Gwen Verdon was perhaps the most famous Broadway Star ever. Winner of four Tonys. Star of Damn Yankees, Chicago, Sweet Charity, Redhead and many others. Star, since he saw her Sweet Charity poster on a billboard at the train Station in Belmar, NJ in 1966, in Chuck Gundersen’s heart. You know the poster. If not, google “Gwen Verdon Sweet Charity” and you’ll see what I mean. I’d been aware of her before, but after seeing that poster, if I knew she would be on tv, I watched. She was magic on stage and it came through even on the small screen. I had a crush.
Gwen was nineteen years older than I when I saw that poster, but what the hell, Marilyn Monroe was eighteen years older than I and that didn’t stop me from having a crush on her since I saw The Seven Year Itch in 1955. Something about Gwen, and something about Marilyn, as different as they were, struck a chord in me. Maybe it’s something about older women. Probably that’s it, because I am certainly attracted to older women. But then, I’m also attracted to women my age and to women younger than I, so maybe that’s not it.
In Marilyn’s case, I had to imagine myself older and imagine that Marilyn hadn’t aged during the time when I was growing up. I’m blessed with a fairly active imagination, though, and it wasn’t all that difficult for me to do that. When she died, there was no longer any point in imagining it. I had to imagine something else and eventually, my Marilyn Monroe fascination took the shape of a short work of fiction that appeared some time ago in these pages, a story in which at the age of twelve, I hitch-hike to Hollywood to find her and confess my love for her. Since it was a fantasy, and I could do anything I wanted with it, I took took another friend along; the French essayist and philosopher Michel De Montaigne, and we hitched a ride with Jack Kerouac and Neal Casady. I also, on the premise that some people are soul-mates, and fated to love each other against all odds, had Marilyn confess her love for me which she recognized the instant she opened the door and beheld me on her doorstep; even though she was thirty and I was twelve. If you’re going to have a fantasy, why not make it a good one?
My fantasy about Gwen Verdon, was a little more down to earth: I was her dance partner. I’d never aspired to be a dancer, but I wanted to dance with Gwen. And it required not quite as much imagination as having Marilyn Monroe remain thirty for the eighteen years it took me to reach that age. Also, hadn’t I won the slow dance contest with Patty Tilton at the Belmar Canteen in 1960? Hadn’t I beat out Smiley Fredericks to win that contest? Yes, I had, and for quite a few years, long after it was empty, the bottle of Old Spice—my trophy—remained on my dresser as a memento.
Also, sure Gwen was nineteen years older, but wasn’t Margot Fonteyn years older than Rudolf Nureyev, and weren’t they world renowned dancing partners? Nothing really stood in the way of my becoming Gwen’s dance partner and conquering the dance world except that I would have to somehow find her and then somehow get her to notice me and then somehow get her to acknowledge me and then somehow convince her to teach me to dance.
That last part was probably the most unlikely part of the fantasy, because I was a hopeless dancer. I know you’re thinking “what?” and glancing back two paragraphs to where I said I won the slow dance contest with Patty Tilton. That was true, but I’m admitting here for the first time that our victory was entirely due to Patty. She had carefully taught me to do that one dance with her: left foot forward and to the side, she moving backward as I moved forward, then right foot forward and to the right behind her. We twirl, and now she moves forward and I backward, twirl again and back to the original position.
We did those steps over and over, circling the dance floor. It required no skill, no grace, it was repetitive, but it was different from the way the other kids danced, because it looked kind of waltzy. We did it to every slow song. It was the only dance step I knew. The other thing was that Patty Tilton was so cute, so heartbreakingly blue-eved blonde perfect complexioned, pouty-lipped teenage girl cute that she would have won that dance contest if she’d danced with a mop. Teach me to dance? Gwen Verdon would have had her work cut out for her. Just as well I didn’t go looking for her.
But as it happens, many years later, she came to me, sort of. Her daughter, Nicole Fosse, had bought a house in Pomfret and moved here. Gwen came to visit from time to time, and while here, she would come in the store. It took me a while to realize who she was. She was older then, in her early seventies, but I thought from the first that there was something familiar about her; something special. I felt it but wasn’t sure why until she came in with Nicole one day, and I knew. She was Gwen Verdon. My fantasy, my dancer. Gwen Verdon. That magnetic, effervescent, glorious Gwen Verdon, in my little store in South Pomfret Vermont. We talked, had a laugh about something or other more than once, and I was delighted to have gotten to know her even just as a customer. And that’s why I have to tell you this:
When I got out of the army in the summer of 1966, I let my hair grow. I wore it long for years. I’d get it cut a bit from time to time, but often a long, long time would elapse between the times, Even today you may find me looking like a guy who has trouble accepting that the sixties are over.
One hot day in the summer of 2000, I decided to face it. It’s time. This hair has got to go. I got out the dog grooming clippers and cut my hair off. All of it, right down to about a quarter of an inch. It felt kind of good but mostly kind of weird and the stranger I saw in the mirror clearly regretted what he had done, but it was only hair, it would grow back.
The next day Gwen came into the store, looked at me behind the counter and said “Oh no, you cut your hair off. Oh, you shouldn’t have done it. I loved your hair.” Gwen Verdon, who I’d spent so many years star-struck over, loved my hair. She not only noticed me, was aware of me, knew me, but she loved my hair. Big deal? Well, let me ask you this. Did Gwen Verdon ever tell you that she loved your hair? I thought not.