An Enigmatic Brilliant Classmate

In the summer 2023 issue I received online today, the alumni bulletin of the law school from which I graduated, Harvard, reported the death last autumn (2022) of a classmate, Covert E. Parnell III, whom I cannot say I knew well but whose company I had now and then enjoyed while there.  Pete was an unusual guy, even if his resume was classic top-of-the-line HLS.

He was born and grew up in Alabama, attended Birmingham Southern College, and graduated magna from Harvard Law. Then he clerked for a respected judge on the Third Circuit in Philadelphia, Francis Van Dusen, followed by service as one of the last clerks for Justice Hugo Black. When Black died while Pete was his clerk, the incoming justice, another Southerner, Lewis Powell, kept him on.

Pete always said that Black had hired him because he was a decent tennis player, always rumored to be a requirement to be a law clerk for the justice, who played frequently into his old age. Pete's being an Alabaman can't have hurt him either, as Black was partial to brilliant law grads from his home state. This was despite the prevalence of dislike, to put it mildly, for Black in Alabama because of his individual but generally progressive views (even though he'd been a Klan member in his youth): "Hugo Black used to run around in white robes scaring black people; now he wears black robes and scares white people" was the derogatory line about Black in the South.

He had been a Senator from Alabama during the New Deal and was FDR's first nominee to the Court, in 1937; Roosevelt had not had the opportunity to appoint a justice to the Court which had been striking down his legislation for his whole first term. Black was named after the collapse of Roosevelt's attempt to expand the Court so as to outvote the conservatives dominating the Court. It was felt that the safest political path was to nominate a sitting Senator.

It shouldn't be surprising that law came easily to Pete. Powell undoubtedly kept him on because everyone who knew Pete was impressed by both his brilliance and his charm. When I ran into him sometime later, I asked him about a clerk who served at the time he did and was well-known. In Pete's view, he was a "cottonhead". Pete became a partner in a major Los Angeles firm only five years out. This was quite uncommon, then and now, and I suspect he was the first member of our class to become a partner in a major law firm.

I lost track of him and so, apparently, did most of my classmates. I checked out the firm listing once when I was going to be in LA and he was gone. Several years later, I was at some legal gathering and found myself introduced to a young woman who was at Pete's old firm. Without getting very specific, something lawyers are very good at, she indicated to me that he had gone through some kind of crack-up and that as far as she knew, he was living in some nondescript part, of which there are many, of the LA metro area. She had no idea what he was doing. "He was the brightest, nicest lawyer I've ever known," she observed.

His obits all said he had been the lawyer for Home Savings and then on the executive team at H.F.Ahmanson & Co., which owned Home Savings. He then was a name partner in what was apparently a small firm and also served as executive director or chair of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. He retired and lived in Rancho Mirage, Calif., for the last 21 years of his life.

There's more of a story there. I say that because the obit referred to both his partner of many years, who is male, and also to a son. He appears to have been active in the Church of St. Paul in the Desert, which is in Palm Springs.  He became an inactive member of the California bar in 1997, only four years before he retired completely.

It's possible to suggest all sorts of suppositions about his life based on the scant evidence I've had access to. Yet, his story reminds me of the title character in Calvin Trillin's memoir, Remembering Denny. Trillin set out to learn what had become of a Yale classmate whom he admired for his easy disarming way and charm that appeared to guarantee a successful life. While Denny had achieved outward success as an academic and in government, following his time as a Rhodes Scholar, it turned out that he had demons of his own. He had a series of false starts in his career, and despite his accomplishments as a professor, had  committed suicide at 55.

In a review of Trillin's book, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt concluded: "At the end of Remembering Denny, the author recalls how one of Denny's more recent acquaintances 'seemed offended when I referred to Denny as an old friend.' He said, 'Roger would have said that you didn't know him at all.' Mr. Trillin replied, 'I couldn't agree with you more.'"

'Prima Facie" and "Days of Wine and Roses'

Two shows in New York that I saw over Fourth of July weekend: (1) Prima Facie was a one-woman show about a barrister who knows how to defend sexual assault cases and then is assaulted herself and learns how the system treats victims. Jodie Comer starred. She won the Tony this year for Best Actress in a play and became well-known here for playing the assassin in the streaming series Killing Eve, and (2) Days of Wine and Roses is a musical based on the Playhouse 90 TV production of the 50s or 60s and the movie with Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick. Broadway musical star Kelli O'Hara leads the cast, with Brian D'Arcy James playing the male lead.

Prima Facie runs 100 minutes without intermission. It gets draggy in the last half, possibly because of the absence of a break. Comer is absolutely marvelous, doing everything on stage including moving the set pieces. She brings the barrister to life and you laugh and then feel sorry with her. Although the drama is especially appealing to lawyers, it went over well with the general audience. By showing how the system works from two sides, the play achieves more than a one-sided MeToo presentation. It's too bad that it closed over the same weekend; either Comer had been signed for a truly limited run or even winning the Tony didn't pick up box office.

Days of Wine and Roses has always been a downer because it shows a couple sinking into alcoholism. The two leads are superb--the music is all right but unmemorable. O'Hara does everything she can to put the songs across but if she can't leave you humming them, it's not her fault. James is a perfect match for her. They play very well together as they confront their demons separately for the most part and go off in different directions. The show was put on at the Atlantic Theater Company's Linda Gross Theater on West 20th St. in Chelsea. 

To me, the show still has great power in its depiction of how mid-20th Century culture encouraged alcohol addiction. All the social cues that pushed people toward booze both at work and at home come through. This show, also without an intermission, runs about 105 minutes. It also would benefit from a break. It wasn't clear whether it is bound for Broadway--the cast and production are first-class. It may well need some more work to tighten up spots and maybe even charge up the music.

Horatio Alger--My Outfit

I've already received one e-mail today pointing out that "your waining Society is back in the news some 100+ years later." The reference is to the Horatio Alger Society, of which I was president a few years ago and which I agreed to serve this year as vice president. HAS (our acronym) is a group of book collectors, people interested in American juvenile literature of the second half of the 19th century, and the continued interest which pops up now and then in media of our eponymous author who did have a problem coming up with more than one plot. In case it's not immediately apparent, HAS is a low-budget operation.

The Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans is an organization that honors people whose lives it feels exemplify the Horatio Alger ideal of poor boy makes good. (There were a couple of his novels that featured girls, quite a step forward in those days!) The Association tends to recognize captains of industry and such; this has made it a very high-budget operation. It apparently chose to include Clarence Thomas some years ago as one of its annual inductees.

Today, the New York Times chose to feature his membership in a lengthy front-page story, which only seems significant enough for the front page--right lede no less--because of the scandal arising from his acceptance of gifts, trips, lodging, meals, etc., from rich people. Some of them have had some relationship with cases pending before the Court. Some of those people may have met him through the Association.

These people meet in places that you need not worry about the price because if you do, you can't afford it. Our Society's annual convention, which now attracts a bit more than a handful of members and their partners or friends, have been held in hostelries outside the beltways of small cities and only grudgingly do we agree to assemble at any place that charges much more than $100 a night. We've met at a Holiday Inn in Fredericksburg for three years because during the pandemic, it has been an easy place to hold our meetings.

In the past we've met all over the country, and I've been to our conventions in Catskill, N.Y.; Willow Grove, Pa.; Sacramento, Calif.; Shelbyville, Ind.; Bowie, Md.; and North Conway, N.H. No five-star resorts there.

We did succeed in getting a Horatio Alger Stamp issued some years ago. That was one of the very few occasions where we were involved in working with the Association on a common cause. It worked. Some f our members, who know everything there is to know about Alger, wrote the Alger bio the Association uses in its literature--for a fee.

Someone gave me an Alger novel when I was in junior high. Then I found a rack of them when I was still in my teens at Leary's Book Store in Philadelphia, one of the legendary old book stores that are hardly to be found anymore. My allowance enabled me to buy a couple. I got a kick out of reading Alger. The poor boy at the end of each book acquired fame, girl, and cash, not necessarily in that order. Triumph occurred by coincidence or happenstance.

I've collected a lot of them over the years. It was fun looking for them in the bookstores I ran across in traveling. I have a few first editions. Few of them or any of the books are worth much, definitely not what I paid for them. I'm not waiting for an invite from the Association.

I have gone to receptions at the Supreme Court. One was when I became a Fellow of the Institute for Court Management. Going to oral arguments, at least in past years, was more interesting. In retrospect, I think I've had more enjoyment from HAS than I would've found on a trip to the Alaskan back country with some rich people.

 

Father's Day Memories

Even on Father's Day--last Sunday--I don't find myself thinking that much about my dad. He did love being the center of attention, which he usually was. It wasn't just that he had jobs--with the performers' unions--that in those days were regarded as "glamor jobs". He had an outgoing personality, enjoyed life and his friends, even his family. He stayed in touch with many of his relatives--and like me, he had many--and he managed to see them because he traveled so much.

I thought of him today because someone was writing in Facebook about Liz Taylor's third husband--the one she didn't divorce: she couldn't because he died in a plane crash. Harold was one of about 15,000 invited to Mike Todd's incredible party at the old Madison Square Garden. This was an evening to celebrate Mike Todd, produced by the great producer and honoree himself. The last event on the evening's program was "Liz Cuts the Cake". 

It was the kind of spectacle that doesn't seem to happen these days, not that there's any reason it should. It was pure ego trip, but in a way, it now stands out as a never-to-be-repeated occasion and sort of charming in retrospect. They gave away all kinds of gifts to attendees but my dad reported that a few "guests" or non-guests helped themselves away from the spotlights. Down near the darker 9th Ave. end of the arena, he said, guys with moving men's straps were hoisting washing machines that were there, I assume, as prizes, and hauling them off with no one taking the trouble to check their credentials as likely would happen today.

I was along for another such night at the old Garden. It was the opening night of the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey circus, also now defunct. The evening was filled with special features not included on the three-times-a-day regular performances. Marilyn Monroe emerged riding an elephant dusted with some kind of pink substance now probably banned. Marlene Dietrich satisfied the dreams of many present when she appeared in red jacket and black leather pants and boots, carrying a large whip as the "ringmistress".

I was introduced to her daughter, Maria Riva, whose  bio of her mom I read when she published it years later. In those days the circus began with the animal acts--usually three huge caged rings featuring lions and tigers and bears--guess they got that idea from The Wizard of Oz. In those days, before the circus performance began, you could wander through the menagerie and side shows down in the Garden basement. If you went down the wrong staircase trying to exit the Garden, you might end up down there and could find yourself facing lions, tigers, and bears--all of whom looked hungry.

We went to benefits together--some in the Garden--where all kinds of performers worked gratis for the charity of the evening. I recall seeing the likes of Nina Simone and Joel Grey (well pre-Cabaret). Harold's work when he ran part of the performers' unions that handled benefits was to make sure that while the stars worked free of charge, non-headline performers were paid regular scale. While his tickets were always Annie Oakleys, his main purpose in attending was to make sure the charity heads or promoters knew that someone was keeping an eye on their management.

Exclusion--A New Play

Exclusion, by Kenneth Lin, has been playing here in D.C. at the Arena, where we saw it Friday night. The promos said it was about the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, by which all Chinese in the U.S. were told to depart and there was no immigration quota for Chinese people until 1943. That, by itself, didn't necessarily portend a great theatrical experience, if the theme was merely that the U.S. for many years was definitely employing a racist immigration policy against Asians.

However, although the theme as it turned out did fit a pattern of previous dramas--David Mamet's Speed the Plow is one example, it made for a good evening of dramatic theater. An actress who goes by the one-name identity of Karoline plays a writer, Katie, who has published a book about and against the Chinese Exclusion Act. It has been optioned by Hollywood.

The opening scene finds her in the office of a Hollywood deal man--a producer--who is seeking to get it produced as a streaming series. He has the slippery feel of so many of his kind who have been portrayed on screen, stage, tv, and streaming. Gradually, Katie senses that her screenplay she adapted from her book is going to be massively rewritten and reshaped in the highly anticipated manner that so often is the way this process pans out.

The way this impacts on Katie and her partner, Malcolm, however, proves to be the most interesting part of the play, because it's less predictable. In fact, although the deal man, Harry, is well played by Josh Stamberg, but after a while, one only expects him to move further in the direction described by one critic: "But when a Hollywood bigwig named Harry (Josh Stamberg) and his associates strip the series of historical accuracy and fill it with racist stereotypes, Katie reassesses her Faustian bargain." 

The play is a problem play in the best Shavian tradition, although Arena has labelled it as one of the Power Plays it is presenting, which appears to mean that it explores how power affects the lives and careers of marginalized groups as it "delves into how Hollywood misrepresents, suppresses and distorts Asian American history."

I thought the play was generally successful in what it set out to do and provided a good dramatic experience. It would be excellent if it received more productions so its presentation of history and how it is received today can be transmitted to a wider public.

'Reviewing the Situation'

Most of us prefer to put off fretting about funerals.  This often unhappy topic arises now because I attended two such events this week--one a Catholic funeral mass for a man who was a memorable character and the other a memorial service conducted under secular auspices for a wonderful woman, stepdaughter of a close friend, who passed away far too early at 45.

I realized how the person leading the proceedings--religious or otherwise--makes all the difference in how you feel after the occasion. There was nothing exceptional about the content of the religious ceremony itself for my friend in his 60's, who died overseas on a bike trip of a sudden heart attack, except for the unusually perceptive eulogy delivered by one of his daughters, who happens to be a veterinarian, and who noted that he father had encouraged her interest and love of animals.

The deceased had a powerful personality, often expressed by slapping me (and others) on the back when he entered a room where I was present. I thought of the character played by Jackie Gleason on his television show: Charlie Bratton, "the Loudmouth." He would loudly enter a lunch counter eatery and seeing Art Carney eating lunch at the counter, playing a completely meek colleague, would slap him on the back and ask at high volume: "What's that slop you're eating?" 

Nevertheless, my friend was a good-hearted guy, who worked for many years in addiction counseling and management. Only a few years before his sudden death, he had set out to earn his Ph.D. and managed to do just that quite speedily. He was someone who was more than helpful in threshing out a problem I or others might have.

Most significantly, this service benefited from the all-around encouraging and pleasant attitude and bearing displayed by the priest presiding over the mass. He is a Monsignor and he made everyone--including those like myself who are not Catholic--welcome and included. It happened to be a day where in the Baltimore-Washington metro area, the air quality reached Code Maroon, the highest level of bad air quality which had not been reached within living memory. The Monsignor twice referred to the air situation outside when he observed that this was not a day for an outdoor service and that in view of the air, he would forego ending the mass with the traditional incense. He then announced he would substitute a "Jewish Kaddish prayer".

That did take me by surprise as I mused to myself whether he was about to burst into the Hebrew text that is recited near the end of most Jewish services by mourners. In lieu of the now-vanished Latin in the church, Hebrew? As it happened, it was a prayer in English that speaks in the voice of the departed and asks those present to remember the departed one in all seasons. 

The service for my friend's stepdaughter was held at the private school which she attended and was where she made many life-long friends. (My daughter attended the same school seven years later.) The school clearly meant a great deal to her because of all those strong and lasting friendships. Two of her closest college friends spoke about how much they enjoyed living and playing on teams with her, and a high school friend told of how much she had gained from the relationship. The women did keep noting that there were limits on their public recollections because of "appropriateness." Husband and brother spoke, and her brother by adoption spoke with quiet eloquence but briefly about how she had welcomed to him to the family. 

She had spent her career in special needs education, dealing with autism, in particular. Seeing how she had brought so much pleasure, humor, and good feeling to everyone she had known, I found the testimony of her colleagues at the school where she taught and helped administer very believable and moving. 

It brought to mind another post-funeral colloquy. This occurred outside St. Patrick's in New York between two teammates of the late Babe Ruth, whose funeral it was. One player said it was so hot outside the cathedral on this Manhattan summer day that he would really like a cold beer right then.

"So would the Babe," responded his teammate.

 

'You Hurt My Feelings'

You Hurt My Feelings is one of those pictures that is worth seeing despite its having enough shortcomings to keep it from being excellent. Julia Louis-Dreyfus rarely disappoints me. She was the one of the Seinfeld crew who made you feel good. I haven't seen everything else she's done but she carries this pic. In my view, the theme of the movie was not the title but instead might have been better expressed as "everyone's lying to everyone else." 

There's also a heavy dose of reality in the theme, which alternatively could be "none of you are as good at what you're doing as you think you are." Tobias Menzies, as Don, Louis-Dreyfus's husband to her Beth, keeps telling her that her new book is superb. Her sister Sarah tell her actor husband Mark that he's coming across wonderfully in his rehearshals for the new play he's in. Beth tells her son that he's great at everything he does in school and out. 

Don, a therapist, tells his subjects that they have to fix their own problems. It's not entirely clear what his role is. Soon enough, they all find their false images crashing down in disaster. Only Sarah seems to have a level head of sorts and she is surprised when something turns out right for her. Jeannie Berlin plays the mother of the two sisters and has a fun time in a clichéd role in which she offhandedly aims to undermine their aspirations. (I recall her as Charles Grodin's new bride in The Heartbreak Kid,where she was memorable, particularly in making a mess of consuming an egg salad sandwich. I believe she's Elaine May's daughter.)

Things turn around a bit too patly, à la Hollywood. Nicole Holofcener, the director, writer, and producer, does almost make this seem like one of those introspective French films, but this isn't quite an Eric Rohmer episode. Maybe something like a Wes Anderson pic. There's some dragging moments, but in 93 minutes, not that many.