The Copa (11 page)

The Copacabana…I played it many, many times. It was a spectacular place and part of the reason for that was the way Jules Podell, the boss-man, ran his business. Jules used to say in his gruff voice, ‘The mirrors are always clean at the Copa.' In fact, the whole club and the kitchen were always clean. I can't say that for the dressing room in the Hotel Fourteen next door, but the Copa itself was kept in top-drawer condition. All of the men, maître d's, captain and all, wore immaculate tuxedos and their shoes were shiny. The world-famous Copa Girls were known less for their dancing and more for their beauty. They would walk with their hands up and fingers extended as though they were drying fresh nail polish. Doug Coudy, the choreographer, used to teach them to walk in this manner. Three times an evening they dried their nail polish as they walked around the floorshow.

I will say that Jules Podell treated Peggy beautifully when she appeared at the Copa. Peggy was on oxygen then and she used to get treatments, so she had to have the doctor come over from the hospital with the tank and all. It was a pain in the neck, but Jules went out of his way to see that things worked well and she was comfortable. Peggy did not like the fact that there were no dressing rooms on the premises of the Copa. The acts had to get dressed in rooms upstairs at the Hotel Fourteen, which was adjacent to the Copa. There was a service elevator that we used in the hotel and then a busboy would meet us and take us to an exclusive elevator that would take you down to the basement-kitchen area of the Copa.

So once you got out of the elevator you had to walk through the kitchen to get into the main room where they would announce you and then would go on the stage. Well, the problem was that Peggy used to have these voluminous gowns and they were frightfully expensive. In fact I remember one incident when Peggy was wearing a gown that I think Don Lopez made her and it cost maybe a thousand or fifteen hundred dollars. So when Peggy had to pass through the kitchen Jules Podell had all the busboys and all the service stopped and everything else for her to go through without ruining her gown. Jules would yell, “Here she comes, here she comes.”

Once when Peggy was playing the Copa, she was having a big birthday party after the show for Jules Podell. It was a pretty elite mob, including Tony Bennett and Sammy Davis. They were all at a long table with Peg and friend of mine, including Nick, the
Africanologist, and his wife. It was the early morning hours and the joint was officially closed. We were having drinks, food, a lot of laughs and birthday greetings, and a band was playing off in an anteroom. Nick, the Africanologist, was absolutely bagged, and when he heard the band, he wanted to go into the anteroom. Nick, a big guy, knew his way around. Suddenly he was a little assertive, there was a commotion, and he came stomping back. Out of the woodwork stormed Jules's boys. This was a tough joint. It was like a George Raft movie, with all the boys in tuxedos. They encircled Nick. Nick was about to be undone when Peg spotted him. She got into that circle and identified him as a friend of hers, faster, more sober, and more serious than anyone had ever seen. Probably saved the guy from a bad beating. After all, they were protecting Peg, but she said to back off. For Nick, the protocol against letting yourself be shoved was tough to overcome. Peg had called Jules, and when he came into the center of the guys, she said, “The man doesn't know what he's doing, he's just drunk.” Peg was the one. I didn't see anyone else pay much attention. When action needed to be taken, that dame is going to take it.

Jules was very protective, if he liked you, and he also did good things in secret, which are not well known. One day he called me and asked, “Will you do me a favor, Peg?” “Of course, Julie, what is it?” “I want you to sing for some nuns.” Here was a man who only took one day off a year, Yom Kippur, and he spent the entire day in a temple. Now he was asking me about some young novitiates in a convent! He said, “I know the young nuns would like to hear you sing. ‘You'll Never Walk Alone' is one of my favorites.” “All right, Jules, what time?” “I will send a car for you at six o'clock. Then I can bring you back in time for the show.”

I was curious, to say the least. The limo arrived, I was taken to
the convent, and the beautiful novitiates had nothing but good things to say about Jules Podell and how he supported the convent almost single-handedly. When I came back, he said in his gruff voice, “Anything you ever want me to do, Peg, anything, you just ask me.” You can never tell about tough guys.

We're gonna throw the book at Peggy Lee. When this gold-topped gal is being caressed with a baby-blue spot, and lofting the inimitable Lee sound, you find yourself admiring the letter perfect precision of her act. The lead-in cues, the accord between vocalist and band, the split-second timing of the soundman, and the click lighting liaison, are the constant envy of Peggy's songbird contemporaries. It's because Peggy goes strictly by the book. Literally. It's a large, black-leather-bound loose-leaf affair; jammed with neatly typed-and-mimeo'd notes and data, all lovingly compiled and looked after by Peggy's gal Friday, Phoebe Jacobs. If Peggy were to lose her “show-book” (and she did, for a few harrowing hours, just before a Copacabana stint last year), things wouldn't be half so sweet on stage. Peggy knows it: “That book is half of me—the better half.” Even a cursory flip-through of the show-book bears Peggy out. Every show she's done for the past two decades, right down to each song she sang and what she wore, is carefully recorded so she can refer to the notes for a multitude of reasons (“Sometimes I want to revive a song or medley I did that went over with the crowd”). For any upcoming shows (her current engagement at the Copacabana, for instance) Peggy's book outlines, even to hand gestures, what is to happen on
stage for her 90 minutes. She lists what sidemen she'll add to the house orchestra (half a dozen crack music makers always accompany her on tours), what numbers she'll do (with detailed side comments on treatment, etc.). There are specific instructions for lighting director Hugo Granata, the Copa producer Doug Coudy (“Diminish side lights at end of the song,” etc.), conductor Lou Levy (“‘Pass Me By' gets a frisky beat,” etc.). The entire contents of Peggy's 30-some-odd trunks are spelled out (Trunk Number One: Three pairs white kid gloves, etc.). There is no room for error, or miscalculation. Peggy goes about her profitable business with a shrewd, get-things-done-right attitude that has kept her sailing on the top of the vocal seas through thick and thin. One of the “thin” spots might have been the advent of the hard-driving rock and roll, à la Beatles, but not for Peggy (“I was worried—for about two weeks”). For her three weeks at the Copa, Peggy, ever the perfectionist, has “packed” Joe Mele's band with a rare bass flute (“The only item I carry personally”), a Hammond electronic organ (“For that wild, eerie sound”), four guitars, and a harmonica (“You can't beat the Beatles, you join 'em”). The band was put through seven full rehearsals before Peggy was satisfied, but not a bleat of protest was heard. Musicians dig playing for Peggy (“When she hits New York,” said Phoebe, “all the great sidemen call her and want to sit in for her gig.”). It is that way with anyone connected with the scene. When Peggy played the Basin St. East, the manager would close the place for five to seven days so Peggy could be free to change things around to her liking. She even got things she didn't ask for—two new wings on the stage, an enlarged, luxury dressing room, etc. “It's the same everywhere she goes,” said Phoebe. “Like at the Copa now, where everybody from Jules Podell on down bends over backwards to please Peggy.”

What's in store for Peggy Lee? “I want to write more”—she's
written over 500 pop songs, including “Mañana,” “I Don't Know Enough About You,” etc.—“and even more important step up my charity work.”