Summerguide 2010
New York’s got its famous heights and bright lights. L.A. has its balmy breezes and buff bods. And Maine? We’ve got the X factor that keeps ‘em coming back for more.
Compiled by Michelle Susan Twomey
 “I was 15 when I came to Portland Stage…That time of life can be challenging for a young actress; you’re feeling physically awkward and unsure of yourself generally. I was so lucky to be a part of that company, including Cotter Smith, Mary McDonnell, and David Florek, with Barbara Rosoff directing. They watched over me, and it gave me a safe place to learn about the craft.
I’d love to come back and perform at Portland Stage again, especially if there is a new play to work on. I loved the city then and still do; even though it was cold. It was a very special time, being on my own. The houses, the streets, the restaurants, the muffins.” –Sarah Jessica Parker, telling us about one of the first times she was allowed to go on an acting gig on her own, starring in Paula Cizmar’s Death of a Miner at Portland Stage Co. in 1982 “We were driving the coast, so to speak, I think maybe in a station wagon. [John] fell in love with…Maine. We talked excitedly in the car. We were looking for a house on the water. We did examine the place! We kept driving north along the water until I don’t really remember the name of the town. We went quite a ways up, actually, because it was so…beautiful. Exactly. It’s a beautiful, beautiful place, clean water and air.” –Yoko Ono, speaking to us about the time she and John Lennon spent searching for a summer home in Maine, with each oceanfront house more beautiful than the last “I visited Maine a few times during the years I was with the Eileen Ford Model Agency in New York. Several of us models who became friends would drive to [your] beautiful state to ski. We loved it. My most recent visit was for the opening of the PowerPay building, which is just awesome. Looking around, my first thought was, ‘The lions from the Shambala Preserve [shambala.org], which I founded in 1983, would have a great time here.’ I kept picturing them racing around, hanging out by the windows and on the stairs. I was there to support my friend Stephen Goodrich, who has done wonderful things for the people of Portland. The weather was perfect. We stayed at Portland Harbor Hotel, which is absolutely charming, and we had dinner at that church [Grace], where I had the most delicious lobster. One morning we were having breakfast outside on the wharf and this gull landed right on our table and proceeded to empty all the sugar packets! I wasn’t bothered at all; he was very friendly and very smart. They learn their tricks well!” The Girl in the wildly popular Dragon Tattoo, whose antisocial behavior drives the movie, shares a backstory with Hedren’s Marnie (1964). Both title characters kill their mother’s abuser in childhood, and both suffer a painful reunion with their ill parent after a long estrangement. Of course, Tippi would never be caught dead in combat boots. “She and her sister teased me and called me ‘Miss Zero’ all that fall weekend…She did tell me, ‘I’ll be writing a new book,’ so it’s really exciting to think she was here with Paradise in her head.” –Isabelle Smiles, former owner of the Pomegranate Inn, on Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison’s brief stay in the West End “It’s exciting to be back at Hadlock. Unfortunately, not for this particular reason. It’s nice to see familiar faces.” –Red Sox slugger Jacoby Ellsbury during a rehab stint with the Portland Sea Dogs this season that conjured memories of his Bull Durham days here when he loved to hang out with pals at…Bingas Wingas “He is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met,” Inn on Carleton owner Philip Cox says of 30 Rock star Alec Baldwin. “He got in very late, sat right down at the bar, and talked with us like we were his family. He asked for some apple pie and a glass a milk, but we didn’t have any, so I offered to go to the market and buy him some. But if it wasn’t homemade, he wasn’t interested.” –On Alec Baldwin’s stay at the West End’s Inn on Carleton
“I love Maine in the winter, and I love ice fishing, so it was the perfect marriage.” –Willem Dafoe on the getaway retreat he owns on Thompson Lake “Our time in Maine is special. It’s our retreat in the summers. I arrive and become inspired to bake pies and make jam.” –Kelly Preston, 47 and newly pregnant, about the retreat she shares with husband John Travolta in Islesboro “One day, I really felt like Maine lobster–hadn’t had it in forever. We walked and walked and walked. I can’t remember the name of the café, but it was right on the water, a funny little place. I ate an entire lobster! Jeffrey says he’s never seen me devour anything like that, with melted butter…Even now, just thinking about it, oh, God! I could die.” –Eva Marie Saint, star of Elia Kazan’s On The Waterfront and Hitchcock’s North By Northwest, on visiting Perkins Cove while performing at Ogunquit Playhouse |
Doing Lunch with F. Lee Bailey
Four women walk into a bar with F. Lee Bailey…No, this isn’t a lawyer joke. It’s just another day on the coast of Maine.
Interview by Michelle Susan Twomey
You seem pretty comfortable here [at Royal River Grillhouse in Yarmouth, with views of the Royal River]. When was your first trip to Maine?
I would have trouble testifying to that because I was about six months old or younger. But I can remember being here when I was three–in the summer of 1936. My grandfather owned a modest home on Princess Point in Yarmouth. I learned to swim here in 55-degree water. In fact, I once swam to Cousins Island from Princess Point, a big feat back then. [For a Google Earth graphic of Bailey’s swim, visit portlandmonthly.com/swim.]
Your 15 minutes of Maine?
When I was eight, I strapped a bunch of pine logs together and built my first ‘boat.’ I remember being out on the water with a pole. Not long after that, I began building boats.
How many boats have you worked on?
I used to own a good chunk of Chris-Craft, so that would drive the number way up. But over the years, I’ve built five or six from scratch or rehabilitated to new.
Do you own a house in Maine right now?
I’m renting one I hope to buy. I plan to buy it.
Your ideal home here?
At least two sides would be on the water, with plenty of glass and something that looked like a control tower on the top that I could use as a study and see in all directions. I’d have a heliport adjacent to the house with a hangar so I could slide my helicopter in when I’m not using it so it wouldn’t be far away.
Yes, people associate you with helicopters almost as readily as they do clients such as Patty Hearst, O.J. Simpson, Lt. William Calley, and the Boston Strangler. How did the whole flying thing get started?
The first time I ever flew in my life was in Maine, when I was 16. I got a ride for seven dollars in York on the fourth of July. My next flight was on Eastern Airlines to go to Naval flight training in Pensacola. I was 18 then. The draft board was not pleased with my record at Harvard and threatened to induct me into the Army. To escape that, I joined the Navy and got into flight school.
Regarding helicopters, I fly them and have built 500 of them. They’re more fun than airplanes, which are sometimes fun but business tools to me.
Which brings us to your recent proposal for a business venture at the soon-to-close Brunswick Naval Air Station complex–an aircraft refurbishment concern which has apparently stalled.
Two things. We were trying to enlarge upon an existing operation in Oxford, Maine, which did refurbishment for smaller airplanes. Oxford Aviation made an application and got a memorandum of understanding. We began to crank up. We got both senators to try to get the Navy to let us come into Brunswick Naval Air Station early–no dice.
When it turned out Oxford Aviation didn’t have the financial wherewithal to meet the demands of the authority that controls [such matters], I went out and raised the money.
Then two things happened. First, the Navy moved the date again. You can’t take on work or hire people unless you know when you can begin to pay them.
In our view, the Navy was saying it might be September or it might be next March (which is troubling). But I did bring an investor in to put up the bulk of the money to open a Brunswick operation, which would be associated with, but not owned by, Oxford. And the day he was here, being shown around, a couple of town councilors in Brunswick gave quite uninformed interviews expressing the doubts they had about Oxford Aviation. He took one look at that and said, “If you think I’m here to fight the locals, you’re wrong…” He left the next day. So I pulled out.
At least for the time being, that deal is closed. And it’s too bad. There was potential there for a lot of jobs.
That said, what keeps you up here?
I’ve done a fair amount of writing in Maine, on other people’s boats. I’d fly to Bar Harbor or Wiscasset and board somebody else’s boat and co-captain it with them. When I wasn’t at the helm, it was a very productive place to write: no telephones, no people breaking in, looking for this or that. I wrote a very lengthy piece on the cross-examination of Mark Fuhrman after the trial was over, and I wrote most of it on the coast of Maine. I think it’s a very good place to write. I know Stephen King would agree. It’s a rough, sometimes brutal, but ultimately charming environment. I’m not a fan of the interior. If there’s not some salt water within distance, that’s not really Maine to me. I insist on the coast.
Surely people must ask you to discuss similarities you may or may not share with William Shatner’s character in Boston Legal.
I don’t find that to be flattering–a womanizing, overweight drunk. And a clown. The real star of the show is very bright and one of the most articulate people to ever play a lawyer: James Spader.
What’s your connection with Cold River Vodka? We’ve seen pictures of you in there.
I’m not a big drinker of vodka, but I have two connections with them. When I organized an 85th birthday party for one of my dear friends, a very famous pilot named Bob Hoover, I got Cold River to bottle up a couple of cases (more like six) of vodka, and I had the bottles engraved with his likeness for a commemorative gift. And for my 75th birthday, Jim Horowitz of Oxford Aviation did the same for me. So, I have a very nice box made of teak and other woods that had in it a dozen bottles of Cold River with my likeness on it.
Do you enjoy many favorite watering holes/restaurants in the area?
Yes, thanks to Debbie [Elliott, former owner of Debbie Elliott Salon & Day Spa] and my circle of friends in the last year and a half. There are a number of favorites. I like Back Bay Grill, both the Old Port and Falmouth Sea Grills, DiMillo’s, J’s. Harbor Fish is a wonderful place to be.
How about Freeport?
The Broad Arrow at the Harraseeket. I have friends who live nearby, so they help me haunt the place. We meet there a lot. We deplete their wine supply.
Have you ever considered applying for a license to practice law in Maine?
I’ve thought about it. I’m not really terribly motivated. What I want to do doesn’t involve a license. What I want to do is to make litigation services available to people who can’t afford it, which is about 95 percent of the people in Maine. And I’m talking civil cases, strictly.
I’ve spent the last ten years in mediation, consulting, and dispute resolution, and I think I’ve found ways to structure a contract so that the resolution is built right in. It’s simple. It’s inexpensive. It’s immediate. So the contract doesn’t get interrupted while a bunch of lawyers try to figure out what to do to interrupt it further.
A lot of people could use this. Maine is certainly on its backside with unemployment, having trouble being pictured as being industry-friendly. It’s often compared to New Hampshire next door, which seems paradise by comparison in terms of tax structure. There are reasons the two shouldn’t be compared. But when people do come to Maine, if they could be assured of getting their jobs done without being interrupted or bogged down with totally destructive legal costs, I think they’d find the state more palatable.
How could you pull this off?
It doesn’t take any action by anybody. It just takes a bunch of good retired judges to act as mediators, and people willing to agree that whatever the judge says is final–that’s it, no appeals.
In Russia, I found–to my surprise–that if one of the parties breaches the contract, [that party] has to finish the contract and then sue. You cannot interrupt a work in progress. We’d walked off a job in protest that the guy who hired us was changing the rules. Even though it cost us heavily, I think that’s a good idea. Don’t interrupt the project; get your dispute on the table and have somebody decide [the legal issue concurrently] before it grows any bigger. That is the result of fifty-odd years of watching people litigate with one another. Nobody’s ever happy.
Which brings us to your guardrail swipe in Freeport.
I’ll tell you exactly what happened. I shouldn’t have been driving in that respect. My brother was dying of a fairly fast-moving cancer that had gone from the bladder to the lungs to the liver to the brain, and I was not getting much sleep as a result of that. I stayed overnight in York, drove up for an appointment in Brunswick the following morning, and dozed at the wheel just long enough to lose control of the car. I sideswiped the guardrail. I hope it didn’t damage the property of the state of Maine too much. Then I continued on to the meeting.
Let’s put it this way. They haven’t sued me, and I hope they don’t.
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