100 New Yorkers of the 1970s Part 21

Asked about Daniel P. Moynihan, whom he somewhat resembles physically, Malachy describes the senator as "the Nureyev of politics. He can leap from conservative crag to liberal crag with gay abandon. A man who could serve Kennedy and compare Nixon to Disraeli must be either insane or insanely clever. I look at him and I cannot believe that this twinkly-eyed, overweight leprechaun can be so cunning."

Malachy's wife Diana -- "she's the only Smith graduate I know that became a carpenter" -- does custom carpentry work out of a shop called s.p.a.ce Constructs on 85th Street. Westsiders for two decades, the McCourts have two children, Conor and Cormic. One of their favorite local restaurants is Los Panchos at 71st and Columbus; it is owned by Malachy's brother Alfie.

Although Malachy has no desire to return to Ireland to live, he recommends it for tourists because "it's the last outpost of civilized conversation. The Irish have an att.i.tude that when G.o.d made time, he made plenty of it. So for G.o.d's sake, don't be rus.h.i.+ng around. Stand there and talk to me."

WESTSIDER MEAT LOAF Hottest rock act in town

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For several years, up until last fall, Meat loaf lived in peaceful obscurity in an apartment at 25 West 74th Street. Few people outside of his own circle knew that the name applied to a gargantuan 29-year-old singer from Texas and the rock band he headed.

A couple of months ago, Meat returned to his old neighborhood after a long absence. This time he caused a mob scene in the local supermarket, and, on escaping to his apartment, found people climbing on the window ledges trying to catch a glimpse of him. The reason? His group's first alb.u.m, _Bat Out Of h.e.l.l_, which has sold three million copies since its release a year ago.

"I don't like to be rude to fans," says the calm, gentlemanly Meat Loaf (his legal name) during an interview at his new apartment in another part of the West Side. "I'd lie down on the floor for hours so they couldn't see me. ... _People_ magazine printed my real name and told more or less where I lived: that's why I had to move."

Bare feet perched on the coffee table, he spreads his 275-pound, 6-foot frame evenly on the living room sofa. Although Meat's onstage image makes him out to be one of rock's meanest and toughest characters, in person he is totally devoid of arrogance, and in fact seems almost shy.

Sam Ellis, Meat Loaf's glib road manager who arranged the group's recent trips to England, Germany, Canada and Australia, helps the interview along by adding his comments whenever Meat begins to reach for words.

All the songs on _Bat Out Of h.e.l.l_ -- raucous, earthy, and intense -- were written by fellow Westsider Jim Steinman, who plays keyboard with the group. After he and Meat Loaf met in 1973, they performed together frequently, but their music met with limited success.

"People were afraid of it," says Meat. "The songs were long. The voices were loud. People in rock said it was too theatre. People in theatre said it was too rock and roll." When Meat and Jim were finally offered a contract to do an alb.u.m, Steinman went to work on some new material, and wrote nearly the entire contents of _Bat Out Of h.e.l.l_ in four months, including the gold singles _Two Out of Three Ain't Bad_ and _Paradise by the Dashboard Light_ -- a duet celebrating teen s.e.xuality that has been ch.o.r.eographed into an 8-minute show stopper by Meat and lead female vocalist Karla DeVito. "Jim doesn't just write the songs and hand them to me. I do most of the vocal arrangements. It's really a team. It's like Sonny and Cher," says the gargantuan singer.

Brought up in Dallas under the name Marvin Lee Aday, he tipped the scales at 185 while in the fifth grade. "I was an only child and my parents always wanted two kids," he jokes. "So they set two places at the dinner table, and I ate both meals. ... I was always on the baseball team, because if they needed a base runner, they'd say, 'Go in there and get hit by the ball.' I'd back up just enough so that I wouldn't get hurt."

He joined the high school choir in order to avoid study hall, and from then on, singing became his main pa.s.sion. After completing high school at 15, he travelled around with a number of bands. By the time he settled down in New York, live rock music was no longer in so much demand as before. "That's one reason I went into theatre," he remarks. "Another reason was because someone hired me and I didn't have a job." As an singer and actor, Meat performed in some 10 Broadway and Off Broadway productions, including _Hair_ and _The Rocky Horror Picture Show_, in which he also appeared in the 1975 film.

When _Bat Out Of h.e.l.l_ was first released, it did not catch on immediately. But soon a couple of influential radio stations in New York City fell in love with it. Then Cleveland and Boston began to give it a lot of air time. From there, its reputation gathered momentum across the country. As a result of the slow start, _Bat Out Of h.e.l.l_ was still climbing on the national charts nearly a year after it came out. In Australia, it was the number one alb.u.m for 10 straight weeks.

This past summer the Meat Loaf band did four sellout concerts in the New York area in the s.p.a.ce of a month. Now the band is taking it easy for a little while before returning to the studio for their second alb.u.m. They plan to launch another world tour after the alb.u.m is completed in March.

Meat shares his apartment with 23-year-old Candy Darling, a slender, pretty dancer/singer who will be performing in an upcoming Broadway musical, _Whoopee!_ What does Meat Loaf like about the West Side? "I have absolutely no idea," he replies matter-of-factly. "I can't stand it anywhere else." Among his preferred Westside hangouts: O'Neal's, Gleason's, La Cantina, and Anita's Chili Parlor, all on Columbus Avenue between 71st and 73rd streets.

In spite of his meteoric rise to fame, Meat Loaf sees his overall career in a different light then his fans. "For me," he says thoughtfully, "rock and roll is not an end. I'd like to make movies someday. I want to direct. I want to produce. It's great to sell records, but this is not what I always want to do. It's just another step on the mountain."

WESTSIDER ANN MILLER Co-star of _Sugar Babies_

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_Sugar Babies_, the rollicking burlesque musical that rolled into Broadway last fall, was one of the most-awaited shows of the year because it signalled Mickey Rooney's return to Broadway after umpteen years. Less attention was initially given to Mickey's co-star, dazzling Ann Miller, who last appeared on Broadway in 1970 as a star of _Mame_. Ann, it turns out, is not only a wonderful singer and comedienne, but, in her mid-50s, is still one of the best tap dancers in America. Her fancy footwork has become a prime attraction of this box-office smash.

"I was also in _George White's Scandals_ for a year when I was 15,"

recalls Ann in her dressing room after a performance. "This is my third show only." For most of her career, she has lived in Beverly Hills, California. The veteran of dozens of movies, including _On The Town_ with Frank Sinatra, Miss Miller is a larger-than-life entertainer who believes that her career comes first and foremost, ahead of personal happiness and family. Married and divorced three times, she has no children, but is an ardent animal lover.

"I have two beautiful dogs, Cinderella and Jasmine," she says in a light Southern accent. "They look exactly alike, only one is Hungarian and the other is French. My secretary walks them. ... I'm very much interested in the protection of animals. I think people treat animals very cruelly, and to me, when you adopt a dog, it's like adopting a child. My little Cinderella: she was thrown out of a car by somebody wanting to get rid of her. I found her in Cincinnati in a blizzard. She almost died and I saved her life."

By looking beyond the heavy rouge, bright red lipstick, large rhinestone earrings and fluttering false eyelashes that are part of her act, one can see that Ann appears considerably younger then her years. _Sugar Babies_, she points out, is not burlesque in the normal sense. "Burlesque got sleazy in the 1940s with b.u.mps and grinds and ta.s.sel-twirlers, but that's not what we're selling. We sell, in a sense, glorified, old-fas.h.i.+oned, 1920s-style vaudeville, with good production numbers. And that's what burlesque was originally. ... A college professor got this together. The jokes are authentic. ... Our show is for everybody. It's not dirty at all -- not by today's standards."

There is a crowd of people waiting to see Ann after nearly every show.

Rooney escapes the fans by das.h.i.+ng out the stage door within minutes of the final curtain. "He lives way out in New Jersey," explains Ann, who rents a hotel suite on the Upper West Side. "Mickey is married and he has 10 children. He loves them all very much. ... Mickey and I went to school together. He's a very nice person and he's a great pro. He may be a small man, but he's a giant in his own way."

Miss Miller, who likes to dine at the 21 Club, Sardi's and the Conservatory, believes that _Sugar Babies_ is a hit "because it's timely.

People are desperate to laugh. They're tired of hearing about war and the food crunch and the oil crunch. They want to be entertained."

She has written her autobiography, _Miller's High Life_, which is available "only in rate bookstores and in every library in the country. It isn't out in paperback yet, but there's some talk of it." Asked about a projected second volume, _Miller on Tap_, she says: "It will be my life; it will carry on from where the other one left off."

She has no secret for looking so young, except that she is a nonsmoker, drinks nothing stronger than wine, watches her diet, and avoids anything strenuous in the daytime, to save her energy for the show.

With her jet-black hair, pearl-white teeth, and exaggerated makeup, Ann looks more than a little exotic. This may help to explain her belief in reincarnation. "I really do have memories of Egypt. They're not in a form that I can describe. You sometimes just know things. You're born with knowing. I have been to Egypt three times, and I'm planning to go back again and again, I want to go mainly to Luxor. I'm very entranced with it. I like all the antiquities of Egypt. The present-day Egypt I have no interest in to speak of."

Ann says she doesn't like the name of her current show. "People think it's candy, because there is Sugar Babies candy," she explains, "but in the old days, babies meant beautiful show girls. The girls had sugar daddies, so they were called sugar babies."

A Texas native who began dancing professionally in New York at the age of 11, Ann says yes, she feels good about her career, but that "it's been a long struggle. The sad part is, I have wanted so much to be happy, but I have never found happiness."

Her father, who was a lawyer, left her mother when Ann was 10. Since Mrs. Miller was almost totally deaf, Ann supported them by tap dancing at Rotary Club luncheons. She retains a fear of poverty to this day. "I save all my clothes because some day I might be poor again," she says.

"I have a room with nothing in it but racks of clothes. I cover them nicely, and once a year I air them out, in case they come back in style."

WESTSIDER SHERRILL MILNES Opera superstar

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"In a career of my size," says baritone Sherrill Milnes, "there is no off season. I try to hold myself to 60 performances a year -- not including recordings or dress rehearsals or private studies. ... In fact, I think I'm the most-recorded American opera singer ever, in any voice category."

We're talking in his s.p.a.cious Westside apartment facing the Hudson River. I cannot help observing that Milnes, a handsome man who stands 6 foot 2 and weighs 220 pounds, with his dark hair combed straight back and wearing a blue flowered s.h.i.+rt, looks very much like a country and western singer. It is his chest that gives him away -- a ma.s.sive, powerful chest that hints at the huge voice it supports. To deliver notes that are clearly audible throughout the largest opera houses in the world, over the sound of a full orchestra, and without amplification, is one of the most physically demanding tasks in all the performing arts. And one of the best paying. Only a handful of singers take home, like Milnes, approximately $7,000 for each night's work.

At 44, he is in the peak of his career, and has been since he made his Metropolitan Opera debut in December, 1965. He has sung in virtually all of the world's leading opera houses, including the Paris Opera, the Hamburg State Opera, and La Scala in Milan. Asked what more he can accomplish, Milnes replies that "one hopes to become a better artist all the time. But you can only go so fast. If you make family a priority position -- which is certainly true in this case -- there are only so many hours in the day. I could be more famous, were I on television more. But it takes time. ... I don't want to sound like: he's satisfied with his career, where he is, and he doesn't want to do any more. But I have to realize that my career can no longer continue at the same rate of ascendancy."

His current show with the Met, Verdi's _Don Carlo_, will continue until mid-March. "This is the first time New York has heard the five-act original version," notes Milnes. "We'll be doing it in Italian. People said, 'Why don't you do _Don Carlo_ like the real original, in French?' The problem is, five years later, where do you find people who know it in French? There's a practical set of problems when, worldwide, everybody know it in Italian. I don't know if it would have been worth it for one season." Long-range planning is an important aspect of any opera singer's life. Milnes already has his schedule set up until 1984.

The main reason why Italy has declined in importance as a center for opera, says Milnes, is that the country's economic problems make it impossible for the companies to book singers years in advance. "I think America is now producing more singers than Italy, and Spain is very high on the list of producing singers."

It is to Italy that Milnes owes much of his success. "We have that phrase 'Verdi baritone' -- sometimes more generically, 'Italian baritone.' There's no question that Verdi treated the baritone as a special voice category, differently really than composers before him. He did a lot of t.i.tle roles for the baritone voice, and really split the ba.s.s and baritone roles very much."

Widely known as an unselfish performer who gives his time freely to others, Milnes is chairman of the board of Affiliated Artists, a non-profit organization that arranges concerts across America for young, up-and coming singers.

Born on an Illinois farm, he studied piano and violin from early childhood. In high school, he won the state music contest in five separate categories, including vocal soloist. Deciding that his voice was the instrument that showed most promise, he began his professional career as a member of a chorus attached to the Chicago Symphony. In 1960 he turned to opera. Boris Goldovsky, the opera maestro, signed him immediately, taught his willing pupil the fine points of acting in opera, and took him on five cross-country tours. Since 1962, Milnes has had practically no time for anything but singing.

A dedicated family man, he is married to soprano Nancy Stokes. The couple has a 6-year-old son, Shawn, and Milnes has two other children from a previous marriage. He has been a Westsider for almost 10 years.

Not at all sn.o.bbish about his own musical gifts, Milnes believes that singing is excellent recreation for anyone, regardless of voice quality. "I encourage people to sing in the shower. It's a great emotional outlet. Even if you're lousy, it makes you sound fantastic. When I'm on the stage, I always have that feeling that I'm never going to sound as good as I do in the shower. You can't get the same _ring_ when you're singing to 5,000 people."