Madonna-- the complete story

Madonna—the complete story 

We’ve all read the big news that at long last Madonna (Louise Ciccone) has put her fabulous Central Park West apartment on the market, not exactly priced to sell quickly at $23.5 million.  I wondered how long it would take her to sell….she hasn’t lived there in a couple years since she offended and alienated everybody in the exclusive building with her constant redecorating, renovating as well as loud music and fled to a huge mansion on E. 81st Street near the Lexington Avenue subway.

Her CPW abode was pieced together from sections of apartments on the fifth, sixth and seventh floors in Harperly Hall at 1 West 64th Street. Harperly Hall was built around World War I in what is referred to as “arts & crafts style”…on a sunny day if you peer carefully you can see the colorful artsy trim around the top of the building. Other neighbors in the building include Mikhail Baryshnikov, Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas, Ed Asner, Carol Kane and a few more. 

Madonna moved in after being rejected from a dozen other fabulous co-ops on the Upper East and Westside. In fancy co-ops, one negative vote from a board member can keep you out of a desired property. Madonna was rejected from buildings such as the San Remo, the Eldorado, the Majestic, 101 Central Park West, 989 Fifth Avenue, 1010 Fifth Avenue and others.  Finally her friend, the writer Gail Gregg (Mrs. Sulzberger whose husband runs the New York Times) took pity on her. Gail was on the board at Harperly Hall and used her influence with board members to assure Ms. M got into the building in a basic 2 bedroom apt. on the fifth floor. But as soon as the ink dried on the deal, Madonna was already wheeling and dealing and buying out other people in the fancy building.

It wasn’t long till Madonna began buying every other apartment on the fifth and sixth floors over the years as well as a few more on 4 and 7.   She was knocking down walls and adding staircases and constantly renovating which made her a pariah in the building and during most of these noisy and dusty renovations, she wasn’t even living on the premises! She was in London or Los Angeles!  She eventually had two entire floors and pieces of others.  At one point she attempted to buy more apartments on the 7th floor and the building began threatening legal action.  After the legal threats were settled, she fled the building for E. 81st Street.  She still has homes in the Hamptons, Michigan, Malibu, Miami, London, outside of London and a few other places. Not bad for a girl from Detroit who moved to New York with a few hundred dollars and slept on sofas in the East Village!

Madonna moved to New York from her native Michigan in the early 80s to study dance but quickly abandoned that idea for a career in pop music.  She was a bit of a “mythic” figure in those days…a girl who wore crosses and created her own style.  A girl who knew exactly what she wanted…fame & fortune in the pop music business and single-mindedly made up her mind to get it, any way possible.  It’s been more than whispered for years that she is not a good singer…she’s a product of the computerized music industry, echo chambers, backup singers, gimmicky dance numbers and scenery. She knew the value of the new MTV video business and her career “hit” just as music videos were coming into their own.

People in the industry say she has a very ordinary voice but has other oral skills supposedly as well as a good business mind, discipline, determination and almost no scruples.  She used flirtation, sexual favors and some say even thievery to get her way. Stories are rampant from those days that Madonna would target guys in the music business and go home with them. After getting high and having sex, it’s said she would wait for them to fall asleep and then she would rifle thru their apartments looking for anything she could use... she was famous for helping herself to names and phone numbers, money, valuables and anything else that wasn’t nailed down. Some say she even took bits and pieces of songs that were in the process of being written and passed them off as her own compositions in years to follow.

I don’t know her, but I was a “club kid” in the early 80’s for awhile and Madonna and I have been “buzzing” around in the same orbit since those wild days.  When I was working at Studio 54, she was up in the dj booth supposedly “sexually persuading” the DJ to play her latest demo records. She also was a fixture at other clubs such as Xenon, Limelight and the former Danceteria, a club located on W. 20th Street near Sixth Avenue in the old Cammeyer Department Store building which is now luxury condos across the street from the former Limelight, now a retail center.  Madonna was a fixture in EVERY club in New York in those days…all the former “club kids” of which I was one, remember her….some more fondly than others.And now she’s “first lady” of the pop music industry...all hail the "queen" from Detroit!

When I heard that ANNIE was coming back to Broadway (again), I was flooded with memories from my own youth. As Peter Allen once famously said “Everything old is new again…” and that can certainly be said about Broadway where revivals are a big staple these days since new musicals are hard to come by. As a teenager I was living in New York with relatives including an aunt who worked as a soprano in Broadway musicals. I had a parttime job selling Broadway souvenirs (cast recordings, keychains and dolls) at Broadway’s biggest hit: ANNIE, which began life at the ALVIN THEATRE on West 52nd Street in 1977. I worked for a man named Ray Fanning who ran the merchandise counters in many Broadway shows and whom I still occasionally see strolling the theatre district today at age 85. Ray lives at 888 Eighth Avenue (52nd St) near the Alvin Theatre which is where many of the out-of-town children in ANNIE were housed by the producers with their Moms while in town doing the show. Setting up my merchandise counter at the theatre before the house opened each evening and matinee, I would chat with the many ANNIE “stage moms” and kids who were hanging out in the front of the house before the doors opened to the ticket-holders. Since ANNIE is a show with lots of kids, there were always Moms, Dads, brothers & sisters, aunts, uncles, etc. hanging out. Parties were frequent at ANNIE…every child’s birthday was celebrated with a cake and gifts in the theatre, trips to events and museums and water parks, etc. were organized thru the show on the days off. Many famous people came to see ANNIE since it was the big hit of the day. I recently found the ticket stubs for the tickets when I took my parents on July 4 holiday matinee. Third row center orchestra seats for the hottest show in town: $23 each!! I became friends with so many of these folks including orginal Annie Andrea McArdle and her Mom Phyllis, her successor Shelley Bruce (real name: Michelle Merklinghaus…Bruce was her Dad’s name. Her Mom was Marge); Shelley was the “Annie” who they discovered had leukemia and left her role prematurely to have treatment. She beat the disease and is now happily grown with a family of her own. When Shelley left ANNIE suddenly, the role was up for grabs so 12-year old Sarah Jessica Parker was promoted from the chorus of ANNIE orphans into the lead role. I still recall that the theatre was abuzz with the gossip that Sarah didn’t want to cut her long, brown hair and dye it red so she almost lost the role, but eventually she relented. Sarah was a ballet child…slim with a long neck, hair always up in a bun as she was constantly coming from dance class. I would hang out with Sarah’s brother Toby and play pinball and video games in the Broadway arcade when the show was on. We’d also hang in Sarah’s dressing room and do homework. Sarah grew quickly and only lasted as “Annie” under a year. It was essential that Annie was small and looked age 11. When the Annies started sprouting breasts and curves as well as height, it looked strange when Daddy Warbucks bounced her on his lap. I was in Sarah’s dressing room on her last day as Annie along with Brooke Shields and her Mom Teri and most of Sarah’s brothers and sisters. We were all cleaning out and loading the Parker station wagon because the NEXT Annie, Alison Smith was waiting in the wings to move in. Most of the ANNIES were typical child stars…very mature for their ages….11 going on 35 so to speak, including Andrea and Sarah. Shelley was a more typical mischievous kid with a wild streak. Allison Smith was a natural redhead which the others were not, and the youngest Annie at age 9, even though Annie was supposed to be 11. I think the producers were tired of constantly changing Annies because age 11-12 is an age when the growth spurt typically happens with kids and here was a smallish child at age 9 who could stay for awhile without growing up too fast. Allison was a nervous, insecure child who needed constant reassurance. She loved to sit on my lap backstage and had a terrible nervous habit of biting her nails which her Mom said replaced sucking her thumb. A few years later she grew into a lovely teenager and became the daughter on TV show KATE & ALLIE. My friend Laurie Warner was the “Annie child wrangler” which means she was in charge of keeping the kids corralled and happy at events such as Night of 100 Stars, the TODAY show, the Macy’s Parade, etc. I was there at several events to help Laurie because the kids like me so much. The cast was invited to the Carter White House to perform numbers from the show in the East Room. I’m still friendly with Andrea McArdle who you can still hear on the original Broadway cast recording (who I recently went to see at her nightclub act in 54BELOW, the new space below STUDIO 54). I’m also friends with Diana Barrows (one of the original orphan kids in the show whose trademark expression was “Oh My Goodness”) and some others. I remember 3 years into the show they added a black child as an orphan because of criticism that there were no blacks in the show. Her name was Jodie and she was adorable… It will be interesting to see what they do with the “new” ANNIE which I understand is much more racially diverse than the original from the Jimmy Carter years. And I’ve also heard that an all-black ANNIE is coming soon starring Willow Smith the daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith.

Andrea McArdle at BELOW54

Got to relive a bit of my past Monday evening July 30 by going to see Andrea McArdle's cabaret show (final night) at BELOW 54...the new cabaret space created underneath Studio 54, the famous nightclub where I once worked. I also worked at the Alvin Theatre (now the Neil Simon), two blocks south when the Broadway show ANNIE was playing there when Andrea McArdle was playing the orphan at age 12. I was selling souvenirs: Annie dolls, records, tapes and keychains & coffee mugs in the lobby. I knew everybody in the show...all the Annie stage mothers (Annie was a show full of kids so therefore, lots of kids and siblings were running all over the place). I knew Andrea, her Mom Phyllis and her Dad Paul, Shelley Bruce (the second Annie who replaced Andrea) who left suddenly because she had leukemia. She was replaced with another Annie "orphan" from the chorus...a girl named Sarah Jessica Parker. I remember being in Sarah's dressing room her last day as ANNIE, helping her Mom and siblings (and Brooke & Teri Shields) clean out her suite and load the car. I have barely seen any of these people in all the years that have passed since then. My friend Pete Mannion made all the plans and got the tickets and we had a fabulous table with our friends Rich, Nick, Gretchen, Tracey and Naomi. Andrea looks FABULOUS...trim, great figure, gorgeous hair and her voice in tip-top shape. She sang standards from the '70's including Over the Rainbow (remember when she played teenage Judy Garland in the movie RAINBOW?) and of course she finished the show with the one iconic song from the 70's....HER song...TOMORROW from Annie. Also, we were sitting by another icon from the 70's...Cybill Shepherd. After the show, we were invited backstage to Andrea's dressing room where she thanked us for the flowers we sent and kissed everybody. I got to chat with her Mom Phyllis for the first time in YEARS! All in all, a fun nostalgic night and a stroll down memory lane. ....the sun'll come out....TOMORROW!

From my dear friend Peggy- Peggy was reminiscing with another friend and longtime Harlem resident Raymond Lewis about Sylvia Woods, owner of SYLVIA’S of Harlem, who died this week. Peggy: In addition to mourning, I will also be quietly chuckling as I remember hilarious stories about "The Queen of Soul Food," which left me in stitches. I told Raymond about the time Sylvia told me that she used to open the restaurant an hour before the posted time in order to feed the local drug pushers, so that they would leave her customers alone. ("I've paid my dues,” she said.) Then there was the time a desperate young mother came into the restaurant with four emaciated children and Sylvia fed them for free and then sat down with them and prayed. I recalled how locals used to come in, weighed down with black plastic bags of “hot” goods, and try and sell them, not only at the entrance, but also in the dining rooms. No night went by when you weren't accosted by a vendor whispering “Got some good stuff tonight,” trying to unload everything from jewelry to household goods. One day a vendor came into SYLVIA’S and tried to sell patrons a green casket. “A green casket?” Raymond asked the guy. “Yeah, a green casket, like what you bury folks in.” “Where is it?” “Outside, in front of the restaurant.” “How much do you want for it?” “$400” “Nah…too much.” “Where did you get it?” “The funeral parlor around the corner.” “Anybody in it?” “No…it’s empty.” “No thanks. I’ll catch you next time, when you’ve got a wider range of colors.” Not believing him, Raymond went outside. There, right in front of SYLVIA’S, by the curb, lay a dark green coffin. So tomorrow, when the tears are flowing and we’re all choking as the choir sings “Amazing Grace”, I will also smile as I remember the coffin by the curb.

---Celeste Holm passes away at 95 years young--- I met Celeste Holm a few years back because we were both members of the American Theatre Wing (the people that give out the TONY awards). The Wing was run by the (now late) Isabelle Stevenson, a lovely woman who had one foot in the world of the theatre and the other in the world of "high society." Isabelle herself passed away in 2003 at age 90. Celeste had appeared on Broadway many times (as well as classic movies) so of course she was a member of the wing. Celeste lived in a huge, classic old New York apartment at 88 Central Park West (where the Robert DeNiro's currently live but don't want anybody to know about it). The Theatre Wing would have cocktail parties every year leading up to Tony Award time in June so that everyone could meet the nominees and potential winners. I had heard that Celeste was beginning to be "confused" a bit and perhaps had the beginngs of Alzheimers or Senior Dementia. I experienced this first hand at a ATW pre-Tony cocktail bash in Times Square. I was chatting with the lovely Miss Holm, when suddenly her face changed and those gorgeous, big expressive eyes which looked so wonderful in her many movies, looked at me with a touch of panic and confusion and she said "Jim, where are we again?" I said "Celeste we are at a Tony award hosted by Isabelle and the American Theatre Wing." She seemed OK for a minute and then said "Why are we here??" Isabelle was near my elbow and I touched her and said "Isabelle, dear-- Celeste wants to know why we are here...." She looked a bit concerned and then said: "I'll take care of it..." and she drifted over to chat with Celeste and give her some undivided attention. After that, the stories about Celeste going in and out of reality were scattered around New York and then she married a man YOUNGER than her own two sons, which became the subject of talk, especially when her sons hired lawyers and obtained the rights to her money and estate, fearing her young husband might have other ideas. Celeste Holm died this week....1917-2012. We all remember her from her Oscar-winning role in Gentleman's Agreement and of course ALL ABOUT EVE with Bette Davis. She was also the original girl who "cain't say no"...Ado Annie on Broadway in OKLAHOMA in 1943. She will be missed. Jim Dykes is an actor and a private guide in New York City. He gives tours of history, architecture, tidbits etc. for private groups and individuals.

Matt Damon: Resident of Manhattan's Historic Upper Westside!!

The Upper Westside of Manhattan is one of New York City’s premiere residential neighborhoods and is literally “teeming” with celebrities. Historically, after the creation of Central Park, the East side developed into an “old money” neighborhood of big mansions and elegant townhouses: Astors, Whitneys, Vanderbilts and such, while the Westside real estate market languished amid sparse development prolonged by the Panic of 1873. The neighborhood finally began establishing itself as the first grand “apartment building district” in the U.S. with buildings such as The Dakota, the Prasada, the Ansonia, etc. in the 1880s, the gay ‘90’s and early 1900s. Eastsiders thumbed their noses at the Upper West, saying “no one important will EVER live over there!” Early Westsiders included theatre people (horrors!), famous musicians, sports celebrities and immigrants who had actually worked hard to make their fortunes. Today Central Park West has celebs including Madonna, Baryshkinov, Donna Karan, Mark Cuban, Darren Star, LeBron James, Josh Groban, Armani, Denzel Washington, Sting, Nascar driver Jeff Gordon and a Russian billionaire driving up prices with his new $88million purchase. It was 1892 when the residents of the Upper Westside, well aware that the area was beginning to boom as a grand residential district, petitioned the city to change the numbered names of the avenues to much grander-sounding names such as Central Park West (for Eighth Ave.), Columbus Avenue (because of newly named Columbus Circle and the newly presented statue of Columbus), Amsterdam Ave. (Dutch revival was all the rage in the 1890’s), WestEnd Avenue (after London’s WestEnd) and Riverside Drive (for obvious reasons). When I first moved to New York City and lived with relatives on West 68th Street, this once grand old NYC neighborhood had become a low-rent, run-down section of town with many Laundromats, hardware stores, Mom & Pop shops and boarded up buildings. There were hundreds of gorgeous old buildings begging to be discovered and renovated which finally happened in the 1980’s. In a previous column I mentioned that Lady Gaga grew up around the corner from my old apartment (on W. 70th St.) and still lives there occasionally with her parents. Other celebs who have flocked to the Upper Westside include: Jerry Seinfeld, Glenn Close, Helen Gurley Brown, Bono, Steven Spielberg, Diane Keaton, Steve Martin, Dustin Hoffman, Demi Moore, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas. In one building near Lincoln Center are: Celine Dion, Howard Stern, Liam Neeson, Regis Philbin, Alan Alda, Marilu Henner, Tony Danza, Julie Andrews, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner! Mega-watt movie star Matt Damon, his wife Lucy and their brood, has also made New York home over his native Boston. After many years of living in a loft downtown on Lafayette Street, Damon was forced to re-locate from the East Village when the NY Post published a photo of him entering his building. On the side of his building was a billboard of his latest Bourne movie with the headline: BOURNE GOES HOME… and a Post paparazzi got a great picture of Damon entering the building with the billboard in plain view. Ahh…the problems of the rich & famous…the loss of privacy in exchange for a $20 million paycheck (per movie!) For now, he’s moved the entire family (wife and several daughters) up to W. 86th Street in a gorgeous old rental building with an interior garden courtyard built by John Jacob Astor. Real estate sources say Damon is searching for a place to buy in the neighborhood but keeps getting outbid by people with deeper pockets than a film star. Although Damon is Boston-born and bred, he’s obviously chosen Yankee territory over Red Sox territory as his home. Jim Dykes is the co-founder of Rich and Famous Tours of NYC. For more information go to: www.JimDykes.com or www.RichandFamousTours.com

Jim Dykes' Rich & Famous Tour spots Snoop Dog, John Lithgow, Sarah Jessica Parker and Jennifer Aniston

Recently on our Rich and Famous Tour (www.RichandFamoustours.com ) we've spotted John Lithgow (riding the C subway train) on Central Park West, Sarah Jessica Parker juggling her children on the street and Jennifer Aniston walking quickly thru the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel! We saw Snoop Dog walking with his posse on Ninth Avenue, leaving Justin Timberlake's SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY Restaurant! People are always amazed when we spot celebs, no matter how many times I insist to them that New York City is Celebrity City!