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Being the daughter of actor Nick Cravat, who had some exceptional successes during his acting career, offered my sister, Marcy, and me, some unique experiences as his daughters.
As kids, we had the rare opportunity to hang out at some movie star mansions in LA—in the hills—swim in some fabulous pools with waterfalls, deep blue water, and tiled bottoms.
At Christmas, two stacks of beautifully gift-wrapped packages stacked from large at the bottom to small at the tippy top would arrive at our modest suburban ranch house in Woodland Hills, a special “Nick’s daughters” delivery. A stack for me, and one for my sister.
One time, while visiting my dad on location, we went up to Burt’s (Lancaster) hotel suite where we found him cooking marinara sauce in the kitchen with “The Marriage of Figaro” playing in the background, arguing with my dad about whether more salt was needed. My dad said yes, Burt said no. When Burt turned his head, my dad added more salt, stirred it in, and then Burt came back moments later to the sauce, tasted it, and remarked how see, it didn’t need more salt at all!
My dad was great with seasoning, a natural. His food was always seasoned perfectly, with just the right amount of salt and pepper, he loved pepper.
The marinara sauce was actually for me to take on a camping trip to Big Bear Lake with my 14-year-old group of friends and a couple moms in a rented cabin. Burt heard I needed to bring a meal so he suggested he would make a sauce from scratch for pasta. I took a huge pot of it to the mountains and of course, the sauce was a hit—made better with my dad’s extra salt, of course!
My father always had stories. When I was a kid, I thought, he knew everyone in the movies. I’d ask, did you know so and so and I’d usually get a yes and a story. One, in particular, was about Nat King Cole. My dad loved him and his music and said his voice was like no other, like velvet. He knew him personally and told me how one time he told Nat that the band was too loud, and it drowned out his voice. He told Nat to tell the band to not play so loud.
My father always had something to say, but it was always from the heart.
Years later, when my dad took ill, I was living and working in San Diego. I’d come up to L.A. on the weekends to see him. He loved music and had a wonderful collection of cassettes and albums, mostly operas and classical, which I now have.
Since I couldn’t be in L.A. during the week at the hospital, I grabbed the cassette player from his house and selected what I thought would be the most comforting music for him. Without question, it was Nat King Cole. I brought the player and cassette to the hospital, and I imagine it played over and over in a loop, because when I would arrive on the weekends, I could hear Nat King Cole singing as I walked down the hall, closer to my dad’s room. That made me so happy.
My favorite on the cassette, without a doubt was Smile, a song that whenever I hear it, brings me to a standstill, even today.
I will never not think, when I hear Smile that it’s Dad and Nat and it always seems to play when I need it most.