Marcia Wallace's Super Fine Wedding

6/30/11


Marcia Wallace's Super Fine Wedding

By Pamela DuMond

Recently I had the good fortune to meet Marcia Wallace. Yes, the actress Marcia Wallace. She played the secretary on The Bob Newhart Show, has been on The Simpsons voicing Mrs. Krabapple for almost twenty years and acted in almost every play and musical imaginable.

She's lived the most fascinating life, which she wrote about with great candor and humor in her memoir, Don't Look Back We're Not Going That Way. After reading Marcia's book I wrestled her to the ground and wouldn't let her go until she agreed to make her memoir available on e-book formats.

I asked Marcia if I could share an excerpt from her book about her wedding on The Pop Culture Divas Blog. She graciously agreed. Thanks Marcia! Enjoy, Divas.

"Chapter 10 - Our Love Is Here to Stay
By Marcia Wallace


Our wedding was beyond words. It was the most wonderful wedding ever imagined. On May 18, 1986, I married the man of my dreams at the Buddhist Temple in Cucamonga, California. I was indeed a blushing Buddhist bride.

First I have to tell you about Judy, crazy Judy Thomas. Judy was my manager, and agoraphobic; hated to leave her bed. She looked big and tough and a bit butch, and she had a very English, genteel sort of husband. And yet it goes to show you appearances are deceiving, they were madly in love with each other, and I adored them both. They gave us limos for the wedding party to the temple and then to the Breakers for the reception.

We had two hundred and fifty people. Denny was able to put everybody up at the hotel. I mean, we thought, "This is our wedding; we can do what we want. We don't have to scrimp." He said, "I want the best champagne." He felt that way; he just always wanted everything to be the best. So we hit our savings and had this great wedding. It was; just great. To this day, people come up to me and say it was the best wedding they ever went to.

But about Judy. She said to me, "Honey, I'm going in the first limo." There were four limos; I was in the second. And Judy was known to take a drink now and again, so she kept having to pee. And Hubie Banks, the limo driver, kept getting off the freeway, and all the limos behind him would get off the freeway thinking we were there. Everybody's saying, "Do you know where Cucamonga is?" The drivers are all saying, "Do you know where Cucamonga is?" "No, but the lead driver, he knows, so don't worry." But I wasn't so sure.

Judy had to stop and pee three times. So here's this demented bride clawing at gas station bathroom doors: "Judy, I'm getting married. You've got to come out. Come out!" And all those people in those limos just looked baffled.

Now, we finally get there, and I discover that unbeknownst to me, Judy had told some guy from the National Enquirer he could come and take pictures. So I had to scamper around and try and keep him away from Bob Newhart, because Bob was walking around looking very alarmed, and muttering, "Who is this guy?" Who is this guy?"

My Uncle Jimmy walked me down the aisle. I wore white. Read my lips: white. I wore it and I looked fabulous. (If you can't look fabulous on your wedding day, you're in big trouble.) Finally the ceremony started. I've got a lot of photos of a lot of people rolling their eyes. The one regret I have, I wish I had thought to write out the San San Kudo ceremony in English, because people were saying, "Why isn't this in English" The thing is, it was! The Buddhist priest spoke at us for a long time, and all I remember of the ceremony is, "Blide, gloom and fish." That's all I remember. "The blide and gloom are like fish." And I remember Dennis Dugan saying, "Aren't there consumer laws against a woman your age wearing white?"

I said, "To hell with it! It's my wedding day." When you get married at forty-three, you can wear what you want. And you can do what you want.

I had been in a million weddings as a kid where the bridesmaids have those awful dresses with those dyed-to-match pumps, and I thought, "Hey, I got me a great dress, my matrons (or whatever the hell they're called) can wear what they want." That's a great thing about being in a Buddhist ceremony; there're not a lot of rules about that.

Let Them Eat Cake..."


It's Pam DuMond, here. If you're enjoying Marcia's story you'll love her book.

"A book for anyone who has felt unloved and unattractive, been broke, experienced failure, been fat and thin and fat again, had a fire had cancer and/or a nervous breakdown and been widowed. This is also a book for anyone who has found love in midlife, experienced success, adopted a child, had a spiritual awakening flourished from the love of family and friends, and started all over again after losing a spouse. It is told by a woman who can still "count her lucky chickens," a woman who makes you laugh out loud, and a woman you feel like you've known your entire life."


Amazon:  http://tinyurl.com/3v3lwv8

Nook: http://tinyrul.com/3q6u741


And don't forget to vote here for Marcia's character on The Simpsons to continue her flourishing relationship with Ned. Vote Yes on "Nedna"!


http://www.thesimpsons.com/nedna/

And last, but not least, if you want to keep up with Marcia here's her FB fan page:

http://www.facebook.com/marciawallacepage

Thanks Divas!

Have a great summer.

Pamela DuMond