The Gravesite

John Graves Biography

Born in Porterville,  California in 1928, he was writing songs and playing piano for school and vaudeville type shows at the age of eight, with his first professional engagement coming six years later.  Through the W.W.II years, his high school dance band had a corner on most of the dances in Tulare County, since all the other musicians had been drafted.  His other early professional musical experiences were with former big band jazz players who were too old for the service.  (This is where he learned many of the some three thousand songs now included in his request book, The Memory Flogger.)

Upon graduating from The College of the Pacific, he went to Los Angeles to try starting a career in broadcasting.  When his money ran out, he went on the road with a small comedy band, replacing Stan Freberg.  Besides playing for dancing, they did three floor shows a night, and Graves was featured as a a dead-pan comedian.  After a tour with Rick Fay's Krazy Kats, he settled in Los Angeles and started a family while earning a living playing in piano bars.

Since his efforts to break into broadcasting had been unsuccessful, he finally decided to start at the very bottom, and became a page at NBC.  Six months later he was selecting recorded background music for Matinee Theater daily dramas, followed by an eight year stint as an NBC Broadcast Standards Program Policy Editor (so-called censor).  This led to the position which had become his goal:  Manager of Film Programs, where he supervised for NBC such shows as Bonanza, I Dream of Jeannie, Ironside, The Man from Uncle, Then Came Bronson, The Debbie Reynolds Show, The Monkees,  and a series shot in London with Lord Lew Grade called The Strange Report.

In 1970  the management  changed at MGM-TV and Graves moved over to become Director of Current Programming.  He was the executive in charge of the award-winning Medical Center, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, GE Monogram Documentaries, and several syndicated talk shows.  Since executive regimes at this level tend to change about every two years, 1972 gave him the opportunity to become a producer.  He helmed Assignment Vienna, with Robert Conrad, an eight hour miniseries filmed on location in Vienna, Austria for MGM-TV and the ABC Television Network.

The newly formed South Australian Film Corporation was looking for someone with network, major studio, and international experience to head up their feature film and television area in1974, and Graves  accepted the challenge.  Under his guidance, the Corporation made its first major feature success: Peter Weir's critically acclaimed Picnic at Hanging Rock, of which Graves was Executive Producer.
During his two year contract, he was also responsible for the BBC's feature Storm Boy,  the re-editing of Sunday Too Far Away, and a TV feature movie, The Sound of Love.

Back in the U.S., there followed a series of development deals with Universal, Zev Braun Productions, and EMI.  In 1981 Graves became a partner in L.A. House Productions and made a pilot for a syndicated sports show and produced corporate and institutional projects.  At the same time, he enrolled in a graduate program at California State University at Northridge with the goal of teaching upon getting his master's degree in Mass Communication.  After ten gratifying years as an associate professor in the Communication Department at Central Missouri State University, he retired to Pagosa Springs, Colorado

Throughout this varied career, he has always played several nights a week as a single pianist, side man, or band leader at private parties, including affairs for Judy Garland, Groucho Marx, Danny Thomas, and John Wayne.  He has recorded, been a staff pianist at KLAC-TV and on the first Betty White show, was musical director for the Gloria Hart Show on KLAC-TV, and has accompanied such artists as George Burns, June Christy, Rosemary Clooney, Rudy Vallee, Redd Foxx, and Jimmy Durante.

Of the myriad of famous people Graves has met and/or worked with, he recalls associations with three that particularly stand out in his memory: a morning with Lord Bertrand Russell at his home in Wales, an afternoon tea with Katharine Hepburn at her home in Beverly Hills, and the delight of having Eric Sevareid as a house guest for three days in Warrensburg, Missouri.

After over forty five years of evaluating other people's writing, he's now doing his own.  He also enjoys playing at clubs and private parties for people who love the music of the twenties, thirties, and forties.  And most of all, he looks forward to those calls from ex-students sharing their excitement about new jobs and personal achievements.  (Two of them recently won Emmys and one was co-producer of Spiderman I and II!)

John Graves in the Internet Movie Database
Check out the films that John has worked on
and the popular TV shows from the 60's

And then they said . . . excerpts from John's new book
"Just Say Yes" Memoirs of a Geezer

to be published Oct 1st, 2007

“You’ve got the job.” Barry Diller, then Vice President of Programming for the ABC Television Network, had just hired me as a West Coast Program Executive for the network. But I got a much better job offer, so I went to Australia instead. “Just stomp your feet real hard and they’ll scamper away!” While tromping through knee-high grass during a location hunt for the feature film Storm Boy on Kangaroo Island, South Australia, our guide advised us how to avoid the deadly poisonous snakes which inhabited the tall grass by the thousands. “And the Golden Globe goes to Medical Center!” This was the good news which our MGM-TV table had been waiting for. The producers, Al C. Ward and Frank Glicksman, accepted the award, while a bald Cicely Tyson beamed on. Since I was the executive responsible for this, and every other series at MGM-TV, I beamed too! “I wish the NBC censor would take his hand off my knee.” So remarked Michael Landon during a silent, darkened lull in a rough cut screening of Bonanza on the Paramount lot. (I was actually across the room.) “Why do I have the right to kill you just because you were born on that side of this line?” Joan Baez had just drawn a line in the backyard sand of an exclusive Beverly Hills home, which served as the setting for an intimate, liberal fund raising outdoor supper. “You ruined the party!” The mother of the bride, a very rich Beverly Hills WASP society matron, felt that because our band answered a request from a bridesmaid to play a Jewish Hora (circle dance), we had forfeited our right to be paid. The prominent contractor who had sent us to play, paid the band, but didn’t charge the irate mother. She was prominent in too many high society affairs. “For ourselves we measure—for our guests we just pour.” Bertrand Russell, when his secretary started to use a shot glass to measure while fixing my drink of bourbon neat. “I just don’t believe it! As soon as I get back, I’m going to call The Star and tell them that I was at a transvestite piano bar at the bottom of the Grand Canyon!” This middle-aged school teacher was reacting to the costume party put on by our guides to celebrate the successful completion of a two week rafting trip down the Canyon. I was answering requests on a little 24 inch keyboard they had let me bring along. It was placed on a stump, along with several glasses of beer and wine. I was wearing a beard and a summery white and blue flowered frock, given to my by a lovely young lady (who also happened to be our head guide). Most of the guests had improvised some sort of costume statement to go with their libations. The mood was festive, and reminiscent of almost every piano bar I’ve ever played.