Village Interviews: Adele Mailer

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 21
at 7:30 PM

Dear Friends:

Since everyone else is capitalizing on the death of Norman Mailer, whom I finally had a chance to meet formally last year, I too will take a stab at him (figuratively speaking, of course).

This Wednesday, November 21, at 7:30 PM, on my shoestring cable show Famousx2, on Channel 67, I am re-airing the second of three half-hour programs of interviews I did with Adele Mailer, actress and former wife of Norman Mailer, in 1997.

Adele is, unfortunately, best known for having been stabbed by Norman. However, she is more than that. Originally of Bay Ridge and of Peruvian/Spanish ancestry, Adele Morales Mailer stunned her family by moving to the Village in the mid-40s, where she had affairs with Village Voice founder Ed Fancher, Jack Kerouac and Phillip Roth. Then came Mailer.

This program is one of my all time favorites, one in which everything I was recording unfolded perfectly. It begins with her in front of the the site of the cold-water flat where she lived on 16th Street the night she got a call late at night from another Voice founder, Dan Wolf, who put her on the phone with Mailer, who insisted on meeting her immediately. She tells the story of their meeting and sleeping together the first night they met.

Then we move to the site of where she lived on 2nd Avenue and Houston Street, coincidentally the same building where I had house sat one summer in the 80s, and where Kenneth Koch lived downstairs from them at the time. Adele talks about Norman's illegally tearing down a wall of the apartment. We run into the super of the building, whom I remembered from my stay, who, it turns out, was a drinking buddy of Norman's in the70s.

Then we move to the site on Perry Street of where Adele and Norman lived in the late 50s, when his drug taking and drinking got the better of him. While we are in front of the house, the couple who lived there in 97 emerge and invite us into the apartment, where Adele remembers parties, some very wild, and other events that took place there. Again, coincidentally, it turns out the couple are good friends of Adele's first lover, Ed Fancher.

Finally, Adele talks about her mixed feelings about Norman Mailer, the man she lived with for ten years, and the man who fathered her two children and the man who nearly killed her by stabbing her in a drug/alcohol infused rage. Though she is resentful of him for many things, she admits that she learned a lot from him and that a part of her still loves him.

This is a great interview with a fascinating and engaging woman. Don't miss it! If you are in Manhattan and have access to Time Warner, you can see it this Wednesday November 21st, at7:30 pm (EST-that's NYC Eastern Standard Time) on channel 67. On the RCN system, that should be in channel 85. If you are outside of Manhattan, anywhere in the world, and you have a good high-speed connection on your computer, you can go to http://www.mnn.org and click on channel 67 to see it at the same time. Sometimes MNN does screw up broadcasts, but usually they air things without too many problems.....so be patient.

Best,
Jason Howard