Well it’s October 1, and the Store is closed. I say the Store because the 1983 documentary about the flagship Neiman Marcus store in downtown Dallas was titled The Store. Note a store, not that store, but the Store. For generations of Texans, it was a source of pride when so much of the world thought of our state as full of a bunch of tobacco juice spitting yokels who rarely bothered to hit a spittoon.
The Store meant that all that Texas money, whether it was older cotton money, newer cattle money, or that brand-new brash and brassy oil money, could be spent on just about everything in the way of luxury goods right here without ever having to leave the state. Even money that didn’t come from Texas came to Neiman’s to be spent, which was even sweeter.
One of the stories making the rounds this week involves the trip in 1955 that Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean (was Rock Hudson with them?) made to Neiman’s from the set of Giant when they got two days off for the 4th of July. That most iconic of Texas movies was shooting in Marfa over 500 driving miles away from Dallas. But when the request got through to Stanley Marcus, he not only opened the Store on Sunday, July 3, for them, he sent a plane to go get them. Blue laws in Texas be damned! Miss Taylor wants to shop at Neiman’s.
But then Mr. Stanley was somewhat rewarded, accidentally or intentionally, as Neiman’s got a plug in the movie when Carroll Baker declares, “I’m going to fly up to Dallas, and I’m going to Neiman’s.” Well, of course, she is. Luz Benedict, her character, comes from cattle money AND oil money.
But it is important to remember that Neiman’s still has multiple stores across the country, and the brand is bigger than the Store that just closed. After all, when Elizabeth Taylor came back to Dallas to promote her first perfume line in 1987, that stellar event was at the NorthPark store.
That is one of my favorite memories associated with Neiman’s, seeing Elizabeth Taylor there and then waiting with a relatively few who stuck around just to watch her walk from the ladies room to the restaurant on the third floor. She was 55 and gorgeous, and I was struck by how small she was. But with three inches of high heels and hair from here to Jesus, she was the biggest movie star I have or will ever see. I’m sure I’ll flash on that memory when I inevitably try out the new/restored Zodiac at that location.
I shared other memories about the flagship store last year when it was first announced that it would be closing, before that closing was delayed until now. But here’s one that has nothing to do with the Neiman’s stores, but has to do with the name that is so often silent. This one is about the Marcus side, and that man who was respectfully and rather affectionately known as Mr. Stanley.
When Karl and I bought our house and Mother and my sister Linda moved here, we lived within walking distance of Mr. Stanley’s home. Not next door, but in the greater neighborhood. It was the 1990 primary elections, back when early voting was not yet a real thing. Voting was in person and in your precinct. Karl was voting on his way to work, while I would leave the office as early as practicable and take Mother and Linda to go to the local elementary school to vote.
When we came into the vestibule, there was a bit of a line to get into the school auditorium where the voting would take place. But we were soon relieved of that delay by saying we would be voting in the Democratic primary. The ladies running things indicated we would vote in one of a couple of random booths set up in the vestibule for that purpose. One of those was in use by a gentleman with his back to us as he voted.
Completing his task, he turned around, and it was Mr. Stanley. We all knew who he was, and he had the demeanor of a man that one knew was somebody even one didn’t know exactly who that might be. He put his ballot in the machine for tabulation, we all nodded and spoke a greeting, and he made his exit. Mother said, “That was him.” Even the ladies at the table nodded. Yes, that was indeed him.
I noticed the counter on the machine registered “12” when my ballot was put in it, so I asked one of the ladies what that meant. She said that was the number of Democratic ballots cast that day in the precinct. It was late in the afternoon, and there were more than twice that number in line to vote in the Republican primary.
So basically, I quickly calculated, there were the four of us, seven others, and Stanley Marcus. It didn’t even hurt my feelings that we were so seriously outnumbered considering that we were in such good company.
Times have changed in our neighborhood. Mr. Stanley’s precinct is now about a 50/50 split politically the last time I checked. Many of the people who drive by his house probably don’t even know that he once lived there or even who he was. That’s the nature of life.
World wars, depression, recession, inflation, stock market crashes, buffoons with power at every level of government, women’s liberation and their changing roles in society, civil rights, atomic bombs, political assassinations, and all the rest. But the Store ran successfully through it all, for 119 years. We should all be so lucky.
