An Ovation for Joe Depew: The Exit of a Good Friend
The brush fire was so close to the house I could feel the heat, and the ashes and cinders were falling like rain from evil, rolling clouds of smoke. It was a Thanksgiving Day before the middle of the century and I was with friends in the mountains above the Riviera Country Club.
Mirabe said, “I’m going to slice the turkey and we’ll make sandwiches for the firemen. We can have the shrimp cocktail and the potatoes.”
So we all flew at the job of making mile-high sandwiches, piled with turkey and dressing and orange-cranberry relish. Joe Depew took them out to the firemen one at a time, whenever one of the firefighters had a chance to reach out a hand.
Then we cut up the pies and Joe took the pieces out in paper napkins and finished the meal with a flourish with the after-dinner mints.
When the flames were finally smoldering ashes, we all sat down to eat our shrimp cocktail and potatoes. Joe and I were sitting on the floor and he said, “You’re the cutest girl I’ve ever met at a Thanksgiving fire.”
“Do you go to a lot of Thanksgiving fires?”
“This is my first one,” the suave Joe Depew answered.
And that’s when I met him. Joe--dreamer, poet, romanticist, buccaneer and first, last and always, an actor. He had a sense of theater in everything he did. Whatever he chose to do, he did it with flair, panache, style.
He died the other day and left a lot of us on an empty stage, with no cue to pick up. Lonesome, scary feeling.
I spent my 18th birthday with Joe, as I spent lots of milestones and lots of ordinary days, blessed with youngness and high hopes. On my birthday, we went to a record store on Hollywood Boulevard and sat in a booth and played records. We had a bottle of 59-cent wine, which Joe bought from the $2 he had. With the leftover money, he bought me a gardenia and a gallon or two of gas for my car. We scrunched down below the glass in the booth to take a drink from the bottle every now and then, not because we particularly wanted it, but because we couldn’t afford champagne and when there’s no party, you make a party of what you have. That’s tradition.
And we were traditional. We spent the evening playing Bach for Joe and Chopin for me and asking each other why someone didn’t recognize our talent and ability. We were theater kids, hokey and drawn large.
By that time, I was in a show called “The Drunkard,” a melodrama that went on to have the longest run in the history of theater. The only night of the year we were dark was Christmas Eve, which is also my birthday and the night that Joe thought up the utterly delicious, almost free celebration.
Not long after that, I introduced Joe to my best friend and college chum, Dor. They were married a couple of years later when they both had the time and money. Through the years, they had eight children, each one receiving Joe’s bequest of dark, Welsh handsomeness or Dor’s blond hair and china-blue eyes. From both parents, they were given the touchstone of the gift of laughter and the sense that the world is mad.
Joe started in motion pictures at the age of 4 and continued in feature-length motion pictures and in the theater in New York, notably with the Theater Guild. When I met him, he was slowly starving to death in bit parts. But before that happened, he moved behind the camera and went on to produce and direct in the golden days of television.
Joe was good to be with. He made me feel as if I were in an enchanted circle. He had the golden gift of pure friendship and he gave it to hundreds. And he spoke in quotable quotes, each one with the cadence of a Welsh rune.
One time when he was working with Robert Cummings, with whom he had been a kid actor, Cummings suggested a television production partnership. Joe said, “Look at it squarely, Robby. It makes no sense. You’re a vegetarian and I’m an alcoholic.”
That wasn’t true, but it made a good riposte, which would not hurt Cummings’ feelings.
When Galt Bell died, Joe got me through it. Galt was my producer and director, friend and love at the theater. Galt was living with Doug and me when he died. Doug, my husband, should have been canonized. I loved Doug beyond the Earth, but Galt and I were booked as an act.
In the middle of the funeral, I was afraid I’d scream with grief. I got out of the front pew and ran down the aisle and out of the church. Joe followed me, put his arms around me and said, “For God’s sake, Zan, go back in there. You’ve still got the third act to do.”
Of course.
Joe’s gone to Fiddler’s Green, where sailors go, a land flowing with rum and lime juice, and perpetual music and mirth and where it’s always opening night.
Joe went to sea one year when the make-believe business was at a standstill. In some far-off land, his friend Jack Murphy was run over by a water buffalo, the slowest creature on legs. Joe picked Jack up and brushed him off, unhurt, but that’s another story, as there always will be if you’re talking about Joe Depew. But he won’t be back. He never stole an extra bow in his life.
