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There are two things they never teach you in theater classes. The first is never to make an enemy of the piano player, not unless you like to be on stage and hear your song suddenly being played in a different key than you're capable of singing. The second is never to make an enemy of the costume designer, not unless you really want your skirt to fall off or to discover straight pins "accidentally" left near sensitive areas of the anatomy.

I was fortunate to have learned the second lesson early enough in my acting career to forge a long-standing friendship with an unforgettable character. Without him, I might never have had my own production company. With him, I gained more than a few gray hairs. He was also worth every one of them.

I first met Dick in 1976 when we were rehearsing a bicentennial production of the musical, "Young Abe Lincoln." It was familiar ground for the inimitable Mr. Crane, having playing the part 20 years earlier for the same director. The fact he couldn't sing and had even less talent for choreography was overshadowed - or rather, overlooked - by his striking resemblance to the 16th president. Six-foot-four, lean, and with a dour visage that belied his sense of humor, he also bore similarities to J. Robert Oppenheimer, a role that came his way ten years later.

"For someone who can't learn lines," I once remarked, "you sure get cast a lot."

"It's the clothes," Dick replied. "Without me, everyone would be naked."

He had honed his skills as a designer in what had to be The Scarlett O'Hara School of Improvisation. Not only could he fashion ballgowns out of curtains, but suits out of bedspreads and animal costumes from fur coats and carpet remnants. There was also no telling what kind of 'extras' went into giving the clothes a particular look. When I inquired, for instance, how he'd made the corselette for my Louis XIV dress so stiff, he casually commented he had incorporated hacksaw blades in the lining, adding, "Try not to bend at the waist."

The invitation to join my acting company, The Hamlett Players, in 1978 was offered to Dick for a trade: his costumes in exchange for supporting roles. Many people used to think I'd write the scripts first and then he'd provide the outfits. More often than not, he'd call up to announce he'd just bought a bag of feathers and twenty yards of gold brocade on sale and could I come up with a plot revolving around a sultan. Oh yes, and by the way, could he play the sultan? Dick was hard to say no to.

"The only thing I ask," he said, "is that you never ask me to play Lincoln. I'm tired of playing Lincoln. Just once, I want to play the guy who shot him."

Hence was born a script titled, "Exit Grand Balcony," a show in which he not only got to wax Shakespeare but demonstrated that if you forget a line, say something anyway and say it loud, even if the only thing that jumps to mind at the moment is "bunch of stuff."

"Did he just say 'bunch of stuff'?" someone in the audience murmured.

Coming from Dick, it always sounded right, even if the rest of us had no clue what he'd say next. We weren't alone. Dick never knew, either.

Many times, he'd finish sewing everyone else's ensemble before his own was even started. "Don't worry about me," he say a scant two days before opening night, "I'll throw together something that'll work."

I particularly recall the time we did a Wild West melodrama and I had cast him as the Sheriff, a walk-on role with only a few lines.

"The cardinal rule of show business," Dick would tell my cast, "is never to upstage your fellow actors."

Dick, of course, never believed such rules were meant to apply to him. When he and his sheriff costume (and it was indeed its own persona) made their first appearance on opening night, we couldn't have been more surprised if Liberace himself had strolled out amongst us. While the rest of the cast stood around in shabby gingham and buckskin, there was Dick in a fringe and rhinestone-bedecked white velvet suit, golden boots, and a cowboy hat pulsating with battery-operated lights. The audience was speechless. So was I. Dick simply grinned and basked in the adoration, knowing there was nothing I could do about it.

His sense of whimsy didn't stop at the sewing machine. In our Louis XIV spoof in which he played my father, he made himself a costume worthy of Peter Pan's Captain Hook, complete with a curly black wig. And blond wig. And flaming red wig.

"Would you stop changing your hair every damn scene?!" I admonished him. "It's distracting."

The next night, all seemed normal. 'Seemed', of course, is the operative word. The penciled-in beauty mark above his lip subtly transitioned from a heart..to a spade...to a diamond...

As if that weren't enough, he also took to winking in close-up scenes, affording anyone in front of him to see the words F--- Y-- neatly printed on his eyelids.

Suffice it to say, I wasn't the only director in town that Dick and his imagination could tease. When a particularly demanding producer kept adding last-minute costume changes for his cast of 35+, Dick wearied of the man's bossiness. The night before the show opened, he gathered up all the dancers chiffon dresses for the first-act finale and told the director he was taking them home to add "a little more sparkle." For the next three hours--glitter-glue gun in hand--Dick proceeded to add what looked like colorful swirls of peacock hues to the full skirts.

Hanging straight on each of the actresses the following evening, there seemed nothing unusual about the glittering addition. Only during the finale when they grabbed the ends to fan the material into half-circles could the audience discern that their line-up displayed in shining calligraphy OHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHIT.

He was just as colorful in his personal life. 'Home' was a grand Victorian built at the turn of the century and painstakingly restored to its original brilliance on the weekends he wasn't acting. The two of us were once asked by a local adult learning center to teach a class on manners and etiquette. The plan, as we decided, would be to dress up in evening wear and teach the course in Dick's house over a period of two hours, encompassing a curriculum of how to set a formal table, make proper introductions, and so forth. I took half the group into the dining room to begin the lesson on elegant dining; Dick remained in the front parlor where he was supposed to impart his knowledge on what to say to dignitaries, members of the clergy, etc.

When I returned 20 minutes later, Dick was regaling his listeners with stories about the chandelier and the period wainscoting.

I cleared my throat. "Excuse me, Mr. Crane," I said.

"Yes, Miss Hamlett?"

I discreetly tapped my watch to indicate it was time to shift groups. Dick enthusiastically waved my group to come in. "I was just telling everyone about the chandelier..." he said, launching into a recap of what my half had missed while they were in the other room laying out shrimp forks.

Much to Dick's disappointment, we were never asked to teach again.

As for his love life, I never knew Dick during a time he was romantically involved. I always like to think, of course, that there had been someone special once, someone who had reaped the benefits of his kindness and generosity. I did, however, come to know the odd succession of roommates over the years who peopled his elegant abode. One who stands out was a melancholy lad with a penchant for leaving suicide notes much as one would plant clues for a treasure hunt; i.e., "I found a rope, I found a bar, the next clue's in the cookie jar." Instead of calling the police like any rational person would do, Dick would eagerly go from cookie jar to laundry hamper to dog dish collecting scraps of paper. I often think he was disappointed never to find a body at the end of all this.

This is also the same person who once bought an ugly plaster Bowling Buddha at a garage sale with the intent of using it as a gag gift for his office Christmas party. When he ended up keeping it, he discovered it had an alternative use in dispatching the variety of 'holy-rollers' who came to his front door on weekend mornings.

"I was just meditating," he'd graciously say. "If you don't mind coming in and waiting for me to finish, then I'd love to hear about your religion." He'd lead them to the second parlor while still wearing his silk dressing gown (Dick's personal wardrobe was straight out of Noel Coward) and invite them to sit down on pillows in front of the statue. At that point, he'd begin to hum loudly and start to unfasten the sash of his robe. "It gets 'em every time," he'd snicker, certain they had deemed his barbarian soul was too late to be saved.

For reasons I'm still not sure of, we fell out of touch in the years following the eventual disbanding of the acting company. I had turned my own talents toward writing full-time; Dick had retired from his regular job and cut down significantly on the amount of volunteer work he was doing for local theaters. It was not until 1989 that I finally learned why he had dropped from sight.

It had started as a flu in the early 1980's, a peculiar strain of which doctors had never seen. He'd get better for awhile, then get worse. His weight fluctuated. Never a whiz at learning lines anyway, his forgetfulness began to extend to other areas of his life. It was from a mutual friend I heard the news in 1988 that Dick had contracted AIDS. He had sold his house and all of his antiques and moved with a caregiver to a modest apartment. In the final months of his life, he had dropped to 86 pounds.

I wanted to visit him but the caregiver advised against it. "He wants you to remember him the way he was," he said. Dick - ever the outrageous showman and clown - was a man of deep pride. My hairdresser recommended I write letters and cards instead, sending one or two each day until the time came that Dick was gone. And so I wrote letters with the same stories I've just shared - reminiscences about the joy the Hamlett Players brought to outreach communities, quips about the occasional arrogance of actors who had annoyed us and fond memories about those who had made us grow.

I reminded him of the time he designed a Victorian dress for my wedding, then gave it to me as a present ("It was that or a toaster oven," he said.) I teased him about how he fell asleep in the middle of the Oppenheimer trial scene and his snoring wafted to the back row. I thanked him for all the trials and tribulations he saw me through as a young director and playwright.

When the call finally came that Dick had passed away, the caregiver followed it up with a letter conveying how much the letters had meant. "He stacked them by the bed," he said, "and made me read his favorites over and over."

It will soon be 16 years that Dick has been gone. But I still recall a conversation we had one day about the Hereafter. With the confidence that was the hallmark of his Lincolnesque bearing, he looked at me and said, "I don't know where the hell I'm going to go when I'm gone, but I bet I'll be the best dressed one there."

I have no doubt that he was right.