Don and Al Hirschfeld
This is Al Hirschfeld’s caricature of Don for an exhibiton of Don’s work at the Museum of the City of New York in 1940.
Don and Al must have been pretty wild buddies together. Recently, the curator of Al Hirschfeld works, David Leopold, told me a story that I had never known. On the special night to inaugurate the opening of the Radio City Music Hall, they snuck in backstage and mingled with everybody getting ready in and under the main stage. Don was exhausted and decided to take a nap before the opening. He stretched out on a piano bench and went to sleep. A while later, he woke up and looked around – where was Al? Don could not see him anywhere. Suddenly he felt as is if the piano stool was moving upwards! What was happening was that the inauguration show was beginning and the piano and stool were being raised onto the main stage where the curtain was opening for the whole audience to see. And there was Don on stage in the middle of the opening! So he really got to see the opening – but not the way he had planned!
