Some of our readers may not be familiar with Toots Shor, the saloon keeper who defined NY City night life for decades. The Paley Center for Media writes: “In post-prohibition Manhattan, Toots Shor’s Restaurant was a playground for the city’s A-list, a joint where actors, singers, athletes, and the men who wrote about them came together to kick back and guzzle a tumbler (or three) of whiskey.” And extends an invitation to all of us to join them for the opening screening of the Paley Center Doc Fest: “The Paley Center now stands precisely where Toots Shor’s did almost fifty years ago, so there could be no better location for a screening of the film, followed by a discussion with Jacobson and a few of the bar’s well-known former patrons.”

Wikipedia has a great summary of Toot’s, the man, and TOOTS, the movie. You can find that here, and notes that Toots — “together with the 21 Club, the Stork Club and El Morocco was one of the places to see and be seen.” There’s lots of stories. This one, courtesy of Wikipedia, is my favorite:

Celebrity alone was not enough to receive first-class service in Shor’s restaurant. According to David Halberstam in his book The Summer of ‘49, guests had to observe the unwritten “code” which prevailed in Shor’s establishment. … One day, MGM head Louis B. Mayer complained about waiting twenty minutes for a table and said, “I trust the food will be worth all that waiting.” Shor replied: “It’ll be better’n some of your crummy pictures I stood in line for.”

The New York Times reviewed the movie in 2006, after its debut at the Tribeca Film Festival where it won the award as the audience’s favorite. The Times made it a “Critics Pick” saying …

Toots Shor’s name hasn’t lighted up a New York sign for more than 30 years, but thanks to Kristi Jacobson, his granddaughter, it will now grace movie marquees. An established documentarian before setting her sights on her mother’s father, Ms. Jacobson is a rare exception to the seemingly bottomless pool of aspiring filmmakers whose on-screen familial explorations come across as self-serving therapy sessions. Her first-rate portrait of Shor, restaurant owner and saloonkeeper extraordinaire, is anything but. Instead it’s both a highly entertaining look at a man who played host and drinking buddy to many of the biggest celebrities from the 1940s and ’50s and a fascinating tour through post-Prohibition New York.

Kristi’s path to making the movie was the subject of another New York Times article in September of 2007 in the Arts and Culture section. Titled “A Pal to Stars, Mobsters and Other Crumb Bums”, the author recounts the generous collaboration of Toots’ former patrons …

After deciding to pursue the project, she sent a fax to Walter Cronkite requesting an interview. Two days later Ms. Jacobson got a message: “Kristi, it’s Walter Cronkite. I knew and loved Toots. What can I do to help you?”

Soon more friends and admirers of Shor were sitting in front of Ms. Jacobson’s camera, recounting tales of boozy bonhomie: journalists (Gay Talese), broadcasters (Mike Wallace), athletes (Whitey Ford, Joe Garagiola). Tom Brokaw signed on as a consulting producer.

The toughest “get” turned out to be her own mother, Kerry Jacobson, one of Shor’s four children with his wife, the former Ziegfeld Follies dancer Marion Shor, known as Baby.

IndiePix is very happy to be bringing this film to the public who knew Toots, who knew about him, or only wish they had! Almost two years after the Tribeca Festival award, our submissions manager, Jason Tyrell reported that he’d had several discussions with Kristi Jacobsen and that he thought we could work with her on this film. His enthusiasm quickly won us all to the cause, and now we’re at the point where we’ll present the film at the Paley Center and then launch a limited national theatrical program. Write to Gauri Sathe at IndiePix [gauri@indiepix.net] if you’re interested in arranging a screening. The DVD will be released on the 21st of October, and (hint, hint) we are taking preorders now on the film page.

Kristi may have had trouble getting her mom, Toots’ daughter, to talk for the film, but I had a nice chat with Kerry Jacobson one day during the recording for the filmmaker’s commentary track on the DVD. She left my office where they were doing the recording to wait for the elevator. I was using a desk in the lobby, and we chatted during the notoriously long wait for the elevator to get to our floor. She was so happy to have this film in distribution, so eager for people to know more about this part of New York City, and so proud of her daughter!

You know what, Kristi? We’re proud of you, too. Thank you for letting us be part of this project!