JOAN COLLINS
MNew York emorial Day in Manhattan dawned fair and fine, so I was glad that I had accepted the invitation of Admiral Don Hayes to visit the aircraft-carrier John F. Kennedy, docked at Pier 36 on the West Side. The fleet had been in town for several days, and the streets thronged with young sailors of different nationalities savouring the Big Apple's traditional 'Fleet Week'. The ship was certainly a memorable sight: 23 storeys high, with four acres of flight-deck and a crew of 5,200 able-bodied men and women. On the dock, little stalls sold JFK baseball caps and T-shirts in anticipation of the crowds who would tour 'Big John', as she is affectionately known in navy circles, that afternoon. We were fortunate to be offered a private tour during the time that crew family members are invited on board. It was, to say the least, impressive and quite exciting, culminating in lunch with the admiral in the officers' mahogany-panelled dining-room, surrounded by enormous pictures depicting 18th-centuty naval scenes. I commented on how extremely well decorated the room was, to which the admiral proudly responded, 'It's all due to Mrs Kennedy. When this ship was finished, the First Lady came on board and didn't like the dining-room, with its austere white metal bulkheads, one bit. "This doesn't do justice to the president's memory," she told the captain. "I'd prefer the walls to be panelled in mahogany." "I'm sorry, ma'am," said the captain. "No American warships are allowed to have wood in them. It's flammable." "So what would it take for this dining-room to be decorated in mahogany?" she asked. "An Act of Congress, ma'am," the captain replied. So, guess what?' The admiral grinned. 'Two days later a bill was passed in Congress stating that only ships christened John F. Kennedy were allowed to have their dining-rooms panelled in wood. That Kennedy clan sure had the power, and they sure knew how to use it too,' he said.
The admiral was sipping his iced tea, the strongest beverage available. The US Navy is the only 'dry' navy in the world. We were told that the crew are each allowed two beers on board, but only after they've been at sea for more than 45 days. After seeing the sheer magnitude of firepower on board, I can appreciate that you wouldn't want any drunk drivers at the helm. As the admiral escorted us off the ship, the queue of people waiting on the dock for their tour was almost a mile long. Brazenly capitalistic, I asked, 'How much do you charge for this tour?"Ma'am, the American taxpayer paid for this ship. The least we can do to give back something is to let our people visit for free."And, just out of interest, what are the operational costs per year?' I inquired, thinking of the 70 planes, thousands of gallons of petrol. and 20,000 meals consumed daily on board. 'One hundred million dollars, ma'am,' said the Ldmir al, smiling. 'And she's worth every cent. 'Fairly hefty tab.' one of my friends whispered to me, 'considering the food wasn't that good.'
First there was road rage, then air rage, and now I've witnessed a new phenomenon close-up: shopping rage. My friend Jack, who like me majored summa cum laude in shopping, accompanied me for a day of boutiquebrowsing, which we liken to fishing trips. We spent 20 minutes with a salesperson in a Fifth Avenue store, carefully selecting various items, then followed him to an empty till where he began totting up our catch. 'Hey, man, what the hell are y'doing?' yelled an angry voice from the back of the queue behind the other till. The salesman muttered that he'd been helping us, and started to ring up my purchases. 'Hey, hey, hey, you must be star-struck, man. We was here first. Let her get in line behind us.' I turned to see a very big, very dark and very angry young man with a chip on his shoulder the size of 'Big John'. My glance seemed to enrage him even more as, oozing fury, he continued to berate the hapless clerk. 'Get me the manager. You ring that store manager right now, d'you hear?' The five poor wretches in front of him hung their heads in embarrassment, trying to pretend that they weren't there, while the clerk continued totting. 'You're a star-fer, that's what you are, a f—ing star-f—erl' He was rabid by now. If he'd been a dog, he'd have been foaming at the mouth. I didn't need to hear any more venom. Any
second I expected a .45 to be pulled, and I could see the headlines: 'Actress Dies in Shopping Shoot-out'. I grabbed Jack's arm, and my plastic from the clerk, and we hastily left the building. Not out of cowardice; I simply wouldn't be caught dead in the Gap.
The Manhattan theatrical restaurant owned by Vincent Sandi is renowned for its walls crammed with hundreds of framed caricatures of 'above the title' thespians, from the early 20th century to the present day. Depending on their box-office grosses, the Great White Way's most popular current stars will have their cartoons, now brilliantly executed by Richard Baratz, displayed prominently in either the foyer or at eye-level in the ground-floor dining-room. Dominating the entrance now are Susan Stroman, the director/choreographer of the absolutely fabulous mega-hit The Producers, and Reba McEntire, the eponymous heroine of Annie Get Your Gun. Reba is a joy in her show, and when we had dinner together one night, I was astonished to learn that she had never acted on the stage before this January, even though she's been one of the most popular female countryand-western singers in the States for years. Having drinks at Sardi's recently, between the acts of Neil Simon's The Dinner Party, I went on a quest for my own drawing, done while I was on Broadway in Private Lives in 1992. Not surprisingly, I found myself upstairs, relegated to a frozen Siberian tundra populated by long-forgotten theatrical names, of whom the only one I recognised was John Banymore, directly to my left. `Ah well,' I said to my group, 'at least I have better billing.'
Acouple of nights later, after a screening of Pearl Harbor, I dined at Sardi's with two friends. Just as coffee was being served, a giant orange cockroach, which had taken up quarters under the urn, skittered across the pristine white tablecloth bold as brass. I emitted a girlish scream, and one of the men gallantly swiped the horrid creature on to the floor, where it sought refuge under a neighbouring table. The bug-eyed occupants had clocked the entire action, and the women went into Victorian damsel-in-distress mode, daintily lifting their skirts and their legs out of the way. The maitre d' rushed to our table to assure us that there would be no bill and that this was a most uncommon occurrence. `I suppose that they usually stay in the kitchen,' I remarked. A few nights later we called Sardi's to book 'a cockroach-free table for six, please,' which was greeted with a distinctly humourless attitude. But, lo and behold, as soon as we entered the foyer, there was my caricature in pride of place sandwiched between Reba and Susan Stroman. I've since decided to hire the cockroach as my agent.
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