The Gun Behind the Camera: A Cop's Experience of Thirty-Four Years in Merv Griffin's Television World

By Albert C. "Ace" Miller

Al Miller brings twenty-five years as a Los Angeles police officer as part of nearly twenty years as a sergeant with rounded experience in criminal, civil, and personnel investigations, which provided a full quarter century of experience in dealing with all manner of personalities leading to a thirty-four-year association with numerous celebrities wherein their personal security was demanded. In this documented report of those twenty-five years as a cop and thirty-four years as a private investigator with the television world, after service in the Marine Corps Miller attended multiple college classes but regrettably did not achieve a degree. Miller shares his experience with death threats, crazy mail, and stalkers and how each of these threats were managed without harm to the individual celebrity and without any reportage or embellishment of the matter through the tabloid press.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9781684568512

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

A Cast of Characters at The Vine Street Theater

Merv Griffin Much more info to follow in his own chapter.

Bob Murphy Introduced earlier. Seventeen-year-old US Marine fought in World War II.

Murray Schwartz Through 1985 was president of Griffin Enterprises.

Peter Barsochinni Producer of The Merv Griffin Show. Published author and movie producer in collaboration with Merv’s son Tony on Drop Zone, a steal all the police impounded dope thriller.

Dick Carson Director of The Merv Griffin Show. Johnny Carson’s brother. Subsequently became director of Wheel of Fortune.

Kevin McCarthy Assistant director to Dick Carson. Subsequently became director of Jeopardy! and remained so until retirement in 2018.

Vince Cilurzo Lighting director. Another World War II Marine. Created the first winery in Temecula, California.

Ray Sneath Stage manager. Maintained timing of the show with coordination of the director. Retired in 1994, moved to Hilo, Hawaii. Currently resides on Oahu.

John Lauderdale Backstage manager. John kept the talent moving for appearance onstage with coordination from Ray Sneath.

Georgina Warwick Talent booking agent for the Merv Griffin Show. Born and raised in England. During World War II as a child was evacuated from London to Warwickshire in the English Countryside. Always a lovely lady. RIP, Gina.

Nancy Jones Executive producer of Wheel of Fortune. Forced out in 1995 by Sony Pictures Entertainment. Resided on Hawaii’s Big Island at her horse ranch. RIP, Nancy.

George Vosburgh Executive producer of Jeopardy! Forced out by Sony in 1997. RIP, George.

Lisa Broffman Production development department. Upon Vosburgh being ousted by Sony, Lisa became a producer with the Jeopardy! TV show. Lisa shares this position with Rocky Schmidt.

Karen Griffith Assistant to Nancy Jones. Later became a producer with Wheel of Fortune. A very talented lady within the industry. Smart, logical, pleasant, and of excellent character.

Gail Haigh Operations officer for Trans-American Video, a Griffin-owned company at TAV 1541 N. Vine Street.

Tom Kane In-house manager of the security department. Replaced by myself when he moved on in pursuit of postproduction artwork.

Jim Bradley Ran the cue card operation of the Griffin Show, including audience warm-up. Later a fixture within the Television Development Department once Merv went off the air in 1986. Would have been much happier as a cowboy. RIP, Jim.

Ron Ward Personal assistant to Merv Griffin. Very pleasant young man who is unable to return a phone call. Can you say insecure? You might say so.

Lee Valentine Audience coordinator. Responsible for ensuring there was a live audience. Lee was always accused by me of cleaning out all the Seizure Villages and Parolee halfway houses to fill seats to which he readily admitted I was right. Lee is still on the job with Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!

MILLER IS ENLISTED

In May 1982, I was called by Al Green, the friend of a longtime friend. Green was a police officer assigned to Hollywood Division and was in process of a startup security company called Star Security. Green reported he needed some off-duty police personnel to fill the positions at the Merv Griffin Celebrity Theater located at 1541 N. Vine Street. I accepted his offer of part-time employment. Green had a partner whom I can no longer identify, so I will be polite and refer to him as Brad. Brad was a real piece of work.

Things rocked along well, and I was getting regular assignments to Vine Street shared with two or three other officers whose identity were unknown to me.

One day Brad dropped in while I was on duty and had a terrible hang-dog expression of his entire demeanor. Brad was attired in Levi’s and western boots. I looked him over and asked, What’s wrong with you, you look as though someone died?

You won’t believe this. I divorced my wife. Left my kids, got remarried to the broad I was banging while I was married, then I got to fucking around with my ex-wife and got her pregnant. Can you believe this shit?

I responded, Well, the only thing that could be worse is if you have holes in the soles of your boots. Upon this sage observation, Brad held up a boot to show me the large holes in the sole.

In March of 1983, I was summoned to visit the operations officer, Ms. Gail Haigh, who came quickly to the point. How would you feel about taking over this part-time position you have on a full-time basis?

What about Al Green and his partner?

I can’t be concerned with them. They are simply not doing the job they were hired for. They never answer the phone or return my calls, and I’ve had enough.

I had no idea where this offer was headed. My responsibility would be boiled down to production days of the Griffin show unless called in for special problems. This arrangement was without a contract or so much as a Memorandum of Understanding.

Present day. If you asked Al Green, he would swear on a stack of Bibles that he was backstabbed by me to steal his client. Not true, Al, you got yourself fired owing to the lack of attention to your client’s needs.

A few words about the in-house security staff.

As I worked hand in hand with this staff, it became clear that the Griffin Organization was making a big mistake by using the security department as an entry-level position to the entertainment industry. Huge mistake!

Every guard was either a screenwriter, would-be actor, production technician, musician, voice-over specialist, and in a couple of cases, entirely incompetent or a thieving alcoholic, you name it. They were all there. I let my opinion be well-known to Gail Haigh. She agreed with me but had no solution to offer.

Even my admonition that the staff was robbing the company by preplanning sick days among themselves so their buddy could get a day’s overtime the following week. They would switch off so everyone had an extra day’s work.

This is no way to run an airline, but at this point, I had little or no influence within the company. This situation would change dramatically in December 1984.

CHAPTER TWO

1541 N. Vine Street

Welcome to the Plant

The studio and attendant business operations within the Griffin Organization occupied the entire block on the west side of Vine Street between Selma Avenue and Sunset Boulevard. That portion of the property nearest Selma Avenue was previously a bank building with second-floor offices and had its own entrance with a guard post at the front door near the switchboard operator.

The main business entrance would always be 1541 N. Vine Street. While the entrance nearest Selma housed office space for the television production of Entertainment Tonight. The Wheel of Fortune administrative offices were located on the second floor. Offices were also leased to other producers and their staff. The rear shipping and receiving entrance was located midblock on Morningside Ct. the first street west of Vine Street, which also provided parking available for the Griffin employees.

The guard post at 1541 was the most active by all measures. This post-controlled electric door access to the hallway, which would take one to the bank building as a result of Griffin acquiring that portion of the block. A doorway was created by inclusion of a heavy fire door. The guard had only limited vision from his desk as to which direction a person was headed since access was available to the second-floor executive offices and the Accounting Department located on the mezzanine level.

In early 1982 through early 1985, the entire corner of Vine Street and Sunset Boulevard was an empty lot used by many employees for parking. Once the area was developed as a strip mall with the usual fast-food court, bookkeeping service, and nail salon, Merv Griffin bought the property, becoming owner of the entire city block.

During production days, the audience would line up north to south against the building awaiting direction by the page staff for entry and guidance to the studio proper. Audience members having cameras would surrender them to the guard at his lobby post.

If you have the interest, you may easily see the facade of the old Celebrity Theater by watching the movie Bugsy starring Warren Beatty and Annette Bening. It is the scene presented before the illegal gambling hall is robbed by Harvey Keitel in his Mickey Cohen role.

The Celebrity Theater seated two hundred forty people. Tickets to the production were free and available to anyone who came in contact with a ticket hustler at Manns’ Theater on Hollywood Blvd.

The free ticket phenomenon led to more than one problem. During the early 1980s, Hollywood was undergoing a serious invasion of homeless people who were offered food and shelter by more than one local church. It should also be noted that the studio was less than one block from the Greyhound Bus station that delivered more than one loony toons who always seemed to find their way to the free Griffin Show.

I know from personal experience about the allure of Hollywood, as I was assigned to Hollywood Division as a young officer in April 1963 through January 1964. In that period, Hollywood had a vibrant business community and world-class restaurants, such as the Brown Derby and Musso & Franks, which remains an icon today but sadly no more Brown Derby.

While assigned to Hollywood Division, I witnessed a pedestrian-versus-auto collision in the heavily marked crosswalk across Vine Street from the 1541 address to the Hollywood Palladium Parking lot. The pedestrian suffered a broken leg, and as I waited with him for the ambulance, he asked me to drive his car to Hollywood Station as he was an off-duty LAPD officer and had two guns in the car. Of course, I drove his car and parked it as requested. Professional courtesy rules.

In the summer of 1963, President John F. Kennedy appeared at the Palladium to attend a breakfast hosted by the California Democratic Women’s Association. Police Officers were posted at various security positions around the building. I drew a rear door which, unknown to me, was scheduled as an egress for the president. All of a sudden I’m confronted with a crowd of women trying to get past me to approach President Kennedy. With the help of previously erected barricades, I was able to keep these ladies from reaching this charismatic man.

In November, of course, along with all my fellow officers while seated in the second-story roll call room, I could see the news banner on the bank building at Hollywood Boulevard announcing the closure of the US borders and a brief description of issues in Dallas, Texas. RIP, John F. Kennedy.

Hollywood started falling apart for real in the mid to late sixties as the flower children and Vietnam War protesters and dope-smoking assholes led to a proliferation of T-shirt shops for the tourists as the high-end businesses vacated.

Make no mistake here. Hollywood has always had their share of dope-smoking assholes, and while I worked there, it was always interesting to note the two cultures, one that inhabited the daylight hours and the slime that emerged during hours of darkness.

CHAPTER THREE

The Audience

The theater seated two hundred forty persons. Owing to the close-by residential hotel in the next block north, it was not uncommon to see many of the same faces of retired persons with nothing else to do. For many years during his monologue, Merv could be heard to mention Mrs. Miller. Mrs. Miller was one of the residents who made a point of being in every audience.

Much of the audience was made up of bus groups arranged by the audience coordinator Lee Valentine. Valentine had a serious yearly problem of getting a full audience during the holidays and by necessity had to scrape the barrel, which often meant halfway house parolees. Anybody to fill the seats or Merv would become highly critical of Valentine.

There was one audience event that stood out: Valentine arranged for a busload of pregnant unmarried teenage girls from a local Catholic school. As they were leaving the bus, a local jerk began making lewd comments about the fact they were pregnant and unmarried. I was called upon to send him walking.

Because of the free-ticket issue, we would commonly get homeless visitors with all their worldly belongings on their back. This became a problem, which quickly became mine when a page would come to me and report that they had complaints from other audience members that a homeless man smelled so bad they couldn’t stand it. So on to the problem, and first observation made it clear as to who was the unwashed problem when there was fifteen to twenty feet separating the audience lineup away from the offending person.

My solution to this matter was very simple and often put to use. I would approach the individual and ask if he were attending the show. Once he stated he was, I would ask to see his ticket to ensure it was for the correct date. Once the ticket was in my hand, I would simply tear it up and tell him his ticket was cancelled. I would also tell them to clean up, get some fresh clothes, and they were welcome to return anytime. Some did; most did not.

During the continuing day-to-day regular business with the show and the usual audience issues, I had received frequent complaints of beggars working the audience for small change as they lined up on Vine Street. So I decided to see for myself. I got in line with a show ticket sticking out of my shirt pocket. Sure enough, here he comes working the lineup from north to south. He gets to me, and I lay my badge on him and invite him to a private discussion in the alley. You don’t belong here, and when I next see you small-changing the audience here, I will put you in jail. Do you understand?

Yes, sir, I understand, I’ll stay off this block.

And he did. Months later I was having a hamburger in the strip mall and saw him also eating lunch. He approached me and said, Hi, remember me?

Yes, I do.

Well, you know you kicked me off the block and it cost me $35 a day, but that’s okay. You see how well I’m dressed. Well, how many beggars do you see in a camel-hair blazer? See, I’m a retired Navy chief petty officer and get a pension check every month. Whaddaya think of that?

I think you’re a sorry piece of shit and ought to have more integrity and personal pride than acting like some asshole. I never saw him again.

Rarely did a week go by that I was not involved in a physical confrontation with someone. Let me be precise here; a