STAR STATUS GONE AWRY

Blog number fifty-one                                       Oct. 24, 2006

In 1954 I saw a great movie called, "Sundowners," starring Robert Preston - a vastly underrated actor.  Ever since, I see "The Sundowners" coming up on the telly and I think, "Oh, boy.  Maybe this time."  But nope, it's always that horrible flick starring Deborah Kerr about sheep ranching in Australia.

The one with Robert Preston is a rancher having trouble with rustlers and he hires his brother to help him out, which he does, by rustling the rustler's cattle. 

Preston's character had this neat "shtick" of saying, "Why shure" real quick, with a wry smile which my younger brother picked up and used a lot.

In the same vein, I was cross country one time and a buddy lent me a paperback book called, "Anatomy of a Murder."  I flew home and forgot the damn thing and I was only half way through and I really wanted to find out how it ended, but once again, just like with the movies, we have two books with the same title and the one that always comes up when I search for it is the one of which they made a movie starring Jimmy Stewart.  A movie which I think should never have been made, by the way. 

WRM (which reminds me), somewhere around Healdsburg* Calif. - in the redwoods, is a farm, ranch, home, whatever, with a wooden sign on the road leading to the house reading, "The Fred MacMurrarys."  From "My Three Sons"?  The television program?

I just put that down because it strikes me as a bit odd.  I mean, Fred has no fear of Paparazzi?  Is he looking for fan visits?  Why not just a mailbox? Seems like misplaced hubris to me.  Would Cher's house have a ""The Chers" sign in front of her house?  I don't think so.

I was in a movie once.  "Leave Yesterday Behind." It was a made-for-TV-movie, so don't ever look for it at your local theater.  It was me, Carrie Fisher, John Ritter, Buddy Epson and a lot of other people. 

My part was the father of a college kid going to Columbia University who sat in the bleachers watching an indoor polo game with a hundred other drama students.  I got to sitnext to the actors playing John's father and mother.  I got to sit right next to both because they had me move once.  The mother's face was very familiar to me, but I don't know her name

Before the polo shooting, the director told us that John Ritter was afraid of horses and for us not to make any signs of laughing at John's horsemanship.  We did good.  You could tell John was scared to death.  I would have been too.  To be a new rider riding with a dozen other horses at a full gallop, wheeling and turning in the arena. If it had been me, I think I would have taken some riding lessons and did a lot of riding first.  But that's just me.  He had a lot of guts, doing that.

My daughter wanted me to get John's autograph so I went to his trailer and there were about twenty girls all gaggling around him.  He saw me coming a a big smile broke out on his face.  I asked him for his autograph and he smilingly took my paper and I told him to make it out to "Trinja" and his smile dropped, he signed, handed it to me and turned away to talk to the girls.

I have always felt from his reaction, that I did a faux pas.  I think maybe he thought I was a real fan, unlike silly girls and then he found out I was just a stand-in for a "silly girl."  I dunno.  He might have been gay.

The movie was a tear jerking sop.  Horrible thing.  Ruined my acting career.  Couldn't show my face in Malibu after that.  Fan mail stopped.  No hate mail, thank God.
                                     
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When I was stationed in Northern Texas, my immediate supervisor was Sgt. Cox.  One day four of us were sitting around and he told us that his landlady had once introduced him as, "Mr. Dicks."

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My younger brother once got into a full box of ex-lax, ate the whole box and when my mother found out, she gave him an enema.  I was four years old and even at that young age I knew that was like pushing a river downstream.

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It was in Britt Iowa that I worked for that guy buying produce from farmers and selling to stores that I told you about earlier.  Every year Britt held a "Hobo Day."  A king and queen hobo was picked, a carnival with rides and games were allowed to set up.  A fun day for the hicks.

One of the shows was an all-Black dancing, ribald comedy show.  The performers gave a bit of a show on the stage before the curtain and before the show -- kind of a teaser.  The costumes looked dirty to me, the comedy not funny, the dancers lackadaisical.  Besides, these were Blacks in Northern Iowa in 1950.  All in all, they should have picked up with another show.

When they finished their spiel, everybody turned away to look at other things except this one white guy who ran up the steps, looked around at all the leaving potential clients, and waved his hand, beckoning to them, saying, "Come on."  A shill, you see.  Bad show, bad performers, bad shill. 

I really felt very sorry for them.  Where were they going to get money for food, costume repair, costume cleaning?  How did they ever get started in this business?  What were they going to do if all of them went flat broke?

One of the things I most enjoyed on the farm with my grandparents were the magazines she had.  One of my favorites was "The Saturday Evening Post."  I read in there about a cheating carnival.  It explained lead bottoms in the bottles in a "knock them over, win a prize," game, a game where plastic or wooden -- probably wooden, ducks would swim in this trough, go behind a partition and come out again.  They had numbers on them and you would bet on a numbered duck -- each betthat you lost, if you added a little more money, your chances would improve greatly and there would come a time when, if you had kept paying more and more money, you would be almost certain to win.  Unknown to the sucker, the ducks had magnets on them, the con man would flip a switch and viola!  You lose.

Another one was a basketball-type thing.  He would give you three free-throws and you would easily sink the baskets and would have won if you had paid your money.  When you saw how easy it was, it was a sure thing to bet and sink.  Unfortunately there was a lever that would place a board against the backboard which made the ball rebound way back over the basket.  And you had to hit the backboard for some reason I now forget.

So I'm at this carnival maybe thirteen years later and the guy calls me over and gives me a free free-throw.  I sink it easily.  I pay my money and the first throw hits the board, bounces way out of range.  It suddenly strikes me that I am at that carnival I read about in The Post.  I walk away without trying any of my other throws because I know there is no way I am going to sink anything.  The proprietor calls after me, but I ignore him.  I don't remember from the magazine, but I am pretty sure it was a "pay more money, chances get better" type of thing.  The whole carnival was set up to cheat.  That's all it did, except for the rides.  I watched a couple lose twenty dollars of 1950s money on the duck game. I watched the whole thing from beginning to end, and it was just like in the article.

I figured there must have been complaints.  Were the town fathers getting a cut or were they just ignorant?  I dunno.  I did nothing, told nobody.

* My darling wife just informed me that Fred's house wasn't in Healdsburg, it was in Cazadera.  She also said I was stupid.