My dear friend and confidante, Bill Shakespeare, told me, “The play’s the thing.” Ever since then I’ve thought of my life in three acts. Act One: Growing up to become part of what I thought was the most exciting world possible ... modern radio. Act Two: Achieving even greater successes in the advertising industry. And now, Act Three ... in process.

The heart of Act Three is Judy. She stole it ... the heart part. And I couldn’t have loved it more. Although, about three years into our relationship, something John Barrymore once said kept nagging at me, “So many beautiful girls to kiss, and, so little time.” In a burst of egomaniacal idiocy I decided I hadn’t kissed my share of those beautiful girls, and I broke it off with Judy. The result of that was, I very soon found myself making weekly visits to a psychologist in my relentless pursuit of whatever-the-hell I was looking for..

On about my third week with the psychologist, we mutually discovered that one of those beautiful girls I had kissed, more than once, was now his wife. That made for a couple of embarrassing moments, a couple for him and a couple for me. Then he said, “Well, I can put that aside if you can.” I told him I thought I could and we proceeded.

Shortly after that, when I believe he had decided that my problems were all pretty much female oriented, he asked me to describe my ideal woman. Something that had amazed me during those early sessions was that he never made any notes. He remembered every detail of everything that was said. But, this time, he pulled out a notepad and made a list of what I described as ‘my ideal.’

Several weeks passed during which my ideal was never mentioned again. Mostly, we talked about Judy. When he was certain that first list was no longer top-of-mind, he asked me to describe Judy. I said, “Well, first, she’s very pretty. Second, she’s a realist. That’s important because I am such an airheaded dreamer. Third ...”

“Hold it, Chuck.” he said, as he reached for his notepad and began reading the attributes of my ideal. “First. Very pretty. Second. A person who sees life as it really is and doesn’t idealize it, a realist. Third ...”

“Whoa!” I felt like I’d been hit on the head with a champagne bottle, or some other fine wine. “I’m outa here.”

Next thing I know I was pounding on the door to Judy’s apartment. “Jude. Lemme in. I’ve been a real jerk. You’re my ideal. I love you!” She never opened the door, but her response was loud and clear. “Get lost!” I called her constantly, two or three times a day. Always the same response. “Go away!”

Well, Jude had a very nice collection of beautiful crystal. Her favorites seemed to be those she had told me were, Lalique. I remembered she had once pointed out some Lalique wine glasses which she thought were particularly graceful and delicate. I went shopping and once more, pounded on her door ... “Jude! I got the Lalique wine glasses you loved so much.” The door opened and there she was, every bit as beautiful as she was those many weeks ago. I showed her the glasses. She asked if I had brought any wine and I, of course, hadn’t. “Idiot.” she said. “Come in.”

She poured some wine of her own into her new glasses and handed one to me along with a look that said, ‘Don’t get too close.’ She sat on her couch, looking incredibly attractive holding that lovely glass. I kneeled down in front of her, put my glass down on the floor next to me. “Look,” I said, “I’m kneeling. I’m begging you to marry me. I’ll do anything.” Crash! I had pushed over the glass and it busted. Wine and little bits of Lalique crystal all swimming around together, a wet testament to my klutziness. “Oh nuts.” I was mortified. “This was supposed to be so romantic.” Jude got up and opened the door saying, “Well, I’m not really into ‘romantic’ right now. Why don’t you just leave?” So, I just left.

She was however, no longer refusing my phone calls. Those calls got longer and longer and more and more friendly. But, each one ending with my saying something like, “C’mon Jude. Let’s get married.” This was followed by a ‘click’ and a dial tone.

One day, there was no click , no dial tone. What I heard was Jude saying, “Okay. But I’m keeping my apartment.”

“What? I said, “You mean, we’re not gonna live together?”

“Oh, we can live at your house, but I’m keeping my apartment, just in case.” She was adamant. She kept that apartment for almost a year after we were married, “Just in case.” But, I had learned my lesson well, some things are a lot more precious than ... those other things.

Other scenes from Act Three:

I rewrote Mother Goose.

Wink Martindale and his TV production partner, Bill Hilliar, had purchased the rights to a New York Times best selling childrens book, The New Adventures of Mother Goose. The author had rewritten the old Mother Goose rhymes to make them child-proof by removing all the violence. Things such as ‘Three Blind Mice’ became ‘Three Kind Mice.’ “She chopped off their tales with a carving knife,” became, “She took out some cheese and she gave them a slice.” Wink and Bill intended to make it into a TV Special for kids, only to learn each of those Mother Goose rhymes is only ten to twenty seconds long and if they were going to do a TV show, it would be really stretching it to make it even a half hour.

The networks weren’t buying one-time-only half hour kid shows.