So this stewardess enters the cockpit and asks the captain, "Coffee, tea or me?"

He displays his best leer and answers, "Whichever is easier to make."

Little did I know in 1967 that the book I was writing with a title lifted from a lame old joke would go on, along with its three sequels, to sell more than five million copies, be translated into a dozen languages, cause anxious mothers to forbid their daughters from becoming stewardesses, spawn airline protest groups, have its title inducted into the public vocabulary, and be republished thirty-six years later, branding me the world's oldest, tallest, bearded airline stewardess.

I've loved every minute of it.

Anyone reading Coffee, Tea or Me? today, who's flown recently on a commercial airline, will wonder whether air travel could ever have been as much fun-even glamorous-as depicted by Rachel and Trudy. I assure you it was. And like most people who traveled by air during the sixties and seventies, I miss those carefree, alluring days. Taking a flight was something special. You dressed up before boarding a plane and never had to worry about being stuck next to a seat companion wearing rubber thongs on bare feet, a sleeveless undershirt, and a baseball cap on backwards. Back then, everyone was a jet-setter. Sinatra's "Come Fly With Me" was written for and sung especially to you. Smokers had their own section on the planes, and a cold, dry martini was de rigueur while cruising the skies. Although it became hip to criticize airline food, it was actually pretty good back then. (The jaded "gourmets" of the era who found fault with being served caviar, smoked salmon, Chateaubriand carved to order at seat-side, and chocolate mousse while winging across the globe at 30,000 feet in an elongated aluminum cigar tube, sadly missed the point.)

The early 747 jumbo jets had a pianist and singer in the upstairs lounge (Frank Sinatra, Jr., headlined one of the inaugural flights). It was all First Class no matter where you sat, baby, primo, top-notch, top-drawer and topflight.

And, oh, those stewardesses. They were the crème de la crème of young womanhood, classy and cool, every hair in place, and with smiles as wide as a runway. The airlines set the bar high, and these lovely, bright, pleasant young women made sure they were up to the challenge on every flight-uniforms perfectly fitted and without a wrinkle, white gloves spotless, hats worn jauntily on their perfectly coiffed heads, confident as they strode through airports around the world, aware that admiring eyes were on them every minute and basking in the adoration. Dating an airline stewardess was like dating a nubile Hollywood starlet or lithesome runway model: "I'm dating a stewardess!" It was a credential men wore proudly, like driving a Ferrari or eating at 21.

And why not? These were special women, not only because they looked great, but because they were adventuresome, spending their working lives racing through the air high above where we mortals played out our mundane days, laying over in exotic places, bringing clothes back from Paris or Singapore to their small apartments at home base, conversing comfortably with onboard celebrities, and worldly-wise to every game any man has ever tried to play with a woman.

Today, they're called flight attendants, a change in nomenclature brought about by the influx of male cabin attendants. But back when I wrote Coffee, Tea or Me? they were stewardesses, and the airlines were quick to market their obvious appeal to the traveling public. They were known as "stews," and they lived together in "stew zoos." The hordes of men pursuing their affections were known as "stew bums."

'... at one point there were more than 3 million copies in print. ...'

Coffee, Tea or Me? is about them, these objects of male adoration back when flying was fun-and yes, even glamorous. How The Book Came About

One day during a three-year stint with American Airlines as exec in charge of public relations for the three New York metro airports, I received a call from Ed Brown, an editor at Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster. The first book in my writing career, The Racing Flag, a history of stock car racing, had been ghosted for Brown. He told me that Chet Huntley's producer (Remember The Huntley-Brinkley Report on NBC?) had introduced him to two former Eastern Airline stewardesses, who had funny stories to tell. Was I interested in working with them?

I met with the two young ladies at Toots Shor's watering hole in mid-Manhattan. They did have some funny stories, but hardly enough to sustain a book. I knew I'd have to use my own airline experiences-and imagination-to get the job done.

I wrote a proposal for an untitled memoir of two airline stewardesses, which sat with Brown for a month. Simultaneously, I'd found my first agent who pitched the project to Sam Post, then editor-in-chief at Bartholomew House, a hardcover startup at MacFadden-Bartell, a large magazine publishing company. Post bought, and the project was taken away from Brown and Pocket Books.

The title Coffee, Tea or Me? came to me halfway through the writing of the book after hearing someone recite the old airline joke. Bingo! Boffo! How could it miss?

Well, it didn't miss. The hardcover was published to considerable fanfare on November 21, 1967. A savvy, fast-talking publicity pro, Anita Helen Brooks, was brought on board to hype it and she booked my two former stewardesses, using the names I'd chosen for them, Rachel Jones and Trudy Baker, on dozens of radio and TV talk shows around the country, and for myriad print interviews. The book took off like an SST, and showed up on many bestseller lists, including the hallowed one at the New York Times. For the most part, reviews were good, some even calling the book "a comedy classic," and "a wickedly funny spoof of the airline industry and its stewardesses."

Alan Barnard of Bantam Books put up $75,000 for paperback rights, and Hollywood came a-calling. One after another, major film studios optioned the property, only to allow their options to lapse, which opened the door for the next option to be taken. (Eventually, CBS made a TV movie based loosely on the book, starring Karen Valentine and John Davidson. As bad a film as it was, it became one of the highest rated made-for-TV movies in history.)

The most intriguing performing rights proposal came from Broadway legends Anita Loos and Jule Stein. They thought it would make a wonderful musical comedy, and offered to option it for that purpose. But the Hollywood money up front was a lot bigger and too enticing to ignore. If I have any regrets about the intoxicating days of Coffee, Tea or Me? it was turning down the chance to see it emblazoned on a Broadway marquee. But it's never too late. It would still make a great retro-musical.

Bantam's paperback edition was even more successful; at one point there were more than 3 million copies in print. Aprons, coffee mugs, and hats with COFFEE, TEA OR ME? on them sold briskly in stores across America, and readers in a dozen foreign countries read the book in their native languages. We were flying high in the friendly skies.

Another publisher, Grosset & Dunlap, wanting in on the action, signed me to write three sequels: The Coffee Tea or Me Girls' 'Round-the-World Diary, published in 1969; The Coffee Tea or Me Girls Lay It on the Line in 1972; and The Coffee Tea or Me Girls Get Away from It All in 1974.

All Good Things Must Come to an End . . . or Must They?

Eventually, Rachel, Trudy and I moved on with our separate lives. Since Coffee, Tea or Me? I've written another 80-plus books, including my recently published autobiography, Every Midget Has an Uncle Sam Costume: Writing for a Living, in which I tell the entire story of Coffee, Tea or Me? along with other tales of the writing life.

Coffee, Tea or Me? became a pleasant memory, just as those sanguine days of air travel faded into today's decidedly less pleasant experience, marked by cramped seats, shoe bombers, long security lines, chaotic hubs, brown bag meals (if you're lucky), and unfathomable fare structures.

The Coffee, Tea or Me? era was over.

Until . . . my agent of thirty-five years, Ted Chichak, received a call in late 2002 from Stephen Morrison, a bright young editor at Penguin. Was Coffee, Tea or Me? available for reissue? It was and it wasn't. Shortly before that call, I'd committed the book to publisher and longtime friend Lyle Stuart, who intended to bring out a new edition in 2003. Eventually, all parties concerned, including a magnanimous and gracious Stuart, decided that Penguin was the right house to publish a fresh edition of Coffee, Tea or Me?-the edition you're now reading. It's my hope that it will bring back fond memories of a gentler time in air travel, or introduce a new generation of air travelers to the way flying used to be.

A final word to today's flight attendants, once known as stewardesses. Thanks for being on the front lines of air travel security, putting up with air rage, sloppily dressed passengers hauling steamer trunks aboard to put in the overhead bins, complainers, whiners, drunks, dunderheads who consider security measures a personal affront, and most important terrorists whose goal is to bring down the planes on which you serve. You have my undying gratitude for the tough job you do so admirably, and for allowing me to have had fun writing about an earlier era in air travel, and your role in it.

Donald Bain
New York, 2003
http://donaldbain.com

« back to top