How Believers Are Born

If Leo in mid-heaven conjuncts Jupiter, they say you will be in the company of nobility during your lifetime. If celebrities are our present-day nobility, then I’ve known my share of such encounters. Here are some:

How else could I bump into the Duke and Duchess of Windsor one dark night in Portofino? They were exiting Il Pitsofero restaurant—he, wearing the same colorful Bahamian shirt as I was. We had to have engaged the same tailor since there was but one shirt maker there in 1952, who was making such shirts long before they were for sale all over the West Indies. Celebrities are ordinarily caught trying to run and hide, but with such an opening encounter, I felt that they might have enjoyed some conversation. However, with their two small dogs barking at my Maltese and disturbing the locals, who rose with the early tide, and with my starving stomach joining in the growling, we parted.

One morning at the Carlton, Mr. and Mrs. Ed Sullivan entered the elevator I was in: he, wearing a red jacket and pink pants, and I, a pink jacket and red pants. Mrs. Sullivan looked at us and said, “You guys ought to get together.” On another encounter, Carmen Miranda gave me a big kiss because I said “Excuse me” in Portuguese. Without such heavenly intercession, how else could I be doing a fast rumba with Virginia Hill in front of Bugsy Seigel at the Beachcomber on the same night that I met Miguelito Valdés, Mr. “Babalu”?

I was behind Orson Welles in the revolving doors entering the Hotel Cipriani. Had he not scurried across the lobby so fast—perhaps hurrying to the john or to the restaurant—I would have liked to have told him that I had been the gaffer at his Mercury Theater rehearsals of War of the Worlds, on Halloween 1938. I would have mentioned how, during the actual broadcast, I was having a drink around the corner, relaxing while all the patrons including the bartender ran out in panic into Central Park to look up in the sky.

It wasn’t a beach day at Maracas Bay, Trinidad, but whenever we docked in Port-of-Spain, I got out of town and into the surf. To get there on the Atlantic side, where the waves hit, meant a long but beautiful drive over mountain roads built by the Seabees (construction battalions of World War II). Except for a discreet pair of lovers off in the far distance, there was only one other person visible, jogging along toward me. Known for his love of swimming and keeping fit, it was Robert Moses. Since working on ships keeps you safely uninformed about events on land, I had no idea that he was being vilified for wanting to extend Fifth Avenue by cutting through Sullivan Street, where my family once owned Number 117. I had heard about Robert Moses Park, so that when he asked my opinion about the Village project, about which I knew nothing, I said I felt that he was doing much to improve the city, together with Mayor LaGuardia. No doubt this response made his day. Swimming against a rising tide, he lost his struggle with politicians, landlords, tenants, heritage groups and progressive Democratic party boss Carmine Disapio. Imagine tenants and landlords teaming up, and early environmentalists flexing their power!

The brilliant musical genius, Ernesto Lecuona, sent me a note via his first violinist. It read, “Please come to my dressing room.” I was sitting up front at the Teatro Payret, and couldn’t wait for the concert to end. I found him sitting at a small piano in his bathrobe. “You are the first to hear this,” he told me while playing “Estas siempre en mi corazon,” (“You are always in my heart”). “Come to my Sunday bar-be-COO,,” he said, pronouncing “cue” like the French word for derriere. I happened to be “busy” that Sunday, and backed out.

The most famous prostitute in New York in 1949 was Mickey Jelke’s (the wealthy oleo-margarine heir) mistress, Pat Ward. Before rising to fame, she would visit us to play with our baby until, one day, comedian Joey Adams came and took her bodily out of the apartment.

Speaking of nobility, that prince of the church, Cardinal F. J. Spellman, was on his way to the Eucharistic Congress, in Rio. At the captain’s cocktail party on board the S.S. Brazil, I introduced him to the captain and his staff. Later, on shore at a reception the cardinal offered, he shook my hand and held on to it a bit longer than necessary.

Petrillo, the all-powerful head of Musicians’ Union 108, was heading for Italy aboard the T.V. Leonardo da Vinci. In the receiving line, he extended his pinky to shake my hand, due to his fear of germs.

M. Louis Viutton and I once had a vocal disagreement concerning the quality of his luggage. The Istanbul airport, built on low ground, was flooded. My luggage lost its shape, having sat there for some time. I had expected some polite apology; instead he shouted, “Your mistreated it!”

Montgomery Clift was another difficult celebrity. He was staying at the British Colonial Hotel where Bess Meyerson, the then Miss America, and the Maharani of Baroda, were also installed. The actor was so shy that it soon became clear that he was effeminate, especially when I mentioned Greenwich Village.

Señor Wences, the ventriloquist, resented my asking him to take part in the amateur passenger show aboard the T.N. Raffaello, even though James Roosevelt had volunteered to be a judge. Jan Peerce was humorous and a true gentleman but Rudy Valee, I think, resented my introducing him while wearing a tartan dinner jacket of the style that was popular in the 1950s. On the same program was Jessica Dragonette at the end of her career. Rose Bampton Pelletiere offered to entertain our shipboard passengers very graciously.

Marjorie Merriweather Post raised hell with me over the dusty condition of her private railroad car that was to take her from Miami to Palm Beach. She was absolutely correct. But I had to offer many apologies.

Her Highness Princess Elizabeth Chulalonghorn of Thailand was amazed by the size of our double door refrigerator. “The light goes on when you open the door!” she exclaimed with delight, never having seen one.

These run-ins with the famous came and went, but one remains with me especially. In 1941, in Guanabacoa, Regla, across Havana Harbor, a santero, Juan Beson, blessed me, saying “You will carry this music around the world.” So it was that in ’52 I did just that, teaching Latin dances on a world cruise and continuing to hope that, in spreading a musical gospel of salsa before the public, I can help make this world a bit merrier, for others and for myself.

El Muerto Se Fué de Rumba

At East Harlem's Julia de Burgos Cultural Center, I attended Carmen and Rafi’s wedding recently. La musica got me up to dance with two girls as I had seen rumberos do at the Park Plaza and in many dance halls. To see two women dancing for lack of partners was like seeing a woman in a restaurant eating alone. Since I never met una puertoriqueña who didn’t know how to dance, I was not hesitant to twirl the two gals around in a fine salsa. What was to be a short dance turned out to be a performance by an 87-year-old bailarín with two gals, whose combined ages didn’t equal mine.

The same thing happened at St. Paul’s Apostle Church during the annual affair sponsored by the IPRPM. Aurora Flores with Dario at the piano and Papote gave me a big welcome, and I had to do something to deserve their recognition. Two elderly ladies were, in this case, dancing off by themselves and not together. I took the nearest one first, then the second one, and the three of us did the plena. One thing about this music—unless you’re drunk or a clown, age doesn’t stop Latino parejas or personas mayores from doing well on the dance floor. You rarely see that in an Anglo-crowded disco, sorry to say.

What is this “dancer” doing in a list of thirty-five musicians that included Dave Valentin, Cachao and Rene Lopez, all legendarios? Especially since all he could manage to play were maracas and the campana? It was at the Smithsonian Institute’s Museum of American History that I was honored to lecture to a small audience on my donation of posters, and then a bit about the very early days of la musica: the Cabarojeño Club in the Bronx in 1937, the Teatro Cervantes, the ’39 Cuban Village at the World’s Fair, the Café Latino in Greenwich Village in 1937 with Jose Mangual Sr., the Miami Beach dance studio and La Conga craze across the nation in 1940, the La Playa dancers at the Wonder Bar in Detroit in 1938, Tony and Lucille Colon’s studio at Grossinger’s, and talk about Anselmo Sacassas, Julio Andino, Electrico, Rene and Estela, the Havana Madrid. Everything I mentioned there involved bands, conjuntos, grupos or espantaneos. Musicians.

When we paint the picture of los veteranos de la musica Latina, los bohemios, little note is given to the rumberos like Raul and Eva Reyes, who performed, taught and carried the flag around the country. I can add that they fought for it as well, since it was threatened by forces like Arthur Murray’s and Fred Astaire’s studios. Those operations may have helped a bit to bring la danza before the public, but it just wasn’t the real thing, lo nuestro.

What’s a six-foot Italian-American Brooklynite who didn’t speak la idioma doing playing “Bruca Manigua” on a harmonica for the audience at the Teatro Cervantes in 1937? What is he doing in the company of the greatest musicos, allowed into their dressing rooms, back stage and in their homes, invited to bautizos, weddings, birthdays like Louis Mangual’s 54^th in Yonkers?

Never was I made to feel unwelcome, out of place or intruding. On the contrary, the abrazo fuerte bien puertoriqueño was the greeting, like two hermanos de leche. It’s more than hospitality, good manners and friendship—it is the affection, the gran afecto, that one feels like a mano, like the looseness I felt while singing a duet (“Tu no comprendes,” a song our long-gone friend Doroteo Santiago recorded in ’38) with Leo Fleming Jr. in my kitchen. How come he could greet you with “Ecobio monina boncó,” an amigo de pecho, could do a tornillo and ate chicharones de Bayamon?

How come he knew the lyrics to “Ofelia tenia un platito,” “Niebla del riachuelo,” “Vereda tropical,” “Pare cochero,” “Negro de sociedad,” “Un poquito de tu amor,” “Fufuñando,” “Santa Barbara bendita,” “La ultima noche” and “Timba timbero”? How did he find himself dancing along with Los Dandy’s de Belén? He was even digging Candido at El Kursal in La Vieja Habana in 1940, and in Maestro Lecuona’s dressing room at the Teatro Payret, opposite Sloppy Joe’s. He danced to Trio Caney on the patio of the Beachcomber, hung out with Louie Varona and “Jack, Jack, Jack” Bolivar at the El San Juan Hotel. He stayed at the Normandi Hotel, swam in El Convento’s small pool and had a shoeshine at the corner of Calle Luna.

Uneraseable reflections…stories behind the music that will be with him, not in la blanda cama, but while dancing with his nurse to “Chacumbele, el muerto se fué de rumba.”

Chinese Rhumba

When the old La Conga on West 51^st Street became the China Doll overnight, the “rhumba-nik” crowd became quite concerned. Was their favorite club losing its Afro-Cuban flavor in favor of some Oriental concoction?

What happened was this: Beginning in early 1940, the Jewish community discovered chop suey, chow mein, egg foo yung, et cetera. They began to abandon Toffinetti’s Italian cuisine on Times Square in favor of Ruby Foo’s Chinese cuisine. Ruby Foo’s itself was inspired by an unknown upstairs restaurant crowded with customers at 49^th and Broadway. The place was called Chin Lee’s.

Lucky Mr. Lee had a gold mine. It was not in the same order as other Chinese restaurants operating at that time. His offered a “revue,” with “no cover, no minimum.” He gave customers free tea refills unlimited and the free fortune cookie gimmick. His matchbooks published prices for a general public that mistrusted nightclub price tactics; he portrayed his establishment in this way as being forthright and honest-dealing. His matchbooks stated: Lunch. 40¢. Dinner. 80¢, except Saturday evenings. Lunch, Saturdays and holidays. 45¢. After-theater supper. 85¢. Wholesale and retail. For your health and good food. Use Chin Lee coupon books for free meal. With Chin Lee's list of twenty or thirty choices on an exotic menu, big servings of steaming hot or sour, mild or spicy rice dishes, using cheap labor and an amateur hula-hula girl revue, it was clear to Mr. Harris that his La Conga had to do something.

Chin Lee’s restaurant came to life at the end of the Great Depression’s baked beans and chili bill of fare at Horn and Hardart’s automat. He was a breath of fresh air. Furthermore, Mr. Harris saw Lee opening a second spot called Chin’s at 44^th and Broadway, lit up with enormous Chinese lanterns. Even Ruby Foo’s had opened a second larger place down in South Beach, Florida, for the winter crowd. Chinese restaurants around the city were installing entertainment, finding that music and dining went well together, like corned beef and cabbage.

When it became clear that the Jewish public—comprising the majority of La Conga’s music-loving clientele—and Chinese food had discovered each other, Mr. Harris was forced to save his place by giving birth to the China Doll, if only in name. He boldly advertised it as “New York’s only Chinese nightclub,” with “shows at 8, 12 and 2:30” and “never a cover charge”—omitting reference to a minimum. “Deluxe dinners from $2.50,” giving his address as “East of Broadway,” rather than West 51^st Street.

His menu was still steaks and chops, but without the Latin rice and beans plates. He had difficulty finding English-speaking help among the Chinese, and Orientals couldn’t mix drinks at the bar. Chinese food filled you and later you were still hungry—people still came to the China Doll now to dance to Machito or Noro Morales, but not to eat. Harris tried putting acts like the José Greco Dancers that broke away from the strictly Afro-Cubans…acrobats, Mexican, flamenco and Los Chaveles de España.

One night after the last couple left, he and I sat at the bar with only the bar lights on—to save electricity, I surmise. It was a somber moment even with the conga craze in full swing all over the country. He poured us double shots of his strongest rum and added, “Here’s a drink you can’t get—.” He never spoke the words “Chinese restaurants.” (The sudden growth of “Chinese” can be compared to the pizza phenomenon of the 1970s.)

He toyed with the idea of broadcasting nightly, using top personalities of stage, screen and radio, or giving free conga lessons, but his competition was getting stronger day by day. The Chinese were winning the market. Perhaps this sounds familiar, but fortune is fickle.

In 1941, Sam and Joe Barker opened the Beachcomber in Miami Beach featuring spicy dishes, tropical drinks, strong Zombies, air-conditioning and Xavier Cugat with Miguelito Valdes, “Mr. Babalu.” The Copacabana opened on East 61^st Street with Carmen Miranda–type beautiful show girls all over the place. Chin Lee couldn’t compete with the “rhumba” bands and Tony Martin and Jerry Lewis floor shows. Then World War Two put the lights out on Broadway. The Chinese Chin Lees are gone now, while the Copacabana is still around.

Looking back to that era, perhaps if Mr. Lee had foreseen the future, had recognized the potential of a Chinese/Latin jazzy combination for his restaurants on that afternoon when Julio Andino, José Mangual and I with other guys were auditioning there for a “job on Broadway,” playing “Cachita” as a wild rumba for the happy customers, perhaps Mr. Lee would not have come up and asked us, “Please play American fox trots.”