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have the faintest idea where the reel came from. I didn't know who the girls were. I was stunned at how young I looked. Of course I was some 30 years younger. But who were the girls? The next day I borrowed the tape from CBS and took it up the following weekend to Mt. Kisco. I ran this part of the tape over again. A second time I didn't know who in heck the girls were. The third time a light suddenly dawned. It was Joyce's wife and the girl I had gone off with to Le Touquet! Here's how they had gotten hold of the film. They were combing Paris for pictures of Hemingway, Joyce, Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein, and in young Joyce's possession, along with all the pictures of his father, there was this shot. Somebody said, “That's Bennett Cerf. We'll put him in!”
Well, now I had to find this girl of mine whom I'd finally lost touch with. After about three days I tracked her down. She's a grandmother now and has done very well for herself. I called her up. I hadn't talked to her in 30 years. I said, “Sue--”
She said, “Bennett.” She recognized my voice immediately. She said, “I expected this.”
I said, “You saw the show the other day.”
She said, “Of course I did.”
I said, “Did you recognize it?”
She said, “You bastard, do you mean to tell me you didn't?”
I said, “Wasn't it something?”
She said, “Oh, goodness, I cried.”
I said, “So did I. You've got to come down and have lunch with me.”
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