Monday, April 21, 2003
The gift of Cindy - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER – One of the columnists I like is the New York Post's Cindy Adams. Mrs. Adams by her own esteemed estimation is witchy and bitchy. Now that Neal Travis is dead, she and Liz Smith are the two star gossip columnists at, arguably, the best tabloid in the world. No, no, the Post isn't a tabloid like the National Enquirer or fish wrappers of that ilk. The Post is a tabloid like The Province, in this fair city.
Last summer, I happened to read Liz Smith's memoir, Natural Blonde. She recounted the life of a columnist in the grand city of New York. Not to be out done, her colleague Cindy Adams has released her own book. However, it's not an exhaustive memoir, nor a reflective autobiography. Instead, Mrs. Adams' book – The Gift of Jazzy – is about her dog, Jazzy. Who'd want to read about a damned dog, a tiny, hyperactive Yorkshire terrier?
The funny thing is, Adams didn't want a dog either. Long before she became a celebrity, watching the real celebrities, Adams was content eking out a life as a former model and Miss Bagel. At 16, she married the comedian, Joey Adams. Mr. Adams was never as big as Bob Hope, but he was big in live venues such as nightclubs in New York, or private audiences around the world. Cindy Adams eventually befriended kings and dictators, what with her husband's entertaining to such illustrious figures as Sukarno, the Indonesian president (she co-wrote his autobiography), Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, the infamous leaders from The Philippines, Manuel Noriega, the strongman from Panama; and the Shah of Iran, of you guessed it. It so happened that when the Shah of Iran was holed up in New York Hospital, on his death bed, the journalism community was fighting to get access, to catch a glimpse of the deposed monarch, or to even get a photo. Access was tighter than Joan Rivers' face, yet Cindy Adams, gets a summons from the Shah's very own sister Princess Ashraf, to visit with the Shah at the hospital. In a stroke of luck, she was to have been dining with the bosses at the New York Post (Joey Adams had a column running there, she hadn't). She politely calls her Post friends, informing them she can't make dinner, because she has to visit with the Shah. Knowing that she was the only one in the New York area who could muster up access to the Shah, the Post asks if she would be kind enough to call them after her visit, to report anything that went on, and the Shah's condition. She did, and splashed across the front page was a piece by the Post's "Own Cindy Adams." It would be the start of a grand relationship.
Jazzy, the tiny, pretentious dog, comes into Adams' life one week after the death of her beloved husband. The story of his declining health was recounted in a wonderful piece that ran in the now-defunct Talk magazine a couple of years ago. Thankfully, most of that piece, make up the first two chapters of The Gift of Jazzy. It's a wonderful, touching story that's not overly saccharine, but biting and poignant. Adams talks about how much love she had for her husband, "If I got a cold, Joey sneezed." Particularly touching is how as his star began to fade, hers would rise, with the greater prominence she received and the greater preeminence she was treated to on the New York social scene.
Jazzy, the dog, comes into the busy, busy gossip columnist's life one week after her husband dies. Just as she's tending to her guests – Revlon chair Ron Perelman and his squeeze actress Ellen Barkin – the dog makes a royal mess all over the kitchen floor. The dog, happened to be a gift from Michael Viner, a television producer, and his wife, the actress Deborah Raffin. A presumptuous gift, as animals aren't gifts to get people, lest they not take to animals. And so the book goes on to recount the growing love that Adams has for the little pooch. Even if he does like chewing up Hermes ties or Gucci pumps, she loves the little dog immensely, it being the only blood relative she has now.
My favourite story is of the Christmas morning Imelda Marcos comes to visit. The owner of a fair amount of shoes, arrives "like something out of Women's Wear. Red designer suit. Clunky, chunky gold jewellery. Remember her collection of shoes? Well, these were red suede Manolo Blahniks." They schmooze for a while, they being friends for more than thirty years. Whilst Marcos is decked out handsomely, Adams has got on a cotton Egyptian galabaya – a sort of Arab shirt that touches the floor, that with good light, you can see right through. The morning she chooses to not put on a slip, she and Marcos decide to dispatch her bodyguard to McDonald's for Big Mac and chips. Alas, as the former first lady and Adams go to speak to her bodyguard outside, the front door closes thanks to the frantic yapping of the beloved dog, Jazzy. There, on the floor outside her apartment (once owned by the heiress Doris Duke, by the way) locked out on Christmas morning, is the former first lady of The Philippines, Manolo Blahniks and all, sitting with a dishevelled Cindy Adams, eating a Christmas dinner of Big Macs and fries, waiting for a locksmith. Thanks to a little dog.
The Gift of Jazzy is a delightful little book, about a charismatic little dog. I finished it in about a day. It's a terrific memoir and highly entertaining. Cindy Adams is great read, not to mention one classy dame.
The Gift of Jazzy is published by St. Martin's Press and is $29.95.
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OVERHEARD the other day were a couple of women comparing notes on how they lost their beloved husbands. The one widow says, her hubby died thanks to a pig. "Was he a farmer?" her friend asks. "No," says the widow, "He just liked to eat pork a lot."
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An archive of Joseph Planta's previous columns can be found by clicking HERE .