WESTSIDER LUCIE ARNAZ

WESTSIDER LUCIE ARNAZ
To star in Neil Simon's new musical

9-9-78

Bad timing¹. That's what had plagued me ever since I had tried to get an interview with Lucie Arnaz last June. Back then, I was supposed to get together with her downtown, but our meeting was canceled at the last minute. My second appointment, set for August 31 in her dressing² room just before a performance of Annie Get Your Gun at the Jones Beach Theatre in Wantagh, Long Island, now seemed in jeopardy³ as well. I was kept waiting nervously⁴ outside while the house manager insisted that Lucie was engaged in "a very important telephone call."

But when the young star finally emerged, her face beaming with delight, I found that my timing could not have been better. Lucie had just received official word that a major new Broadway role was hers. As we sat down to talk, Lucie was in one of those radiant moods that come only in times of triumph. She had been chosen for the female lead in a new musical, They're Playing My Song, which is scheduled to open in Los Angeles in December and on Broadway in February. The show has music by Marvin Hamlisch and lyrics⁵ by Carole Bayer Sager⁶. The book is written by Neil Simon.

"I'm a lousy auditioner — at least, I thought I was," grinned Lucie. "This new musical will be probably the pinnacle⁷ of what I've been aiming for. … It's about a fairly successful lyricist who's not nearly as successful as the composer she's going to work with. Neil Simon has always wanted to do a play about songwriters. It's a very hip⁸, pop musical. It doesn't have regular Broadway-type tunes¹⁰."

She flopped¹¹ back on the sofa touching¹² my arm from time to time for emphasis, and chatted on in her mildly raspy voice. Finally she moved to a seat in front of the mirror and invited me to keep talking while she put on her makeup¹³. There is a quality about her that suggests toughness, but this impression melts away under her girlish charm. At 27, Lucie is already an 11-year veteran of professional acting¹⁴ and singing. When she performed at Jones Beach this summer, up to 8,000 people per night came to see her.

Lucie first transplanted herself from the West Coast to the West Side on a full-time¹⁵ basis last winter, although, she admitted, "I had a New York apartment for four years which I would visit every couple of months. For some sick reason, I really like New York. There's a lot of crazy people doing strange things on the streets, but there's also a lot of creative forces here.

"I went to do an interview this morning for my radio show and it started raining. By the time I had walked six blocks I was looking terrible, and it suddenly occurred to me that I would never present myself like that in California. In New York, who gives a damn if you've got water on you when you come to work? On the West Coast, the things that aren't important they seem to put on pedestals." Her radio show, which she started this year, is a nationally syndicated five-minute interview spot called Tune⁹ In With Lucie.

>From 1967 to 1972 she was a regular on her mother's TV show, Here's Lucy. She has made countless¹⁶ guest appearances on other shows, and performed lead roles in numerous musicals. Her parents, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz Sr., were divorced more than a decade ago and have both remarried.

"My mother was here for opening night, then she stayed a couple of days in New York. But she gets too lonely when my brother Desi and I go away for too long. He was here for most of the summer. He was doing a movie called How To Pick Up Girls. He played the guy who supposedly knew all about it — one of the two stars. He said, "It's funny, I meet girls on the street, and New York has the most beautiful girls in the world, and when they ask me what I'm doing here and I tell them the name of the movie, they walk away and say, 'You dirty toad¹⁷!'" Desi also plays the groom¹⁸ in the new Robert Altman film, A Wedding.

"My father is now putting an album together of the music that was recorded for the old Lucy Show. Salsa music is coming back now, so he's been asked to make an album of those tapes."

Speaking of her hobbies, Lucie noted¹⁹ that "recently I started to build a darkroom in my house. The key word is started. It's hard to get the time. … And I have been writing songs for the last couple of years. I'm a lyricist. I've sung them on things like Mike Douglas and Dinah."

She enjoys all of New York, though at one time "the East Side gave me
the ooga boogas. Then I found a couple of places there that were nice."
On the West Side, she likes to dine at La Cantina, Victor's Cafe, and
Ying, all on Columbus Avenue near 71st and 72nd Streets.

When the five-minute warning sounded in her dressing room, Lucie had to turn me out, but not before she divulged²⁰ her philosophy about show business. "Am I ambitious?" she echoed. "I don't know. There are people who are willing to really knock the doors down and do just about anything to get there. I'm not like that. Even now, when I go to the market, people come up to me and say, 'Aren't you. … ?' So I can imagine what it would be like to be a superstar. No, I'm not really looking forward to that."

1 timing   

n.时间安排，时间选择

参考例句：

• The timing of the meeting is not convenient.会议的时间安排不合适。
• The timing of our statement is very opportune.我们发表声明选择的时机很恰当。

2 dressing   

n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料

参考例句：

• Don't spend such a lot of time in dressing yourself.别花那么多时间来打扮自己。
• The children enjoy dressing up in mother's old clothes.孩子们喜欢穿上妈妈旧时的衣服玩。

3 jeopardy   

n.危险；危难

参考例句：

• His foolish behaviour may put his whole future in jeopardy.他愚蠢的行为可能毁了他一生的前程。
• It is precisely at this juncture that the boss finds himself in double jeopardy.恰恰在这个关键时刻，上司发现自己处于进退两难的境地。

4 nervously   

adv.神情激动地，不安地

参考例句：

• He bit his lip nervously,trying not to cry.他紧张地咬着唇，努力忍着不哭出来。
• He paced nervously up and down on the platform.他在站台上情绪不安地走来走去。

5 lyrics   

n.歌词

参考例句：

• music and lyrics by Rodgers and Hart 由罗杰斯和哈特作词作曲
• The book contains lyrics and guitar tablatures for over 100 songs. 这本书有100多首歌的歌词和吉他奏法谱。

6 sager   

adj.贤明的，貌似聪明的( sage的比较级 )

参考例句：

• Well, I want those yellow gators that Sager wore a few weeks ago. 好了，我想那些人认为是塞奇几个星期前穿的。 来自互联网

7 pinnacle   

n.尖塔，尖顶，山峰；(喻)顶峰

参考例句：

• Now he is at the very pinnacle of his career.现在他正值事业中的顶峰时期。
• It represents the pinnacle of intellectual capability.它代表了智能的顶峰。

8 hip   

n.臀部，髋；屋脊

参考例句：

• The thigh bone is connected to the hip bone.股骨连着髋骨。
• The new coats blouse gracefully above the hip line.新外套在臀围线上优美地打着褶皱。

9 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

10 tunes   

n.曲调，曲子( tune的名词复数 )v.调音( tune的第三人称单数 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调

参考例句：

• a potpourri of tunes 乐曲集锦
• When things get a bit too much, she simply tunes out temporarily. 碰到事情太棘手时，她干脆暂时撒手不管。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 flopped   

v.（指书、戏剧等）彻底失败( flop的过去式和过去分词 )；（因疲惫而）猛然坐下；（笨拙地、不由自主地或松弛地）移动或落下；砸锅

参考例句：

• Exhausted, he flopped down into a chair. 他筋疲力尽，一屁股坐到椅子上。
• It was a surprise to us when his play flopped. 他那出戏一败涂地，出乎我们的预料。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。

13 makeup   

n.组织；性格；化装品

参考例句：

• Those who failed the exam take a makeup exam.这次考试不及格的人必须参加补考。
• Do you think her beauty could makeup for her stupidity?你认为她的美丽能弥补她的愚蠢吗？

14 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

15 full-time   

adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的

参考例句：

• A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
• I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作，我不知道她是如何对付的。

16 countless   

adj.无数的，多得不计其数的

参考例句：

• In the war countless innocent people lost their lives.在这场战争中无数无辜的人丧失了性命。
• I've told you countless times.我已经告诉你无数遍了。

17 toad   

n.蟾蜍，癞蛤蟆

参考例句：

• Both the toad and frog are amphibian.蟾蜍和青蛙都是两栖动物。
• Many kinds of toad hibernate in winter.许多种蟾蜍在冬天都会冬眠。

18 groom   

vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁

参考例句：

• His father was a groom.他父亲曾是个马夫。
• George was already being groomed for the top job.为承担这份高级工作，乔治已在接受专门的培训。

19 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

20 divulged   

v.吐露，泄露( divulge的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He divulged nothing to him save the terrible handicap of being young. 他想不出个所以然来，只是想到自己年纪尚幼，极端不利。 来自辞典例句
• The spy divulged the secret plans to the enemy. 那名间谍把秘密计划泄漏给敌人。 来自辞典例句