What would St. Patricks Day in Beverly Hills be like without Jimmy and Annie Murphy? With Jimmys Tavern closed, I faced that prospect, but Jimmy came through. He turned the dining room and bar at The Peninsula Beverly Hills into an Irish gala, complete with bagpipers and Denny Doyles Irish band.

  Jimmy and son Sean, resplendent in Irish kilts, hosted Gary and Suzie Pierson and us, among others, at his table. Corned beef and cabbage was enjoyed by all. I told Annie I had once ordered that dish in a pub in Ireland and the waiter told me that neither he nor the management had ever heard of it. True. Its strictly an Irish-American dish. Irish immigrants in the 19th century found brisket the least expensive cut of meat and cabbage the cheapest of vegetables.

  St. Patricks Day is tough when you drink only water. But its also tough to be humble when youre Irish.

 

  Got word that my appearances on TVs Hee Haw are coming out on DVD for the home-video market, meaning residuals. When shooting that show down in Nashville, I asked Junior Sample, one of the stars, how he got into the habit of chewing tobacco.

  I used to have a girlfriend who chewed tobaccy and when I kissed her, the juice would run out of her mouth and I liked the taste of it, said Junior. That line will set breakfast back 20 years.

  He said he lived up in the mountains in a house that had two broken-down autos in the front yard. But, he added, since Ive been making good on Hee Haw, they are now broken-down Cadillacs.

 

  I see that Richard Gere was asked to play Clifford Irving in Hoax, a movie about Irving writing and selling a bogus biography about Howard Hughes. That happened in 1971, when Hughes had been a recluse for years. Irving convinced his publisher that he had interviewed Hughes, which, of course, he hadnt.

  Ill never forget the day that Howard called me from Paradise Island in the Bahamas and asked me personally to be on a panel of newsmen for a press conference he was giving the next day to denounce Irving as a hoax. I never talked to this guy, Howard said. In fact, Ive never heard of him.

  The next day, a panel of newsmen assembled in a room at the Universal Sheraton while Howard talked by phone from the Bahamas. It was later named the phantom news conference.

  I was writing a column for the now-defunct Los Angeles Herald-Examiner. Others were from the L.A. Times, New York Times, A.P., U.P.I., Chicago Tribune, etc. I was the only one on the panel who ever knew Hughes personally. Two had been at a press conference he gave after his record-breaking round-the-world flight in 1938 and one of the reporters had once spotted him in a telephone booth. Most had never seem him, but one newsman does not make a press conference.

  Each had a trick question to test the authenticity of the person at the other end of the line. When my turn came, I recognized his voice immediately and stated flatly that it was indeed Howard speaking. Since he could not be seen, the moderator took my word that it was Hughes and the press conference proceeded for a couple hours.

  Howard denounced Irving angrily. He also vehemently denied that he had six-inchlong fingernails, as had been reported in the supermarket tabloids. Irving later spent two-and-a-half years in the pen for his hoax.

  The phantom press conference was televised around the world. My wife watched it and when it was over, she reminded me to take out the garbage cans. That brought me down to the reality of suburban life in a hurry.

 

  Just finished reading Explorers House, the history of the National Geographic. I learned that Don Ameche...I mean Alexander Graham Bell was the first president of the National Geographic Society and that Al Capone was a subscriber of the magazine until he was shipped out to Alcatraz in 1932.

  I also was reminded of the time Cecil B. DeMille took me down to the basement of his Los Feliz home and showed me every copy of the magazine from its first edition in 1888 to the then present. I started reading it when I was six years old, said C.B., who was very much the scholar.

 

  Rich movie stars and producers arent the only denizens of Beverly Hills. Even the multimillionaire movie tycoons were impressed by one Dino Fabra of Milan, Italy, who lived but a short time in Beverly Hills.

  A 40-room mansion had lain vacant for some years on Sunset Boulevard. I had once been to a party in the house in its happier days. What impressed me most was a huge ballroom on the top floor in case the owner wanted to throw a New Years Eve gala or a wedding reception. It saddened me when I saw it empty.

  Then, one day, Dino walked into realtor Mike Silvermans office and asked the price. As Beverly Hills homes go, it was a huge bargainonly $750,000. The little guy with the Italian accent never winced. He wrote out a check for $750,000 and said, Ill take it.

  Then, for a full year, a small army of workmen completely refurbished the place. A beautiful, new wrought-iron fence surrounded the acreage. Everyone thought the place had to be owned by a rock star or a member of the Mafia. Who else would spent that kind of money?

  Especially when Dino brought in paintings and other objets dart in two chartered 747 jets from Milan and Rome at a cost of $240,000. That and the $1.25 million he spent in doing the place became the talk of the town.

  Then, sadly, even before Dino moved in for good, a for sale sign went up in the front yard. The price asked: $2.5 million.

  Dino had moved in with the idea of working in Beverly Hills, perhaps making films, but burgeoning investments in Africa kept him too occupied there. Too bad. Anyone who uses chartered 747s instead of Bekins vans to move his furniture would have created quite a social stir in Beverly Hills.