1992. An antsy late-night TV newbie on the phone.
Me: “Mazel tov.”
Leno: “Cindy, I think you’re more excited than my mom.”
Per the tape recording I’m now rehearing, I said: “Oh, Come on, Jay, honey, you can’t be serious.”
Leno: “No, of course not. But I mean my mother didn’t agree. This is exactly what my mother said to me: ‘I like Johnny Carson. Why can’t Johnny stay? Maybe they can find something else for you to do.’
“I said, ‘Ma, the man is retiring from the show. He said he’s done it for 30 years. He’s going to do something else.’
“So my mother says, ‘Well, why can’t he stay and they can put you somewhere else? Isn’t there another time slot they can stick you?”
Fallon, “Tonight’s” new late-night TV newbie, was then a kid of 18.
Odds & ends
Difference twixt NY and LA? The Commish’s coppers out there had to monitor 9,000 officers. Here, 35,000 . . . Michael J. Fox’s ’85 film “Back to the Future” back to our future as a stage musical. Tryouts London . . . Season3 of Web sitcom “Submissions Only” — Audra McDonald, Kelli O’Hara, Bobby Cannavale, Linda Lavin, Joel Grey — is upon us March 3.
Pay attention
Palm Beach chattering about might a future fight ensue between children, grandchildren and the husband of beautiful fragile heiress Dina Merrill . . . Fashionistas catching Jonatha Brooke’s new play “My Mother Has 4 Noses” at West 42nd’s Duke theater. Dressmaker Maria Ambrosini created the clothes . . . A centerpiece of Jonathan Tisch’s $100 mil Regency Hotel redo is the brand-new Regency Bar & Grill restaurant. Menu by Sant Ambroeus. It’s terrific.
Real ‘Downton’ life revealed
Lady Fiona Carnarvon, the genuine 22-karat Highclere Castle resident — countess No. 8, from real “Downton Abbey” life — is at my home today. In the Colonies to promote her new book on countess No. 6, “Lady Catherine, the Earl and the Real Downton Abbey.”
Preceding Her Ladyship’s visit, some serf/vassal/commoner-in-waiting sent a folder on proper pouring plus news that in terms of tea the countess favors English Breakfast.
Right — but Nazalene, my elegant Guyanese housekeeper of 17 years, who stuck icy-cold canteloupe in a microwave, watered a fake orchid three months, and is to the farmhouse born, muttered: “I got a Lipton tea bag.”
Hail Caesar!
Today it’s bye-bye to the tube’s bye-bye comedians.
Sid Caesar went on kicks. He’d suddenly eat one particular food all day every day. For weeks. Cheese, Jell-O, sauerkraut. Sauerkraut on everything. Then can’t stand it. Never eat it again. His gourmet dining was garlic on everything. Disliking coffee, his breakfast beverage was ice-cold no-cal soda.
Didn’t socialize. No need for friends. Liked booze. Liked rest. Liked holiday family get-togethers but the noise got on his nerves.
An extremist, he bought dozens of suits and monogrammed shirts. Most never worn. He disliked being alone but, moody, didn’t like people around. His wife, Florence, told me: “It’s only should he decide to give a grunt he knows I’m nearby to hear it.”
He’d try material out on her. If Florence didn’t laugh, he’d get annoyed and say, “Aaah, whaddaa you know.”
That’s the Sid Caesar I knew.
Hard to honor
HONOR thy father and thy mother? Fine. But how about a shot to win out on either one? Can’t fight Father Time, and now Mother Nature’s giving us a snow job.
AN Only in New York? Please. Leave me alone. I can’t do everything. I’m busy pouring tea.