The Robert Goulet Letters

By Joel Stein

Put down your pen. There's no need to address that fan letter you were about to send, or write, or think about writing, as I'm sure one of you must have been. No need, because Robert Goulet has beaten you to it, saying in a letter last October that I am "a sheer delight." He then added, "Can we meet, and can you just let me hang out and listen and observe?" For those of you who have never got a mash note from a Broadway star, let me inform you that Goulet letters are not sent through the U.S. mail but are inserted into FedEx envelopes. Somebody sold more Man of La Mancha albums than we thought.

Although it was not my policy to answer fan mail, this policy had never been tested, so I reversed it and wrote Goulet, asking him to be my celebrity pen pal. "I really don't need a pen pal!" he wrote on the back of my first Goulet Christmas card, in which I was introduced, twice, to a pleasantly revealing picture of his wife Vera. "What I need is a buddy! Will you be my buddy???" Underneath, he drew an angry alien. I decided it was best to call. After I listened to some Goulet tunes while on hold, Goulet picked up, talking loudly and frequently calling me "the kid." Our relationship flourished over the next year, with letters, free Goulet CDs and voice-mail critiques of my columns: "Armpit smelling? There's something wrong with you, kid." Last month I called to tell him I was coming to Vegas, and he invited me to dinner and drinks at the maison de Goulet. After passing the guard at his gated community, I had trouble locating his house, until I spotted Robert Goulet running down a circular driveway toward my car. He grabbed my shoulder, slapped me across the face and yelled, "How are you, kid?!" He's got a lot of energy.

He and Vera gave me a tour of their huge house, which contains several thrones and swords from Camelot, an oil painting of Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn in On Golden Pond, and a hallway of pictures of Goulet with famous people, most of whose names neither of us could remember. He reads four newspapers a day and all the newsmagazines, which he clips. That, plus the slapping and his habit of breaking into song, and he reminded me a bit of a dangerous homeless man, only better looking.

He pulled out a file and asked me questions about my columns, most of which centered on whether my parents still talk to me. Then he gave a dramatic reading of Maureen Dowd's New York Times column, which he'd gone over with a Highlighter, and used a ballpoint pen to mark down "Wow." He gave more wows to Dowd than Michael Douglas ever did.

We went to Picasso, a restaurant where diners are surrounded by real Picassos. None got as much attention as Goulet, who told jokes and flirted with the wait staff, wherein flirting means "grabbing ass." I learned much, like that Sinatra called him for singing advice and that "zemelheimer" is his euphemism for an erection. He was the biggest person I'd ever met--an Ali in a sea of Wayne Newtons.

If Maureen Dowd has an ounce of sense in her chad-addled head, she'll grab the next flight to Vegas.