in a big bear-hug. Just then here is a crashing sound from the direction of the dining room. "See," says Steve between shouts of laughter, "the first year is the wackiest!" |
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