You Can Take It With You

Checking into a Philadelphia hotel not long ago, I signed the register "Mr. and Mrs. Dick Martin." Since I haven't been married for years, I was taking slight liberties with the facts, but the clerk didn't know it. He inquired: "Is Mrs. Martin with you?"

"She'll be along soon," I said. Then I added quietly, "She works for the FBI."

The eyes of the clerk widened.

"She's a master of disguise," I continued. "One day, she'll be a tall redhead. The next, a short blonde. Don't be confused. If any lady claims to be Mrs. Dick Martin, just let her in."

As it turned out, there was no occasion for the clerk to admit a lady to my room, which was bad luck for me, but I offer this ploy helpfully to those gentlemen who may visit Philadelphia and feel uneasy about saying, "My wife is coming in on a later plane." Of course, should you happen to have a cheap ladies' jewel box handy and should you (continued on page 170)Take it with you(continued from page 151) ask the room clerk to store it in the hotel vault for safekeeping, he won't question your missing wife's existence. Also, never forget that hotels are more interested in money than in morals; always pay double-room rates when expecting a girlfriend; if you try to sneak her into a single, you're almost certain to wind up with an embarrassing call from the management.

Happily, traveling with a woman other than your bride has been made easier in our society, for which we can thank mostly the young. They didn't pioneer this field, but they popularized it, putting them in the class of those benefactors who didn't invent indoor plumbing but made it available to every household. As a result, travel has broadened. The will to fly the friendly skies has swelled. Gone is the fear of being lonely on vacation. Bringing your own is no longer a problem.

Like everyone else who travels, I have my favorite romantic destinations. I should warn you, though, that my tastes are pretty simple, possibly because of my background, which was frighteningly conventional. I mean, compared with me, Andy Hardy was far out.

I was raised in Detroit at a time when people were happy with much less than they have today. As a teenager in the Thirties, I could get excited over a 35-cent Benny Goodman record. On dates, most of us went by streetcar; you would ride by trolley to the girl's house, take her by trolley to a show and take her home the same way. We thought about sex as much as kids do today, but our problem was one of logistics. First, where could you take the girl? Motels were anything but plentiful. And second, if you lingered too long at her house, you could blow a very important streetcar. After 12, they ran only every two hours.

So love in those days was suffocated not by design but by circumstance. If a guy got laid, he ran up a flag. A big one. It was rare in those days that you took a girl to a romantic retreat. "The lake" was the thing. Each summer, four or five guys would chip in and rent a cottage for a week at one of the upper Midwest's many lakes. Then we would spread the word to as many girls as we could that we would be presiding there. They were invited to drop in and "listen to records." After that, it was pot luck (and not in today's sense).

Even after moving from Detroit to Hollywood, I had no occasion to take girls away on amorous trips. I worked six nights a week as a bartender and I had my own apartment. A bartender needs nothing more, except his stamina. Do you realize how many women, after three martinis, write their telephone number on the back of a match cover and leave it under the ashtray for the bartender? They do this even when they're with a date. As ladies' men, bartenders do far better than actors, ranking only behind doctors and piano players.

Not posing as an authority on the subject, much less an oracle, I have nevertheless discovered that when planning to take a girl on a trip, you should exercise extreme caution in choosing your companion. A girl's skill on her back, or elsewhere, must, alas, be rated among the lesser considerations.

You begin with the unvarnished truth that every woman is a pain in the ass. They merely vary by degree. Since your problem is finding one who is a minimal pain, you should scout girls almost the way coaches scout football players. Each time one is a pain in the ass, mark it down, because she's even money to repeat. Above all, never ask a girl you don't know intimately to spend a week or a weekend with you away from home. Eventually, you will regret it, as I have on more than one occasion.

Strictly on impulse, I once asked a girl I hardly knew to come along on a little weekend junket to La Jolla, a handsome cove 100 miles south of Los Angeles, where I was appearing with my partner, a fellow you may have heard of, named Dan Rowan. The girl and I had a lovely suite overlooking the Pacific. We arrived at sundown and, as I got ready for work, she relaxed in a bath, where I took her a drink before leaving. When I returned a few hours later, I started to get friendly--and she drew back.

"Is this what you brought me here for?" she asked.

I looked at her in disbelief. And then I went to sleep. You can imagine what a fun breakfast we had the next morning, but at least I was only 30 minutes by air from home. What if I had been trapped witli one like that at Lake Lucerne?

Basically, there are four types of girls who must not be included in your travel plans. One is die neglected kind who asks, "What am I going to do today if you play golf?" Suddenly, you're cornered. You're obliged to give her daylong attention or you'll appear selfish.

The second type to avoid is the girl who's chronically late. Anything chronic is deliberate. This is a hostile broad who delights in making you cool your heels. She bathes slowly, dresses slowly and screws around with her hair and makeup while you sit and wait for hours. Forget her.

Third is the sneaky-charge artist. When you check out of the hotel, you discover she's charged $320 at the arcade boutique. Without asking, she has bought herself a couple of dresses, a swimsuit and a purse. This pisses you off; she could at least have mentioned it. You are embarrassed to tell the cashier her stuff goes back. Instead, you boil in silence. And you pay.

Finally, as a matter of principle, you should reject out of hand the longdistance-telephone artist. You are traveling in Italy and she places calls to all her friends in Chicago. You ask sourly, "Do you make calls like this when you're paying the tab?"

She answers, "Are you that small?"

You've blown thousands on this trip and she's implying you're cheap. Who needs her?

It's also a good policy to avoid other couples. Your own girl is a pain in the ass--why inherit aches from a friend's broad? The exception to this rule is when the two men spend their days golfing. Trouble seldom develops with traveling couples at night; the four of you have drinks and dinner and then retire. It's deciding which museums and which stained-glass windows to see during the day that creates something out of an old Sid Caesar sketch.

In the selection of appealing destinations, tastes naturally vary. Mine show peculiar inconsistencies. That's because I am inspired not only by blue lagoons and coconut palms but also by certain bustling cities. From a penthouse in Sydney, a town that strikes me as romantic as eight San Franciscos, I can look out at the harbor and feel as if I were sopping up moonlight on the Mediterranean. Of course, with a daiquiri and a naked lady, a guy can get romantic in beautiful downtown Burbank.

Among my favorite retreats is the Maui Hilton, which I visited recently with great satisfaction. Fond of the islands, I had stayed previously in Hawaii at the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, a place of incredible beauty on the island of Hawaii. Physically, no hotel is more attractive, but I had to split for at least three reasons. First, the nights were deadly; after nine o'clock, it was like the Union League Club. Second, all the rooms at the Mauna Kea are identical in construction and furnishings. There are no suites, just bedroom and bath. This is bad for actors, who spend most of their lives in one-room pads. When they get lucky and can at last afford something better, they don't want to stay in crowded quarters. Third, the rooms come only with twin beds. To a romantically inclined fellow, anything less than king-size is a bummer. Twin beds are anti-love.

Thus, I shifted islands, from Hawaii to Maui, where Hilton offered a second-story apartment with a terrace overlooking Molokai and Lanai. Below was the Auau Channel, not far from the old whaling port of Lahaina. The apartment was spacious, consisting of living room, bedroom (with king-size bed), kitchen, dressing room and oversized bath.

Told it was the mating season for whales, we dismissed this quickly, pretty (continued on page 226)Take It with You(continued from page 170) much as a motorist would forget about a highway sign that reads, Watch for Deer. When do you ever see one? Well, we were sitting on the terrace one afternoon, looking at the sea, when two giant creatures suddenly rose from the water and crashed together, belly to belly. The whales really were mating. The whale humping continued for several days. We went crazy looking at this wild sex.

The Maui Hilton is located on Kaanapali Beach, a long stretch of white sand that's great for morning walks. If you enjoy golf, you head for the course, not far from the hotel, and you suggest to your girl that she take a nice stroll, for maybe three hours, along the beach, famous for its seashells. Buy her a pail. If she is a good girl and only a minimal pain in the ass, she will keep busy until noon, by which time you will have finished 18 holes.

Afternoons at the Maui Hilton are lazy. You surf, sit by the pool, take a drive along the verdant shore and maybe drop in at one of the salty bars in Lahaina. Catamaraning is a pleasant form of entertainment, especially when whales are inhabiting the channel. The ones we saw humping from our terrace had to measure upward of 46 feet--our catamaran was 46 feet long and the whales alongside us were longer. I felt like asking one when the next orgy would begin, but I was afraid it might ask to watch me and mine and there was no way I could follow that performance.

Evenings at the Hilton are particularly pleasant, mainly because the manager, Sheldon Randall, is a gourmet who has an outstanding German chef willing to cook special dishes for Randall's friends. Special dishes for me are beef stew and meat loaf and maybe a leg of lamb. Basic fare such as this can be delightful when prepared by a first-class chef. I realize, of course, that by ordering meat loaf instead of mahi-mahi, I was hardly impressing the lady I was with; I may even have been a pain in the ass myself, but a guy is entitled to some things in life.

In my judgment, the food at the Maui Hilton is exceeded only by that of another of my favorite retreats, the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal. One of the dining rooms there is called the Beaver Club (the cuisine is French-Canadian). I have found nothing better.

Now, you may ask, why in the hell is this guy picking the Queen Elizabeth in downtown Montreal as a romantic hideaway, considering all the exotic places available on earth? After all, he may as well pick beautiful downtown Burbank. At the Queen Elizabeth, you are even apt to run into a convention of insurance underwriters.

Answer: It's a great place to take a girl in winter, especially if you get the setup I did on my last visit--a three-bedroom suite near the top floor. Obviously, this is two bedrooms more than you need, but it gives you a feeling of abundance. For scenery, you have Mt. Royal in one direction and the St. Lawrence River in another. Decorated in Early Canadian, the suite features animal skins on the wall. Mounted fish and animal heads surround you. Walking into the place, I felt like Nelson Eddy, or at least like the president of the Hudson's Bay Company. A fireplace can be effective in such a setting and there is a large one in the living room.

Ensconced in such luxury, I couldn't help but smile when recalling my first visit to Montreal. It was in 1954 and Dan Rowan and I stopped at a boarding-house. We worked at a place called the Downbeat Club, from which 32 hookers operated. We did three shows a night. It was important that we get the hookers to like us, because they set the pace for the audience: If they didn't laugh and applaud, no one else would. We ingratiated ourselves with the girls by cleverly working them into our material. I would say, for example, "Helen and Yvonne have missed this show, but they'll be back for the next." The other girls would roar at this inside joke. Helen and Yvonne, of course, had picked up a couple of live ones and taken them to their rooms. Later, they would return for two more. We hoped one day to work in a class place where the hookers wouldn't leave until after the last show.

Montreal brims with beautiful women. Their eyes are generally dark and their skins creamy. Actually, taking a girl there is like taking a bologna sandwich to a banquet. But whether your company is imported or domestic, the Queen Elizabeth is a wonderful place in winter, because even if snow is piled to your hairpiece, you're not trapped in the hotel; directly below is the Place Ville Marie, a seven-acre underground complex that contains two movie theaters, several excellent restaurants (such as the Bluenose Inn for seafood and The Stampede for steaks), a number of good-looking cocktail lounges and 64 shops. It's a great place to visit while recharging the old batteries. If weather permits, you can ski the Laurentians--only an hour's drive from Montreal. It isn't necessary to leave your room on a winter day in Montreal, but at least you have a choice.

In London, the world's most exciting city, you have similar (if not more) advantages. Offhand, you would picture London as anything but a romantic retreat. It isn't the cleanest place, the traffic is thick and the skies often somber. But there is so much to see there, so much history to absorb and so many unique shops to visit that making these scenes with a girl can't help but be fun.

One of my fondest memories is of a stay at the Dorchester Hotel in Mayfair. This is a dignified caravansary across the street from Hyde Park. The doorman has a top hat, the desk clerks wear striped pants and morning coats and even the bellhops sport starched collars. The atmosphere isn't as stuffy as Claridge's, where the help apologizes for passing gas, and it won't remind you at all of a Trave Lodge.

I got into trouble instantly at the Dorchester. My reservation had been made by Londoners, who got me an accommodation that consisted only of room and bath. Ten minutes after checking in, I heard a knock on the door. It was the house detective. I had heard of house dicks all my life; I had read about them and listened to jokes about them. But this was the first one I had ever seen.

He wasn't dressed like Sherlock Holmes nor did he carry a magnifying glass. But he did detect a lady in my room and said she would have to leave. In a foreign country, you don't demand your rights. I took my little dish of trifle to another place for the night but brought her back to the Dorchester the next day, when someone hipped me to English procedure. London hotelkeepers frown on mixed doubles in one room. But if you have a suite--two rooms or more--there is no objection, on the grounds that private quarters for each are now provided and certainly no gentleman would stray from his quarters to those of the lady's. (Besides, the hotel makes twice as much.)

Each floor of the Dorchester has its own kitchen, meaning that when you order snacks from room service, you get them quickly and you get them fresh. And most of the time from the same waiter. In late afternoon, we would order a dish of miniature sandwiches and tea brewed freshly in the pot and, overlooking Park Lane and Hyde Park, we'd watch the red double-decker buses and London's endless stream of motorcars weaving along. Liz stays with Dick (Burton, not Martin) at the Dorchester. I don't know how they pass their time in the hotel, but if they're stuck for an idea, I would recommend tea and sandwiches and traffic watching. The Dorchester's bathtubs, incidentally, are tremendous and easily accommodate two. It may not be acceptable in the hotel for unmarried couples to stay in one room, but I could find no restrictions covering bathtubs.

At the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs the tubs are smaller and the tea comes from bags, but this place is among my favorite spots. I was stabled there in a large, mostly glass-enclosed suite offering a matchless view of the golf course, the lake and the snow-topped Rockies. The landscape was green and spectacularly alive. The Broadmoor is a sensational place to stay if you're with a girl who likes the sporting life: There're golf, canoeing, tennis, swimming, hiking, skiing, fishing, indoor ice skating and, if you're up to it, a climb up Pikes Peak. (Make sure, however, you don't expend all your energies on purely athletic pursuits.) And you needn't leave the hotel for amusement after dinner. The Broadmoor provides a movie theater, a night club and a great English pub called the Golden Bee, where, over beer and cheese, customers sing along with the piano player. Well, it's something to do.

You're going to snicker when I mention another vital facility at the Broadmoor. It's a beauty shop, the importance of which should never be minimized on a trip with a girl. Posing as a good fellow, you generously suggest a wash, set, manicure, pedicure and a few other services to enhance the beauty of your little flower. Then, depositing her in the salon after breakfast, you duck out for 18 holes. (If you're a fisherman, you might even recommend a hair frosting, which takes the better part of a day.)

Blessed with luck at the Broadmoor, I found myself in the company of a pain in the ass so minimal as to be hardly felt. This lady not only condoned my golf but drove the cart, took out the flags and actually learned on which side to stand when guys were putting. When you run into custom jewelry such as this, you must naturally give her high priority when considering future travel companions.

A word of caution about Colorado Springs. The elevation is 6000 feet--high enough to hamper one's usual superb performance on the Simmons. Light training will prove helpful; maybe a little roadwork and rope skipping. It could be embarrassing to go to the post one night and suddenly faint.

It also could ruin a good friendship in an age in which ladies have come to expect, even demand, good service. For years, we believed sex was mostly for men, but today we find that women are aggressors whose appetites are just becoming known. This can present problems to every man enjoying a vacation. When he's knocked out from all that golf, how is he able to get away with just a goodnight kiss? He's not. On romantic trips, a woman has the right to demand more. Any time after lunch, in fact, if that's her pleasure. All she must do, in return, is heed his entreaty: "Please don't be a pain in the ass."