Tours of the Tales

1132-1134 Greenwich Street

This house has an interesting relationship to the Tales stories.

This is the house where San Francisco Police Commissioner Stewart McMillan (Rock Hudson) and his wife Sally (Susan Saint James) lived in the 70’s TV show McMillan and Wife. 

The TV show was mentioned twice in the Tales stories – both times by Mary Ann’s mother.  Tales of the Citystarts with…

Mary Ann Singleton was 25 years old when she saw San Francisco for the first time. 

She came to the city alone for an eight-day vacation. On the fifth night, she drank three Irish coffees at the Buena Vista, realized that her Mood Ring was blue, and decided to phone her mother in Cleveland. 

"Hi, Mom, it's me." 

"Oh, darling. Your daddy and I were just talking about you. There was this crazy man on 'McMillan and Wife' who was strangling all these secretaries, and I just couldn't help thinking ..." 

"Mom ..." 

(Tales of the City/28 Barbary Lane, page 9)

The reference to "McMillan and Wife" did not make it to the opening scene of the “Tales of the City” miniseries.  However, later on in “Tales of the City,” Mary Ann’s mother tried to frighten her into moving back to Cleveland citing a ‘McMillan and Wife’ episode to make a point:  

Depressed about how her life in San Francisco seems to be falling flat, Mary Ann is contemplating moving back to Cleveland.  In comes Michael carrying a roasted chicken followed by Mona.  They try to convince her not to give up and move back to Ohio.  The phone rings and Michael answers it saying, “The boring residence of Mary Ann Singleton.”  Mary Ann lightly slaps Michael’s hand and takes the phone away from him.  It is Mary Ann’s mother calling.  Her mother asks for the name of the man who answered the phone.  Mary Ann volunteers only Michael’s first name.  Pressed by her mother to give Michael’s last name, Mary Ann states his last name doesn’t matter.  Alarmed with Mary Ann not knowing Michael’s last name (an assumption), her mother recalls,  “Oh, I saw something like this on “McMillan and Wife” just last week.  A guy pretended to be a friend…”

There is a delightful quirk of fate about these references to “McMillan and Wife”:

On Sunday evening, May 23, 1976, Armistead Maupin dined with a half-dozen men at Mama’s at Gramercy Towers.  Afterward, one of the men invited the group up to his suite of rooms (the Diplomatic Suite) at the Fairmont for a night cap.  The man who extended that invitation was the actor Rock Hudson.  Hudson already knew that the first episode of “Tales of the City” would appear in the next day’s San Francisco Chronicle.  He secretly purchased an early edition of the next day’s paper.  He entertained Maupin and the rest of the group by reading the column aloud, as Maupin put it: “rather drunkenly but with great charm”.

The reference to McMillan and Wife did not make it to the opening scene of the “Tales of the City” miniseries.  However, later on in “Tales of the City,” Mary Ann’s mother tried to frighten her into moving back to Cleveland citing a ‘McMillan and Wife’ episode to make a point:  

Rock Hudson was a friend of Armistead Maupin.  Maupin tapped into some events in their relationship for content in Further Tales of the City.  Michael traveled with his buddy, Ned Lockwood, down to Los Angeles.  Ned had been invited to spend the weekend with his former lover, the screen idol _____ _____. 

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1132-1134 Greenwich Street