It was about ten o’clock in the morning on a weekday in September, 1979.
Anne Murray, her husband Bill Langstroth, her personal manager Leonard Rambeau and his wife Caron, my wife Anne, and I boarded an American Airlines flight from Toronto to New York, where we were heading for Anne Murray’s appearance a couple of nights later at Carnegie Hall.
We were flying first class, and although that entitled us to board early, Anne and Bill preferred to board last, so the six of us waited until the door was about to close before getting on the plane. My wife and I boarded and as I was hanging our coats in the first class closet the stewardess snarled at me, “You can’t hang those there! That’s reserved for first class passengers!” When I showed her our first class boarding passes she snidely said, “Sorry, but you didn’t look like first class passengers.” Of course the others heard this comment.
There were eight seats in the first class cabin, two sets of two on each side. Leonard and Caron sat in the front row on the right side of the plane, Anne and Bill sat across the aisle from them on the left side, and my wife and I sat behind Leonard and Caron. Another couple was already seated across the aisle from us.
At that time, the Toronto Star was primarily an evening paper, but it also had an early edition that came out in the late morning. So when the stewardess offered Leonard a copy of the Star, he logically asked if it was today’s paper. “No,” Ms. Congeniality snarled, “it’s tomorrow’s. What do you think it is?” Again, everyone in the cabin heard her. Leonard gave her a cold stare but accepted the paper without saying a word.
Then she noticed Anne Murray. For the balance of the short flight to New York the rest of us were completely ignored while Ms. Congeniality spent her time fawning over Anne and Bill, making it abundantly clear she had no time for anyone else.
Just before we began our descent into LaGuardia, Ms. Congeniality said to Anne, “You know Ms. Murray, I’d give anything to get a ticket to your concert at Carnegie Hall, but it’s been sold out for ages. Is there any way I could get one?”
Anne, smiling nicely and nodding in our direction, said, “There are only two people in the whole world who could get you a ticket. Mr. Rambeau or Mr. MacInnis. Why don’t you ask one of them?”
Ms. Congeniality at least had the good sense not to bother.