The CBS Television studios occupied a full city block near the Hudson River in New York City. Inside the open main floor, the sets for the network of television shows, including news, serials, and musical variety were pushed, rolled, wheeled, and shoved into position on islands mounted on wheels. From the fly space overhead, electric cables that provided power were looped and draped from an overhead grid to accommodate the camera’s movement. Lighting equipment dropped, and flats flew in, to segregate space as a living room turned into a kitchen, only to become a hospital room flipping to a department store, to a news desk anchored by world maps, all within moments.
In the center of the circus was Gloria Monty, the methodical, calm director of theater who took the scripts the writers created and staged the scenes for the cameras. Television wasn’t cinema or Broadway, so Gloria was free to invent her own approach to a new dramatic form that showed no signs of lasting beyond the initial novelty. She did her job by doing what she did best: casting an interesting group of actors, providing them with dramatic scripts, and creating a family atmosphere of support whereby the actor could be daring and experiment. The daytime serial moved so fast that if one scene failed, the next might work. The mission was to keep the story moving and the tension high, which meant the well-drawn character carried the weight of the serial. The woman watching at home began to watch her stories on television just as she had listened to serialized radio plays and read serial stories in her favorite magazines.
For Gloria Monty and other serious theater artists, television was not yet an art form; it was too new to categorize, but it quickly became something the stage was not: a lucrative way to make a living.
*
“There he is! There’s Nicky!” Mabel pointed through the viewing window of the audience room.
“Can we hear what he’s saying?” Uncle Dom asked. “Why can’t we hear anything?”
“Pop, they said we won’t be able to hear anything, we only watch.”
“This isn’t modern. It’s like a silent movie. Why did we come? We could stay home and hear it.”
“He looks so handsome. He’s the most handsome of all,” Aunt Jo raved.
“I didn’t know he had it in him.” Uncle Dom watched as Nicky argued with another character. “I never saw Nicky blow. He lived with us how many years, Jo?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Look at him. He looks like his head is going to pop like a cork.”
“It’s just acting, Pop,” Lena said, and sat down on one of the benches. She was swollen in the last weeks of pregnancy. “It’s all pretend.”
“I bet I could do it,” Gio said.
“You can’t act,” Mabel retorted. “You’re the worst liar there is.”
Gio sniffed. “It doesn’t look that hard to me.”
“It’s very difficult,” Elsa told them. “Nicky has been studying with Miss Monty. He doesn’t come by this naturally.”
“But it sure looks it,” Dominic said, impressed.
“Who’s that tomato he’s with, in the pink suit?” Dom wondered.
“That’s the star of the show,” Lena told him.
“I can see why. She’s got what it takes.”
“How much longer?” Lena whispered to Nino.
“A couple minutes. Don’t you feel well?”
“I’m okay. Just puffy.”
“I keep waving to Nicky. Can he see us?” Aunt Jo wondered.
“No, Ma. They have that special film on the window so we can see out but he can’t see in.”
“What’s happening?”
The set was disassembled in pieces, the lights flew up on the grid, the cameras rolled away, and the island sets rolled off to the side.
“That’s it,” Dominic said.
“That’s the show?” Mabel stood up.
“See the red light? They’re clearing the sets.” Gio pointed.
Nicky navigated through crew on the stage until he made it to the audience viewing room.
The family greeted Nicky with an enthusiastic ovation. “We couldn’t hear a word in this can. But you looked good,” Uncle Dom said proudly.
“You are the best actor on the show,” Aunt Jo raved.
“She says that but if she’s honest, she has a thing for that Joe O’Brien,” Dom groused.
“I do too! He’s from Scranton, you know!” Lena swooned.
“He’s a nice guy,” Nicky said. “How are the babies?” Nicky embraced his cousins.
“Giovanna is sleeping through the night,” Mabel bragged.
“Dominic the third is learning the alphabet,” his father bragged. “Joseph is good with numbers already.”
“Uh oh,” Nicky warned.
“Don’t worry. Uncle Gio hasn’t taught him blackjack.”
“Yet.” Gio laughed.
“Lena, you have a lot to live up to.”
Lena burst into tears. “I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not you, Nicky. I’m crazy, I laugh, I cry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“You’re having a baby—nothing wrong with you. You need to put your feet up. Can you all come over to my place?”
“We would love it,” Aunt Jo said.
“The pictures were gorgeous. You have a rooftop garden.”
“Thanks to the Lucky Strike commercial.”
“They should pay you double—you’ve been smoking them since you were thirteen,” Gio teased.
Gloria entered wearing a chic dress of emerald-green and black brocade. The only indication that she was a director was the headset draped over the pearls around her neck. “So this is your family! I feel like I know you all.”
“Everybody, this is Gloria Monty, the director of the show,” Nicky introduced her.
“Such a wisp,” Uncle Dom commented. “You’re pretty too.”
“She just needs her brain to do her job, Dom,” Aunt Jo chided him.
The Palazzinis surrounded Gloria. They had an instant rapport; she was a New Jersey Italian who understood the South Philly ways. And, of course, she had hired one of their own, which made her one of them too. Nicky fished in his pocket for his pack of cigarettes. He stood back and watched his current life and his old one blend, like whiskey and ice.
“Your family is so Italian, Nick.”
“Is that a compliment?” Dom challenged her.
“It better be. I’m Italian too.”
“We’re running the world,” Dom said proudly.
“Don’t forget the Irish!” Mabel hollered.
“I couldn’t! I married one.” Gloria laughed.
It was only after Nicky moved out of 810 Montrose that he knew for certain how much he was loved. All those years, he believed he was a burden, a bother, an extra mouth to feed, a charity case who went from the trundle bed in Nino’s room to the cot in Gio’s to the room in the basement, where he stayed until the day he left for New York City. All that time, Nicky figured he was the poor relation with a different surname, whose parents had died and left him to rely on the only relatives that would take him in. But Nicky had it all wrong.
Nicky Castone had been a balm to his aunt, a loyal friend to his cousins, a helper to their wives, and a hardworking nephew in his uncle’s business. But out of his own insecurity, and his own need to fit in, to wear the Palazzini uniform and hope that it looked like it fit, he had not claimed his life as his own. All that time, he had never really unpacked but lived out of a suitcase, which in his mind must always be at the ready in case he was asked to leave. Now he knew they had wanted him to stay.