Sybil Bruncheon's "Biographies in Brief!... Madame Zeezette"...

...Mrs. Agnes Gladstein, widowed at 50-some years or so, was forced to find work since her ne'er-do-well husband, Carl, had gambled his assistant plumber's salary away at the races. Agnes tried everything from substitute teaching 3rd graders (she hated children) to grocery store cashier (she couldn't count change) to ballroom dance instructor (no sense of rhythm… and corns). Finally, after seeing a Red Skelton/Lucille Ball screwball mystery/comedy (8 times!), she decided to adopt the name Madame Zeezette and tell fortunes in various luncheonettes up and down Third Avenue.

Amazingly, she caught on, especially among the window-shopping housewife crowd (usually in twos and threes) and the two-martini businessman crowd (also in twos and threes). Her shockingly accurate predictions while reading palms and dealing tarot cards became all the rage. She even threw in a free Phrenology consultation… FREE! She was famous for pinning down stock splits to the week and unexpected pregnancies to the day! Car accidents, house fires, food poisonings, burglaries, even projectile vomiting during golf tournaments... and comet-strikes. She could predict it all and was paid handsomely for it. Ironically, The Mysterious Madame Zeezette didn't foresee the end of Bakelite jewelry and little luncheon hats even as the 1950s were drawing to a close... but then, when you're a luncheonette fortune teller, no one expects you to be a fashion-plate.

(photo by Norman Lerner 1957)

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