Leigh died in 2004 at the age of 77, following a year-long battle with vasculitis, an inflammation of the blood vessels. She was survived by her fourth husband of 42 years, Robert Brandt, and her two daughters.
Early Life
The only child of Helen Lita (née Westergaard) and Frederick Robert Morrison, Leigh was born Jeanette Helen Morrison in Merced, California, and grew up in Merced. Her maternal grandparents were immigrants from Denmark. In winter 1945, she was discovered by actress Norma Shearer, whose late husband Irving Thalberg had been a senior executive at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Shearer showed talent agent Lew Wasserman a photograph she had seen of Leigh while vacationing at Sugar Bowl, the ski resort where the girl’s parents worked. Shearer later recalled that “that smile made it the most fascinating face I had seen in years. I felt I had to show that face to somebody at the studio.” Leigh left the University of the Pacific, where she was studying music and psychology, after Wasserman secured a contract with MGM, despite having no acting experience. She was placed under the tutelage of drama coach Lillian Burns.
Life and Career
Prior to beginning her movie career, Leigh was a guest star on the radiodramaticanthologyThe Cresta Blanca Hollywood Players. Her initial appearance on radio[4] at age 19 was in the program’s production “All Through the House,” December 24, 1946.
Leigh made her film debut in the big budget film The Romance of Rosy Ridge in 1947, as the romantic interest of Van Johnson‘s character. She got the role when performing Phyllis Thaxter‘s long speech in Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) for the head of the studio talent department in 1946. During the shooting, Leigh’s name was first changed to “Jeanette Reames”, then to “Janet Leigh” and finally back to her birth name “Jeanette Morrison”, because “Janet Leigh” resembled Vivien Leigh too much. However, Johnson did not like the name and it was finally changed back to “Janet Leigh”. Leigh initially left college for a film career, but enrolled in night school at the University of Southern California in 1947.
Immediately after the film’s release, Leigh was cast opposite Walter Pidgeon and Deborah Kerr in If Winter Comes (1947) in the summer of 1947. Furthermore, due to the box office success of The Romance of Rosy Ridge, Leigh and Johnson were teamed up again in a film project called The Life of Monty Stratton in August 1947. The project was eventually shelved and released in 1949 as The Stratton Story, starring James Stewart and June Allyson. Another film that Leigh was set to star in, before being replaced, was Alias a Gentleman, in which she was cast in April 1947. By late 1947, Leigh was occupied with the shooting of the Lassie film Hills of Home (1948), the first film in which she received star billing.
In late 1948, Leigh was hailed the “No. 1 glamor girl” of Hollywood, although known for her polite, generous and down-to-earth persona.
Many movies followed, notably the 1949 box-office hits Little Women, based on the novel by Louisa May Alcott, and Holiday Affair with Robert Mitchum. In October 1949, Leigh began filming the Cold War action film Jet Pilot with John Wayne. The film had a notoriously troubled production, with several directorial changes and a filming schedule that dragged on until May 1953. Its release was then delayed another four years due to the extensive (and obsessive) re-editing process by producer Howard Hughes, before finally hitting theaters in 1957.
Her initial roles were ingenues based on characters from historical literature, for example in Scaramouche opposite Stewart Granger. By 1958, she moved to more complex roles, such as the role of Linda Latham in Safari opposite Victor Mature.
Her most famous performance was as Marion Crane in the Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho (1960). The fact that the star died early in the movie violated narrative conventions of the time. She received a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Leigh was so traumatized by the film’s iconic shower scene that she went to great lengths to avoid showers for the rest of her life.
Leigh had starring roles in many other films, including The Manchurian Candidate (1962) with Frank Sinatra, and Bye Bye Birdie (1963) based on the hit Broadway show. Following those two films, Leigh scaled back her acting work and turned down several roles, including the role of Simone Clouseau in The Pink Panther, because she didn’t want to go off on location and away from her family.
Her many guest appearances on TV series include The Man From U.N.C.L.E. two-part episode, “The Concrete Overcoat Affair”, in which she played a sadistic Thrush agent named Miss Dyketon, a highly provocative part for mainstream TV at the time. The two-part episode was released in Europe as a feature film in 1967, entitled The Spy in the Green Hat. She also appeared in the title role in the 1970 episode “Jenny” of The Virginian, the Murder, She Wrote 1987 episode, “Doom with a View”, as “Barbara LeMay” in an episode of The Twilight Zone in 1989 and the Touched by an Angel episode, “Charade”, in 1997. She guest-starred twice as different characters on both Fantasy Island and The Love Boat. In 1973, she appeared in the episode “Beginner’s Luck” of the romantic anthology series Love Story.
Leigh is also the author of four books. Her first, the memoir There Really Was a Hollywood (1984), became a New York Times bestseller. In 1995, she published the non-fiction book Psycho: Behind the Scenes of the Classic Thriller. In 1996, she published her first novel, House of Destiny, which explored the lives of two friends who forged an empire that would change the course of Hollywood’s history. The book’s success spawned a follow-up novel, The Dream Factory (2002), which was set in Hollywood during the height of the studio system.
Danny Kaye (born David Daniel Kaminsky; January 18, 1913 – March 3, 1987) was an American actor, singer, dancer, and comedian. His performances featured physical comedy, idiosyncratic pantomimes, and rapid-fire nonsense songs.
Kaye starred in 17 movies, notably The Kid from Brooklyn (1946), The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), The Inspector General (1949), Hans Christian Andersen (1952), White Christmas (1954), and The Court Jester (1956). His films were popular, especially his bravura performances of patter songs and favorites such as “Inchworm” and “The Ugly Duckling.” He was the first ambassador-at-large of UNICEF in 1954 and received the French Legion of Honor in 1986 for his years of work with the organization.
Early years
David Daniel Kaminsky was born to Ukrainian Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn. Jacob and Clara Nemerovsky Kaminsky and their two sons, Larry and Mac, left Yekaterinoslav two years before his birth; he was the only son born in the United States. He spent his early youth attending Public School 149 in East New York, Brooklyn—which eventually was renamed to honor him—where he began entertaining his classmates with songs and jokes, before moving to Thomas Jefferson High School, though he never graduated. His mother died when he was in his early teens. Clara enjoyed the impressions and humor of her son and always had words of encouragement; her death was a loss for the young Kaye.
Not long after his mother’s death, Kaye and his friend Louis ran away to Florida. Kaye sang while Louis played the guitar; the pair eked out a living for a while. When Kaye returned to New York, his father did not pressure him to return to school or work, giving his son the chance to mature and discover his own abilities. Kaye said he had wanted to be a surgeon as a young boy, but there was no chance of the family affording a medical-school education. He held a succession of jobs after leaving school, as a soda jerk, insurance investigator, and office clerk. Most ended with his being fired. He lost the insurance job when he made an error that cost the insurance company $40,000. The dentist who hired him to look after his office at lunch hour did the same when he found Kaye using his drill on the office woodwork. He learned his trade in his teenage years in the Catskills as a tummler in the Borscht Belt, and for four seasons at the White Roe resort.
Kaye’s first break came in 1933 when he joined the “Three Terpsichoreans,” a vaudeville dance act. They opened in Utica, New York, with him using the name Danny Kaye for the first time. The act toured the United States, then performed in Asia with the show La Vie Paree. The troupe left for a six-month tour of the Far East on February 8, 1934. While they were in Osaka, Japan, a typhoon hit the city. The hotel where Kaye and his colleagues stayed suffered heavy damage; a piece of the hotel’s cornice was hurled into Kaye’s room by the strong wind, nearly killing him. By performance time that evening, the city was in the grip of the storm. There was no power, and the audience was restless and nervous. To calm them, Kaye went on stage, holding a flashlight to illuminate his face, and sang every song he could recall as loudly as he was able. The experience of trying to entertain audiences who did not speak English inspired him to the pantomime, gestures, songs, and facial expressions that eventually made his reputation. Sometimes it was necessary just to get a meal. Kaye’s daughter, Dena, tells a story her father related about being in a restaurant in China and trying to order chicken. Kaye flapped his arms and clucked, giving the waiter an imitation of a chicken. The waiter nodded in understanding, bringing Kaye two eggs. His interest in cooking began on the tour.
When Kaye returned to the United States, jobs were in short supply and he struggled for bookings. One job was working in a burlesque revue with fan dancer Sally Rand. After the dancer dropped a fan while trying to chase away a fly, Kaye was hired to watch the fans so they were always held in front of her.
Career
Danny Kaye made his film debut in a 1935 comedy short Moon Over Manhattan. In 1937 he signed with New York–based Educational Pictures for a series of two-reel comedies. Kaye usually played a manic, dark-haired, fast-talking Russian in these low-budget shorts, opposite young hopefuls June Allyson or Imogene Coca. The Kaye series ended abruptly when the studio shut down in 1938. He was working in the Catskills in 1937, using the name Danny Kolbin. Kaye’s next venture was a short-lived Broadway show, with Sylvia Fine as the pianist, lyricist and composer. The Straw Hat Revue opened on September 29, 1939, and closed after ten weeks, but critics took notice of Kaye’s work. The reviews brought an offer for both Kaye and his bride, Sylvia, to work at La Martinique, a New York City nightclub. Kaye performed with Sylvia as his accompanist. At La Martinique, playwright Moss Hart saw Danny perform, which led to Hart casting him in his hit Broadway comedy Lady in the Dark.
Kaye scored a triumph in 1941 in Lady in the Dark. His show-stopping number was “Tchaikovsky,” by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin, in which he sang the names of a string of Russian composers at breakneck speed, seemingly without taking a breath. In the next Broadway season, he was the star of a show about a young man who is drafted, called Let’s Face It!.
His feature film debut was in producer Samuel Goldwyn’s Technicolor 1944 comedy Up in Arms, a remake of Goldwyn’s Eddie Cantor comedy Whoopee! (1930). Kaye’s rubber face and patter were a hit, and rival producer Robert M. Savini cashed in by compiling three of Kaye’s Educational Pictures shorts into a patchwork feature, The Birth of a Star (1945). Studio mogul Goldwyn wanted Kaye’s prominent nose fixed to look less Jewish, Kaye refused. He did allow his red hair to be dyed blonde, apparently because it looked better in Technicolor.
Kaye starred in a radio program, The Danny Kaye Show, on CBS in 1945–1946. The cast included Eve Arden, Lionel Stander and Big Band leader Harry James, and it was scripted by radio notable Goodman Ace and playwright-director Abe Burrows.
The program’s popularity rose quickly. Before a year, he tied with Jimmy Durante for fifth place in the Radio Daily popularity poll. Kaye was asked to participate in a USO tour following the end of World War II. It meant he would be absent from his radio show for nearly two months at the beginning of the season. Kaye’s friends filled in, with a different guest host each week. Kaye was the first American actor to visit postwar Tokyo; He’d toured there some ten years before with the vaudeville troupe. When Kaye asked to be released from his radio contract in mid-1946, he agreed not to accept a regular radio show for one year and limited guest appearances on radio programs of others. Many of the show’s episodes survive today, notable for Kaye’s opening “signature” patter.
“Git gat gittle, giddle-di-ap, giddle-de-tommy, riddle de biddle de roop, da-reep, fa-san, skeedle de woo-da, fiddle de wada, reep!”
Kaye was sufficiently popular to inspire imitations:
• The 1946 Warner Bros. cartoon Book Revue had a sequence with Daffy Duck impersonating Kaye singing “Carolina in the Morning” with the Russian accent that Kaye affected from time to time.
• Satirical songwriter Tom Lehrer’s 1953 song “Lobachevsky” was based on a number that Kaye had done, about the Russian director Constantin Stanislavski, with the affected Russian accent. Lehrer mentioned Kaye in an opening monologue, citing him as an “idol since childbirth”.
• Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster fashioned a short-lived superhero title, Funnyman, taking inspiration from Kaye’s persona.
Kaye starred in several movies with actress Virginia Mayo in the 1940s, and is known for films such as The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), The Inspector General (1949), On the Riviera (1951) co-starring Gene Tierney, Knock on Wood (1954), White Christmas (1954, in a role intended for Fred Astaire, then Donald O’Connor), The Court Jester (1956), and Merry Andrew (1958). Kaye starred in two pictures based on biographies, Hans Christian Andersen (1952) the Danish storyteller, and The Five Pennies (1959) about jazz pioneer Red Nichols. His wife, writer/lyricist Sylvia Fine, wrote many tongue-twisting songs Danny Kaye was famous for. She was an associate producer. Some of Kaye’s films included the theme of doubles, two people who look identical (both Danny Kaye) being mistaken for each other, to comic effect.
Kaye teamed with the popular Andrews Sisters (Patty, Maxene, and LaVerne) on Decca Records in 1947, producing the number-three Billboard smash hit “Civilization (Bongo, Bongo, Bongo)”. The success of the pairing prompted both acts to record through 1950, producing rhythmically comical fare as “The Woody Woodpecker Song” (based on the bird from the Walter Lantz cartoons, and a Billboard hit for the quartet), “Put ’em in a Box, Tie ’em with a Ribbon (And Throw ’em in the Deep Blue Sea),” “The Big Brass Band from Brazil,” “It’s a Quiet Town (In Crossbone County),” “Amelia Cordelia McHugh (Mc Who?),” “Ching-a-ra-sa-sa”, and a duet by Danny and Patty of “Orange Colored Sky”. The acts teamed for two yuletide favorites: a frantic, harmonic rendition of “A Merry Christmas at Grandmother’s House (Over the River and Through the Woods)”, and a duet by Danny & Patty, “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth”
While his wife wrote Kaye’s material, there was much that was unwritten, springing from the mind of Danny Kaye, often while performing. Kaye had one character he never shared with the public; Kaplan, the owner of an Akron, Ohio rubber company, came to life only for family and friends. His wife Sylvia described the Kaplan character:
He doesn’t have any first name. Even his wife calls him just Kaplan. He’s an illiterate pompous character who advertises his philanthropies. Jack Benny or Dore Schary might say, “Kaplan, why do you hate unions so?” If Danny feels like doing Kaplan that night, he might be off on Kaplan for two hours.
When he appeared at the London Palladium in 1948, he “roused the Royal family to laughter and was the first of many performers who have turned British variety into an American preserve.” Life magazine described his reception as “worshipful hysteria” and noted that the royal family, for the first time, left the royal box to watch from the front row of the orchestra. He related that he had no idea of the familial connections when the Marquess of Milford Haven introduced himself after a show and said he would like his cousins to see Kaye perform. Kaye stated that he never returned to the venue because there was no way to re-create the magic of that time. Kaye had an invitation to return to London for a Royal Variety Performance in November of the same year. When the invitation arrived, Kaye was busy with The Inspector General (which had a working title of Happy Times). Warner’s stopped the film to allow their star to attend. When his Decca co-workers The Andrews Sisters began their engagement at the London Palladium on the heels of Kaye’s successful 1948 appearance there, the trio was well received and David Lewin of the Daily Express declared, “The audience gave the Andrews Sisters the Danny Kaye roar!”
He hosted the 24th Academy Awards in 1952. The program was broadcast on radio. Telecasts of the Oscar ceremony came later. During the 1950s, Kaye visited Australia, where he played “Buttons” in a production of Cinderella in Sydney. In 1953, Kaye started a production company, Dena Pictures, named for his daughter. Knock on Wood was the first film produced by his firm. The firm expanded into television in 1960 under the name Belmont Television.
Kaye entered television in 1956 on the CBS show See It Now with Edward R. Murrow. The Secret Life of Danny Kaye combined his 50,000-mile, ten-country tour as UNICEF ambassador with music and humor. His first solo effort was in 1960 with an hour special produced by Sylvia and sponsored by General Motors; with similar specials in 1961 and 1962. He hosted a variety hour on CBS television, The Danny Kaye Show, from 1963 to 1967, which won four Emmy awards and a Peabody award. Beginning in 1964, he acted as television host to the CBS telecasts of MGM’s The Wizard of Oz. Kaye did a stint as a What’s My Line? Mystery Guest on the Sunday night CBS-TV quiz program.
Kaye was later a guest panelist on that show. He also appeared on the NBC interview program Here’s Hollywood.
In the 1970s, Kaye tore a ligament in his leg in the run of the Richard Rodgers musical Two by Two, but went on with the show, appearing with his leg in a cast and cavorting on stage in a wheelchair. He had done much the same on his television show in 1964 when his right leg and foot were burned from a cooking accident. Camera shots were planned so television viewers did not see Kaye in his wheelchair.
In 1976, he played Mister Geppetto in a television musical adaptation of The Adventures of Pinocchio with Sandy Duncan in the title role. Kaye portrayed Captain Hook opposite Mia Farrow in a musical version of Peter Pan featuring songs by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse. It was shown on NBC-TV in December 1976, the Hallmark Hall of Fame series. He later guest-starred in episodes of The Muppet Show, The Cosby Show and in the 1980s revival of The Twilight Zone.
In many films, as well as on stage, Kaye proved to be an able actor, singer, dancer and comedian. He showed his serious side as Ambassador for UNICEF and in his dramatic role in the memorable TV film Skokie, when he played a Holocaust survivor. Before his death in 1987, Kaye conducted an orchestra during a comical series of concerts organized for UNICEF fundraising. Kaye received two Academy Awards: an Academy Honorary Award in 1955 and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1982. Also that year he received the Screen Actors Guild Annual Award.
Kaye was enamored of music. While he claimed an inability to read music, he was said to have perfect pitch. Kaye’s ability with an orchestra was mentioned by Dmitri Mitropoulos, then conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. After Kaye’s appearance, Mitropoulos remarked, “Here is a man who is not musically trained, who cannot even read music, and he gets more out of my orchestra than I have.” Kaye was invited to conduct symphonies as charity fundraisers and was the conductor of the all-city marching band at the season opener of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1984. Over his career he raised over US $5,000,000 in support of musician pension funds.
In 1980, Kaye hosted and sang in the 25th Anniversary of Disneyland celebration, and hosted the opening celebration for Epcot in 1982 (EPCOT Center at the time), both were aired on prime-time American television.
Cooking
In his later years he entertained at home as chef—he had a special stove on his patio – and specialized in Chinese and Italian cooking. The stove Kaye used for his Chinese dishes was fitted with metal rings for the burners to allow the heat to be highly concentrated. Kaye installed a trough with circulating ice water to use the burners. Kaye taught Chinese cooking classes at a San Francisco Chinese restaurant in the 1970s. The theater and demonstration kitchen under the library at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York is named for him.
Kaye referred to his kitchen as “Ying’s Thing.” While filming The Madwoman of Chaillot in France, he phoned home to ask his family if they would like to eat at “Ying’s Thing” that evening; Kaye flew home for dinner. Not all of his efforts in the kitchen went well. After flying to San Francisco for a recipe for sourdough bread, he came home and spent hours preparing loaves. When his daughter asked about the bread, Kaye hit the bread on the kitchen table. His bread was hard enough to chip it. Kaye approached his kitchen work with enthusiasm, making sausages and other foods needed for his cuisine. His work as a chef earned him the “Les Meilleurs Ouvriers de France” culinary award; Kaye was the only non-professional to achieve this honor.
Flying
Kaye was an aviation enthusiast. He became interested in learning to fly in 1959. An enthusiastic and accomplished golfer, he gave up golf in favor of flying. When Kaye went for his written pilot’s exam, he brought a liverwurst sandwich in case he was there for hours. The first plane Kaye owned was a Piper Aztec. Kaye received his first license as a private pilot of multi-engine aircraft, not being certified for operating a single engine plane until six years later. He was an accomplished pilot, rated for airplanes ranging from single-engine light aircraft to multi-engine jets. Kaye held a commercial pilot’s license and had flown every type of aircraft except military planes. A vice-president of Learjet, Kaye owned and operated a Learjet 24. He supported many flying projects. In 1968, he was Honorary Chairman of the Las Vegas International Exposition of Flight, a show that utilized many facets of the city’s entertainment industry while presenting an air show. The operational show chairman was well-known aviation figure Lynn Garrison. Kaye flew his plane to 65 cities in five days on a mission to help UNICEF.
Danny Kaye was fond of the legendary arranger Vic Schoen. Schoen had arranged for him on White Christmas, The Court Jester, and albums and concerts with the Andrews Sisters. In the 1960s, Vic Schoen was working on a show in Las Vegas with Shirley Temple. He was injured in a car accident. When Danny Kaye heard about the accident, he flew to McCarran Airport to pick up Schoen and bring him to Los Angeles for medical attention.
Baseball
Kaye was part owner of baseball’s Seattle Mariners with Lester Smith from 1977 to 1981. Prior to that, the lifelong fan of the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers recorded a song called “The D-O-D-G-E-R-S Song (Oh really? No, O’Malley!)”, describing a fictitious encounter with the San Francisco Giants, a hit during the real-life pennant chase of 1962. That song is included on Baseball’s Greatest Hits compact discs. A good friend of Leo Durocher, he often traveled with the team. In addition to being an owner, Kaye had an encyclopedic knowledge of the game.
Charity
Throughout his life, Kaye donated to charities. Working alongside UNICEF’s Halloween fundraiser founder, Ward Simon Kimball Jr., the actor educated the public on impoverished children in deplorable living conditions overseas and assisted in the distribution of donated goods and funds. His involvement with UNICEF came about in an unusual way. Kaye was flying home from London in 1949 when one of the plane’s four engines lost its propeller and caught fire. The problem was initially thought serious enough that it might make an ocean landing; life jackets and life rafts were made ready. The plane was able to head back over 500 miles to land at Shannon Airport, Ireland. On the way back to Shannon, the head of the Children’s Fund, Maurice Pate, had the seat next to Danny Kaye and spoke at length about the need for recognition for the Fund. Their discussion continued on the flight from Shannon to New York; it was the beginning of the actor’s long association with UNICEF.
Death
Kaye died of heart failure on March 3, 1987, brought on by internal bleeding and complications of hepatitis. Kaye had quadruple bypass heart surgery in February 1983; he contracted hepatitis from a blood transfusion. He left a widow, Sylvia Fine, and a daughter, Dena. His ashes are interred in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. His grave is adorned with a bench that contains friezes of a baseball and bat, an aircraft, a piano, a flowerpot, musical notes, and a chef’s toque. Kaye’s name, birth and death dates are inscribed on the toque. The United Nations held a memorial tribute to him at their New York headquarters on the evening of October 21, 1987.
Personal life
Kaye and Sylvia Fine grew up in Brooklyn, living a few blocks apart, but they did not meet until they were working on an off-Broadway show in 1939. Sylvia was an audition pianist. Sylvia discovered that Danny had worked for her father, dentist Samuel Fine. Kaye, working in Florida, proposed on the telephone; the couple were married in Fort Lauderdale on January 3, 1940. Their daughter, Dena, was born on December 17, 1946.
Kaye and his wife raised their daughter without parental hopes or aspirations for her future. Kaye said in a 1954 interview, “Whatever she wants to be she will be without interference from her mother nor from me.” When she was very young, Dena did not like seeing her father perform because she did not understand that people were supposed to laugh at what he did. On January 18, 2013, during a 24-hour salute to Kaye on Turner Classic Movies in celebration of his 100th birthday, Kaye’s daughter Dena revealed to TCM host Ben Mankiewicz that Kaye was born in 1911.
After Kaye and his wife became estranged, circa 1947, he was allegedly involved with a succession of women, though he and Fine never divorced. The best known of these women was actress Eve Arden.
There are persistent claims that Kaye was homosexual or bisexual, and some sources assert that Kaye and Laurence Olivier had a ten-year relationship in the 1950s while Olivier was married to Vivien Leigh. A biography of Leigh states that their love affair caused her to have a breakdown. Olivier’s official biographer, Terry Coleman, has denied the affair. Joan Plowright, Olivier’s third wife and widow, has dealt with the matter in different ways on occasion: she deflected the question (but alluded to Olivier’s “demons”) in a BBC interview. She is reputed to have referred to Danny Kaye on one occasion, in response to a claim that it was she who broke up Olivier’s marriage to Leigh. However, in her memoirs, Plowright denies an affair between the two men. Producer Perry Lafferty reported: “People would ask me, ‘Is he gay? Is he gay?’ I never saw anything to substantiate that in the time I was with him.” Kaye’s final girlfriend, Marlene Sorosky, reported that he told her, “I’ve never had a homosexual experience in my life. I’ve never had any kind of gay relationship. I’ve had opportunities, but I never did anything about them.”
Located at 877 South Figuroa, the Pantry is a favorite eating spot for retired Homicide Detective, Eagon Quinn, who practices law out of the Bradbury Building on South Broadway, a character in my Mike Montego novels.
According to mythology, in Hellenistic astrology, the sign of the ram was associated with the golden winged ram that rescued Phrixos and his sister Helle from the altar where they were to be offered as a sacrifice to Zeus. The golden ram carried them to the land of Colchis, but on the way Helle fell into the sea and drowned.
When Phrixos arrived at Colchis he sacrificed the ram to Zeus and presented the Golden Fleece to his father-in-law, the King of Colchis. The fleece was then hung upon a sacred oak and guarded by a dragon until rescued by Jason and the Argonauts.
The myth recounts that Zeus was so moved by the ram’s fate that he gave it the greatest honor of being moved to the heavens.
Thus, the astrological sign of Aries, the ram.
I was born in April under the sign of the ram, a couple of days before the heavenly sign of Taurus the bull. Mother, bless her heart, told me that she had willed me to be born on a Sunday. She never explained why, and she didn’t mention astrology. Well, I arrived at 1:36PM on a Sunday afternoon. She said I wanted to come days earlier, but she got her way.
Could that explain why I tend to be impatient?
The ruler of Aries is Mars, the Roman god of war. Mars represented military power as a way to secure peace; Mars had a love affair with Venus. I hesitate to comment on how that might have affected me, however, upon thinking of Venus considered a detriment in the Aries sign, I wonder. I’ve been wedded four times, although my last wedding, in 1989 to Barbara Kay, worked. Perhaps, like John Gray’s book, Men are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex, suggests, it must have been a Venus-Mars matter regarding my first three unsuccessful marriages. No further comment.
Although the zodiac element of Aries is fire, I am rarely passionate about things, although I often seethe below the surface whenever faced with intolerant people. Perhaps I’m fierier than I care to admit.
Another Aries quality is cardinal. I am not certain I know what bearing that might have on me, only that deep scarlet is my favorite color.
Under Aries, the exaltation is the Sun. Well, I do like living in a sunny clime. And now I’ve settled in Mexico. Thankfully, Barbara loves the area, and the people, too.
Anyway, most of my life I’ve paid little attention to the astrological sign I was born under, yet, as I grew older and thought about events in my life, brought about in large by my behavior, I thought about Aries and the ram sign. I compared what I’d experienced in life to what people who specialized in horoscopes wrote, like the late Sydney Omarr. Often, I found I could fit what astrologists claimed to some little event that had occurred to me that particular day. It was easy to read into their comments only what I wanted to see.
Having said that, I don’t know if there is a connection to the alignment of planets with my actions, but I have heard that we humans generate energy that can cause things to happen. I say “things,” because I can’t put a label to it. I’ll leave that to the specialists.
I recall, however, when I was a youngster riding the red car into Hollywood from my foster home in the San Fernando Valley, seeing a large billboard on Cahuenga Boulevard; it was located where the winding pass became Highland Avenue. It displayed a pair of clasped hands along with the words: Prayer Changes Things.
I’ve thought about the energy thing and have wondered whether there truly is power in prayer to change things. I’ve read when people mentally concentrate in unison on a specific thing, that the sought result has happened.
Anyway, astrology and phenomena that can’t easily be explained fascinate me.
And then I should mention numerology. I’m not well versed in it, but when it comes to numbers, my favorite is 48. I think that came from being born in the fourth month when the U.S.A. was made up of 48 states. Also, World War II ended when I was eight years old.
However, I can’t say the number 48 has ever been a lucky number for me.
The main character in three of my novels, all of them about to be released — Shades of Blue, 459-Framed in Red, The Purple Hand — and the forthcoming He Blew Blue Jazz, LAPD cop Mike Montego, drives a sweet Chevy Cameo Carrier. Here’s some background on one of the blue bow-tie’s most interesting vehicles.
Boasting V-8 power, automatic transmission, two-tone paint, and deluxe interior, the 1955 Chevrolet Cameo shortened the distance between car and truck. Although not a big seller, it set the stage for other stylish trucks – Ford’s Styleside, Dodge’s Sweptside, and Chevy’s own Fleetside quickly followed suit.
Stylist Chuck Jordan, later to become GM Vice-President of Design, had originally envisioned a one-piece cab-bed bodied pickup, but engineers were concerned over the sheet metal distorting due to torsion-stress on the frame. It was decided that the clean look could still be achieved with a conventional cab/bed combination. Fiberglass panels were added to Chevy’s existing steel cargo-box, saving the expense of the tooling process required for steel panels. This also allowed the truck to be brought into production quicker. Besides, fiberglass was convenient; Chevrolet had recently given Molded Fiberglass Products Company a $4 million contract to manufacture Corvette bodies.
The tailgate of the Cameo also used a fiberglass outer panel, with latches mounted inside and supported by retractable cables. The middle of the rear bumper hinged downward, accessing the hidden spare tire compartment. Unique chrome-plated taillights capped off the clean, uncluttered bed.
1955 Chevy Cameo
The smooth-sided bed of the 3124 series Cameo seemed to perfectly complement Chevy’s new Task Force Series line of trucks. Its 114-inch wheelbase carried a 6.5-foot-long cargo bed, which shared the same 5,000 pound G.V.W. as the 3100 and 3200 series half-ton trucks. Base motor was the durable 235-cid six-cylinder, with Chevy’s new 265-cid V-8 optional. Five transmissions, including an automatic, were available. Chrome bumpers, chrome grille, and full wheel covers, optional on other models, were standard on the Cameo.
All first-year Cameos were painted two-tone white and red. Inside, the upholstery was also two-tone, and came with arm rests, dual sun-visors, a cigarette lighter, chrome interior door knobs, and a large wrap-around rear window. Priced 30% higher than their standard half-ton truck, Chevrolet sold 5,220 Cameos in 1955.
1956 Chevy Cameo
With the exception of a few minor trim items, 1956 Chevrolet trucks remained the same as 1955 models. Despite low production numbers, the Cameo was carried over, now offered in several two-tone paint schemes. Base price was $2,150, while a standard half-ton pickup listed at $1,670. Cameo truck production for 1956 was 1,452.
1957 Chevy Cameo
Along with Chevy’s other pickup models, the Cameo received a new grille in 1957. V-8 engine displacement increased to 283 cubic-inches, with power output at 185-bhp. Cameo production rose to 2,244 units.
1958 Cameo Carrier
Industry-wide adoption of quad headlights, along with a larger front grille, were highlights of the 1958 re-design for all Chevrolet trucks. Ford’s Styleside pickup, introduced in 1957, had smooth outer bed-walls and sold for much less than the Cameo. Chevrolet countered with their new Fleetside, with an all-steel cargo-box larger than the Cameo’s. With just 1,405 produced for the year, Cameo production stopped in early 1958.
NOTE: Mike Montego’s pickup truck is white with red trim. The interior is red-and-white, tuck-and-rolled Naugahyde, a customized look.
You might think I am referring to a locomotive that rattles noisily down steel tracks somewhere in Mexico. Well, I am not. I am talking about a popular board game using dominoes that I discovered through friends.
A year ago or so, when in Mexico, Tom and Dee Grant, along with another couple, Don and Leslie, introduced my wife, Barbara, and I to the game. I forgot about the fun event until our last visit to the Grant’s home. That evening we again played Mexican Train, but with another couple as Don and Leslie weren’t available.
During the game, funny little things occurred that brought chuckles. Soon the double entendres were flying. I laughed until my eyes were blurry. The game went on for five hours. Barbara won. She’s a games person.
Anyway, when we returned to our home in Oregon, I decided to buy the game. Fearlessly, I went online and found www.mexicantrainfun.com.
Wow! Check out the website and you will see why it nearly blew my mind. It’s not exactly the slickest website in the world, but boy is it ever filled with, well, content. I thought I’d find a simple game featured here — you know, a box full of dominoes, the other necessary pieces, and some simple instructions. Wrong. Instead, I was faced with a a long list of choices.
First, which set did I want? here were five options: a Double 6 with threes and fives (the number of pips on a tile), the most popular size, along with a Double 9, a Double 12 with 91 dominoes with the tile pips ranging from blank (0) to 12, a Double 15 with 136 dominoes ranging from 0 to 15, and a Double 18 featuring 190 dominoes, with the tile numbers ranging from 0 to 18. This one allows you to play more complicated games.
The website features a video to help you see the games and the colors on the various sets. In addition to dominoes with pips, they’re also available with numbers (makes ‘em easier to read). There are various racks and trays (wood or plastic), a rules and strategy book, tournaments to sign up for, and domino clubs to join. There’s even a blog site for players’ comments.
For example, a question was posed on the site about a player announcing that he wanted to “go out” on a double (a tile with the same number of pips on each half), but not having a tile to answer it. The rules were checked, and seeing a name of a recognized expert on the game they called her. Her response was that you must answer a double to go out. This changes the strategy of the game a great deal, since you should try to hold a tile that coordinates with a double, or be sure to play a double earlier if it doesn’t match anything in your hand so you can go out, or, if it is a low double, hang onto it to the end because it will be low points in your hand. Get it?!
You are wondering why I don’t explain the above in greater, more lucid detail, it’s because I really can’t, at least not yet. I am still a novice. Like I’ve said, I’ve only played the game twice. I’m not Barbara!
I have learned one important detail, however. It turns out that the owner of the premises where the game is being played is the final arbiter in all disputes. It might pay to host the game.
What’s available on the website doesn’t stop there. They sell train markers, a set of eight that come in solid colors or with glitter, or a Double 6 with black dots and brass spinners (don’t ask). You can buy a container (case) in vinyl, tin, wood, or aluminum, and carry it in a tote bag with a Mexican Train logo. Ot how about a yard sign for advertising that Mexican Train is being played at your place tonight?
They sell train hubs in clear plastic, or wood hubs for six or eight players. Some sets have train hubs that come with sounds. Even chicken sounds! And why not also get yourself a set of 10 colored chicken markers while you’re at it? Or there’s always the interactive yellow hub with chicken-foot and train graphics and sounds. Simply push “train sound” when you start a train, or “chicken crow” when you start a double (again, don’t ask!).
There are attractive red caboose pencil sharpeners, dominoes with jumbo sized pips or numbers, even a spiffy, four-fold domino tabletop. There are large train markers, the Mexican Train whistle key chain, and, best of all, a large glass train in a silver gift box. And of course you have to have scorecards, and an official train pen.
It’s apparently highly recommended that you cover your game table with felt. It makes for quieter play, and the tiles slide more easily. Also, since dominoes pick up dirt from table surfaces, people’s hands, food, and drink, over time they become dirty. You guessed it. The site offers cleaning remedy suggestions.
Being a party animal, I decided I wanted to be able to play with eight players, so I opted for the professional-sized Double 15. Hey, it was on sale, at a whopping 19% discount. I saved $16. Plus, bonus, it came with a faux cowhide Leatherette case with a snap closure. And the train hub is interactive. You know, with those funny chicken sounds.
I stopped short of purchasing the game night lawn sign. I like to think that shows a certain steely sort of masculine will and determination.
On the other hand, it could simply be because I don’t have a lawn.
I was born under the astrological sign of Aries, the ram. Two days later and it would have been Taurus, the bull. Mother, bless her heart, told me she really wanted her baby to be born on a Sunday. I don’t know why. I don’t think she thought about astrology. Well, ever the doting son, I arrived just after noon on a Sunday, as scheduled. I suspect I actually wanted to come days earlier. Maybe that explains why I tend to be impatient.
According to mythology, in Hellenistic astrology the sign of the ram was associated with the golden winged ram that rescued Phrixos and his sister Helle from the altar, where they were to be offered as a sacrifice to Zeus. The golden ram carried them to the land of Colchis, but on the way, Helle fell into the sea and drowned. When Phrixos arrived at Colchis he sacrificed the ram to Zeus and presented the Golden Fleece to his father-in-law, the King of Colchis. The fleece was then hung upon a sacred oak and guarded by a dragon, until rescued by Jason and the Argonauts. The myth recounts that Zeus was so moved by the ram’s fate that he gave it the greatest honor possible, that of being moved to the heavens.
Although the zodiac element of Aries is fire, I am not passionate about many things, but I’ve been known to blow up on occasion. Still, I don’t see myself as a fiery person.
Another Aries quality is cardinal. All I can say is that deep scarlet is my favorite color. Maybe reading about the zodiac sign has unduly influenced me, but I doubt it.
The ruler of the Aries sign is Mars, the Roman god of war. Mars represented military power as a way to secure peace; Mars had a love affair with Venus. I hesitate to comment on how that might affect me, however, considering that Venus is seen as a detriment in the Aries sign, I wonder. I’ve been wedded four times, although my last marriage, nearly 23 years ago to Barbara Kay, took. Perhaps, like John Gray’s book, Men are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex, suggests, my first three marriages were doomed — it was a Venus-Mars matter. No further comment.
Under Aries, the exaltation is the sun. All I can say is that I like being in a sunny clime. That’s why I’ve decided to settle in Mexico. Thankfully, Barbara loves the area we’re headed to, too.
Anyway, most of my life I paid little attention to the astrological sign I was born under. Yet, as I grew older and thought about events in my life, and my behavior generally through the years, I thought about Aries and the ram sign. I considered what I’d experienced in life, and compared those experiences with what people who specialize in horoscopes wrote, like the late Sydney Omarr. I often found I could fit what astrologists stated to some small event that had happened to me on any given day. It was easy to read in what I wanted to see.
The bottom line is, while I’m unsure about a connection between the alignment of planets and my individual actions, I do feel we humans generate energy that can cause things to happen. I say “things,” because I can’t put a label to it. I’ll leave that to the specialists.
I recall seeing a large billboard on Cahuenga Boulevard, where the winding pass from the San Fernando Valley entered Hollywood, when I was a youngster. It displayed a couple with clasped hands, and the phrase, Prayer Changes Things. I wonder about the energy thing and the power of group prayer. I have read that when people concentrate in unison on one specific thing, positive results sometimes follow.
Anyway, I am fascinated by astrology and phenomena that can’t easily be explained; but, honestly, I rarely read books on the subject.
One other thing. For years, number 48 was my favorite. I was born in the fourth month, when there were 48 states, and World War II ended when I was eight. But the number has never been lucky for me. I have never won a thing by betting on it. I still like the number, though. A good reminder that winning isn’t everything!
It was a sunny Sunday afternoon in fall. My army buddy and I were on leave before being shipped out to our next outfits. I would be heading for New Rochelle, New York, to attend the Army Information School. My friend was going elsewhere. We’d just completed three months of boot camp in Fort Ord, and had flown to L.A. from Monterey the day before.
We were wearing our “greens,” the brand new dress uniform that replaced the OD, olive-drab, dress wear and the old Ike jacket.
Every once in a while, as we strolled down Hollywood Boulevard, servicemen from other branches, seeing us, saluted as they passed by. Being courteous guys, we returned the greetings, and then laughed our asses off each time, once we were out of earshot. It was obvious that the enlisted men from the other armed forces branches were unaware of the Army’s new uniform. To them we looked like officers in our saucer-shaped hats.
As we strolled by Sardi’s, we heard cool jazz music wafting out. Neither of us were twenty-one, the legal age for consuming alcohol, but we tacitly decided to see if we could get served. We were relying on our uniforms to avoid being carded by the cocktail waitress.
Inside the dimly lit lounge, we were shown to a seat in the rear. We ordered beers. After the waitress went to fill our drink orders, we winked at each other, our faces beaming. We had passed the test.
On the low stage a woman began singing some scat jazz. She was good, and her style had me grooving. I was already into jazz, having been hooked by Johnny Hodges’ tenor sax while attending city college a year earlier.
After our beers were served, we relaxed and settled into our seats to suck up the suds and the soulful sounds.
At one point, while the lady on the stage sang, the cocktail waitress, carrying a tray of drinks, walked right in front of the singer to serve a front row table. Since the stage was low, the waitress blocked our view.
It was apparent the singer didn’t appreciate the interruption. Her frowning expression displayed that; still, obviously a pro, she continued singing.
When the music set ended, the singer stepped off the stage and came around the room heading toward the rear. Her route took her by our four-person table.
As she passed by, I called out, “Great voice, ma’am. That wasn’t very polite of the barmaid.”
The singer paused, studied us momentarily, and smiling, stepped closer.
I quickly stood. “Please, join us,” I said, nudging my friend to get to his feet. He did.
She said, “Don’t mind if I do.” She drew up a chair and sat across from me.
The waitress immediately stopped at our table.
The singer ordered a soda water with lime, then looking at me, she asked, “So, you boys enjoying the music?”
For the rest of her twenty-minute break we chit chatted.
When she got up to go back to the stage, I scrambled to my feet. “I love your voice,” I said. I’ll be buying your albums.
She looked back. “You boys are sweet—do enjoy the show.”
To this day I will never forget my afternoon sitting with Lady Jane, the incomparable Ella Fitzgerald.
I am gazing out my office window at the Pacific. It’s four o’clock and the sun finally has burned through. Whitecaps glisten about five miles offshore. The wind has yet to reach the beach, a normal occurrence along the southern Oregon coast. It’s a pleasant Sunday; the nip of fall is in the air, to be expected. It’s Labor Day weekend.
Quiet times like this I thoroughly enjoy life. It is a time to relax, to put worrisome thoughts out of my mind. Tomorrow, although a holiday, will start a new week and bring new challenges, hopefully easily surmountable.
My Sundays have not always been so idyllic. For too many years, actually decades, I dreaded this hour on Sunday afternoons, because it meant being taken away from my mother’s arms and being delivered to a foster home over the hills, far away.
Being a working, single parent, Mother had little choice but to have me cared for on weekdays. I never fully understood being “farmed out” until I became a dad.
In my novels, Mike Montego shares that difficult part of my life. Some of what I experienced in those days is revealed in my fiction. Still, Mike is not Jess Waid.
As a young boy, like so many kids, I read a lot of books suitable for my age: Bambi, Call of the Wild, Robinson Crusoe, Smokey, White Fang, Zane Grey’s many westerns, any story that would take me away from reality. As a result, I dreamed about being a writer who told stories that transported the reader away from his or her current circumstances, especially if they felt lonely and/or unhappy.
When I took up writing, rather late in life, it was as a hobby. I soon found it gave me a means to fantasize and reshape earlier parts of my life to my liking; not my police career, even though I write police procedurals, but other experiences where I had either screwed up, or had not taken full advantage of whatever life threw at me.
Writing allows me to recapture those fleeting moments. For me, writing is a discrete form of daydreaming . . . something I did way too much in my pre-college days, mostly because I was bored in school.
Three years in the armed forces, however, changed that. I had to perform
After boot camp I was sent east to the Army Information School on an island in the Sound just off New Rochelle, New York. Then I shipped out to West Germany, where I was sent to the Seventh Army’s NCO Academy in Munich. The training in both schools was academically intense, with very little physical exertion.
The best part of the NCO Academy was the three-day weekend break we got. It occurred during the Oktoberfest. Munich had turned 800 years old that year. That’s a story in itself. As is the marriage that ensued.
Mike shares a bit of that time in my life in that he, too, gets married, but literary license allows me to modify what I experienced and have fun reshaping the scenarios Mike Montego lives.
At writing seminars one constantly hears, “Write about what you know.” I can’t disagree, but for young people with a desire to become authors, I suggest this: do not wait to write. Take notes. Write about what you’ve encountered in your young life, it might bring about an appreciation you otherwise might miss. Everything that happens to you is a memory, sometimes a pleasant one, sometimes not. Write about them.
It’s those events that often make great stories. Besides, it’s fun to fantasize about them.
Jess Waid 