Ruth Gordon at 80: Midn't Wind Up Lonely on the West Side' By Richard L. Coe Cape and they screamed and roared, sea captain father wanted her to be- and Joey Faye, who's going into Alex come a physical culture teacher. Her Atop those spikey heels that add a Cohen's Nellzapoppin" has a two-week mother said: "Be a nurse." "Be a secre- bit to her five feet, Ruth Gordon sas- out clause so be can come back to 'Ho- tary." "Be a wife.-13e a lady." After hayed around her Central Park South Ho-Ho' when we do it next fall. seeing Hazel Dawn In 'The Pink Lady" sitting room Monday looking forward "This summer 1 made a movie in In Boston's still active Colonial Thea- to the busiest days of her 80 years. June, another one In July and then ter, Gordon's voices told her, "Go on Last night her native town of Quin- opened the play in August. the stage. Be an actress." cy, Mass., was to salute her with the "Well, then in September the book Her folks floated her for training at Ruth Gordon Birthday Ball. Tonight came out and I did a raft of talk shows New York's American Academy of Quincy is to do it again with its Ruth and suddenly wound up in the hospi- Dramatic Arts, where they chucked Gordon Birthday Banquet. Individual- tal. My doctor told me to slow down her out with the advice she'd never ly, friends have chipped in a dollar for and I took six weeks off to get ready make it as an actress. She got a part each of her 80 years toward the Ruth for Quincy—and be sure you pron- Nibs in Maude Adams' revival of "Pe- Gordon Theater of Quincy's Center for ounce it Quinzey— but I'm all right ter Pan," in December 1915. She the Performing Arts. again now and I'm going to take Pav- toured third and fourth companies, "We'll take the noon trtin, myself lov's advice— you know, the Russian but always the leads. She went to a and Garson Iher husband Garson Kan- doctor with the dog who rang a bell hospital to have both her legs broken in), a drawing room. The limo in Bos- when he was hungry?—Pavlov took so she'd have bettter-looking pins. She ton will take us right to the Ritz,.one of three months off every year and that's had to settle for Humphrey Bogart as my favorites in this world of wonder- what I'm going to do now that I'm 80. leading man when it came to touring ful hotels. When you keep busy like "People ask what I'm going to wear her first solo hit, "Saturday's Child- this, do it under comfortable condi- to the ball. Well, of course it's the pink ren." Thanks to Helen Hayes, she tions. I can order tea, a steak, what you satin Givenchy I wore when I got my wound up playing a "The Country will, at any hour. Oscar and they say, 'Well, surely not, Wife" at London's Old Vic with Edith "I go on Elliot Norton's 7:30 TV that's eight years old,' and I say 'Given- Evans. show, then rush back to the Ritz to see chy, If you're lucky enough to have In Owen Davis's dramatization of Ed- the TV bow of 'Look What Happened one, which I am, well, it's good until It ith Wharton's "Ethan Frame," with its to Rosemary's Baby.' That's the sequel falls apart.' Down East snow settings, she had a to 'Rosemary's Baby' and I have more "Then, In December, CBS is going to great curtain line: "Ethan, we're going of the part that brought me my Oscar. show 'The Prince of Central Park.' It's down that hill so we'll never come up Then there's the hall on Saturday, the about two children and a West Side la- again. Right into that big elm down banquet Sunday. dy, lonely people all, and a lovely there so we never have to leave each "Mayor Joseph J. La Rata of Quincy thing, sort of a modern Peter Pan. I _other." When she was playing Wash- looks exactly like Tyrone Power and I could have been like that lady I play, ington's National with Katharine Cor- can never take my eyes off Mayor La except that I didn't wind up lonely on nell in "The Three Sisters," the com- Baia, so good to look at. Then, the fol- the West Side." pany spent the break between matinee lowing Tuesday, that's a day. Do the No, Ruth Gordon didn't wind up and evening at the Willard Hotel ABC 'Good Morning, America' at 7:30, lonely, and she saw to it that generally watching her marry a writer 14 years be there by 6. Harper and Row give a her address was on the East Side. younger than herself. Justice and Mrs. wonderful lunch for my book 650 to When she wasn't sure when her next Felix Frankfurter were on hand. That autograph before then—and that dime was coming in, she spent dollars, was 34 years ago and she and Garson night Arnold (theatrical lawyer Weiss- the Waldorf, Vuitton luggage, pink Kanto are still married. berger) and Milton Itheatrical agent blotting paper, red Hermes, Cartier's, Gordon wasn't necessarily hooked Goldman) give me one of their hang-up Van Cleef and Arpela. Claridge's, the on marriage. She did marry Gregory parties. Beverly Hills, the Huntington, the Kelly, a handsome leading man of the "I can hardly believe it. In the Sante Fe Super Chief, the Twentieth '20s, who died of heart trouble at 32. Quincy City Hall they have the birth Century, Montecatini. in her new auto- But she did not marry producer-direc- certificate on display—Ruth Gordon biography, "My Side" (published by tor Jed Harris, though she had a son by Jones, Oct. 30,1896. That's me. Harper and Row, $12.95 ), everything him. She took off for Paris to keep "And this. absolutely slays me. Lynn tumbles out as It did in "Myself Among Jones Kelly a secret from her gossipy IFontanne) read all 500 pages of my Others," only this time it's more Gor- friends. Years later when Jones mar- book to Alfred (Luna Can you Just don and in no chronological or seq- ried a Vanderbilt, she abducted Thorn- hear Lynn's marvelous voice reading uential order. ton Wilder and his sister Isabelle from all my words? Well, I've told them Gar- "Do you care about sequence? Not Connecticut to witness the Gotham son and I will be in Milwaukee on May me. We don't think in sequence, we wedding, because Wilder had been a 3 and that we're getting a limo to drive rarely talk in sequence, we don't re- Cheering friend in bleak times. out to Genesee Depot May 4 and hearse a play in sequence so why shoot Wilder wrote one of her dazzling whether they're there or not, we will a script that way? When I get It I learn parts, but initially it wasn't for her. be. it. Maybe everybody does, maybe no- Jane Cowl got it, "The Merchant of "Next summer I'm gonna take three body does, maybe it's wrong but if it is, Yonkers," which bombed. Thornton months off, June, July and August, don't tell me. I don't like to be told rewrote it and years later, in London, and be ready to bring 'Ho-Ho-Ho' into things. In the beginning I knew I could Gordon became Dolly Gallagher Levi the Kennedy Center, I hope, then Bos- learn if anybody'd teach me and they in "The Matchmaker" and kept play- ton and New York. That's the comedy did. I can still learn, but not from tell- ing It for four years all over the map. I've been writing the past couple of ing me." With 70 in sight, Gordon took singing years and played this summer on the She was a proper Episcopal girl. Her lessons, aiming to play what she knew THE WASHINGTON POST Sunday, October 31, 1976 K3 Ruth Gordon: "I don't like to be told things. In the beginning I knew I could learn if anybody would teach me, and they did. I can still learn, but not from telling me." Photo by Peter Simon, from "My 81rle" would someday be a musicalized Dolly. She wrote a play for herself, working mountains, the borders of countries She didn't get it. Carol Charming did. on It in a 16th Street apartment here but not the countries themselves. Those were only two of scores of dis- while Kanin worked days at the Penta- "It's been a ball, it's been sad, It's appointments_ In the early days she gon. It was about a celebrity whose been lonely, it's been hard work, it's missed parts because she was an un- husband was trying to pass his offi- come out right. I live in the past and known. There'd be other good parts cers' training course. She called it "O- the present and the future and haven't she'd miss because she had turned ver 21" and it was a walloping hit of let them get me down, and I wouldn't them down.