Restaurateur enjoyed entertaining fellow Atlantans

Gene Dale, a beloved Atlanta restaurateur and showman, died late Wednesday of complications from a fall. He was 84.

For 25 years, Hollywood celebrities and the city’s elite packed Gene & Gabe’s, a supper club with New York flair and northern Italian cuisine that Dale co-owned at Piedmont and Monroe until 1990.

“Gene & Gabe’s was the Sardi’s of Atlanta,” said Carolyn Calloway, a longtime friend and cabaret performer who sang at the restaurant’s piano bar and appeared in several productions at Upstairs at Gene & Gabe’s.

The restaurant for years was center stage for opening night cast parties for bigname productions at “Theater Under the Stars” and other venues. And Dale, with his high cheekbones and model good looks, greeted each customer at the door, while co-owner Gabe Benivenca oversaw the food preparations.

“On any given night you might see Joan Rivers, Rock Hudson, Paul Lynde, Waylon & Madame, or maybe even President Jimmy Carter and his family in the dining room,” Calloway said.

His Upstairs, which is now Smith’s Olde Bar, became “ground zero” for Atlanta’s cabaret scene when it opened in 1980, friends said.

Gene Dale was born on Jan. 10, 1934 in the Commerce area. The 10th of 13 children of sharecroppers, Dale had an adventurous life.

He left home right after high school for jobs as a soda jerk in Athens and then as a disc jockey in Charlotte, N.C.

Hit by the acting bug, he spent time in New York and California, where he landed some modeling assignments, as well as jobs in summer stock and other productions with celebrities, including Joan Rivers.

While in New York, he became maître d’ at Upstairs at the Downstairs, “a society hang out,” said Teresa Dale, his wife of 40 years.

Nephew Jeff White said that “New York got him out of that small-town mentality.”

That showed up in his Atlanta restaurant, where the walls were painted red and covered with artwork and giant mirrors, and patrons included a star-studded Who’s Who: Lana Turner, Shirley MacLaine, Dolly Parton and a list of others too long to mention.

Gene & Gabe’s was padlocked by the IRS for unpaid taxes in 1990, and Dale went on to work in community theaters in Canton and Highlands, N.C. He had been in failing health for about 15 years.

White said Dale was a “social butterfly” who had a natural ability to make everyone feel welcome and turned every gathering into an event.

“You were the most important person in that room when he met you,” White said.

Joseph Litsch, a movie set designer and former writer and theater critic for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, said patrons knew there always would be something happening at Gene & Gabe’s.

Dale, he said, was “definitely a showman.”

He dressed the part, too, with a scarf around his neck and a double-breasted jacket.

“He always had a good story to tell,” Litsch said. “He was totally entertaining.”

Dale had a favorite story from the early 1960s that involved Joan Rivers. The two were performing together in New England and disappointed they weren’t getting any press coverage. They faked a sailing accident in a small boat, but only after they’d contacted press from New York to Boston. After much flailing and screaming, the two finally made it to shore, where the press waited. “Oh, while you’re here, why don’t you come see our show,” Rivers said.

Gene & Gabe’s opened once on a Sunday to accommodate President Carter. Surrounded by Secret Service, Carter wanted to have dinner with his family.

“Gene was in heaven,” Litsch said. “Gene loved all that. He loved putting on the show, and he was never tacky. It was always very stylish, very classy. It was something Atlanta had not seen.”

Sandy Thurman, chief strategy officer for the State Department’s Office of U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator and Health Diplomacy and a longtime friend, described Dale as “sort of the last of an extraordinary breed of people who loved and brought arts and culture to Atlanta.”

Dale made the restaurant very welcoming to the gay community and, after the AIDS epidemic hit, opened its doors to help with critical fundraising, said Thurman, daughter of longtime Georgia Democratic Party Chair Marge Thurman and a dedicated Gene & Gabe’s patron.

Dale found love at Gene & Gabe’s.

Teresa, a dancer, came to the restaurant for coffee and dessert with members of her dance company. Dale said the group was sitting at the table too long and needed to order something else or leave.

They left. Later, Teresa got a phone call, saying the restaurant temporarily needed a cashier. “I was on tour with the rock opera “Tommy” but said I’d be glad to when I was in town.”

The couple married eight years later and had two daughters, now grown.

Teresa Dale said Dale was “wild, gregarious, quick tempered and very, very tender.

“He cried at the drop of a hat,” she said.

Services will be at 2 p.m. Saturday at SouthCare Cremation and Funeral Society, 595 Franklin Gateway, Marietta.