We want to see any Broadway shows, call Hugo and he will get us tickets. We call Hugo. We see 14 shows in 16 days, including Carousel and Oklahoma the same day. Hugo apologizes for that. It is the only day he can get tickets. Hugo takes us out to dinner and to tea dancing at the St. Regis. I am not allowed to pay for anything.
On our own we go to the Latin Quarter and the Copacabana, where we see comedian Joe E. Lewis' shoe and part of a trouser leg when he kicks his foot out because we can not see the stage from our table behind a mirrored column (innocents from Texas, we do not know that to get a decent table you must tip a captain or head waiter). We hear Louis Jordan at Club Zanzibar and Josh White at Cafe Society Downtown and hear Art Tatum at a jazz joint on 52nd Street. We go to the Stork Club and to the Blue Angel for Alice Pearce and the Village Vanguard and we see the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall. We go to the top of the Empire State Building. We take a carriage ride through Central Park.
My oldest brother is a lawyer. His senior partner is an urbane gourmet who has been taken into the Army as a general to do lawyerly things for the War Department in Washington. He has made a list of the best restaurants in New York and what to order at them for officers going to the big city from Washington. My bride and I have the list. We go to the Grotto Azura for the lobster fra diavolo, to 21, Divan Parisienne, Du Midi, Charles a la Pomme Soufflé, the Chambord (we like French restaurants; there are none in Houston), Dinty Moore's', Lindy's and Reubens. We have the corned beef and cabbage at Dinty Moore's', which is the general's recommendation. The only meal I don't like. The cabbage is too much like what I had cooked for my roommates at Stalag Luft III. The Chambord is supposed to be the most expensive restaurant in New York so I am not surprised or outraged when lunch is $6 each even though a multi-course dinner at the best restaurant in Houston is $2. We pay for these meals but Uncle Louie has given us $250 cash walkaround money, which in those days is real dough.
In our spare time we go shopping (I have 28 months of back pay burning my pockets).
My bride buys a gorgeous hand-embroidered suit at the Peasant Shop and I buy a handsome blue, price-controlled suit at Rogers Peet. We shop Bloomingdale's and Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy's and Gimbels and Sulka and Brooks Brothers.
We are at the Waldorf 15 nights. Uncle Louie foots the bill.
It is perfection. Almost. On the way to Grand Central Station our taxi blows a tire.
Born in Houston, Texas, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Rice University in 1937. He began his successful writing career at the Houston Post in 1939 as an assistant editor in the amusement department, then became radio, magazine and television editor before leaving the paper in 1960. He would return to the paper as a columnist in the 1980s.
His first novel, Summer on the Water, was published by MacMillan in 1948. During the span of his career he wrote many books. He is perhaps most well known for best sellers Von Ryan's Express and My Sweet Charlie. My Sweet Charlie became a Broadway play and later, a TV movie that won Patty Duke an Emmy. Twentieth Century Fox made a film ofVon Ryan's Express, starring Frank Sinatra. David also wrote numerous teleplays and adapted the screenplay Days of Wine and Roses into a popular novel.
David served as Captain in the Air Force between 1941-45, spending three years as a POW in Italian and German prison camps and earning both the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal. He remained in the Air Force Reserve, serving as a Lieutenant Colonel until he retired.
He is survived by his wife of 60 years, Dody (also a former Houstonian and graduate of Rice); his two sons, Fred and wife Susan; Eric and wife Karen; five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Dody has been the subject and heroine of many of David's essays.
At 88, David Westheimer continued to write, and not just for SeniorWomen.com. The Great Wounded Bird, his recollections of World War II, was the winner of the Texas Review 1999 poetry prize. David's last novel was Delay En Route.
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