Tailors Find a Rumpled Journalist Quite Unsuitable

My recent lament about being overlooked again as one of America’s 10 best-dressed men has brought an enlightening letter from actor Eddie Albert.

Albert’s story of his own selection bears out my suspicion that the Tailors Council of America, which picks the 10 best, is guided more by a candidate’s celebrity than by his taste in clothes.

I have always explained my own exclusion, year after year, by my naive assumption that the council employed scouts to roam the country, looking for well-dressed men, and that I was never chosen because a scout apprehended me on a day that I was wearing something my wife bought me mail order.

Albert’s story bears out my underlying suspicion that the council is more interested in who you are than how you look. For example, the basketball star Michael Jordan was among last year’s selectees, but how many of us have ever seen him in anything but his basketball togs?

It is true, however, that he is impeccably attired for his sport. I am reminded of the World War II story of the British subaltern and the Wren who were caught frolicking in the nude in the Raffles Hotel. Court-martialed for being out of uniform, they were acquitted on the grounds that they were properly attired for the activity in which they were engaged.

“A few years back,” Albert writes, “I received a phone call from New York, from a person who represented the National Tailors and who told me that I had been voted Best Dressed Actor of the Year.

“I thanked him but protested that there must be an error, that he wanted Eddie Arnold or Eddie Murphy. He protested, no--they wanted me (with only three suits, none less than 10 years old) and that they would give me a beautiful plaque, and a thrilling gathering, a luncheon at the Waldorf in the big ballroom on March-the-whatever and much publicity, and said it was a great honor. I said I was heartsick, but on that date, I was getting married, or confirmed, or de-wormed, I forget which, and that I would be unable to be in New York on that date, and I would be so grateful if they would put the beautiful plaque in the mail.

“ ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘To receive the plaque you would have to show up here in New York, personally, at the luncheon.’ I replied that in that case I would have to decline the honor, that the date made it impossible for me.

“He expressed considerable distress and was sorry it couldn’t work out. Then he thought a moment, and said, ‘Mr. Albert, could you suggest anyone else?’ ”

It occurs to me that Albert might very well have suggested me. I have met Albert several times in recent years at the home of his neighbor, Mary Anita Loos, in Pacific Palisades. I don’t remember how Albert was dressed, but I believe I always dressed in casual elegance for Mary Anita’s parties, and it wouldn’t surprise me that I caught his eye. But he obviously did not recommend me, since I was never selected.

In any case I suspect that, like Albert, I would have been unable to attend the luncheon in the Waldorf. For one thing, I wouldn’t have known what to wear. I’m afraid California casual, which is my usual luncheon style, might not do in the Waldorf.

Albert doesn’t make it clear whether the nine other selectees would also have been present at the luncheon. What a gathering of peacocks that would have been!

I visited Albert as a reporter many years ago at his house. At that time he was growing pesticide-free vegetables in his back yard, being something of a health nut, and I was doing a story on the theory that a movie actor who grew his own vegetables was something of a novelty. Of course on that occasion he would probably have been wearing gardening clothes and I would have been wearing a reporter’s usual rumpled suit and beer-stained necktie.

I met Albert again several years later at a big dinner in the Beverly Hilton. Some big Jewish charitable organization was giving awards to several Southlanders for their contributions to the community, and I was among them. Albert was master of ceremonies. Since we both wore tuxedos, it was not an occasion for comparing our outfits, the tuxedo leaving its wearer little room for individual expression.

I remember that evening for a remark of mine that Albert unwittingly set up. The man he introduced just before me was in his 80s, and Albert said, “Better an old eagle than a young sparrow, eh?”

Then he introduced me.

I stepped up to the microphone and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, you’re looking at an old sparrow.”

I’d rather have said that than be selected as one of the l0 best-dressed.