Table of Contents
PENGUIN BOOKS
Coffee, Tea or Me?
Trudy Baker and Rachel Jones met, and became fast friends, while stewardesses for the now defunct Eastern Airlines. Although different in style and appearanceRachel tall, blonde, and breezy; Trudy shorter, brunette, and more demurethey shared an appreciation of the humorous experiences and people they encountered on their flights. One day, a passenger with publishing connections, whod found their stories funny, introduced them to a top New York editor, launching the saga of Coffee, Tea or Me? Trudy and Rachel appeared on myriad radio and TV shows across the country, their winsome personalities endearing them to millions of listeners and viewers.
Donald Bain is the ghostwriter or author of more than eighty books, including Coffee, Tea or Me?, and the best-selling Murder, She Wrote series of original murder mystery novels based upon the popular TV show. His writing career spans biographies, comedies, crime novels, historical romances, investigative journalism, and business books. He was recently designated 2003 Distinguished Alumni by his alma mater, Purdue University. (A more detailed look at his career can be found at donaldbain.com.)
Acknowledgment
So many thanks to Don Bain, writer and friend, whos flown enough to know how funny it really can be. Without him, Coffee, Tea or Me? would still be nothing more than the punch line of an old airline joke.
Introduction
So this stewardess enters the cockpit and asks the captain, Coffee, tea or me?
He displays his best leer and answers, Whichever is easier to make.
Little did I know in 1967 that the book I was writing with a title lifted from a lame old joke would go on, along with its three sequels, to sell more than five million copies, be translated into a dozen languages, cause anxious mothers to forbid their daughters from becoming stewardesses, spawn airline protest groups, have its title inducted into the public vocabulary, and be republished thirty-six years later, branding me the worlds oldest, tallest, bearded airline stewardess.
Ive loved every minute of it.
Anyone reading Coffee, Tea or Me? today, whos flown recently on a commercial airline, will wonder whether air travel could ever have been as much funeven glamorousas depicted by Rachel and Trudy. I assure you it was. And like most people who traveled by air during the sixties and seventies, I miss those carefree, alluring days. Taking a flight was something special. You dressed up before boarding a plane and never had to worry about being stuck next to a seat companion wearing rubber thongs on bare feet, a sleeveless undershirt, and a baseball cap on backward. Back then, everyone was a jet-setter. Sinatras Come Fly with Me was written for and sung especially to you. Smokers had their own section on the planes, and a cold, dry martini was de rigueur while cruising the skies. Although it became hip to criticize airline food, it was actually pretty good back then. (The jaded gourmets of the era who found fault with being served caviar, smoked salmon, Chateaubriand carved to order at seatside, and chocolate mousse while winging across the globe at 30,000 feet in an elongated aluminum cigar tube sadly missed the point.)
The early 747 jumbo jets had a pianist and singer in the upstairs lounge (Frank Sinatra Jr. headlined one of the inaugural flights). It was all first class no matter where you sat, baby, primo, top-notch, top-drawer, and topflight.
And, oh, those stewardesses. They were the crme de la crme of young womanhood, classy and cool, every hair in place, and with smiles as wide as a runway. The airlines set the bar high, and these lovely, bright, pleasant young women made sure they were up to the challenge on every flightuniforms perfectly fitted and without a wrinkle, white gloves spotless, hats worn jauntily on their perfectly coiffed heads, confident as they strode through airports around the world, aware that admiring eyes were on them every minute and basking in the adoration. Dating an airline stewardess was like dating a nubile Hollywood starlet or lithesome runway model: Im dating a stewardess! It was a credential men wore proudly, like driving a Ferrari or eating at 21.
And why not? These were special women, not only because they looked great, but because they were adventuresome, spending their working lives racing through the air high above where we mortals played out our mundane days, laying over in exotic places, bringing clothes back from Paris or Singapore to their small apartments at home base, conversing comfortably with on-board celebrities, and worldly-wise to every game any man has ever tried to play with a woman.
Today, theyre called flight attendants, a change in nomenclature brought about by the influx of male cabin attendants. But back when I wrote Coffee, Tea or Me? they were stewardesses, and the airlines were quick to market their obvious appeal to the traveling public. They were known as stews, and they lived together in stew zoos. The hordes of men pursuing their affections were known as stew-bums.
Coffee, Tea or Me? is about them, these objects of male adoration back when flying was funand yes, even glamorous.
HOW THE BOOK CAME ABOUT
One day during a three-year stint with American Airlines as exec in charge of public relations for the three New York metro airports, I received a call from Ed Brown, an editor at Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster. The first book in my writing career, The Racing Flag, a history of stock car racing, had been ghosted for Brown. He told me that Chet Huntleys producer (Remember The Huntley-Brinkley Report on NBC?) had introduced him to two former Eastern Airline stewardesses, who had funny stories to tell. Was I interested in working with them?
I met with the two young ladies at Toots Shors watering hole in midtown Manhattan. They did have some funny stories, but hardly enough to sustain a book. I knew Id have to use my own airline experiencesand imaginationto get the job done.
I wrote a proposal for an untitled memoir of two airline stewardesses, which sat with Brown for a month. Simultaneously, Id found my first agent who pitched the project to Sam Post, then editor-in-chief at Bartholomew House, a hardcover start-up at MacFadden-Bartell, a large magazine publishing company. Post bought, and the project was taken away from Brown and Pocket Books.
The title Coffee, Tea or Me? came to me halfway through the writing of the book after hearing someone recite the old airline joke. Bingo! Boffo! How could it miss?
Well, it didnt miss. The hardcover was published to considerable fanfare on November 21, 1967. A savvy, fast-talking publicity pro, Anita Helen Brooks, was brought on board to hype it, and she booked my two former stewardesses, using the names Id chosen for them, Rachel Jones and Trudy Baker, on dozens of radio and TV talk shows around the country and for myriad print interviews. The book took off like an SST and showed up on many bestseller lists, including the hallowed one at
