Stephen Hegyes and Marie Cocozza. I miss them very much. My mother was instrumental in me getting involved in the theater. From the time she saw "West Side Story," on Broadway in 1958 she started collecting (along with Frank Sinatra), Broadway show albums. I remember from the night she saw the play, she told me she went down to the East Village to have drinks and dinner after the show. I'm sure, knowing my mother, she went there to check out this new generation called, the Beats. When she came back, she told me there were Beatniks outside the restaurant and they poked fun of the "squares" from New Jersey. It was really the first time I heard the term Beatnik and I haven't put down Jack Kerouac's, "On the Road" since. Anyway... back to me...

My mother would make me sing along with Frank Sinatra albums and other Broadway musicals at the time, but incessantly made me sing "Maria" from "Westside Story." It was through her encouragement, squeezed in between baseball and football practice and what little studying I did, that I was involved in the high school theater productions.

©2005 Robert Hegyes - All Rights Reserved