We added to the group. First was Georgie Mandel, a really talented writer whose books included The Wax Boom. He was hit by a German sniper in World War II and had a metal plate in his head, but it never stopped him from being a gifted writer. We also added two other really celebrated writers, Joseph Heller and Mario Puzo. As I got to know Joe and Mario, we would trade many stories, and laughs.
Joe Heller, who wrote Catch-22 and became one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, was the funniest of the bunch. He always insisted on serving the food.
He would say, “Let me serve; let me be the server.”
They’d bring crab and black bean sauce and rice. He’d fill up his plate and pick the best pieces of crab, the middle sections, and then he’d take the rest of it with the claws and everything and give it to me and say, “Here, now you be the server.”
It always got a laugh.
Mario Puzo （the future author of The Godfather） was by far the best eater. In all of our stomachs is a thing called the vagus nerve, which tells us when we are full and to stop eating. For some reason, Mario was not blessed with a vagus nerve. He could eat until the cows came home, and if one of them was unlucky enough to stumble into his apartment, he’d eat it! Normally, when people leave a Chinese restaurant, they often take with them some cardboard containers of leftovers. Thanks to Mario, we never had any leftovers.
I don’t know if it’s true, but there is a great story about Mario and food. He lived in Bay Shore, Long Island, where he would write deep into the night in his attic office. Often around midnight, hunger pangs would strike. He’d go all the way down to the kitchen and make himself his favorite sandwich, a Dagwood. If you’re familiar with the old comic strip Blondie, her husband, Dagwood, was famous for making a multilayered Dagwood sandwich. It consisted of different luncheon meats, cheeses, tomato, pickles, relish, olives, etc. It was a foot high. It seems that one night, Mario was beginning to climb the stairs to his attic while carrying his beloved Dagwood sandwich when one of his slippers…slipped. He tumbled down the stairs and ended up on the floor of the living room. His leg hurt a lot, so he thought maybe it was broken. The telephone was about six feet away, and with a good crawl he could get there and call a hospital. However, six feet in the other direction lay Mario’s Dagwood sandwich, which had landed remarkably intact…and was staring at him. What to do, what to do? So pain or not, he crawled on his elbows, like an infantryman under fire, over to his beloved sandwich. He ate it with relish and then proceeded to crawl all the way back to the telephone to call the hospital and report his broken leg.
Like I said, I don’t know if it’s true, but it’s a great story.
We were also joined by another friend of Speed’s and mine from Fire Island, Julie Green, who was a diamond merchant. He was incredibly well read and very bright and good company. Julie had read and loved a book called The Little Golden Calf. He then read an earlier book by the same writers, Ilya Ilf and Yevgeni Petrov; it was called The Twelve Chairs. He loved it even more than The Little Golden Calf.
He gave it to me to read and said, “I think this probably could make a good movie.”
So I read it, and I loved it, and he was right—eventually I made it into my second movie.
（More on that later.）
I loved all those dinners. My friends were a source of stability and inspiration and got me through those rough times.
Chapter 8
Kismet—Meeting Anne Bancroft
It’s 1961 and I was working with Charles Strouse （who we all called Buddy） and Lee Adams on a Broadway show called All American. Buddy and Lee had just had a huge hit with Bye Bye Birdie and I was brought on to write the book for their new musical project.
One day when we were in the middle of writing, Buddy said to me: “Mel. Come with me. I have to go to a Perry Como show rehearsal at the Ziegfeld Theatre because I’m going to be playing the piano for Anne Bancroft. We’re rehearsing for a performance she is going to do at the Actors Studio later this week and I have to find the right key for ‘Just You Wait Henry Higgins.’ After I get the key, we’ll go back to work at my place.”
So I tagged along. When we get to the Ziegfeld Theatre they’re doing a dress rehearsal. After a few minutes the guest star, Anne Bancroft, takes the stage.
I’d never seen anything like it. She was wearing a stunning white dress and she was singing in a sultry voice a Gertrude Niesen favorite, “I Wanna Get Married.” She was just incredibly beautiful.
When the song was over, I leapt to my feet, applauded madly, and shouted, “Anne Bancroft! I love you!”