Part 30

"I'm not a letter writer anyway," she explains. "There are times when someone is so sincere that you feel you really want to respond. I have had people send me a dollar check for postage. My heart goes out sometimes; I get guilty when I read my mail. This audience is very responsive. They love to comment about the show. I get a lot of identifying mail. Some people say, 'You're like the sister I wish I had.' Sometimes there's strange mail. Sometimes there's lewd mail, which is removed before I can read it." She laughs vigorously. "That's fine with me, because then I can enjoy all my mail."

Asked about which part of the Upper West Side she lives in, Lenore declines to say. "I have some fans who would follow my footprints in the snow. You have to be careful. My husband and I tend to stay in the neighborhood a lot, and I'd hate to ruin our indiscreet little way of getting around. ... In New York people are used to seeing Al Pacino walking down the street, or Jackie O. shopping at the corner. But out of town -- at first they're not sure if it's you. A lot of people come up to me and say, 'Do you ever watch The Guiding Light? You look so much like that girl.' I usually tell them who I am. I can't see any point in lying. Face it, that's part of the reason we're doing this. I'm sure there's a ham in every actor, whether they're shy about it or not."

Her husband, actor Phil Peters, recently won the part of Dr. Steven Farrell on As The World Turns, another CBS soap opera. Within a few weeks, however, there was a change of writers. "The new writers wanted to bring in their own characters," says Lenore, "so on the show, Phil just disappeared in the night. He never showed up for his wedding. All the other characters were saying, 'Where could he be?'" She laughs at the recollection of what happened soon afterward when she and her husband were visiting Fredericksburg, Virginia: "A woman came up behind Phil while we were eating dinner, and said, 'Shame on you! How could you run off on that pretty little thing?'"

Born 30 years ago on Long Island, the daughter of an Army officer, Lenore grew up in such diverse places as Tennessee, Indiana, Virginia, Germany and Thailand. After graduating from the International School in Bangkok, she "got out of the Army" and returned to the U.S. to attend college in Indiana. There she began to do local TV commercials, and was so successful that she decided to try her luck in California. Quickly she became an established television actress, winning roles in many prime time series, including Starsky and Hutch, Barnaby Jones, and Ironside. While performing for a small theatre company she met Phil Peters. Phil wanted to come to New York to work in the theatre, and, with some reservations, Lenore came with him. Although Phil does not have a regular acting assignment at present, Lenore points out that "actors are never out of work. They're just between jobs."

The Guiding Light, says Lenore, "was originally a religious program on the radio, where the moral of the story was an enlightening lesson for everybody." Since moving to television in 1952, the show has changed considerably in content, but, according to Lenore, it still contains many lessons that are relevant to modern living.

"You can tell from mail that you do help people, whether you mean to or not," says the actress with obvious satisfaction. "I've gotten letters saying, 'Seeing Rita through that difficulty has enlightened me about my own situation.' She has not helped by example, because Rita doesn't always do things right. But she shows how much trouble you can get into by behaving the way she does, and in that way I think she helps people avoid the same mistakes."

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EASTSIDER BRIAN KEITH Back on Broadway after 27 years

12-29-79

On January 1, 1980, the curtain will finally ring down on Da, Hugh Leonard's strikingly original and poignant drama about a man's fond memories of his working-class Irish father. Da won four Tony Awards in 1978, including Best Play. Since July 30, the title role has been ably filled by Brian Keith, an actor perhaps best known for playing "Uncle Bill" in the situation comedy Family Affair, one of television's most popular shows from 1966 to 1971. Recently he has been seen in the TV specials Centennial, The Chisholms and The Seekers. In his long, illustrious career, the 57-year-old actor has starred in four other TV series and appeared in more than 60 motion pictures.

During the late 1940s, when he worked primarily on Broadway, Keith rented an apartment on East 66th Street with a fireplace and kitchen for $70 a month. Leaving for Hollywood in 1952, he eventually married a Hawaiian actress, and nine years ago became a full-time resident of Hawaii.

"I hadn't been to New York for years and years and years, and when we came here for a vacation last winter, I saw a play every night for a couple of weeks," says Keith. "Da was the only one I thought I'd really like to do sometime." Not long afterward, Barnard Hughes, the Tony Award winning star of Da, decided to tour with the show, and Keith was offered a five-month contract to replace him. Delighted with the chance to return to Broadway in such a compelling role after a 27-year absence, Keith quickly said yes. Bringing his wife and children to New York for an extended visit, he again chose the Upper East Side as a place to live.

A big, brawny 6-footer whose deep, gravelly voice and slothful mannerisms somehow bring to mind a friendly trained bear, Keith normally spends the time between his matinee and evening performances sleeping on an Army cot in his dressing room. On this particular day, he is sitting in the sparsely furnished room with his shirt off, smoking a cigarette and answering questions about his career. His initially gruff demeanor soon gives way to laughter, sentiment, hopefulness and cynicism in equal measure. A no-holds-barred conversationalist, he talks about the acting life with a rare frankness.

Taking over the role of Da with only about 20 hours of rehearsal, says Keith, was "just a matter of trouping it." He didn't find the task too difficult, partly because of his Irish background. Asked how far back his ancestry goes, Keith laughs and says, "How far back? If you go back far enough, you never stop. I'm Irish on both sides. On my father's side they came over in Revolutionary days. On my mother's side, five or six generations. It stays, though. The first time I went to Ireland, I felt the whole deja vu thing. I knew what I'd see around the next corner when I walked."

He was born in the backstage of a theatre in Bayonne, New Jersey. "I was there about a week. I'm always getting letter from people saying: 'I'm from Bayonne too!' My parents were actors, so we went everywhere. ... I went to high school in Long Island. Very ... very nothing. And I didn't care a damn thing about acting."

>From 1945 to 1955 he served in the U.S. Marine Corps as a sergeant in the Pacific campaign. "When I got out of the service, I was just banging around, looking for a job. I didn't have an education or anything. A guy offered me a part in a play and I didn't know whether I'd ever get another one. But I did, so it's been very nice. Very lucky. It's unlike the usual struggle that people go through."

When the conversation lands on Meteor, his latest movie, Keith declines comment, choosing to speak instead of The Last of the Mountain Men, a feature film that was completed in July and is scheduled for a Easter release. "Charlton Heston and I co-star. It's about two trappers in the West in 1830, and what happens to them when the beaver period comes to a close. The two guys are like Sundance and Butch. But damn well written. It's one of the best scripts I ever read. Heston's kid wrote it. He worked for a couple of years up around Idaho and Montana as a river guide. There's not a wasted word in the script."

Many of his films and TV shows Keith has never seen. "If it's some piece of junk, I don't see why I should bother. It's bad enough you did it. But to live through it again!. ... You can't sit around and wait for something you think is worthy of you."

Brian and his wife Victoria have two children. Mimi, his daughter from a previous marriage, is a member of the Pennsylvania Ballet Company. Between acting assignments, says Keith with affection, he spends most of his time "raising the damn kids. It's a 24-hour job. We do a lot of outdoor stuff, because in Hawaii you can, all year round. We go on the beach and camp out and all that crap."

He finds that being based in Hawaii causes no problems with his career. "It doesn't make any difference where you live," Keith growls softly. "People live in London, in Spain, in Switzerland. You don't go around looking for jobs. You wait till your agent calls you and you get on a plane and go. You can be halfway around the world overnight, from anywhere. It beats Bayonne."

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WESTSIDER HAROLD KENNEDY Author of No Pickle, No Performance

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In the early days of Harold Kennedy's theatrical career, he was involved in a play written by Sinclair Lewis, who may have been a great novelist but was no playwright. Kennedy was talking with Lewis one evening before the play opened when a young student approached the famous author and politely asked for an autograph. Lewis took the piece of paper the boy offered him and wrote on it: "Why don't you find a hobby that isn't a nuisance to other people?" He handed it back unsigned.

But the boy got even. The play opened a few nights later and was a total disaster. Lewis was sitting gloomily in the dressing room after the final curtain when a note was hand-delivered to him by an usher. He opened it and read, in his own handwriting: "Why don't you find a hobby that isn't a nuisance to other people?"

The story is one of dozens told in Harold Kennedy's book, No Pickle, No Performance, published this month by Doubleday. The book is a fascinating collection of true-life anecdotes stored up by Kennedy during his four decades in the theatre as a director, actor, and playwright on Broadway and across the country. The subtitle of his book is "An Irreverent Theatrical Excursion from Tallulah to Travolta," and he has written chapters about his experiences with both of these stars, in addition to Orson Welles, Charlton Heston, Thornton Wilder, Gloria Swanson, Steve Allen, and others who are less well known today but were legends in their time.

Its book is dedicated to actress Renee Taylor, who refused to come on stage during a play's opening night until she got a pickle with her sandwich, as she had during the previews. The coffee shop that had provided those sandwiches was closed, and the curtain was held while a prop man got in his car and went searching for the holy pickle. It arrived seven minutes after the advertised curtain time, and the show went on.

Unknown to Taylor, the stage crew was so enraged by her antics that they performed "a little ceremony" with the pickle before giving it to her. Gloria Swanson later said: "Poor Miss Taylor. Can't you see her shopping around to every delicatessen in New York complaining that she can never find a pickle to match the caliber of the one she had in New Jersey."