Lancaster resident
Mickey Podell-Raber began frequenting a nightclub at the tender age of 4.
Scandalous, you say? Back in 1949 it amounted to something like Take Your Daughter to Work Day.
Podell-Raber's father, Jules Podell, ran the legendary Copacabana on East 60th Street in New York. Every Sunday night she and her mother, "all dolled up," went to the club for their standing dinner date with him.
The club was renowned for its fancily dressed chorus line, but the round-faced girl in dark braids or bob was the real "Copa Girl."
As a youngster, she was acquainted with The Copa's many famous headliners, among them Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Peter Lawford, Jimmy Durante, the McGuire Sisters, Martha Raye, Sophie Tucker and Peggy Lee.
She has the photos to prove it, many of them autographed "To Malda," her given name.
These, along with her recollections, some family history and club memorabilia such as posters and menus, appear in
"The Copa: Jules Podell and the Hottest Club North of Havana," her memoir written with Sinatra family archivist Charles Pignone and just published by Collins.
She will discuss and sign her book, priced at $26.95, at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 19, at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, 1700-H Fruitville Pike.
• The discussion should be lively, since Podell-Raber isn't timid about registering her impressions of various celebrities from the 1950s and 1960s.
She recalls her date with Wayne Newton, who performed at the club. Besides being "fat, nerdy" and having "a high-pitched voice ... [T]he thing that turned me off about Wayne most was his ego; he was so into himself."
She has no love for Jerry Lewis, either.
She has a much higher opinion of Sammy Davis Jr., who gave her a pet poodle as a gift.
The book is "the story of my family and what it was like to grow up in the world of show business and bright lights and bright stars," she writes in the introduction.
That brightness had its shadows too.
She may have gained popularity among her peers when she arranged for her high-school prom to be held at The Copa, with that new sensation Chubby Checker doing "The Twist."
But while dining nightly on fancy dinners delivered directly to the family's Fifth Avenue apartment from The Copa's kitchen, she hungered for parental affection.
Her father was constantly preoccupied with the club; her mother, with maintaining her own glamorous image. When she was 7, her mother rather cruelly revealed that she was adopted.
Despite all that, the 212-page hardcover, complete with index, is no "Mommy Dearest" or "Daddy Dearest."
The longtime county resident, mother of three and "proud grandmother," appears to have accepted the bad along with the good and come up with an affectionate scrapbook for a family, a famous place and a popular era.
Jo-Ann Greene is editor of the Books section. Her email address is jgreene@lnpnews.com.
