DIANA'S NOTE: I wasn't going to publish this edition of my blog for a week or two, but I saw today that Phyllis Diller has died at age 95. Many of you younger readers will not remember her, but strangely enough, I just wrote about her last night, in paragraph 3 below!
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I spent last weekend in San Francisco, a city I have not visited for at least 20 years. The trip had a dual purpose: to attend a wedding shower for some dear friends and to interview one of our finest costume designers Aggie Guerard Rodgers. (The Color Purple, Beetlejuice, Return of the Jedi, need I say more?)
As always, memories came flooding back. I first visited San Francisco in my very early twenties, when I was a dancer with the National company of My Fair Lady. We had previously played in Los Angeles where I saw my first palm tree and ate my first Mexican food, and now we were at the Curran Theater on Geary Street in San Francisco. Right next door at the Geary Theater, Gypsy was playing with Ethel Merman, and since their opening night was right before our opening night, we were able to attend. I had been told that Merman had just heard that Rosalind Russell was going to play “her” role in the film version, so when she bellowed her opening line “Sing out, Louise” from the back of the house, the place went nuts and cheered and applauded her in support. Again, when she sang “Mama’s Turn” in Act 2, she brought the house down a second time.
In San Francisco I had my first Ramos Fizz in the little bar across the street, saw my first drag show, and went to the Hungry I to see a “new” comedienne called Phyllis Diller. There was a big line to get in, so, in a moment of unusual bravado, I marched to the head of the line with my dancer friends and asked if they extended “professional courtesy”. They ushered us right in past everyone, including it turned out, our company manager! Diller was hilarious, and we quoted her endlessly for months after that.
Touring was great fun at that age, especially with a big musical, where there were lots of dancers and singers my age to hang out with and go sightseeing with. There was a key group of us that stayed friends from those days to now.
About 8 years later I returned to the Bay Area, this time as choreographer for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. The star, the late Godfrey Cambridge, had rented a houseboat in Sausolito for the run and invited one of the dancers to stay there with him, She wasn’t comfortable with that, so she invited me and another dancer to stay there too. Godfrey was habitually running late, and one night the theater called in a panic because the 4 of us hadn’t shown up yet for the show. We hustled Godfrey into the car, and as we crossed the Oakland Bridge toward the theatre in Berkeley, I looked over at the speedometer and saw that he was driving over 100 mph! We moved out the next day - a wee bit too much adventure for our taste!
I returned to San Francisco two times more as an actress with The Odd Couple and later with The Killing of Sister George. Sometimes I was lonely, as plays have much smaller casts, so I would find a ballet class to attend just to be around people.
I also learned to drive in San Francisco! Having grown up in Toronto, where the public transit system is so good you don’t need a car, and then moved to New York, where having a car is not necessary either, I had never learned to drive. I got my license in Los Angeles and as soon as we got to San Francisco I rented a car and drove every day. I went up and down those steep hills (not stick shift, thankfully), over the Golden Gate Bridge, and down the winding road on the other side to Stinson Beach. It was scary, but I loved driving, and still do!
And then this weekend, I met Oscar nominated costume designer Aggie Guerard Rodgers. She has lived in the Bay area her whole life and managed a very successful career designing major feature films from her home base in San Francisco, commuting to Los Angeles or location when necessary. A warm and totally down to earth woman, I loved her right away! She shared with me many of her stories and her views for an article I am writing for the Costume Designers Guild website as we had a super lunch at a Creperie in the MIssion District.
San Francisco - what’s not to like?
(and don't forget to check out my online costume training course at www.HollywoodMentors.co)
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