NEWS AND PHOTO TIP:
When: Tuesday, June 26—10:30 A.M.
Where: The Plaza Hotel (59th and Fifth Ave.) Barber Shop, Mezzanine.
Why: Actor John Schuck (of TV’s McMillan and Wife), who has a head of hair many men would die for, will have it all shaved off to play the shiny-domed Daddy Warbucks in the SRO Broadway hit Annie for three weeks (starting July 3) while the role’s originator, Reid Shelton, enjoys a well-deserved vacation. Garren of the Plaza will do the shaving, and Shelton himself will be there to offer Schuck, who will be making his Broadway stage début, advice on the care of the Warbucks dome.
A woman said to John Schuck, “John, a lot of my bald friends would like to have your head of hair, and here you are shaving it off.”
A man who was not bald said to John Schuck, “John, could you honestly say that bald men have more fun?”
John Schuck said, “Baldness brings a bit of authority. I think.”
A man with a camera said to Reid Shelton, who was wearing a white suit, “That’s a great suit, but isn’t it hard to keep clean?”
Reid Shelton said, “I bought it for publicity. I was doing The Merv Griffin Show and I needed something with a little flash to it. But they are very hard to find—white suits.”
John Schuck looked at the photographers jostling each other to get photographs of him and said, “The Normandy landings were nothing compared to this.”
John Schuck’s wife, Susan Bay-Schuck, who was standing nearby, looked at her husband’s head, now half shaved, and grimaced. Then she reached out and touched it and said, “It feels pretty.”
John Schuck said, “Why do I feel a draft?”
Reid Shelton said, “Oh, I’m glad John could come in. I need a vacation. I have been doing this for twenty-six months with only one time sick.”
John Schuck felt his head, now completely shaved, and said, “It’s the surface of the moon.”
A man said, “Boy, I have seen better heads on cabbage,” and everybody laughed.
Mrs. Schuck said, “Honey, it’s not funny-looking at all.”
Reid Shelton said, “Use a Norelco, I’ve told him. Use a Norelco.”
Mrs. Schuck picked up some of her husband’s hair from the floor and put it in a small brown envelope. She said, “If you get lonely, honey, you can open this and look inside.”
—July 9, 1979