Word: abbotts
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Prince, a native of Manhattan, was a matinee addict; one of his earliest theatrical memories is of being mesmerized by Orson Welles playing in Julius Caesar at the Mercury Theater. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in English in 1948, he so impressed Director George Abbott with his enthusiasm that he was hired as a "call boy," the factotum who tells actors when they are to go onstage. Then, as now, Prince was prone to nervousness, and first night out he lost his voice. After two years off for Army service, he was rehired...
Usually on the day after an opening, Prince has an appointment set up to talk about a new project- a trick he learned from George Abbott, "so that no matter what happens, you feel you are still working." His habit is to get one night's sleep and plunge back to work, either as a producer in his bright, psychedelic office in Rockefeller Center or as a director in a spartan white study at the top of his Manhattan town house. After the draining experience of Night Music, however, he plans to sit and read for a while...
...years have passed. It is a long time in which to keep memories alive through various stages of interest (and lack of interest, for that is the way of even the most loving children). Joan Abbott has done it well, pretty much alone. "Joe and I agreed when we got married that I'd be a real mother -so that's what I'm doing...
Joan and Joe Abbott bought this seven-room house in August 1966, just before Matthew was born. Joe left behind an unfinished project-a willow tree to be planted in the backyard. After he was gone, Joan turned it into a family test of hope. They tried many times to get a willow to take root. The trees kept dying. Finally, two years ago a root took. The omen was, of course, good...
Despite her busy days, Joan Abbott remembers the first 2/2 years after Joe's capture, when he was neither dead nor alive, just M.I.A. She remembers November 1969, when an antiwar group brought back a list of prisoners from Hanoi and Joe was recalled to life as a P.O.W. She saw Joe on television then, being paraded before microphones in Hanoi. Most of all, she remembers the whiplash of last fall, when peace was at hand and then suddenly the hand was gone. Before that promise faded again for a while, Joan decided Joe would be home before Christmas...