Pulse OF THE City

Maitre D’s and Maitre Don’ts



How to get fired from The Mansion.



WAYNE BROADWELL’S TONGUE HAS ALWAYS wagged fast and loose. So what was it about his comments to D Magazine (“101 Dining Secrets,”’ February) that bugged Mansion managing director Jeff Trigger?

Apparently Trigger objected to his maitre d’ keeping up with Mansion regulars in the obituaries. Likewise, Broadwell’s response to “Does a $100 bill get you a table?” (“A hundred-dollar bill…reprioritizes everything.”)

Trigger suspended Broadwell at the end of a long, often contentious meeting Broadwell secretly taped. ’There’s no way that one thing like this is going to cost anyone their job,” Trigger told him. Two days later. Broadwell heard from the chef at Anzu who’d heard from a waiter at Parigi that he had been fired.

Incensed, Broadwell met with Trigger the next day. He was then asked to resign. “I’ll show you what pushed him over the edge,” Broadwell says, flipping to the D story and pointing to the headline, “Who’s In Charge.”

Trigger’s response is straight out of the company handbook. “We don’t comment publicly about personnel actions,” he says, adding, “no one is ever hired or fired without cause.”

Now That They’ve Pooled Their Resources, Maybe They Can Afford A Writer



POLITICAL ADVERTISING IS A tricky and expensive business, keeping the voters’ interest without sacrificing integrity. So it made sense for Texas Representatives Sam Johnson and Kay Granger, from Dallas and Fort Worth, respectively, to produce co-op radio spots that allow them to yak it up at only half the cost. They share a friendship, share views on a number of issues, so why not share air time? As to who penned the ads, it was a communal effort by Granger^JOimson^heir chiefs of staff, and their consultants. Granger’s chief of staff, Ken Mehlman, says a lot of reworking was done in the studio. Asampling of the scripted material:

Sam: Kay, the IRS is broke. Let’s fix it.

Kay: You’re right Sam. The IRS is inefficient and abusive. It’s got to stop.

Sam: That’s right, Kay. It’s high time the Congress did something about it.



Sam: Kay. did you know that right now taxpayers are presumed guilty if taken to court by the IRS?

Kay: Sam, did you say guilty?

Sam: Yes, guilty. That’s not the American way.



Sam: Let’s get to work and ge it done, Kay.

Kay: My pencil’s already sharpened, Sam. America’s best days are yet to come.

On the Bookshelf

Dalias authors Don and Susan Sanders trace the magic and memories of drive-in theaters, a project inspired by numerous road trips and revisited nostalgia.

Drive-in history is in Dallas’ backyard, notably with the erstwhile Gemini Theater (pictured here). Now the site of an AutoNation USA at Central Expressway and Forest Lane, the Gemini drew Frankie Avalon for the opening in 1965 with Beach Blanket Bingo and John Wayne and Glen Campbell when True Grit opened in 1969.

The American Drive-in Movie Theater is available through Motorbooks International.

The Hunt for the Egg Man

Which Dallasite owns a rare and valuable Fabergé egg’;



SOURCES SAY AN UNKNOWN DALLAS man owns the Diamond Trellis Imperial Easter Egg, one of the famous 50 Fabergé eggs and undoubtedly worth millions. A hard-boiled D reporter scrambles to crack the case.

First, a call to Lynette Proler, an antique dealer and co-author of The Fabergé Imperial Easter Eggs, who recently moved to Dallas. She knows who the owners are, but she won’t tell-“not even if you torture me,” she says. “The world of Fabergé is based on trust.”

Next stop: Kip Forbes, of Forbes Magazine Collection, which owns nine eggs. “I heard the Diamond Trellis was owned by an American,” Forbes tells us, “but I don’t know who. It was last owned by a dealer in London.”

Namely, Kenneth Snowman-a Bond Street, internationally renowned antique dealer. His assistant snaps,”Ouroffice can’t confirm or deny anything. Our dealings are com-pleeete-ly confidential.”

Next try; Charles Venable, decorative arts director at the Dallas Museum of Art. He says he’s clueless, “but if there is anyone who knows, it’s Robert Whiteside.”

Whiteside, a Dallas jeweler who makes Fabergé look-alikes, is shocked: “You mean to tell me that someone in Dallas had enough taste to buy one of these?”

Whiteside hands over a book with the Diamond Trellis on the cover and the name Ulla Tillander-Godeheilm of Helsinki, Finland, on the inside. She calls the Stockholm National Museum, where the egg was last seen in a summer exhibit, but the curators there are no help. “They kept saying ’he,’ so we now know that we are dealing with a man,” reports Godeheilm.

It seems not even the mystery man knew what he had until Proler started research for her book. About a month after her assistant called Mr. X for a photo of it, the egg curiously showed up at Christie’s in London to be appraised.

DEEP ELLUM BUSINESS BLUES

Following fads and trends in music and entertainment Is hard work, and only the strong survive. Witness the number of recent closings in Deep Ellum, where dance clubs are like flavors of the month and two-year-old bars become Institutions. Map locations are approximate.

Whatever happened to… the “Friendly Rapist”?

GUY MARBLE JR. DIDN’T FIT THE description of a serial criminal. A well-groomed, high-paid PR executive by day and a masked attacker by night, Marble eventually admitted to raping, usually at knifepoint, more than 40 Dallas women.

On Valentine’s Day 1977, he was caught and a year later sentenced to 60 years in prison. Prosecutors charged him with burglary to get a harsher sentence-even though Marble rarely stole anything more than milk and juice from his victim’s refrigerators.

Twenty-one years later. Marble is weeks away from being a free man due to good behavior behind bars, waiting out his days at a pre-release center in Overton, Texas. Come May 26, Marble, 51, will have no parole officer, no mandatory supervision. And there’s no telling where he’ll go after he’s handed his $100 and a set of “free world” clothes.

Marble refused repeated requests for an interview, but prisons spokesperson David Nunnelee-Marble’s supervisor for 13 years while Marble edited the prison newspaper-says Marble “hasn’t changed all that much” other than aging. So where will Marble go now? “Nat Dallas,” says a confident Nunnelee. “He’s said that many times.”

YESTERDAY



The Cracker and Hot Sauce League

DALLAS ’ FIRST PRO BASEBALL team in 1888 was called simply the “Dallas club” until a Texarkana sports-writer referred to them snidely as the “Hams,” a term meant not so much to note the thickness of their shoulders, but their heads.

In late March, the Hams prepared for the Texas League season with an exhibition at Oak Cliff Park in the Trinity river bottoms against the mighty Cincinnati Red Stockings of the National League. The big-leaguers crushed the neophytes 21-3, but Hams pitcher Lefty Whittaker, who was touched for 27 hits, is said to have pitched valiantly considering the 21 errors committed by his teammates.

The Hams were much more competitive in the six-team Texas League race, until the local operators ran out of money.

During the last few days of the season. which ended six weeks early, the players lived off of crackers and hot sauce provided for guests in the hotel dining room. When questioned about the Hams’ losing streak, left-fielder J.J. Fogerty gruffly remarked that there was nothing wrong with the team that a big bowl of boiled potatoes wouldn’t cure. The Hams still wound up with the best win-loss record, but San Antonio claimed a co-championship. They were the only other team to finish the season.

CELEBRITY SCORECARD

Voltaire said, “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” The same can be said of celebrities, and Dallas Morning News columnists Alan Peppard and Helen Bryant have done their part in creating local luminaries. Their bold-faced mentions are the best way to keep score of the winners and losers of Dallas’ favorite pastime-high society.

SOURCE THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS ALL NUMBERS GATHERED FROM NUMBER OF ARTICLES INDIVIDUAL IS MENTIONED IN ’997 NOT INDIVIDUAL NUMBER OF MENTIONS

FOR THE RECORD



THAT’S WHY THEY’RE CALLED SNEAKERS

“I don’t know how you get rid of 4,800 shoes in one area without getting caught.”

FBI Agent Cal Sieg. after new, unreleased Nike Air Jordans were stolen from South Dallas and apparently ended up in Louisiana.



NOT SLOW ENOUGH

“You need to go a little slower. I think [the jurors] are trying to keep up.”

Diane Zamora’s instruetions to her defense attorney John Linebarger during her capital murder trial.



CRITTERS, ON THE OTHER HAND, MIGHT HAVE CAUSE FOR CONCERN

“We only have one confirmed mutilation. We don’t have anepidemic or anything…. We don’t want people to panic.”

Highland Village police chief Don Franklin, after a rabbit was discovered, adding to the four cats, dog, and chicken found mutilated over a period of several months.



ANCIENT CEMENT-ARY “His imagination just got away from him.”

Harold Moore, former employee of Monray Roof Tile Co., aka Monier Lifetile Co.. after the News reported Jesse Rincon had discovered gravestones behind his Irving home. The six concrete tiles with the names Monier and Monray were, in fact, roof tiles.



Expecting Company

According to figures from PKF Consulting, the Dallas-Fort Worth area can anticipate almost 40 new hotels to open in 1998, totaling more than 5,600 rooms. And an additional 25 hotels and more than 3,400 rooms are slated for development sometime in the future.