Il Mondo: One Man's World

By Tony Bond

Amid a childhood steeped in tragedy, murder, and abuse clouded by the familys alcoholism and inner demons, one boy, crowned with an innate gift imposed on him by the miracle of human creation, at the age of fourteen, separates himself from the family ignominies and to stave off poverty. He is determined to override and erase the memory of his abusers and his grandfathers debacle and the tragedy that resulted from it--his self-confidence prevails. The combination of forbidding and bliss convey a diverse story: from a group of religious people who sexually abused him, to the center of the glamorous celebrity world, to Mother Nature that, in a spectacular display, demonstrated his future, and how he comes to meet the President of America, Pope John XXIII, the King of Thailand, and numerous Hollywood luminaries.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 23, 2012
• ISBN: 9781468557459

Tony Bond

Tony Bond is a photojournalist and a filmmaker. His articles have appeared in domestic and international magazines such as Radio Television, Popcorn, Asian Reader, and in newspapers such as Thai L. A., California Examiner, Bangkok Post and others. Presently, Tony is the President of Associated-e-Press and from 1986 to 2000 served as Vice President of the International Press Association Hollywood. As a filmmaker, Tony’s concentrations are in documentaries and industrial entities. His dream is to produce an epic feature film. Tony lives in Los Angeles.

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© 2012 Tony Bond. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 5/10/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4685-5739-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-5738-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-5745-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012903476

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Editor: Mike Valentino

Cover design by Jon Kelly -- www.artadamo.com

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Intent

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Chapter I The Wrath

Chapter II The Haunted Soul

Chapter III The Cuckoo Nest

Chapter IV The Betrayal

Chapter V The Detective and Pierre

Chapter VI A New Star is Born

Chapter VII The Producer

Chapter VIII IL Mondo

Chapter IX The Dole Dilemma

Chapter X Long Live the King

Chapter XI The Father

Chapter XII The Press

Chapter XIII A Child at Heart

In memory of Bill Singer

Vos es solvo iam. Aeternus amorem meus.

Anima meus dolet

Intent

This book is not intended to cause any embarrassment in any form whatsoever. Rather it is a compelling story from childhood to adult life of an esteemed man, who bestowed on me inspiration, knowledge and high repute of self-worthiness and self-confidence, and whose life story inspired this book.

The events described herein, are true and correct to the best of my knowledge as expressed and implied by William F. L. Singer. To protect the identity of individuals the names of certain characters are fictitious.

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, I am eternally grateful that destiny brought Bill Singer into my life, whose life story inspired this book. Further, I have to be honest. I rarely read an acknowledgment page therefore I don’t see the point in writing one.

However, with utmost sincerity, I am perpetually thankful to Marilena Sourbis, Bev Jedlicka, Sherry Lund, Teresa McClure, and Rino Cola, who bequeathed upon my already dead spirit their altruistic providence and solace.

Prologue

Every generation has its heroes and heroines. They appear in newspapers, books, and magazines, on radio, and television and in motion pictures. My purpose is not provide a comprehensive list, but rather, to focus on just one of these heroes, who, since 1932, made a significant impact on so many aspects of life. His accomplishments were realized by sheer will—by the force of his brain, and by living life in his own way.

In fact, William F. L. Singer led a multi-faceted life. Like an actor who changes roles constantly and puts on many different faces during the course of his thespian life span, Bill adapted to new circumstances with the smoothness of a quick-change artist, and modestly billed himself as a jack of all trades and, perhaps, a master of none. Having explored multiple avenues of interests, from collecting marine specimens, radio broadcasting, screenplay printing, detective work, and journalistic writing, to organizing his national fan club association, Bill eventually focused on one area, making films. From Saint Paul, Minnesota to Hollywood, California, the filmmaker made over one-hundred films, some of them, set in the most remote and exotic places in the world: New Zealand, Fiji, Thailand, India, Iran, Turkey, Greece, Rome, Peru and Ecuador, for example.

As a child, Bill’s favorite subject in school was geography. He often dreamed about visiting the places depicted in his beloved geography book, and wondered if he would ever have the opportunity to realize his dream. As time went by, and his dream became reality, after his first film, Bill dedicated his filmmaking interests to making his childhood dreams come true. He traveled the world in search of adventures and knowledge with the purpose of sharing those valuable experiences with the rest of the world.

Throughout our existence of more than twenty-five years, on several occasions, I remember Bill, as we sat on a hand-carved, Italian silk-upholstered and gold trim Louis XV salon sofa in our Hollywood Hills home, which boasted electronic automated systems and elegant displays of art from around the world, telling me colorful recollections of his early, adventurous life. However, each time, when he called to mind his childhood years, his face took on a darker look as he was telling me some of the more disturbing and graphic events.

One of Bill’s earliest ambitions was to become a photographer. Wielding an old camera, the eight-year-old shutterbug captured on film the most important person in the United States of America, and most powerful man in the world, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who, at the time was visiting Saint Paul, Minnesota, his hometown.

Throughout a childhood of wrenching poverty, distrust and uncertainty—his parents constant imbibing—Bill had to fend for himself at an early age. As the situation at home worsened, he often wondered if tomorrow would ever come. However, he found some relief from his troubled childhood experiences, when, at the young age of fourteen, he left home in a sort of a fantasy journey to California.

Coming from the land of ten-thousand lakes, he had seen water before but had never seen the ocean. When he arrived in San Diego, Bill was amazed by the huge waves; he enjoyed watching the surfers taking a dive, drawn to the bottom of the ocean, where it seemed to him, that they were being devoured by the large waves. This was something new to him. The ocean intrigued him greatly, but not enough to find the courage for a dive himself.

The traumatic childhood experience, at the age of seven, when his paternal grandfather, one day, at the crack of dawn, invaded his home killing his grandmother, and uncle and critically wounded his father, engulfed Bill with an ugly and disturbing memory all his life.

As Bill grew older, he wrote out a plan of the things he wanted to accomplish in his life. He was determined to make something of himself, to erase the memory of his grandfather’s failure and the tragedy that resulted from it. He listed places he wanted to visit, and people he wanted to meet. His list was ambitious. He wanted to be a photographer, detective, journalist, and biographer. If he had followed the path to the priesthood, he then wanted to become an archbishop. Imagine, an archbishop!

Without telling anyone, at seventeen, Bill entered the Navy at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Physical labor was not his forte. Using his faculties and charm, he became a bugler for the admiral. In the Navy, Bill hung around the photography lab. However, with his deeply rooted penchant for the Church, he took a part-time job in the chapel, preparing the altar for services.

Onboard the USS Brown, a destroyer escort, he worked in the medical department. In the end, the priest, want-to-be, in him pulled him away from the ship, and he transferred to a base in San Diego, California. But, a horrific event caused him to surrender his priesthood desire until his official discharge from the Navy.

Earlier in his life, Bill wanted to become a Lutheran minister. He went to Sunday school and read the New Testament. In imitating a minister, he made his family sit and listen. When I was exposed to the beautiful rituals of the Catholic Church, I definitely wanted to become a priest, he said, with a childish smile on his face. He converted while still in elementary school.

His first surprise about Catholicism came from seeing a group of Notre Dame Nuns when he was a little boy. It was as if he had met terror himself, the minute he got a glimpse of the nuns. At the sight of them, the boy was scared as hell, because he thought they were witches; he screamed and ran away. Some of the surprises however, continued to haunt him throughout much of his life.

After serving in the Navy, Bill returned home to Minnesota and became an announcer at the local NBC affiliate radio station, but in the back of his mind, the desire to become a priest was exploding. He went as far as to build a small chapel in his own home, where he could pray and meditate.

Following what he thought to be his calling, Bill joined the Alexian Brothers Order at the Alexian Brothers Hospital in Chicago, where he worked, to follow his yearning into priesthood. However, the incongruous and unorthodox acts of the brothers embittered him and crushed his aspiration. But, by leaving the order, he saved himself and moved on in search of new fulfilling challenges.

During his young adult years, the private eye operations in Humphrey Bogart’s films absorbed Bill, immensely. He marched ahead and made his debut performing the same role of the snooping profession in real time. No James Bond here to save the world from some kind of nuclear explosion, but he cracked a group of crooks committing industrial crimes.

For the duration of his days imitating Sherlock Holmes at the detective agency, Bill had seen many films, including: New Faces, featuring a French singer named Robert Clary. He recalled being very impressed with the film. He also remembered seeing Joan of Arc starring Ingrid Bergman, the first female star he esteemed.

Going back to his halcyon days, he was able to meet Mr. Clary and offered to help him with his fan club. Bill produced a bulletin for Clary, which he also distributed to the presidents of other clubs. Soon he was designing and printing newsletters for other fan clubs. This activity ignited the inspiration to establish his own celebrity fan club and to organize fan clubs around the country. It was then that Bill conceived the brilliant idea, which illustrated the conception and birth of Pierre.

As Pierre made his debut, among the first group to receive him were Helen Hayes, Esther Williams, Marlon Brando, Natalie Wood and Rock Hudson. At the time, Rock was away and his then secretary, Bridget Price, requested that Pierre be sent to his office.

Within a week of sending Pierre to Mr. Hudson’s office, Bill received an unexpected visitor—a heated letter from a law firm representing the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

Another brush with the Hollywood filmmaking business occurred when Bill, who had become acquainted with James Dean’s family after the actor’s death, introduced a young milkman to them as a likely prospect to portray their Jimmy in a movie about his life. The newly discovered actor was given a screen test and offered a part in a film with Clark Gable.

The film capital of the world loomed over Bill, and after much deliberation, he relocated to Hollywood. During this period of productivity, Bill contracted an unknown virus that nearly killed him. He went to Hawaii with his brother David to continue his recuperation. There, without him ever having expecting it, Mother Nature illustrated his future.

His reputation as a filmmaker spread during these early efforts, and Bill forged ahead with projects that took him to numerous interesting parts of the world—some of which were untouched by man. Some assignments had dangerous consequences, such as the time he and his crew went out to shoot footage of a primitive Indian tribe in Ecuador and ended up in a disastrous, life-threatening situation.

Even though his wild and electrifying undertakings had raised him to the occasion like a trout to the hook, a horrific series of events loomed over him. So many years of his life—even to the day before he entered into the dimension of infinite bliss—he ached from the anguish and shame caused by a group of religious men and women, whom he trusted, and looked up to and, to put it sensitively, had their way with him when he was young. His soul remained haunted.

Although Bill often talked about writing a book about the events of his life, this is one of the very few items in his bucket list of things to accomplish he did not fulfill.

Freestanding his idiosyncrasies, his aura remain the force of his magic that blankets the lives of the people who were fortunate to have met him. And for those who knew him only as the genteel producer, cinematographer, photographer and journalist, the memory of this man will not fade away. Here, then, is a chance to travel into Il Mondo and learn the adventures of One Man’s World—Bill’s world.

Chapter I

The Wrath

Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.

~Aristotle

In a time of taboo and social injustice, having a romantic affair or living with the opposite sex out of wedlock was, for many, sinful and forbidden. A daughter could not rendezvous with a man unless the question of matrimony was already on the table. Perceived by many as the sacred union between a man and a woman, marriage could only be executed upon the approval of the family patriarch. In those days, arranged marriages were very much in fashion with little or no choice for the groom or bride to protest. Although this tradition has long disappeared from our society, it still prevails in many different cultures of the world, though not as rigidly as in those days. Unspeakable and even worse was for a single woman to become pregnant. It was conceivably the scandal and family disgrace of the century, and still is in for some.

It was in 1931 when William Singer, son of Albert Frank Singer, was forced to marry Leona Lindbom, because of their professed amorous and scandalous relationship—most notably, because Leona’s belly had distended. Their son and only child, William Singer, with no suffix, to whom I will refer henceforth as Bill, as he preferred, was born seven months after their marriage. The force of habit and potent desire for alcohol caused frequent separations between the couple. During these separations, William, the senior, would go to live with his dad.

Work was not one of his intrinsic worth. He never held a job for any length of time. Most of the time, his wife Leona, who was illegitimate, and who did not know her father, had to provide for their son.

Leona’s mother Ella, who became pregnant at the age of sixteen, faced the demons and brutal scrutiny of humanity; she was disowned by her family; and she was divested from the privilege of motherhood. The fact that she was carrying a baby without being married was a source of disgrace for her parents. Her father, to flee the social prejudice and humiliation, secretly found an underground group of people and sent Ella to a home for unmarried pregnant young girls—several miles away from their hometown—where she stayed until the baby was born. At the same time, Ella’s parents concocted a story that their eldest daughter Edith, who was married at the time, was pregnant. Ella was forbidden to raise her own child. Even before baby Leona had her first cry or put on her first smile in her mother’s arms, she was taken away from her mother and placed at the home of their daughter Edith. Leona was announced as the daughter of Edith, who then raised her, as her own child. Somewhere in time, during Leona’s early years, Ella determined to deprive the agonizing moments, and for her child to know the truth, she decided to divulge the great family secret. She told Leona that her biological mother was she, and the woman Leona knew as her mom was actually her aunt. Ella was not allowed to reunite with her daughter and disappeared from Leona’s life, ever since. Mother and daughter never saw each other again.

Leona Singer, a true brunette, petite and an outgoing personality, who enjoyed being around people, strove to maintain a semblance of stability at home, as her husband was frequently gone for extended periods. She also put up with her husband’s philandering and the plague of his idleness. A ballet and a tap dancer by profession, Leona had to feed an extra mouth. But her performances were scarce and she had to find jobs anywhere she could. For that, Leona would ask her sister, Ruth, to baby-sit the kid, for she had to put food on the table, and at times relied on her mother’s and in-laws’ support.

Auntie Ruth, a vibrant, extroverted, and beautiful woman, who had plenty of time on her hands, would spend much of that time taking the adorable Billy—as she called him—to the park, candy store, and the movies. Bill detested the name Billy, though he relished all of the confections his aunt bought for him, something never offered at home. At the movies, the child never complained or cried. With eyes bugged out, fixed on the screen, he calmly sat in his seat; his whole attention surrendered to the excitement he received from the animated wall in front of him. The world ceased to exist for little Billy as he was pulled away into a magical land by the moving characters and objects on the screen, and nothing could distract him or get him up from his seat.

As the years elapsed, the family was on the roll—moving from place to place. Bill was only seven years old, when he experienced the most horrific event any seven-year-old kid should ever have to behold, which undoubtedly left an indelible scar for the rest of his life.

The innocent child could not help but witness the brutal shooting deaths of several members of his family. Every one of those morbid moments had left its mark, an irrevocable trace with hard texture that shadowed his youthful and adult years, and he was unable, for a very long time, to look or smile at disbelief in the reality of the trauma.

His parents had moved to Los Angeles, California from Saint Paul, Minnesota two years prior to the appalling event. They shared a house with his grandmother and uncles.

One night just after his sixth birthday his mother and father had taken him to nearby Long Beach. His family wanted to view a vaudeville show and that night Bill got to perform for the audience and sang The Beer Barrel Polka to a thunderous applause and rain of nickels. The kid was ecstatic, especially for the storm of coins reward for his efforts that night. The following morning however, tragedy struck at his home, which hunched like a manmade lintel on the head almost his entire life.

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Born on January 1, 1874 in the Polish Corridor, in the village of Oxfet, Prussia, Albert Frank Singer was the only child of Joseph and Rosie Singer. Albert’s father, after his mother’s demise in 1878, left for the New World, and jumped ship in New York harbor in 1880.

At the age of eight he was reunited with his dad, in Chicago, Illinois, when, in 1882, his father sent passage for him. Upon arrival, Albert found out that his father had left for the Dakotas. However, Dad had arranged for the kid to live with a family they knew in Germany. A short while after he warmed-up to his new environment, Albert went to work selling newspapers and shining shoes on the sidewalks of Chicago.

With an education of eight months of school in Germany when he was seven years of age—three months in the Chicago Polish Parochial School at the age of thirteen—and three months of high school, it was there, in Chicago, where Albert established himself as a well-respected businessman.

At the time, Albert operated several different businesses: four coffee and tea stores, one butter shop, two taverns, one small hotel, and two grocery stores. He built a lucrative enterprise, which afforded him to become a philanthropist where he donated money to several churches, schools, poor families, and sponsored numerous charitable affairs. For three years, he served as the President of the Polish Butchers and Grocers Association in Chicago, and State Vice President of the Polish Catholic Union of Chicago for several years.

A devout Catholic and a father of ten, three of whom died in infancy, Albert sold the enterprise in 1914 and moved to Saint Paul, Minnesota, with the intent on furnishing his family a better place to live. He purchased income property and operated a general store, six grocery stores, two restaurants, and one real estate office. At the time, the family assets valued at 30,000 dollars, all of which Albert kept in the name of his wife, provided generously for the large household. His family always received the best of care and never was in need. All of the children attended private elementary schools and later Albert helped them in business by turning over some of his stores to them.

Owing to the economic downturn that crippled the nation—the largest stock market crash in America’s history in the 1930s that lasted much of the decade—Albert’s enterprise took a nosedive and hit rock bottom. It was on January 5, 1936 that Albert attempted a comeback. He left Saint Paul and returned to Chicago to operate a grocery store leaving his wife Frances in charge of their community property. By this time, all of his children except Harry and William had moved on.

Forced by the economic plague, which continued sweeping the nation, six months later, Albert had no other choice but to sell the grocery store, and return to Saint Paul in June of 1936. Feelings of wonder and disbelief numbed his entire body when he arrived home. Albert was aghast to find an empty house: no wife, no sons and no furniture. Wife Frances and sons, Harry and William, had purchased a car with money received from the rents of their community property, packed what little was left in the car, and moved to Los Angeles. They shipped the house furniture. Frances and her sons depleted the savings account. With zero balance, struck by overdue mortgage payments and outstanding bills, everything Albert had worked and hoped for vanished before his eyes.

He felt compelled to travel to Los Angeles to find his wife and two sons. Short on cash and unemployed, he needed to figure out a way. In a few short weeks, Albert secured a position at Master Radio Laboratory of New York, as a sales representative, which required that he owned reliable transportation. As he did not own a car, he approached his son John, who was a married man, and proposed to go on the road with him. The father agreed to split the earnings fifty, fifty. As jobs were hard to come by during that period, John Singer accepted the offer.