Happy 67th Birthday to My Good Friend Mary Hart!
A few years ago, I was attending the Baseball Scouts Foundation Dinner at the Century Plaza Hotel. It was an amazing night, you almost couldn’t turn around without bumping into a baseball Hall of Famer.
In a sea of retired baseball players was a perky blond in a sequined dress that I immediately recognized as TV’s Mary Hart.
I approached her and told her that she and John Tesh were the best Entertainment Tonight hosts ever.
“Oh, thanks,” she said. “I really miss Teshy.”
“That was the Golden Era of Entertainment news,” I said. “I liked John Tesh so much that I even named my pet gecko Teshy.”
“Wow, that’s quite a compliment,” she said. “You know, Teshy just sent me the first song on his new album. I haven’t even listened to it yet.”
“Oh my gosh!” I hollered. “A pre-drop Teshy?! Can I hear it?!” My voice was quivering with nervous excitement.
Mary Hart could hear the desperation in my voice. She’s no dummy. She knew that she had me, and that I’d pay any price to hear a Teshy pre-release.
“It’ll cost you a drink,” she said with a smile and a wink.
“Gladly,” I said, as we strolled over to the bar.
“The usual, Fred,” Mary told the bartender.
He immediately set her up with a shot of peach Schnapps and a Shirley Temple-back. I didn’t order anything because I wanted to hear Teshy’s song, and even a few seconds that it would take the bartender to pop off the beer cap would be a few seconds longer that my ears would be without the sweet harmonies of a Teshy tune.
Mary took a sip of her peach Schnapps and then began fiddling through her purse for her iPod. Mary Hart’s old school, dawgs. She digs her beats on old fashioned gadgets, yo!
She found her iPod and the Teshy tune was right on top of her playlist.
Mary Hart reached up and around me to place her earbuds in my ears. Just then, her husband, Midnight Special producer Burt Sugarman, saw what appeared to be an embrace and came over with frowned brows and his walking cane raised high.
“Why you son of a bitch, stay the hell away from America’s Sweetheart! I’ll knock your head into tomorrow!”
He swung, a pretty good swing for an eighty-year-old man, but I was able to duck under it.
He swung again lower and I jumped over. He then did an overhead swing chop like a lumberjack, and crushed Mary Hart’s iPod that sat on the bar.
“Nooooo,” I screamed seeing the iPod that was in no condition to ever play again.
“You killed Teshy!” I screamed at Sugarman.
I pulled the cane from his hand and swung it at him.
Like Sugarman, I missed too. Unlike him, I knocked out Mary Hart’s front teeth on my follow through.
Sorry about that Mary, Happy Birthday!
