Sheila Sullivan turned 86 this summer time, and she or he had getting older on her thoughts, as a result of she was genuinely curious. What do all these outdated individuals you hear about, these poor souls, do with themselves all day? She had no concept.
“I’m a lot too. …” and there was a pause, like within the theater, “whatever-it-is, to be outdated,” she as soon as instructed me.
Sullivan is an actress whose résumé begins within the Atomic Age and traces the historical past of late-20th century Hollywood and all its ups and downs like a line on a wholesome EKG scan. A few Tuesdays in the past, she stepped out in model with Tina Dupuy, a author and her former neighbor who has been a detailed good friend for 10 years. They arrived at Radio Metropolis Music Corridor to see the Rockettes. It was, remarkably for Sullivan, who has seen every little thing, her first time.
“I wished to be one!” she recalled just lately. She confirmed up sooner or later within the 1960s for Rockette auditions. “I’m about this a lot too brief,” she mentioned, her arms stacked as if describing a tall sandwich. “Once I wasn’t within the present, I didn’t see a motive to see it.”
For no matter motive, West 50th Road was closed to site visitors, so the 2 associates did somewhat dance in center of the road, Sullivan clad head to toe in a leopard-print hat and coat.
“It brought on a riot inside,” Dupuy mentioned. “Ladies simply stopping her to inform her she’s beautiful.”
Sullivan thought the present was great. “I’m not upset that I’m not the star of one thing,” she mentioned. “A lot.”
This asterisk-added modesty follows a life and profession edited right here for house: a Broadway actress who labored alongside Woody Allen and Sammy Davis Jr. A dancer on the Tropicana in Las Vegas. An activist marching for civil rights alongside Black celebrities in Selma, Ala., in 1965.
The spouse of a theater publicist, later divorced, after which the spouse of the tv star Robert Culp, later divorced. That was sufficient of that. Stick a fork in a toaster as soon as, it’s an accident. Twice, perhaps you weren’t certain what the heck simply occurred. Thrice? You’ve acquired issues.
And most just lately, Sullivan was an Higher West Facet renter lucky sufficient to have had the precise neighbor when hassle arrived.
Earlier this 12 months, she had a scare, one acquainted to many New Yorkers, well-known or in any other case. An eviction discover appeared on the door of her residence of 40 years.
That’s when her former neighbor within the constructing, Dupuy, stepped in. The 2 had turn into inseparable through the years, flitting out and in of Broadway exhibits and films and stress-free at their common spot for cosmopolitans.
I met the women as they untangled the bureaucratic errors behind the eviction discover. Quickly sufficient, the issue was solved. 5 months later, Sullivan can say that she is now not the panicked lady who was having nightmares of being put out on the road.
She’s again to doing what she’s good at. Being Sheila Sullivan.
In November, she and Dupuy have been invited to a celebration for Nat Horne, 93, who, like Sullivan, had appeared in “Golden Boy,” a 1964 musical a few boxer performed by Sammy, as everybody knew him. Horne was a member of the ensemble, and Sullivan was an understudy who was known as on brief discover to carry out, months into the run.
Every so often, in fact, issues that occur to common people occur to Sullivan. She and Dupuy caught horrible colds in November and recovered. Across the identical time, Sullivan, who nonetheless workout routines with the stretches she discovered whereas dancing, pulled a muscle that brought on such ache that she needed to be taken to an emergency room.
What occurred? the physician requested.
Clearly: “I used to be doing ballet.”
She recovered and resumed her stretches, a bit extra rigorously. So perhaps there’s something to the entire getting older factor?
Or not.
“I’m outdated,” she mentioned. “However I’m not outdated.”
The morning after the Rockettes present, the 2 laughed about their night time, and their 12 months collectively, over breakfast at Dupuy’s residence.
“This lady is extraordinary and I wished to share her with the world,” Dupuy mentioned. “I believed that the one method I might have the ability to try this was together with her obituary.”
Sullivan laughed: “Thanks!”
