Hollywood Ways

Dedication

Thanks to Aaron Fox, Ernie,

Bill Bell, Daws, Jack Slater,

Louise,

and all of my friends within these pages.

Without every one of you this story

never would have happened.

And thanks to M.

for her diligence

in getting this book together

and correctinq sum errorz.

Prologue

This is an account of my life as a talent with emphasis on Hollywood during the seventies, working in radio, television, film, video, live shows, dubbing, voice impersonations, commercials, theater, live corporate and industrial presentations, and having my photo taken for advertisement purposes - like those pocket-size folders companies pay for that end up in a stack on a table in an office somewhere.

It’s how this kid that grew up a long way from the left coast goes to Hollywood, doesn’t sink, and survives.

Being a talent was my job, being a celebrity is another. Celebrities are known. Talent is a supporting role. Example: In a movie with Rob Lowe he and I had back to back similar scenes on the same set. They filmed Rob first, everyone was fresh, shot about twenty to twenty-five takes, kept stopping to talk the scene over - it took more than an hour.

My scene as a supporting actor was filmed next. Same set. We did a run-through for camera, lights, sound and then the director called action. Got it in one take, took ten minutes. That's the job a talent does.

Anonymity is a major difference between a celebrity and a talent. For example, Ernie Anderson was The Great Ghoulardi, a giant celebrity in Cleveland. He would go out to eat and get mobbed, his words. A talent, on the other hand, can eat anywhere, anytime, and be completely forgettable.

I am pleased to have been a talent, grateful for the people I've met, the places I've been. I worked hard, made a fine living, enjoyed it and was very, very fortunate.

1.

I turned thirty in 1975 the day I moved to Hollywood to do this so-called talent work. Of course I was a kid first…and it happened like this.

The Buckeye State

All four of my grandparents were Polish immigrants who boated to America during the first decade of the twentieth century and lived with others like them in a Polish community in Lorain, Ohio. My parents didn't hear English until they went to school.

My dad didn't graduate high school, he quit when he was fourteen to shovel coal for his dad, learned how to box with his older brother in the golden gloves, and taught me how to bob and weave as soon as I could walk.

He learned on the streets and became a successful businessman. Dad would be remembered by those who knew him as a good guy and a hard worker.

When I came along in the middle of the century, only one of my four grandparents spoke any English. To the other three the only words we ever spoke were hello, goodbye and Merry Christmas, in Polish. It would have been different if we all had joined a bowling league.

Born in the winter of forty-five,

Franklin Roosevelt was still alive,

had a pair of six-guns the day I turned five.

That was a long time ago.

To put this time in perspective: My next door neighbor friend, George, had his grandma living with them. Playing there one day I saw her father's sword and coat hanging in the closet. It was a blue, Yankee uniform from the Civil War.

2.

The early fifties were pre-TV at our house. The town cinema provided our glimpse of the entertainment of the world. The Ritz Theater, which locals called the Ritz Crackerbox, may have seated a hundred people. It's torn down now or I'd go over and count the number of seats. Price of admission for kids was an affordable sixteen cents. There wasn't much bitching when it was raised to seventeen.

I was on the floor hiding behind the seat in front of me when my brother took me to the movie show, and he was laughing at me. It was the full screen, laughing face of Margret Hamilton, the witch in The Wizard of Oz, that terrified me.

Another show, another day and pirates would be sailing the seas, swinging on ropes boarding another ship. In this I found joy. As a result, at college I took fencing and spent one quarter on the fencing team, inspired by actors Stewart Granger and Mel Ferrer in the film Scaramouche, the film featured some of the greatest scenes of sword fighting ever recorded by Hollywood. I would be prepared if anyone ever asked me if I could do a fencing scene. No one ever did.

The movies were part of my school for life, showing how great it can be.

Too Literal

My first grade teacher, gray-haired Mrs. Keef told us, Draw what you'd like to be when you grow up. She didn't say what you are going to be or what you may be. She said draw what you'd like to be.

Being literal I raised my hand to ask her to clarify that and she repeated, Draw what you'd like to be when you grow up and go back to your seat. Other kids drew what was expected: doctors, nurses, policemen, teachers and mechanics. I knew they would.

To the embarrassment of my mother, I was creative and used my imagination; what I drew, the result of my precocious mind, was put on the cover of the National PTA Magazine. I drew a pirate with a wooden leg, a patch over one eye, and a parrot on his shoulder, standing on a sailing ship. Perhaps I was too literal, but to my five-year-old brain it was very funny. I knew there were no pirates out there. It was a joke, my first national joke.

At the same age I really wanted to be a jet pilot, but wore glasses and heard that to be a jet pilot you had to have perfect vision.

Since I couldn't fly a jet my inventive mind let art, comedy, acting, tap dancing, piano and general entertainment fill the gap. It was a large revolving cloud of confusion that I would nail down in time.

3.

Television came into my life. Howdy Dowdy, Our Gang - with Buckwheat, Spanky and Alfalfa, and morning cowboy films.

Walt Disney's Davy Crockett

kilt him a bear

when he was only three,

I was writing jokes.

There were TV programs for the family. Sunday nights I was impressed by Ralph Paul, the announcer for The Ed Sullivan Show, and by artists such as Guy Marks, Rich Little, Will Jordan and the other impersonators on Sullivan's show. And, of course, the great comedians: The Marx brothers, Abbot and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, The Three Stooges, Red Skelton, Jackie Gleason, all of them. And, I put some of the blame for my career choice on Soupy Sales.

In third grade my friend Tom Campbell and I did a comedy act that we wrote and prepared for a show in school. These were my formative years as a joke writer.

Inspired by Donald O'Connor and Gene Kelly in Singing in the Rain, I took two years of tap dancing lessons from instructor Mayley Waite. I learned enough to know I wasn't going to be a dancer.

I always performed in school plays. My freshman year in high school, in the play Time Out For Ginger, when I described how my daughter scored a touchdown, the audience applause stopped the show. As a result, I was finding my direction in life.

I was in every play after that, did the speech festivals, comic monologues for school performances, and on weekends in high school I hung out at the nearby radio station to learn about announcing from a local announcer, George Mayer.

My English teacher, Bob Adler, had done a brief sojourn as a standup comic and he taught me some voice impressions. When I did The Secret life of Walter Mitty monologue, I inserted several voice celebrity impressions. Someone from the Cleveland Playhouse heard me and told Bob that I did better impersonations than the guy at the Playhouse. That pat on the head stoked my fire.

A brutal, yet important lesson for me came during an intra-school competition where each school performed a one-act play. Ours was a melodrama, called Parted On Her Wedding Morn, Or More to be Pitied than Scorned, and it was…completely pitiful.

I had a lead in the show and didn't know my lines, not at all. I kept putting it off. We rehearsed, but I never memorized anything. I kept thinking I would get out of it and wouldn't have to do the show. But I couldn't, and had to go on with it.

During the performance our director, Mr. Bob Adler, sat in the front row of the auditorium and laughed at me. I was his target. He heckled me with his laughter. I was terrible and he ridiculed me horribly. I didn't know any of my lines and Mr. Adler knew that I didn't. It was obvious. He was going to teach me a lesson and, without a doubt, it was a lesson learned. From that day forward, for every production I was ever in, I knew my lines.

We had some great radio talent in the sixties. In northern Ohio we heard strong signals out of Chicago with talent like Cousin Brucie, Johnny Holiday, Dick Biondi. We heard WJR Detroit, the big rocker CKLW in Windsor, and from Cleveland: Biggie Wilson, Jim Runyon, Harry Martin and Specs Howard.

I wrote radio personality Jim Runyon a fan letter when I was fourteen and mentioned that I wanted to go into radio. He read my letter on the air and invited me to drop by the station any time, and I did. Ken Strayer, a school pal old enough to drive, took me to Cleveland. Naturally, Runyan was surprised I showed up without calling ahead, but he said ‘any time.’ Was I too literal again? He let me in to watch, I stayed an hour. It was beneficial.

I chipped a front tooth when I was younger and my mother was so upset about it she pointed it out to everyone. I had to stand with my mouth open and show my chipped tooth while she bitched to whoever would listen. Not appreciating the attention, I hid the defect, compensating the way I moved my mouth when I talked. As a result, by the time I left for college and told people I was going to major in Radio and TV, some asked, Repair?

In late 1962 our County Democratic Committee got me to record Ask not what your country… There was no internet. They had me listen to a record by comedian Vaughn Meader and I taught myself how to imitate the President.

November, ‘63 at O.S.U. walking to class on a Friday afternoon. They say everyone remembers where they were that day. Near crossing the street a disturbance erupted. Traffic began doing odd things, veering, halting. Students were disturbed, talking to strangers, someone dropped a book, a girl grabbed her head in pain, another began to run. Someone said Where? I heard Texas. Someone ran near me. I heard the words, President Kennedy has been shot. It was unimaginable. Classes were cancelled. I went back to the rooming house and turned on the TV. Our world had changed that afternoon.

At O.S.U. the head of the speech department informed me I had a lateral lisp, also known as a lateral-s, so silence came out as thilenth. The good woman worked with me for many months to correct my impediment.

Also, during my first year at Ohio State, I changed my major from Radio and Television to Business. The other students majoring in Radio and Television were planning on going into management. I was going to be a talent and Business seemed an area of study from which I would benefit.

Still doing voice impersonations in college and developing the skill, I was practicing voices one afternoon when my roommate Darrel had an idea. He asked me if I thought I could call Kim Novak in Beverly Hills.

No problem. What's her number? I thought that would shut him up.

Call the operator and tell her you lost her number.

It sounded easy, or at least worth a try. I decided to do the voice of Walter Brennan. I did four or five variations of Brennan as he played different characters, as a young man, middle-age, older. That was my best shot.

At that time information calls anywhere the states were free. One of the phone tricks I'd learned do was to call any three digit area code and when the operator answered asking what city, I'd say Springfield, because every state has a Springfield. That's an odd fact I'd learned somewhere.

So I called an area code at random and asked information for Beverly Hills. The operator said, That's in California.

Do you have the area code? And she either transferred me or looked up the area code.

I got a Beverly Hills operator and the game began. After convincing several operators and supervisors, one after another, I am Walter Brennan, lost Kim's number and I need to talk to her. They put me through to her unlisted number.

The last barrier was a house maid or a secretary. Finally I had Kim Novak on the line, asked if this was Kim Novak, she said yes, and I hung up.

I should have given the phone to my roommate Darrel who put me up to making the call and was sitting right there the whole time. He would have kept her on the phone until dinnertime and would've gotten us an invitation to stop over.

What happened was, after fifteen minutes of battle with the operators I had nothing to say when I got her on the line. I was thinking of the fight to get through, not the victory party. Another lesson learned: For every good show, no matter how good the talent, you need a producer, director and a script. But I must have believed in me, because I ended up on the road to Hollywood.

Nancy Reagan said I did Ronnie better than he did…but that was later.

4.

During my first year in college I got a job at the WOSU radio, the second oldest radio station in the U.S., a few months behind KDKA in Pittsburgh. Our chief engineer, Burt Case, was probably the second oldest engineer in the country. He'd been there since the beginning. I took over the morning shift replacing Fred Callen who went off to Washington to join National Public Radio. This was radio before technology provided limiters to the signal; that meant when a record played too loudly, the signal overloaded and the station got knocked off the air.

Behind my chair, mounted on the wall was a hand-crank telephone left over from the earliest days of the telephone. It was used to communicate with the engineer at the transmitter across the river, about two miles away. I didn't know that. No one had ever told me.

The first time the old phone rang I just sat there. It had a distinctive sounding ring. The problem was, I had no idea where the strange ringing sound was coming from. There was no one in the booth but me. I finally noticed the museum piece, hand-crank phone hanging on the wall. I'd seen it before, but never paid any attention to it.

When I found no other possibilities and determined perhaps it was that old phone ringing, I picked up the receiver. I had never tried to use one of those antique phones. I'd never seen one that worked.

Hello? I said skeptically. I had no idea who was calling or if indeed it was actually the phone that was ringing. It could have been a time machine.

You're off the air, a voice said.

I thought for a second, and then responded, Who is this?

This is Burt, Burt Case, out at the transmitter. I'd met him a few times, a kind, sensible elderly man. You're off the air.

I am?

Yes you are. That's what this phone is for. I'm at the transmitter. You let the volume get too high and the transmitter can't take it, and it knocked us off the air, it shut down. A signal overload.

What do I do?

You let the audio get too high, you have to keep it out of the red. All you new guys do that all the time.

I saw it was going high. I wanted him to know I was paying attention, but didn't know what to do about it.

Keep it out of the red. Now wait a couple minutes and I'll jingle once when you're back on…and keep it out of the red. There was a click and the phone went silent.

This was 1963 and I was talking into a telephone from the 1920’s, a relic from the earliest days of radio.

A month or two after I had begun, the regular newsman went on vacation. A fine, light-hearted gentleman, Tony Torres, the station's Program Director, filled in for him.

The noon news was done in the big studio in front of the little announcer booth where I sat. I was on the other side of the glass facing him. The last hour of my shift I ran the console with the microphone controls for the news man.

At the end of the news Tony was supposed to throw it over to me and I'd read a stock market report and the sports.

I played the cassette with the prerecorded opening, then Tony came on to explain who he was and that he would be filling in for the vacationing newsman.

Then, Tony did the news. Everything went smoothly to the end, without a hitch, when he said, Now here’s Jack with the spocks and— I saw his face freeze. He knew he said it wrong and couldn’t stop, there was more to come. He went on, —and the storks.

That was it, the spocks and the storks. I cut his mic as he completely broke up, laughing hysterically, rocking in his chair until he broke it, I heard it crack. I was in the control room laughing my head off, too. I heard his chair break into pieces, he fell to the floor sticking his arm up waving frantically, laughing harder, he got to his knees still laughing and motioned for me to go ahead and read.

After a few seconds of dead air, which seemed like half a minute, I opened my mic, said half a word and then laughed, and he was pointing at me laughing, and I laughed harder. I cut my mic, had a record ready and went to music.

The general manager was in Florida and heard about it. Two weeks later when he came back, we heard about it too, but got off with a reprimand.

5.

From there I went to WLWC TV as a floor director, the guy who points to the talent