Lynne's Shubert Alley Rendezvous

Thanks, Sally, for sharing the news about what Roddy's been up to lately. I especially loved the item about Sacha Newley, Joan Collins' son, and his art. (BTW, his name is really Alexander, but he's always been called Sacha/Sasha). I've been a Tony Newley/Joan Collins fan for about as long as I've been a fan of Roddy's and, in fact, I think the first time I saw Roddy was after he'd been to a performance of Tony Newley's play, "The Roar of the Greasepaint, The Smell of the Crowd" on Broadway. This was sometime in the mid-60's. There was a bunch of us who used to hang around the stage door in Shubert Alley every weekend just to see Tony . . . and there were lots of other actors who'd come to see the play and then go backstage afterwards to say hi to him and Joan, who was often there after the show. [Wow!! Amazingly, I just found the picture of Roddy I took then - yes, definitely, he'd been to see the play, and I got an autograph and picture. This was on October 23, 1965.] [Omigod, I just found the negative!]

At any rate, we all got to know Tony and Joan . . . and even Tony's mother! Tara (Tony and Joan's daughter) was about 2 at the time, and Sacha had just been born. We got fantastic pictures of both kids (thanks to Tony's mother, who was thrilled to death that we were fans of her son's!). They were all living in Paul Newman's and Joanne Woodward's New York apartment at the time (Tony and Joan and their family, I mean), near Central Park, and we fans used to wait around outside the building and walk to the park with Tony's mother when she'd take the two kids there, and she'd let us take as many pictures as we wanted.

BTW, the Katy Cass that's mentioned in the article is Sacha's half-sister - same mother, but her father is Ron Cass (Kass?). When she was about 8 years old or so, Katy was hit by a car and very seriously injured. The doctors just about gave up all hope for any kind of a recovery for her, but Joan Collins left her career and devoted all her waking moments to working with Katy for a number of years, and last I heard, her devotion, dedication and hard work paid off and Katy had a very good recovery. I think Joan even wrote a book about the whole experience at the time, to give other parents hope . . . of course you rarely hear about it (and I don't know if it would even still be in print by now) in the wake of some of her other books which the press delights in trashing. But then, we know the media can be very short-sighted.

Anyways, it was very interesting to read about Sacha being "all grown up" now and working as an artist. Brought back a lot of very wonderful memories! And it even all ties in with Roddy <g>!!

A message from Lynne Ackerman in Toronto (or, as we like to call it, "Hollywood North"!)