What Am I Looking At?

Jen, what am I looking at? –

Tom’s egg-shaped bald head bounces left to right behind the magazine held up to his face.

Breasts, Tom. You’re looking at breasts –

Oh my –

He drops the Playboy. 

Someone from the office must have pranked him, leaving that academic journal in his wooden inbox. Yes. It was a good one. A little mean, but hey, so was Tom. 

He was a good one. 

Tom Steinfeld was probably the most influential person I’ve yet to meet, and not because he was an influential person.  His serendipitous juxtaposition in my life informed everything that followed. Kind of like John Keating meets Miranda Priestly by way of Lurch.

Tom Steinfeld suffered from macular degeneration. That’s why I was initially hired at Playbill Magazine: Because of another person’s traumatic vision loss. I was to be his seeing eye dog. 

Specifically, I was to interact with his clients, arrange promotional events, summarize piles of magazines, read his mail, update databases, and assist with the day to day particulars and technicalities. Also, I had to soften the edges consequent to the occasional ragged bite marks he left on those who had no Tom GPS. He was old school. Very old school. The University of Athens old. Opened doors for women and closed them on babies. He had no EQ for political correctness and set off trigger warnings like a ‘to the manor born’ Archie Bunker.

Tom Steinfeld had a caricature portrait made of him by Al Hirschfeld and it hung in his Playbill office at 52 Vanderbilt. It was made for him when he could still see all the Ninas. 

Tom Steinfeld possessed every material want. People had no idea what to gift him. Among his presents were a star — maybe a galaxy — named after him, and a cow rental. He had wheels of cheese crafted from the cow milk sent to him a few times a year.

To anyone reading this blog, you’ve probably never heard the name Tom Steinfeld before, but if you’ve ever held a Playbill in your hand, you can thank him for the pleasure. Although he was the National Sales Director when I began at Playbill, he had been there for what would eventually be 65 years, owning the company at one point, saving it from ruin.

Although he was a gazillion years old, with money to retire in either of his two homes, and had a serious handicap, nothing could stop him from coming to work. Literally nothing. A retirement party. A trip around the world. A company relocation that would not include an office for him. Nope. Playbill Magazine was Tom’s blood. They needed him for many, many years and at the end he needed them. 

For a brief time, he needed me. 

OF course, anyone could have been me. It was my fortune that being in Tom’s orbit provided me with a wealth of skills, tools, connections, insight, and always THOSE stories. Tom had attended Philips Exeter Academy and later Harvard with what was then the Who’s Who Captains of America. 

I have Edsel Ford [II] on the phone, Tom –

Bob Crandall [President of American Airlines] said he’s good for 12 pages-

He dined with Gwen Verdon. He fought in WW2. His first wife was General Mountbatten’s personal secretary. When she passed, he married a French Moroccan Jewish Audrey Hepburn. He was a giant of a man who diffused finishing school charm, tossed bon mots like confetti…

…most of the time. He could also be a mean son of a bitch and people wondered how I put up with that. 

It took a while, but I learned to give it right back as good as he gave.

All the while I acquired knowledge like a s l o w Number 5, reading a daily stack of magazines and papers, from the Wall Street Journal, to Ad Age, to Car and Driver, to Variety – I had to keep ahead of every industry that advertised in Playbill – summarizing, discussing, predicting. Tom knew many of players quoted in the articles personally and typically sidelined with a related anecdote. 

His personal finances were managed by a slew of planners, accountants, and lawyers. I learned all about the stock market, money management, and assorted life skills that would come in handy until I got married and relinquished those operations to my husband. 

My husband, who, I will never let anyone forget, SOLD MY APPLE STOCK WHEN WE GOT MARRIED IN 1994. 

My husband, nonetheless, was Tom Approved. Tom insisted on seeing pictures of anyone I was dating. Although he was mostly blind, he had an apparatus that magnified text and images that he studied until things made some sort of sense to him. Once, upon seeing a picture of a guy who flew me out to Switzerland for a date (yeah, so that happened… ) he said, 

Thank you, next. Nope. Jen. Sorry but I do NOT like the look of him. –

I like him. He may be the one. – 

That was what he said when he saw my eventual husband’s picture. 

At this point you may be wondering how he could recognize a soul mate but couldn’t identify those breasts in the Playboy and I’m not entirely sure myself. Maybe, as breasts do, they got lost in the magnification.

We worked in advertising and this was before #MeToo and Tom never did or said anything inappropriate, even by today’s standards. There was an instance, though, that might have appeared to tell another story.

It was Valentine’s Day, I think 1993, and Tom asked me to help him find a gift for his lovely wife. Of all places, we took a bus to Victoria’s Secret. On 57th Street or about. He walked over to a negligee carousel and randomly picked out a few. 

This looks pretty – he said, holding it out. 

IDK how he saw that.

Hold it to yourself. You’re about her size. Do you think it would fit her?-

Do not let your mind go there. The man was truly asking for his wife because he could not see. Also, he could not see how awful the optics were at that moment. A great big tailored old man with a 20 something woman holding up a wee something that Kim Basinger might wear in 9 1/2 Weeks. Yikes.

It’s perfect. Buy it and we’re leaving. – 

Are you sure? We could look for someth…-

Totally sure Tom. Let’s go-

Tom napped every afternoon while listening to audiobooks (I, myself, would later develop a dependency on audiobooks to fall asleep) and during that time I wrote. First, it was beauty and high end product editorial. Later, as Playbill expanded onto the internet with what was then the LARGEST website in the world, Playbill Online, I interviewed celebrities and theater luminaries, providing content for this new medium. I managed the New York database of shows, casts, and crews. 

As long as I made sure the wheels – cheeses and all – were functioning in his life, Tom had nothing but support for my aspirations and pride in my accomplishments. 

About 16 years ago I played a call on my answering thanking me for flowers I did not send. 

Tom loved you. You know that –

It was his wife. 

I called my editor (I had been writing from home for years at that point and hadn’t spoken with Tom in a while.) 

Oh, yes, Jen. I’m sorry. Tom died –

(He didn’t go in to work that day.) 

I’d like to imagine there was a standing ovation in a large theater somewhere in heaven, when Tom arrived. 

I’d like for him to know that although a Google search for his name yields NOTHING except his obituary, the impact he left on the world, (definitely my world), is written on a masthead among the stars. 

https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?n=thomas-a-steinfeld&pid=3102838