Danny Kaye and the Sherry Netherland Hotel

Today I walked by this theatre on W 46th and saw this marquee for Danny and Sylvia: The Danny Kaye Musical . It made my mind rush back to a time (ala Proust and the madeleine which I am stealing from a future post I have planned) in the early 1980's when I worked at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel on 5th Avenue.

The Sherry. I walked up and down all those flights 4 times a day.

I was a security guard at the Sherry (as it is called) and Danny Kaye and his wife Sylvia Fine lived there. I remember the first time I saw him. I was on the floor of his apartment and he was waiting for the elevator. I was struck by what a legend he was. And how this legend was so frail and hunched over. He was very ill at the time and died a few years later. His wife was quite the lady on the town and she had a lot of pep after 3pm. No one was allowed to put phone calls through to her before that time. They were both very nice to me and I used to have to come up to their floor and lock their door for them. I didn't mind and it was these kinds of things that one had to do at this kind of place.

Diana Ross lived there and as well as the Coppolas. I would see Francis Ford and his wife after he would come back from a day of shooting "The Cotton Club." I even saw his Oscar for The Godfather. And I used to see Diana Ross and her brother. Jessica Lange and Sam Shepard stayed there and he hailed a cab on the street wearing a cowboy hat. I wanted to tell him that I was doing my senior thesis on his play "Buried Child, " but lacked the guts at the time. (Got an A+ thank you very much) But I seemed to have the pluck to knock on their hotel door for a weak security guard-style reason just to talk to Jessica Lange which I did. She was on my dorm wall in college along with Darryl Hannah.

The lobby of the Sherry. My boss was electicuted right here. Never spoke again.

I was young and confused and awed (now older and confused and awed) and living in Manhattan and working at a glamourous hotel as an undercover security guard for a wopping $8/hour. I will have to write about this someday as I saw everything I had never seen before there and it was a trip. There were French bag ladies, government officials, prostitutes, ladies who lunch, drunk David Lee Roth, floodings, electricutions, hotel theives with straight razors, telephone operators with beehives and me. I loved it.

Thank you Danny and Syliva! I will go and see your play. Rest in Peace. You have earned it.