My Hollywood Days

 

Since I’ve been posting on the subject of my Hollywood career in coaching fast-draw and gun-twirling — said career spanning well over six months, not necessarily in a row — I guess I should give you a short version of my Hollywood Entertainment Industry background:

Back in 1964-65 I worked at KNX radio on Sunset & Gower; I was what they called a “Morning Man”, meaning I broadcast while people were driving to work. Every city had them, small towns had them and I worked a number of those venues as well, along with friends and fellow “Morning Men” Bob Crane and the venerable Arthur Godfrey — I worked in the same studio that Bob did — Godfrey had his very own studio, of course.

I worked with Dickie Dawson, Dick Whittington, Wolfman Jack, Arthur Godfrey and Jack Lewis — actually Jack Levitch, same family as Jerry Lewis. I visited Mr. Lewis’ home several times with Jack. I’ll tell you the story, because it’s worth retelling:

I knew all the morning men and AM & FM disc jockeys in LA at the time, primarily because they were frequent guests at my parents’ house. My stepfather Paul Donner Spencer was the Marketing Director of Capitol Records, so naturally he hosted many of the jocks and program directors as well as the talent.

The Bill Mortensen photo above resembles Mortensen’s famous portraits of JFK — President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Donner’s golfing partners were mostly members of the Rat Pack, but I had known them all except Frank Sinatra — I was terrified of him — since 1964, when I worked at the Sands in Las Vegas as a publicist for ChrisLaw Productions, Peter Lawford’s effort at making cowboy movies.

My mother had been in show business since the ’30s, and was at this time the story editor for two series — Ellery Queen and Hitchcock.

 

As a result, I knew just about everyone in the industry in Hollywood during the ’60s, including techs, stunters, such as my good friend Bob Herron, who worked with me on Wild, Wild West back in the day, and visited me a number of times here at my home a few years back.

I had been recording voice-overs at Bob Levinson’s studio on Santa Monica Boulevard near the real studios. Bob did the “Culligan Man” bottled water commercials, and I did a lot of the voices, like my friend Paul Frees, whom I hired to do a number of pieces for Levinson from 1964 to about 1971-ish. My longtime friend Lin larsen had come over from Disney and Warner 7-Arts to help with the projects. Lin and I are still working together more than 50 years later, on new animation projects for our videogames.

Okay, so what I was going to tell you — I had to set the scene just a little — So I want to tell you about my strange and funny friend, who called himself “Jack Lewis”. He was my fellow “Morning Man” co-host with me at KWIZ-FM, a 50,000 watt heavy duty radio station in Santa Ana, which was owned by my stepfather’s dad, “Spence”. It had just gone pop from years of being strictly classical. As a matter of fact, because my stepfather “Donner” had been steeped for years in classical as a result of working at the station, he started the “Angel” label on Capitol Records, which set the bar pretty high, for LP releases of the type in the 1960s.

 

My stepfather Donner was fired from his dad’s station — by his dad — when someone erased the chalkmarks he’d made on the mix board the night before. He never did get his license, and Jack and I were fired by Spence when we made a joke about religion on the air.

So Jack and I were driving back to LA in my car, which was the one that worked at the time — Harry Nilsson’s sister’s VW was seldom available unless I lent her my car — which was an Aston-Martin, which I preferred greatly over her hatch-roofed VW.

Jack says, “Listen, we’ll beat the traffic into town, go directly over to Bel-Air.”

He didn’t have to tell me how to get there. My mother and I had lived in Westwood, Brentwood and Beverly Glen when she became a television writer and editor. I knew the way; had known the way there since 1956. I hated Bel-Air and couldn’t understand why anyone not paranoid would want to live in a protected community like that.

We got to Bel-Air, and I asked, “Now where?”.

“We’re going to Jerry Lewis’ home,” he announced. “He’ll be glad to see me and we’ll have lunch and talk.”

I believed him like I believed all Hollywood Characters, including people with whom I’d partnered in comedy and music. Hollywoood is 90% bullshit and 10% horseshit, and you can’t believe ANYTHING anyone tells you without hard, concrete evidence. My first thought is, it’s a practical joke, probably something I’d regret being involved with, but I gave him the slight benefit of the doubt, and drove on.

He gave me street directions, and we ended up at an enormous residence that looked somewhat Mediterranean, somewhat mixed architecture. Here is my photo of the scene presented me that day in 1965:

Now imagine a couple of guards coming toward your Aston-Martin. “They’re armed with Uzi SMGs,” I warned Jack. It was far more serious than I had first imagined.

“Hi, Jack,” said one of the guards, and waved us in. You could have knocked me over with a feather. Long story short, we had a great time, met Gary — I did a spread on him for Tiger Beat and another for Mod Teen which I edited for about a year. You did not call Jerry Lewis “Jerry” unless you were a tiny tot, French, or you were a Rat Packer. I was none of those, and addressed him as “Mr. Lewis”. He was amazing, his hospitality was amazing, and he was by far the most adept gun-spinner I ever did see in Hollywood, right up there with Sammy Davis, Jr. — it was a toss-up to me, which of them was the faster, but Mr. Lewis did tricks that Sammy did not do, although Sammy was the better fast-draw and shot by far.

Anyway, that’s how I came to learn even more gun-spinning tricks than I had learned from Sammy — him you DID call by first name. He wanted friendship more than respect, and Mr. Lewis clearly wanted respect, a result of his childhood experiences, much the same as Don Rickles and many comedians of all times.