I am sorry for your loss. Lynn and I never met, but we shared a birthday, March 8, and so now I know why I felt a kinship ever since 1966, when I saw her in the movie Georgy Girl.

Maybe there as hope for me, I thought at 19

I was 19 and went with Paul H, who was in one of my classes at New York University. Paul was adorable. Although he was shorter than I, it didn’t matter much when we were seated.  I think we kissed during the movie, but I may be making up that part. I never understood why Paul had a crush on me since I was chunkier, as well as taller. He was smarter, too.

That’s another reason I fell in love with Georgy (and Lynn.)  She was a big girl and insecure about men. So was I, despite my dates with cutie-pie Paul. When sexy Alan Bates fell in love with Georgy, my insecurity disappeared. Maybe there was hope for me.

I’ve watched Lynn every chance I could throughout the years.  She was so genuine, so unlike other actors. She enthralled me in Shine, she impressed me when she stood up to her sister for her political views, and she saddened me when she talked of her lonely childhood in Shakespeare for My Father.

I’d occasionally spot her on TV while I flipped channels and always stopped to watch, even if the show was Kojak.

The obit in the paper reported that Lynn had a mastectomy and chemotherapy in 2003 and died of cancer. It also noted that a suit she filed against Universal Television in 1981, for not allowing her to breast-feed in her dressing room, dragged on for 13 years and depleted her finances.

Lynn Redgrave had high ideals. She had incredible talent. She had a soul. She was 67 and FOF in every sense of the word.  It is terribly sad that she is gone.

I have been in the media profession since the day I started working in 1968 and I am incensed by an article I just read in The New York Times, with this headline: “Big Paydays for the Chiefs In the Media.”

The $4.8 million man

The networks and newspapers have been firing thousands left and right for the past year plus, but executives, including Janet Robinson, CEO of The New York Times, and Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the chairman, respectively earned 26 percent and 171 percent more in 2009  than the year before, The NYT story reported.

I personally know reporters who feared for their jobs at The Times for months on end, talented reporters who  earn about 4,800 percent less than Arthur’s $4.8 million salary.

Arthur and Janet had to cut costs because the paper’s ad revenue was sinking fast. Why didn’t they take pay cuts themselves, keep more people employeed and try to figure out what to do with their flailing enterprise?

Overblown egos, combined with dwindling business savvy, stupefy–and sadden–me.

FOF Kristy was the head of a private school in New York for children with special needs. She said farewell two years ago, after working there for 35 years.

Kristy's one world...

Now she splits her time between South Carolina, where her husband lives full time, and New York, where she sits on a number of non-profit boards and is an active volunteer with organizations focused on children’s learning.

and her other

“It took me a while to reinvent myself.” Kristy told me at a baby shower for her beautiful niece, Anika. “It was hard adjusting to the idea that an unpaid job is still work, important work.” Kristy eventually—and happily—discovered that volunteers are crucial to the success of non-profit organizations since the paid staff doesn’t have the time to accomplish everything.

When she’s not at business meetings in New York, or involved in one of her other passions (Revlon’s Walk/Run for Breast Cancer, for example), Kristy’s  at her home in Fripp Island, SC, 20 miles from Beaufort and an hour from Hilton Head. The population is about 1,000—as un-New York as you can get—but she loves the close friendships she and her husband have developed, the island’s natural beauty and her relaxed lifestyle there. “Since many people have second homes in Fripp, where they vacation, children are always around,” Kristy said. This suits her just fine since she’s been around children her whole life.

If there’s anyone who embodies the expression “Having the Best of Both Worlds,” it’s Kristy. She’s figured it all out, in true FOF style.

A 28-year-old woman I know slept at her best friend’s apartment last night.  When I asked if her boyfriend minded her being away, she told me: “Why should he? He knows it’s just Dana and me.”

She explained that she likes to have a girls’ night once in a while, but the moment she wakes up the next morning, she wants to get back to her boyfriend, who lives with her. “He feels the same way. We genuinely miss each other, so that’s why it’s nice to be away occasionally.

“Noel is such a level-headed person, and I think I am, too,” she said. “We always want what’s  best for both of us and act accordingly. We don’t push each other’s buttons or boundaries.”

I wish I had been as sensible and secure when I was 28. But it’s wonderful to see a young woman today who is so together…

Especially if she’s your daughter. I love you, Mone.

Noel and Simone