VISITING TOMBSTONE
 By
Bruce Dettman
Recently, for the
third time in my life, I visited Tombstone, Arizona.
The first occasion
was back in 1957. Hugh O’Brian’s popular TV series The Life and
Legend of Wyatt Earp had introduced me to the career of the
famed lawman and I somehow later convinced my father on a vacation
trip to Mexico to drive my mother, older brother and myself some two
hundred miles out of our way to visit the home of the celebrated
Gunfight at the OK Corral where Wyatt, his stalwart brothers
Morgan and Virgil and eccentric friend Doc Holliday had met the
Clantons and McLaureys in the most famous shootout in the annals of
the old west.
It was a blistering
hot day as our 1955 red and white Buick Special moved down Highway
80 with nothing in the way of scenery save the parched,
cactus-marinated desert and the distant and rather redundant
foothills. My mother hated every minute of it and made certain we
all knew it. My brother, more interested in airplanes than
stagecoaches, was indifferent. My father, always a bit of a
romantic, marveled that men and women had once traipsed across this
inhospitable terrain in search of new beginnings. Me, well, I just
wanted to see where the shootout had taken place and perhaps Boot
Hill as well. I was pretty darn excited about the whole thing.
At the time we
visited Tombstone it was really just beginning its post World War II
campaign to lure in tourists. The place had gone through many
changes since its heyday as a mining town in the early 1880s. When
the mining finally stopped the town began to die but not quite. The
locals, who understood the attraction the old west had for
Americans, banded together to re-invent it, to bring its back to
some semblance of its glorious frontier past.
But little of this
renovation had taken place on that dry and searing day in June when
our family showed up hot, tired and hoping the drive had been worth
it.
There were few
visitors and not a great deal to see. The Oriental Saloon had been
transformed into an ice cream parlor which my brother and I made our
first order of business while my parents sauntered into the Crystal
Palace (outside of which Virgil Earp one evening had been gunned
down by ambush and crippled) for something tall and cold.
 Later,
our thirsts quenched, we began to make the rounds of the town.
Again, not much of interest to see. Since I couldn’t enter any of
the saloons—at least not the ones that sold the “rot gun” I had
grown up hearing about on TV and in the movies—all that was left was
Boot Hill and, of course, the OK Corral. The former was fun
although once I had seen the more famous folks “planted up there” it
got a bit boring just reading headstones. That left the OK Corral,
but once again I was in for a major disappointment. There was really
nothing to see, just an empty lot with a few old wagon wheels
propped up against some buildings. There was no indication where the
Earps or Clantons had stood, no real material to explain what had
happened or where. How could this be, I wondered. There wasn’t even
any old dried blood to see. In the juvenile vernacular of the day,
it was a real jip.
By this time, all of
us were ready to head back to Tucson, my fantasy of one day visiting
the so-called “Town Too Tough to Die” somewhat tarnished, not an
unusual thing when boyhood dreams come up smack against cold
reality. Still, I somehow survived.
I would return to
the town some thirty-five years later. The (then) recent release of
two films celebrating the story of Wyatt Earp, Tombstone with
Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer as Wyatt and Doc, respectively, and
Wyatt Earp starring Kevin Costner in the title role, had spurred
new interest in the infamous OK gun battle. Both movies dealt with
the story of Tombstone—although in the Costner film, which attempts,
albeit rather sluggishly, to recount much of Wyatt’s life story, the
Tombstone section only comes at the film’s conclusion—and while not
huge box office successes (Wyatt Earp actually lost money)
these movies were both good for the city of Tombstone.
The town was
certainly hopping when I visited in 1996. Tourists were everywhere.
The restaurants were packed. There were daily gunfight recreations
on the dusty streets. Rooms were hard to come by and the
stores—selling everything from Wyatt Earp cabernet to Doc Holliday
glass coasters—were doing a landmark business.
I managed to find
lodgings just down the street from the OK Corral in a charming old
split level Victorian that had been turned into a bed and breakfast.
It was fun to sit out on the big wrap-around porch just about the
time the actual gunfight took place, have a beer and listen to the
pistols of the re-enactors going off as you imagined how it must
have been for the townspeople back on that afternoon in 1881.
Still, the place was
just too crowded for my tastes. One night I waited two hours for a
poor meal in a Mexican restaurant just down the street from
Scheifflen Hall. The bars were as crowded as any in my hometown of
San Francisco and you couldn’t take a step without walking in front
of someone snapping a picture.
 What
I preferred was the town around seven o’clock when most of the day
visitors were on their way back to Tucson, when the shop doors were
locked and people were off at restaurants. This is when Tombstone
became real for me, when it was transformed into Tombstone of myth,
legend, history and even popular culture. I liked hearing the sounds
of my boots striding with a flat echo against the wooden planked
sidewalks. I liked the way the sun, a sizzling orange orb, began to
descend beneath the distant desert horizon. I liked the distant,
ghost-like sounds of voices and a tinny piano coming from one of the
saloons down the mostly deserted street. I liked being there alone
and sensing what it must have been like a hundred years before when
the Earps and Clantons, Johnny Ringo and Curly Bill Brocius, Bat
Masterson and Luke Short had walked these same streets. It was my
favorite part of the trip and in many ways I wish that had been my
last visit to Tombstone, my final glimpse of the place.
But more recently I
visited there again, this time with my wife and friends who were
eager to see the town.
Honestly, it looked
pretty much the same, on the surface anyway. But something had
changed, had slowly eroded away certain strands of its historical
fabric and replaced it with celluloid. That something was Hollywood.
Tombstone, of
course, ever since the town tried to re-define itself after the
silver lode was played out, had always been linked to the cinematic
Wild West. There was a revival of sorts for the community during the
1950s when Hugh O’Brien’s Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp was
such a success on television. Later, the big budgeted movie
Gunfight at the OK Corral with Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster
also spawned new interest in “The Town Too Tough to Die.”
 But
none of this was anything like what now had taken over the town. The
popularity of the film Tombstone and the less well received
Wyatt Earp, though now nearly twenty years old, had all but
superseded much of the actual history of the community. Where on
previous occasions photos of the real Earps, Doc Holiday and some
other notable Tombstone residents of the 1880s were invariably in
evidence, the majority of the likenesses now observed, positioned
just about everywhere one looked, were of the actors from these
films. It was impossible to walk into a shop, regardless of whether
it sold guns, hats, wine, postcards, six shooters or T-shirts
without being confronted with Russell and Kilmer, Costner less so.
Clothing stores also felt the film’s influence with coats, hats and
vests lifted from the Hollywood version.
Even the Crystal
Palace Saloon, where on my second visit I had sat over a few tall
ones and listened to a guitar-strumming singer of cowboy ditties
from a small stage, now had several TVs running which ran the
subtitled film Tombstone throughout the entire day. And the
same was true of other eating and drinking establishments.
Meanwhile, the OK
Corral itself now boasts a half hour skit depicting—with not a great
deal of historical fidelity—the events leading up to the shootout
and all the actors wear outfits right out of the film.
One cannot help
coming away from such a visit, unless schooled in some of the real
history of the town, with the lines seriously blurred between what
actually was and what has been created on celluloid.
A shame too because
Tombstone is rich in history, much of it still there if you are
willing to dig a bit, to move beyond the bumper stickers and the
gaudy commercialism that is at once both its bread and butter as
well as its downfall. For a feel of the real Tombstone visit the
Bird Cage Saloon, one of the few authentic buildings still in
existence (the town has been partially wiped out on a number of
occasions by fire). Go into the basement and in the grainy and moody
darkness peer into one of the cramped little rooms, hardly more than
closets really, where, just a few feet from active poker games, the
working girls would present their favors to the winners. Take a peek
into the office of the Epitaph where the OK Corral gunfight was
reported or just sit, as I have earlier described, on a bench at
twilight and listen to the wind and the flapping wooden signs.
Sometimes, if you
listen real hard you can even hear the ghosts. Sometimes if you’re
lucky they’re pretty loud.
July 2010
 M
SQUAD
Timeless Media Group
15 DVD
Set
Complete Series run
117
Episodes
Reviewed by Bruce Dettman
Depending upon one’s
perspective, early TV was either the final career stop for a lot of
former film actors on the way down or the launching pad for
up-and-coming performers who had begun honing their craft after
World War II. Nonetheless, despite major successes on the small
tube, it was a rare occasion when a TV star migrated successfully
and with the same degree of popularity to television. There were
exceptions, of course—Steve McQueen, who had only been featured in a
few film roles before his breakout part in the video western
Wanted Dead or Alive, was probably the most famous of these.
James Garner was another although to a slightly lesser degree. There
were a few movie roles and then Maverick came along to
jettison him to fame and (eventually) fortune.
An actor with much
more on his film resume who then decided to tackle a regular weekly
television gig was Lee Marvin. Fresh out of the army where he had
seen considerable combat action including being wounded in the
battle of Saipan, Marvin moved to Hollywood where he soon became a
fixture in many movies, often portraying psychotic and villainous
parts. His early celluloid resume included crime, western, gangster
and war films such as Bad Day At Black Rock, Hangman’s Knot, The
Wild One, Violent Saturday and The Big Heat, the
latter earning him a degree of cinematic immortality by tossing a
cup of scalding hot coffee in Gloria Graham’s face.
It would seem that
Marvin, having quickly scaled the ladder of Hollywood bad guy parts,
had no major problems in securing colorful movie roles and could
have continued in this vein making a comfortable living for himself,
but in 1957 he turned his ear (and career) to the beckoning voice of
the small tube and accepted the leading role of Detective Frank
Ballinger in the weekly NBC TV series M Squad.
For three years
Marvin would take Ballinger into the living rooms of millions of
viewers as he ferreted out—as well as often dishing out—his own
manner of punishment to a wide assortment of Chicago’s worst
criminals: killers, robbers, rapists, embezzlers, burglars,
kidnappers and every sort of con man. The half hour, black and white
series was shot on location and did for Chicago what Naked City
had done for New York.
There were many
crime shows on television of that era, from Jack Webb’s
groundbreaking Dragnet to The Lineup and Arrest and
Trial. What made M Squad different than the others
is that while Ballinger was indeed a plainclothes police officer
working in a special detail of the windy city’s police force he more
or less functioned on his own. In this respect his was a character
that fused traits of the professional cop with that of a private
investigator, Marvin’s strong voice-over narration bolstering the
impression of independence. There were other members of the squad
who occasionally lent him a hand—DeForrest Kelly, a few years shy of
his role as Dr. McCoy in Star Trek, is one who comes to
mind—but for the most part Ballinger was his own man, a lone wolf
following his own leads and instincts, not always approved of by his
bosses which included several actors until Paul Newlan got a steady
birth as the seasoned, slightly world-weary Captain Grey. The two
played off each other very well.
M Squad
hosted a large and impressive list of guest stars which included
Joanna Barnes, Charles Bronson, Ed Nelson, Burt Reynolds, Mike
Connors, James Colburn, Leonard Nimoy, Don Rickles, Mike Connors,
Janis Rule, Paul Burke, Joe Flynn, Angie Dickinson, Ruta Lee and
Whitney Blake.
Adding to the gritty
urban feel of the show was its use of jazz themes and motifs. For
the show’s second season the great jazz composer Count Basie wrote
the popular M Squad theme.
While the thirty
minute format made for fairly simplistic and predictable plots with
not much wiggle room for extensive characterizations or complex
themes, M Squad still benefited from great locations, tight
directorial reins, lean dialog and most of all, the unforgettable
Lee Marvin as Ballinger.
June 2010
 MEETIN’
WITH FESS
By
Bruce Dettman
As one ages, the line
between youth and adulthood appears not so much a vague or gradual
transformation but rather a sudden and irreversible alteration, a
drastic and unfair change that all too often takes one completely
off guard. One moment you are a kid with nothing more serious on
your mind than running out of caps or missing a favorite western,
and the next you're paying bills and contemplating buying more life
insurance. Sometimes you pause and wonder what the hell happened and
occasionally, when the ill-advised whim is upon you, you might even
attempt to bridge those bygone years, rarely with success.
(AP-undated Disney photo)
On July 28, 1993, however, I managed
to not only cross that bridge but to spend nearly four hours happily
on the other side.
On July 28, 1993 I met Fess Parker.
I must concede that I
still look back on this event with a certain sense of wonderment
coupled with a large dose of disbelief. In my mind I am certain the
events of that day really happened, that I spent nearly four hours
talking to one of my boyhood heroes, the man who as the legendary
frontiersman on the 1954 Walt Disney Davy Crockett series had
battled Indians, gone to Congress, perished at the Alamo swinging
his rifle, Old Betsy, at the advancing horde of Mexican soldiers and
whose performance set in motion a merchandizing and cultural craze
among young Baby Boomers that even took Uncle Walt off guard. Yet
there are moments when I have to shake my head and think back upon
the occasion with some lingering doubt. Fortunately, I do have tapes
and photographs and a couple of autographed bottles of wine from
Fess' beautiful vineyard to prove it.
It
happened all right.
Mainly it happened
because my buddy Glenn Nolan, a fellow Alamo enthusiast, urged me to
send a copy of an unpublished article I had written on Fess to the
actor. Such a gesture had never occurred to me, but at Glenn's
good-intentioned insistence I went ahead and slipped the piece in
the mail. To be truthful, I didn't think a great deal about it after
that figuring that Fess Parker, a real estate tycoon and owner of a
winery, was undoubtedly always receiving requests and correspondence
from fans that he wouldn’t have time to deal with. In addition, my
concern over the illness of a favorite uncle, who finally passed
away in early February of that year, removed most every other
consideration from my mind. I remember returning to my apartment
after the funeral, feeling emotionally spent, reaching for a beer
and from habit flipping on the answering machine.
"Hello Bruce," the familiar voice began, "This is
Fess Parker."
At first I wasn't
certain that what I was hearing was real. For an instant I felt like
glancing around the room to make certain Rod Serling wasn’t
injecting me into a Twilight Zone episode. What had been in that
vodka from the night before? Was I dreaming, hallucinating? No, this
was the real thing. Fess went on to compliment me on my article,
said he was going up to the house to read it to his wife, and
invited me to please call him to discuss it.
Soon after that we
had a long and most enjoyable phone conversation which led to
several others. Initially I must admit to having been somewhat
intimidated but I was soon put completely at ease by his casual and
friendly style. He invited me down to his winery and, of course, I
said yes. I also asked if he'd mind if I brought Glenn since without
his suggestion this entire connection would never have taken place.
"No problem," Fess assured me (I had tried calling him Mr. Parker
but would have nothing to do with that).
"Love to meet your friend, bring him along."
We made several
attempts to make something work on the calendar, but each time one
of us found a free date Fess couldn’t make it. His winery, as well
as other business ventures, obviously took up much of his time. It
was becoming a frustrating business and I began to have doubts that
I'd every meet my favorite Davy Crockett, but finally in July we
settled on a day that worked.
Glenn and I made it
most of the way to Olivous, a small community near Santa Barbara
where the Parker Winery is located, the first day, had dinner then
turned in anticipating our morning rendezvous with Fess.
After breakfast and
getting our bearings, a long drive down a country road, which snaked
lazily through a line of rolling California hills marinated in
golden grass and dotted by an occasional grazing longhorn, finally
led to a crossroad marked by several signs, one of which indicated a
right turn to the winery.
My God, I remember telling myself one
more time before starting down the final leg of our journey, I'm
actually going to meet Fess Parker.
We parked and called the office.
"Come right up," one of his secretaries
said. "Fess is talking to one of his grandchildren but he'll be right
down to meet you in a few minutes."
The butterflies that had taken flight
in my gut had suddenly grown into full-blown pterodactyls but somehow I
managed to put one foot in front of the other.
The office, entered
by a side door, was busy and cluttered. One young lady worked at a desk
while another vacuumed. "Just have seat gentlemen," she said showing us
into another room. She offered us coffee and reiterated that Fess would
be down directly.
The office was
smaller than I anticipated, made to appear even more so due to all the
personal memorabilia both on the walls and piled in corners, everything
from civic and scholastic awards to photos from his Crockett and Daniel
Boone days. I quickly scanned everything I could. Then I was interrupted
by a voice addressed to his office staff, a voice nearly as familiar as
my own brother’s.
"Good morning, ladies."
Glenn and I both
stood as he appeared at the door, all six foot six of him. The hair was
greyer than in his Davy Crockett days, the face certainly more mature,
but there was no mistaking those bright and friendly eyes, that soothing
resonant voice or that posture straight as a flintlock. Almost at once
Glenn and I felt relaxed and comfortable. He told me to close the door
so we could have some privacy. And for close to the rest of the morning
we had just that.
Although I was taping
our meeting interview-style, the tone was more one of three old friends
sitting around in a good old fashioned bull session. Fess, reclining in
one of the room's three large chairs and engrossed in Glenn's tremendous
collection of Crockett film material (much of which he either hadn't
seen in over thirty years), answered all our questions and often, as
conversations are wont to do, going off on fascinating side roads, each
story and anecdote somehow more interesting than the last. Initially
there was a lot of Crockett talk but we also moved along to Fess'
experiences with John Ford, his thoughts on Disney, dreams for his
winery and much more. Later, of course, I would think of a host of other
questions I should have put to him. Honestly, Glenn and I could easily
have spent a week with this fascinating man but the thought of imposing
on his time began to seem a possibility, something we certainly didn't
wish to do.
"Well,
gentlemen, if you can spare the time why don't I show you the winery.”
If we
could spare the time?!!
We loaded into Fess'
Landcrusier and he drove us the half mile back to the beautiful rustic
winery he'd been in the process of building for several years. Fess was
a hands-on guy—no ivy tower executive suite for him—who obviously
involved himself in all phases of the product he was so obviously proud
of. At one point he excused himself to go pick up some papers that had
blown onto the massive front lawn. As people showed up there was always
a "howdy" or "thanks for comin’, folks." I'm sure some of the visitors
didn't know who this ball-capped charmer in the Levis and T-shirt was.
Fess showed us around
the operation. At certain points we would stop as he chatted with winery
workers or paused for a steer on the upper road to get out of our way.
It was at this point, as Fess stared the steer down just as he had that
bear forty years before when playing Crocket, that it really came home
to me what a truly amazing experience this was, that I was actually
driving around with my boyhood idol, a man who not only had
single-handedly set in motion my interest in the Alamo and western
history but who I had emulated a thousand times as a small boy. I was
really quite overwhelmed and from our conversation later I know Glenn
felt pretty much the same. Later, someone seeing one of the pictures we
had taken during our visit remarked that my friend, sitting near Fess,
somehow resembled a small child mesmerized by a hero. And that, better
than anything else, is exactly what the entire day was like, a feeling
one rarely, if ever, has the opportunity to experience as an adult.
"My
pleasure. You
fellas came an awfully long way and I appreciate it."
And you could tell
that these were not just words. The genuineness came through just as it
had in everything he had said to us that day.
We put our cases
of wine, those he had given us as gifts, in the car, waved a last time
and began our long drive home.
Never, however,
had a long drive been more worth it.
This slightly revamped article originally appeared
in the publication The Alamo Journal. No 88, October 1993. The author is
indebted to Editor Will Chemerka for permission to reprint it here.
April 2010
 LARAMIE
Timeless Media Group
Season Three/Twenty-eight episodes
Review By:
Bruce Dettman
There has always been a
certain caste system inherent in western movies and on television. While
the hero might have friends and dependable sidekicks, these characters
have traditionally been featured as a rung down in the competence and
toughness department. In the early days of the big screen oater most of
the famous western stars had assistance as they roamed the great west,
but it was rare that any of these partners were on equal footing with
the star as far as gunplay or pugilistic ability was concerned. Quite
often they were just around for laughs as witnessed by the steady
paychecks that actors such as funnymen Gabby Hayes, Smiley Burnette, Al
“Fuzzy” St. John, “Fuzzy” Knight and others received for tagging along
with the likes of Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and Buster Crabbe.
Instances where heroic
duties were divvied up were rare (examples being the 1940s movie series
The Rough Riders which co-starred Buck Jones and Tim McCoy—but
even here Buck had a bit more of the screen time and heroic edge than
the older and less popular Tim—and Republic Studio’s long running
Three Mesquiteers series with Robert Livingston—and later John
Wayne—being the real attraction over co-stars Ray Corrigan and Max
Terhune) with a single cowboy star traditionally carrying the majority
of the action and his sidekick supplying comedic bits and marginal
backup if needed.
On TV, of course, the
Lone Ranger rode with Tonto, the Cisco Kid with Pancho, even Annie
Oakley had a male second banana named Lofty. The so-called “adult
westerns,” when not exploring the sagebrush careers of loners like Bill
Longley (The Texan), Vint Bonner (The Restless Gun) or
Dave Blassingame (The Westerner), were usually set around a town
with a certain hierarchy (Gunsmoke for instance where Marshal
Matt Dillon of Dodge City had deputies Chester, Festus and Newley to
rely on over the years but who were never near his equal in the gunplay
department) or a family unit like Bonanza or The Big Valley
where siblings had very different strengths and personas.
 A
western that was completely different in this respect was NBC’s hour
long series Laramie which premiered in 1959 and ran for four
seasons, the last two in color, before the plug was pulled. What made
Laramie unique was that the framework of the show was built around two
characters of very similar heroic proportions, Slim Sherman, as
portrayed by blonde-haired blue-eyed John Smith, and Jess Harper played
by the slimmer, dark-haired Robert Fuller.
Although the characters
had different backgrounds and demeanors they were very much alike in
their strengths and heroic qualities. Slim, tough as nails, was the
guardian of his younger brother Andy and along with this responsibility
ran a stagecoach way station outside of Laramie, Wyoming. Jess Harper,
the handier of the two with a shooting iron, had a darker past, not
always a lawful one as hinted at in various episodes where he meets up
with individuals from his earlier days, sometimes with violent results.
Ironically, since both men were so good in the parts, it is interesting
to note that originally the producers had Fuller in mind for the Sherman
role, an image nearly impossible for fans of the series to contemplate
as Fuller, who possessed a kind of brooding intensity, seemed as perfect
for the often moody and reflective Harper as the solid, likable and
dependable Smith appeared to fit the Sherman part to a tee.
During the first seasons
of Laramie the cast also included famed composer Hoagy Carmichael
as Jonsie, who cooked and cleaned and did all sorts of odd work around
the place, as well as the aforementioned Crawford (brother of Johnny
Crawford of Rifleman fame) as Andy. No explanation was given for
Jonsie’s departure but it was understood that Andy had gone east to
school. In the third season this domestic vacuum was filled by veteran
actress Spring Byington as Daisy, a woman stranded in the west who finds
a home not only cooking and cleaning for Slim and Jess but helping to
take care of Mike, an orphan whose parents were killed during an Indian
raid and for whom the men have accepted responsibility. Two other
semi-regular characters on the series were Mort Cory, Laramie’s sheriff
played by Stuart Randall, and Eddy Waller as the stagecoach driver Mose.
While everyone connected
with the show—both behind and in front of the camera—pitched in to
produce an excellent western, it was Robert Fuller’s portrayal of Jess
Harper, particularly in that initial year, that truly resonated with the
fans, not only in America but in Germany and Japan as well. His
popularity was immense and although Laramie might have been
successful without him, it is undeniable that his performance and the
character of Harper helped make it the hit it was.
In many ways, Harper is
the spiritual descendent of Shane; the famed western character
created by novelist Jack Schaffer and played on the big screen by Alan
Ladd. Like Shane, Harper is trying to settle down after a past filled
with violence and danger. But his past often rears up to challenge or
tempt him. Fuller does a terrific job at playing a character which is
always a bit off balance; always flirting with what he knows is his
potential for a different sort of existence. But Smith is excellent too;
his controlled and measured personality being a perfect match for the
other man’s volatility. It was good chemistry and was a large
contributing factor to the show working so well.
Laramie was a
strong, well produced, acted and directed show boasting two fine and
high appealing leads plus a host of talented players, both up and coming
players and established stars, such as Alex Cord, Denver Pyle, L.Q.
Jones, Dan Duryea, Leonard Nimoy, Harry Dean Stanton, Ed Nelson, Cloris
Leachman, Jock Mahoney and many more.
For years fans of the
show have hoped that the entire run would someday become available on
DVD, and now this is the case with the news that the first two seasons
and the fourth will be released soon. Regrettably, picture quality
varies with a number of episodes, some having a washed out appearance,
absent from other ‘Timeless’ restorations.
A bonus feature includes
an interview with Robert Fuller who discusses the series which he
continues to be very proud of, rightfully so.
The author is
indebted to Robert Fuller, a fine gentleman, for his kindness and
generosity in taking the time to talk to him about Laramie. Photo
courtesy of Mike Goldman.
April 2010
 THE
TEXAN
Timeless
Media Group
70 Episodes
on 10 DVDs
Reviewed by
Bruce Dettman
There was an old
west historical figure named Bill Longley but the goateed, rather
satanic looking Texas-born character was no errant do-gooder like his TV
counterpart but rather a vicious outlaw and killer who was eventually
hung in 1878 at the ripe old age of 27. While it may seem odd that TV
should re-mold such a dangerous and cold-blooded person into an
ethically pristine sagebrush hero it should also be remembered that the
television industry of that time also sanitized and gave the public
heroic versions of bad men Billy the Kid, Johnny Ringo and Jesse James.
Rory Calhoun
(1922-1999), who in the early 1950s established himself with a solid
resume in action films, starred as Longley. Born Francis Timothy Durglin,
the future actor had a tough youth in Los Angeles and eventually tangled
with the law. Some prison time followed and after serving his time he
found himself directionless and uncertain of what might be around the
next corner. He tackled numerous dead-end jobs including a stint as a
lumberjack when a chance meeting with actor Alan Ladd led to his being
introduced to Ladd’s wife, Hollywood agent Sue Carol, who thought she
saw potential in the young Calhoun. A number of forgettable roles came
his way until he was given a choice part in the moody thriller The
Red House which starred Edward G. Robinson. From then on he worked
steadily with a growing reputation for handling himself well in outdoor
actioners and westerns until he became extremely popular with the
public.
During the making of the
film Flight to Hong Kong (1956) he struck up a friendship with
the movie’s producer Victor Orsatti and the two decided to go into
business together. Forming the company Rorvic, they set out to develop a
TV series. Their first thought was to create a show built around a
nautical premise but when they approached Desi Arnez at Desilu he
convinced them that a better idea was to do a western, a genre Calhoun
already felt very comfortable with.
Developed by noted
western writer Frank Gruber—who had also been responsible for the
western series Tales of Wells Fargo—The Texan related the
wanderings of fast gun Bill Longley, known for reasons never really
explained by the title description. Longley had served in the
Confederate army and later lost his wife. From this point on he became a
drifter, describing himself at one point as always restless. In his
travels, where he picks up work as a lawman, cattle drover and other
occupations, he does not seek out confrontation or violence but
invariably finds it. No matter how hard he tries to stay out of trouble
he nearly always has to rely on his gunfighting skills (the producers
made certain Longley’s gun sounded much louder than anyone else’s
weapon, almost like a shotgun blast). Mostly these confrontations come
about due to Longley’s attempts to help out and befriend people as he
travels from one town to another.
The Texan ran for
two seasons (1958-1960) and there were seventy-eight episodes filmed. It
was never a major ratings success but did all right in the ratings game
and had a loyal following although so many westerns being on the air
worked against it.
The show boasted good
production values and attracted most of the western character actors of
the day, people like Lane Bradford, John Harmon, Terry Frost, John
Dehner, John Doucette and Jack Elam but also featured bigger names in
guest starring roles such as Lon Chaney, Brian Donlevy and Cesar
Romero.
Central to the success
of the show was Calhoun’s performance as Longley. In addition to being
tough he was also compassionate and highly likable. Moreover, the
handsome actor possessed a set of the steeliest eyes in show business
and when things got tough he would fix one of TV’s most intimidating
stares at his intended victim. On the other hand he was chivalrous with
women, polite with the aged and kind to children. He also spoke
impeccable English and could often be quite the sagebrush philosopher.
Timeless Media has done
a good job in the presentation of these fifty year-old shows. Picture
and sound quality are above average. Regrettably they were unable to
find eight episodes. Perhaps they will turn up some day. Also, a minor
quibble, a couple of shows that had an on-going storyline are presented
out of order.
December 2009
 Tales
of Wells Fargo
Timeless
Media Group
46 Episodes
(6 DVDs)
Reviewed by Bruce Dettman
It has been reported that during the 1950s some
viewer, observing the television fare of the day remarked “Hey, don’t
get me wrong. I love westerns. I just don’t like twenty of them every
night.”
And he wasn’t exaggerating all that much.
In the heyday of the television western there were
literally dozens on the airwaves each week, half hour ones, hour ones,
ones about families like the Cartwrights and Barkleys (Bonanza, The
Big Valley), ones about peace officers (Gunsmoke, The Deputy,
Cimarron Strip), and ones about nomadic drifters roaming the west in
search of adventure (The Restless Gun, The Texan). There were
westerns with bounty hunters (Wanted Dead or Alive), Texas
Rangers (Trackdown), newspaper editors (Man without a Gun),
even a western with a one-armed hero (Tate). Some western heroes
wore masks (The Lone Ranger), some had accents (The Cisco Kid),
some were based on real historical figures (Wild Bill Hickok Bat
Masterson and Kit Carson), some were gamblers (Maverick),
Indian Scouts (Cheyenne) and even lawyers (Sugarfoot and
Black Saddle). Most used conventional weapons, usually a Colt
Peacemaker, but as the TV western thrived and multiplied writers and
producers began to come up with gimmicks to make their characters more
memorable and unique. One used a customized Winchester (The Rifleman),
another combination pistol and shotgun (Johnny Ringo), still
another rifle-shotgun (Shotgun Slade). Yancy Derringer
favored, you guessed it, a derringer, and Steve McQueen on Wanted
Dead or Alive shortened his rifle and put it in a special holster
rig while Wyatt Earp (Hugh O’Brian) had a pistol, the famed
Buntline Special, with an extended barrel.
Tales of Wells Fargo, which ran for five
seasons as a half hour show and one year in an expanded hour format, was
unique during this period because it was a solid and very popular oater
without an iota of gimmickry. It was created by TV producer Nat Holt in
1955 who then turned it over to famed western writer and historian Frank
Gruber who penned a pilot episode. Holt knew that the selling point of
the concept, that of a roving detective named Jim Hardie working for the
Wells Fargo banking and stageline company, would only work if they had
the right actor in the lead role. Holt had used and been impressed by a
young actor named Dale Robertson in one of his films and thought he
would be perfect as Hardie. However Robertson, who was just beginning to
get better roles on the big screen—and who viewed television as already
overcrowded with western fare—initially, rejected participation in the
project.
The Oklahoma born actor had grown up around horses
as both a real cowboy and a trainer of polo ponies. He tried a career as
a professional boxer but then as part of Patton’s Third Army was wounded
in the leg during WW II putting an end to his ring career. Eventually he
decided to give acting a try and came to Hollywood where he immersed
himself in learning the trade. Eventually his hard work paid off with
parts in many movies including Two Flags West, Outcasts of Poker
Flats, Sitting Bull, Dakota Incident and The Silver Whip.
Holt was relentless, however, and eventually
Robertson consented to film the pilot which was aired on Schlitz
Playhouse. The actor didn’t expect it to be purchased but it was
immediately snatched up by NBC.
Holt was right is his assessment of Robertson who
brought to the role of Jim Hardie—a reformed bandit who becomes one of
Wells Fargo’s most capable troubleshooters—a cagey charm, warmth and
immense likeability. In addition to these qualities being showcased
during the action of the series, the producers wisely decided to have
Robertson do voice over narration which added dimension and scope to the
character not to mention allowing him to offer sage philosophical
musings when the occasion arose.
Jim Hardie, a rare left-handed gun (Robertson, in
real life right-handed, had to teach himself how to draw with his left
hand and he became incredibly proficient at it), is not adverse to using
his fists or gun when tracking down robbers and thieves and even
murderers, but is equally good at employing his mind and wits whenever
possible. During the five year run of the series Hardie would be
depicted up against some of the old West’s most dangerous outlaws and
criminals including Billy the Kid (Robert Vaughn), Bill Longley (Steve
McQueen), Jesse James (Hugh Beaumont), Sam Bass (Chuck Connors) and John
Wesley Hardin (Lyle Bettger), always coming out on top. The historical
fidelity of the scripts was more often than not suspect and most of the
plots fairly routine and predictable given the limitations of the half
hour format, but Robertson invariably made the proceedings enjoyable and
fun to watch. In anyone else’s hands it could have been just another
western but Robertson put his engaging stamp on the proceedings and it
worked. Another thing that separated Hardie from other TV western heroes
was that he had a regular profession, a ranch waiting for him when he
retired and family members—parents and siblings—who occasionally
appeared. Hardie was no superman and he often made mistakes in judgment
on the job, but he was honest, dedicated and a decent human being.
November 2009
My Life as a Former Child Star
 By
Richard (aka "Richie") Potter
For many years now,
I've been leading a double life but the strain of trying to keep it a
secret has finally become too much to bear. So, I have decided to "come
out of the closet" as it were and admit that yes, I am a former child
actor. I only made one movie, but it has become a cult classic to
many. That movie was originally titled, "The Love of the Banaras" and
was filmed on location in northwestern Iowa during the fall and winter
of 1962. (As film historians know, northwestern Iowa was in its heyday
during the early 1960's and vying for contention as the cheap
alternative to Hollywood, sort of an early version of Bollywood.) Set
in the year 1949, the movie was supposed to be a musical about the
Banara clan, a family of French-Italian immigrants who had moved to
Hartley, Iowa, to open an orchid nursery. Although it was a shameless
attempt to cash in on the unbelievable popularity of The Sound of
Music, the film's plot did offer the unusual twist that the Banaras
were suspected of being Nazis by the town folk due to their thick German
accents. The story centered on the family's attempts to cope with the
unreasoning hatred of the Hartley-ites and the fact that orchids don't
grow in the brutal, 20-degree-below-zero winters in northwestern Iowa.
At the tender age of 9, I was cast as "Richie Banara". I was chosen
more for my ability to remember the lyrics than my vocal talent. I only
had one solo, "Orchids in December, Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?"
which was cut from the picture along with all the other musical numbers
for reasons I am about to explain.
Unfortunately, as
everyone who is familiar with this motion picture knows, when the
artwork for the movie was sent into production, a typo was made and the
poster for the movie came out reading: "The Love of the Bananas."
Rather than send the poster back to the art studio which had perpetrated
this stupendous blunder, the producers decided to salvage the film by
modifying the script to focus on bananas. Several key scenes were
reshot so that a family member was either holding a banana or eating a
banana or speaking softly to one. (The family name, by the way, was
changed to "Windsor" and their ethnicity to Hispanic although the Nazi
element remained.) There was even a love scene added in which a banana
whipped cream pie figured prominently.
I won't go into more
details at this time—the story behind the ill-fated picture and its
eventual rise to cult classic status were covered in the notorious book,
"Peeled of Dreams," by the late James Montpelier, one of my co-stars in
the film. About the book itself, I have little to add. I think it
covers pretty well the aftermath of appearing in the only banana-centric
film noir ever made. About the author, I will say only this—contrary to
urban legend, Jimmy Montpelier, who played my big sister "Julie Windsor"
in the movie, did not die by throwing himself out of a window wrapped in
a yellow blanket. Jimmy was crazy, but there was more to it than that.
Jimmy's descent into drug abuse came a few years after "Banana Love" (as
the film is affectionately known to its fans) had come and gone in the
theaters, right around the time Donovan released his song, "Mellow
Yellow." As everyone who has seen the outtakes from this picture knows,
Jimmy's wardrobe for the movie included a dress made of bright yellow
saffron which he wore for one of his numbers, "The Pastures of Manure."
Because of this, Jimmy earned the nickname "Saffron" around the set.
Sadly, Jimmy became obsessed with the thought that Donovan was speaking
to him personally through the lyrics of the song ("I'm just mad about
saffron, Saffron's mad about me..."). In spite of all that, Jimmy's
death had little to do with drugs and more to do with being stereotyped
as "the Banana girl". Fragments of Jimmy's performance, as well as the
harvest scene in which I appear briefly riding in the back of the banana
wagon, have surfaced on YouTube from time to time.
 Growing
up as a child star took its toll. For years, I couldn't even walk down
Main Street of my home town without being recognized. My mother, who
had been totally bitten by the acting bug and dreams of easy money,
schlepped me to every audition she could find in northwestern Iowa and
southern Minnesota. But I was never again chosen to appear in another
motion picture. This caused a great deal of heartache for my mother and
left me with a tremendous identity crisis. It took me a long time to
come to terms with the fact that I would never become a movie star.
After years of psycho-therapy, I was finally able to put it all behind
me. From that point on, I focused on music and became a
singer/songwriter.
As some of you may
recall, back in 2006 I released my tribute song, "Oh, George," in honor
of George Reeves, the star of the 1950's TV show Adventures of
Superman. The song caused a minor sensation, and as a result, I
began to receive invitations to appear at movie and TV memorabilia
conventions, where I sat besides legends of Hollywood who had faded from
the scene but not from the memories of their devoted fans. Every time I
participated in one of those shows, sitting there at my table selling my
CDs and my original artwork in honor of George Reeves, I felt like a
has-been who never was. And I feared that someone would come up to me
and yell, "Hey, it's Richie Banana!" Fortunately, that never happened.
Then a year or so ago,
I thought the cat was finally out of the bag when my friend and fellow
web-master Carl Glass started referring to me as "Richie" on some of the
discussion boards where we shared our thoughts on the life and legacy of
George Reeves. However, it turned out to be a mere coincidence—Carl had
simply thought the nickname was "cute" and had no idea how close he'd
come to exposing my dark secret.
It wasn't until Turner
Classic Movies decided to run a series called "The Worst Movies That
Were Ever Made" that the Banana saga reared its ugly head and I was
forced to confront my past once again. Somehow TCM put two-and-two
together and realized that Richard Potter, the well-known
singer/songwriter, was also the former child actor from the "Banana
Love" movie. They even contacted me to appear on the show and provide
commentary for the picture. But I declined. Even though I am ashamed
of just about everything in this movie, I have to admit that it's
probably a large part of the reason why I'm a songwriter today. Once
you experience that high of being in a motion picture, the entertainment
world is sort of in your blood forever. But as I explained to TCM, I
have moved on. Or at least I would like to think so.
September 2009
 ALAMO
GHOSTS
By Bruce Dettman
When I recently learned that an old friend of mine
had moved from the street we had both grown up on some fifty years ago,
I knew I had to go back one last time...to walk down that familiar
avenue and perhaps sneak a look at the place that had been ground zero
for much of our magical childhoods—his
backyard. With his leaving, not a soul remained on that block
who had recollections of the street when it was young, when the voices
of Jack Benny or Sid Ceaser, Marshal Matt Dillon or Sgt. Joe Friday
could be heard coming through unlocked screen doors on hot and still
summer nights, when people burned leaves in the gutter, had Fourth of
July barbecues, tossed footballs, talked about Eisenhower’s heart
attacks or a few years later gathered on front lawns to share thoughts
of that tragic weekend in Dallas. New people lived here now, younger,
more nomadic people who bought and left only after a few years. In the
nearly two decades I lived on that street—from the age of two until
nineteen—only one family ever moved away. It was once a place to
establish roots. It was a place to stay.
Still, for all these thousands of memories and
impressions, it was my friend’s backyard, unkempt, overgrown now,
waiting for whoever would come to clear it of its onetime identity and
remove all suggestion of what it had once meant to two young boys a half
century ago.
The backyard had been many things to us. It had
been the main street of Tombstone Arizona, the slate grey side of the
garage serving as the OK Corral where, as the Earps, we had battled the
Clantons. It had been the ashen battlefield of Iowa Jima where, wearing
the aging WW II helmets and canteens of our fathers and uncles, we had
taken on the Japanese. It had served, with some modification, as
the submarine Nautilus from Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The
Sea (the huge tree in the corner doubling as the giant squid which
we attacked with metal bars left over from a dilapidated swing set). A
picnic table had once served as a keel boat. A high hedge was just the
thing for us to fire behind when we were American patriots knocking down
Redcoats. It had been all these things and much more, for more than a
decade.
But mostly, more than anything else, it had been
the Alamo.
It would be hard for me to imagine, to
try and count or tabulate how many time the battle of the Alamo had been
fought in that backyard. Never mind that on occasion a load of wash
might be swaying in the breeze just feet away from where Davy Crockett
made his last stand. Forget the fact that a great tree sat in the corner
where Jim Bowie met his end. Ignore that we battled behind a row of
picket fences, not great adobe walls, or that next door we could
sometimes hear the sound of neighbors tinkering with cars or playing
badminton.
 The
wonderful thing about being a kid is that none of this mattered, none of
it in anyway detracted from our intense and unpunctuated imaginary
focus. To us it was not the back kitchen door with a few steps but the
Alamo Chapel, the walkway lined by some tall apple trees the main gate,
a small patch of dirt in the center of the rose garden the spot where
Travis drew his controversial—though certainly not to us—line in the
sand. All of this based, at least in the early days of our role
playing—on the Walt Disney/Fess Parker series that had so captivated
(perhaps obsessed would be a better word) the youth of America. In our
early versions of the Alamo we pretty much stuck to the Disney scenario,
even including Thimblerig and the Indian Busted Luck in our plotline.
But Mike was two years my senior, more bookish and interested in
history, and
 as
the years went by and he discovered Lon Tinkle and John Myers. With
Myers, and most importantly Walter Lord’s version of the event, our
depictions became a bit more elaborate and sophisticated. I was just
interested in the final battle, of course, of shooting those hordes of
imaginary Mexican soldiers who would charge across a small apple orchard
just beyond my friend’s long picket fence, but he began to add details
and some historical fidelity to our backyard battles. Bonham became a
character, so did Dickenson. We saw The Last Command on TV
whenever it aired, and went together to see the first showing of John
Wayne’s Alamo when it hit our town’s theatre. Once we even
attempted the unthinkable and it turned out to be a grand failure. We
tried it from the Mexican point of view, charged across that orchard and
(thanks to some strategically placed boxes) scaled that picket fence
with rods tied to our muskets to simulate bayonets but it was just not
the same. What was the fun in attacking Crockett and Bowie? There was
none.
We continued to recreate the Alamo when others
might have thought us too old to be “playing guns”—as it was often
called back then—but each time we read a new book on the subject or
learned some new facts we could incorporate into our story we rushed out
and recreated the 13 days of glory. For the record, Mike was always
Crockett and Travis while I was Bowie and assorted others. We both
doubled for both the Texicans slowly mowed down during the final siege
and the Mexican soldiers killing them.
Nothing that I can ever recall from that
period of my life—and admittedly there
was a great deal of competition from movies and TV shows to be
emulated—came close to measuring up to the joy and
enthusiasm we had in recreating the battle of the Alamo.
All of this came back to me as I sat in that
deathly quiet backyard with the overgrown grass in the spot where my Jim
Bowie had made his last stand, by the partially collapsed picket fence
Mike and I had defended a thousand times from those advancing hordes of
Mexican infantry, from the peeling back porch, now littered with trash,
where Crockett, Mike’s Crockett, swinging his rifle, had made his last
heroic stand. For perhaps a few seconds the fifty years separating me
from those times disappeared and I could see that backyard as I had once
envisioned it, as the Alamo compound, detailed in every way that my mind
could make it.
Then reality returned and I saw the place for what
it now was, forgotten, unkempt, shoddy and ready for the bulldozer, but
most of all I saw it hiding its secrets, its memories of two young boys
many years before and how they had unleashed their fertile imaginations
on this magical place and turned it into the Shrine of Texas Liberty.
Then I heard someone, an unfamiliar neighbor from
next door stop by the garage and look my way.
“Sorry, no one lives here anymore. Can I help you?”
“No." I said moving by him. “I used to know this
place. Spent a lot of time here.”
“Really?”
“Fought the battle of the Alamo here on a regular
basis.”
He looked at me kind of funny but I didn’t add
anything.
No point really.
June 2009
“Alamo Ghosts” originally appeared
in The Alamo Journal, Issue #153, June 2009
2009 Festival of the West
with Mike Goldman in Scottsdale Arizona
The 19th annual Festival Of The West, which is held
right here in Scottsdale, Arizona, literally just
minutes away from me, presented it's latest edition
- this weekend, March 19-22, 2009.
There were quite a few stars of yesteryear
appearing...
Robert Horton, Robert Fuller, Denny Miller, Buck
Taylor, and Whitey Hughes to name a few.
But due to time constraints, I was there early,
and all the celebs were not there yet.
Stella Stevens was at a panel discussion that
was already in progress. Another
fellow, who was in a rush like me, and came
this close to knocking me over, turned out to
be...Peter Brown!
There was the delightful Beverly Washburn, of
course. Beverly says hello to all of you from the
Memphis event last year.
This is Ed Faulkner. I must admit, that at first,
it didn't register, until I saw this:
Ty Hardin -
Bronco...(little
blurry...sorry)
...Clint Walker -
Cheyenne
His table had the longest line, by far. He was there
with his wife, Shirley. And at 81, he looks great!
And then there was...Hugh O'Brien...Wyatt
Earp.
I thought he would be the one with the really
long line, but he was set up away from most of
the others. It turned that he was quite
accessible, very approachable...and thoroughly
charming.
I got this photo at Hugh's table, which he most
graciously autographed:
" Mike - a Top Gun" But...I think Hugh meant to
say...pop gun!! LOL
March 2009
 WAGON
TRAIN:
The Television Series
By James Rosin
Autumn Road Company, 2008
Reviewed by Bruce Dettman
Although the video landscape of the
1950s and 60s was once heavily marinated in westerns, up to
over thirty a week at one point, the majority of these have
long been forgotten save by trivia experts or those whose
business it is to chronicle the history of the medium. Many
of these shows lasted only a season, sometimes less, and
their impact, if any, was minimal to none, particularly as
the public and industry gradually lost interest in the once
beloved genre. There were exceptions, however, shows which
today, some forty to fifty years later, still resonate with
us, a fact borne out by the recent successful packaging of
certain old shows on DVD such as the classic Gunsmoke
and Have Gun Will Travel, series which have also been
documented in books. Another show that stood out from the
rest and which both cried out for DVD distribution as well
as a historical evaluation is Wagon Train, one of the
finest westerns ever to grace the small tube. Fortunately,
writer/historian/actor James Rosin was up to the task, the
result being his latest tome, Wagon Train: The
Television Series. Rosin, whose earlier media
histories successfully detailed the production of Naked
City and Route 66, serves up a richly detailed
appraisal of the popular series which ran from 1957 though
1965 and delivers a most entertaining and lively read in the
process.
While Wagon Train, which told
the story of the pioneering trek from St. Joseph Missouri to
California and Oregon via covered wagon during the late mid
1800s, relied on a cast of strong regulars including
Ward Bond, Robert Horton, John McIntire, Terry Wilson, Frank
McGrath, Robert Fuller and Denny Miller, it differed from
many of the other action-oriented oaters of the period in
its interest and attention to character-driven storylines
which focused on the lives and challenges of those
individuals heading west, characters weekly portrayed by
some of the best actors in Hollywood including Ernest
Borgnine, Barbara Stanwyck, Bette Davis and Linda Darnell.
Rosin tells the story of this superb
series by punctuating his narrative with fascinating
interviews with many of those directly affiliated with the
show, both in front and behind the camera, a technique which
produces a particularly intimate and satisfying feel for
what it took to make Wagon Train the highly
successful and well remembered series that it is.
Wagon Train: The Television
Series should be in the library of any fan of video
history in general and the TV western in particular.
Wagons Ho!
October 2008
A SUPER
COLLECTION
I've been a fan of Superman for about
10 years now, the same number of years the Superman Super
Site has been around. The site started as a small fan site
to help fill a void on the Internet for information on the
Man of Steel. Over the years, the site has continued to
grow and change more than I could have ever imagined
possible back in 1998.
My collection of Superman memorabilia
has grown dramatically over the past 10 years as well. What
started as nothing more than a black bagged issue of the
Death of Superman has grown to a collection of well over 500
items. Everything from statues, action figures, posters,
vintage items and even the occasional comic book now
comprise the whole collection.
The Superman Super Site exists strictly
as a source of news and information for all fans of the Man
of Steel. If not for the fans, the site would cease to
exists at all. With 10 great years running the site now
behind me, I can only hope and pray for another 10 or even
more. As long as there are fans of Superman, there will
always be a Superman Super Site!
Sincerely,
Neil A. Cole
Webmaster—Superman Super Site
August 2008
To see another Super
Superman Collection: Go to Jamie
Reigle's Page
Chicago
Ray Courts Hollywood Collector’s Show
By
Ralph Schiller
 This
last weekend I attended the Ray Courts Hollywood
Collectors Show which took place on March 15 and 16 at
the O’Hare Marriott Hotel in Chicago, Illinois near O’Hare
airport.
This was
the first Ray Courts show produced in Chicago since 2005
which was held for the first time at the Marriott Hotel. I
have been going to the shows for 10 years and I have never
before seen such record-breaking crowds in attendance. I
arrived shortly after the 10:00AM opening time and the giant
convention hall was already packed with hordes of movie and
TV fans. I was supposed to locate my pal Dave but gave up
after the first 20 minutes. Later we bumped into each other
purely by chance among the cast of thousands.
Many
celebrities attended this Ray Courts Show and the big
attraction was supposed to be actor Val Kilmer but he
cancelled out at the last minute. Mr. Courts himself was
not happy about Kilmer’s ‘no show’ but he was delighted to
see a long line of fans surrounding Erik Estrada,
who had
starred in the hit NBC television series “CHiPs”
(1977–1983). Other stars in attendance were Katey Sagal and
David Faustino of “Married With Children” (1987–1997), Kathy
Garver who starred as ‘Sissy’ on the CBS series “Family
Affair” (1966–1971) with Brian Keith and Sebastian Cabot,
and Antonio Fargas who played ‘Huggy Bear’ on the ABC smash
“Starsky And Hutch” (1975–1979). In addition to the stars
were nearly one hundred sellers of movie/TV memorabilia
peddling posters, lobby cards, 8x10 glossy photos by the
thousands along with hundreds of rare DVDs and books. My
friend Dave bought a title lobby card from a forgotten
Abbott & Costello movie “The Noose Hangs High” (1948) which
completed his collection of lobby cards for all 36 films
starring Bud & Lou.
Our
slave-driving GHP editor Carl Glass ordered me to cover
the convention because the honored guest was going to be
none other than our very own Noel Neill. Noel had more fans
crowding around her table buying autographed photos and
books than any other star in attendance with the possible
exception of Erik Estrada. Noel Neill was seated with her
biographer and author in his own right Larry Thomas Ward.
Sitting to Miss Neill’s left was Christopher Reeves’ Lois
Lane of four ‘Superman’ films Margot Kidder! Ms. Kidder
starred in many films and her leading men include Robert
Redford, Gene Wilder, Rod Steiger, Michael Sarrazin, and
Richard Pryor. But even she couldn’t match the long line of
fans that formed in front of the original Lois Lane, Noel
Neill! When the crowd temporarily diminished around her
table, I went up to Ms. Neill and introduced myself. Both
Larry Ward and Noel remembered my name as the guy who bought
the first copy of their black & white book (“Truth, Justice
& The American Way: The Life and Times of Noel Neill, The
Original Lois Lane”) back in 2003 at the Ray Courts show! I
handed Noel a small bag of her favorite candy, bite size
‘Tootsie Rolls’ sent by her friend Colete Morlock, and she
took it from my hands with super speed! Larry Ward was kind
enough to take a photo of me with Noel, and so did my friend
Dave using my camera. I bought a copy of her latest book
with Mr. Ward “Beyond Lois Lane” which contains many rare
color photos from both her long screen career and private
life. I would have loved to have spent more time visiting
with Larry Ward and Noel Neill but another wave of loyal
fans appeared intent on meeting the Lois Lane in person! It
was my time to say good-bye for now to this elegant,
beautiful, intelligent but loyal friend of George Reeves.
Maybe another time I’ll get to ask her about starring in the
last ‘Charlie Chan’ movie with Mantan Moreland in 1949, or
co-starring with comedy king Leon Errol in one of his
classic RKO short subject films that same year.
Across
the aisle was film star Hugh O’Brien who starred in “The
Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp” (1955–1961) on ABC for 226
episodes. He also made scores of films, TV movies and guest
shots but he’s still Wyatt Earp for generations of Western
fans. I bought a color photo of O’Brien as Earp when he
appeared on the Western segment of the “ABC Network 30th
Anniversary” special in 1978. Also in the same group photo
are Jack Kelly of “Maverick’, Clayton Moore as “The Lone
Ranger”, Michael Ansara as Cochise from “Broken Arrow”,
Clint Walker as “Cheyenne”, Chuck Connors as “The Rifleman”,
“David Carradine in “Kung Fu” and the ‘Duke’ himself John
Wayne!
I was
able to get an autographed photo of Erik Estrada for my
brother Pat. Erik Estrada is an actual police officer
between acting jobs, and we engaged in some real interesting
conversation, in particular about George Reeves.
 I
bought an autographed photo from lovely Lauren Chapin who
starred as Kathy ‘Kitten’ Anderson on the beloved ABC series
“Father Knows Best” (1954–1960) with Robert Young. She was
excited about her old series finally being released to DVD.
My last
visit for an autographed photo was with the still-beautiful,
former Hammer Films actress and ‘007’ Bond girl Caroline
Munro. She starred with Christopher Lee in “Dracula A.D.
1972”, in Ray Harryhausen’s “The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad”
(1974) with John Phillip Law, and in “The Spy Who Loved Me”
(1977) with Roger Moore. She also made two classic horror
films with Vincent Price, “The Abominable Dr. Phibes” (1971)
and “Dr. Phibes Rises Again” (1972) which I said were among
my favorite films. Miss Munro laughed and said “Oh boy! I
did a lot of work in those films!” Actually she played the
good doctor’s deceased but perfectly preserved,
breathtakingly gorgeous young late wife, Victoria Regina
Phibes whose tragic death sets off a vendetta of revenge!
Sadly the
photos I took with both Noel Neill and Caroline Munro didn’t
come out, and this cub reporter apologizes for not capturing
the images of these two wonderful actresses who are as
beautiful on the inside as they are on the outside. The
next Ray Courts Chicago show is scheduled for this
September, and I’ll be there with a new camera this time.
However, I do want to thank Larry Ward for his generosity in
making sure I got a photo he took of the “Original Lois
Lane” and me for display here on “Glass House Presents.”
(Larry sent Carl a photo of Ralph and Noel)
Celebrity
Comments & Opinion on “TAOS” and George Reeves:
Noel
Neill:
I mentioned a recent posting on a web site to Noel that
George Reeves was in an earlier accident in 1956 where his
car was sandwiched between two large trucks, and I asked if
she had ever heard of this before? Noel looked me straight
in the eye and said, “No, of course not!” “George never said
a word about it ever!” “I know these people...Now they’re
going to say it made him feel depressed.” She shook her head
in complete disgust with these armchair detectives who never
knew, met, or worked with George Reeves but claim they have
all the answers to this baffling Hollywood mystery and
tragedy.
Hugh
O’Brien:
Since O’Brien was a TV star during the same time period as
George Reeves, I asked him about the star of “The Adventures
of Superman.” Hugh O’Brien said that Reeves was “a really
nice guy.” “Oh, back then we heard rumors that he was
murdered!”
Erik
Estrada:
“He was great… I loved that show and I always watched it!” I
asked him if he thought Reeves committed suicide and without
batting an eyelash he said, “I doubt it.”
Lauren
Chapin:
I asked her about George Reeves since she worked in
Hollywood throughout the 50s. Lauren replied, “Oh he was
wonderful…and it’s great that Lois Lane’s right over there…”
pointing to Noel Neill. I asked her if she thought he
committed suicide in 1959 and her emphatic response was “Of
course not!”
April 2008
Late Last Night
Late last night
The table shook
Inside George Reeves "is" house
I asked permission to have a peek
And spied a tiny mouse
A box of 'Nilla Wafers
Was being torn to bits
The mouse and I
Saw eye to eye
And shared our Hissy Fits
There was no REAL vanilla listed
Upon the ingredients panel
I saw the mouse start shivering
And dressed him in red flannel
George appeared
And then we cheered
As he tossed the box outside
The mouse bemoaned the artifice
And George just said "They Lied"
Generous George The People's
Friend
Began to make some cookies
He produced a bottle of " Vanilla Real "
(The mouse and I were Rookies)
With such a grace and balance
We watched him as he worked
I brewed a pot of coffee YES !
"G" whistled as it perked
"Behold My Vanilla Wafers" he said
"The best that I can make"
"I'm Honest George The Mouse's Friend"
"No better can be baked"
©
July 10 2007 Stargazer (and friends)
 Miss Noel Neill
Noel likes to
travel
She does it very well
Sit and have some coffee
There are many
tales to tell
The stage
became her playmate
And courage did abound
You'll remember her as Lois
Lane
And yes she's
still around
A pretty
Sagittarian
With a smile that never stops
She dines with famous people
And other days
she mops
 The
greatest car companion
A soul could ever want
She'll try a new adventure
Or share a
favorite haunt
You can stick
her in an airplane
Or a boat and trailer too
She'll swing in a jungle
hammock
And sing a song
for you
She cheered up
all the kiddies
On Black And White TV
In tailored suits and quirky
hats
A lovely sight
to see
But when the
show was over
And George Reeves went away
Noel took another path
Then lived from
day to day
 She
re-emerged from time to time
And shared her smile once more
Keeping alive an era gone by
As she walked
across the floor
Her clothing
wasn't quite the same
Our decades saw to that
But thanks to her devotion
She wore a
baseball hat
Lois Lane in a
baseball hat
And a shirt with a Giant "S"
Is Noel Neill our Super Friend
?
The answer will
be yes
So keep your
eyes opened
For a beautiful girl
With a smile just like the Sun
Sparkled hair and empathy
And on the road
to fun
© January 27
2007 Stargazer
 THE ETERNAL MISTER
REEVES
Hey ! Don't you know I'm
Superman?
I fry up food in an
iron pan
With multi
talents
I do what I can
Sure you know I'm
Superman !
And
don't you know
My Name's George Reeves?
I sew my cuffs and
press my sleeves
Look at me !
I AM George Reeves
Did
I also mention
That I'm a film director ?
Actor Writer and
Child Protector
Spent some time with a famed
Inspector
Yes ! I am a film
director
 Have
you heard me play
My mean guitar ?
We'll forget that
I'm a movie star
My dog and I will serenade
And rustle up
Some lemonade
Tonight
I pretend
That I'm a poet
In khaki pants now
Don't you
know it ?
What
was I saying ?
I'm a wee bit tired
But you're my guest
And I'm
inspired
I
died one night so long ago
Not very painful
And not too slow
But when I "came to"
It was "on with the show"
This Universe
Is BIG you know !
Don't
forget
Your brown bag lunch
My cookies are a joy to munch!
And do come back
As soon as you can
Please rest assured...
I'm Superman !
Stargazer
© January 2007
Every Monday and Wednesday morning for the past two
years, I have looked forward with much anticipation to my email
communications with Bruce Dettman. We have developed a very
special relationship and at times have shared the core of our very
lives. We both love to travel and read. Bruce is always
recommending books and articles that would catch my fancy. He made
sure I was supplied with some reading material for two flights I made
last year. One thing I love about Bruce's writing style is that he
has a special way of tapping you on the heart and pulling you into a
story. It is my pleasure to share with you my favorite "Bruce
Dettman" story about his canine pal "Rocky." After you read this
story, chances are you'll wish you had a pal like the liver spotted "Superdog"
ROCKY! --Carl Glass--
 He
was the greatest thing since Captain Midnight’s Secret Squadron,
Bosco
and Silly Putty.
Three Legs Were Enough
By
Bruce Dettman
In the official annals of dogdom, he probably
would pose no serious threat to the hallowed reputations of Lad, Rin-Tin-Tin,
Lassie or Thurber’s Muggs. Perhaps not even Benjie.
More than 30 years ago, as a gift for my 7th
birthday, he set my folks back a whopping $7.00, selected from a caged
litter at the local SPCA simply because he happened to be the sole male
in an extremely vocal family of six. My mother, who harbored deep
suspicion of all four-legged creatures, was the one responsible for
naming him. Handing him to me through the window of our ’55 red and
white Buick Special, she happened to comment that his markings were the
nicest of the litter and that they reminded her of rocks.
Rocky was a liver-spotted Dalmatian weighing 7½
pounds. (I immediately carted him to the bathroom scale.) He had the
large puppy paws and disproportionate head, and in my mind at least, he
was the greatest thing since Captain Midnight’s Secret Squadron, Bosco
and Silly Putty. He was also to be my best friend for 17 years.
When he was barely 6 months old, a serious
injury occurred to his right rear leg. No one ever knew what had
actually caused this. All we knew was that he came in one morning from
his normal constitutional with a severe limp.
We immediately took him to a new vet who didn’t
even bother x-raying him. He immediately announced that Rocky was
suffering from a rare canine hip disorder. Not being experts in dog
pathology, we took the guy at his word and paid for a series of
unorthodox treatments, with no improvement.
Later we visited and older vet we’d occasionally
consulted. One quick x-ray and the damage was obvious.
“Three breaks,” he said holding up the pictures
for us to examine. “Too late now to do anything about it. He’ll have
to live with it.”
In time, the leg shrank, withered and came to
resemble something like a fur-covered monkey wrench. The vet advised
against amputating: “He’ll still need it for balance when he
scratches.” The leg stayed. Rocky was sensitive about it, of
course—and defensive to anyone who came even remotely near it. You
could roughhouse all you wanted, but woe be it to the individual who
dared place a hand on that desiccated limb; at least if he or she
favored said hand.
Nevertheless, it was this leg that made him a
kind of celebrity around the neighborhood. Everyone, from the postman
to a gregarious hobo I once shared several root beer jawbreakers with,
wanted to know what happened to Rocky’s leg. If I was bored, I said
that he had tangled with Big Foot or was run over by a tractor.
He never seemed to have experienced much
difficulty in adjusting to his handicap. In fact, with one possible
exception, it wasn’t a handicap at all. Rocky could run as fast as any
other dog in the neighborhood, hurdle hedges with the best of them. He
chased rabbits—but caught only one that I ever witnessed and didn’t know
what to do with it. He watched, somewhat befuddled, as it sprinted off.
That one exception, however, was fighting. When
another dog and he locked horns (and in all honesty, he provoked most of
these confrontations), he usually got the worst of it. With only three
legs touching the ground, it was pretty easy for the other mutts to get
him off-balance and topple him over on his back.
Many times I had to come to the rescue’ and save
him from a bullying German shepherd or a brutalizing boxer. Not that he
ever reciprocated or seemed in the least grateful. On the contrary, on
those several occasions when he happened upon my tangling with some
adolescent rival, his immediate response, rather than charging for my
attacker as loyal dogs of the silver screen have always done, was to
fasten his teeth on my ankle, and act I found (I think quite
understandably) not only peculiar, but somewhat of a betrayal.
His so-called handicap never seemed to interfere
with his love life. He had several lady friends in the neighborhood he
periodically took out for a night on the town, but he remained fairly
loyal to Duchess, a brown and white Springer Spaniel who lived next door
to us.
Duchess, being rather aggressive and somewhat
ahead of herself in the pre-feminist 1950’s, would brazenly approach our
front porch each evening at 8:00 and tap at the screen with her nose
until we let Rocky out to join her. It never occurred to anyone to
have her fixed or keep the two separated. Just like most everything
else in those days, the world was a looser, less rigid and structured
place. Even for dogs. I stopped counting after the 21st
offspring.
I suppose there was nothing particularly
remarkable about Rocky. He never rescued orphans from a burning
building; never chewed through the ropes of a kidnap victim; never
pulled a drowning person to shore. Eventually I taught him to sit, lie
down and roll over when there seemed a legitimate need for it (when I
bribed him with treats), but he never could seem to get the hang of
heeling.
What he did shine in was responding to the
commands of stretch and yawn, shake (a must after one of our monthly
treks to the shower) and most important, the sound of the cookie
drawer—his particular strong point: We had two identical drawers in the
kitchen, one for bread and one for sweets. To the human ear, pulling
out those drawers created what seemed to be the identical sliding or
scraping sound, like a shovel being dragged across a sand beach.
If he was in the living room fast asleep in
front of the fire and that bread drawer was opened, there would be no
response. On the other hand, if I were to sneak in and ever so quietly
attempt to get at one of his beloved Oreos, his eyes would open, his
ears leap to attention like a West Pointer on review, his three legs
practically moving even before he had even fully stood. Only later,
when he became deaf, did the cookie drawer elude him.
Then there was the great fence war which raged
for nearly a decade between my father and him. Rocky, who hated nothing
so much as to left alone on the patio (he had nothing but contempt for
the redwood doghouse we had built him, preferring, with transparent
obstinacy, to fake sleep under the rosebushes), early on figured out how
to unlock the gate by flipping up the brass latch with his nose. And if
that didn’t work he would support himself with that one good leg and
patiently gnaw through the pickets.
Over the years, he must have chalked up more
escape attempts than John Dillinger. At first this angered my father,
but in time, I think he actually enjoyed coming up with ways to curtail
Rocky’s escape plans. Finally, a plate of aluminum wrapped around the
catch put a stop to his breakouts.
Boyhood days eventually ended. We spent less
time together in the hills or in the creek. We didn’t wrestle out in
the back yard so often. At his best, he’d been quite good at
impersonating everything from Krypto, Superman’s dog, to bears when I
was playing Davy Crockett, or lions when I was in a Tarzan mood—but the
days were soon over when he’d sprint after me as I bicycled around town.
We did continue with our traditional Sunday
walks to the old high school where a certain Mr. Jasper would be out on
the track field chipping golf balls. Mr. Jasper wasn’t all that crazy
about me or any kid, but he was rather fond of Rocky, who would retrieve
his golf balls, being careful not to mar them with excessive tooth
pressure. Mr. Jasper always had a cookie for Rocky and one for me too.
I think he would have preferred giving both to Rocky but his wife, a
broad-shouldered, Amazonian type, insisted.
“A fine boy,” he would say, petting him before
we left for home. He never meant me.
We went through a lot, alright; the Cold War,
the Kennedy assassinations, most of the Viet Nam War, race riots and
Watergate. He watched me moon over my first real love, flunk algebra
and buy my first jockstrap. He saw me the first time I was drunk. He
was my only friend and confidant when my parents were having marital
troubles and I was sure they were going to divorce. On those awful
nights as they battled from their bedroom, he and I would silently leave
the house, sneak down to a nearby creek bank and try to figure things
out. My parents ultimately healed their difficulties and saved the
marriage, but I don’t know what I would have done without my dog on
those lonely, confusing evenings. That dark creek would have been a far
more intimidating place without him to talk to and hold.
I never really noticed him aging. It was almost
as if one day he was full of life, chasing rabbits, having families, and
attacking his number 1 enemy, the lawn sprinkler—and the next day he was
laconic, sleeping most of the time, grouchy and out of sorts. Then his
hearing went. Next his sense of smell. Then they discovered a cataract
in one eye and sometimes he didn’t even seem to recognize me. I would
carefully carry him to bed like a baby. His teeth gave him problems and
I mashed up his food extra fine. Especially his Oreos.
Eventually, I went off to college and only saw
him a couple time a year. He lacked the old bounce to give me the
enthusiastic welcome I craved, but after dinner he would slowly limp to
my side and with considerable difficulty, crawl up on my lap and quickly
nod off. The old times, I told myself. He still remembered.
I wasn’t there when he died. I’ve never really
forgiven myself for that. He became so debilitated that it was
mutually decided he had to be put to sleep. I tried to convince myself
it was the humane thing to do, but what I really wanted to do was kill
the vet who was going to murder my dog. Only a second ago he had been a
puppy and I a small boy. It just didn’t seem possible.
I was going back to school on a Sunday and had
to catch a bus. I put it off as long as I could, then went to say
goodbye. He was sleeping in a corner by the washing machine, a place he
was particularly drawn to because of the warm air currents. I knelt
down, ran my hands through that familiar spotted fur, hugged him for
several minutes then broke down as I hadn’t since I was a small boy. I
choked on my words as I tried to tell him something, I don’t remember
what. He licked my neck and his tail moved a couple of times like a
weary metronome.
I never saw him again.
I still miss him. Probably always will. If
there is really only one true love in life, the same can probably be
said of a person’s dog. I’ve had others since, but good as they were,
they were all just substitutes. No dog to equal him ever came along and
after a while, I gave up thinking one would. In that, nothing has
changed.
(Article
first appeared in Good Old Days magazine)
GHP Home
|
Glass
House Presents
