A friend posted this on FB:
I was in my hotel room in Madrid, Spain, enjoying the luxury of a late call to work as the star of “The Magnificent Adventurer,” when I received a call from the hotel manager. He was apologetic about disturbing me, but he said he felt obligated to tell me that the president had been shot.
I thought he had confused me with someone else, and believed I might be interested in knowing that the president of the hotel company, or some other local business had been involved in some sort of a shoot-out. I thanked him as politely as possible, hung up and returned to studying my scenes for the day’s filming.
After a few moments, he called again, repeating his message. Again I was as polite as possible in my thanks for the information. The third time he called, I was beginning to get annoyed by his interruptions, but he was more forceful. You don’t understand, he insisted. Your president has shot. Your President Kennedy may be dead!
This time, he had my full attention. Where did you hear this? How do you know, I demanded. It is on the radio, he responded, obviously upset with the news.
At that time I had a friend in Madrid, Kit, whose father was the Naval Attaché at the American Embassy. I immediately called her and asked for the latest news. She said that she hadn’t heard anything about it, but would call her father at the embassy, and call me back.
The irony of this story is that Kit’s call to her father was the first news he heard about the shooting. The people at the American Embassy first heard of the president’s assassination from the daughter of the Naval Attaché, who heard it from a visiting actor, who heard it from the manager of his hotel, who had heard it on a Spanish radio, news broadcast… |
