A Bit of Personal Commentary—Part V

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By Seth H. Bramson

While not meaning to keep you all on pins and needles, breathlessly awaiting “the next chapter” in the Fontainebleau/Cornell saga, we will discuss the four years at Fontainebleau first (because they were first!) and then go on to the three years at one of America’s greatest bastions of higher education.

As noted last time, as soon as I returned to Miami from 1/2SU in 1/2assee, I immediately went to see Jack Stubbs, the Cabana Manager at the Fontainebleau. Remember, at that time, the ‘bleau was still the place to see and be seen, to meet great people, to stay and have conventions and meetings at, and to have, in the summer, a cabana, that at a time when six people could share one cabana and pay $100- each for the summer for that privilege.

Jack and I hit it off and he hired me immediately as either a pool boy (taking care of the chaise lounges) or a cabana boy; I just don’t remember which primarily because I only did it for a month or so. Ziggy Lane, then a noted emcee from the Catskills, was Director of Entertainment, and took a liking to me, my personality, my cordiality and my manner with guests, both hotel and cabana. Ziggy asked Jack if he would mind if he (Ziggy) hired me to be a teen-age counselor. Jack had no problem with that and shortly thereafter, there I was, a newly-minted teen counselor.

About two months later, Ziggy called me in to tell me that he was making me head counselor and that all of the counselors for the various age groups would report to me and that I would be responsible for their hiring, training, appearance and attendance, a job to which I readily agreed. (After, all, as head counselor it was like letting the proverbial fox loose in the hen house!)

Among those I hired was one Oliver “Butch” Stallings. Butch, who attended Miami Beach’s St. Patrick’s High School, was a big, tall, handsome blonde-haired “kid,” and he became not only my children’s counselor but also my assistant in handling the dances for the teens during Easter and Christmas vacations. We’ll tell you more about Butch later.

Eventually, after about a year and a half, Ziggy got into “it” with the Fontainebleau’s owner, one of the vilest, nastiest human beings who has ever been on this earth, Ben Novack, and either quit or Novack fired him. His replacement was another great Catskills entertainment director, Bert Sheldon.

Again, I hit it off with my new boss and after just a couple of months Bert asked me to become his Program Coordinator, turning over to me all duties related to putting together the guest’s social programs for all ages, taking on the task of editing the hotel’s in-house newspaper, the “Entre-Nous,” and remaining as head counselor.

At some point I suggested to Bert that, since the cabana club staff wore white t-shirts with the hotel emblem in the center and the word “Cabana” above it and the word “Club” below, we—the social staff—should have something similar so that we could be easily identified. He approved it and I immediately went to Reisler Brothers Sporting Goods store at 437 Washington Avenue to have the shirts made, also a white t-shirt, but with the words “Fontainebleau Social Staff,” one above the other, on the left side of the shirt.

So, and as the expression goes, “picture it!” Here I was, the head counselor and program coordinator for the social staff, coming to work every morning in white beach boy shorts, the white t-shirt, sneakers and white socks. I had a bit more hair then, was in great shape and with the sun glasses on must have looked pretty good to the beautiful and sexy young women!

I became friendly with almost everybody and almost every employee at the hotel, from engineering to cabana men to front desk people, to food and beverage, and, best of all, got along very well with all of them, including our security staff and the valet people. Among my closest friends was Ed Vandermark and his wife, Barbara, he the print shop manager, and really a great couple.

I would come into work every day at about 10:30, check to see that our social staff people were “at their posts” and then go to the Chez Bon Bon, the coffee shop in the lower lobby, for lunch. While certainly not an executive, my position entitled me, since I worked a split shift, to go to the coffee shop for both lunch and dinner and sign an “Officer’s Check,” meaning that I did not pay, the only thing expected was that I would leave the waitress a tip, at that time twenty-five cents for lunch, fifty cents for dinner. (Remember, it was a different world back then!)

During the day, I would make my rounds visiting everybody in every part of the hotel, overseeing the social department activities, and, of course, enjoying such as the bowling alley and the swimming pool whenever I chose to. As I became friendlier with Sadie Sharpe, the pool deck telephone operator, I started to relieve her for lunch and learned how to work the switchboard. One of the duties of the pool deck operator was to page hotel guests who were at poolside, generally with chaise lounges being served by their favorite pool boy. Eventually, I started receiving calls for Mr. Mehoff, and, of course, would page him: “Call for Mr. Mehoff. Call for Mr. Mehoff. “Jack, pick up the phone, please.” It was terrific, but Jack always seemed to be too busy to pick up.

Sadie and I got along terrifically, as I did with her husband, Wager, and her brother, Ed Noulin, who was Director of Personnel. At this point a Wager Sharpe story is in order. When I first got hired, in December of ’62, I went in via the employee’s entrance, which was on the north side of the Towers building. In the beginning, Wager must have thought that I was some kind of a wise guy and was not particularly cordial to me. I sensed it and tried to avoid him but one day, in the corridor leading from the employee entrance to the lower lobby, Wager was walking in front of me with his hand in his pocket.

When he took his hand out of his pocket a small wad of cash popped out and he kept walking. “Sir,” I yelled, “Sir!” When he turned around, I said, “Sir, please try to be more careful. You dropped some cash when you took your hand out of your pocket.” I was closer to the wad then he was so I took the step or two, bent over, picked it up and handed it to him. He looked at me and said, “that was very decent of you.” To which I replied, “Sir, I was brought up the same way I think you were: anything found that belongs to somebody else must be returned and I would never, ever try to keep money that wasn’t mine.” He broke out in a big smile, thanked me again, and that, as the great scene went from possibly the greatest movie ever made, was “the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” Of course, what Wager didn’t know and what I have never, ever written before, I knew damn well it was a set up, and it was obvious Wager was testing me. But, indeed, I’m glad he did, because as I learned later, he told all the security officers that he had been wrong about me and that they absolutely could trust me. That one act of honesty took me a long way at that great hotel.

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