The Gravesite

 

 

Nureyev, Sanders, and Hepburn - Dance in Australia, Tea with Hepburn

Reading recently of Australia's devastating summer fires, I was reminded of my less combustible tenure in 1974 and '75 as Executive Producer in Charge of Feature Films and Television for the South Australian Film Corporation, located in Adelaide.
         The premier (corresponding to our state governor) of South Australia wanted Adelaide (its capital) to become the Hollywood of all Australia, so the SAFC was created to help make this happen.  Films were not directly subsidized by the state government, but independent film makers were granted loans at semi-government rates and given extensive cooperation in co-productions.
         One of our first projects was a television pilot for a children's series with Hanna/Barbera called River Boy.  It dealt with a twelve year old American boy who stowed away on a ship to Australia to search for his long-lost father, now reputed to be working on a paddle steamer on the Murray River.  Willie Aames (Eight Is Enough) was the star, and his best friend and mentor in the story was an aboriginal vagabond who could do everything from playing the digeridoo to communicating with relatives thousands of miles away via the native telepathy of Dreamtime.  His real name was David Gulpilil, and he had already established an international reputation as a native dancer, movie actor (Walkabout) and
interpreter of aboriginal culture.  (He later appeared in The Last Wave and Crocodile Dundee.)
         David told us that he wanted to learn the fundamentals of film making so he could produce a documentary about Arnhem Land, his native home in the north of Australia.  We took him on as an apprentice, and gave him a chance to work in all areas.  He learned a lot about film--and we learned amazing things about his rich and robust culture.
         The Covent Garden Ballet, starring Rudolph Nureyev, was appearing in Adelaide at the Festival Center for the weekend.  I thought it would not only be a fascinating event, but good publicity for the Corporation, to bring Nureyev and his dancers out to our sound stage for an informal party with our personnel.  The highlight of the late evening would be to present David Gulpilil and his dancers doing their unique aboriginal interpretations of birds and animal dances for the formally-trained Corps de Ballet.                   
         I met Rudolph backstage after the final performance.  He was very serious, dark, and humorless.  During our ride in the limousine to the party we were silent, except for a few perfunctory inquiries about his friend, and my acquaintance, the London director whose name I had used to gain access to Himself for my invitation.
         It was obvious that boxed poultry was not his idea of festive fare.  We hadn't the time or budget to arrange for a catered meal, so we simply provided Kentucky Fried Chicken for the assembled dancers and film folk.  Nervously, I started the rather informal program as quickly as I could.
         As the lights went down, a trio of painted emus emerged from the sidelines and moved in hypnotic, bird-like fashion to the strains of a digeridoo and clacking sticks.  The emus were followed by the equally evocative slithering of reptiles and wildly leaping marsupials--dancing alone, in pairs and as a threesome.
         When the lights came up there was total silence.  No applause.  I thought I had really blown it.  They hated it.  I would be a laughing-stock.  But before I had a chance to commit suicide, Nureyev rushed up to me and said, "Take me to him!"  As if on signal, all the young dancers descended on the half naked painted performers with wild enthusiasm and a barrage of questions.  It was dancer-to-dancer talk.  It seems that the aboriginal dancers had mastered, without any formal training, such things as isolation, balance, and control that had taken the English troupe a lifetime of training to achieve.
         I was a hero. 

One of the rare pleasures in my life came about through my Australian experience, but occurred upon my return to Los Angeles.  An American woman named Daisy Bates is a legendary figure in Australian history.  She migrated down under with her husband and sons and established a station (ranch) on the outposts of Australian civilization. A few years later, she left her family to go live with the neighboring aborigines, and devoted the rest of her life to helping alleviate their desperately deprived conditions through education, medicine, and compassionate caring.
         Katherine Hepburn was one of her greatest fans, and I learned she had several times expressed interest in portraying her idol on screen, but no studio had been able to negotiate a satisfactory deal.  It seems that Hepburn would allow no altering of the actual facts of Daisy's life and, since it was felt that American audiences would have a difficult time accepting a heroine who abandoned her family, even to do good works, the project was dropped.
         I had taken a brilliant Los Angeles writer and story editor named Sid Stebel with me to the SAFC, and he thought he had a way to make the reality of Daisy Bates' life commercially viable without changing the truth.  So I managed to get an option on the screen rights and arranged for a meeting.
         Sid and I arrived for tea at Katherine Hepburn's Beverly Hills home about two in the afternoon.  We were shown into the den by her lifelong companion and assistant and told that Katherine would be arriving momentarily from a walk on the beach.  We were served our tea, and Katherine arrived. 
         We chatted about Australia, Daisy, the problem of the script, Sid's approach, and American bias.  She was witty, charming, and extremely intelligent.  The most intriguing thing about her whole persona was the fact that even when she used the four letter words so common on a film location or sound stage, she never seemed to lose her dignity and demeanor as a perfect lady.  It was a delightful afternoon...  but we didn't make a deal either.
         Maybe we should have taken along some of the Colonel's Kentucky Fried.  

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Celebrity Snippets

Gracie Allen was the only person who ever requested that I stop playing a song. It was at Judy Garland’s party at Romanoffs Restaurant in Beverery Hills. I was leading a trio and singing a hit from the day, Poor Little Robin.. George and Gracie were dancing by and Gracie shouted, “Stop playing that song! I hate that song! Just stop it!” (I didn’t. Perhaps I should have had a tip jar for songs to avoid.)

Ray Bolger was the first celebrity whom I had met in a party for which I was playing. It was a very fancy affair, hosted by Carlton Alsop in an old-wealth section of Pasadena, California. After dinner, I was delighted to share my piano bench with the loose-limbed dancer. We talked, he made requests, and even sang some of them, mainly to me. Before he left, he offered me the job of becoming his accompanist on a forthcoming tour, but I had just started what I hoped would be my career at NBC and had to refuse.

When Ray Bradbury and Charles Schulz played a frenzied match of tennis singles while attending the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, I was their ball boy.

Carol Channing was a guest star on a George Burns’ television series episode. The script called for her to do a burlesque “bump”. In those quaint days, “bumps” were not allowed to be forward and backward—only side to side. In my role as Broadcast Standards Editor, I went to Burns’ office and demonstrated to Carol how the delicate maneuver should be executed. She was due on the set, and I had a bicycle (I can’t remember why) and she asked if I would give her a ride on my handlebars down to the set. It wasn’t a long ride, but certainly memorable.

Rosemary Clooney was booked for a large charity stage show and I was to accompany her. I went to the scheduled rehearsal to go over her arrangements with her at the house in Beverly Hills she shared with Jose Ferrer. Her son and daughter let me in. The large living area had the all furniture stacked against the wall and was bare, except for a large Steinway grand and bench in the middle of the room. Her kids said that their mom was in the pool cabana, but I could talk to her on the intercom phone.
Rosie said she didn’t want to come into the house, and we could just conduct the rehearsal over the phone. So, I sat at the piano, balanced the phone between my left ear and shoulder, and we went over all the arrangements. The big show went off without a hitch.

Jimmie Durante was the first vaudeville act I got to play for when I was hired by the Fifty Two Association, a group whose motto was “The Wounded Shall Never Be Forgotten.” They brought a busload of wounded veterans from a different hospital once a month to Scandia, a lovely restaurant on Sunset Boulevard, for a dinner and a show.
The American Guild of Variety Artists would provide the entertainment, usually a name performer who happened to be in town between shows or tours. I would rehearse with the performers at six, eat dinner with them at seven and then do the show. This went on for about six years, and I got to play for a remarkable range singers, dancers, novelty acts, and comedians, including Larry Storch, June Christy, Redd Foxx, Arthur Duncan, Rudy Vallee, Pinky Tomlin, and Martha Tilton. Luckily for me, Durante didn’t smash the piano, as he often did in his act and on television variety shows .
In another Durante snippet, I went with two songwriter friends to his house, where I was to play while they auditioned a song they had written for him. During the singing of their masterpiece, the phone rang. Durante answered and said, Hi Harry,” and a twenty minute conversation of laughs and reminiscences ensued. When he hung up, he said, “That was Harry Truman.” (He didn’t buy the song.)

Blake Edwards, the writer, director, producer, and husband of Julie Andrews was producing a new detective series called Peter Gunn, which NBC had just purchased for the new season in the mid-fifties. Since I was to be the so-called censor for the series, Blake and I were getting acquainted at lunch in the Universal commissary. He was almost as excited about the composer he had just hired to write the original score for the series as he was about the series itself. He told me about the unique jazz sound this exciting new talent would be bringing to background music for dramatic television. (And he was also a really nice guy!) It turned out his name was Henry Mancini.

Janet Leigh, with whom I had attended The College of the Pacific in the mid-forties, was married to an aspiring big band leader, and I was the piano player. We went from Stockton, California down to Los Angeles to make several demonstration recordings of the band over a period of a few days. On our second day there, Janet asked me if I could spare five dollars so she could buy a few groceries (she hadn’t yet been discovered by Norma Shearer and made a star). The next day she paid me back. (It would probably have been more exciting to have carried that indebtedness over the period of her stardom.)

Regis Philbin brought Charles Nelson Reilly, Teresa Graves, and another member of the Laugh In gang (whom I can’t remember) to my office at MGM-TV to perform for me and my development counterpart a new game show he had just created. We didn’t buy it. Luckily, it wasn’t Who Wants to be A Millionaire?

John Raitt introduced himself and his daughter, Bonnie, to me after a Quaker silent service in West Los Angeles back in the Fifties. (I was experimenting with various forms of religion at that time.) It was interesting to me that after an hour of complete silence, people were saying, “Wasn’t that a lovely service!” However, it would have been interesting to hear Bonnie sing a hymn, even at eight years old.

Susan Strasberg, actress and daughter of Lee Strasberg, founder of The Actor’s Studio and Method Acting, was a guest star on Assignment Vienna, which I was producing. Before every take, she would sit huddled into a ball, somewhere where it was dark. When the call came to shoot the scene, she would emit an extended, deafening, bloodcurdling scream. She said it cleared her of inhibiting obstructions.
The day before, the two of us spent the day in Vienna’s finest boutiques, trying to find just the right ensemble for an elegant scene in which she had to be “dressed to the nines.” Fortunately, even after five or six shoppes, she didn’t feel the need to clear any inhibiting obstructions and we found a nice dressy suit.

Twiggy was interested in a script to be shot in Australia, on which I had the option. When I went to my first meeting with her, I was quite excited about meeting such a celebrity. Imagine my surprise when it turned out that Picnic at Hanging Rock, on which I was Executive Producer, was her favorite film of all time , and which she had seen five times! She seemed more excited to meet me than I had been to meet her! Unfortunately, the Aussies decided they didn’t want any co-productions with the U.S. at that time. But I still have that lovely accent on my answering machine.

Director Peter Weir had a casting technique which was quite a surprise to me, when we were casting his Picnic at Hanging Rock at the South Australian Film Corporation offices in Adelaide, Australia. For instance, if the part to be cast were that of a household maid, the unsuspecting actress might enter the room to be greeted with a finger-pointing, shouted accusation: “We know you stole the silverware from the dining room drawer! What have you got to say for yourself?” The thespian would immediately have to invent a story and a character to fit that story in her reply. What amazed me was that nobody seemed taken aback by this approach, and managed to immediately respond with totally believable characterizations. Maybe they had worked for Peter before.

Loretta Young not only swept through the doorway in outrageously beautiful gowns to open each episode of her dramatic television series; she also was the series’ executive producer. The final episode took a rather pronounced religious bent, and it was my job to reflect NBC management’s concern over its acceptability for a mass, primetime television audience.
The occasion was the “wrap party” for the season, and all the cast and crew were on the set, following the final shot. Food and drink were being brought forth, and everyone was in fine fettle, including Loretta. Upon hearing my related management concerns, she merely shrugged, handed me a drink, and said, “If God wants this episode on the air, it will be on the air.” (Evidently He didn’t want it, or her, on the air, as this was pretty much the end of her television career.)

Zamphir was not only a very nice young man, who gave me his new Pipes of Pan album in a train compartment going from Budapest to Vienna in 1972 on a trip where the Communist Hungarian guards had just forcibly thrown a man’s briefcase off the train- -he also has a name starting with the letter “Z,”which I needed to end this alphabetized chapter--and the book.

 

 

Some Other Things I've Done - incredible!

Spent a morning with Bertrand Russell at his home in Wales (through an introduction from Linus Pauling).

Appeared in a jazz concert with Erroll Garner.

Ran eight miles down a mountain to get help for a heart-attack victim.

Made the first recording of a Dave Brubeck Jazz concert.

Lived in Chelsea, England, with J. Paul Getty II and Mick Jagger as neighbors.

Spent a depression summer working with migrant children in the San Joaquin Valley.

Introduced Rudolph Nureyev to Gulpilil and Aboriginal dancing over Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Taught Carol Channing how to do a bump on television for a George Burns TV show.

Won a Faculty Achievement Award at Central Missouri State University.

Struggled in arm-pit mud on a geophysical survey crew.

Ad-libbed for ten minutes before a thousand people at the Century Plaza Hotel while waiting for singer Gloria Loring to appear on stage.

Had tea with an Austrian duchess (in her bedroom) while actor Cameron Mitchell read poetry.

Had tea with Katherine Hepburn (at her home) while no one read poetry.

Accompanied an Irish tenor in an Italian restaurant.

Played a keyboard in drag for a costume party at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

Met Erroll Flynn in a shower.

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A Letter From Katherine Hepburn

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