Poor Schnook

For Yolaine Randall, 26, a dark and vacantly beautiful model, love was a good address. In a Manhattan courtroom last week Yolaine's husband. Sol Randall, 36, a $60-a-week restaurant cashier, tried to explain Yolaine's attitude toward their $186-a-month suite at the Century. "To her, the apartment on Central Park West was society stuff, the 400," said Sol. "I tried to move out-it was too expensive for me. She said she wouldn't live out of the Century. She said, 'When I tell people I live at the Century that means I have arrived.' "

Her road to the Century began one night in 1950 when Yolaine, a senior at the University of Miami, arrived at the Sacred Cow, a Manhattan restaurant of which Sol was part owner. His mother, Mrs. Sophie Lenefsky, is an accomplished chicken plucker who has feathered her nest over the years by hard work in a chicken market. After World War II, she presented Sol and his sister with $13,000 that she had saved, to buy the restaurant. On the night Yolaine came to dine there, she was introduced to Sol. Two months later when he went to visit her in Miami, Sol said, Yolaine proposed marriage. He accepted.

No Money, No Sex. After the wedding Sol wanted to settle down in The Bronx ("There was a nice apartment there, with a doorman and everything, near Yankee Stadium"), but Yolaine picked the Century on Central Park West. ("I can remember when I was a child," Sol recalled wistfully, "and used to walk in the park and see the Century. That was class. I never expected to live there.") Yolaine's father, Murray Gross, who had made a fortune in brassieres, bought the furniture and wall-to-wall carpeting for their 4 1/2room suite.

In 1951 Sol sold his interest in the Sacred Cow, and did no regular work for 13 months. ("I stayed by him all that time," said Yolaine. "One doesn't like to break up a marriage one-two-three.") Later Sol bought a bar that failed. ("After all," he said last week, "everybody can't be a success in life.") A year ago, Daddy Gross began to pay the Randalls' rent, and Sol got the impression he was not wanted any more. "I used to go to the public library and get a lot of books on how to make a success of marriage," Sol testified. "I used to read them to myself, and then I read them to my wife. Meantime, my father-in-law threatened me with his political influence. He said to me, 'You get out of here. We don't want you in this house.'

"After her father started acting like that, I went back to the public library and got some different books. These books were to show that there is a limit as to what you can do with people, that there are courts and justice. That's how I tried to discuss our marriage problems and find a solution. To her, marriage was finances. My wife used to say to me, 'No money, no sex.' "

"Have You Seen Her Legs?" Matters reached a definite crisis last June 12, when the Randalls and Gross staged a brawl. Yolaine Randall claims that Sol kicked and beat her; Sol said his father-in-law pushed him around; Gross insisted that Sol had asked him for $15,000 as his price for a divorce. At any rate, a police radio car soon pulled up to the marquee of the Century. Sol lingered long enough to pick up two books for cell reading: a cookbook, and How to Make Marriage Successful. When he got outside, he found that his father-in-law had gone off to the police station stylishly, in a cab. But, said Sol, "I'm a poor schnook.*I got into the radio car."

Sol was acquitted of the assault charge, but Yolaine's separation suit dragged on for six months, in three courts (sighed Sol: "I thought, how stupid. Here we are educated people. Well, at least we have a veneer"). Meanwhile, to keep up the rent payments, Yolaine Randall took a modeling job (sneered Sol: "All she can model is coats. Have you seen her legs? They're horrible"). Meanwhile, Sol got a job as cashier at the Brass Rail restaurant.

Last week, after sitting and listening to the Randalls' trouble for four days, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Gold granted a separation, ordered Sol Randall to pay $35 a week for the support of Yolaine and their three-year-old daughter, Robin Sue. A few minutes after the decision, Justice Gold got a telegram from the woman whose hard work had set Sol on his ill-starred road to Central Park West. It read: "My son, my son, God bless America. Mrs. Sophie Lenefsky (Mother)."

* Schnook means someone "easily persuaded." It probably comes from the German, schnucke, an undersized sheep.

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