Beauty laid waste

Deaths of a star and a septic system leave me drained

by Max Alexander

Imogene Coca just died at age 92. For those under the age of 92 (note to advertisers: readers of this column may skew older than the overall Phoenix demographic, but they are America’s decision-makers), Coca was the wacky partner of Sid Caesar in the classic 1950s TV revue Your Show of Shows. Somehow I have come to specialize in writing “tributes” (magazine-speak for obituaries) to 92-year-old TV stars, so I wasn’t surprised when the Big National Magazine called with the assignment.

This would be easy. The format called for some touching remembrances and humorous anecdotes from those who knew her. I’d interviewed the key people from Your Show of Shows — Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, and Caesar himself among others — several times over the years. A few quick calls to some Hollywood bigmouths and I’d be out on Dyer Long Pond, reeling in the smallmouths, before dinner.

Alas, the bass got a break. Comedian Brooks had just won eight million Tony Awards for the Broadway version of his 1968 film The Producers, and his surly office lady snapped that he was “not doing any press that wasn’t about the Tonys.” This was frustrating because I knew that once I got Mel on the phone, he would never stop talking.

On to Neil Simon, whose assistant promptly requested The Dreaded Fax. Hollywood is the last holdout on Earth for the fax machine. Everybody else on the planet uses email, but in Hollywood the only way to interview a Major Person is by sending a groveling fax on magazine letterhead, outlining the nature of the interview request. When I was an editor at People magazine, we had a strict policy against faxing interview requests — on the grounds that it was inappropriately hat-in-hand, and at any rate what about People did the publicist need explained? Was she unfamiliar with the magazine? We actually lost some stories that way, with interview requests devolving into playground spats:

“You must send a fax.”

“No, I won’t send a fax.”

“But you must send a fax.”

“Well I won’t send a fax.”

“Then you can’t talk to Mr. Bigshot.”

“Then Mr. Bigshot can’t be in our magazine. So there.”

It was embarrassing. But most magazines accede to the fax request, so there I was faxing at my desk instead of casting on the pond.

Carl Reiner’s people said the star was on vacation and not taking any interview requests. I sighed; Reiner is a clever guy who always told me great stories. When he says “Here’s a good one,” you push the Record button. I knew he would want to talk, but I could tell his office staff was just afraid to bother him. What they didn’t know was that I had his home phone. So I rang him up directly and left an urgent message.

Caesar himself was easy to reach. But he’s a nonverbal sort to begin with, and lately he’s been ailing; tired and hard-of-hearing, the TV legend had little to say about Coca beyond how much he loved her. I asked him to explain their chemistry and he replied: “You don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

I rang Howard Morris, a forgotten co-star on Your Show of Shows and a close friend of Coca’s. He picked up the phone at his house and said that Coca’s battle with Alzheimer’s had left her unable to recognize him in recent years. When I replied that Caesar told me the same thing, Morris said, “Yeah well, you have to like somebody to recognize them.” This was getting ugly.

Other events were conspiring to keep me off the pond. While strolling through my meadow I noticed some black gunk oozing up from the ground. It was crude but definitely not oil. The septic analyst from Windsor came over the next day and said “Ah-yuh, you need a new septic system. That’ll be 75 dollars.”

“What do I do now?”

“Get Dave Studer to design you a septic system,” he said, handing me the bill. “Once he draws up a plan, fax it over to me.” (Score one for the fax!)

A true flatlander, my neighbor Dave Studer was born in North Dakota and raised in Kansas. His father’s dream of becoming a scientist was dashed by color-blindness that hampered his ability to observe natural phenomena. So he became a minister instead — color-blindness being an asset in that field — and Dave grew up the son of a preacherman. Dave inherited his dad’s love of science and after college found himself teaching the subject in a Washington D.C. public school, to 7th- and 8th-graders who had been thrown out of other schools. “The first thing you need to know,” said the principal on Dave’s first day, “is don’t bother calling their parents.” Many of his students were already parents themselves.

Dave went on to get a Master’s degree in environmental education, and now he applies his knowledge of soil structure to the design of septic systems. But the professor in him loves to expound — and like Mel Brooks, once you get him going there’s no end in sight. Dave could go on for hours about what goes down the toilet, and the science of sinkers and floaters — which, come to think of it, so could Mel Brooks. Dave came over and we dug holes in my field and sat in the tall grass and sifted dirt between our fingers while he showed me where centuries of plowing gave way to compacted subsoil, and how oxygen reached into my ground and turned the iron bright orange, and where the seasonal water table peaked, and how to hear the sand in your land by rubbing a clump next to your ear.

Carl Reiner called me back with a neat anecdote about the time Edward R. Murrow got Imogene Coca tipsy before a TV interview. Thanks, Carl. May your subsoil always drain deep.

Still, I tip my hat to the president and Congress: $600 and all the dope we can smoke. It’s about time a working guy caught a break.

Max Alexander can be reached at malex@midcoast.com.