Reminiscing: Dinner with a celebrity

One of my best friends was the guy who gave me my first newspaper reporting job. Marty was running a small weekly newspaper in northern New Jersey for the mostly absentee owner. His main job was selling ads and he was very good at it. Marty hired me to write stories for the paper while I was still in college and very green. We hit it off and years later, when I was married and in the middle of my own successful career, I’d still call Marty every Sunday to chat.

Marty was a spellbinding character. Incredibly clever, he could entertain everyone in the room. He knew jokes. And he knew how to tell them. He could find humor in any situation.

One of Marty’s best friends I had never met was a guy Marty used to work with at an ad agency called Contemporary Graphics in New York City. Marty told me that the two of them would call each other all the time out of the blue, saying something to try and make each other laugh.

So one day, Marty and I took our wives to meet his old ad agency pal, who met us for dinner at a nice restaurant in Washington, D.C. It was a full dinner, but it was over way too fast. So much fun. His former colleague treated us by picking up the bill when the check came.

Later that evening, Marty’s friend had reserved us a table up in the very front at the nearby comedy club to see him perform his one-act routine.

His name?

Richard Lewis, star of HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and hysterical as Prince John in the movie “Robin Hood: Men in Tights.”

Lewis came over to our table during his performance and kissed Marty on the top of his head. Marty was very ill at the time and didn’t live much longer. We all remember the love that Lewis showed for his best friend, my best friend Marty.