Kennedys. But I loved it, partly because I was with Selig, my hero, who was five years older than I, and Alvin, who was two years older and my best friend.
Our house was smack on the main street of the tiny town, so all cars going in and out of Nantasket had to pass us. It was not a location most people would want, and it had just a small front yard and a porch facing the street. But all life passed by, and we felt very much in the swing of things. In addition, because it was such an unprivate and crammed piece of property, it was cheap to rent.
In contrast to our quiet life in Brookline, the summers were busy and boisterous. Also sharing the house with us were my grandmother Celia and, at one time or another, at least two or three of my uncles, all of whom had nicknames ending in y or ie —uncles Sammy, Maxie, Eddie, Danny, and Hermie. There was only one bathroom, which we all used. Perhaps that is where I developed the bladder of a camel, something that would prove to be a huge asset in the countless hours I would spend live on camera. I cannot, however, attribute my other invaluable career asset to the Nantasket summers. I don’t perspire. No matter how hot the television lights or how broiling the setting is, like the inferno of shooting for hours in the Saudi desert, for me it is “no sweat.”
The Nantasket beach was long and beautiful. The ocean was cold, with big waves. We would get up each morning praying for a “beach day,” and while my mother or Aunt Lena was cooking or cleaning up after all of us, usually one or more of my uncles would walk with us the six very long blocks to the beach and help to teach us how to swim. There was no such thing as a swimming pool. It was straight into the waves.
Some days my mother would come to the beach. I remember her in a one-piece black knitted bathing suit that came down almost to her knees. She had those beautiful legs and that ample bosom. My mother wore her dark hair in a bun, but sometimes, coming out of the ocean, she would let down her hair, and it spilled to her waist. I thought she was just gorgeous. My sister, usually holding on to my mother’s hand, also had a lovely round little body. Only I was all angles and bones, like a little dark spider. My nickname, as I’ve told you, was “Skinnymalinkydink.” (If only someone would call me that name today—and mean it!)
Meals were cooked by my mother, the better cook, or Aunt Lena, the quicker cook, who was described by her son Selig as “an Olympic-quality bad cook.” But cooking anything in that kitchen was no mean accomplishment. It had an old coal stove you lit with a match and had to stoke constantly. The word “icebox” was also current in Nantasket. Though by then there were millions of Freon gas–fueled refrigerators in the United States, our house gave meaning to “the iceman cometh.” And “cometh” he did, every day or so, lugging a new block of ice with giant tongs and putting it in the top of the icebox, where it kept the milk and eggs cool and dripped into a waiting basin. You could also chip off pieces of ice to dissolve on your tongue on sweltering days. Divine. Forget air-conditioning. Never heard of it back then. Just open the windows. And listen in at night as the adults tuned in to their favorite radio programs, like Major Bowes’ Amateur Hour or ventriloquist Edgar Bergen (Candice’s father) and his irreverent wooden companion, Charlie McCarthy.
And of course you could always hear my aunt Lena. Aunt Lena didn’t talk. She yelled. She used to terrify me when I was a child, but I later loved her almost as much as I loved my mother. The two sisters could not have been more different. My mother cared about clothes. Lena couldn’t have cared less. My reserved mother had only one or two close friends. She didn’t play cards. Lena belonged to four bridge clubs and seemed to know every woman within ten blocks of any neighborhood she lived in. My mother couldn’t or wouldn’t