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A family mystery...
May. 10th, 2011 06:58 pmI ran across an interesting bit of Americana today. It's a menu dated March 30, 1955, from the Stork Club, in New York (3 East 53rd Street). The card stock has had slits cut in it so as to accommodate a black-and-white, 8x10 photograph.
The cover art of the menu was drawn by Albert Dorne and depicts a number of celebrities of the day, some of which I can recognize (Marylin Monroe, Arthur Godfrey, Bette Davis, Dana Andrews, and Hedy Lamarr). The most expensive entrées on the menu ran $3.25 (Broiled Calf's Liver with Bacon and String Beans or Broiled Noisette of Lamb, Signora), the "couvert" charge was $3.00 after 9 pm, and the menu advises that "advance payment is required for charge accounts."
What makes this a particularly curious item is the photograph I found inside. It looks like any one of countless photos taken at the club. There is a couple, sitting at a table, with a Stork Club ashtray carefully positioned on the white tablecloth between them. The man, dressed in an evening jacket and bow tie with a drink in front of him, is looking at his companion. The woman is in a strapless gown and looking to the photographer's right. There are empty champagne glasses on the table and the neck of an unopened bottle of champagne is sticking up in the foreground.
The man is my biological father. The woman is identified in pencil on the back of the photo with my mother's name, but—as you have probably guessed by now—she is not my mother.
At the time the photo was taken, my parents were well and truly separated, and had been for at least 2 years, but the divorce would not be final for another nearly 3 years. I don't know why there was such a long separation. It never occurred to me to ask.
And so I wonder: Who is this woman? Why is she identified with my mother's name on the back of the photo? And most curious: How and why did the photo end up among my mothers' papers?
I can come up with all sorts of outlandish theories, but then again, perhaps I am missing something.
Whatever the circumstances that led to its being taken, I think it's a nice photo.
Cheers...
P.S. Anyone have any informed guesses as to what my dad is drinking? It looks like a martini (clear, with something that looks like an olive on the bottom), but the glassware seems wrong. (Then again, it's been said that you can take what I know about old-school bartending, wad it up tight, stick it in your eye, and never feel a thing.)
The cover art of the menu was drawn by Albert Dorne and depicts a number of celebrities of the day, some of which I can recognize (Marylin Monroe, Arthur Godfrey, Bette Davis, Dana Andrews, and Hedy Lamarr). The most expensive entrées on the menu ran $3.25 (Broiled Calf's Liver with Bacon and String Beans or Broiled Noisette of Lamb, Signora), the "couvert" charge was $3.00 after 9 pm, and the menu advises that "advance payment is required for charge accounts."
What makes this a particularly curious item is the photograph I found inside. It looks like any one of countless photos taken at the club. There is a couple, sitting at a table, with a Stork Club ashtray carefully positioned on the white tablecloth between them. The man, dressed in an evening jacket and bow tie with a drink in front of him, is looking at his companion. The woman is in a strapless gown and looking to the photographer's right. There are empty champagne glasses on the table and the neck of an unopened bottle of champagne is sticking up in the foreground.
The man is my biological father. The woman is identified in pencil on the back of the photo with my mother's name, but—as you have probably guessed by now—she is not my mother.
At the time the photo was taken, my parents were well and truly separated, and had been for at least 2 years, but the divorce would not be final for another nearly 3 years. I don't know why there was such a long separation. It never occurred to me to ask.
And so I wonder: Who is this woman? Why is she identified with my mother's name on the back of the photo? And most curious: How and why did the photo end up among my mothers' papers?
I can come up with all sorts of outlandish theories, but then again, perhaps I am missing something.
Whatever the circumstances that led to its being taken, I think it's a nice photo.
Cheers...
P.S. Anyone have any informed guesses as to what my dad is drinking? It looks like a martini (clear, with something that looks like an olive on the bottom), but the glassware seems wrong. (Then again, it's been said that you can take what I know about old-school bartending, wad it up tight, stick it in your eye, and never feel a thing.)
