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and respect for Joan's strong work ethic and professionalism during the run of Cactus Flower, and later the Chatueau de Ville's production of Forty Carats in which she also starred. Not once did she pull rank or indulge in any of the tantrums thrown by some of our other stars, despite personal difficulties that were plaguing her.
Joan was then living in a gorgeous Manhattan townhouse to which she subsequently invited me several times. She was a charming, generous, considerate hostess and incredibly unpretentious. She never fussed with hair, makeup, or clothes, yet she always looked lovely. On a rainy night when we were going to the theatre, she insisted I stay under her building's canopy while she stepped out in the downpour, sans umbrella, to hail a cab. "I don't want you to get wet, Dear," she said when I protested.

One evening, during one of my stays, Joan apologized that she had another engagement she couldn't break, so she called a friend to escort me to the opera. On a different occasion another of her friends took me to dinner and a Broadway show. I sure do miss that great Dial-A-Date service.
But it wasn't just the nights on the town that I enjoyed. My fondest memories of my visits include a quiet evening munching sandwiches in her cozy library where we gossiped and laughed until after midnightan impromptu brunch of silver gin fizzes and eggs benedict, whipped up by my hostess on the spur of the moment after she had urged me to cancel my early plane home and take a later flightan evening when a friend dropped by and, for some reason, we all adopted the personas and Cockney accents of the servants in Upstairs, Downstairs, a popular British PBS show at the time. Joan was Mrs. Bridges, the cook; her friend was Hudson, the butler; and I didn't even have to change my name to be Rose, the upstairs maid. It was hilarious. No, really. Well, maybe you had to be there. I'm glad I was.

My invitations to Joan's home included a couple of Thanksgiving weekends. A Cordon Bleu graduate, she always personally prepared the elaborate holiday feast for about a dozen guests. The first time I tried to help, she frustratingly endured my bumbling efforts for five minutes before banishing me to my room to write place cards instead. Since that day, she has never let me live down my lack of culinary skills, though she did bravely accept an invitation to my home one evening when she was visiting Boston on business. What's more, she actually ate the dinner I cooked. That's true

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