Madam Marie Article with Bruce Anecdote

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Asbury's Temple of Knowledge survives
BY Bill Handleman • May 4, 2008

OCEAN TOWNSHIP — Some day soon, she says, Asbury Park will recapture its glory. Take her word for it. She knows. She sees the future. She has the gift. They don't call her Madame Marie for nothing.

Ladies in evening gowns may never again stroll down the boardwalk arm in arm with gentlemen in tuxedos, but you wait and see, Asbury Park will be back. So says Madame Marie, who once read the palm of Judy Garland. And?
"Sorry," she says. "Confidential." But Judy Garland has been dead for almost 40 years.

"Sorry," Madame Marie says, putting her finger to her lips. Marie Castello is her real name. Actually, Castello is the name they gave her late husband's grandfather when he arrived at Ellis Island after escaping 19th-century Russia. She's not sure what the real family name was.

She now lives in Oakhurst. She'll be 93 on May 25, Memorial Day weekend. She may make it to the boardwalk that day, she says. If not, one of her granddaughters will be there in her stead. Sabrina is her name. She, too, has the gift.

Construction delays notwithstanding, the Asbury Park boardwalk is once again springing to life, getting all dolled up for another summer. New money, new stores, new restaurants, renovated this, restored that, fresh coat of paint slapped on anything that doesn't move. They are serious this time.

Then there's the heavenly-blue pillbox that sits on the boardwalk, an odd little cube, 12 feet square, its one big unblinking eyeball staring out at the world. This is the famous Temple of Knowledge, where Madame Marie has been holding court off and on since 1932.

Her granddaughter will read your palm now. She will interpret the tarot cards. She will look into her crystal ball. She will be mysterious. Sabrina. Madame Marie would like to make it up there more often. Only she doesn't get around as well as she used to. Her arthritis bothers her.

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She's sharp as ever, though. Her voice is strong, and she still has that mischievous sense of humor. She doesn't know why people call her a gypsy, but she doesn't mind really. Mystery is good for business, she figures.

She was born in Neptune City, which doesn't sound all that exotic. Her father's father was Irish. "That's where the green eyes came from,'' she says. Her mother was from Canada. Her mother's father was from Australia. "Quite a combination, ain't it?'' she says.

Her father was a hardworking man who ""made things,'' as she puts it. Things? "Yeah, baskets, pots, fans, you know, things.''

Her mother was "the most beautiful woman in the world,'' she says, although her expression … "most beautiful-est''…is far more evocative. "She looked like Norma Shearer,'' Madame Marie adds. Norma Shearer? "The movie star,'' she says. Oh, that Norma Shearer.

(This is why they invented Google, so you don't have to interrupt a 92-year-old fortune teller while she's on a roll: Norma Shearer was a Hollywood actress who did her best work in the '20s and '30s.)

Madame Marie and her husband, Walter, were married for 70 years, she says. He died 10 years ago. "I got married real young,'' she explains. Walter Castello sold cars for a living. They had four children and 14 grandchildren. She now has 26 great-grandchildren, and six great-great-grandchildren. "You should see this place at Christmas,'' she says.

The kids who worked on the boardwalk in the '60s all knew Madame Marie. To them, she was "the gypsy queen of the boardwalk.'' The celebrities who came to town always stopped to see her. And back then there were always celebrities in town to play Convention Hall.

The Rolling Stones, Elton John, Gorilla Monsoon, the famous wrestler, they all wanted to know what the future would bring. Judy Garland and Diane Keaton, Perry Como and Ray Charles, Woody Allen and Elliott Gould...Vic Damone and Diahann Carroll used to come in all the time. They were a couple then, but they weren't married. "His mother wouldn't allow it,'' says Madame Marie. "You know why?' Because she was black? "No, because he was Catholic. "When the mother died, they got married. Then they got divorced.''

Some kid named Springsteen used to come around a lot in those days. He'd sit on the railing across the boardwalk and
play his guitar. He was 17. "One time he came over and said "All I've got is 50 cents,'‚'' she remembers. "I told him, "You don't have to give me your 50 cents.'‚'' As the story goes, she told him he would be famous one day. She probably said that to all the boys, Springsteen once conceded. Still, he would immortalize her in song. He would make her the most famous fortuneteller ever to peer into a crystal ball. ""He always comes by to say hello,'' she says now. "He knows where he came from.''

Madame Marie doesn't like to talk much about what happened to Asbury Park in the '70s. "It's something I want to forget,'' she says. She would rather remember the ladies in their evening gowns and the men in their tuxedos, the rolling chairs on the boardwalk and the old-world elegance she once knew. "You couldn't walk on the boardwalk without shoes,'' she says. "You couldn't go on the boardwalk in a bathing suit. And there was never any drinking.

"I've seen it all. Sometimes I think I'm the only one left.''

There are others who still remember, and maybe they, too, believe better times lie ahead for Asbury Park. Only they don't know for sure. Madame Marie does. She sees the future. She has the gift. "The booth will always be there,'' she says. "The Temple of Knowledge, that's a landmark, that's nostalgia, they'll never tear it down.''

Bill Handleman is an Asbury Park Press columnist. E-mail: handle@app.com

[BronxDarren]

That's pretty amazing that (a) Madame Marie is real, (b) Madame Marie is alive, and () Madame Marie is just as cool as you would have expected from listening to Sandy.
Thanks for the story...nice job.