Mr. Cappuccino
Reflections: Norman Mailer at 100, ed. Gerald R. Lucas and Maggie McKinley (The Norman Mailer Society, 2023), pp. 65–66; transcribed from the final interior PDF
From Reflections: Norman Mailer at 100 (The Norman Mailer Society, 2023), pp. 65–66.
Norman was not a cuddly Dad, so I didn’t expect a lot of attention coming his way when I had my first child. I wasn’t even disappointed when one afternoon while we were having lunch he said to me, “Sue, it was hard enough to be a father, don’t expect me to be much of a grandfather.”
When Valentina turned thirteen, we invited her to New York as a symbolic bat-mitsvah present. We arrived at Kennedy airport, cleared customs and, as the sliding doors opened, the first thing I saw was Dad with a big grin on his face. Surprised? That would be an understatement. Astonished would be more like it. He opened his arms, hugged all three of us and took us to our hotel. As he was walking out the door of our room, he said “I have something lined up tonight for Valentina. Be at the Actor’s Studio at 6:45 pm.”
We arrived exactly on time. Again, Dad was waiting outside and took us to our seats. We waited. Lipton walked onstage and introduced Al Pacino, and the night that unfolded turned out to be superb. Pacino gave a master class on acting, Shakespeare in America, and about the production of Looking for Richard, a movie he was then working on. I was riveted; I knew I was witnessing something special and felt this was a terrific present for Valentina. I was sure she would be as impressed as we were. But as we came out of the theatre, she turned to me in that sultry and slightly bored attitude teenagers can adopt, and asked,
“Mom, so, who is this Cappuccino guy?”
I cracked up and thought, well, so much for Dad’s effort to impress his granddaughter.
But I was wrong, because Valentina might not have known at the time who Pacino was, but when she was older, that evening at Actor’s Studio became one of her treasured memories.
This was typical of Dad. So many times, he exposed us, his children, to situations or ideas that were out of synch with our age. We’d roll our eyes, or look blankly at him, not understanding or not knowing what he was talking about. And then realize years later he had thrown an arrow into our future. An arrow we could now catch and appreciate.
Susan Mailer