Everyone here in Indy has Race Fever, with the 500 Mile Race celebrating its 100 year anniversary . It is consuming so much of the local news. I recently came across a photo from the mid-80s of me with famed Indy 500 Race car driver, Mario Andretti. It was race month when I met him and I made sure I was sporting my “celebrity” racing glasses. He, along with others, remarked about the glasses and I proceeded to give him their history. Here it is for you.
Do the glasses in the photo look familiar to you? If you are an avid DORIS DAY fan, then you will recognize them. Doris wore these glasses in her 20th Century-Fox film, CAPRICE, her 1967 kind of a James Bond film. Richard Harris was her co-star in this comedy-thriller which was directed by Frank Tashlin. Doris played a woman named Patricia Foster who is a spy, it seems, for the cosmetic industry, with smuggled cosmetics turning out to be dope. This was one of four films Doris Day did not want to make, but found it was a contractual commitment that her husband, Marty Melcher, had signed her up for. Doris wore the glasses in more than one scene, but most photos of her with these classy glasses are seen in the gold dress at a sidewalk café.
Doris gave me her famous glasses in the mid ‘70s and I cherished them like gold and wore them only on special occasions. I was very protective and proud of these “racy” glasses but quite a while after I was with Mario, I did not have them anymore. Gone! I enjoyed sharing that story also when people asked. Here it is:
One Sunday during the summer in the mid 90s I was invited to an afternoon outdoor party. It was a bright sunny day and I decided to wear these famous glasses. I had them on when I got into my car in the garage. It was kind of dark in the car and I took them off with the door still open. I proceeded to back up out of the garage only to hear a dreaded glass crushing sound. OMG! Could it be that this valuable (to me) part of history was no more? I immediately stopped the car which was now half way between the garage and outside and saw crumbles of my famed DD glasses in pieces. Nothing could be done to put all the fragments back together. I was stunned and saddened to think these cherished specs were no more, but just a pile of pieces. And so it goes—went. At least there was one moment was I was a race fan with a special pair of glasses marking me!
You can find out more about Mary Anne’s dream job as Doris Day’s personal secretary by clicking back to the Hawthornepub.com website and ordering a book you will love!
By Mary Anne Barothy, author of Day at a Time: An Indiana Girl’s Sentimental Journey to Doris Day’s Hollywood and Beyond.