Ethel Merman, Mother Teresa...and Me. Tony Cointreau

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      Photo by Stephen Mosher.

      For Jim Russo

      My Angel Protector

      Eternity

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Part I: The First Mothers

      Prologue

      Dotie and Jacques

      The War

      Hello, Little Baby

      Escape

      “Mother Only Loves You When You’re Perfect”

Mémé

Maman Geneviève

Family Battles

My Annus Horribilis: Winter 1949-Summer 1950

Tata

       Panic Attacks

       My First “Other Mother”

       Boarding School

       Being Different

       Arthur

       The Gossip Columns

       My Second “Other Mother”

       The Runaway Heiress

       Another Nervous Breakdown

       Summer Stock

       Ethel, Judy, Mr. Sinatra—and Jim

       A Tragic Mistake

       My Beautiful Friend

       “They Found My Navel”

       The Unimaginable

       “And Who Are You?”

       Hooray for Hollywood

       Lavender Tulips

       “Le Tout Paris”

       The Family Pact

       The Best of Friends

       Part II: The Last Mother

       Calcutta

       Gift of Love

       Tony the Volunteer

       “My Kids”

       The Man in Black

       Not My Fault

       Meeting Mother Teresa: My Third “Other Mother”

       Choices

       “A Light That Leads Home”

       Back to Calcutta

       Mother Teresa’s Last Easter

       Agnes Bojaxhiu

       Between Two Worlds

       Goodbye, My Beautiful Friend

       “That Was Your First Mistake”

       Our Wedding

       Epilogue

       A Tribute to “My Kids”

       PART I

       The First Mothers

       PROLOGUE

      Ethel Merman and Mother Teresa had a lot in common. At first glance, that might seem highly unlikely, but in my years with them both, I discovered that though the differences were huge, surprisingly, there were also great similarities.

      Often I would be in a restaurant with Ethel Merman, “the Queen of Broadway,” who was known for her loud voice and brassy persona onstage, and after dinner I would ask her, “Would you please, very quietly, so no one else can hear, sing your favorite song for me?”

      And—always—she would then begin to sing, “Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.…”

      Not many people knew about it, but Ethel also served as a volunteer at Roosevelt Hospital for many years, beginning when her mother was hospitalized after a devastating stroke, and continuing until Ethel herself was too ill to work any more. She was wonderful with sick people. She would sit at their bedsides and hold their hands and comfort them, something you might have expected from Mother Teresa.

      One morning as I sat next to Mother Teresa, who was considered a living saint, on her balcony in Calcutta, she was particularly tired after a long meeting with some of her Sisters. I leaned close to hear her weakening voice over the sounds of traffic from the main road below, expecting to hear words of wisdom.

      “How much does your hotel cost?” She whispered. When I told her, she said, “I don’t mean per week, I mean per day.”

      “That is per day, Mother,” I said. “I did not take a vow of poverty.”

      “No,” she laughed, “you took a vow of luxury.”

      I knew her sense of humor well, and was not surprised at her laughter—something you might have expected from Ethel Merman.

      Ethel Merman and Mother Teresa, along with a remarkable woman named Lee Lehman (the wife of Robert Lehman, the chairman of Lehman Brothers), were like mothers to me, and the three of them helped to heal the parts of me that had been damaged as a child. Their humor, their support, and their compassion finally gave me the unconditional love I had been seeking my whole life.

       DOTIE AND JACQUES

      I was brought up in another era, a time when parents from a certain level of society had little to do with the daily care of their children. People were hired to raise the children while Mother and Father watched from a discreet distance. This is not to say that they didn’t care what happened to their offspring—every aspect of their children’s lives was carefully monitored—but they didn’t feel the need to be involved in the daily chores of raising a child. This is the way it had been done for generations