In the Summer of My Life

By David Guillen

"In the Summer of My Life, is David Guillens second book of autobiography. In it the author recalls his time in Hollywood in the 1950s, and the hedonistic lifestyle of young hopefuls like himself hoping for a break in the towns glamorous industry.
He revisits his old drama school and recalls the acting classes, the voice lessons, the student camaraderie, the Saturday night parties, the auditions, the temporary jobs, the lonely times and the constant struggle to survive. And then one day he meets a pretty English girl with blue eyes and a dimpled smile and his days in the wilderness are over.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543447880

David Guillen

David Guillen and his wife, Carol, live in Thousand Oaks, California. They have been married fifty-six years and have two children and four grandchildren. He is active in Community Theater, in addition to his own theatrical productions and creative writing. His first autobiography, “All My Yesterdays” was published in 2012. “In the Summer of My Life” is his second published work.

Book preview

In The

Summer

Of My Life

David Guillen

Copyright © 2017 by David Guillen.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2017913357

ISBN:                         Hardcover                       978-1-5434-4787-3

                                  Softcover                         978-1-5434-4786-6

                                  eBook                               978-1-5434-4788-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is an autobiography. Nothing is intended to misrepresent, malign or defame any person or persons, living or dead.

Rev. date: 10/31/2017

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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Contents

1. Hollywood!

2. The Voice Student

3. Drama School

4. The Dying Art of Survival

5. Everybody Loves Saturday Night!

6. A Funny Thing Happened On My Way To A Singing Career

7. Light Up The Sky!

8. The Studio Club

9. Bobby and Flo

10. The Last Wild Party

11. At Loose Ends

12. Excuse Me, Are You Dutch

13. The Prefabs in Belle Vale"

14. If He’s Twenty Three He Slept a Few Years!

15. The Making of an Anglophile

16. Don Joo-wan

17. A Little Schmaltz, A Little Mammy, And A Little Jazz

18. The Winds of Change

19. Introspection

20. Prelude to a Wedding

21. A Great Day for a Wedding!

22. Honeymoon

23. The Newlyweds

24. And Baby Makes Three

25. Daddy’s Little Girl

26. At The Crossroads

27. No More Chasing Rainbows

28. A New Career

29. The San Fernando Valley

30. Hard Times

31. The Summer of ‘72

32. The Old Lady in the Long Grey Coat

33. My Fair Lady

Also by David Guillen

All My Yesterdays

In The

Summer

Of My Life

A memoir

by

David Guillen

Acknowledgments

Once again, I am deeply grateful to my darling Carol for all that she has done to prepare yet another book for publication. Her energy is boundless and her dedication to the task more than admirable. I am so very grateful for everything she does to help me navigate these strange and mystifying electronic waters.

I am grateful to her, and also to my dear sister-in-law, Julie Arthur, for the amusing bits they shared with me about their childhood in the prefabs in Belle Vale.

David Guillen

Dedicated to the memory of my mother and father-in-law,

Jean and Ken Arthur,

who gave me the greatest gift of all.

                       In the summer of my life,

                              When I was in my prime,

                       When all the days were sunny

                             And every night sublime.

                        In the summer of my life

                               I met a special girl.

                        We flew on velvet wings of love

                              And saw new worlds unfurl.

                        In the summer of my life

                             I wed my lovely wife.

                       And we had two lovely children

                              In the summer of my life.

            D.G.

For my darling Carol, the love of my life;

And for our children Lisa and Scott, and

our grandchildren, Sean and Amanda Coates,

and Megan and Emma Guillen.

Prologue

When I was a little boy I used to hear bits of adult conversations about the end of the world. From what I picked up, the final destruction was supposed to be by fire in the year 1940. When I grew up I discovered that the world doesn’t end, it merely changes. But the change is so complete, and so profound, that it bears no resemblance whatsoever to the world we’ve known. It’s as if the world we knew has indeed ended and a new one has taken place. This phenomenon happens after major world upheavals.

The old world order that existed prior to the First World War ended in 1919, at the conclusion of that world upheaval bringing unimagined social, traditional and political changes in its wake. The prominent Viennese writer, Joseph Roth, wrote: It has been called a world war, not because the entire world conducted it, but because owing to it we lost a world; our world.

The world that I grew up in changed following the end of World War II in 1945. The changes began as soon as the troops came home. Men who had worn steel helmets for the last four years were fed up with head gear and stopped wearing hats in civilian life. Women stopped wearing hats and gloves for no apparent reason. These changes reflected new attitudes; new social attitudes for a new and different world.

The post war years saw a dramatic increase in the national birth rate, the so-called Baby Boom, as returning servicemen and their wives set about starting families. New bedroom communities sprang up overnight in the suburbs of towns and cities complete with schools, churches, hospitals and a myriad of amenities where the Baby Boomers would grow up. There were dramatic increases in sales of station wagons to facilitate the new young families’ visits to the newest amenity, the Drive-in Movies. Those of us who were kids during the war came of age in the 1950s. It was the era of petticoats and euphemisms and wholesome, pretty girls in pony tails and poodle skirts, bobby sox and saddle oxfords, and cool guys with duck tails, turned-up collars and penny loafers. We were in the bloom of our youth. It was great to be young in the 1950s. There will never be another time like it.

It was the time of rhythm-and-blues and harmonized doo-wop in a world free of drugs, tattoos and body piercing. We were healthy, fun-loving young people, and we cared what society thought of us. We had class in the 1950s.

In the fall of 1954 I came to Hollywood to try to realize my lifelong dream. Hollywood in the 1950s was teeming with hordes of young people like me, hoping to break into the movies and television. Some had talent, some didn’t. We were all young dreamers following our star, filled with ambition and a clear vision of what we should, but never would be.

In the summer of my life I flew on the wings of youth chasing a dream that was never meant to be. But God’s blessings come in many forms, and when we least expect it. One fine day I met a beautiful seventeen-year-old English girl with clear blue eyes and a sweet dimpled smile. A very special girl who was meant just for me! And from that day on my days in the wilderness were over.

For those of us who were young then, the Innocent Fifties will forever remain the time of our golden days and cherished memories.

David Guillen

Thousand Oaks, California

Chapter 1

Hollywood!

The big blue and white Greyhound bus rolled out of the Galveston bus terminal at mid-day on October 3, 1954. It rumbled west along the palm and oleander esplanade on Broadway Boulevard, over the bridge on Galveston Bay and on to the mainland taking me on yet another life-altering adventure for the second time in three years.

My life was in transit. I was fleeing the haunting echoes of music and laughter on hot summer nights at Kempner Park. I was fleeing the bittersweet memory of my first love and promises whispered on soft moonlit nights. I was fleeing the persistent ghosts of the Idyllic Summer.

I arrived in Los Angeles in the early afternoon of the following day, October 4, 1954, exactly two days after my father’s sixty-eighth birthday with about $30.00 in my pocket. In those days the Greyhound Bus Station was located on 5th and Broadway, so suitcase and music satchel in one hand and garment bag in the other, I slogged up the two blocks to Olive Street where I boarded a Metro bus for the forty-minute ride to Hollywood. And so began the summer of my life.

I got off at the corner of Hollywood and Vine, the most famous street corner in the world! I took a minute or two to get my bearings, and then I crossed Hollywood Boulevard and walked south on Vine Street for two very long blocks to Sunset Boulevard. From there, looking east I saw the famous Moulin Rouge Night Club with the huge neon arch that read: Through these portals pass the most beautiful women in the world. That was where my friend, Larry Perez, worked as an assistant bartender. He lived just behind the parking lot in an apartment building on DeLongpre Avenue which I had no trouble finding. Standing at the front door of the apartment building, looking east, I could see the high west wall of Columbia Studios on Gower Street just one block away.

I stayed at Larry’s for three weeks. The landlord never knew because I used to sneak in through the back door. Both front and back doors were always locked, day and night, but the back door had a glass window with a missing piece and it was just a matter of putting my arm through it and unlocking the door. Once inside, I made sure I locked the door behind me. I used to sleep till noon on a dilapidated old sofa that was too small for me, but quite acceptable under the circumstances. The next day I would waltz out through the front door as if I had been visiting someone in the building. The landlord never caught on.

Each day was a survival test. I tried to stretch my money by eating only two meals a day which consisted of doughnuts and coffee for brunch and hot dogs and soda pop for dinner. My original $30.00 very quickly dwindled down to $15.00. That would see me through another two, perhaps two and a half weeks if I was very lucky. It was pretty scary!

Someone told me that eating sourdough rolls helps to fend off hunger for a long period of time, so I went to the Hollywood Ranch Market on Vine, between Fountain and La Mirada, and bought two bags of sour dough rolls and lived on that for a few days. Talk about living on bread and water!

At the end of the third week I received a letter from one of Glenda Burrows’ girl friends in Galveston telling me that Glenda had gotten married right after I left.

By the end of the third week all my money was gone. In desperation I turned to St. Jude, the patron saint of helpless cases, and believe me, I was as helpless a case as it is possible to be. I went to sleep that night on that smelly, mildewed old sofa, fully dressed, with only my overcoat to cover me and hoped for the best. The very next day Larry got me a job as a dish washer at the Moulin Rouge, where he worked, for $37.00 a week! I had no intention of making dishwashing a career, but it certainly helped remove the gloom and doom that had begun to descend upon me. Dear St. Jude had rescued me once again!

The Moulin Rouge was one of the most famous night clubs in Hollywood. It was one of the first theater-restaurants to feature the highest quality musical extravaganzas in addition to fine dining and dancing. The show had two elephants in it, a mother elephant called Lady Burma and a baby elephant called Baby Burma. The nightly shows were beautifully done, featuring great talent, flashy costumes, and unbelievable lighting effects! The producer-director, Donn Arden, went on to produce similar extravaganzas in Las Vegas the following year.

All that was upstairs. I worked downstairs, in the basement where I had the biggest, most modern dishwashing machine at my disposal. The thing even had a conveyer belt much like a car wash! But even with all the most modern contraptions and technical advances, there were still some tasks that the wonder gadgets couldn’t perform, like drying and polishing glasses. I gave myself rather a nasty cut on my right hand one night while hand-drying a shrimp cocktail glass bowl. The cut just missed a vein and the scar was visible for a long time. It’s barely visible now after all these years, but it’s still there.

I was out walking one day along Gower Avenue, between Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset when I noticed a little grey stucco building on the corner of Selma, bearing a large sign that read: Radio City Academy of Music. I could hear a piano and a soprano voice doing scales. I went into the tiny front office and asked the man behind the desk how much lessons cost and he told me it was $7.50 an hour. The man was Mr. Ralph Lane, the owner. After the student had finished her lesson and left, he introduced me to the voice teacher, a tall blonde lady with a sparkling, musical voice named Mrs. Barbara Patton. After a brief conversation I enrolled for a one-hour lesson a week.

Mrs. Patton was a tall, statuesque picture of dignity and good humor, one of those personalities one associates with grand opera. She reminded me a lot of Beverly Sills, the great and popular Metropolitan Opera star. Mrs. Patton was active in Los Angeles opera circles as a dramatic soprano, and was also Director of the Tone Production Department of the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music and Art, which at that time was housed in an old grey stone Victorian building on Figueroa Street, just south of Wilshire Boulevard in downtown L.A.

She asked me the usual questions on the day of my first lesson, before the clock was set for my one hour lesson. How long had I been singing and what kind of singing? Had I studied voice before? Where, for how long, and with whom? What method? Was I also an actor? What field of music was I interested in? Did I dance? Did I drink? Did I smoke? The last two questions were very important because they would determine the success or failure of all the others. She was pleased that I only drank socially and smoked even less. Since I had studied the Italian Method under Mrs. Emiliani we would pick up from where I left off when I left home.

She was particularly pleased that I wanted to sing operetta because she too loved it. I loved the lyricism of operetta, especially the duets. Operetta has always been my favorite art form. She stood back and looked me up and down. She seemed pleased.

You’re tall, she said. That’s a very good asset. You need height on the stage. You don’t see many tall leading men on stage anymore. Your black hair and dark features are great assets, she said, her big blue eyes twinkling. Women love to see a tall, dark, handsome man on stage with a good, solid romantic voice! I immediately thought of Jimmy Romani. How she would have loved him. She looked at me and grinned. Of course, we’ll have to put some meat on those bones.

She picked up a big song book and began flipping through the pages. Do you read music?

No ma’m.

You’ll have to learn, she said. You have to know the tools of your trade.

Yes ma’m.

She found the page she was looking for. She removed her horn rim glasses, wiped them and put them back on. She took me through some simple scales to warm up my voice and to gauge my range. When she decided I was ready, she flicked on a tape recorder and had me sing You’ll Never Walk Alone from Carousel. When I had finished singing she played the tape for me to listen to myself, and also for critique.

You sing under some tension, she said analytically. That’s called ‘internal tension.’ That is both good and bad. It’s good because it shows that you have a lot of emotion. And bad because it ties you up inside and strangles certain tones that should flow freely. Singing should be enjoyable. It should seem effortless. You make it look like hard work. It is hard work, but you must never let the audience know that. They’ll relax if you are relaxed, and then both you and the audience can enjoy your performance. A singer sings well only if he is completely relaxed. And that in turn will relax the audience.

And so I began my first three years of voice training, with an additional five, off and on, in the years to come. Three years of breathing exercises to strengthen my diaphragm, breath control, voice control, crescendo, diminuendo, low tones, middle tones, top tones, posture, and the never-ending scales. I used to attack my vocal exercises as if my life depended on it! Once I took such a deep breath and expanded my diaphragm so much that I ripped my pants at the waist!

Sometimes Mrs. Patton would try to relax me by having me sing slumped over a chair with my arms dangling loosely over the back of the chair. Other times she would have me sing leaning forward onto a table, or the back of a chair to produce unrestricted, free-flowing tones. All this for $7.50 an hour! But to me $7.50 was a lot of money considering I only earned $37.00 a week and soon I would have to get my own place and start paying rent, not to mention trying to put some meat on those bones.

There used to be a little sidewalk hamburger stand on Vine Street next to the Huntington Hartford Theater, directly across the street from the Brown Derby coffee shop. It was almost as if it was thumbing its nose at those two famous Hollywood landmarks. I used to go there for an occasional hamburger and coke. The girl behind the counter was a pretty blue-eyed, teenager from Colorado named Nell Evans. She was a sweet, friendly girl and sometimes she would give me a free hamburger and coke, followed by a sweet smile. It was obvious that she liked me. I knew immediately that I was on to a good thing if I played my cards right.

I told Larry about her and the three of us quickly became good friends. Soon we were joined by a tall, good-looking guy named Jon Rich who lived with his parents in Glendale. Jon was a chain smoker, and as nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof! He had all sorts of facial twitches, one of them in particular made it look as if he was winking at you. It was a good thing we knew about that particular twitch or we might have decked him the first time he did it!

Another nervous habit Jon had was constantly hoisting up his trousers with his elbows like James Cagney, and from the front and back like a chorus boy in Pirates of Penzance. He was also a pacer. He couldn’t stand still for more than a minute. Jon didn’t seem to have a job and lived with his parents. We didn’t know what to make of him so we didn’t bother.

Once he invited Larry and me to lunch at his parents’ house in Glendale, so the three of us walked all the way from Hollywood to Glendale, which was about seven miles away. It took us two and a half hours to get there. After lunch we retraced our steps back to Hollywood. We walked a total of fourteen miles both ways, which took five hours in the blazing afternoon sun! We never did that again! We were daft to do it in the first place!

Nell Evans was a kind, street-wise young lady. When a fourteen-year-old run-away boy showed up at the hamburger stand, she fed him. Larry put him up for the night after the kid promised to call his parents in Compton to let them know that he was alright. We advised him to meet with his parents and talk over their problems, and he did. The next afternoon the boy and his parents were reunited on the sidewalk in front of the hamburger stand on Vine Street and after a lot of hugging and crying and thanking us profusely they left together and we never saw the boy again.

On our night off Jon would meet Larry and me to walk Nell home after she got off work at midnight. We would all link arms and walk down Vine Street to the NBC Radio and Television studios on the corner of Sunset Boulevard, then east past the Moulin Rouge and the Hollywood Palladium to the CBS Radio Center on the corner of Sunset and Gower. There we would cross Sunset and walk south along Gower to Santa Monica Boulevard where she lived in an old grey three-story hotel building near the corner.

Directly across Santa Monica Boulevard was the famous Hollywood Memorial Cemetery where Rudolph Valentino, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Mary Pickford, Burns and Allen and countless other old time movie stars are buried.

We always followed the same route with the same lightness and friendship as Dorothy and the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion traipsing down The Yellow Brick Road. We always said goodnight on the steps of the ancient building where she would unlock the massive front door and let herself in. Then the three of us would retrace our footsteps back to Sunset Boulevard and from there we’d go our separate ways.

One cold night in November neither Jon nor Larry showed up to walk Nell home, so I had the pleasure of walking her home. It was a very cold night and yet, someone must have had a window open because I remember hearing the faint sounds of Mister Sandman by the Cordettes coming from someone’s radio. After seeing Nell home I went back to Larry’s and bedded down on the old sofa under a couple of blankets and my overcoat, and went to sleep.

All aspiring actors prefer night work so that they can have their days free to make the rounds of studio casting directors and auditions. I was not in that league yet. Besides, I always slept until noon, which wouldn’t have left much time to make the rounds. I was a beginner, the new kid in town just off the bus from Turkey Trot, (any small town). I was still in awe of the whole idea of actually being in Hollywood. I used to wander around the famous streets in the afternoons, not as a tourist but more as a pilgrim.

I would start out along Sunset Boulevard, past the NBC Radio and Television Studios which stretched between Argyle and Vine Street, then north on Vine to Hollywood Boulevard and then west on Hollywood Boulevard past local landmarks like Musso Frank restaurant and the Egyptian Theater with its exotic façade, to the corner of Highland Avenue where the ancient Hollywood Grand Hotel stood on the northwest corner. On the opposite side, facing Highland Avenue was Max Factor Cosmetics, Make-up for the stars. Continuing down Hollywood Boulevard (on the left hand side) was the Paramount Theater and further down, the famous Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

Across the street is the world famous Grauman’s Chinese Theater with its concrete courtyard containing the footprints, handprints and signatures of movie gods and goddesses, past and present. Even the hoof prints of Trigger, Roy Rogers’ palomino, and Tom Mix’s Tony, (the wonder horse) are there, as well as the paw prints of canine stars Rin Tin Tin and Lassie. All are preserved in concrete for all time. Or until the next big earthquake.

Every year millions of tourists come and wander around in awe. Some place their hands and feet on the concrete prints, and if they fit, or even come close to fitting, they snap a picture to take home to show their envious friends and neighbors back in Turkey Trot. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce absolutely loves it!

It was pretty heady stuff walking on the sidewalks once trod upon by the gods and goddesses of the silver screen. There used to be an Owl Drug Store on the ground floor of a tall, red brick building on the southeast corner of Hollywood and Vine. Legend has it that movie star Robert Taylor once worked there behind the soda fountain back in the early 1930s while waiting for his Big Break.

Soda fountains played a big role in the art of being discovered in the 1940s. Lana Turner was discovered at the soda fountain at Schwab’s Drug Store on the Sunset Strip sipping a soda, and wearing a tight-fitting sweater. She became The Sweater Girl, and a major movie star.

In the 1950s movie stars could still be seen in Hollywood doing ordinary things for themselves like ordinary people. I recall walking along Vine Street one afternoon in December of 1954 when a noisy group of about six or more men came walking toward me from the opposite direction, laughing and talking in loud voices as if trying to draw attention to themselves. As they passed by me I noticed a thin little man in the center of the loud entourage. It was Sammy Davis, Jr. I was shocked to see him wearing an old, wrinkled navy blue plastic raincoat! Not exactly the image of a mega star.

Jeff Chandler, a close friend of Sammy Davis, was a big movie star in the 1950s. He was a very tall, handsome man with fine chiseled features, a perpetual tan and steel-grey hair. I saw him one afternoon when he was standing chatting with Sy Devore outside the latter’s haberdashery on Vine Street. He was wearing grey flannel slacks, a slightly darker grey jacket and brown loafers. I was struck by his enormous height and steel grey hair, trimmed and combed in the continental style like Cary Grant.

I literally ran into Ricardo Montalban, the suave Latin movie star, one evening in late December during the Christmas rush, on the steps of the Broadway Department Store on the corner of Hollywood and Vine. He was coming down the Vine Street side steps as I was running up and I crashed right into him! I recognized him immediately.

Perdon! I said in Spanish, a bit out of breath.

He smiled and spoke in his elegant, Spanish-accented mellow voice.

Esta bien, viejito. Esta bien. (It’s alright, old man. It’s alright.)

Christmas, 1954 was going to be a very lonely Christmas for me. I hadn’t seen Nell Evans since the night I walked her home from work the previous month. After that I didn’t see her anymore. I assumed that she had gone home to Colorado for the Christmas holidays.

The music of the era was all around. The big hits of the 1950s: Rags to Riches (Tony Bennett), Teach Me Tonight (The DeCastro Sisters), Mister Sandman (The Cordettes), Sha-boom! (The Crew Cuts), Sugartime (The Maguire Sisters). But the happy music did nothing to alter my melancholy mood. It was nearly Christmas and I was terribly homesick. So I did what I did when I was in the army and lonely. I went to a bar.

The Plaid Room was a small bar on Sunset Boulevard, just two doors from the Moulin Rouge. It had a wall-to-wall bar at the far end and little round tables with green plaid covers and chairs along both sides of the room. A semi-circular piano bar dominated the center of the room, with the usual red leather covered stools. An amiable, smiling man with a veritable encyclopedia of songs in his head, wearing a green plaid dinner jacket sat tinkling on the piano. There was a large brandy snifter on the piano bar with a handful of crumpled one dollar bills in it.

I had been in The Plaid Room twice before and had sung a couple of songs, but tonight I didn’t feel like singing. I nodded a greeting to the man sitting at the piano and continued on to the bar at the back and ordered a bourbon and ginger ale.

It was the early evening of December 22nd, two days before Christmas Eve and the place was filled with pre-holiday merrymakers. I looked around for a table but all were occupied. Then I noticed an empty chair at one of the little round tables occupied by an attractive young woman having a crème de menthe. What followed reads like a Hollywood movie script, only it really happened and I remember it word-for-word, as if it happened only last night. I approached the table casually, drink in hand and overcoat draped over my left arm, very suave and debonair. I probably even arched an eyebrow.

May I? I said, indicating the empty chair.

Sure, go ahead, she replied.

I sat down and tried to make small talk. Boy, I said. I’ve never seen this place so busy.

Really? she said. Do you come here often?

Sometimes, I replied and paused to sip my drink. Do you live in Hollywood?

She shook her head. Pasadena, she replied. Do you live in Hollywood?

Yes.

Are you an actor?

I’m a singer, I replied.

She looked at me and nodded, probably saying to herself ‘Oh, one of those.’ She finished her crème de menthe and looked at her watch. Well, time to go, she said and started gathering her things. I tried to think of something to keep her from leaving. Would you care for another drink before you go? I said quickly.

No, thanks, she said. I have a bus to catch.

Well then, may I walk you to your bus stop?

She smiled and placed her hand on mine and talked to me as if she were talking to a four-year-old. Look, she said gently. I’m the wrong girl. I’m sure you’re very nice, but you need a girl who has something in common with you. You need to meet an actress.

With that she stood up. I sprang to my feet and helped her with her coat. Thanks, she said with a smile that was a bit too sympathetic. Bye! She chirped and started to leave. Then she stopped and turned as if she had suddenly remembered something. Oh, by the way, she said cheerfully. Merry Christmas!

She walked out and disappeared along Sunset Boulevard. I hurried outside and looked up and down the street, but she had disappeared in the busy holiday crowd. I came back inside and sat back down wondering just what the hell had gone wrong. In spite of my best efforts she had slipped away so easily and so smoothly. A bit too smoothly for a girl from Pasadena.

Larry’s supervisor, a former vaudevillian named Jack Mulroy, told me that he could arrange for me to sing on Christmas Eve at the Old Actors’ Home, wherever that was. But as it turned out both Larry and I were scheduled to work on Christmas Eve. It was a very busy time and the entire crew had been scheduled to work that weekend so I couldn’t go. It was such a shame because I would have loved to have performed before such an illustrious audience. Imagine what a thrill it would have been for a young green horn singer like me, practically just off the bus, to have entertained such a group of retired veterans of the world of show business! But alas, it hadn’t been meant to happen.

A few years later I was again invited to sing at the Retired Actors Home, but again, fate stepped in and it didn’t happen.

CHAPTER 2

THE VOICE STUDENT

I’ve always been aware of accents. I particularly like European accents. One day in the final week of December, 1954, I went to see a movie at the Admiral Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. On the way in I bought a box of popcorn with no butter, and the minute that the young lady behind the refreshment counter spoke I detected a European accent. She was from Copenhagen, Denmark.

Her name was Judy von Elsner. She was seventeen and lived with her parents and an older brother on Winona Boulevard in Hollywood. They had lived in Detroit before moving to California. Her father, Dr. Paul von Elsner, was a graduate of Heidelberg University School of Medicine in Germany. During World War II, when the Nazis occupied Denmark, he was sent to Germany to work on some top secret project and was gone for two years, and would not talk about it after he returned home. He was a likable man. At the time I met him he worked in a neighborhood clinic on Hollywood Boulevard not far from where they lived.

Judy’s mother was a lovely lady. I made a great first impression when we were introduced. I kissed her hand like a continental. I all but clicked my heels! I had purposely kept my gloved hands in my overcoat pocket all the way there so that my hand would not be cold when we were introduced. Judy and I went dancing at the Hollywood Palladium on New Year’s Eve. It was the first time I’d had an occasion to dress up in suit and tie and I really enjoyed it. I gave her a gardenia corsage. We rode the bus. I hated going on the bus, but the only other option was walking.

I never saw Nell Evans again. She just dropped out of sight. People seemed to come and go almost on a daily basis, which I found strange coming from a small town where people live their entire lives in one place. Here you’d meet someone one day and the next day they’d be gone. I didn’t take long to realize that Hollywood was a transitory town where people drifted in quietly and then vanished just as quietly.

We often went to the Copper Skillet on Sunset and Gower for Jumbo Prime Burgers. The Copper Skillet was known for its Jumbo Burgers the size of a small dinner plate! The booths were covered in rich maroon leather and featured a juke box selection list and coin box at each table. We always selected the same songs: Sweet and Gentle (a cha-cha) and a beautiful orchestration called Skokian by the Ralph Martieri orchestra.

Larry had been very kind to let me stay in his apartment