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Corporate Christmas....by Bob Sanders

Now that our government has more than taken care of Wall Street while giving the fish eye to Main Street, it's increasingly likely that we are going to be living with 10 per cent unemployment for some time.

Being out of work is no fun and I have a lot of empathy these days for those who are.  I acquired the problem once for nine months during 1975-76; the only positive aspect was lower golf scores.  As job interviews became fewer and fewer, the Winnetka Golf Club in the Chicago suburb where I lived saw more and more of me.  My failure to find work eventually produced a condition Cole Porter once referred to as "fighting vainly the old ennui."  Ennui can really get to you.

Fortunately, a radio guy by the name of Wally Phillips and his producer, Marilyn Miller, came to my rescue.  Wally was WGN's remarkable morning man whose peak 1.5 million audience comprised half of the Chicago area's listeners.  It was  during an on-air conversation with Phillips, set up by Miller, that listeners heard Phillips ask what I was doing to which I replied (as the expression went back then) "on the beach."  Phillips then blatantly suggested: "Let's find work for Bob Sanders."  

Before the day was over, I heard from Virginia "Dinny" Butts who ran Field Enterprises Corporate PR Department.  A young man in her department had died suddenly (a death I hoped not business-related) and there was an opening.  Some years before Butts had written for Dave Garroway who helped invent television in Chicago before moving on to New York where he became the founding host of NBC-TV's "Today" show.

Field Enterprises in those days had a number of properties including the Chicago Daily News, the Sun-Times, World Book and real estate including River Plaza, a then new apartment high-rise located next door to our headquarters in the Daily News/Sun Times Building.  The site, hard by the Chicago River, is now occupied b y Trump Towers (Chicago), the Donald's 2009 controversial triumph.

A lot of our work was very social with two or three functions a week the norm.  I'm forever grateful Phillips,  Miller and Butts for what they did.  Some of our PR assignments were something of a stretch although, in retrospect, I'm inclined to believe it was more a matter of quid pro quo; Dinny was the best player of the corporate game I've ever seen and always had her eye on bigger and/or more corporate fish to fry.  She was uncanny at times.

One of our assignments had to do with Christmas.  Artificial trees were trimmed each year on our corporate floor--one in the lobby and one in Charlie Stauffacher's office.  Charlie was one of those unsmiling CEOs, a superior bean counter who had arrived by way of Continental Can.  Marshall Field V, inheritor of the business from the Roman numeral preceding him, was a nice guy with many of his social soirees handled by our PR  group.

The corporate Christmas tree trimming was a real pain in the ass, a job much more amenable to the more artistic members of our over-staffed group which numbered eight public relations professionals, as we were prone to proclaim while purposely mispronouncing Stauffacher's name, hardly in the Christmas spirit.

Why Stauffacher's secretary couldn't do his tree was beyond my understanding, but so it went.  Perhaps the secretary was an early conspirator attempting to destroy Christmas, one of those who raise Bill O'Reilly's hackles this time of year.

What made the tree trimming exercise much easier was a vast collection of yuletide trappings in a large musty room on the top floor of our building.  There were enough goodies to decorate, however unlikely, Marshall Field's where it was all started by the first Roman numeral in 1881.  By the time I arrived, the department store chain had been sold.  One Christmas I discovered a wondrous and long-forgotten item which my instincts told me I would some time put to use.

One of my Field PR pals was Ralph Liguori, a really nice guy and veteran employee who appreciated laughter.  It was just prior to 1979's Christmas that Liguori was moved down our seventh floor hall to join more highly-salaried and specialized corporate brethren.  I figured Dinny knew a sale of the Sun-Times (the Daily News had been folded in 1978) was forthcoming and that Liguori would be better off closely aligned with the corporate hierarchy.  Public relations and advertising are usually the first to be whacked or whittled under unfortunate times.

Hardly a snob, Liguori did manage to make sighs of contentment about his very own impressive office which had a bathroom--major recognition of arrival in the corporate world.  No longer would he have to take lavatory treks down the hall like the rest of the peons.  Liguori's good fortune deserved proper acknowledgment--something that would combine Christmas, his bagnio blessing, and just a touch of the often Machiavellian corporate culture.

What I had found in that bastion of bagatelles, gee gaws, gim cracks, fiddle faddle, folderol, fribbles and baubles was a discovery to gladden the heart of any practical joker.  There among the toy soldiers, nutcrackers, hobby horses and other holiday bric-a-brac was a near life-size Santa Claus.  Not just any Santa, but one electrically-powered who pivoted 180 degrees.  Further, this kindly St. Nick had a particularly radiant smile featuring a conspiratorial hint suggesting he possessed a very special secret he might or might not share.  The pivoting Santa held his hands about six inches apart as though to make a presentation of some kind.  This was my kind of fun.  I went to work after the corporate offices cleared out.

I finished and made contact early the next morning with public service manager Jim Cumming who phoned me immediately after Liguori entered the front door.  Quickly I hastened down the hall and zipped into Liguori's office where I completed preparations.  I knew I could get away with this one because my public service pal would detain Liguori long enough for me to make my furtive get-away from his office cum toilet.  It was the day before Christmas.

I watched giddily from down the hall as Ralph left the elevator and headed toward his office and very own bathroom.  Soon howls of laughter could be herd from Liguori where, first thing every morning, he paid a visit to his lavatory, emblematic of corporate success.  Upon his entry, Liguori encountered the beaming, swiveling, winking Santa proffering Scott's finest paper. 

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Forrest Tucker....by Bob Sanders

It was a bit difficult to believe, but there it was: actor Forrest Tucker's name and a quote of his among a list of Quotation Greats including Winston Churchill, Mark Twain, Groucho Marx and William Faulkner who once upon a time had some fun with Ernest Hemingway suggesting: "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."

Tucker, whose busy film career included nearly 100 action features during the 40s and 50s, was quoted as once saying: "He loves nature in spite of what it did to him."  My Google find led to an unsuccessful search for the circumstances under which the actor made the comment.  The Tucker quote, to my way of thinking, conjured up nouns of assemblage as in a leap of leopards, a streak of tigers or a shiver of sharks.  Perhaps the observation was something less punishing like a flutter of butterflies directed at someone like Percy
Dovetonsils, Ernie Kovac's memorable comic invention.  Disappointed, I maneuvered my way back to Word and decided to write a piece about a guy who fell somewhere between a friend and and acquaintance.

It was in a tent one 1965 morning during Tulsa's usually oppressive summer heat that I first met Forrest Tucker.  I had seen him in countless movies plus on the stage in The Music Man.  Certainly, Robert Preston was the penultimate Harold Hill, but Tucker's performance was uncommonly good.

The tent where I met Tucker had been erected by Station KTUL for a promotion under the direction of the talented Barbara Roberts.  A press conference involved F Troop, a comedy to debut that Fall.  Along was Tucker's  F Troop sidekick, Larry Storch, plus their wives.  Both were named Marilyn and each had a terrific sense of humor.  Tucker and his Marilyn, a dancer, had recently married; they had met as cast members of The Music Man.  Most of my conversation was with the two Marilyns while the actors tended to duties involved in promoting the show that would run two years.

The temperature in the tent soon became unbearable and Tucker and Storch, interviews and promo spots completed, wanted out of there.  I was invited to accompany them to Southern Hills Country Club, then and of recent years the scene of some outstanding PGA Pro Tour tournaments.  We sat on the veranda overlooking the 18th green.  Drinks were ordered and Tucker's golf stories began.  I learned that he belonged to five different clubs including Wentworth in England where he said par is 74, that he had a very low handicap (2) and played most of his golf at L.A.'s Lakeside Country Club whose membership was largely from show business.  

Not all actors have commanding voices--particularly those whose efforts have been confined to TV.  Tucker, on the other hand, first did burlesque eventually gaining considerable legitimate state experience.  A very large blond fellow, he had a booming voice.  In terms of sheer resonance, he was a challenge to James Earl Jones.  Further, his physicality was such that it was much bandied about in film circles that Tucker would win Shower Champion honors at any athletic club.

With the golf stories completed and lunch ordered around 1:30 p.m., Tucker then launched into a series of observations about sex in the Orient.  His voice roared providing minute details about explicit methods of achieving orgasm through the subtle use of bamboo splints upon which was lowered from the ceiling a cage containing a lady of the evening in a welcoming position.

Looking about, I could see that Tucker had caught not only our rapt attention but, also, those of nearby elderly ladies.  They were inching forward in their chairs so that not a nuance of Tucker's vivid story-telling could be missed.  By the time Tucker finished, the women had moved a good five feet from their tables.

The following January, I ran into the actor at Lakeside Country Club where I was the guest of Lindsey McGoffin, then TV Guide's Southern California printer.  I saw Tucker on a back nine fairway running parallel to the hole I was playing.  In his foursome was Gordon MacRae, his golf skills equal to those of Tucker.  When it came to handicaps, Gordie had two--the other being liquor.  As Tucker approached his drive, we saw each other and exchanged greetings.  "How you doing, Tuck?" I shouted to him.  "Hey, Bob.  I'm doin' fine but Gordie's got a problem.  He ran out of booze on the 11th hole and ever since he's been drinkin' the ball wash."

The country club scene in Los Angeles was like no other in those days and I suspect little has changed other than the price of membership.  Actors, with one notable exception, could not belong to the Los Angeles Country Club--a bastion of old money accompanied by a plenitude of snobbery.  The only actor to break the barrier was Randolph Scott who played in a lot of westerns.  Scott found the idea of membership in the L.A. Country Club so enthralling that he signed a club affidavit that made it clear it accepted "no Jews, no Catholics and no actors."  His reaction was to suggest that "if you've seen any of my pictures, you'll realize I'm no actor."  He promised, Scott's honor, to never appear in another film and remains the only actor to make the grade.  Asked if he would ever consider a membership in the LACC, Groucho Marx got off his most memorable line: "Why would I want to join a club that would have me as a member?"

Scott made his last film, Ride the High Country in 1962.  Co-starring Joel McCrea and directed by Sam Peckinpah, it is probably his best picture.  Oddly enough, it also was McCrea's last.  Among Scott's many films, three were made with Forrest Tucker.

Film director Andrew V. McLaglen, a San Juan Island friend when I lived there, told me 30 years later about directing Tucker in Chism, a 1970 movie staring John Wayne.  McLaglen cast Tucker as the bad guy, an interesting decision since he had been playing heroes almost exclusively for more than 20 years.  McLaglen, as second director of Sands of Iwo Jima, also was involved in Tucker's first transformation.  Prior to the 1949 World War II film starring John Wayne, Tucker was cast as a bully or outlaw since The Westerner, his debut picture in 1940. 

My favorite Tucker role is in Auntie Mame, that marvelous episodic frolic with Tucker as Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside.  While the film is dominated by Rosalaind Russell's eccentric free thinker, the story line acquires an abrupt letdown when Tucker's character, married to Russell's, is killed in a mountain climbing accident.  Playing second banana to a woman who feels that "life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death" is not easy.  Tucker's character, however, is so ingratiating that his unusual demise (falling off the Matterhorn) casts a decided pall upon the artfully-created merriment.  It's as sudden a shift in film mood as you will find in a comedy.

I saw Tucker a fair amount at Lakeside in the grill room where a lot of celebs (Walter Brennan and Gene Autry among them) ate and drank.  I recall two or three telephone booths along one wall of the room.  One day, with my back to the phones, I overheard someone explaining to "Mary" that he would be late getting home.  An important meeting had come up unexpectedly and so and so on.  Just about the time I had decided that the guy had me beaten in the Glib Sweepstakies Department and that maybe I should take lessons from him about phony calls home, the guy hung up and crossed the room.  It was the remarkably well-preserved Charles "Buddy" Rogers who starred in Wings, the first Academy Award winner in 1927.  The "Mary" he was speaking to was wife Mary Pickford.  I don't know how many phone calls like that he made, but he sure lived a long time--more than 30 years beyond that day.

Lakeside club rules decreed the posting of members' unpaid bills.  I recall seeing a very old (and quite small) one of actor Johnny (Tarzan) Weismuller.  It seemed a cruel way to treat a guy with a good reputation who had brought a great deal of acclaim to the club.

If memory serves, it was  that "Buddy" Rogers day at Lakeside that Tucker took me aside and asked if I'd like to join the club.  He would sponsor me.  A membership there cost almost as much as I made in a year working for TV Guide.  Besides, owner Walter Annenberg had a decidedly dim view of country clubs and the chances of my employer picking up my golf tabs non-existent.  "Sunnylands," the Annenerg estate in Palm Springs, had just been improved by a nine-hole course; the owner had three tees placed on each hole and he continued to refer to it as a 27-hole course until his death in 2002.  His creation was the result of being challenged by the general manager of a nearby country club (or so the story went) who insisted Annenberg had been a member's guest more than the maximum number of times that year.  The confrontation made things unpleasant for both the member and TV Guide's owner.  Furious, Annenerg  built his own course.

My Lakeside host, Lindsey McGoffin, knowing of Annenberg's attitude toward golfing employees, also knew I simply couldn't afford to pay the full freight.  It was very nice of Tucker to take an interest in me.

The last time I saw the actor was in 1975 when I was working in public television at Chicago's WTTW.  It was Springtime, the Channel 11 Auction was on, and my responsibilities included the creation of auctioneer teams. Tucker was in town doing a reprise of The Music Man (a show he performed 2,008 times) and I recall picking him up at the Ambassador East Hotel in my Vega whose shortcomings cannot possibly be minimized.  Among other things, it was not designed for Harold Hill's bulk.  Tuck managed to squeeze in and out of it and soon we were approaching the station's front door.

Tucker at that time was one of the most recognizable of working actors and, as if to set him further apart over the years from other blond and brawny types including Sonny Tufts, Alan Hale, Jr. and Brian Keith, he took to wearing a red carnation boutonniere at public appearances.  It was his trademark and as associated with him as Hugh Hefner and a pipe or Michael Jackson and a glove although Jackson's disappearing nose was certainly becoming another.

While volunteers were signing in and receiving hand-lettered names, Tuck and I did an end run only to be pursued by a woman who worked at the station and whose name I have fortunately forgotten over the years.  "Oh, you," she said directing her remark at Tucker.  "You have to have a name badge."

Tuck, ever the gentleman and a bit surprised she didn't recognize him, offered a genial "that's mighty kind of you" in that down-home-in-Indiana voice he had developed since his birth in Plainfield.  "I think folks will know who I am."

That wasn't enough for her.  Onward she plowed waving Tuck's badge as we fled down the corridor leading to the auction.  "You must have a badge.  Everyone has a badge.  We just can't have people here without a badge," she continued.  Tucker did an outstanding job selling the kind of stuff available at what turned out to be the last year of the auction.  General Manager Bill McCarter ended the event in spite of the money it raised.  Not only was the money big but McCarter never understood the unique connection between the auction and the army of volunteers it brought into play.  

Booze and cigarettes finally caught up with Tuck.  He collapsed at ceremonies involving the placing of his star on a Hollywood Boulevard sidewalk.  He died shortly after of lung cancer in 1986.  He was 67 and his last years were not pleasant. 

While largely an action film actor, Forrest Tucker's surprisingly good song and dance abilities can be found on You Tube.

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Tiger Tale....by Bob Sanders

One of those indelible thoughts of recent vintage keeps recurring.  It's about a stop on the 1999 Professional Golf Association Tour.

Tiger Woods, having hit a number of errant tee shots that day while playing in the final round of the Phoenix Open, had pulled a drive on the 13th hole to a most difficult spot adjacent to a very large boulder.  At first glance, it appeared the only solution to Woods' dilemma was to hit the ball left-handed in an attempt to get it to the fairway where it would be playable.  Interestingly enough, Woods asked if the one-ton boulder could be considered a "loose impediment."  A ruling in his favor was made and about 10 Woodsian true believers then rolled the impediment away in seemingly biblical fashion.  The game's greatest player birdied the par 5 hole but finished three strokes behind Rocco Mediate.  A boulder as loose impediment is a card Woods played again successfully seven years later on the pro tour.

Golf is a most unique game and remains the only one in which a penalty can be self invoked.  It is THE game in the game of life that brings out the best and worst in us; those who observe golf etiquette believe it to be far more important than winning or losing.  Tiger was properly criticized by many for accepting the "loose impediment" ruling believing it was not in the spirit of the ground rules that govern the game.

There is nothing new about highly successful athletes receiving decision breaks by officials.  With super star salaries dominating financial aspects of sports, students of basketball watching the Cleveland Cavaliers and the remarkable Lebron James know that there are somewhere in the neighborhood of a half-dozen times during a game when it will take James three steps to make a slam dunk or spin a ball dazzlingly off the glass in such a fashion that words fail to describe the action.  Technically, one and one-half steps are allowed after gaining possession of the ball although the rule is generally winked at with two steps having gained something approaching official approval.  Anything more is called traveling.  

During the last years of Michael Jordan's illustrious career, a large percentage of his dribbled baseline drives to the basket should have been called traveling yet weren't; the NBA and its officials knew people were paying their way into arenas to see Jordan score 30 points, not get called for traveling.  Further, baseball's great hitters have a smaller strike zone than lesser mortals.  Also part of the game is the phantom double play in which the shortstop drags a foot in the general direction of second base.

Perhaps the strangest aspect of Tiger's story of "indiscretions" (now at nine and counting) is that his career was on such rigid cruise control for so many years that something approaching sainthood appeared to be around the corner.  At the current Woods revelations rate, one wonders when Lady GaGA will make an appearance perhaps wearing a gown constructed of nothing but golf tees.  Woods, who turns 34 on December 30, had been a vivid contrast to most spoiled athletes having had a lot of preparation for success from the moment he appeared on a "Mike Douglas Show" at the age of 2 making him the golfing world's Mozart. 

From all accounts, Tiger's savvy father, Earl, had a relationship with his son that transcended the parent-child norm.  In the Army 20 years during which he became a Lt. Col. in the Green Berets, Earl Woods did two tours in Vietnam.  Surely, while raising Tiger, he must have had plenty of conversations with his son explaining what can happen when you achieve celebrity status and are confronted by the perils of success.  In Tiger's dogged pursuit of privacy, the young man failed to understand that he gave that up when he did the "Mike Douglas Show."  Those trashy supermarket checkout publications, probably giggled at by him during better days, are his new reality.

Sometimes, you get a heads up regarding something like the Tiger Meltdown.  Mine came earlier this year from wife Jan while we watched Tiger compete on TV.  She suggested: "I don't think I'd like to play a round of golf with Tiger."  In retrospect, it was an observation based solely upon her watching an often sullen competitor with inclinations to toss clubs, talk trash, and grumble over six irons that merely got within 25 feet of the pin rather than 10.  In his state of petulance, Tiger had more on his mind than being a serial transgressor when he returned to the game this year after missing half of 2008 due to a hip operation.

The matter of celebrities on the road has been worked over by expert observers, some of them participants in the pursuit of the opposite sex.  Jim Bouton, an eccentric pitcher for the New York Yankees, wrote of baseball's dark side in Ball Four chronicling a great many misadventures.  Another to tell all was basketball's Wilt Chamberlain whose sexual conquests numbered 10,000, according to Chamberlain.  The possibility of Tiger attempting to exceed Chamberlain's "record" looms all too real.  Between this posting's sixth paragraph and this one, the TV has told me a madam has come forward with "proof" that the golfer has had sexual liaisons with six of her hookers, a claim whose plausibility mounts since she made no mention of herself.

It will be fascinating to watch Tiger when he resumes playing a game that has made him the first billion dollar athlete, according to Forbes.  Something like $800 million is from endorsements now threatened.  How he handles loose impediments including people is a major part of the equation.  Will Tiger's fans move the boulders? Probably, because of their undying allegiance to a former role model who used to be highly private and who through natural talent, concentration, and a magnificent work ethic is able to hit and putt golf balls into holes better than anyone else.

Never has an athlete dominated a major sport like Tiger Woods.  When he doesn't play, the TV audience is reduced by nearly a half.  Advertising is another sensitive area and sponsors like Nike, AT&T, and Gillette have not been seen in prime time since November 29, two days after the car accident.  Since then, Woods' crisis management team has done a highly questionable job handling an icon who may not be manageable.  My best guess is that Tiger will suffer sponsor losses based upon how the public perceives the relationship between the golfer and the product.  Nike golf is 100 per cent Tiger and has much more to lose so they are pretty much stuck with him.  AT&T can easily pull its logo off Tiger's bag.

It was screen director/writer Billy Wilder who quite possibly penned the funniest line in the funniest film and it's applicable in relation to the Trials of Tiger Woods.  It's in the last scene of Some Like It Hot when Jerry (Jack Lemmon in drag) explains to Osgood, played by Joe E. Brown, that he's really not a woman.  "Well, nobody's perfect," replies Osgood.

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Harry Chan....by Bob Sanders

It's interesting in this life that we sometimes become closer to non-blood relatives than the real deal.  Certainly, that was the case with Harry Chan, a guy who provided a lot of laughs.

A six-foot third-generation Chinese, Harry fathered film actresses Meg and Jennifer Tilly.  The former is, perhaps, best known for her 1986 Academy Award-nominated role in Agnes of God while Jennifer, also nominated for Best Supporting Actress (Bullets Over Broadway-1994) is an accomplished poker player who recently gave up the game having become convinced she had acquired an addiction.  Meg Tilly quit acting in 1995 to raise her three children and write.

Harry's parenthood was achieved while married to a Caucasion; over the course of his daughters' successful careers until his death four years ago, Harry bridled whenever mention was made of their "faintly oriental looks" or comments to that effect.

Harry Chan came into my life by way of my second wife Mickey whose sister married him after a courtship of 15 years.  Harry, it was said, studied all considerations from every angle.

I recall my delight in telling Harry I had witnessed Jennifer wildly applauded by an Evanston, Illinois film audience when she re-appeared late in The Fabulous Baker Boys as a world weary waitress.  She certainly deserved the approval and reminded me of brilliant cinematic bits of a time long passed.  In the 30s and 40s, brief screen appearances by third bananas such as the affable drunk, the surly waiter, the unctuous hotel manager or the prissy department store floor walker would draw applause.  Maybe talking pictures were enough of a novelty back then or, perhaps, we simply lack those vivid character actors.  It's also possible film has lost the ability to deliver subtlety while concentrating on special effects heavy on explosions.  Great dialog is almost non-existent today.

One of my Palm Springs memories involves a discussion with Harry in which, over a reasonable number of martinis, it was determined that the Tilly sisters should be accorded a special family-only film festival at which time we would play their entire repertoire.  As I recall, popcorn and the inevitable martinis became integral aspects of the planned festival, considerations that led to criminal activity involving the theft of what had to be one of the world's largest lemons, a fruit so enormous that its peel would have been sufficient to accompany an entire neighborhood's martini consumption for at least a month.

We had become covetous of the lemon during drives into town from a home loaned to us by Weona Armstrong, a lovely and lively woman who spent most of her time in a Chicago suburb.  The Palm Springs home was on Chino Canyon Drive and was located immediately in front of one owned by Elvis Presley whose sightings there were seldom.  We never saw Elvis but we did spot the remarkable lemon on each of our forays.

Swipe it we did one night as a neighbor across the street shouted advice that we should consider buying a lemon rather than engage in such tawdry behavior.  To this day, I remain convinced the highly recognizable voice was that of actor Robert Mitchum, the "soul of film noir" as critic Roger Ebert has so aptly described him.  Although he never  lived in Palm Springs, I'm sure it was Mitchum.

My favorite Harry Chan story is set in Grand Island, Nebraska where he and Mickey's sister, Sue Christensen, were married.  A country club reception followed and members of the wedding party, friends and relatives gathered on a verandah.  It was a hot and sticky summer day.

During the celebration, Harry noticed a quite puzzled little old lady, likely in her 90s, standing nearby.  The woman had been studying the effervescent groom for some time and eventually toddled over to him, commented about what a good time she was having and then explained her confusion.

"Mr. Chan," she began.  "I have noticed the mosquitoes are out in full force and they are biting everyone but you.  I don't understand."

"Well, mam," replied Harry.  "Those mosquitoes know that if they bite Harry, they are going to be hungry in 20 minutes." 

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