Fred & Pat CarmichaelBy Susanne Washburn
Photography by Hubert Schriebl
"I think our wives are seeing too much of each other," says Fred Carmichael, on meeting an acquaintance in Manchester. "It's all about the Dorset Historical Society, isn't it?" replies the interlocutor. "That's what they s-a-y," is Fred's rejoinder. He's a bottomless source of such impromptu lines-this author of forty published plays, most of them in the comedy-mystery genre. He delivers his characteristic banter in the local supermarket, on the Northshire's marble sidewalks, and to Meals On Wheels clients. At a late afternoon reading of verse by an historic Dorset poet, he announces to those assembling in the large circle of chairs: "I want you all to know: We are free for dinner."
Pat, his wife of 55 years, may seem the straight man to his comic antics, but she can deliver a good laugh line just as well. Actress, songstress, stage director (both in Dorset and on tour), she is equally of the essence of theatre. Recalling one early aspect of her career-a stint as a cabaret chanteuse-Fred reports, "I married a nightclub singer."
Lifelong thespians, American-born, these two octogenarians spent formative years outside the country. Pat was in Toronto, where her father worked for the U.S. Immigration Service. Fred was in London and Surrey, while his father was involved in financial transactions for Poland.
Growing up, each went through a shy period. On her ninth birthday, Pat was run over by a city bus. Sight-impaired at length, her face seriously damaged, she would endure sixteen major operations and more minor ones over the next decade-plus. Following the accident, the child became intensely withdrawn, until a teacher got her involved in a shadow-play production, where she could act out her role behind a sheet-and not worry about her face. That was the start of theatre for Pat. Fred remembers being shy too, but at 18 he decided it was a good thing to be funny. "And it's not hard," declares this master of the comedic retort.....
Fred had been destined for prep school, college and Wall Street all in the family fashion. But on the day in 1939 that the Nazis invaded Poland, his father announced: We are bankrupt. Out went the large staff of servants and his mother got a cookbook. (The lifelong pride of Carmichael père was the fact that he had delivered to Mussolini the message that Poland would not lend him money.) When, a few years later, the son declared he wanted to go to drama school, his father reacted so loudly the ceiling almost broke, Fred remembers. His mother said: Let the boy do what he wishes. Had it not been for World War II and the family's financial reverses, he believes, he might never have gotten to drama school.
A few years later, Fred was doing professional theatre in New York; Pat was performing at Toronto's premier showcase, the Royal Alexandra Theatre, where a New York director brought Fred for some roles. The Royal Alexandra-heralded as "North America's only royal theatre"-hosted the foremost stars of the day, and put on everything from Shakespeare to Sigmund Romberg operettas. Pat and Fred were actually in the same production of Thackeray's Vanity Fair, running offstage in opposite directions-but they didn't know one another. In fact, at the time, the last thing Pat was interested in was imported actors doing roles up-and-coming locals might have snagged.....
