SSQQ - Key Persons
Mr. Chidsey was the founder of Saint John's School back in 1946. He became the first Headmaster. Mr. Chidsey was a fixture at Saint John's for eight of the nine years I attended. He retired at the start of my Senior year.
I got to know Mr. Chidsey very well in the Eighth grade. He taught a very unique history class known as Bible History. Mr. Chidsey really loved this material. In fact, Mr. Chidsey had even gone to the trouble of writing the textbook himself. He did a good job too. I practically memorized that book.
Since I had been raised a Quaker, I knew nothing about the Bible. We spent absolutely no time in Quaker Meeting studying the Bible. So my attitude was who cares about the Bible? I went into this mandatory course assuming I was going to hate the class.
To my surprise and delight, I loved this class. I couldn't believe Bible History was so interesting! I was instantly taken with the Land of Israel. Poor Israel!! The Jews were always being conquered by someone. It seemed like every single ancient dynasty took turns subjugating the people of this important land... Persians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Philistines, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans.
So did you guess An Affair to Remember (1957)? Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr play their parts to perfection as two people who meet on a cruise ship and find themselves irresistibly attracted to one another (even though they are both engaged to others). Deborah Kerr keeps Grant at arms length by assuming his reputation as a lady's man is well-deserved. However she begins to fall in love with him when Grant invites her to meet his aged grandmother at her villa on the French Riviera. This is when Kerr realizes how kind he really is.
Throughout the early part of his dance career, Rick did a lot of scrambling. Rick had practically no formal dance training to rely on. As his students learned what little Rick knew, they begged him to teach follow-up dance classes. Rick was very ambitious and more than willing to offer new classes. But there was one major problem - he had a bad habit of offering to teach new classes before he had enough material to teach.
His first year of teaching dance - 1978 - was one heck of a rough year. This was Rick's "fake it till you make it" year.
Job Titles:
- and PRINCESS DI - the STORY BEHIND the FAIRY TALE
Except Grace had the added cachet of Hollywood glamour -she had an Oscar. And she was well-mannered in an era in which stars never appeared in public without underwear and princesses never blabbed to the media. Princess Grace was an elegant woman who carried herself with extreme dignity. Grace was invaluable to her husband; she did much to help shift the international perception of Monaco as a "sunny place for shady people" to the financially successful tourist mecca it is today. The success and respectability of modern Monaco owes much to the auspices of Princess Grace.
Apparently the lives of these two famous women crossed two times in the space of a year. In March 1981, Grace was in London for a poetry reading party to which Prince Charles had been invited. Recently his engagement to Diana had just been announced; this would be Lady Di's first public appearance since the announcement. .
Diana showed up in a low-cut dress two sizes two small. Her breasts were barely contained. The sight of her struggling to get out of the car in that dress had driven the media into a frenzy. This was Diana's first real taste of what it was going to be like. She was a nervous wreck.
Diana's panic was still evident at a reception after the reading at Buckingham Palace. It was then that Grace asked the young Diana if she would accompany her and her aide Gwen Robyns to the ladies room for a chat. Gwen Robyns later reported that while Diana was touching up her make-up standing in front of the mirror, she burst into tears.
"The dress Diana was wearing was so revealing, she explained, because it was two sizes too small; the intended outfit had not arrived in time - an unnerving situation to occur for her first formal appearance. Diana also said she now realized more than ever how unbearable it would be to have so many people jostling for her attention, asking questions, not only of her but of anyone who knew her. She saw a life totally devoid of privacy. She was frightened. She asked Princess Grace, "What can I do?"
Diana was certainly asking the right woman for advice. At this point Diana seemed to shrivel under the spotlight's glare. Not Grace. Grace had always known how to use her celebrity to her advantage. No matter how troubled her private life, once the spotlight shone upon her, the former Grace Patricia Kelly transformed into Her Serene Highness - the greatest role of her life."
Maria Ballantyne is the story of Rick's Senior Year in high school and the curious incident that snapped him out of a deep depression.
Mr. Curran was my favorite teacher of all time. I had had him for Seventh grade Math, Ninth Grade English, and Twelfth grade English.
Mr. Curran noticed how much I enjoyed writing. He was always encouraging me. In an attempt to sharpen my skills, he would to write voluminous amounts of suggestions in the margins of each paper on ways I could improve. I can still remember the constant presence of "too wordy", his favorite phase. Oh well, at least he tried...
Mr. Curran went a lot further than that. He knew how much trouble I was having in my personal life. He tried hard to make me feel better. One day he went so far as to invite me to breakfast on a Saturday morning. I told him I had Detention Hall that day. Mr. Curran smiled. He knew full well I was notorious for getting into trouble.
He said, "Why I am not surprised? You know, it wouldn't kill you to get a haircut." Then he added, "Fine, how about we make it lunch instead?"
I met Mr. Curran at a coffee shop that day. As we waited for our order, Mr. Curran said he wanted to tell me something. Mr. Curran said he had never had a student before who tried as hard as I did to write well. He said he had other students with similar talent, but he was impressed at how hard I tried to improve. Mr. Curran wanted me to know how proud he was of my hard work.
Considering I no longer had a real father, I was overwhelmed by his praise. His words made me cry. A lot. I was pretty embarrassed. Poor Mr. Curran had to sit there watching me turn our booth into a small swimming pool. Imagine how he felt.
It was a true blessing that I had Mr. Curran for English in my Senior year. Despite a terrible case of senioritis burn-out that had affected my work in Chemistry, German, and Calculus, I found I had a surprising vein of energy left for English. In my final month at the school, I wrote a twenty page Senior Thesis on The Graduate.
The Graduate, of course, was the hot movie of the year that had all the Seniors buzzing. I discovered the movie had been taken from a lame 50-page paperback book. I didn't care that it was a light-weight book. I wanted to write about The Graduate! Mr. Curran had been thinking more along the lines of Heart of Darkness or Wuthering Heights, but, thanks to my passion, he decided to humor me.
One side benefit of my work was the opportunity to visit Mr. Curran at his home on a couple of occasions to go over my progress. He was always such a friend to me. Invariably our Saturday morning conversations would turn to my voluminous problems at home. Just knowing someone cared about me made all the difference in the world during my difficult final year in high school.
As for the thesis, I doubt my work was particularly good, but I will say I really threw myself into it. Mr. Curran had asked for ten pages; I gave him twenty. Mr. Curran offered a sly compliment. He said it was obvious that I had tried harder than any other classmate on my Senior project. I think that was his gentle way of saying that I could have been more concise. I am sure readers of my story will smile and agree Mr. Curran probably had a point there.
Mr. Curran was not the only instructor who showed me kindness. Many of my teachers treated me like a friend well beyond the expected student-teacher role. As a result, I developed a great affection for them. To the people at Saint John's who preferred to order me around, I would bristle and talk back, but to the teachers who showed concern for me, I was the best student they ever had.
Prince Rainier of Monaco headed the House of Grimaldi, Europe's longest-ruling princely family (established 1297). Though his domain was just 370 acres-smaller than the back lot at Kelly's studio, MGM-it had space enough for his 200-room pink palace and his private zoo. And room as well for the lightly faded Monte-Carlo Casino, which still pumped out sufficient revenue so that none of his 20,000 subjects paid any personal income tax. Monaco was popular mostly as a tax haven for assorted ex-patriots who made too much money to live in their own country. But under the terms of an old treaty, if Rainier died without an heir, they would all become citizens and taxpayers of France.
Known as the wealthiest bachelor in the world, Prince Rainier had broke n off plans to marry a girlfriend, French actress Giséle Pascal, because she was infertile (a curious conclusion since she later had children). Now it was time for Plan B. Rainier, 31, had decided to begin searching for a suitable bride. From Rainier's point of view, clearly, looks were a priority. En route once to the U.S., he described to reporters his ideal woman: "I see her with long hair floating in the wind, the color of autumn leaves. Her eyes are blue or violet, with flecks of gold." From his side of the Atlantic, Rainier saw in Kelly a woman who might bring not only heirs, but a touch of glamour to revive his entire domain.
Despite her initial indifference during the Paris Match photo shoot, the golden-haired, blue-eyed Kelly's first meeting with Rainier went well. "I think he's very charming," she told Aumont. After returning to the States, she and the Prince began a correspondence that was avidly pushed along by Father Francis Tucker, the American priest who was Rainier's closest aide and chief talent scout for eligible Catholic girls.
From Kelly's point of view, aside from his title and a degree of swarthy good looks, Rainier III also had a certain Gallic charm, not to mention the sort of confidence that came from being raised in an atmosphere of total deference. Whatever it was, it worked on Kelly. For a woman whose well-guarded love life had been endlessly complicated by the insecurity of actors, and one whose future career depended on her developing the same insecurities - frowning into mirrors to count each new line appearing in her face - she left Monaco on the fateful day they met with a possible escape route already forming in her mind.
Kelly had already been through Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Ray Milland and William Holden, as well as the Shah of Iran and the fashion designer Oleg Cassini, whom she had come close to marrying. Her taste in men horrified her father, Jack Kelly, an Irish-American bricklayer turned millionaire builder. Her younger brother once complained, "I don't generally approve of these oddballs. I wish she would go out with the more athletic type."
But by the time she and Rainier met, it may have required nothing less than a prince to equal Kelly's celebrity. "I don't want to be married to someone who feels belittled by my success," she once said. "I couldn't bear walking into a restaurant and hearing the maitre d' refer to my husband as Mr. Kelly."
After she returned to Hollywood to film The Swan (in which she would play a young woman betrothed to a prince!), Kelly initiated a correspondence with her new royal admirer that paved the way. Their second meeting was a dinner date and a meeting with Grace's family seven months later.
When Rainier visited the US that December 1955 - ostensibly on a State Visit - rumors were already afloat that he was shopping for a wife. The common knowledge of his need to produce an heir made it obvious that Rainier was under pressure to something about it. Consequently Rainier's every move was subjected to intense scrutiny. The 32-year-old Prince was coy whenever asked about his matrimonial aspirations, despite the fact that the gossip columns were fairly oozing with innuendo that his real purpose for the visit was dynastic rather than diplomatic. Under the terms of a treaty signed by both France and Monaco in 1918, were he to die without an heir, then his country (along with its tax-free status) would revert to French control! Seeing as the Grimaldis had been squatting on that rocky hillside since 1297, Rainier had no intention of being remembered by history as the one who ha d relinquished it.
It was during the December state visit that Rainier met his future in-laws. He proposed during this visit. Rainier's proposal struck Kelly as more a business deal than anything else. However, it was a role she wanted to play, so she accepted.
Shortly after that their formal engagement was announced. On April 4th, 1956, Grace Kelly sailed from New York City's Pier 84 on board the SS Constitution with 70 members of her family and friends - all paid for by Grace's father Jack Kelly who, thanks to Monaco and MGM, was relieved of his fatherly obligation to pay for the wedding. The ship arrived eight days later, where it was greeted by most of Monaco's 23,000 inhabitants, not to mention a sizable flotilla of pleasure craft, most of them bearing members of the European media. Since the Constitution was too large to dock there, it was greeted at the mouth of the harbour by the Princes' yacht Deo Juvante II, a wedding present bestowed on him by the erstwhile Aristotle Onassis.
"Their relationship was both rational and passionate," says Rita Gam, a Kelly bridesmaid who remained one of her closest friends. "I love his eyes," Kelly gushed. "I could look into them for hours." When Rainier gave her an immense diamond engagement ring, she flaunted it on camera in her last Hollywood film, High Society. Their wedding week in April 1956 brought them even closer. In the words of one of her biographers, Robert Lacey, it became "the first modern event to generate media overkill."
Monaco swarmed with reporters who would have been even more excited if they had known how worried Kelly was about the medical examination demanded by the Grimaldis to determine whether she could bear children-because it would also show that she was not a virgin. (As it turned out, the matter was discreetly passed over.)
Having already been dubbed The Wedding of the Century, this was a title it would hold securely until a rival in July 1981 would surpass it. The wedding of Rainier and Grace was actually two weddings; the first, held the day before the big event, was a civil ceremony attended by eighty guests in the throne room of the palace, at which Grace wore a dress of rose pink taffeta and Alençon lace, designed by the head of MGM's costume department Helen Rose. Following the somb er affair a luncheon was held at the royal palace. After that there was a garden party on the palace grounds for 3,000 guests.
Rick Archer was born in Pennsylvania in 1949. He was the only child of OJ and Mary Archer. Rick's father was trained as an electrical engineer. His father was transferred to Houston in 1955.
1955 wasn't a very good year for Rick. Shortly before the move, Rick cut out his left eye with a knife. It was his own fault. Although having only one eye was never a major handicap, it did prevent him from participating in sports throughout his school years (a major regret).
Rick's parents had a rocky marriage to say the least. They sought the help of a psychiatrist. One day Rick's mother complained that her son was at best an average student in elementary school. Worried that her son had a learning disability, she asked the psychiatrist to have Rick tested. The psychiatrist reported back that Rick was actually a pretty smart kid, but full of anger and bored out of his wits in public school. "Idle hands are the devil's workshop."
The psychiatrist recommended sending Rick to a private school. The idea was that a strong challenge was exactly what the boy needed. That is how Rick ended up at Saint John's School as part of the divorce settlement between his parents in 1959.
Rick's time at SJS turned out to be a remarkable stroke of fortune. Saint John's not only gave the young man an excellent education during his nine years there, they also helped him stay focused despite all his problems at home. Thanks to a good school and a lot of hard work, Rick was accepted at Johns Hopkins University, a well-known Eastern university. He received a BA in Social Sciences from Hopkins in 1972.
Recalling how the psychiatrist had been so instrumental in his own life, after college, Rick decided to become a clinical psychologist. He was accepted as a graduate stuent at Colorado State University in 19 73.
Unfortunately (or 'fortunately' depending on your point of view), Rick was unceremoniously dismissed from the program after only one year. He was told his personality was far too aggressive to make it as a therapist... so he was sent packing. It was a devastating blow.