by John
I grew up in Rowayton CT on the Long Island Sound. Rowayton was a town where everyone knew each other unlike Woodstock which is much larger. We had many interesting people living around us some of who were actors. In “Hollywood Comes to Woodstock”, I mentioned Meg Foster who is famous for her very blue eyes. Meg was my sister’s best friend growing up as Meg’s family lived over the stone wall (lining our properties). The thing that stands out in my mind about Meg, who was 5 years younger than me, was that she liked catsup on her sphagetti and rice when she ate at our house. I also recall, she had a very red face as a kid; but things changed after she went to Julliard. The next thing I knew about Meg was that she was on my favorite TV show ”Hawaii Five-O” and other weekly shows. She also played a small role in “All the President’s Men” (1976) with Redford and Hoffman starring as Woodward and Bernstein – the movie about Watergate. However, she only starred in B-movies.
Our other neighbor, Andy Rooney (60 minutes; not an actor but might as well be) actually took me to one of the last baseball Giants games at the Polo Grounds before the Giants moved to San Francisco. As a railroad commuter to NY Andy would play hide and seek with the conductor by hiding in the restroom. His excuse was that he should not have to pay for a train ticket if there was no seat and he would have to stand. This ‘fight’ went on for many years until Andy’s legs gave out.
Then there was Treat Williams who grew up with my brother (seven years younger than me). I always felt that his first major movie “Prince of the City” was a great movie. Funny, it never shows up on TV.
My favorite local actor was Stefan Schnabel (shown in Firefox with Clint Eastwood) who was in many great movies and a very successful Broadway actor (starred in “Plain and Fancy” and “Three Penny Opera”). I organized the Stefan Schnabel ‘fan’ club at my college and when one of his movies was on TV, I would place his signed picture on top of the TV so that all my frat brothers could have a religious experience while watching the movie.
Stefan never missed a moment to have a good scene. Once in downtown Rowayton a mother and her young son with Roy Rogers six-guns passed Stefan on the sidewalk in front of the grocery store which Stefan had just exited with a full bag of groceries. The kid drew his six-guns and started shooting. This triggered Stefan to go into a very serious dying scene with canned goods and vegetables all over the sidewalk. I am sure the kid never recovered from this experience.
One weekend Counterfeit Traitor came to the campus. I announced to my frat brothers the event and then went to the movie with two friends that night. Playing an evil gestapo agent Stefan showed up about half way through the movie trailing William Holden with a vengance. I wispered ”thats him” and several rows back, a large number of my frat brothers stood up and gave Stefan a standing ovation. I had no idea they were there. A few minutes later when Stefan caught up to Holden, a fight ensued in a mausoleum and Holden ended up banging Stefan’s head onto the marble floor by holding onto the hair on both sides of his head. At that point my frat brothers in the back stood up and gave Stefan another standing ovation. The movie won the academy award for best picture that year.
We had a maid, and Stefan would stay at our house when in the US from Switzerland. Stefan would quietly sit in the livingroom to evaluate his performance on ”The Guiding Light” on TV when he played Doctor Jackson for many years. One day Ella May was there too (a devotee of “The Guiding Light”) and she kept repeating “I know that man … I know that man!” … but Stefan never said a word.
For those who don’t know, in Woodstock we have two fine actors, Brian Dennehy and Carol Spinney 
.
Celebrities really like to live in a place where their neighbors don’t tell everyone about that or make a fuss about it.
Taxpayer:
The fact Mr Spinney has chosen a low profile life in Woodstock is his buisness.
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This maybe what you know of him, but as a kid growing up in Woodstock I can remember shows and fundraisers for the Schools and
Fire depts put on by Mr Spinney. Also he has hired countless Woodstock craftsmen/ workmen throughout the years.
If you want to put notoriety on that terrible, tragic event put it on
the liberal court system who let a dangerous felon out of jail.
Db
We have removed taxpayer’s comments under this article and references to them because those comments were heading in a direction that we don’t want to go. In the article above, there was no intent to dredge up the event that took place 4 years ago.
Here are a few more celebs per se – Horace McMahon, another Rowayton actor and his wife (actress Louise Campbell) lived along the Five Mile River/Rowayton Avenue. Wikipedia states he lived in South Norwalk, but actully he lived doors away from Treat Williams in a brown, shingled house with his daughter Kate and son Tom – see links below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_McMahon
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0573024/bio
Do you remember Hal Prince renting the house along Wilson Avenue (the short cut thru Connie Conklin’s yard took you down that driveway). Anyway, he was a big Broadway producer and I am going to assume he discovered Rowayton thru follow Rowaytonites Richard Bissell (author of The Pajama Game) and Richard Griffith/Associate Producer that Broadway play version, plus Damn Yankees – (see links below)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Prince
http://www.ibdb.com/person.php?id=8293
Do you remember a lady that lived on Witch Lane (the end closest to Crest Road) that gave acting lessons? I took some of her classes and now wonder why, guess for the fun of it. I think her last name was Gould?
Loved reading your little story about the actors on the cafe site.
I find this crowing about the famous people you met or lived near more than a bit tacky.
agnostic;
What does it really hurt ? Have you nothing constructive to add ? A little fun, humor, fond memories, personal stories and the not so well published news are enjoyed by many. Be constructive, ignore or move on. Thanks.
The Rowayton actors were all good friends who actively participated in the community. They were uniformly interesting people. Stefan, for one, always enjoyed recognition. And Treat and Meg were just kids before their acting careers took off. Andy was a lot of fun to be around and he brought in all of his news buddies like Cronkite and Reasoner to parties with my parents and others in the community. Horace McMahon was the umpire in our local little league and I was one of the coaches. It was a tight-knit and very special community.
Stefan was an incredible man. He had a fantastic sense of humor, was a fierce scrabble player and love gin and tonics. He was generous and kind. He loved his sons Peter and David and His daughter Susan. His wife Marion is still alive and doing quite well in Rogaro, Lake Como Italy. I am his grandson. I miss my grampa a lot. Thak you for keeping his memory in your hearts. He loved his home in Rowayton on Meeker Ct. Stefan lived his life to the fullest and meant the world to me. -Ian
Hi Ian,
Stefan was a close friend of mine even though I was a kids. I actually started a Stefan Schnable fan club at college. We had a lot of fun with that.
We have actually talked about Stefan (and Marion) at RowaytonKids.com also.
http://rowaytonkids.com/2011/09/09/stefan-schnabel-and-barbara-cooke-in-plain-and-fancy/
http://rowaytonkids.com/2010/02/09/my-dog-freckles/
http://rowaytonkids.com/2010/04/21/our-rowayton-celebrities/
Last winter Marion asked me if we had a young picture of her that she could give to her grand kids. If you would like this picture at Rowayton kids, I can email it to you when our power comes back in Woodstock CT (northeast corner).