The Beginning of the Whole Mess

It started with a dame.

I was 17, and there she was on my TV screen – a recently-promoted blue-eyed blonde news anchor named Robin Chapman. I was captivated, and in due course sent her a fan letter. I was not expecting a reply, but a few days later there it was in my mailbox! “You have a very creative writing style,” she wrote. “Have you ever considered a career in journalism?”

I had in fact been studying journalism and writing for the school paper for the past two years, but mostly just because it was an easy elective. What I had really been planning was to become a clinical psychologist; suddenly journalism was forefront in my mind. Especially after Robin invited me to tour the station.

She was surprised (and chagrined) to find that I was just out of high school, but still offered encouragement, career-wise anyway. I watched Robin on TV all that summer, and in the fall enrolled in college, where I was inexplicably made editor of the school newspaper. I also got an internship at the local daily newspaper as a feature writer, so my days were busy, writing some fairly good stuff and some pretty bad stuff, too.

At the local daily, I was assigned to the features desk, where I wrote about teen nightclubs, the latest fads, and other fluff. But one day I accompanied my mentor 
Steve to a celebrity interview of Carol Channing. She was friendly, funny, and self-depracating, and afterward I decided I should do celeb interviews, too. How hard could it be? I learned that Doc Severinsen was coming to Portland with his show, and, with my editor’s blessing immediately sought an exclusive interview with Doc. This mostly entailed daily calls to his office at NBC in Burbank, where I was (mostly) politely put off. But not put out. After a week of dogged requests, his manager said, “Doc won’t have time for an interview – he’s going to be busy auditioning singers for an opening in the group.”

“Really?” I said. “What vocal range?”

A pause. “He needs a tenor,” said Doc’s manager.

“I’m a tenor,” I said, in for the kill. “Can I audition too?”

Much longer pause. “Who ARE you?” said Doc’s manager.

After several more calls I had secured an audition before the concert, but no interview. No matter; I was going to review the show as well, so I was certain to get a decent byline. I knew from grilling his manager that Doc traveled with an eleven-piece band, so I guessed at the instrumentation and wrote and arranged a song for my audition.

When I arrived at the auditorium and met Doc’s manager (his name was Bud) and then Doc himself, they had just finished sound check for the night’s performance. I got out my chart and I offered to pass out the parts to the band. Yet another pause. “We’ll just use the piano,” said Bud, incredulously. He and the road manager Rick looked at each other; Doc just smiled.

I sang a couple of songs, accompanying myself on the original one, and waited for their verdict. It was, literally, “Don’t call us – we’ll call you.” This from Rick, the road manager. They offered me tickets for the show which I declined, since I already had mine. I thanked them, then went to dinner.

That night as I watched the concert (which was great!), I was simultaneously taking in details and wondering what they really thought of me, and imagining myself up onstage. Afterward I went home, wrote the review and turned it in the next morning. Then to school, and business as usual.

Two weeks later, Rick called. “Can you be here in Burbank on Friday? Doc wants to hear you again at the callback.” You betcha! “2:00 Friday at NBC.” It was then Monday; how would I get there (and back) on the $74 I had saved? As it turned out, by bus. Twenty-five hours down, twenty-five hours back.

Twenty-five hours on the bus gave me plenty of time to learn a new song while Not Sleeping A Wink. I arrived in North Hollywood at high noon, and took a city bus into Burbank, where I waited at NBC until the appointed time. There were three of us being considered for the opening – the other two guys looked groomed and chic and oh-so-Hollywood, whereas I appeared to have just stepped off a bus from Podunk. I listened to the other two guys sing, and then it was my turn. I decided to let Ross the piano player accompany me this time, but when I had finished and Bud was starting to excuse us Doc said “Hey Portland! Do that song you did before!” The Hollywood boys glared at me.

So I sat at the piano and played and sang, and then Bud said “We’ll let you all know in a couple of days.” I brazenly mentioned I would be on the bus again for the next 25 hours, and was there any way I might find out yes or no before I left that evening?

Bud got That Look on his face again, but said they would talk it over, and would I like to watch the taping of “The Tonight Show?” Hell, yes! “We’ll let you know before you leave town,” said Bud.

I was given a seat in the front row, right next to where Ed McMahon did his announcing, and waited nervously. Just before the warm-up started, Bud came out from backstage to where I was sitting, just stared at me for a minute, then said “Congratulations! You got the job. Rehearsals start March 3rd.” And walked away.

I don’t recall much about the rest of that evening, except that the people sitting next to me were so excited, they bought me dinner and took me back to the bus depot afterward, and that I slept most of the bus ride home.

When I got off the bus in Portland the next night, my father was there to meet me. “How did it go?” he asked.

“I got the job!” I excitedly told him.

My father looked at me for a moment. “You got a phone call while you were gone. The New Christy Minstrels want to hire you. I told them you were in Burbank, but I didn’t know how to reach you.”

I had submitted an audition tape to the NCM the previous summer after meeting and working with their former lead singer at the Miss Washington pageant, but had not expected to hear back from them after all that time. But no matter. When I returned their call later, they offered me a spot playing banjo and singing “Green, Green” and “Walk Right In” and touring the US by bus; whereas Doc was offering me Vegas, Baby!, with the best jazz musicians in the business, air travel and the best hotels. I thanked the New Christy Minstrels, and took the job with Doc.

It was now February 15, and I had two weeks to quit school, leave the newspaper, and find an apartment and move to Burbank before rehearsals started…

A Brush With Date-ness

Las Vegas in the Seventies was nothing like it is today. There were no hotel theme parks; in fact, most of the hotels and resorts that are on the strip today were not even in the idea stage. There was no Siegfried & Roy; we had Liberace. Elvis was alive and well and appearing twice nightly at the Hilton, and Howard Hughes was alive and, well, living in his apartment high atop the Desert Inn. Or maybe not; no one ever saw him. I was actually working for Howard Hughes, or at least my boss was.

At that time I was a back-up singer for Doc Severinsen, bandleader of “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.” This being the hip, happenin’ Seventies, our show was called “Doc Severinsen and his Now Generation Brass featuring Today’s Children” and yes, I was one of “Today’s Children.” So sue me. Doc was under contract to Hughes’ Summa Corporation, which owned and operated the Frontier, the Desert Inn and the Sands, and we performed at those hotels about sixteen weeks per year.

Often, we would share the bill with the likes of George Burns or Bob Newhart. Doc and the gang would perform a fifty-minute to one-hour opening act, and then the comedian would take over. I liked to sit backstage and listen (especially to Bob), or sometimes I would sneak out into the house and watch. What an education that was! Newhart could do the same show twice a night for six weeks, and still have me in hysterics at his delivery. Every time, the same jokes in the same order. Well, almost every time...

Bob’s routine usually would go on for an hour or so, and then he would tell a specific joke to cue the band behind the curtain that it was time for his first playoff. It was timed so that the audience would naturally want more of the show, and Bob would return for his “encore.” During the first hour, the band would leave the stage and hang out in the dressing room. I would usually sit at the piano behind the curtain, directly behind Bob. The connection with the audience was amazing, even sight unseen.

One night, the band had left the stage and I was sitting at the piano. Don, our roadie, was sitting at the drum set and one of the trombone players was cleaning his horn. Twenty minutes into the show, and for no apparent reason, Bob went into his playoff cue joke. It was not a long joke, and by the time the band (in the dressing room) realized what had happened, Bob was saying “Thanks everybody! Goodnight!”

Well, the roadie, the bone player and I looked at each other, shrugged, and started to play Bob’s theme music “Home to Emily” from his TV show. It was quite apparent to the audience and Bob that most of the band was not playing, so while the audience laughed, Bob hollered “Now wait a minute! Open the curtain!” The audience got one look at the deserted bandstand and roared even louder. I was mortified, but Bob, his back to the audience, just smiled and winked at me. The curtain closed as the rest of the band came running into the wings, and Bob went on with the show. He never “accidentally” cut short his show again, and the band never missed a cue again, either.

Bob’s wife Ginny was a voracious (if not accomplished) gambler, and could spend hours at the blackjack table. Bob, not so much. I recall making the rounds of the casino late one night and seeing Ginny at the tables on a hot streak. (I was just eighteen and not supposed to be there, but after the first couple of days nobody seemed to mind.) Bob was nowhere in sight, which was unusual for the two of them. I continued on around to the lobby and discovered Bob, fast asleep on a couch near the front desk. I can only assume Ginny found him...

           

Lodging at the Sands took two forms; the tower, where most of the high rollers and celebrities stayed, and the bungalows, a series of buildings suspiciously motel-like in nature which had been built around the swimming pool, each named for a different horse race track. Behind the bungalows (of which I became well-acquainted) were the tennis courts, and a large expanse of, well, nothing. Really. Acres and acres of undeveloped desert chaparral. One of the other singers, Brian, and I used to go out there and throw a football or baseball or Frisbee or whatever we could find to throw to each other. It passed the time.

One day Bob turned up out back with his son Timmy and a brand new kite, Timmy’s first. Bob was going to show him how to fly it. He laid the kite on the ground and unwound some of the string. “Now watch, Timmy,” he called. “All you have to do is run.”

Bob took off across the bit of lawn on the edge of the chaparral, and the kite grudgingly followed. It had no intention of taking flight, however, and seemed content to bounce jarringly on its topmost point. Brian and I moved closer.

Bob had an idea. He called Timmy over. “This time you hold the kite, and when I holler ‘Let go!’ you let go of the kite. Okay?” Timmy agreed excitedly. Bob handed Timmy the kite, moved off some distance and took off running again. As the string was about to draw taut he hollered “Let go!”

Timmy flung the kite into the air, where it remained briefly then returned to bouncing along the ground on its head. “I can’t understand it,” said Bob. “It should fly.”

“What you need,” offered Brian, “is some tail.”

“For the kite,” I added helpfully.

Bob agreed that this might do the trick (!), so Brian was dispatched to find something to tie to the end of the kite. He returned with what had once been a Sands hand towel, but which was now torn into strips. We fastened several together and to the kite and nodded to Bob.

“This’ll do it?” he asked. Brian nodded again. (Not much of a conversationalist, Brian.) “This will get the kite into the air?”

“And back,” I assured him. Timmy squirmed impatiently.

 “Okay then,” said Bob. “Here we go!” He took off running again (although not quite so fast) and hollered “Let it go!” The kite rose magnificently into the summer sky, its tail streaming down from the bottom. It hung in the air proudly as Bob stopped running and turned to look when a sudden gust of wind swept in from across the desert. The kite trembled momentarily, then burst into pieces in the sky. A total Charlie Brown. Fragments of paper, balsa wood and string whirled off across the chaparral. Timmy was ecstatic. “Can we do it again?” he asked, hopefully.                                                                   

“NO,” his father answered. Bob looked to the limp ball of string in his hands, then to Brian and me. “Thanks, guys,” he said, as he and Timmy returned to their room.

The Sands Hotel was the site of the best phone call of my life. During 1976 my road roommate was a fellow named Stan, who besides singing with us was a studio singer and musical arranger and who, at the time, was dating a certain singer from Australia named Olivia. Because of their wildly disparate touring schedules, she was apt to call most anytime, anywhere. After my initial disbelief I began to fight him to answer the phone, if only to hear that breathy “Is Stan there?” Eventually, we had entire conversations before I would grudgingly relinquish the phone to Stan.

I was finally going to meet her during a stint at the Sands; Olivia was coming to Vegas and would be staying at the MGM, but would be coming to our show to visit Stan. As the day drew near I positioned myself near the phone whenever possible. As fate would have it, Stan was out golfing one day when the phone rang. I answered it promptly.

“I have a long distance call for Livvy John,” said an operator. This was cool; Liv would often call person-to-person for herself to make sure someone was there and to save toll charges if not.

“I’m sorry, she’s not here, but we expect her tomorrow,” I answered, which was true. The operator thanked me and rang off. Moments later, the phone rang again. I answered, expecting Liv.

“Is Livvy there?” asked an unfamiliar voice. I explained again that no, she was not, but that she was expected the next day. “Is this Stan?” the caller continued.

“No,” I replied, “Stan is out right now. This is his roommate.”

“Oh,” said the voice. “This is Linda. Do you know when he’ll be back?”

“Not really,” I answered, trying to remember if Stan had ever told me about anyone in Livvy’s entourage named Linda. “Can I have him call you back?”

“Who did you say this is?” she asked again.

“This is Stan’s roommate, Don,” I replied.

“Hi Don, this is Linda Ronstadt.”

Gulp! Those were six words I never expected to hear in that order. “Stan not here. Play golf. Outside. Not here...” I responded helpfully. She laughed. “Can I have him call you?” I asked, trying to regain some dignity.

“Okay,” Linda agreed. “I’m at The Manila Hotel in the Philippines...”

“Maybe you should call back,” I suggested. She laughed again. Damn!

Then she asked me what I did and how I knew Stan, where I lived, and where I was from originally. We chatted for a few minutes, and I was feeling a lot more composed when she said “You sound really nice, Don. Maybe the four of us can get together back in L.A.” 

“That sounds enchanting,” I said. (Bond. James Bond.) “Meanwhile, I’ll tell Stan you’re looking for Livvy.” She thanked me and rang off.

Well, of course I never did get to go on a double date with Linda Ronstadt and Olivia Newton-John (and Stan); and Liv never did make it to Vegas, going instead to the Philippines to fill in for Linda on a concert gig; and when Stan and Liv broke up shortly thereafter, I was more upset than either of them.

Probably.

It's A Glamour Profession

As a way of earning some extra money while touring with Doc, I accepted the role of wardrobe supervisor. This was a pretty easy gig, and consisted mostly of unpacking the trunks at the venue and helping schlep them around before and after the shows.
Schlepping them before was kind of fun; Rick the road manager would pick me up at my apartment, the we’d go to Doc’s manager Bud’s apartment in West Hollywood (although he insisted it was Beverly Hills) where the outfits were stored. The apartment doormen usually pulled the trunks out for us, and Rick and I would then load them into the limousine, a Cadillac station wagon purchased for the limo company by Elvis for his personal use while in L.A. (It was the only limo available that could haul our gear; a truck would have been gauche!) The Caddy had ELVIS license plates front and rear, and deeply tinted windows, and pretty much demanded that one had to wear dark glasses and avoid eye contact with other motorists en route to the airport.

It was always fun when we arrived at LAX, where a small crowd would gather and the Skycaps would come running to meet us. The disappointed groan when Rick and I emerged from the car did nothing to spoil our enjoyment. We would load the three trunks on the Skycap’s cart, Rick would tip him and I would sneer “Thank you very much,” and we would saunter into the terminal.

Often, but not always, we would be pre-boarded on our flight to make things less of a spectacle for Doc, but the pre-boarding announcement “We will now board the Doc Severinsen party” tended to negate the effort. Still, almost as much fun as the limo ride. Once on the plane, we again became anonymous except to the light attendants, who were always very, well, attentive. On one trip, I got to take a rather claustrophobic elevator ride on a Lockheed L-1011 jumbo jet down to the galley so the flight attendant could show me around.

When we arrived at our destination, Rick and I would go to baggage claim, hail a Skycap and have the trunks carted out to our bus to the venue or hotel. Doc almost always wanted to go to the venue for a sound check; the hotel could wait. If the trip was an out-and-back, there might not be a hotel anyway. After sound check, I would hang up the outfits in the dressing rooms, unless Rick had already done it. The three girls always got a separate dressing room, but I was permitted in and out as duties demanded. After a while, the girls said “Quit knocking all the time! Just come in and close the door.” This was not an invitation so much as exasperation.

Our outfits consisted of matching patchwork denim jeans and vests, with three shirt variations, and matching white boots and belt. The girls wore patchwork hot pants instead of jeans. At one point, the Brittania Jean Company offered to supply us with new jeans and vests for a TV appearance, and I had to measure everyone’s waist and inseam. When it came time to fit the girls, we were in San Francisco getting ready for a show. I needed to have them try on the jeans so I could make a soap mark where the cuffs needed to break at the boots. The girls NEVER had enough time to get ready (!), and asked if I would do it while they changed. Whatever. I gave them their jeans, and asked if they wanted me to leave. “No time for that. Just don’t stare” was the consensus.

About the time I was on my knees marking hems, Doc knocked on the door to borrow some hairspray. “Daddy, don’t come in! We’re dressing!” shrieked Nancy. She opened the door a crack and handed him the can. A few moments later Doc knocked again, saying “Here you go.” I opened the door a crack, took the can from him and said (sotto basso) “Thanks,” and shut the door. “Hey!” said Doc. We all laughed; inside the room, anyway.

After a performance, the costumes would be wadded up and stuffed back in the trunks (if it was a one-night trip), or hung up and re-packed for the next night. At the end of the “tour,” Rick and I would take the trunks back to Bud’s apartment building in West Hol- that is, Beverly Hills – and Rick would have the dry cleaners pick them up to get them ready for the next trip.

If we were in Vegas on an extended booking, I would have to drag myself out of bed at the crack of 8:00 AM to meet the dry cleaners at the dressing room a couple of times a week. Not a big deal at all, and I got paid quite a bit extra to do it. During the winter, that might be the only time I would see daylight during the entire engagement.

I would also sometimes steam the wrinkles out of Doc’s outfits. With all the rhinestones and studding, those jackets were heavy! Doc had well-developed forearms from holding up his trumpet while wearing those garments. It was sometimes said that Doc’s former wife made his outfits, but in reality they came from several different sources. Once, I accompanied Bud to pick up a new jacket at Bob Mackie’s workshop. Inside, Mackie and his staff were working on a number of projects, including costumes for Carol Burnett and Cher. Bud gushed and marveled at everything, and Mackie gushed back, and I stayed in the background. It was FABulous, but I survived.