Read Online The Bunny Years by Kathryn Leigh Scott - Free Book Online Page A

friends when they left, those early years in New York are marked by a sense of impermanence and wanderlust. Once I graduated from the Academy I knew I, too, would be leaving Playboy. I thrilled at the idea that a single audition or a screen test could change the course of my life. Aside from a wardrobe of suitable audition clothes, I lived with the barest essentials. Some books piled into homemade shelves, a teakettle, a bed and a thrift-shop couch, but no gracious, homey decor items to slow me down if I had to move fast. Once I could work nights at Playboy, my days were spent in classes and making the rounds of casting directors.
    My 21st birthday coincided with the occasion of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts’ Gala Tribute to Jason Robards (a former student) and his wife, Lauren Bacall, in the Grand Ballroom of the Hilton Hotel. I was among the six scholarship students (Sheila included) invited to serveas hosts at the event. I was still squeezing every nickel, but I had my eye on a red velvet dress hanging on a sale rack in Bergdorf Goodman. The saleswoman assured me the dress was due for another markdown before the Big Event, and I managed to take it home for $18. That Sunday night, January 26, Sheila watched in amazement as I managed to stand up in a taxi all the way to the Hilton so I wouldn’t crush my dress. It was worth it. Adlai E. Stevenson, one of the many distinguished guests, handed me his homburg, and I gave him a program. I couldn’t wait to tell my father, an ardent Democrat. Late that night, after the event and still dressed in my precious gown, I joined Academy friends at a tavern; I bumped into a friend there who took me to a walk-up shared by Faye Dunaway and her boyfriend, where I ate lobster and sang folk songs. Sometime close to dawn I wandered home, stopping in a deli for a cheese Danish and a carton of milk to breakfast on in front of Tiffany’s, just across the street from where I had bought my red velvet gown and around the corner from the Playboy Club. It was a sensational birthday.
    That summer, through auditions at the American Academy, I got a job at a summer theatre in Roanoke, Virginia. One of the room directors, Paul Goldenberg, was looking for an apartment, and I offered to sublet my place on Madison Avenue to him for three months. He moved in (with a dozen crates of books) the day I left for Roanoke. About five weeks later, I stood in a train station with a duffel bag at my feet stuffing quarters in a pay telephone trying to reach Paul in New York to tell him that the theatre had gone belly up and I was on my way home. He graciously invited me to sleep on the living room couch of my apartment. When I told him that I was traveling back with another young actress from the theatre, also homeless, he kindly offered to give up the bedroom with the twin beds and sleep on the couch himself. He also called the Club in advance of my arrival to get me back on schedule to work the following weekend. That was the beginning of a close, lasting friendship and the start of my tutelage with Paul Goldenberg—one of the most urbane, delightful and supportive men I have ever known.
    Paul, the Cairo-born son of French parents, started his career working as a stage actor and a talent coordinator for the BBC in Egypt. Some years later, he moved to Northern California and managed the
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in San Francisco (advancing the careers of Tom Lehrer, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Bob Newhart, Mort Sahl and a host of other young talents) before moving to New York and working at the Playboy Club. As we got to know each other, he became increasingly appalled at how much I didn’t knowand hadn’t read. It was annoying to this man, who was widely read, well-educated and well-traveled, that I seemed to have a sound intelligence and an inquiring mind but scant knowledge. His solution was to give me a reading list and require verbal book reports. This remedy not only enhanced our
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