Sigmund Stahl (SS)
SS: A colleague of mine in my department decided that he was gonna fix me up. And he had a list of I don’t know how many people. And he would ask me every week, ”Did you call anybody — did you?” And I would say, ”No,” because I wasn’t particularly interested. And I had to get him off my back really. So I said, ”Ok, who’s number one? I’ll call that person.” I decided we’re gonna have a drink, and if I don’t like her I’m gonna say, ”I have to go home,” and that’ll be the end of it. So we met, and we sat down, and we talked, and then I said to her, ”What would you like to do now if you could — anything you want?” And she said, ”Well, I’d go to an island in the Pacific somewhere where it’s nice and sunny.” It was winter. And I said, ”Well that we can’t do. That’s a little difficult.” So she said, ”I’d like to go see a movie.” I said, ”That’s reasonable. What’s the name of the movie?” She said, ”Uh, did you hear of a movie called ’Deep Throat’?” And I said, ”No, never heard of it.” I don’t go to movies, and so I knew nothing. She looks like a respectable woman–she was a very well-known public relations expert. Well, must be a respectable movie if there was a line around the block. It was a porno. It was the biggest porno of its time. I didn’t have the guts to say, ”Let’s go.” I was gonna sit through that come Hell or high water. And then, uh, we left, and I took her home, and I went back to my apartment in The Village. I thought about it — I thought, ”What gall of this woman! She doesn’t know me from Adam and take me to a movie like that.” I wouldn’t go to that movie if I’d known what it was — if they’d paid me for it. And then I thought, She has that chutzpah — that gall — I’ll call her again
Elizabet Dwoskin: [Laughs]
SS: And my granddaughter still laughs about that. She’s probably heard that story 4 million times.