TEEN YOUR ENTHUSIASM (5)
By:
April 14, 2023
One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of heartthrobs from our adolescences). Series edited by Heather Quinlan.
ELI WALLACH
Looking back now, it was a classic case of mistaken identity.
How I remember braving the matinee performance that July day at the Lane Theater where the matron would shine a flashlight in our eyes in a lame attempt to weed out the rowdies.
I was on a mission to discover who would be bestowing the highly publicized first on-screen kiss on none other than teen icon Hayley Mills. Up until then, the only poster I had seen for the movie The Moon-Spinners was an artist’s rendering that made Hayley’s heartthrob look like Jimmy Stewart.
Surely my 12-year-old heart reasoned, the actor who played Mark Camford would have to be charming and devastatingly handsome — and I can now reveal that Walt Disney’s casting department did not disappoint.
Picture this — Hayley trapped in a windmill in Greece — her knight in khakis coming to her rescue with just the right amount of tousled hair and earnest, gorgeous eyes.
Overjoyed with the movie’s happy ending, and determined that Hayley would not have him all to herself, I scrutinized the film credits to identify just who my new love was in order to pay him homage in a manner befitting a seventh grader with limited resources — i.e. in my school notebook, the kind that’s white and covered with huge black splotches.
To my orderly brain, Hayley’s beau was the star so whatever male name was given top billing as the credits rolled must be the one to whom I pledge my troth.
Consequently, my conclusion — with what I believed was laser-like accuracy — was that this swoon-worthy actor must be named Eli Wallach.
Ergo, I ❤️ Eli Wallach took its rightful place in my notebook, right next to my history notes on Greek civilization — a spot I would return to again and again that year.
Fast forward to 1982 and the real Eli Wallach is sitting in the Green Room at NBC in Rockefeller Center waiting to appear on a local talk show. As luck would have it, my brother Russ was one of the show’s producers and he typically enjoyed kibbitzing with the guests before their on-camera interviews.
Armed with the story I had relayed to him years ago — where I swore undying devotion to Eli Wallach instead of the real object of my desire — Peter McEnery — Russ took the opportunity to regale the actor and elicit a hearty guffaw as he described how once upon a time, unbeknownst to the selfsame Eli, the celebrated actor received a credit he was unaware of — the center of the world for a preteen on Staten Island.
TEEN YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Heather Quinlan | Adam McGovern on ANDY GIBB | Crockett Doob on DREW BARRYMORE | Kathy Biehl on THE MONKEES | Josh Glenn on SHAUN CASSIDY | Catherine Christman on ELI WALLACH | Carlo Rotella on VALERIE BERTINELLI | Miranda Mellis on EDDIE VAN HALEN | Paul Finnegan on KIM WILDE | Heather Quinlan on MIKE PATTON | Mariane Cara on NKOTB | Mimi Lipson on ARLO GUTHRIE | Gabriela Pedranti on GUSTAVO CERATI | Michele Carlo on MICHAEL JACKSON | Ingrid Schorr on PAUL McCARTNEY | Carolyn Campbell on ROBERT REDFORD | Erin M. Routson on JOHNNY KNOXVILLE | Amy Keyishian on JIM MORRISON | Fran Pado on TONY DEFRANCO | Krista Margies Kunkle on LUKE PERRY | Lucy Sante on FRANÇOISE HARDY | Lynn Peril on DANNY BONADUCE | Jack Silbert on CHERYL TIEGS | Kelly Jean Fitzsimmons on CHRISTIAN SLATER | Cynthia Scott on LEONARD WHITING | Elizabeth Foy Larsen on OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN.
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