OSCAR NIGHT

While flipping TV channels on Oscar night this year, I heard that the star of the film “Das Boot” (The Boat) had died. The news brought back memories about the co-star of that movie, Klaus Wennemann, with whom I went to school as a boy in Germany. It also heightened my interest in the annual Hollywood spectacle that was about to begin because of another film star’s connection to my place of birth.

While Ben Mulroney gushed over the actress Nicole Kidman in her deep red dress, with his quip: “You look like the Canadian flag”, believe it or not, I was actually more interested in the lady who accompanied Leonardo DiCaprio. No, it was not one of his super model girl friends. It was his mother, Irmelin.

Irmelin was literally the ‘girl next door’ when I was growing up in my hometown of Oer-Erkenschwick, until she emigrated with her parents to the United States, where they settled in the Bronx. Then later, when as a young man I crossed the Atlantic from Hamburg to New York on board the ocean liner Hanseatic, I was carrying a parcel from neighbours in Germany. When I delivered the parcel only Irmelin, who was then in her last year of high school, was at home,

Eventually, Irmelin’s parents returned to Germany where they retired in 1985. Irmelin remained in the States, where she had married, and raised as single parent the now famous Leonardo DiCaprio. Irmelin visited her parents regularly and for that reason, the young Leonardo often spent his summer holidays in my home town. Just a few years ago, while vising my parents, I met Irmelin’s 92 year old mother once again.

While I am only mildly interested in the Oscar spectacle, you will understand that due to my, admittedly limited, connection with the family, I was interested to see the star’s mother and I was secretly rooting for Leonardo to win an Oscar for his role in “Blood Diamonds”.

So he didn’t win, but with his talent there is always another chance next year.

My connection with Leonardo is an example of the theory, ‘Six Degrees of Separation’. This is the notion that any two people on the planet are connected through a chain of acquaintances that averages only five intermediaries. I don’t know Leonardo DeCaprio and in fact I have never met him, but I feel some “connection” because I knew his mother. You must have had occasion yourself to say “ It’s a small world”.

Through a similarly short chain I am connected to US President George Bush. Some years ago, my wife and I became friends with another couple whose son attended the same school as our boys. Indirectly, through them, we found ourselves at a dinner party with Mike Harris and his wife, shortly after he became Premier of Ontario. Over dinner he related how he had recently been fishing in northern Canada with George Bush Senior, the former US President. It was a novel experience for me to be exposed to a politician whose world is so alien to mine and I was also struck by the fact that there were only three degrees of separation linking me to the former president and only four to the current President, George Bush Junior. (I don’t know what George Bush thinks of this!)

I also learned something else that evening - about handshakes! When I was introduced to Mike Harris and we shook hands, he extended his free hand ever so lightly under my elbow and, drawing me closer, asked: “and where are you from?”.

I knew that mumbling, ”I am from Scarborough”, was an inappropriate response. What he meant was “Where are you from originally?” A skilful opener like this can lead to a series of questions that follow easily from one to the other - and the ice is broken. Many people feel a little uncomfortable when they meet others for the first time, particularly in a group, feeling they don’t know what to say. While most of us are reluctant to get into discussion with complete strangers about politics, religion or the world’s troubles, we will respond to simple, non controversial questions about our origins or how we happen to know the host.

Unless you think that the person you are meeting might be a mafia king pin I think the innocuous personal question creates a better bridge than “what about those Leafs?” Fans of professional sports teams can talk endlessly about “their” teams and players while learning nothing about each other.

I think that eastablishing rapport, breaking down barriers and communicating, are such important skills that it is worth the effort to conciously practice proven techniques.

If you have found yourself to have interesting connections ala “Six Degrees of Separation”, I would be most interested to hear about them, over the phone or in writing. Of course, if we meet we can always practice “the politicians handshake”.