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| June 13th, 2007 |
I also learned from the same book that Mickey set up gangland trysts with stars like Lana Turner and Marilyn Monroe. We all know about Lana and Johnny Stompanato and its tragic ending. I don't recall Marilyn being with any of Mickey's henchmen but then it was hard to follow Marilyn's sex life in those days--the forties and early fifties.
Mickey and Nixon were the original odd couple. The only thing they had in common was the year of their birth --1913. Mickey and Nixon hooked up in 1945 when Nixon ran against Jerry Voorhis, a New Deal Democrat, for the 12th district congressional seat. Nixon won with Mickey 's help.
"Nixon knew he would lose the election without Mickey's help and imprimatur. Los Angeles was Mickey's stronghold. He controlled the territory that Nixon sought. Nixon asked to meet with Mickey. He [Mickey] was always looking for another politician to put on his payroll, " Lewis writes.
Mickey donated $5,000 (big money then) for Nixon's campaign. Nixon called Voorhis a communist, a tactic that was to become a trademark of Nixon 's political life. The congressional race was before my time in L.A. but I did come to town in time for Nixon 's senatorial race against Helen Gahagan Douglas, wife of movie star Melvyn Douglas. Nixon called her a communist too. Mickey hosted a big fund-raiser dinner for Nixon. Mickey invited all his gambler mobsters. They came up with $75,000, a really big sum in 1950. Lewis quotes Drew Pearson, a famous political columnist of that era.
"Pearson described the political play-by-play as as one of the most skillful and cut-throat campaigns I have ever seen. " Nixon ran a dirty, anti-Semitic and anti-Communist smear campaign against her. He called Douglas the pink lady --using the Mob's money. Back in those McCarthy days, politicians and newspaper editors thought everybody was a communist. Even Ronald Reagan who was about as anti-communist as one could get was labeled "a pinko" in Hearst's Herald-Express. That was before he turned Republican.
Mickey, the book states, used to get his mob members dates with Hollywood actresses. The mobsters ' job was to get photos of their sex play with actresses. Mickey then would use these photos to extort money from the actresses. It was a profitable racket.
Warren Beatty is still interested in doing Howard Hughes on the screen. I chatted with Warren and wife Annette Bening prior to their receiving the Stem Cell Champions award from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation at the Beverly Hilton the other night. Warren is the perfect casting to play Hughes.
He has had it on his agenda for decades. "I think the later part of his life is the more interesting," said Warren. I agreed with him because that is when I got to know Howard. The early portion of his life was covered in The Aviator, starring Leonardo DiCaprio who was miscast as Hughes. He got the part to attract the teenyboppers who make up most of the moviegoing audience these days. Howard was a strong man as is Warren onscreen and off. He wants to meet me for lunch, ostensibly to talk about Hughes. I can honestly say I saw too much of Hughes at a time when he was hiding from $500,000-a-year executives who never met him. Robert Maheu, for instance.
Eleanor Roosevelt said hope is the most important word in the English language and that seemed to be the the theme of the Awards gala --a cure for diabetes is coming soon, thanks to JDRF and Barbara Davis' research center in Denver. The late Marvin Davis contributed millions to diabetes research and his widow is carrying on the tradition.
Sat next to Lois Aldrin whose husband Buzz was in Washington making a speech. That's what happens when you're married to a guy who has walked on the moon. Lois is listed as an "Angel" as are Sherry Lansing, Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, Veronique Peck, Cynthia Yorkin, Anne Douglas, Jolene and Maria Schlatter.
Maria did a touching job of presenting this year's Angel award to her father, George Schlatter. The Caregiver award was given to Natalie and Paul Orfalea. He is the founder of Kinko's Inc.
Neal Sedaka was the entertainment for the gala. A good time was had by all.
A note from mystery author Linda Palmer of Studio City: "Jim, you had me in tears this morning when I read your column and learned that you almost had been on the plane with Mike Todd when it crashed! Every day since you made the decision not to go is a gift."
She adds: "By the way, I went to the graduation at Occidental College because Berry Gordy was the commencement speaker and he also was awarded an honorary doctorate in philosophy. He was an absolute sensation as a commencement speaker! " Nice to know I have readers in the Valley.
I could be writing this column in Flagstaff if it hadn't rained one day in 1913 in that Arizona city. Sam Goldwyn was a glove salesman--and a good one. Jesse Lasky was a trumpet player in vaudeville. Cecil B. DeMille was a successful stage director. One day in New York, the three of them got together and decided to make a movie. They owned a hit stage property called The Squaw Man. It was a western and they decided Flagstaff would be the ideal place to make the movie. Lasky and Goldwyn stayed in New York and sent DeMille to Flagstaff. They could only afford one fare on the train.
DeMille arrived in Flagstaff in the midst of cloudburst. He turned to the conductor. "I've decided to go to the end of the line." The end of the line was, of course, Los Angeles. When he got there, he took the interurban out to a sleepy village called Hollywood. There he found an empty barn at the corner of Selma and Vine. He rented the barn and shot the picture there. It starred Dustin Farnum and became the first feature length film ever to be labeled "Made in Hollywood."
There was a problem before it reached theaters. DeMille knew nothing about movie lighting. He used stage lighting. When Goldwyn and Lasky received the movie, they were appalled. It was too dark to sell to exhibitors. Sam wired DeMille that he couldn 't sell the shadowy movie.
DeMille wired back: "Tell exhibitors that movie was shot in revolutionary Rembrandt lighting. Salesman Sam had his pitch. The movie, dark as it was, was a big hit in theaters. DeMille himself told me that story and started to sit down without looking. No need to worry. In his entourage was a guy who always put a chair down when C.B. wanted to sit. In 40 years, C.B. said the guy never missed.
Every day for lunch, C.B. and his entourage occupied the same table in the Paramount commissary. Every Monday for 30 years, he was served bean soup. One Monday I was there before the DeMille group came in. Pauline Kessinger, the manager, was in tears.
"The chef who makes Mr. DeMille's bean soup got drunk last night--and there's no soup. What'll I do?" she asked me. "Tell him what you just told me," I said. She did. "Thank God," said C.B. "I always hated that damn soup."
When The Ten Commandments, DeMille's last picture, was previewed at the studio, C.B. with his aide Henry Wilcoxon were waiting for me when I emerged from the screening.
"What did you think, Jim?" asked C.B.
"Too Jewish, C.B." I joked.
Whereupon DeMille went into a long discourse about Moses and how, after God himself, had rescued the Jews from slavery. I don't think he appreciated my feeble joke--or even knew it was one.
Wilkcoxon had been an actor on the London stage where a talent executive spotted him and made a test. He sent the test back to DeMille who was looking for a Marc Anthony to play opposite Claudette Colbert's Cleopatra.
Never one to give his own opinion first, he turned to his costume designer who said: "My God! What a head for a helmet."
DeMille signed him. Henry worked many years as an actor for DeMille, then became his associate producer --and a little on the pompous side. Who wouldn't?
When Henry went back to New York to promote The Ten Commandments, the publicity guys thought up an elaborate practical joke to deflate his pomposity.
The jokers said it was absolutely vital that he get the approval of a certain rabbi, a nun, and a Methodist minister.
"If these three approve the picture, you're in like Flynn," they told him.
A screening was arranged for the trio. Then Henry met with them in his suite at the Plaza hotel. Henry did a great selling job with the three who asked to be excused for a moment while they talked it over in another room of the suite.
After a few minutes the trio came out stark naked and proceeded to have a menage a trois orgy in front of the astonished Henry who fled in shock.
The trio were three hookers hired for the joke. It took the pomposity out of Henry though.