North Shore Towers Courier n February 2015 13 session for her new position, she found herself in conversation next to a young woman knitting. The woman was engaged to a man whose good college friend, Jack, was also a social worker, so the erstwhile Yenta set Evelyn up with him. Ooh la la! Jack Schwarz took Evelyn into Manhattan to a French restaurant, Brasserie, and French foreign film, “A Man and a Woman (“Un Homme et une Femme”). Both agree their initial meeting would not fall under the category of “Love at first,” but Jack proposed in January, after only a few dates and a mere four months following the initial blind date in October. “I didn’t expect it,” admits Evelyn, “But I didn’t hesitate at all.” The pair completed their whirlwind courtship with an August wedding, a month shy of the first year anniversary of that fateful first meeting and two weeks before Evelyn’s training-day companion’s nuptials to Jack’s college buddy! • Together Again for the First Time • DOTTIE ABRAHAMS & KEN z Sometimes love is meant to be no matter how long it takes. NST Resident Dottie Abrahams grew up on the ground floor of a duplex in Brooklyn. Two years her senior, Ken lived above on the second floor. The two were never more than good friends, despite one evening when the pair went out to dinner. “Not really a date” Dottie clarifies, “but we did go out. It was ‘Dutch treat.’ I guess I wasn’t impressed!” As the United States entered the Second World War, Ken served his country honorably, even taking part in the famous Battle of Anzio where he was injured. Meanwhile, Dottie, unaware her childhood pal held a torch for her, married. Ken never said a word about his true feelings, eventually marrying himself upon his return from overseas. Dottie and Ken kept in touch until the responsibilities of raising a family caused the pair to drift apart. “The last time we saw each other was at Ken’s son’s first birthday,” Dottie reveals. Sixty-eight years later, Dottie gets a call in Florida, where she and her husband spent part of their winters away from the chilly climes of New York, from Ken’s daughter-in-law. Per Ken, now a widower, she tracked Dottie down on the internet. This was the wife of the same son at whose first birthday, Dottie and Ken last saw each other! Ken nonchalantly, albeit not very subtly, offered up some small talk before revealing that he was going to be visiting Florida from his home in Baldwin, Long Island, and would it be okay if he were to stop by. Dottie’s husband was understandably trepidatious, but acceded. During the conversation, Ken asks Dottie about her childhood girlfriend, Ellie. The odd change in direction became stranger as Ken inquired about Ellie’s availability. As it turned out, Ken’s childhood buddy, Bob, another member of the neighborhood clique, had held a torch for Ellie, as Ken had for Dottie! Bob and Ellie reconnected as more than just friends and today Bob frequently travels from his home in California to Ellie’s in Florida. As for our headliners, after the tragic loss of her husband a few years ago, Dottie received a call from Ken one day asking if he could visit Dottie at her seasonal home at the North Shore Towers. “I knew we’d be together from then on,” Dottie admits. “It only took 68 years!” • “If Music Be the Food of Love, Play On!” • LEE & MARILYN WALLACE z Most Broadway flops fade into obscurity, but this one produced a hit that’s been running for nearly 40 years and shows no sign of stopping. Lee Wallace is a professional actor; most of his career in the early 1970s treading the boards of the Broadway stages, although he did have a few minor movie roles, including a small part in Klute, which starred Donald Sutherland and Jane Fonda. Marylin Chris was also a working thespian, who played Wanda Webb Wolek on the television Soap Opera, “One Life to Live,” a role she introduced in 1972. The dramatic duo met in 1974 when both were cast in “Laugh a Little, Cry a Little”, a musical based on Leo Rosten’s “Joys of Yiddish” dictionary. “It was a terrible show; bad, bad, bad jokes…” recalls Marylin. The show starred American operatic tenor Jan Peerce, whose signature tune, “Bluebird of Happiness,” was a 1945 hit for RCA Victor. Peerce played father and father-in-law to Marilyn’s and Lee’s characters, Ma and Pa Pinkus. A television soap actor she may well have been, but Marylin’s stage appearances were Off-Broadway non-musical parts. “I don’t sing; I don’t dance, and I was quite terrified and rather humbled,” she says of the initial rehearsals. When she met Lee, a huge unlit cigar protruded from his mouth. “Are you going to smoke that thing?!” Mariliyn asked. “Not near you, Honey!” Lee replied before walking off. Given this less than auspicious start, it’s a wonder the two ever got together, but being as their characters were married to each other, it was inevitable they’d be thrust together whether they liked it or not. They liked it, and even the failure of the musical could not tear them apart. “Laugh a Little, Cry a Little” never even made it to Broadway. After test runs in smaller towns, such as Valley Forge and King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, it eventually closed in Westbury, Long Island. But even before its final days, Lee left the show. Marilyn stayed until the end, but the two stayed close and soon moved into an apartment together in The Village. “A few days after we moved to West End Avenue, Lee took me to a coffee shop in Union Square, where he came up with a ring,” Marylin explains. “Actors usually don’t come up with a ring!”
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