Forever Mame: The Life of Rosalind Russell

Acknowledgments

First, I must thank present and former Waterburians—Anne M. Barrie, Mrs. Harry W. Bartlett, Carol Bauby, Rev. Thomas F. Bennett, Lou Gallulo, Hazel M. Keyser, Steve Morris, Peg Ruhlmann, and Doris Trianovick—with whom I corresponded or spoke by phone about Rosalind, her family, and Waterbury at the time she was growing up there. Two Waterburians, Lou and Mary D’Abramo, even went out of their way to obtain a copy of Rosalind’s father’s death certificate for me. I must also acknowledge the following, without whose knowledge and expertise this book could ever have been written: Rita Arno, director, Development Operations, Marymount College of Fordham University, for copying the college’s Rosalind Russell file for me; Jen Booth, for verifying Frederick Brisson’s dates of attendance at Rossall College, now Rossall School; Lance Brisson, for sharing his memories of his parents with me; John E. Burke, first, for putting me in touch with Lou and Mary D’Abramo and, then, for describing for me the fate of Mourning Becomes Electra after its road show engagement when it had to be marketed differently for a mass audience; Betty Comden, for a memorable phone conversation about Wonderful Town; Ned Comstock, University of Southern California’s archivist extraordinaire , for alerting me to collections I did not know existed; Grover Crisp, vice president, Asset Management and Film Restoration, Sony Pictures, for providing me with tapes of This Thing Called Love and Five Finger Exercise; ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix Rosemary Franzen, archivist, St. Margaret’s–McTernan School in Waterbury, for clarifying the sale of the Russell home to St. Margaret’s for me; George Gaynes, Rosalind’s Wonderful Town costar, to whom Rosalind proved to be a true colleague; Julie Graham, arts librarian for Special Collections at the University of California at Los Angeles, for granting me access to uncataloged scrapbooks that enabled me to document Rosalind’s years in repertory; and her assistant, Lauren Buisson, head of operations, arts library, Special Collections, for providing such a relaxed atmosphere for research; Tony Greco, for securing tapes of some of Rosalind’s most obscure films for me; Barbara Hall, head of Special Collections at the Margaret Herrick Library of the Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study, for putting at my disposal every collection that included even the slightest reference to Rosalind; Kristine Krueger, National Film Information Service, for enabling me to continue my research in New Jersey; Betty Lawson, director of External and Alumni Affairs at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA), for allowing me to view Rosalind’s AADA file; Dana Lucisano, reference librarian, Silas Bronson Library, Waterbury, for providing me with a copy of Rosalind’s birth certificate (which Rosalind would have preferred no one saw); The extraordinary team of Kathleen Stein-Smith and Maryann Sena of the Periodicals Division of Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Weiner Library (Metropolitan Campus, Teaneck, New Jersey), for tracking down information that would have confounded a professional sleuth; Katherine M. Restaino, my wife and partner in research, whose eye for detail, sharpened by years of reading detective fiction and working as a college administrator, has saved me from many a grammatical and syntactical pitfall, not to mention lapses in clarity; Lawrence Roman, for explaining how Rosalind provided him with a great laugh line for his play, Under the Yum-Yum Tree; x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Jamie Bernstein Thomas, for confirming what I had always read—that Leonard Bernstein composed the Wonderful Town score to suit Rosalind’s limited range. Special thanks to Harriet de Biro and the Rosalind fans who communicate via rosalindrussell@yahoogroups.com. May your tribe increase! ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi This page intentionally left blank Forever Mame This page intentionally left blank ...