"I was born in New York City on the snowy night of November 29, 1918, shortly after the first World War, and think it's the nicest place in the world to be born in. I grew up on East 82nd Street.

"My father, Charles Wadsworth Camp, was a foreign correspondent [later serving as drama and music critic for the now-defunct New York Evening Sun]. My mother, Madeleine Hall Barnett Camp, was a pianist and lots of their friends were writers and musicians and actors and when they gave parties I used to hide behind the music rack under the piano and listen to singers from the Metropolitan Opera House when I was supposed to be in bed and asleep."

"I was a much longed-for baby. It wasn't for want of trying that my parents were childless.... But Mother could not hold a baby past three months.... She had miscarriages all...