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Long Time No See....by Bob Sanders

 

These lives we live can be loaded with tranquility or resemble the roller coaster ride at Puritas Springs Park, not far from where I grew up in Lakewood, Ohio.  If you tend to believe, as I do, that life is a series of easily recalled sets of time frames accompanied by dialogue exchanges plus the often ego-driven narratives of those we have come to know, then good fortune is ours. 

At 86, I'm lucky to be able to remember many of the dialogues experienced plus the faces of nearly all who have influenced my life.  Most of those recollections are vivid although the knife-sharpening  man, who pushed his cart through the neighborhood during my childhood while calling attention to his talents by shouting something resembling "pape-ah-lags," continues to be face-less. 

People with the ability to recall faces are now being singled out as "super-recognizers" and it's nice to know at an advanced age that I excel at something.

Speaking of faces, anyone ever around Nancy Joyce of Chicago's Station WTTW could hardly forget her.  I couldn't and proved it a couple of month's ago.  The words "bright" and "lively" couldn't do her justice 40 years ago.  The unfortunate aspect of our relationship was that I replaced her as promotion manager of the Windy City's public television channel.

I had been offered her job by station manager Bill McCarter, an astute professional whose short-comings were a tendency to nit-pick and believe that every new key hire would somehow provide the kind of magic that results in large market shares.  Joyce had not done a bad job but was the victim of unfortunate timing and thinking.  Slated to leave the station, she stayed on after I asked her to do so.  McCarter went along with that one, I eventually moved on to Field Enterprises (Chicago Daily News/Sun-Times) and I never saw a face-to-face Nancy Joyce again.

Enter Dick Hieronymus, a musician of considerable skills whom I met while living 14 years on the Fourth Corner's San Juan Island.  Having moved to Bellingham eight years ago, I continue to communicate with him and was startled a few months ago when I received an email accompanied by entre to a most unusual You Tube clip.

Titled "I Have No Secrets," the 18 second bite consists of a man-on-the-street interview of an obviouslky harassed woman pedestrian who turned out to be an unidentified Nancy Joyce.  The quite obvious Chicago locale was a few steps south of the Michigan Avenue bridge looking southeast.  Dressed warmly for the Chicago winter and asked if her hat might be a secret to staying warm, Joyce replies: "I have no secrets.  I'm mad, I have to go to work, I have to earn a living, I'd rather have a private income and get laid well and often."

You might look it up.  My old public TV pal delivers the droll lines with the kind of brilliant flippancy endearingly reminiscent of actresses Betty Davis and Eve Arden.  Judging from the clothing and Nancy's appearance, I'd bet the ranch she was on her way 40 years ago to a job at WTTW.

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I first met Dick Fales early in 1950 at the Cleveland Press where we worked as copy boys while anticipating a break that would provide more significant employment at the outstanding newspaper.  Not long after my arrival, Fales made it to United Press whose offices were on the same second floor where Louis Seltzer and his bedazzling bunch brought news to Clevelanders.  It was Fales who beat the Press to the Sam Sheppard murder case by filing the first wire service story on July 5, 1954.

By the time Fales' story (a re-write of a hastily-written piece by another staffer) had set off a five-bell URGENT in the Press newsroom, I had moved on to the nearby Lorain Journal and checked out the crime scene.  Although the murder had occurred outside the Journal's circulation area, I attempted unsuccessfully to interview Sheppard's brother, Richard, in nearby Rocky River.  Neither Fales nor I had anything more to do with what was arguably the country's second most significant murder case of the second half of the 20th century with top honors going to that of O.J. Simpson.

The next time I saw Fales was in 1957 in Atlanta where I had been transferred by TV Guide.  Fales had moved to sales with UP and would remain almost exclusively with the organization until his retirement in 1988 and a move to the Pacific Northwest.  Neither of us mentioned our one-day involvement in the famous murder case during our brief encounter in Atlanta.

My retirement a year later took Jan and I to San Juan Island (population 6,000 give or take) in 1990.  The day a story about me appeared in the Journal of the San Juans was the day the phone rang with a voice asking for "Sandy," my nickname at the Press.  Soon, Fales and I resumed a friendship that lasted until 2004 when my buddy passed away.  I sometimes wonder what kind of odds were beaten when two one-time copy boys, once employed by a newspaper in Cleveland, would meet again 2,000 miles and 33 years away on a remote island and hoist cold ones at an American Legion bar to learn of each other's one day work history on the Sam Sheppard story?

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One of my St. Louis time frames involves Mary Chase who in 1956 was the latest in a long succession of public relations people who tilled the publicity soil for the Chase Hotel (now the Chase-Park Plaza) under the same name. 

In the lobby where cocktails preceded a party honoring singer Nat "King" Cole, I ran into the very attractive Mary and it was during a time out in the men's room that pal/newsman/disc jockey Bruce Hayward indicated it was his firm belief that Mary Chase had amorous designs on me.  Happily married seven years and something of a coward, I fled the hotel in spite of telling Mary I would return.  One week later, I was transferred to Atlanta.

During the next three years, I was moved four times by the home office eventually landing in Kansas City where my regional responsibilities included St. Louis.

One evening, I entered the Chase Hotel and there, standing precisely where I had left her, was the woman I had stood up three years earlier.

"What took you so long?" she asked.

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It was Bob Cromie, host of such TV shows as "Book Beat" and "The Cromie Circle," who brought up Ernie Gann's name.  I had asked Cromie with which of the many authors he had interviewed would he like to spend a lot of time? "He is truly one hell of a guy," was how Cromie put it.

"I'll tell you something interesting about Ernie Gann," observed Cromie.  "His was the only interview I ever conducted in which the subject would not tell me where he lived.  I asked him why and Gann replied: "If I tell you, you'll ask me what it's like and I'll tell you how wonderful it is.  Members of your audience will then get interested in the place and they'll buy property and build homes and the place won't be the same.  That's why."

Our conversation took place in 1985 shortly before Cromie retired.  When five years later Jan and I moved to San Juan Island in the Fourth Corner, we discovered that two of its better-known residendt were Gann and wife Dodie.  Ernie, author of 25 novels about aviation and the sea, numbered among his best-selllers "Fate Is the Hunter," "The High and the Mighty" and "Blaze of Noon."

It was in August of the year of our arrival that the the Ganns protected their 760-acre Red Mill Farm by donating a conservation easement to the San Juan Preservation Trust thus denying development.  As Gann commented, "We have to do something to save this land.  People need to stop thinking of money all the time, or the land won't be here."  Jan and I became directect beneficiaries of the Ganns' thoughtfulness.  Our home on Little Mountain overlooked the property, now a working farm of unusual beauty to all islanders.  We could see nearly all of it.

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Another of my time frames involves major league baseball's only death on the diamond and the glove worn by the player who replaced Cleveland Indian Ray Chapman, the victim of a much-disputed pitch by the New York Yankees' Carl Mays, a highly successful submarine pitcher inclined to pitch inside.  Mays' defenders believe shortstop Chapman, an outstanding bunter who tended to crowd the plate, leaned into the pitch.

The year was 1920, the season had but six weeks to go and the Indians brought up the Sewellbrothers, Joe and Luke, from the University of Alabama.  It was a remarkable package of talent that also includedleft fielder Riggs Stevenson, eventually traded to the Chicago Cubs where his lifetime batting average of .336 is the 22nd best ever.   Only mis-adventures in the outfield due to a football injury (he was A Crimson Tide quarterback) has kept him out of the Hall of Fame.  All three became storied players who totaled 50 years in the majors with Joe Sewell making it to the Hall of Fame.  His filling in for Chapman helped enable the Indians to win their first World Series.  To paraphrase an old and popular song of the era, stars truly had fallen from Alabama.

Traded to the Yankees in 1930, Sewell gained his greatest fame in New York where the press made the country aware of his remarkable achievements.  Sewell's career strikeout ratio: one in every 63 at-bats, and 115 consecutive games without a strikeout, still stand.  Lovers of trivia are enchanted by the fact that Sewell used but one bat during his 14 seasons.  He treated the bat during the campaigns by rubbing chewing tobacco into it with a Coca-Cola bottle, then buried it in his backyard for a little winterizing.

The arrangement with the University of Alabama also included Crimson Tide baseball coach Zen Scott who was given a sports department job with the  Cleveland Leader now the Plain Dealer).  His other "job" was keeping an eye on the kids.  Scott, who lived in my neighborhood, gave me Sewell's black Rawling's glove when I was about six and I learned to play the game--sometimes under Mr. Scott's tutelage.

It was late in the season of 1933 when some of the Babe Ruth Yankees, including Sewell, made personal appearances at the Masonic Temple next door to my Cleveland suburb home.  My parents encouraged me, seven at the time, to seek out Sewell to show him my glove.

"Where did you get that?" asked the astonished Sewell when I approached him at the end of the evening's festivities.

"Mr. Scott," I replied.

"Where is he?" pursued the future Hall of Famer.

"Down the street," I said.

"Let's go see him," suggested Sewell.

Scott had some years before left the employ of the newspaper and lost touch with Sewell after the trade to the Yankees.  I soon had re-united two long-lost friends who had played roles in a rare piece of baseball history.  I didn't realize then what I had done at age seven, but I carry with me such good feelings when I recall that moment.

The Sewell glove and my baseball cards eventually went the way of many cherished possessions, gathering dust before disappearing but leaving behind vivid memories.  I still wonder when it was that the great ballplayer had used the glove in his pursuit of the glories of the game.  For all I know, the glove may still be somewhere in the basement of a home at 1310 Summit Ave. in Lakewood.

Judging from the look on his face when I showed him what had become "my" glove, I like to think it was Sewell's first in the major leagues, perhaps one he bought or was given in his 'bama hometown of Titus, used at the University of Alabama and taken with him on the train to Cleveland where he helped the Indians win their first World Series.

I suspect that anyone who played 14 years of major league baseball with only one bat probably played with very few gloves.

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Pizza Adventures....by Bob Sanders

I'm not sure where or when I had my first pizza.  My best guess is that it was in Tulsa in the early '60s and definitely in a Pizza Hut.  This would figure since the chain was begun in 1958 by a couple of students at Wichita University--something like 130 miles north of Tulsa.

Pizza Hut was a reasonable beginning and it wasn't until 1968 that matters got serious when I moved from Los Angeles to Chicago to work for Playboy Enterprises.  L.A. was essentially pizza-deprived back then although Sam and Joe Martorano had established Casa Bianca at 1955 Colorado Blvd., a couple of field goals from the Rose Bowl.  The Martoranos had worked at Tony's Pizza in the Windy City but their approach bore little resemblance to the deep dish Chicago product; the crust, I'm told, was light and the toppings slight by comparison.  The California approach to cooking was underway and the pizza obsessive under-served.

I don't recall any L.A. pizza places largely because my dining was pretty much limited to West Hollywood and environs running to the ocean.  With an office at 9255 Sunset Blvd, my favorite places tended to be within walking distance and included: the Cock & Bull across the street; Hamburger Hamlet, eventually a chain created by the still with us Harry and Marilyn Lewis who started at the corner of Sunset & Hilldale; and Frascati, a casual yet classy place with outdoor dining at the rear.  Oh, yes, there was Musso & Frank Grill, still there since 1919.

My discovery of Chicago pizza was made possible by a convention at The Drake Hotel that forced me to stay at the St. Clair on Ohio Street.  The Drake, immediately across the street from the Playboy Building, was the logical place for me but timing, as always, was everything and I was told I could move to The Drake when the convention was over.  We know the importance of timing when we reflect upon Turner Classic Movie's decision to play next Tuesday's (May 29) Irving Thalberg tribute show at 6 a.m. EST.

I didn't need The Drake.  I had settled in at the St. Clair, a place complete with a large contingent of raffish folks from the entertainment industry.  On the top floor was the Chicago Press Club and down the street Ike Sewell's uncommnly popular restaurants, Pizzeria Uno and Due.  I soon found myself eating a fair amount of deep dish that contrasted enormously with prior culinary adventures of the Italian genre.

Sewell, having served in Italy during World War II, had become a regional vice president of Fleishmann's Distilling Corp. and wanted something more exciting.  He found it when he teamed up with pal Ricc Riccardo, an established restaurateur who in in 1935 had turned a former speakeasy into Riccardo Restaurant and Gallery.  A Texan, Sewell wanted to specialize in Mexican food but fate, in the form of a very bad enchilada in a test dinner played a significant role in cuisine history.  Riccardo became so sick that Mexican food was out of the question so he suggested pizza.  Like Sewell, Riccardo had encountered the food while serving in Italy; both were of a mind that the real thing was little more than an appetizer, and they set about inventing something more substantial.  What evolved was a meal-sized pizza with a thick crust and lots of cheese. 

Business did not flourish immediately at the corner of Ohio and Wabash and Sewell soon gave orders to his bartenders to provide free sample slices to customers.  Fortunately for Sewell (Riccardo by then was concentrating on his own restaurant up the street at Rush and Hubbard Streets), Pizzaria Uno's clientele were heavy drinkers and the pizza eventually caught on.  More about the remarkable Riccardo and son Ric, Jr. at a later date.

I lived at the St. Clair for a month, then moved into an apartment on Division Street between State St. and Lake Michigan.  As things turned out, Betty and the kids did not join me in Chicago until August of that year.  It wasn't all bad since Hugh Hefner's home was two blocks away and I had an open invitation to parties that, seemingly, had no end.

The true origins of pizza are difficult to pin down.  People inclined toward conspiracy theories tend to believe that Marco Polo brought back more than spaghetti when he returned from China although such claims are tenuous at best.  We are told the Greeks had a vegetable pizza in ancient times and the Italians improved the product with a variety of fillings before baking.  We do know that Virgil, who lived in the lst Century BC, had the good sense to write a pizza recipe for posterity.

It is generally conceded that the first pizzeria in this country was opened in New York City in 1905 thus planting the city's incestuous family tree.  Like Sewell's experience 50 years later, it was slow to catch on.  It took World War II and a taste acquired by GIs to create a fondness for the food.  Today there are more than 70,000 pizzerias in this country producing an average of 46 slices or 23 lbs. a year for every man, woman and child.  Deep dish pizza, still served at Uno and Due, has run afoul of criticism during recent years for a calorie count of 2,310.  Pizza Hut is out of contention in that league with a modest 9-inch Triple Meat Heliano of 1,280 calories.  And you wonder how this nation got to be one of big butts?

Not credited with a national sense of humor, South Korea spoofed itself when the country's artery-clogged Mr. Pizza unit produced a YouTube pizza story suggesting that Marco Polo stole the pizza recipe not from China but from Korea.  The send up was produced by Gumshoe Pictures and is worth viewing.

In 1990, wife Jan and I moved to the Pacific Northwest and San Juan Island's Friday Harbor where nary a pizza could be found until an expanded gas station started cranking out product geared for those of decidedly limited dining experience.  Even the availability of the mainland 60 minutes away by ferry was of pizza disappointment.  Alas, the exquisite pizza and the magnificent hamburger are rarities of the Pacific Northwest.  We eventually discovered, thanks to then banker Brian Brown, an approximation of hamburger heaven on Commercial Avenue in Anacortes.  The Brown Lantern is a burger discovery that resurrected fond memories of Charlie Beinlich's in Northbrook north of Chicago.  Mainland mainstay Bob's (nine locations--three in Bellingham) knows what to put in a bun; by all means, hit the bar in the Barkley Village location for a genuine pub feeling.

Each of us has had memorable dining experiences.  One of mine occurred in 1992 when Jan and I were guests in Barcelona of Antonio Susquellas Escala, whose employment as presidente of EniChem Iberica, S.A. put him in the midst of the Olympic Games.  Tony had been an exchange student in Thousand Oaks, California living with Jan and her family.  Our six weeks with Tony was his "thank you" and included a highly impressive number of event tickets including opening and closing ceremonies.

It was while strolling down Barcelona's impressive La Ramblas that Jan and I, accompanied by my brother John and his wife, Terry, decided to have lunch at the Hotel Royal's Cafeteria La Poma.  Curious about whatever Barcelona's approach to the pizza might be, I ordered a thin-crusted beauty whose intriguing ingredients included walnuts and blue cheese positioned in the pie's center--about a four-inch circle.  Outside of a delicate winner consumed at, of all places, a short-lived Two Illinois Center restaurant developed by Arnold Morton (he built steak house giant Morton's), my experience with the light version had been limited.

The Barcelona product was remarkably good and here I am, 20 years later, recalling its virtues.  I was so caught up in the pizza that I paid little attention to Magic Johnson, a member of the U.S.A. Dream Team, unquestionably the greatest basketball squad ever.  Magic was seated nearby dining while a circus-like scene developed outside in front of a huge hotel window where a human pyramid of kids had materialized.  Mesmerized, the kids were shouting "Ma-jeek, Ma-jeek."  Completing his meal, the basketball star vanished out a back door and the kids disassembled.  Pronounced evidence of the departed youngsters was left behind on the window; the glass was heavily befogged by human vapors.

Pizza satisfaction is a personal thing and my problem with the Fourth Corner version can be summed up in one word: pepperoni.  Enthusiasts of the pepperoni experience are inclined to believe that pepperoni pizza is to the Pacific Northwest what the Packers are to Green Bay.  A current television commercial extolling the glories of Pizza Hut is, I find, a stomach churner of prodigious success.  While an imaginatively constructed pizza heavy on vegetables can mirror the exultant beauty of a Joan Miro work, the Pizza Hut TV effort features a very large pie whose disgusting topping consists of nothing but a slathering of pepperoni that appears to have been sitting for a week under a scorching Arizona desert sun.  It is beyond ugly made even more so by bread sticks of almost equal repulsion.

Reaching pizza nirvana is not easy although there is a greater variety available today than, say, 30 years ago.  Now a $38 billion industry, pizza is available in chains dominated by Pizza Hut, Dominos, and Papa John who claim 21% of the pizzeria total.  With hard times upon us, pizzeria prices have come down--partly because of the frozen variety competition whose costs are appealing.  Papa Murphy's, whose come-on is take-and-bake, is a highly interesting game plan.  A warning: do not deviate fromn Papa's instructions.  Among other things, bake within a hour of pickup and make sure you don't get a product that's been sitting around.

Store-bought frozen product is challenging with Freschetta, Red Baron, DeGiorno, Paul Newman, California and the rest battling it out to see who has the least amount of cardboard taste.  The boredom of pepperoni pizza has dominated Fourth Corner freezers and I had all but given up until three weeks ago when I encountered what I immediately determined as homage to Chicago: sausage and mushroom pizza.  It was at Fred Meyer and, indeed, produced by Kroger, owner of FM.  Further, a rather stunning picture of the pizza was on the black oblong box and within an hour I had achieved a blessedness never imagined from a frozen product.  The crust was thin and flaky but not overly so and the toppings more substantial and decidedly tastier than all others experienced.  At present, there are four Private Selection pizzas (11-14 oz.) that sell for $4.50 each.  The mushrooms used are portobella and shitake and the sausage Italian.  There's some jive on the box about the baking having been done on a marble hearth.

This column, always inclined to recognize superior marketing, believes Private Selection deserves recognition for realizing all frozen pizza boxes are the same shape.  Simply by creating an oblong pizza has the firm given the product recognition in a highly competitive environment.

And, frankly, I don't care if Private Selection pizza is baked on Aunt Tilly's breakfast table.  Now, go get yourself some sausage and mushroom pizza and think Cubs; that is, if you can stand the thought.

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Clifford Parker Robertson III....by Bob Sanders

 

Clifford Parker Robertson III, who died a couple of weeks ago, was the nicest and most ethical actor I have yet to meet.  A true Renaissance man whose achievements included a Best Actor Academy Award for his 1968 portrayal of Charly, Robertson experienced a lot of breaks in life--uncommonly good and bad.

His parents, a wealthy La Jolla, California couple, divorced when he was one and his mother died when he was two.  Never close to his father who married three more times, he was raised by a grandmother.  As a highly dependable actor of some 60 films covering six decades, he may be best known not for his acting but his taking on the Hollywood establishment.  That was nearly 35 years ago when a Hollywood embezzler, doing what came naturally, forged Robertson's name on a check for $10,000.  It wasn't a hell of a lot of money and the forger was a studio head, David Begelman.  President of Columbia Pictures, Begelman had practiced more significant forms of larceny on people like Judy Garland.  For more about Garland and Begelman, read Rainbow's End (1993) by Coyne Steven Sanders.  Those free-wheeling days of the 60s when, with Freddie Fields, Begelman founded Creative Management, were full of duplicity.  The CM edge in the marketplace was packaging the shop's talent to make bigger and better films.

There was a whole lot bilking going on in those days.  There are remarkable stories of writers being stiffed in spite of work that resulted in huge box office success.  Thievery, like stealing signals in professional baseball, has always been looked upon within the industry as business as usual.  It's quite likely that contemporary Wall Street manipulators have been inspired on occasion by Hollywood commandments of thievery including the primo suggestion that thou shalt always take something off the top. 

Begelman underestimated Robertson.  The actor didn't need money; he had it very early on as a result of his adoptive father, Clifford Parker Robertson II, whose idleness was somewhat understandable because of inherited ranching money.  Things got even better later on for Cliff when he married actress Dina Merrill, a second wife whose parents were both extremely wealthy.  Merrill, still at the party, is the only child of Post Cereal heiress Marjorie Merriwether Post and Wall Streeter EF Hutton.

Robertson was a frequent critic of the movie industry and once was quoted early on in his career as saying he moved to Hollywood from New York and television "to work and never to live."  It has always been the Paul Newmans, the Al Pacinos, the Elia Kazans, and the Robert De Niros who live on the East Coast, often in New York.  It's a lifestyle decision not easily understood by Hollywood regulars.  Robertson was a natural opponent if there ever was one and, as a filmland rebel, type casting.  

Like many actors who found it difficult to move from TV to film, he starred in Days of Wine and Roses on television, but lost the movie role to Jack Lemmon.  Another disappointment was missing out on the film version of Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending (re-titled The Fugitive Kind) to Marlon Brando.  Robertson's Broadway performance was outstanding but Brando's box office appeal was too much.  A fixture in TV's golden age, Robertson appeared often on "The Chrysler Theater," "The United States Steel Hour," "Playhouse 90" and other popular programs.  When he finally made it to film, he was personally chosen by John F. Kennedy to play him in P.T. 109 (1963).  Other significant people played by Robertson include Henry Ford, Hugh Hefner and astronaut Buzz Aldrin.

Begelman had a hard time in 1977 believing that Robertson had gone to the cops.  The actor, obviously, was not playing the game; Begelman had written two other phony checks made out to cash that day with no complaints.  The head of Columbia Pictures had his case heard corporately by two powerful board members neither of whom knew that Begelman's claim that he was a college graduate and lawyer (Yale) was untrue.  It was further proof that Hollywood lies are even more common than stars on the town's sidewalks.  Begelman got a slap on the wrist by the film studio and a plea bargain was achieved with the law.  His community service was the production of a short film ("Angel Dust") that warned kids about drugs, and the thief got off the hook.  Four years later he was named to an even more prestigious position.

Robertson was the guy on the right side of the law when Begelman forged the actor's check, but that didn't matter in the film capitol.  According to Columbia insiders, Begelman suffered from intense self-hatred.  Robertson was blackballed by the industry and didn't work for nearly four years.  I met him in the summer of 1980, the last of my five years with Field Enterprises, then the corporate arm of such firms as the Chicago Sun-Times/Daily News, Encyclopaedia Brittanica and real estate in Chicago and Boston.

It was Marshall Field who sent me to Jacksonville, Illinois for a weekend's "work" at MacMurray College, a four-year liberal arts school with an enrollment of about 500 students.  I was to help Cliff Robertson raise money for the school.  it was all very social and somewhat murky.  I got my marching orders on one day's notice, and never learned of Field's connection to the college.  My best guess is that an alumnae put the arm on a guy whose only link to the film industry was half-brother Ted Field, then thinking of leaving auto racing for film production.  He made the move and Mr. Holland's Opus and Three Men and a Baby have been among his efforts.  Somehow, Robertson and I got roped in.

Robertson was highly available in 1980 because of the Begelman matter.  Further, his nemesis was enjoying remarkable success largely on the basis of impressive box office winners including Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Kramer vs Kramer and Shampoo.  It was in 1980 that, to little surprise, Begelman signed a four-year contract as president and CEO of MGM, later heading up United Artists/MGM when a merger was pulled off the following year.  Hollywood loves a "winner" and Begelman was that--at least temporarily.  It's not easy being a non-person in Hollywood and, according to Robertson, people told him: "I set a dangerous precedent."  Ex-wife Merrill (they divorced in 1986) once suggested: "if I had played the game, I would have owned the town."  Robertson was not that kind of game player nor did he want to own a town--particularly one short on ethics.

A radio/journalism student at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, Cliff was a very good writer whose efforts were a factor in Charly being named Best Picture in 1969.  The film, in which he played a lovable baker with an I.Q. of a five-year-old, was a subject of discussion that weekend at MacMurray.  Robertson had written a sequel and hoped to bring it to the screen.  It took some six months before he would be embraced, again, by Hollywood where his acting was often more compelling than his films.

The MacMurray weekend was almost entirely social.  Robertson schmoozed hoped-for contributors and made those already involved feel singled out when engaged in conversation.  It was a series of thoroughly winning connections with strangers.  The genuine character of the man was impressive and the college drop-out enjoyed rubbing elbows with academia.  Positive word about our efforts (I had some success with regional press) drifted back to Field who thanked me the following Monday.  Robertson had flown me back to Chicago along with the plane's owner, some guy who owned a chain of jewelry stores and was a MacMurray alumnae--maybe the fellow who solicited Field.  Cliff's love of flying was expressed by him in the air and he mentioned hanging around a San Diego airport as a youngster doing odd jobs in exchange for flying hours.  I got the impression that the actor was happiest while flying.  A long-time member of the Experimental Aircraft Association, Robertson co-founded the EAA's Young Eagles Program.  Owner of a number of classic planes, he was flying a Beechcraft Baron over the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 when the first Boeing 767 struck.  He was ordered to land immediately as were all aircraft on the fateful day.

When we landed at O'Hare, Cliff insisted I join him for an early dinner at the Carson, Pirie Scott Restaurant at the airport.  Once again, Robertson came off as a warm, outgoing guy of enormous humanity who took great delight in his life.  Father of two daughters, Cliff would lose Heather Merriwether Robertson in 2007 when she died of cancer in Buenos Aires.  She was 38.

I saw Robertson nearly three years later at a press conference in Chicago to promote the highly forgettable Youngblood.  Cliff's Hollywood ban had been lifted and he and star Jacqueline Bisset were in town hoping for attention from reviewers who included Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert--both in print and on TV where their "At the Movies" had clicked.  I had the chance to ask Robertson if there was anything new (we had corresponded in the interim) regarding the Charly sequel.  There wasn't.

Begelman's contract with MGM was not renewed and he spent much of the next 11 years running rather badly two small production companies.  Bankruptcy followed.  On August 8, 1995, he took a room at a Century City luxury hotel, spent some time with an ex-wife of singer Tony Bennett, made a few phone calls, and committed suicide by way of the gun he was prone to carry.,

Reflecting upon his role in the Begelman scandal in a New York Times interview, Robertson had reasoned: "I never intended to play Don Quixote and I don't intend to go out looking for more windmills, I can tell you.  I love making movies too much."

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Boy Meets Girl....by Bob Sanders

 

It was one of those boy meets girl things.  Their convergence was decidedly cute and not long after such scenes had become cinematic necessities.

The year was 1987 and he had lost the second of two wives to cancer.  That was three months prior to the invitation to attend a Christmas party at the Chicago Gold Coast home of a pal of his.  Cher, also in public relations, was often identified, like the actress/singer, by the singular name.  There were others of one name in that media hip crowd including Hef (Hugh Hefner), Kup (columnist Irv Kupcinet) and Margie (Korshak who ran a PR firm).  If you didn't know Chicago Cher (last name Patric) in those days, chances were good you didn't work in the media.

The girl he met cute at the party also was coming off a bummer.  Mother of three grown children, she was a working woman whose husband had become one of those American gurus who attempt to inspire troubled people to dramatically improve their lives, often through cant and slogans; unfortunately, a large percentage of them look for an overnight short cut rather than concentrate on the long haul.  Far too much of his time was devoted to the more fragile of those in need.  To the surprise of few, the marriage detonated and she had gone to work for Culligan, the water filtration company where she became known as "Culligan Jan," a capitalization on the firm's highly recognizable advertising copy line, "hey, Culligan man."

The boy in our story arrived early at the party, kicked things around with Cher, then was introduced to Nancy, an absolute knockout who, for about an hour, would not leave his side.  Figuring her for about 35 (she was 40), our hero began wondering what the hell was going on?  Then 61, he was astonished at her seeming fascination in everything he said.  Even a mundane subject, a purposeful selection on one occasion, produced an eagerness to hear more.  What an audience!  He could have read her the Chicago phone book in Rogers Park Chicagoese and she would have panted for more numbers.   What was going on?

The lengthy conversation moved to a couch located some 30 feet from the front door as the boy became convinced he had lucked onto one of the all-time couch tomatoes.  Suddenly, the door opened and a blonde vision in red made an entrance and what an entrance it was.  With a heavily bandaged index finger pointed ceiling-ward, she acknowledged Nancy, then started toward them.  The boy's comment caught her attention: "Hey, if there's anything I like, it's a woman attempting an obscene Italian gesture."

The introduction of boy to the girl by Nancy provided him with understanding about Nancy's seeming attachment to him.  The vision in red turned out to be Nancy's mother.  Cher and Nancy had conspired to make certain they met and cute it was.  The finger had been injured by an un-cooperative car door.   

The girl and the boy chatted for, maybe, 45 minutes.  Near the end, talk of dinner came up but the boy begged off reluctantly explaining he had a dog at home needing attention.  The girl was impressed by such responsibility and so they parted but not before indicating she soon would be leaving for Hawaii.

A week later the mail brought a postcard from The Aloha State.  In it, she professed interest in seeing him upon her return.  Christmas came and went and the girl returned to her apartment located in a northwest suburb.  She phoned the boy, they talked cute, and had dinner at a tiny place on Waukegan Rd. located in front of a Glenview condo development whose star tenant was Chicago Cubs third baseman Ron Santo.

One thing led to another and it wasn't long before the girl moved into the boy's Glenview home and soon they decided to see China.  The trip was by way of Hawaii where they stayed a few days with Gary (the girl's son) and Cyndie Quinn on Oahu's North Shore.  Flight attendants for United Airlines, they had bought rather sensationally run-down beach property and turned it into Santa's-by-the-Sea--an outstanding bed and breakfast.

The flight to Beijing, by way of Tokyo, was very damp thanks to word given fellow United employees.  The couple also learned of the high regard United had for the Quinns.

Beijing, the Great Wall and all the other tourist destinations were captivating.  Of great help was "Michael," a young man who became their guide.  The highlight of his efforts occurred at the Emperor's Summee Palace, where the world's largest imperial garden is located.  Pointing to the famed Marble Boat, a lakeside pavilion where reviews of the "navy" were conducted, Michael giddily announced: "And now look what that crazy Emperor did."

Shanghai, reached by an overnight train, was next with the boy and girl staying at the Peace Hotel in The Bund on Nanjing St.  The blonde girl attracted a great deal of attention on the streets of Shanghai.  Smiling children, fascinated by someone who looked so different, gathered in groups around her.  The boy and girl loved Shanghai, particularly the Old Jazz Bar on the eighth floor where a sextet, once banned by Mao, entertained travelers and locals by playing American pop tunes of the 40s with a particular emphasis on the Glenn Miller book.  Requests, read to the band in very serious fashion by its leader, included one by the boy and girl whose "Chicago" was honored.  It was at the Old Jazz Bar that the boy asked the girl to marry him.  The temporary engagement ring was a petite United napkin number, evidence the boy had been thinking ahead. 

They decided to wed in Hong Kong, next stop on the trip.  Weddings in China are not easily accomplished as they learned by visiting City Hall where intentions to do so must be posted 10 days prior.  Scanning a wall mottled with planned marital events, they saw an extremely attractive woman burst into tears when she spotted the name of a loved one.  What an opening film scene that would make in the telling of a love story.

The boy and girl who met cute were in trouble.  They didn't have 10 days to hang around Hong Kong because of Chicago jobs; their running joke was that, had they time, a plot development might find the boy putting a move on the lovely lady of City Hall tears, a liaison threat that could, again, produce posted wedding plan grief similar to what had been witnessed on the wall of marital intent.  

They decided to marry themselves on Victoria Peak, more than 1,800 feet above the Pearl of the Orient.  First, however, had to come wedding attire shopping, a marathon pursuit of what Hong Kong is so much about.  The girl was measured for a dazzling and decidedly Asian black gown with red trim.  The boy was fitted for two suits, one for the wedding day.  Pickup for him was at Very Good Tailor 24 hours later.  Those Hong Kong fingers can really fly.

To get to the Peak, they took five forms of transportation: cab, ferry boat, rickshaw, funicular railway, and their legs.  Fog, not thick enough to blot out Hong Kong lights below, curled around them as they read passages from Khalil Gibran's The Prophet.  While the religious narrow might disapprove of such an exchange of marital vows by the couple approaching advanced age, their love surely had to overwhelm any cautionary thoughts.

Hey, wait a minute.  How about announcements?  Not to worry.  To the rescue came a very personable and funny public relations employee of their hotel who handled off-beat ideas with Chinese aplomb.  Among them: the page one inclusion of a non-threatening dragon ("make him funny") since it was The Year of the Dragon.  Copy celebrating the March 26 event was to be set in Cantonese with a page three translation in English including a final line: At Home Some Day.  Rough copy to view would be available later that day and final product two days later.  Both promises were kept--further evidence why Hong Kong hotels are the best in the world.

Returning to Chicago, the boy and girl settled into married life, then decided their marital state needed some authenticity.  And so it was that they got married legally on New Year's Eve of that year (1988).  The ceremony, conducted by Pastor Michael Stangal of a North Shore church, was held among a large outcropping of rocks on a picturesque beach very close to the Quinn's B&B, hard by the Banzie Pipeline.  Unlike the Hong Kong wedding, there was no shopping.  They wore swim suits.  

As you may have guessed by now, the boy and girl in the story are my wife, Jan, and I.  She has been diagnosed as having a relatively early stage of Alzheimer's, has difficulty remembering things told her mere seconds before, and knows there is no cure for what she has.  She asked me to write this story because of fear that, one day, it will be just another piece of information hidden from her by a deadly Alzheimer curtain.  She wants to be sure that the story of our meeting and the engagement/wedding happenings, never before told in total accuracy, are in readable form and close at hand.  Memories are so much of what all of us have and holding onto them is ammunition in un-winnable battles.  Caregivers quickly learn that glimpses through the developing Alzheimer's murk are always fresh though momentary.

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"Late Edition: A Love Story"....reviewed by Bob Sanders

Set against the continuing and grim unraveling of the newspaper industry is Bob Greene's Late Edition: A Love Story, a thoughtful and well-timed memoir about his experiences beginning as a copy boy at a Midwestern newspaper.

Greene started began his career while still in high school.  In a classroom that had a typewriter, he learned of the assassination of John F. Kennedy and wrote about his feelings regarding the tragedy.  As Greene explains, "I did something I can't explain, and it changed the course of my life."  Finished, he took his story to the editor of the Columbus (Ohio) Citizen-Journal who had no room for it, but later remembered the eager youngster and hired him.  It was a fluke involving a strike at the paper; Ohio State journalism students, promised jobs, had gone home to families when the jobs evaporated.

Greene spent five summers at the paper including those while attending Northwestern University.  His early responsibilities were heavy on the menial with occasional involvement in stories that simply didn't develop.  Short-handed, Greene's editor sent the fledgling to a nearby bar where a tipster reported Dr. Sam Sheppard (inspiration for The Fugitive), was celebrating his release from prison after serving time for murdering his wife.  The copy boy's marching orders: bring him to the paper for an interview.  By the time Greene got to the bar, Sheppard was gone.

The future journalism star, having been promoted to the sports department, had better luck with Arnold Palmer earning him his first byline.  Greene climbed under a rope at the Columbus Invitational Pro-Am, identified himself as working for the Citizen-Journal and began asking questions.  Palmer allowed him to walk the rest of the course with Greene tossing queries after nearly every shot.  Among other things, readers learned a great deal about "Arnie's Army," the fanatic followers of the golf great.

Perhaps most affecting is Greene's 1985 return to the Columbus (Ohio) Citizen-Journal to say goodbye to the newspaper that had provided his early journalism education before he embarked on an impressive career that includes: 31 years of column writing for Chicago newspapers beginning at age 23 for the Sun-Times; essays and reportage for National Public Radio; op-ed publication in The New York Times; and authorship of 24 books.

Greene's visit to Columbus is full of rich detail, the kind that should give pause to those who attack the "elite media" mostly because it is there for an easily enraged public needing a target, now a very weakened punching bag.  The author's thankful summation of his feelings offers counterpoint to today's venomous charges: "I just felt so lucky, once again, to have found this room once upon a time, to have been permitted to be a part of it.  Newspapering, at its best, is unashamedly a kind of prolonged adolescence.  When you're on deadline with a good story, you never feel completely grown-up.  You're a kid again--the adrenaline is flowing and the energy is total, and no matter how old you are you're a kid doing the thing that you do best."

The camaraderie that exists among newspaper people--even when they don't know each other--has always been a hallmark of the craft.  Greene wrote of fellow columnist Jim Bishop whose efforts ran under the title: Jim Bishop, Reporter and who numbered among his triumphs, The Day Lincoln Was Shot.  When a hospitalized Bishop became the subject of a laudatory Greene column, Bishop wrote his thanks mentioning an illness that would end his life.  Bishop indicated Greene's column made him feel good about his work and asked someone to tape it to the wall of his room so he could look at it from his bed.

Greene's love of journalism is expressed in many ways in Late Edition including the sounds of bygone days: the bells of news service teletypes when a major story was breaking; the hum of the printing presses; the joyous sounds of people at work and over a drink sharing their good fortune at doing something they really enjoyed; and the thump of the newspaper as it landed on a doorstep having been thrown by a paper boy.  It's all there.  Most of it is gone.

Regarding the current relationship or lack of between reader and newspaper, Greene registers marked disappointment that newspaper readers no longer make references to "my paper" as in: "has anyone seen my paper."  Now, because of the computer, readers can take a free look at as many news sites as they wish.  As Greene suggests, "the newspaper corporations might not have belonged to the readers, but those readers nevertheless felt a true sense of proprietorship.  Does the phrase 'my paper' continue to mean anything?"

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Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda....by Bob Sanders

Woulda, coulda, shoulda.  The what ifs of life abound amid the stories of Puget Sound broadcast pioneers and are enlivened by remarkable story lines far stranger than fiction.  Take Bellingham's Rogan Jones.

Jones hit it big beginning in 1953 when he established KVOS-TV having started a radio station of middling success in the market some 25 years earlier.  KVOS (Voice of Seattle) was first used in the Emerald City 90 miles to the south by one of a number of failures in this tale.  Ultimate winner, the fabled Jones, would never have become a storied broadcaster were it not for the defeats of others including a unique one suffered by Roy Olmstead.

Olmstead was a cop with a sideline whose entrepreneurial spirit resembled that of Willie Sutton who robbed banks "because that's where the money is."  Olmstead's pursuit of criminals during Prohibition gave him the kind of education that enabled him to become the kingpin rum-runner of Puget Sound.  That was where the money was for the Seattle police lieutenant and he made as much as $200,000 a month.

The Rum King's career flourished--even more so after the feds nabbed a  tugboat crew unloading Canadian booze near Edmonds.  That was early in 1920 and Washington State Prohibition had barely begun.  On board were 100 cases of liquor and 11 people, one of them Olmstead.  It was a turning point giving him the opportunity to pursue full time what had been a lucrative sideline.  The young police lieutenant had lost his job but it hardly mattered except for the inside information he could no longer get by walking into any Seattle cop house.

Keys to Olmstead's bootlegging empire were a proximity to Prohibition-free Canadian whiskey and an avoidance of a $20 per-case fee slapped on booze bound for the U.S.  Olmstead's boats were ostensibly headed for Mexico.  Soon, the Rum King re-married, his social life far less guarded than Scott Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby.  Olmstead's purchase of a mansion located on prestigious Ridgeway Place in the tony Mount Baker district was frosting on his rum-soaked cake.  The Olmsteads called it "Snow White Palace" and the good times truly rolled.

Roy Olmstead was no dummy and he soon came up with a brilliant idea.  His mansion was a perfect place to create KFQX, Seattle's first radio station and the origins of what is now KOMO.  It was a time when Seattle listeners heard such local staples as Henry Damski's Imperial Orchestra while adventuresome dial spinners could bring in the Coon-Sanders Original Nighthawk Orchestra heard coast-to-coast from the Muehlebach Hotel on Kansas City's clear channel WDAF.  Then, there was recorded music running all the way from Harry Horlick and the A&P Gypsies to Duke Ellington whose music was self-described as "beyond category."  Louis Armstrong, a young trumpet player then recently arrived from New Orleans, was recording in Chicago with the "Hot Five" and "Hot Seven."  Their records, played on KFQX, had Seattle toes tapping. 

Oh, yes.  How about something for the kids?  That something turned out to be very special children's stories read over KFQX by Olmstead's classy English-born wife, Elise, in a spare bedroom where the station was located. 

Those stories, told by "Aunt Vivian," were quite something.  Aimed at Puget Sound bootleggers because that's where the money was, the highly creative husband and wife team sprinkled codes among Mother Goose rhymes and Hans Christian Andersen stories.  Since those were the days before such things as radio newspaper columns and awards shows, there are no records indicating the quality of the programs originating in the Tara of Broadcasting.  Only one quite small but significant audience really counted and its members crewed rum-running boats.  In retrospect, it appears radio neophyte Olmstead was stumbling around in what would become the hallowed halls of broadcast narrowcasting.

Olmstead was felt by many to be something of a Robin Hood.  After all, his efforts enabled Pacific Northwest folk to quench their Prohibition-induced thirsts.  Observers of the times suggest he may not have had much of a sense of humor due to a reluctance to call his station KRUM.

The booze balloon burst on Thanksgiving Day, 1924 when the mansion was invaded by gendarmes including Federal Prohibition Agent William Whitney, long an Olmstead nemesis.  In a scene that would have worked in The Untouchables, Whitney arrested the Olmsteads and, perhaps inspired by the show business setting, began making phone calls to bootleggers urging them to come to a party ("don't forget to bring some booze") by doing a voice impression of the rum-runner/broadcaster.  The heavily-attended party saw 48 revelers charged with breaking the laws of Prohibition, then acknowledged by 23 states.  Details of the rollicking party are told in Emmett Watson's book, Once Upon a Time in Seattle.  Watson's fact-gathering challenge many years later was made additionally difficult by Seattle police who had purged all records involving Olmstead.

Before entering prison, Olmstead sent an underling to Aberdeen, a coastal community where station KFQX was re-positioned in an office building so that the rum-running beacon could be continued.  That's where Rogan Jones entered the picture.  He owned the building and, soon, the ratio station when the underling was arrested and sent to prison.

Meanwhile, Olmstead was turning his life around in the pokey by preaching the evils of crime to inmates while he studied Christian Science.  Released in 1931, he became prominent in church affairs and rehabilitating former prisoners.  Olmstead evenually was granted a pardon by President Franklin Roosevelt.  He died in 1966.

Jones, the future broadcast hall of famer, soon discovered Aberdeen wasn't much of a market while becoming bored by landlord responsibilities.  That was when he moved his station north to Bellingham where he resurrected discarded KVOS call letters originated by Louis Kessler, a woulda, coulda, shoulda kind of guy who had failed first in the Emerald City, then in Bellingham.  Jones would make a lot of money in Bellingham by appealing to the nearby under-served TV Canadian audience after being backed up by a landmark Supreme Court ruling in 1936 that changed broadcasting forever.

To update this story's spirited aspects, outstanding filmmaker Ken Burns is working on a six-hour three-part series titled: "Forbidden Fruit: Prohibition in America."  The word is that Roy Olmstead's adventures likely will be included when it plays on PBS in 2011.

And more about Rogan Jones in a future posting.

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Byline Bio

Robert H. (Bob) Sanders, born in Lakewood, Ohio, has a BS degree in journalism earned at Ohio University.  In a career justifiably described as peripatetic, he worked in a variety of media jobs eventually becoming an award-winning public relations professional in Chicago.  His employers have included the Cleveland Press, TV Guide, Playboy Enterprises, Public Television, Field Enterprises (Chicago Sun-Times/Daily News) and the Chicago Tribune from which he retired in 1989.  He lives with his wife and two bichon-frises in Bellingham, Washington where, as the writer of a monthly newsletter, is a neighborhood activist.  Sanders is the author of an unpublished memoir, Media Rare.