My Love Story: at First Sight

• Posted on 27th November 2015
• in celebrity books, Entertainment, entertainment books, Hollywood books, Hollywood memoirs, Love Story
• by Ben

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This is an excerpt not from my

Love Story

book, Waiting for Elizabeth, but from my so called “celebrity book / Hollywood memoir”, Three Stages. When I met the Elizabeth of the above title in July 1967 at the Mount Gretna (PA) Playhouse she was known as Betsy.

“I rolled to a stop [on my Vespa which I’d ridden from NYC] in front of the Inn a little after 10 AM, went to my room and freshened up then strolled over to the theater where the [Carousel] rehearsal was in progress. [Entering the building] … I could hear the cast singing one of the group numbers. I walked onto the stage and there they were, sitting in the front two rows of the house near the piano.

“Charlie [the director] saw me, came over and shook hands then turned and introduced me to the assembled company. There were probably twenty folks, principals and chorus but I saw only one of them.

“Sitting in the front row was a lovely young woman with a Shetland Sheep Dog at her feet. I didn’t know who she was but it was as though there was a pin spotlight on her and all the others in the room faded from view. Her presence hit me like a velvet sledge hammer. It was confusing.

She wasn’t quite this glamourous in rehearsal but still…

“The rehearsal split into the chorus, who stayed in the theatre, and principals who moved to the Inn to work on our individual numbers. The piano was in the dining room and as we waited our turns we sat on the porch. I learned that the mesmerizing lady’s name was Betsy Hepburn and that she was playing “Carrie”, the comedienne, who marries “Mr. Snow”. I was thrilled with her voice and the comic personality with which she sang. She was really good and that was a relief. Joy Franz, who played “Julie”, my leading lady, went next and I was delighted with her performance as well. I then joined her and the musical director to work on our duet, If I Loved You. Joy was a joy.

“When we finished, Joy returned to the porch and we worked on my big number, Soliloquy. This is a seven minute tour-de-force and I’d sung it many times but knowing that Betsy was ten feet away hearing everything, I sang it better than ever before and socked the high b-flat on the end with all I was worth. Then we broke for lunch.

Here’s me singing Soliloquy in 1976.

“I asked Betsy if I could take her to lunch. With some reluctance she accepted and we went to the snack bar across from the Inn. As we were eating our sandwiches I told her that I felt like I knew her. She replied that she knew we’d never met. I agreed that that we’d not met before, that wasn’t what I meant. I just had the feeling that I knew her. This was the absolute truth. (It was several years later that I learned the concept of reincarnation.)

“That afternoon after rehearsal I organized my room, took a swim and when I got back to the inn Betsy was standing on the porch with several people getting ready to go to dinner. She was wearing a very short dress with a light chain hugging her hips and high heeled sandals. Wowee – this girl had legs! And the prettiest, sexiest looking feet I’d ever seen. I hasten to add that while I’m not a foot fetishist I do appreciate all the details of an exquisite feminine form. Betsy was a knockout in every detail.

“Rehearsals proceeded and over the next two or three nights I asked her to dinner but she always had a reason to decline. (She must have had the cleanest hair since Nellie Forbush.) One night I hit the jackpot! I was going to drive into Lebanon to wash my clothes and asked if she’d like to join me. So our first “date” was in the glamorous fluorescent lighting of the nearest laundromat.”

PS: I married her three months later.

Tags: Dennis Britten, Elizabeth (Betsy) Hepburn, Mount Gretna Playhouse