ABC-TV’s “Pan Am,” which takes off Sunday, I’ve been flying high on since my teens. Following Nixon’s entry into Peking, I was on its first-ever flight to China. Doing Indonesian President Sukarno’s as-told-to-me autobiography, he and I lived and traveled on it. Blond stewardesses were his candy box.
In the Far East, that airline was my lifeline. Want a package out? They did it. Need a letter in? The crew hand-carried it. Non-English speaking locals’ first learned words were “Pan Am.” Several times a year I circled the globe on its two daily round-the-world PA001 and PA002 clippers. One headed east, the other west. Halfway stop, always Istanbul.
My husband, Joey Adams, was goodwill ambassador for Pan American World Airways, the Tiffany of air travel. An inaugural flight? We were on it. They had an event? He spoke at it.
In those palmy days Jeff Kriendler, of the Kriendlers who owned 21, was vice president of Corporate Communications. This week he and I remembered The Beatles flying it their first time here. How the shah loved the service and even offered a $300 million loan when help was needed. We reminisced about the Welsh stewardess always serving Sir Winston Churchill. Of Reagan off for Ireland with PAA the Press Charter flying ahead of Air Force One. When their 747 flew a highly classified Military Lift Mission night flight into Mogadishu, Somalia. And about people lining up to see the wealthy and famous boarding. And with lives at stake grabbing Pan Am, the last flight out of panicked war-torn Saigon.
The sisters called Jeff for Mother Teresa’s favorite ride. She never paid. She had free travel. “She was so embarrassed to fly first class,” he recalls. “And stewardesses always went through the cabin with a hat collecting money for her. They’d throw their own in, too. And she told us, ‘Don’t worry. This plane will never go down.’ ”
Kriendler’s “working on a museum in Florida’s Coconut Grove built in Pan Am’s historic 1931 terminal. And next month I’m out with the Blue Water Press book ‘Pan American World Airways: Aviation History in the Words of its People.’ ”
So what did he have to do with the new TV series?
“Nothing. It was the idea of Nancy Ganis. Her husband’s Sid Ganis, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She was a flight attendant and has pushed this series idea for years. She went to sell the show, and ABC picked it up.
“Understand this is all dramatized. It’s made up of crap. The uniforms are even too small.”
SO, I had a luncheon at home for 60 honoring Council Speaker Christine Quinn and her future intended Miss Kim Catullo. Five ladies begged her to do something about the bums and bumettes littering Broadway and making it Rockaway. They said if ever a problem in that area, emergency vehicles couldn’t get there!
Between Barbara Walters, Judith Giuliani and Cathie Black, Patricia Clarkson saw former Mayflower Madam Sydney Biddle Barrows. Whispered Clarkson: “I played her in the movies.”
WE just lost Mrs. Bob Hope. One day a lifetime ago I was having lunch at Bob and Dolores Hope’s home in Toluca Lake. I asked how they stayed married so long. Bob said: “Because I always used to be away. We’re already married 62 years, and I’ve been home three weeks.” Then Dolores asked him: “Honey, Cindy wants to know how often we have dinner together?” And Bob Hope replied: “Every year.”
PAUL Morrissey, premiering his film “News From Nowhere,” told James Toback: “Andy Warhol was photographed nightly just to get his picture in the paper. He did nothing unless he was paid. He referred to his ‘factory.’ What he called his ‘factory’ was my office. I edited everything. Cast everything. He paid $4,000 for my lab work so throughout the world he called ‘my’ movie his. Warhol couldn’t actually do anything but nobody paid attention to art in the ’60s.”
ABOUT Regis’ TV closing date. Everyone loves Regis. I love Regis. You love Regis. Fans love Regis. Friends who love Regis, back when he announced he’s quitting, said he shouldn’t have. Needn’t have. It was a quick flash of ego. Sure, he was tired. Everyone’s tired. Up every morning, out every night so he’d have something to burble about on the air next morning is wearying. But it was ego. Maybe he was getting on, maybe his audience had already gotten on, maybe the ratings hadn’t gotten on, whatever. So he faced a salary cut. Hurts. Wounds. But he could’ve made an alternate suggestion. Work only three days a week. Or two weeks a month. Or only Halloween. Something. And let him stay on television as long as he and his teeth still sleep in the same room.
Because, does he already miss the daily grind? Yes. We know he does. He acknowledges so. He’s reached out for something else to do. Were he played out, would he have reached out?
SO it’s a crowd at “Follies.” And somebody smells great. The perfume’s heavenly. Glorious fragrance. I sniff around. Look around. Is it beautiful Parker Posey? I smell gorgeous Blythe Danner. I inhale magnificent Gloria Estefan. Turns out it’s a gent who works for the show, Michael Strassheim.
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.