As the year 2009 winds down, I look back on my 61 years covering Hollywood and reminisce about some of my favorite performers and my most memorable experiences.
I guess my favorite actors were Cary Grant and “Duke” Wayne, Cary for his charm and “Duke” for rugged individualism.
Cary Grant was a faithful reader of this column and was effusive in his compliments. One night in Las Vegas he even admired the way I wore a tuxedo. I was amazed, because no one wore a tuxedo better than Cary Grant.
Cary was born in Bristol, England, of poor parents. But his father had rich ideas.
“My father told me to always buy the best shoes and I’ve done that my whole life,” Cary once told me. From that beginning, Cary Grant emerged a true gentleman of exquisite taste.
It was a long road from Cary’s early career as a stilt walker in vaudeville. But that was the path that brought him to Hollywood.
Paramount Studios had a contract dispute with its major star, Gary Cooper. A scout in New York saw the handsome young stilt walker and signed him as a threat to Cooper.
In Hollywood, Grant had little to do except work on his polish. One day, Cary was strolling down a street at the studio while Mae West was having a conference with studio head Adolph Zukor about casting a leading man for her picture, She Done Him Wrong. Spotting Cary out the office window and told Zukor, “If that guy can grunt, he’s got the part.”
Cary Grant made his movie debut in the Mae West picture. It was to him that she addressed her famous line, “Why don’t you come up and see me sometime.”
It became the catch phrase of the Great Depression years and launched Cary on his fabulous movie career.
Cary, at his father’s urging, developed his polish on the Paramount lot by copying gentleman actors. He always appreciated his knock about days in vaudeville and often reminisced about them with Milton Berle. But Cary’s polish was never an act. He was at his core a gentleman.
“Duke” Wayne the actor was “Duke” the man. He never changed his off-screen personality and it translated to the big screen as well.
For years, “Duke” made a Western a week at the old Monogram Studios. Then one day, Raoul Walsh picked him for the first big screen feature, The Big Trail. Duke was good in it, but the picture flopped because no theater in the country had a big enough screen to show it. Duke lumbered along at Monogram until John Ford picked him to play the Ringo Kid in Stagecoach.
Duke was a big hit in that movie, which was a blockbuster. He became a major star overnight. But stardom never changed him.
Duke and I were the original odd couple. He was USC. I was Notre Dame. He was a Republican. I was a Democrat. But we hit it off immediately. I liked Duke from the start. There was no phoniness about him. He meant what he said. I guess he liked me for the same reasons, because we never minced words. We both drank Scotch and had some great times together. He was the epitome of a man’s man.
Duke was the biggest big man I have ever known. He would hug you and break a rib. He broke one of mine with an affectionate hug once. But I didn’t complain.
With so many beautiful women in Hollywood, it might be difficult to pick a favorite. But I’m pretty sure you know who they are, Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe.
They both were down to earth, straightforward. At least with me, they were never devious. Beneath all that glamour, they were real people. And we had a lot of fun.
The most beautiful actress in the history of Hollywood? Elizabeth Taylor.
Of all the comedians I knew—and I knew them all—Milton Berle and Bob Hope were my favorites.
I knew Milton the longest. When I was a freshman at Notre Dame in 1933, Milton Berle was playing at the Palace Theater and fan dancer Sally Rand was starring at the World’s Fair. They were the hottest tickets in Chicago.
On my first visit to Chicago, I went to see Milton at the Palace. I was 19 years old. Milton, then 25, had been in show business since he was five years old. He was hilarious and the elderly lady sitting next to me punched me every time he told a joke. At the end of the show, Milton introduced the lady to the audience as his mother. She said to me, “You’re such a good laugher, I want you to meet my son the comedian.”
We went backstage and she introduced me to Milton. Years later, when I arrived in Hollywood in 1948 he recalled that first meeting. We remained close friends for the rest of his life.
I met Bob Hope during that first year in Hollywood. He was doing The Pepsodent Radio Show at NBC.
I was playing a trick on the publicist Jerry Juroe who represented Hope at Paramount Studios where he was under contract.
Hope would say a funny thing and I wouldn’t laugh. Juroe would say something that wasn’t funny and I would belly laugh. Hope sensed my gag and played along with it. I liked him immediately.
I know it’s not kosher to be funnier than the star. But I was young and didn’t give a damn.
Hope and I also had sports in common. We were both avid golfers—I played in his tournaments- and football fans. At one time Bob was part owner of the Los Angeles Rams. When we got together we talked mostly sports.
Hope also remained a close friend to the end of his days.
I’ll never forget the night of my 80th birthday dinner at Jimmy’s when those two masters of comedy, Milton and Bob, threw gags trying to top each other.
I’ve always had an affinity for comedians because I’m a laugher at heart. Comics are the real people of Hollywood, nothing phony about them. They say what they mean and you laugh along with them.
And I’ve known most of the great ones from Danny Thomas to Shecky Green, Jan Murray to Jackie Gleason, Don Rickles to Bob Newhart, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Jack Benny and George Burns, Sid Caesar and Jack Carter, Phyllis Diller, the Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields, Henny Youngman, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.
I know that sounds like a laundry list, but getting to hang out with them were among the greatest highlights in my career as a Hollywood columnist.
I’ve got to say that the number one star in the world was Frank Sinatra. He not only was a great musician, but also a fine actor.
Of all the singers of the 20th Century, Sinatra will go down as the greatest, with a career that transcended changes in popular music.
I first witnessed his enormous appeal during World War II when bobby-sockers mobbed him during his appearances at the Paramount Theater in New York.
During my years covering Hollwyood, I saw his popularity first hand as I traveled around the world with him. Even as tastes in music changed, from ballads to rock and roll, Sinatra reined. Fans turned out by the tens of thousands and in the two hundred thousands in his record-breaking concert in Rio.
Sinatra in private was a tough guy. He wanted things his way—and usually got them.
Once, when I was on the Merv Griffin TV show, Merv asked me, “Sinatra has a reputation of being very difficult with the press. How come you got along with him?”
“Easy,” I replied, “I just treat him like any other god.”