(Vince Livelli, 44 Perry Street, March 6th, 2020)
Vince Livelli, a 99-year-old Greenwich Village resident, Romeo and retired cruise director, March 6, 2020
Livelli spoke with Dylan Foley at 44 Perry Street, where he has lived for the last 60 years. Born in 1920, he served in the Army during World War II and after the war in 1946 colonized the San Remo Café on Bleecker Street with the writer Anatole Broyard, helping to make the Italian social club a hotspot for New York intelligentsia in the 1940’s and 1950’s.
Livelli’s small apartment had been done up like a harem tent from his years of travel around the world. Ornate carpets were stapled to the floor. The kitchen is stripped down, with only a tablespoon, two forks (one plastic) and a knife to eat our takeout pasta. A gracious host, Livelli offered me rum at lunch.
On the cusp of his 100thbirthday, Livelli mused on his rich family history, his great friendship with Anatole Broyard, and one of his most famous dalliances, with the French writer and sexual adventurer Anais Nin.
For decades, Livelli has written short essays about his epic love life, his career as a rhumba dancer, his deep knowledge of Afro-Cuban music and his years as a cruise director on the oceans of the world.
Recently, Livelli has been embraced by some much younger writers and singers. A young photographer compiled his essays in a book. Friends throw birthday parties for him with full orchestras and dancing. For his 100thbirthday, friends had planned a party at a church on Waverly Place in April, but the event will most likely be cancelled due to the coronavirus.
VINCENT LIVELLI: I am at your disposal. Here is what is happening to me. I have to manage to survive another 30 days. I will be in a position to address a big public audience, about 70 people, at a church.
First, we are going to have a drink, aren’t we? That’s excellent rum. It comes from the V.P. of MTV, who lives upstairs. My best friend.
Annie Basulto is back in New York. She’s handling everything for the big event.
I should have been more friends with you over the years.
Milton Klonsky and Anatole Broyard used to fight intellectually. It was a pleasure to hear them fight. They were at each other’s throats.
You’re a treasure. You’re the kind of friend I miss today. They are all gone. I have some materials that will knock you out…remembrances of things past.
As a child, I was poisoned by lead paint. That’s a basic entre into my life. I was born deaf and I overcame it with technology and perseverance. Five languages. I was a professional rhumba dancer. You’ll hear what I am going to tell you about Anatole.
Annie got me into the movie “The Irishman.” This will be a good picture. [He puts on a black floppy hat he wore in the first 10 seconds of the movie, in the nursing home scene.] I’m in a wheelchair. I’m wearing this hat. It’s going to be worth a lot of money as a collector’s item.
DF: I’m going to take your picture. On Facebook, Annie Basulto calls you her best friend.
VL: That’s nice. That’s nice to have people remember you in a nice way. I want to be remembered as a nice guy.
DF: You’ll be remembered as a Village Romeo.
VL: No, no, I don’t want that, man. That’s so corny. You got that word from a newspaper article that called me a Romeo.
DF: I called you a Romeo in the article that you are holding in your hands, from interviews we did in 2008 and 2014. You always liked women.
VL: Listen, man, the Romeo was Anatole. He beat me by about 200 women. His last words, that I remember was, “I can’t handle it,” talking about women.
DF: I had heard he called out the name “Sheri,” as in his 1940’s girlfriend Sheri Martinelli.
VL: That’s a long story. You are here to interview me about what?
DF: I want to ask you more about Anatole, but I am particularly interested in your short affair with Anais Nin.
VL: Anais? She mentioned me in her diary under the name Vincent. She never got my last name.
At Brooklyn College, they were all studying American literature, the easiest curriculum. I said, I’ll always know about Shakespeare around the town. Everyone will be talking about him. I’ll learn it on the streets. I’ll study Portugese, which no one knows. Who the hell speaks Portugese?
(Vince Livelli in Cuba, 1940's)
(Vince Livelli in Cuba, 1940's)
The children in the Village were all gangsters’ sons, the sons and daughters of Italian Mafia, Sicilians. My family was Genoese, very high class. They call us the Jews of Italy. Intelligent. Educated. My father was a journalist for the Hearst newspapers, when Hearst was running for president. I played with the Hearst children on the Hudson River. I was told to teach them how to play baseball.
Recently, I met the mother of Donald Trump and his brother. They came up from Texas and checked into the very fancy hotel on Fifth Avenue. They wanted to avoid publicity. Everybody would have wanted to speak to Trump’s brother.
DF: Could you describe Anatole to me? What was he like as a young man?
VL: He was an example—you can take Anatole out of the Village, but you can’t take the Village out of Anatole.
Anatole was a little embarrassed by some things in his life and other things he was happy to let you know about. First of all, he was always talking about opening up a bookstore. It was sort of an obsession with him. He had no money. I had no money. You’ve read my story, “Life and Death in a Bookstore”?
(Vince Livelli, Wet Village, 2014)
What I want to tell you about Anatole, he made such an impression in my life. I call it eternal love. Nobody has experienced it to the extent I have with Anatole. [Editor’s note: Anatole Broyard, a noted critic for the New York Times, died in 1990.] When he passed away, his ashes were put into an urn that said Anatole. If you go to his daughter Bliss’ house in Brooklyn, there is his urn. She told me there is an urn with some leftover ashes. This is where eternal love comes in. I said to her one day, Bliss, I want to be incorporated in the same urn with your father’s ashes. I want to be with him forever. The funeral industry doesn’t like that idea. They would lose money. All through my life, people said “no” to me and I did it. It is kind of macabre to say something like that to the family.
DF: Could you tell me about the San Remo Café?
VL: We established it. No Anglos, they said. It was an Italian social club. “No, we don’t want Anatole. He’s black.” You are making a big mistake, Mr. Santini. When Anatole starts speaking in the San Remo, flocks of people will come just to hear what he is telling people.” It became a salon, like Gertrude Stein in Paris.
DF: What was the relationship between Anatole and the writer Milton Klonsky?
VL: They used to cross the street when they saw each other. I was with Anatole one day and we saw Milton walking along West 4thStreet. Anatole said, “Let’s cross the street. I don’t want to meet that guy.” When Milton met Anatole, they would immediately start talking about Henry James or Hemingway. That was a big contention when Milton wanted to talk about Hemingway and Anatole wanted to talk about Proust. It was a big difference. I hated Hemingway. I still do. He was a newspaper reporter. He wasn’t a novelist. He was a typist, like Kerouac. You know about the Truman Capote quote?
I had a fire in this apartment. I had to live in a shelter for a while.
I am guilty of giving people the false impression that I understand them. It’s not fair to them or to me. I can only understand 50 percent. It doesn’t seem to bother my approach to life. I just try anyway. I feel now more than ever in my late days that someone has been helping me all my life.
People have been stealing my manuscripts. H---. Do you know him? He takes little pieces of my life and he’s selling them. He’s stealing any manuscripts he can steal. I say, “Where did I put that ‘Celebrities I have in Common’ essay’?”
In 1980, I was taking some Italian tourists around the city. I took them to the Trump Hotel that is at Columbus Circle. I said, “This man is going to be President.’”
[Vince eats eggplant and spaghetti]
One of the most beautiful experiences of my life, was when I was in the hospital for kidney problems, at St. Clare’s Hospital. I recovered. I picked up the phone and told Anatole to pick me up. I’m going home. I called Rita. They both showed up at the hospital, they got me dressed and they walked me down the street. After being in the hospital with no one to talk to, I was there with the most beloved people in my life. Anatole on one side, Rita on the other. I am arm and arm with the two loves of my life. Rita was my early girlfriend. She looked like Rita Hayworth. She turned down a party with Frank Sinatra when he was at his height. She wanted to be with me.
Make sure you are recording this. I am a contributor. I am an historical figure. I always thought I was born in Greenwich Village. We bought property here in 1861. I was born in New Utrecht, Brooklyn.
I was not baptized in the church my grandfather contributed to, the Shrine Church of St. Anthony of Padua on Sullivan Street. Unless you are baptized, you are not allowed to be buried in a Catholic cemetery.
The kids in the Village were so bad, dirty, snotty. They spit out the window, trying to hit me as I came home from school. Bad kids.
My father and mother said, “Do not play with these children. We are going to take you to 5th Avenue, Central Park and you will play with good children, the high-class children.” They tried it. The mother at 5th Avenue said, “Don’t play with that boy. He comes from that Village, those Sicilian people.” This was 1922. I couldn’t play with the kids in the Village. I couldn’t play with kids from the higher strata. I used to take my sailboat and play in the sailboat pond in Central Park.
I was an outcast. Guess what? I found a group of children who were so clean and well behaved on Commerce Street. That’s where the Portugese families lived. The Blue Mill Restaurant. They also owned wine stores. I had to learn Portugese. I was rescued because when I got into the Army, they needed someone who spoke Portugese to handle the Portugese officers who were going to fight in Europe.
I was also a pimp. They said, “Don’t let these guys go to 42ndStreet, where they will get robbed.” Very dangerous because they didn’t speak English. “Call your girlfriends and tell them to take care of these guys. I don’t want them going to some whorehouse on 45thStreet.” I knew the lead girl who knew a string of women. I called her up. “I have four Portugese officers and I am going to have more. I need to get them laid.” I was supposed to get them on the plane to Rome, so they can fight the Germans.”
H--- stole all my photos. He stole a photo of my mother in a wedding dress.
I started entertainment on ships.
A woman named Elenor Brittan put me on a ship, because I spoke Portugese, on the S.S. Brazil. You had to entertain the customers. I fell into a slot that I fit beautifully. I did all the games. I handled the orchestras. I even did prize fights on deck. I got two old ladies, put boxing gloves on them. “In the green corner, fighting from Boldfield, New Jersey, Annie Roz.” I put the two women on the dance floor. The bell rang, they came up fighting. We had false teeth that fell out on the floor. We had hair. It looked like she pulled out her hair.
The people on the old ships were high class. The waiters wore white gloves. The ships now use $10 of gas per hour. They just go from port to port.
I had to find my own way. “Put him in an institution.” I heard people say that. “Put him in the Army. Put him in the clergy.” I was kicked out of society. “He can’t function in society.” That’s when I was nearly deaf. No, wait a minute. I’m not dumb. I may appear not to be intelligent. I know I can do things that other people cannot.
When you have an incapacity, you are given liberty. The world is open to you when you can’t do things that normal people do. What do you do? You do your own thing. I lived three different lives. I lived life on land. I lived life on the ocean…I spent 20 years on ships. I lived a third life on the highway. I travelled on the road, carrying a message. I slept in a different hotel every night.
I occupied Leonard Bernstein’s bed. How come I slept in his bed?
Do you know Valeska Gert? She brought punk into America. She escaped from Hitler. She opened the Beggar’s Bar. She had money. She put it in a metal box under her pillow on Commerce Street.
My girlfriend rented her bed for $15. Bernstein had a studio that his boyfriend used. She also rented that bed. [So Livelli and her could have sex.]
DF: What about Anais?
VL: Anatole told me that when you rang the bell, you had to run up the stairs, as she timed the number of minutes it takes her lover to climb the stairs to reach the top floor, to test his virility.
(Anatole Broyard in 1971)
(Anatole Broyard in 1971)
DF: Did Anatole sleep with Anais, as well?
VL: No, he had Sheri Martinelli [a Village painter, who lived with Anatole Broyard in the 1940’s.]
(Sheri Martinelli, 1940's)
(Historietas by Vincent Livelli, a collection of his writings)
(Sheri Martinelli, 1940's)
(Historietas by Vincent Livelli, a collection of his writings)
DF: Could you tell me about Anais Nin’s book party?
VL: Anais had one woman friend and that was Toshka Goldman, a bookstore owner. Toshka, Anais and Sheri were the only women at Anais’ book party. The rest were gay boys, except for me, Anatole and Arthur, Anatole’s friend from New Orleans.
(Anais Nin, 1930's)
Toshka was not too happy. What kind of party was this? She looked around at the guys, put her hands on her hips and said, “There is not a screw in the house!”
She wanted to get laid. I looked at Arhur and asked her, can you help her out? He said “Sure.” His name was Arthur Burrows. He took Toshka up to the roof. Anatole, Sheri and I went up to the roof to spy on them. Yes, they were making love on the roof. That was the Village, 1946.
(Anatole Broyard's posthumous memoir of Greenwich Village)
DF: Were you attracted to Toshka?
VL: No, I had the most beautiful woman in the world, Rita.
Anais was obliged to entertain Toshka, because Toshka was selling her book Ladders of Fire.
I danced with Anais, because she liked Latin music.
DF: What was your affair with Anais like?
VL: It didn’t last. It was just two days. The first day, the meeting. The second day, the encounter. She wore a diaphanous gown and had a chaise lounge. She was very polite and calm. We were sort of innocent back then. We were unsophisticated compared to Anais Nin.
It was a nice way for me to fit in the history of the Village with Anais Nin. I made it with her. That was no great accomplishment. She was a woman who was ready.
I like to see myself as an escort. I went around 60 countries, escorting people.
DF: You are 99 and you’ll be 100 in 33 days?
VL: I climb up and down the stairs, to keep in shape.
It is the wrong time to talk about longeivity, now that we are facing the disaster of the coronavirus.
I don’t think that we are going to make it. I was quarantined for 14 days, when I was 6 years old. I had influenza. The doctor on King Street saved my life.
How do you keep people quarantined for 14 days on a cruise ship?
I am going to self-quarantine myself. My doctor said don’t let anyone in, except maybe family. I am only going to celebrate with intimate family.
I have a cousin who is a lawyer in Morristown, N.J. He's done very well. We did not stay in the Village because of the criminal element.
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