Flying with the Rich and Famous: True Stories from the Flight Attendant who flew with them (7 page)

Known for her sunny disposition, on this night she told me she was dead tired and just wanted to be left alone. She pleaded with me to find her another seat. Unfortunately, nobody was willing to give up his or her coveted seat. When Regent Air became the popular way for celebrities to travel, the unique seating configuration became an issue—some seats offered more privacy and were therefore more desirable. I could not find another place for her and so there she sat like the proverbial fish
in the fish bowl with everyone staring at her.

And wouldn’t you know it—all of the sudden, everyone needed a drink refill, so off to the bar car they went. The people, who had no qualms or a lot of wine, or both, decided they would have a little tête-à-tête with the talented and adorable Goldie Hawn. I believe more people were enamored with her than all the other female celebrities put together (except perhaps for Elizabeth Taylor). She was as polite as possible but I suspect she was thinking, “Get the hell away from me!” Just because someone is normally the cheery, sunny-side-up kind of gal, doesn’t mean they’re always that way. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize she didn’t want company, I felt so sorry for her—people can be such ignoramuses.

As soon as we took off I gave her some earplugs, a blanket, and eyeshades and told her to pretend she was sleeping. I don’t know if she got the rest she wanted, I don’t know how she could have with all the prying eyes. I couldn’t believe how
people were gawking at her. They were checking her out like she was a new car they were considering. How I wanted to give them a piece of my mind, but obviously that wasn’t an option. These passengers made the paparazzi look like amateurs.

JULIE ANDREWS

I have flown many children—children who had a nanny or nurse or one of each to look after them. And I have flown children who had no one to look after them. I have flown spoiled brats and downright disturbing delinquents. For every flight that has children aboard, I brace myself with patience and empathy. Most kids just need some love, attention, and boundaries, I think. Sometimes, this helps more with the parents than the children!

Early in my career I was thrilled to have Julie Andrews and her two adorable, adopted little girls on a flight. No nanny. No nurse. No assistant. No manager. Just the three of them.

Ever since I was little, I have watched
The Sound of
Music
from start to finish every year. It’s one of the all-time classic musicals that will be revered forever in its brilliance, largely because of Julie’s voice. That voice was such a sweet sound, scaling four octaves, so pitch-perfect they could tune other voices to it. She conquered Broadway as Queen Guinevere in
Camelot
and appeared in many movies, including Disney’s
Mary Poppins
, for which she won an Oscar. She has such variation in talent having written notable children’s books and voicing the Queen in the
Shrek
franchise. Julie Andrews is so immeasurably talented, she can do anything as proven by the incredible amount of awards she has won—so many, one couldn’t possibly name them all. I was very much looking forward to serving her.

The first thing I noticed was her firm posture, posture that only added to the respect I already had for her. She emits grace and dignity, it oozes from her, it’s almost intimidating and I felt as if I was in the presence of royalty. Each of the girls had one
doll and only that doll. It was a very quiet flight. The children were amazingly well behaved, and I never heard a loud word the entire time. Their manners were impeccable. I offered them everything I could think of, but they politely refused most of it and were just happy to be left alone. I do not think I have ever been more impressed with a woman traveling with children.

As they were leaving the aircraft to go about their lives, the girls thanked me wholeheartedly for serving them. Thank me? I felt that I should have thanked them for the privilege.

Snap out of it, people! Have you flown on an airline recently? It’s not even close to the scene I just described. The kids I see today are rude, self-absorbed, and ill mannered. Julie Andrews said it best when she said: “Some people regard discipline as a chore. For me, it is a kind of order that sets me free to fly.”

LIONEL RICHIE

Sometimes, on Regent Air, the action was in the rear of the airplane instead of the bar area. Private staterooms were in the back along with the barber chair and the extra large lavatory. You just never knew what monkey business was going to happen or when.

Most of the other flight attendants didn’t like the rear of the plane because it was more work. To make up the beds, you had to ask the occupants to vacate the staterooms. Then you had to recline all four seats and push them together with no “rear side cracks.” After you wrestled the seats flat, you had to pull and tug at the custom-fitted sheets (think motor home or bunk bed here), put pillowcases on pillows, and finish with cushy blankets. Once this task was accomplished, your guests could return to sleep or do whatever it is they did in lieu of sleeping. When we began to descend, you had to do it all in reverse. Many times people were not too pleased when you had to roust them into the cabin while you turned the beds back into seats for landing. But I always
liked the extra work in the back. After all, what else did I have to do? Besides, the faster the time went by, the sooner I could get to the bar and talk about the wild and crazy flight.

Felicia and I always bid our schedules together so we could devour Manhattan, but also because we had a system working the back of the plane together. She would work on one side and me on the other; if one of us was struggling, the other would help out. The chief pursers always liked having us on their flights because they never had to worry about the staterooms. Felicia and I were a force to be reckoned with. We even knew how many people were in the bathroom and for how long. More than once we had to intervene to get them out because landing was imminent—or if what they were really doing in there became apparent to the rest of the passengers.

On this particular flight, singer Lionel Richie had booked a stateroom and was traveling alone. He was at the peak of his career, flying high with a successful album and the hit single
“All Night Long.” Originally, from The Commodores fame, he went solo and onto worldwide fame, mainly notable for some truly (“Truly” being one of his breakout solo hits) incredible love songs. I’m sure there are many rug rats running around who were conceived to his music. Incidentally, he is the adoptive father of reality TV star Nicole Richie, whose godfather was pop singer Michael Jackson.

Felicia was Lionel’s flight attendant. It started with our safety demonstration. He would not take his eyes off her. She had his complete attention (Finally, Ha!). He was a blast, very outgoing, and funny. Although he was teasing us both, he was really giving Felicia a hard time. I thought it was all in good humor, because we we’re laughing so much and because everyone knew how he adored his beloved wife. I really believed he was just entertaining us with his pursuit of Felicia.

We spent a lot of time in his stateroom because he was enthralled with the whole concept of Regent Air, and Felicia, and
because the rest of the plane was in a bad mood. That flight included never-ending thunderstorms that jostled the plane all over the sky. We could barely walk without being thrown about, which only added to the ongoing teasing in the back of the airplane. Lionel Richie was just waiting for Felicia to fall on top of him, which on that flight would not have been a stretch.

Personally, I love turbulence. I get a big kick out of the ups and downs and sideway tossing of turbulent air. I know it’s strange, but it always puts me in a good mood. I have been known to do cartwheels down the aisle when there weren’t any passengers onboard. It’s so much fun doing gymnastics when the plane is doing them with you—or would that be against you?

On this flight, almost everyone was nervous and frightened by the horrendous weather. Turbulence and just plain old flying brings out the wimpy in many. A very wealthy couple here in Southern California always holds hands across the aisle on takeoff. One of the owner’s wives would freak when we hit
the smallest bumps. I always made her drinks stronger when I was forewarned by the pilots of upcoming turbulence.

Some of the passengers on Lionel’s flight were mad because they couldn’t get any work done, and some passengers were angry just because it was bumpy. So naturally we hung out with Lionel, who was laughing and joking, thoroughly enjoying himself and seemingly impervious to the airplane being jostled around the sky like a two-year-old’s toy. Felicia and I have very outgoing personalities, and we all just seemed to mesh well. By the time we reached New York, we felt like the one and only Lionel Richie was now a good friend and one we looked forward to seeing again. We’d had a ball.

I didn’t realize he was in lust with Felicia. I was clueless. I had watched them joking around and one-upping each other. I even noticed that his eyes never veered very far from her. Some of his comments to her were a little more personal and maybe a bit inappropriate, but I didn’t pay much attention. I felt like her
replies to him were just to keep him on his toes because she has a quick wit.

As we descended he invited us to his home on the East Coast (or some home on the East Coast). That was the first time I’d been invited to a famous person’s home. I wanted to go, and I still didn’t get it. I was very young, not only chronologically, but in wisdom. Since he was married I thought he just enjoyed the company of two really fun girls—I know, stupid, eh? I had walked or stumbled around that flight like I was someone that Lionel Richie wanted to hang out with. I never conceived the fact that he wanted Felicia until she practically drew me a map. Du-oh! Does that mean we can’t go to his house?

After Felicia spelled this out for me at the bar in the hotel, I felt like a dim-witted, idealist of a young woman, and I made my first mental notes: naiveté has no place in this business. No matter how many invitations I might receive in my career, professionalism would take precedence. And that men are pigs.

DEAN MARTIN AND MILTON BERLE

In the middle of winter on a brutally cold and windy night in New York, we briefed for a flight back to Los Angeles. I grabbed a copy of the manifest to see what exciting name might be there and to my sincere delight I saw: Dean Martin.

Dean Martin is my personal higher power. I have always had some sort of attachment to him and I don’t really know why. Even now I have his photo right next to my bed. He fascinates me. The famous “Rat Packer” was so laid back, so cool, a crooner with a sultry charm. He was a comic genius, too, especially in the early days with Jerry Lewis. Once when I had a ten-day layover in Milan, his music was playing in every store. I bought his CD mainly for “That’s Amore,” which played every twenty minutes in Italy!

My parents and I used to cruise in our boat around our lake house and listen to Dean Martin and the rest of the Rat Pack singing and ribbing each other, all off the cuff. It was so
entertaining! And so relaxing. Maybe that’s why I adored him. He was relaxing, with a mellow, funny twist. When people were late arriving to the plane, I often played videos of his old TV shows, as well as Johnny Carson’s, to entertain the ones who were on time.

Dean boarded the plane before all the other passengers. I thought it was so he could avoid all the ogling eyes and maybe because he was a little tipsy. He was traveling with his manager who asked me to be sure to keep everyone out of the stateroom, especially Milton Berle. I took Dean’s beverage selection: scotch “neat” with a soda bottle back, no ice. Never, had I served a drink faster.

Milton Berle and his wife were in the two seats directly outside of Dean’s stateroom. They were a hoot, and he was as lively and jovial as you would expect “Uncle Miltie” to be. Milton Berle had acquired two nicknames: “Uncle Miltie,” because he would sign off on his television shows by telling
children to “listen to their Uncle Miltie and go to bed,” and “Mr. Television” because he was instrumental in bringing the medium to life and thus selling actual television sets! He was well known for his comedy and—well, ahem—something else.

The first issue with Milton was that of the well-known extension of his left hand: his cigar. Yes, he actually lit one up. I asked him to extinguish it, but he lit it again and again and again. Finally the chief purser threatened to ban him off the airline if he lit it one more time. I was really surprised that he wouldn’t just put the darn thing out. Why be such a pain?

I don’t think Milton knew Dean was behind him until about halfway through the flight. Milton was wandering around the plane chatting with anyone who would listen. I think he peeked behind Dean’s curtain. When I came to the back of the airplane, Milton was in Dean’s stateroom. I attempted to intervene. I shoved the curtain aside and was about to scold him, but before I could say anything, he looked at me and said, “Do
you know that I have the biggest schlong you have ever seen?” I thought to my young and unworldly self,
Is a schlong what I think it is?
I told Milton to scoot, but he wasn’t listening. I had to enlist Felicia to help me get Milton out of Dean’s stateroom. The bizarre problems of flying the rich and famous!

Felicia and I pushed the curtain aside again—just as Milton dropped his pants! Yep, dropped his pants and his skivvies so everything was hanging out. I was shocked! Felicia, however, remained cool and said, “Seen one, seen ‘em all!” And with that she shoved me out of the stateroom because I was dumbstruck and turning thirteen shades of red. Then, laughing the whole time, she ushered out Milton, who zipped up his pants and waltzed back to his wife. Let me just answer the question that you all are thinking right now: yes, it was huge.

As that little bit of gossip circulated, everyone began to suspect that Dean Martin was indeed on the airplane. Now Felicia and I really had our work cut out for us, so we flat out
lied: “No, Dean Martin is not on the plane, Milton is just goofing around.” It sort of worked, except for the people who decided they had to use the restroom every fifteen minutes so they could loiter around the staterooms. We busted them too, telling them they couldn’t block the aisle or that the seatbelt sign was on or whatever.