“Hello. Is that Snow White?”

The Tom Jones fire was alive, but the next trip Mommio and I took to Vegas was not  exactly the trip we planned.  We flew in on a Hughes Air bright banana yellow jet, (what was Howard Hughes thinking?), and went back to Caesar’s Palace.  Mother wasn’t  feeling well, so we went straight to the hotel room so she could lie down before we went to the Friday night dinner show.  As we dressed, I was nervous, because my mother was my rock, my right hand, my wing-woman so-to-speak.  Even though I was now a grown, mature-looking 20-year-old, I depended on her like I depended on Tom Jones – only lots, lots more.

All performance photos – Ceaser’s Palace, Las Vegas

In my family we kept all of our physical ailments private, so no one really knew that both Mom and I suffered from chronic, “sick” headaches.  Mom was determined to make it to the first show, so we put on our make-up and our evening gowns and headed downstairs for the dinner show.  In the elevator, we ran in to some of Jones’ musicians.  This was in the old days when he traveled with bandleader, Johnnie Spence, guitarist “Big” Jim Sullivan, well known from Jones’ TV show, other key players, and a rather large orchestra.

Mother, being extremely friendly and sociable, asked the musicians if they played for Tom, and struck up a light and friendly conversation with them.  “Where are you boys from?”  “How long have you been playing?”  The trumpet-player took an interest in me, and said, “I’ll look for you after the sets this weekend.”  Mom and I giggled after he left, both of us knowing full well without having to say it, that she would never, ever, for a moment, consider letting her underage daughter go out with a musician in “Sin City.”  Remember, Vegas in the 70s was not the family friendly Vegas of today.

What the trumpet player didn’t know, and what Mother didn’t know, (or did she?), was that I only had eyes for Tom Jones.  I mean, come on, when Tom Jones is the first man you have ever kissed, and you meet him when you are a teenager, why wouldn’t you think that maybe you had just an itty-bitty, eensy-teensy, tiny-winy little chance?   Helloooo, silly girl, because he was Tom Jones?  Because he was a superstar?  Because he was married?  Because I wasn’t in his league?  Because I was so young, so tall, so shy, so sensitive, so anxious, so…  Oh, puhleeze!  That didn’t stop me.

Onward, to the pre-show routine of slipping Jesse the maitre d’ a few “dollahs” to get close to the stage.  We ate the preliminary meal, and Mother chatted the preliminary Tom-chat with our table-mates, such as “Have you seen him perform before?”  I sat quietly.  Getting to the foot of the stage at Caesar’s Palace was the culmination of another year’s worth of motivating mantras that pushed me beyond my comfort zone.  My goal was to look and act “normal,” rather than like the girl who hides in her house, and only crawls out in order to go to college and church and a few other designated “safe places.”  My goal was to get to this time and this place where I could believe, even if for a moment, that when Tom Jones sang “She’s a Lady,” he was looking at and singing that song to me.  (Weren’t many of us smitten fans thinking that?) 

Mother and I were equally enthralled when Jones jumped onto the stage.  Jones and The Voice were like the Pied Piper to me, at once hypnotizing and energizing, and I found myself standing and asking him to autograph the blank page of my photo album (currently seen on my blog home page).  Where did that courage come from?  He teased me a bit, in a good way – a kind of a playful, flirtatious way.  No bullying from Tom Jones.  He made me want to say to all of the bullies, “See, this man finds me attractive.”  Hmmm… a recurring theme of finding self-worth through attachment to someone considered special.

This first show was the perfect way to start our TJ Vegas trip, but as soon as we got back to the hotel room, Mother went to bed for the rest of the weekend.  Uh oh.  This was big trouble for me, because I was petrified to do anything independently.  We kept the curtains drawn, the lights low, and had room service for the rest of our stay.

Mommio encouraged me to go out to the huge Caesar’s Palace pool the following day.  What was a normal activity for everyone was a challenge for me.  There was a lot of anxiety around leaving the safety of the hotel room; fear of going in the elevator by myself; fear of getting lost in the huge hotel (and it’s even bigger and better today).  Once I found the pool, there was fear of getting a towel from the pool boy.

Then came the ultimate nerve-wracking experience of taking off the cover-up to reveal the endless skinny girl legs. This was decades before Bethenny Frankel coined the Skinnygirl brand name and being a skinny girl became a good thing.  I tried to act normal and relaxed while sitting in a chaise lounge in a bikini.  But, I’m sorry, I wasn’t relaxed in my body when it was covered from head to toe, let alone, sitting in a bikini by myself poolside.  I don’t think there are too many people who feel relaxed in a little bikini.  Well, maybe Tom Jones.  But he was exceptionally fit and trim – and a bit of an exhibitionist.

The not so shy, Mr. Jones

I was not going to go to the second night’s shows in Vegas because Mommio was still sick, and I was too timid to go to a show by myself.  She kept encouraging me to get dressed “just to see.”  Mothers.  That’s how they lure you in to doing things you think you can’t do.  So I got dressed in my kelly-green “hot-pants,” a little one-piece jersey jumpsuit, (it was the 70s and short-shorts, as they are now called, were “in”), and black patent boots, that had to be “taken in.” That’s right, my legs were so thin that Anthony the cobbler had to take out inches on each side of both boots.

I was so nervous and self-conscious that much of the night seemed like an out-of-body experience.  Throughout the evening I had mini-panic attacks, but I was getting better at not letting anyone see what was going on in my body or my mind.  I managed to pay the “toll” to sit down front. People probably thought I was aloof, even though I was actually nauseous with fear and probably would have started crying if anyone had tried to engage me in real conversation.  There was anxiety due to not having my designated “safe” person with me.  Anxiety due to all of the attention I was getting wearing the very “hot” hot-pants.  And anxiety related to being completely out of my element; the outside didn’t really match the inside.  I was a faint-hearted young lady, and not the sexpot I had dressed to portray.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is… Tom Jones!”  The moment he began to sing, all of my fears melted.  I didn’t know it at the time, but the sound of his voice was my “relaxation response” that Herbert Benson describes in his book, The Relaxation Response.  All of the tension in my body dissipated.  His power on stage seemed to act as a defibrillator on my weakness; a magnetic force that allowed me to breathe in Tom Jones, breathe out Tom Jones, and feel stronger.  I felt a degree of confidence I normally didn’t feel.

After Jones’ hello to the audience and a corny joke, (I think all of his fans love his cute, corny jokes), about how Las Vegas reminds him of his youth in Wales because, “When you work in the coal mine you don’t get to see much daylight, (pregnant pause), and it’s the same thing here.”  Then, from out of the blue, while he was hydrating his throat with his own drink, Tom Jones asked the table, my table, “Everything alright?”  How’s Snow White treating you?  She okay?”  I got the impression he was talking about me, and as shocked as I was, I gave out a vibe in a whatever Lola wants, Lola gets manner that told him I knew what I wanted, and it was him.  Then he raised his glass, looked directly at me, and said, “Cheers,” with a twinkle in his eye.

After he sang “She’s A Lady,” Jones again drank from his own glass, again looked at me and said, “Hello.  Is that Snow White?”  Now I knew he was talking about me.  “That she is that,” he continued.  Could he hear the Disney song waltzing through my brain?  Did he know he was my Prince Charming?  What would have happened if I had burst into singing “Someday My Prince Will Come”? (Song by Larry Morey and Frank Churchill.)  Forget my previous nickname – Long Tall Sally – I became Tom Jones’ Snow White during this Vegas sojourn and thereafter.  The dwarves asked their lady if she was a princess, and when Jones called me Snow White, I felt like a Princess with a capital “P.”

As I stood up to continue the conversation, he said, “It’s you again.”  This time I pulled out my photograph from the Greek Theater (seen in the post “Be Careful What You Wish  For”).  “I remember,” he said.  “I remember everything.  Well, (pregnant pause), nearly everything (audience laughter).”  As I handed him a pen, he asked, “What are you shaking for?  You were shaking last night, as well (more laughter).”  I was in Seventh Heaven before the kiss, which brought the house down with roars and cheers.  Despite a little shaking, I  realized I had made an impression on Tom Jones, the man whose voice had been my comfort and joy for years.

Now that Jones has been forthright about his less than perfect ways, and documented them in his song called “The Road,” from his CD, 24 Hours, I will, for the first time, admit that I had “heard” from the more groupie-side of his fan base, that sometimes someone was invited backstage on behalf of Jones.  A trusted Jones employee, whom I will call The Getter, would deliver the invitation.  As I left, still in the thrill of what my youthful mind saw as on-stage flirting, I saw him – The Getter – and he was looking at me, heading my way.

I panicked.  I started shaking.  I could barely breathe.  My chest was pounding – this was a full-blown, gale-force panic attack.  My endless legs, barely covered by my little hot pants and knee-high boots, automatically bolted, while my waist-length blonde hair fluttered in the wake of the speed at which I moved.  Forget Tom Jones, forget all of my hopes and dreams – I could not get up to the safety of the hotel room and my mother fast enough.

Of course, Mommio immediately wanted to know everything, and in my breathlessness I shared everything that went on.  Everything, except the come-hither-I-am-woman vibe I put out, and the incident with The Getter.  I knew that if I told anyone about those things, especially my mother, my Tom Jones concerts, future backstage visits, and the mere possibility for me to somehow get him to fall madly in love with me would have been immediately shut down.  Kaput.  Over.

As I lay in my hotel bed that night at Caesar’s Palace, I was so disappointed in myself.  I spent the dawn hours chastising myself for my childishness.  I couldn’t believe I ran.   But, I wasn’t ready.  I had enough insight to know that while the outside appeared to be sexy and sophisticated, I was far from being that Cosmo girl I was trying to depict.  I was still extremely immature, very naïve, and dare I say, innocent?  In fact, if I wanted to  hang with Tom Jones, I needed to get an education by reading Cosmopolitan magazine, or maybe even Sex and the Single Girl by Helen Gurley Brown.  Unfortunately Sex and the City author  Candace Bushnell was still a blink in her parents’ eyes.

I wondered how could I yearn for something so much, yet literally run from it?  Then it dawned on me.  Maybe the Getter wasn’t coming for me.  Oh no.  What was I thinking?  Tom Jones flirts with every female from age 5 to 95.  Maybe The Getter was going toward a celebrity or a business acquaintance that Jones was inviting backstage.  Oh no.  Alone in my bed I felt foolish and embarrassed.

There I was, a flesh and blood, 6-foot-two-inch blonde Snow White, muddling through a humdrum world surrounded by dwarves and dreaming about Prince Charming.  The Disney-animated, short brunette Snow White got her Prince Charming.  Even though I ran like the wind at twenty-years-old in Vegas, I still wanted my prince to be… the singer who saved me.