100 New Yorkers of the 1970s Part 9

Feiffer spent several years as an a.s.sistant to other cartoonists and attended two art schools. Still, no one would publish his work until a day in 1956 when Feiffer, age 27, took a batch of his best 'toons to the office of a new, relatively unknown weekly called _The Village Voice_. They loved his work, and he became a regular contributor.

"All other publications at that time had their own idea of their readers.h.i.+p.

And editors insisted on tailoring stories to their own taste. The _Voice_,"

says Feiffer, "existed for the artist's taste and the writer's taste. It was a time when McCarthyism and the blacklist were rampant through every strata of society."

The _Voice_ was then the only publication of its kind. It wrote about dissent; it was considered revolutionary, and Feiffer's weekly cartoons helped it to maintain that image.

Success came quickly to Feiffer after he joined the _Village Voice_: "It happened faster than I thought. It was only about three months or so before my work came to be talked about, and publishers began to offer book contracts." Syndication took place a few years later. Now the cartoon is carried by somewhat over 100 publications in every country of the western world and several in the Far East.

Feiffer's cartoon takes him one day a week to conceive and draw. During the other six days he works on his latest writing project. For three years -- until it was published this past summer -- that project was _Ackroyd_, an unconventional detective-type novel in which the characters are too human to keep their traditional roles as props for the detective's cleverness. The book is less suspenseful than a standard detective novel, but more revealing of human nature.

One of the things that has been in my work for many years," says Feiffer, "is people's need to communicate with each other not directly, but in code. ... Coded language is used to guide our lives, to frame our relations.h.i.+ps with people." Feiffer's main character takes the name Roger Ackroyd and tries to become a private detective. Instead he gets "so intertwined with the coded life of his clients that he works on that for the rest of his career."

_Ackroyd_ got extremely mixed reviews. "It's what I'm used to," notes the author. "Some reviews have been glowing. Others wondered what the h.e.l.l the book was about and why I bothered to write it." Feiffer takes the good and the bad in stride, remembering what happened when his first play, _Little Murders_, opened on Broadway in 1967.

"It got all negative reviews and closed in a week," he recalls. "It was immediately done in London after that, which started the revival, because it was done very successfully. Then it was brought back to New York the following year and it won all the awards." In 1971 it was made into a successful film starring Elliott Gould and Marcia Rodd.

An occasional theatregoer, Feiffer ends the interview on a customary depressing note, saying that he is generally disappointed by even the biggest hits in town.

"I don't think of myself as a Broadway playwright," he says. "I'd be ashamed of that t.i.tle. I don't think the Broadway theatre is very interesting or has been for the last 20 years."

EASTSIDER GERALDINE FITZGERALD Actress, director and singer

3-15-80

Anyone hearing her rasping, throaty, Irish-accented voice for the first time might think she were suffering from laryngitis. But those who have come to love and admire Geraldine Fitzgerald over the past 40 years hear nothing but earthy humanity in the voice. One of the most versatile actresses in America, as unorthodox as she is gifted, Miss Fitzgerald at 66 remains at the height of her career, constantly juggling a variety of projects, as she says, "like somebody cooking a meal with many courses."

We're sitting in her Upper East Side living room, which is decorated in white from floor to ceiling -- carpet, chairs, tables, sofa, and even the television. The only picture is a childhood portrait of her daughter Susan Scheftel, now a 27-year-old graduate student.

"I like light unimpeded," explains Geraldine, her rosy face breaking into its customary smile. "And if everything is white, it's different in the morning and it's different in the middle of the day, and it's different all the time."

A slender, handsome woman with a penchant for long flowing skirts and bright lipstick, whose straight gray hair descends halfway down her back, Geraldine is soon talking about _Ma.s.s Appeal_, the two-character play that she is directing at the Manhattan Theatre Club; it will open in mid May. "It's by a very young author called Bill Davis. We did it last October at the Circle Rep Lab, and it was very successful, but it needed strengthening points. So Bill has just completed the ninth draft. ... Milo O'Shea is going to star in it. He's Ireland's premier comedian and a magnificent dramatic actor too."

Miss Fitzgerald's next acting role will be in a play t.i.tled _Eve._ "It's about a woman who runs away from home to seek her own internal freedom, like Nora in _A Doll's House_. The only difference is, she's my age. So of course her options are few. And she goes right down to the bottom: she becomes a derelict. And then slowly, slowly, slowly she comes up to find some kind of strength and independence. It's a drama, but a very comedic drama."

Her third major project at the moment is to prepare her acclaimed one woman show, _Street Songs_, for a small Broadway house such as the Rialto.

She started to take singing lessons about 10 years ago, and introduced her one-woman nightclub act in 1975, employing her remarkable acting technique to make the songs personal and moving. She has performed the act at Reno Sweeney, at Lincoln Center, in a one-hour special for public television, and at the White House for President and Mrs. Carter.

"I don't sing what's called 'folk songs.' People think I do. I sing songs that are very -- winning. Because the songs that people sing when they're on their own -- whether singing in the streets, singing in the shower, singing in the car -- they do not sing losing songs. We didn't know that for a long time. 'We' is Richard Maltby Jr., who did _Ain't Misbehavin'_. He's my colleague and partner and he directed it.

"At first we couldn't understand why a marvelous song like 'Loch Lomond' was sort of rejected by the audience, and then a song like 'Danny Boy', that you'd think everybody's sick of, was acceptable. Well, 'Danny Boy,' believe it or not, is a winning song. At the end of it, the girl says, 'Even if I'm dead, if you come back and you whisper that you love me still, I'll hear you in my grave.' And then I'll know that you'll be beside me for eternity. Whereas 'Loch Lomond' starts off so well, but each verse says 'But me and my true love will never meet again ... "

She began her acting career at the Gate Theatre in Dublin while in her teens, came to the U.S. in 1937, and acted with Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre on the Air before heading for Hollywood, where she made such cla.s.sic films as _Dark Victory, Watch on the Rhine_, and _Wuthering Heights_, for which she received an Oscar nomination. In 1946 she settled on Manhattan's East Side, and has been based there ever since, although she frequently returns to Hollywood to act in movies.

Perhaps even better known for her stage roles, she names Eugene O'Neill's poignant, autobiographical _Long Day's Journey Into Night_ as her favorite play. When it was revived Off Broadway in 1971, her portrayal of the morphine-addicted Mary Tyrone became the biggest hit of her stage career. Miss Fitzgerald has recorded this play and others for Caedmon Records.

Married to Stuart Scheftel, a wealthy executive and producer, she has one son from a previous marriage, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the hugely successful young director who was nominated for a Tony Award for _Whose Life is this Anyway?_ Miss Fitzgerald is the first actress ever to receive the Handel Medallion, New York's highest cultural award.

If Geraldine has one regret about her career, it is that it took her "so many decades to get up the courage to sing. Everybody told me not to, because I have such a funny voice. ... Then I realized that I needed a vehicle for expressing what I feel about the world and about people that was very flexible, and was mine. And if the audience would put up with the harsh sounds, then I could use it. And evidently they can, so if they can now, I guess they always could."

EASTSIDER JOAN FONTAINE Actress turns author with _No Bed of Roses_

12-30-78

The Oscar statuette stands on the end of a shelf about eight feet off the floor, partially obscured by a row of books, its gold surface gleaming dully in the subdued light of the room. Below, in one of the apartment's four fireplaces, a small log is softly burning. This room, like the rest of the large, immaculate home, is furnished in the style of an early 20th century country manor. Here, in the heart of the Upper East Side, Joan Fontaine has spent 15 years of an immensely productive life. I take a seat on one side of the fire, and Miss Fontaine faces me from the opposite side of the room, her slender, regal form resting comfortably in an antique chair, to talk about her best-selling autobiography, _No Bed Of Roses_ (Morrow, $9.95). Published in September, the book has already sold more than 75,000 copies in hardcover.

As the t.i.tle implies, Miss Fontaine's life has been one long roller coaster ride of triumph and tragedy. During the 1940s she received three Oscar nominations for Best Actress in the s.p.a.ce of four years, and won the award for _Suspicion_ (1941). She had the joy of raising two children -- one of them adopted -- but the disappointment of four divorces. Her mother, who died in 1975, was the best friend she has ever known, yet both her father and her stepfather gave her nothing but unhappiness, and she never had a close relations.h.i.+p with her famous older sister, Olivia de Havilland. In fact, the pair have not spoken in years -- for reasons clearly explained in Fontaine's book.

A fiercely independent woman who has flown her own airplane and taken part in international ballooning compet.i.tion, she has suffered through numerous illnesses and injuries that brought her close to permanent disability or death. These are the elements of _No Bed Of Roses_, a disarmingly frank memoir that is frequently unsettling but never boring.

"The fan mail for this book is getting to be enormous," says Fontaine, still radiant at 61. "A lot of people identify with the illnesses, or with trying to bring up children alone. Some people empathize because they had harsh relations with their siblings. A lot of men have told me they cried at the end, in my epitaph to my mother. And then of course, I have heard from a lot of people who wanted to be actresses, or actors."

Did she write the entire book herself? "Every single word. I wouldn't let them touch one of them. ... It's not a sordid book; it's not tacky. One reviewer said it was immoral. I don't think I can figure that out. If you ask me, it's rather religious."

The words come out like perfect silver beads. She has always been a formidable presence on the screen, and is no less so in person, as she gives her unrestrained opinions on every topic introduced.

Marriage, says Fontaine, is "waiting on -- or waiting for somebody."

Asked whether she believes two average people can remain happily married for a lifetime, she replies: "It depends how hypocritical they are, and how much lying they want to do. ... I think the word 'love' means an entirely different thing to a woman than it does to a man."

Her cla.s.sic movies, including _Rebecca, Jane Eyre, Suspicion_, and _This Above All_, are frequently seen on television now, but Fontaine has little respect for television as a medium: "I consider it nothing more than B pictures. I think we took a little more care with B pictures; the actors and actresses got a chance. In a television film, if the actor slips on a word, to h.e.l.l with it. We'll cut around it."

Earlier this year, Fontaine appeared in the made-for-television movie _The Users_, starring Jaclyn Smith. She could do many others, but prefers to be choosy. "The quality of the scripts is so poor. I think it's the taste of the times. It's a brutal world; it's a vulgar world. ... It's quite different from the romance of Jane Eyre. I don't think I could act those roles. I'd rather sit in my library in front of the fire."

In truth, she has little time for sitting around: her acting talents are too much in demand, in dinner theatres and in college auditoriums around the country. Recently she returned from a three-month working trip. In February she'll be opening in Dallas. "I haven't decided on the play yet,"

she says.

In spite of her words, she somehow comes off as being thoroughly charming. A highly sociable woman who loves to attend c.o.c.ktail parties and make new acquaintances, Fontaine is also a gourmet cook. "At Christmas I cook for about 75 people. No one married can come. I'm thrilled that one of my friends has just gotten divorced. Now she can come." Among the Eastside restaurants that Fontaine visits frequently are 21 and the Four Seasons.

When she has time to herself, Fontaine enjoys reading literature and adapting it for her lectures. "I lecture on many subjects," she says. "I do the entire Jane Eyre -- all the roles. It takes about an hour and a half. It's more like a film reading than a lecture. I do one on American poets, and one on Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning -- all their own words.

Then a new one has crept up -- if I may say so, by popular demand -- called 'The Golden Years.' I tell how to do it -- how to make these years the best. I've never felt so happy or so free or so contented as I am now."

born 10-22-17

WESTSIDER BETTY FRIEDAN Founder of the women's liberation movement

7-14-79

One of the most-discussed nonfiction works published in 1978 was _The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History_ by astrophysicist Michael H. Hart. He writes: "My criterion was neither fame nor talent nor n.o.bility of character, but actual personal influence on the course of human history and on the everyday lives of individuals." Seven native-born Americans were included in the 100, and when _People_ magazine requested Hart to expand his list of Americans to 25, the first name he added was that of Betty Friedan, who, he said, "through women's liberation, has already had a greater impact than most presidents."

The book that did most to trigger the women's movement was Friedan's _The Feminine Mystique_ (1963), a brilliant a.n.a.lysis of the postwar "back to the home" movement, when women were led to believe that they could find fulfillment only through childbearing and housework. That myth, said Friedan, resulted in a sense of emptiness and loss of ident.i.ty for millions of American women. Her book became an international best-seller, and has been translated into more than a dozen languages.

But _The Feminine Mystique_ was only the first of many contributions that Friedan has made to the women's movement. In 1966 she founded the National Organization for Women (NOW), which today has more than 70,000 members and is by far the most effective feminist group in the world. She has written a second book, _It Changed My Life_, made countless appearances on radio and television, and become one of the most sought-after lecturers in the country. Despite her public image as a hard core activist, Betty Friedan at 58 is a charming, decidedly feminine woman who enjoys wearing makeup and colorful dresses. In an interview at her brightly decorated apartment high above Lincoln Center, she reveals that these two aspects of her personality are not at all contradictory.