For Kate Millet, My One Night Plus One

On a day in April of 1983, Margie Adam had hired me to photograph her sold out concert at Town Hall in New York City. I stood in line waiting to retrieve my comp ticket(s) so that I could run in and get prepped to shoot. I recognized the woman in front of me was Kate Millet. She did not turn around and even if she had, she would not have known who I was. She approached the box office and became very disappointed that an error had occurred. There was no comp ticket waiting for her. It was clearly visible that she did not want to miss the show, and in those days a ticket for a Margie Adam concert at Town Hall was expensive for an artist living on the Bowery. I leaned in and said, “Excuse me, there has been a mistake. Kate is with me. You will find the 2 tickets under Irene Young. She looked at me, I winked at her, handing her the ticket. Then, I rushed in to get the lay of the land before shooting.

She happened to sit next to my friends in The Deadly Nightshade. I was told she pointed toward me and asked Anne Bowen, “Who is that woman?” Anne informed her that I was Irene Young, the photographer and that she should come to a party the next night at my place on Bleecker Street.

Kate did indeed surprise me by showing up with a piece of art which reads, “For Irene Young who made me rich and filled the icebox on April 1983 Margie’s concert night.” And it had her wonderful signature, Kate Millet, The Bowery 1978.

You can see how absolutely appropriate it is at this moment in my life, just having gone through breast cancer for the 2nd time. I thank my dear friend, playwright John Jesurun, for being a guardian of the piece in NYC and for recently sending it to me just before my surgery.

I was just about to try and contact Kate to tell her how much the drawing means to me, and today I read that Kate Millet, influential feminist writer, had died in Paris this morning.

On your beautiful way, Kate. FLYING on to the next dream. Thank you for all that you created for us.

Kate Millet, Tributes, Women Writers