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The world gives us certain things that don’t
change. We can depend
on the sun rising in the east, setting in the west.
The moon will rise 45 minutes later each night.
Tides will come in. Tides
will go out. The North Star
will be there to guide us, off the lip of the Big Dipper. There are people, too,
people we count on not changing. It had been over ten years since I saw Lee
Stoller and his wife Cristy Lane. The
last time was at their Cristy Lane Theatre in Branson, Missouri. Lee would always introduce me as co-author of Cristy’s
biography. The theatre was
always packed and everyone was standing and applauding when Cristy
closed the show with her world famous song “One Day at a Time.” A lot had happened in that ten years.
Some good. Some bad.
Tragically Cristy fell off a stage at another theatre in 1995 and
was nearly crippled for life. Some
amateurs were handling the stage. They
cut the lights off accidentally and dropped the curtain at the same
time. Cristy saw the
curtain coming down and stepped back in the dark, tumbling off the
stage. This week I drove to Nashville to see them.
Cristy was, as always, her petit and lovely self.
Her gentle demeanor belies the strength of the voice that has
sold more songs of faith than any other singer in history. Lee was still his inimitable self.
A bit older. A little more flecks of gray in his full head of hair.
And a bit heavier. But he was still the Lee Stoller I met 20 years ago when he
was looking for a writer to work with him on the biography he wanted to
do for Cristy’s life. That suggestion of a smile was and is always on
his lips, as if he knows something amusing and may or may not tell you.
His sense of humor is infectious.
Be around him a few minutes and you can’t feel depressed or
down about anything. Time
has not slowed him down one bit. If
anything, he has gone into overdrive. In the five hours I was there, we must have crisscrossed
Nashville several times. He
is never still, always on the move. The mark of an educated man, they say, is not
that he knows everything, but knows where to find what he needs to know.
Lee doesn’t know everything in every field, but he knows where
to find it. He relies on
the abilities and expertise of a wide circle of friends he has
cultivated. Lee has said he wanted us to have breakfast.
He had already set it up with two talented friends—Robbie
Robison and Mike Kosser. But
first Lee went from the office in his home where I met him to his main
office located in a home he bought.
His daughter Cindy runs that with the help of Tina White.
A galaxy of computers tracks orders coming in and going out.
From there we went to his distribution site, a cavernous building
with stacks and stacks of CDs, cassettes and books.
His daughter Tammy’s husband, Steve Poole, runs that.
After going back to his office to pick up Robbie, we finally
headed for The Pancake Pantry where Mike had been waiting for nearly an
hour. Robbie is an icon in Nashville, having
represented talent such as Chet Akins and Barry Sadler of Green Beret
fame. When Barry was shot
by a stray bullet in Guatemala, Robbie was executor of his estate. Lee was still aglow from the award Cristy
received from the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
At the national convention in San Antonio, Texas, she was
inducted into the VFW Hall of Fame.
Cristy was the first female singer to receive the honor which is
given “for distinguished service rendered through outstanding
contributions in the field of entertainment. . .”
Recipients have ranged from George Foreman to Edward G. Robinson
to Pete Fountain. After waiting in line at The Pancake Pantry,
Lee, Robbie, Mike and I found a table.
Mike is a talented novelist and works with Robbie on projects. It was more like a business meeting than a breakfast, with
Lee bouncing ideas off everyone. He
was planning Christmas promotion, including a discount to VFW members.
He had plans for a sequel to “One Day at a Time” and for the
movie version. If someone interrupted him, usually with
friendly joshing, he went back to his subject like a magnet returning to
its course. Mike is a
baseball aficionado and that subject was the only one that could
momentarily detour Lee, who thinks Whitey Ford was the greatest all time
pitcher. Then, he turned
the conversation back to business. Being around Lee is like being near a fast
moving vehicle and being sucked along with the express rushing forward. It was nice making a few dollars off the writing
of “One Day at a Time”—and nice spending it. It was even better having my name for authorship
credit on a best seller. That
lasts when the money is gone. But the greatest pleasure of all has been just
knowing Lee and Cristy. Their
lasting love is an inspiration. Their
inner strength is a guideline. They
are a rejuvenation in a skeptical world. |
