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Sidebars Elliott Roosevelt By Bob Sanders

Sidebars    Elliott Roosevelt    By Bob Sanders    (general)

 

It’s an odd feeling being corrected about a story you’ve told for many years.  I owe a large “thank you” to Peter Collier and David Horowitz whose The Roosevelts: An American Saga is not only a brilliant examination of America’s longest-lasting and most powerful dynasty but one providing details about a small part I believed I had played in the life of Elliott Roosevelt.

I thought my first “contact” with Roosevelt was in the very early spring, 1945.  World War II was winding down, the U.S. Navy had given me a pre-embarkation leave from Port Hueneme’s Camp Bedillion in Southern California, and my transportation of choice to Cleveland was Air Transport Command.

ATC made it possible for patient servicemen and women to hitchhike home and back at no cost.  Flights were irregular, usually short enough that destinations were not achieved as the crow would fly.  The first leg of my journey put me down in Phoenix.  All set for the second leg which would take me to Denver, I was bumped for, what I was told, a dog accompanied by Air Force brigadier general Elliott Roosevelt, son of FDR.  Further, the dog was being taken to its owner, actress Faye Emerson, Roosevelt’s most recent wife.

I never saw Roosevelt or the dog, merely informed by an Air Force serviceman responsible for the passenger list that Roosevelt had pulled rank.  Messrs. Collier and Horowitz make it clear that “three servicemen, one of them on his way home to see a dying father, were bumped from a flight on Elliott’s authority so that Blaze, a bull mastiff he had bought Emerson, could be flown to her in California.”  Since I was headed east, there is no way I could have been one of the servicemen.  I suspect the guy who blamed Roosevelt had read or heard the real story, scorned FDR and told anyone bumped from a flight that Elliott was responsible much as Bill Clinton is blamed today for everything this side of what’s  wrong with the New York Yankees.

During the next 25 years, Elliott Roosevelt had added to his credentials as the black sheep of a somewhat dysfunctional family whose six children (Anna was the lone female) married a total of 19 times.  The most physically attractive of FDR’s sons, Elliott pursued wine, women and money, the latter through a great variety of careers and deals most of which were abject failures.  An exception was Roosevelt Enterprises, a business created to exploit his mother Eleanor.  A syndicated column, “My Day,” books, magazine articles, radio and TV helped make FDR’s widow a major household name.  The success of Roosevelt Enterprises alleviated some of the family rancor directed his way after manipulating the sale of the family residence, Hyde Park, and the surrounding land.  In spite of marriages to wealthy women, Elliott was broke half the time, according to his chroniclers.  A lot of people thought he was simply a dead beat.

In 1970, Playboy expanded its Club-Hotel holdings by purchasing The Plaza in Miami Beach.  It was an odd buy in every way.  Located just north of the Fontainebleau, The Plaza had been built by the high flying Harry Singer who sold the place to the Teamsters Union.  The hotel staff, largely inherited by Playboy, professed little knowledge of the hotel’s recent history and I was told by those who know about such things that any inspection of the sale’s paper trail would end in bewilderment.

Dispatched to Miami Beach to bring attention to the hotel, I learned that Elliott Roosevelt had re-surfaced in the Fun and Sun Capitol having taken a job in 1964 as a greeter for the convention center, then elected mayor of the city before losing a re-election bid.  When I arrived in Miami Beach, Roosevelt headed the community’s Tourist Development Authority and was about to become a lobbyist for Portugal dictator Antonio Salazar. In The Roosevelts:  An American Saga, the authors tell of Elliott’s being aware of an elderly woman staring at him in a Lisbon bookstore.  “Don’t you recognize me?” she finally asked.  “You look familiar.  Who are you?”  The woman smiled, “I’m your first wife.”

Roosevelt became a target in my publicity campaign largely because of his name albeit one that had been dormant for a while.  There existed then a curiosity about the Roosevelts similar to the Kennedys today.  I also figured veteran photo editors, in all likelihood, would recall the late President’s son who over the years had been screwing up so impressively with women.  A picture of Elliott Roosevelt being served poolside at the Playboy Plaza by a Bunny revealing more than a dollop of cleavage would likely bring the kind of attention I was seeking.  (Perhaps it’s worth pointing out, gentle reader, that the early 70s were far less gender-sensitive times as your humble narrator plied his flackery wiles in creating further Playboy awareness).   

I called Roosevelt exhibiting my usual stalwart good manners managing to make no references to Blaze, the dog, or the health of any of his former wives including Faye Emerson who in 1948 had slashed her wrists in a suicide attempt during what I’m certain was an, otherwise, hearty Thanksgiving family gathering.  Indeed, he was agreeable to bring additional attention to Miami Beach and the wonderful world of Playboy.  I suspect those were slow days for him.  We set a date and time, I hired a photographer and the shoot was on.

Elliott was by then on his fifth wife, Patty Peabody, a divorcee with four children.  She was 12 years younger than he and the two over the course of 20 years (he died in 1990) would live in 35 different residences.

The photo shoot was set for early October and, as things eventually unraveled, I learned once again that timing is everything.  Fortunately, the World Series was being played.  Having set up a dinner table poolside (the high diving board in the background identified the hotel), I felt confident about the shoot having picked a bevy of Bunnies including one over-endowed with dazzle and chosen from among a hutch clutch of cottontails.  She, exhibiting the firm’s famous Bunny Dip while serving, and Elliott would be photographed to lend further mystique to Hugh Hefner’s world of fantasy.

Traffic on any given day in Miami can be wicked and such was the case when photo time rolled around.  Because the hotel was in the midst of a $1.5 million renovation, the only Bunnies in town were in the Miami Playboy Club across a causeway--something like 15 minutes normal drive.  I got a call the Bunnies were running late, a message I passed along to Roosevelt, showing signs of grumpiness. 

“Are you a baseball fan?” I asked him.  “Yes, old sport,” was the reply.

With that I commandeered a TV plus a vast collection of extension cords averaging something like 20 feet apiece.  I must have hooked up a dozen of the damn things to reach the set and  enhanced the TV’s picture with a deftly placed patio umbrella.  That’s what old sports do for each other. 

Soon Roosevelt was into the game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Cincinnati Reds.  The Series, won by the Orioles, was dominated by their third baseman, Brooks Robinson.  A wonderful quote by Pete Rose came out of the contests when the man eventually banned from baseball for gambling said in reference to Robinson’s defensive skills: “He could play third base with a pair of pliers.”

After a half-hour or so, the Bunnies arrived including one who would help rightfully return Elliott Roosevelt to the consciousness of a nation whose celebrity appetite, in those days more like a propensity for White Castle sliders, would grow into today’s Triple Whopper kind of entranced worship.

Elliott was a good photo subject.  He looked more like his father than any of his brothers.  Then 60 and in reasonably good shape, his jaw jutted, his eyes sparkled in the brilliance of the Florida sun, his smile seemingly radiated an appreciation of his version of the good life, and he appeared to be enjoying himself.  One got a quick glimpse of what Faye Emerson and the other wives saw in him--at least at first glance.  Food was brought forth, the Bunny did her dip, the photographer grabbed some shots and I knew we got a subdued ogle out of Roosevelt.

Accompanying Elliott, the Bunnies and the photographer to the lobby, we passed the hotel’s soon-to-be Sidewalk Café and I noticed a workman applying mortar to the room’s ceiling.  After putting Roosevelt in a cab, I took the photographer and the Bunny of the impressive dip back to the Sidewalk Café, then talked the mortar guy into ignoring union rules allowing her to pose on a step ladder.

The Roosevelt picture moved only on the Southeast United Press International wire.  The step ladder Bunny made the national wire and the picture picked up all over the country plus Mexico City and chunks of the world where pictures of pretty women were published.  Associated Press wanted no part of the proceedings.  You win some, you lose some.

Three points are patently clear about what happened.  People like pictures of pretty women  better than sons of U.S. presidents, never underestimate interest in the World Series, and it’s journalistically sound to go for one more question and one more picture.

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Joe the Plumber By Bob Sanders

In what could easily be described as Theater of the Absurd, we soon will be able to reassure ourselves that at least part of our latest national nightmare will be over. The reference, of course, is in regard to the present White House occupant and his Presidency of remarkable   ineptitude or worse as historians are likely to write. In a prior episode of White House scariness, it was 38th President Gerald Ford who in 1974 told us that Richard Nixon’s odd approach to the job had been rectified by way of his leaving office in disgrace.

Part of the current nightmare remains. Wall Street, done in by its own greed and government failure to oversee what became a Ponzi game within the financial world’s casino, totters while people regarded as “experts” tinker under the monetary engine’s hood bringing on memories of Ross Perot who told us he had all the answers.

Under a broad and scary umbrella of confusion exists a bizarre Presidential competition in which the McCain campaign has introduced weapons of greatest distraction--a pair of third  bananas who gained momentary resonation with the easily-sold Republican Party base. 

First, there was McCain’s astonishing selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate.  This was as preposterous as the manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, having reached the World Series, choosing to dip into his team’s farm system for a first game starting pitcher. Beyond her adoring fans, Palin comes across as an updated version of Lucille Ball Lucy Riccardo. I guess that casts First Dude Todd as Ricky with a snowmobile team replacing a Cuban band. Babalu aye!

The latest development came during the last Obama-McCain debate and at first blush looked like a Karl Rovian set up. Rove, as you will recall, is best known as Bush’s Brain and the guy who took Ronald Reagan’s success with evangelicals to new heights. The debate night’s insanity was right out of the Rove playbook and involved Joe the Plumber, a self-described conservative, who earlier had challenged Obama in front of a TV camera. Joe the Plumber, initially identified as Joe Wurzelbacher of Toledo, Ohio, got his 15 minutes of instant stardom when McCain decided to adopt him as a trickle down poster boy for small business taxation. The Senator from Arizona used Joe’s name something like 20 times during the debate and it was determined by McCain himself that the night belonged to Joe the Plumber. 

Joe’s success was short-lived. Everything about his story was false. His real name is Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, he doesn’t have the $250,000 to buy a plumbing business, he’s behind on his taxes and, most disappointing in the search for truth, doesn’t even have a plumber’s license. Call him Joe the Poor.

The Joe the Plumber incident, perhaps more than anything, reflects the desperation of the McCain camp. The facts during recent weeks suggest delusional approaches to problem solving made more difficult by Obama’s surge in the polls. McCain’s anger on camera, irrational campaign decisions plus a dramatic departure from the true maverick persona he achieved in the 2000 campaign have contributed to unravel his quest for the Presidency and bring on the most significant question of all: Who is John McCain?

Seizing upon Joe the Plumber as a campaign boost was strange even if Joe had possessed plumbing bono fides. Joe the Cop or Joe the Fireman work much better. Plumbers, in the general scheme of things, are not the kind of people you want to help further your political ambitions. Even journalists or lawyers would be better choices.

I’ll give you a for instance about plumbers. Living on San Juan Island some 15 years ago, I discovered water had collected under my home. I called a plumber, aware of their disinclination to appear as promised, and was told help would soon be on its way. It didn’t, the  water remained , nothing of a catastrophic nature occurred and life proceeded on its isolated island way. Some three months after the phone call, a young man presented himself at the door indicating he had arrived to take care of the plumbing problem. By then, my wife and I had written the experience off to life styles that embrace the obvious: Island Time.

The young man, quite slim, was a perfect fit to wriggle into close quarters underneath the home, and I left him to his diligence. In about 30 minutes, he reappeared and asked: “What’s this address?” I told him 2931 Isle of View Lane and he seemed a bit embarrassed.  ‘I’ve got the wrong place,” he announced, “but I did some good things for you.”

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Paul Newman & Romantic Tales By Bob Sanders

Paul Newman’s recent passing and the memorable observations of people who knew him in his various lives told us much about him. It appears that people like Newman, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are leading a charge suggesting that those fortunate enough to have amassed wealth are finding ways increasingly to give back huge parts of their good luck.

I played high school basketball against Newman or at least was told that by college pals while attending Ohio University following World War II. My buddies had attended high school in Shaker Heights with Newman while I had gone to Lakewood High, a suburb immediately west of Cleveland. Lakewood and east side Shaker Heights then were in the Lake Erie League Conference.

I have no memory of competing against Newman, a senior during the 1942-43 season when I was a junior. If it did happen, one thing is certain. We must have been the shortest players on the floor. I was 5’4” (eventually growing five inches in the service) while Newman was probably less than his eventual height of 5’8”. The future actor briefly attended Ohio University in the V-12 program and was allegedly kicked out for crashing a keg of beer into the president’s car before becoming a Navy radioman and gunner in the Pacific Theater. 

I enjoyed Paul Newman’s casual reaction to fame. Possessor of perhaps the world’s most famous baby-blue eyes, the actor once commented: “If my eyes should ever turn brown, my career is shot to hell.” Newman also observed: “I was always a character actor. I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood.”

Then, there’s the thoroughly charming tale of a 45-year-old married woman going into an ice cream parlor in Westport, Connecticut where Newman and wife Joanne Woodward lived between films. The woman, a fervid Newman fan, entered the establishment in search of a double-dip chocolate ice cream cone. The only other customer, seated at the counter having a doughnut and coffee, was Newman. 

The woman’s eyes locked momentarily with Newman’s, her heart began impressive palpitations, and the actor nodded graciously. The clerk filled her order and she took the ice cream cone in one hand and her change in the other. The woman then left avoiding a glance in Newman’s direction. Reaching her car, she realized that she had a handful of change but her other hand was empty. The woman was stunned. Where was her ice cream cone? Did she leave it in the store? Back she went expecting to see the cone still in the clerk’s hand or somewhere in the store. The ice cream cone was not in sight.

Glancing at Newman, the woman was greeted by the actor’s familiar warm and friendly grin and the words: “You put it in your purse.”

One of my favorite romantic stories involving actors concerns a bag of peanuts, actress Helen Hayes and playwright Charles MacArthur. Shortly after their marriage in 1928, they shared a New York City Central Park bench and, as was often the case, communicated their hopes and dreams that eventually came to exceptional fruition. MacArthur offered his wife the bag of peanuts commenting: “I wish they were diamonds.”

Many years later, the two sat on the same bench. A lot had happened in the interim. His writing successes included The Front Page (written with Ben Hecht) and she had become the leading actress of the American stage with successful forays into motion pictures. MacArthur handed his wife a peanut bag containing diamonds. “I wish they were peanuts” was his touching observation.

My daughter Diane, who also lives in Bellingham, called the other day with a tale of romance set in motion by the computer. The story covered more than 40 years of marriage including some curious twists and turns of plot.

When Diane was a youngster, one of her best friends made more than one reference to her mother’s having been stood up at the altar. The girl’s mother had graduated from a highly-credited eastern university along with the guy who failed to show up at their wedding. Both eventually married other people.

Diane’s friend’s mother lost track of her once-upon-a-time intended and wed a fellow interested in little but golf; indeed, golf seemed the one passion of his life as he became father to three kids. The kids grew up and became non-golfing adults.

While many people past middle-age find the computer baffling at best, the woman learned how to use it. So did the guy who failed to show at the wedding that wasn’t and whose wife had recently died. Remembering his old flame, he tracked her down via the computer and the two began exchanging e-mails. After a couple of months, the guy escalated the relationship by mentioning an upcoming class reunion.

The golfer, aware of the wedding that never happened and the re-kindled interest made possible by the computer, made a dramatic and magnanimous offer. “Look. Go to the class reunion and get this guy out of your system.” She went and never came back. I suspect the golfer’s only passion is now approaching obsession.

It was while living on Chicago’s North Shore that I became aware of some rather blatant hanky-panky being practiced by the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and what Time magazine used to call “a great good friend.” The subject of the executive’s amour had become beneficiary of a sky-rocketing climb up the corporate ladder; the matter of her business skills was much bruited about by just about everyone at corporate headquarters.

One day I was chatting with a friend who co-authored a personality-driven Chicago Tribune column. One of the staples of the now-defunct column was the blind item. A journalistic oddity still in big city use, the blind item offers just enough information that a small percentage of readers can figure it out or at least think they can. The subject of corporate sexual shenanigans came up in the form of what I knew and I confirmed what she had heard.

Next day, a blind item appeared in the column. It read: “Which CEO of a Fortune 500 Company located on the North Shore is involved in a dalliance within the corporate body?” Note the reference to the North Shore. That was narrowing possibilities down more than a whit.

I checked in with the columnist and learned she had received three phone calls that day from North Shore corporate PR people. All wanted to know how she had found out about their boss’s indiscretion.  

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Future Press: “We Love Sarah” By Bob Sanders

Hollywood--In one of the most heart-warming developments in the history of the Emmy Awards, the Palin Family last night won for Best Documentary with “We Love Sarah” detailing the lives of the Alaskan clan whose experiences have captured the rapt attention of so many.

The award was accepted by Sarah Palin and her entire family. In an  acceptance speech, the unsuccessful vice-presidential candidate in the 2008 election gave gracious thanks to the members of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences suggesting the Emmy would not have been possible were it not for “my reference to knowledge of foreign affairs being based on being able to see Russia.” The statement was made during what is now known as the Katie Couric Interview, a decisive factor in the election.

As TV devotees know, Palin’s campaign comment inspired the fertile mind of famed TV director Jocko Reel. Reel’s first job in television was as production assistant on the hugely successful “An American Family” on PBS in 1973. The 12-part series became a TV sensation when a camera crew gained 24-7 access to the highly dysfunctional Loud family of Santa Barbara, California.   As Reel tells it: “Wham--Lightening struck a second time with the Palin family. Only in show business. Only in America.”

Many industry insiders believe “We Love Sarah” owes its origins not only to the Loud family but, also,  to the title character in “I Love Lucy,” a mega hit under various titles that provided the  capstone of Lucille Ball’s remarkable career. “That ‘Half-Baked Alaska’ episode was probably the funniest I ever directed,” said Reel. The show he referenced had Sarah along with fishing /hunting pal Kamchatka (“Kammy”) working in a baked Alaska emporium featuring a dessert assembly line of monumental challenges. Regular viewers may recall the idea for the Half-Baked Alaska Emporium came from Sarah’s husband, genial First Dude Todd. The installment immediately followed one involving manufactured igloo ice blocks for lazy Eskimos. Fans of “We Love Sarah” and, indeed, all of America, witnessed the dramatic backlash created midway through the season by what Eskimos regarded as a politically incorrect depiction of Alaskan originals. Alaska sets-in-use numbers, according to Nielsen, plummeted 48% to 17,498 following the controversial show and ratings continued to languish the rest of the season.   

Sarah Palin, interviewed following her television triumph, had some provocative thoughts about her victory. “Nearly everyone thought I was just a born-again, moose hunting, Troopergating, fly fishing, never-been-there, dog-sledding, back-packing, book-banning, hockey mom. Now, look at me. Motion pictures are calling, Revlon is after me to endorse Pit Bull Lipstick and McDonald’s wants me for commercials about Sarah Moosebergers. Who needs the White House?”

Palen’s innate modesty likely prevented her from commenting on a highly lucrative tie-in with Masses of Passes Glasses whose product has put to rest the old Dorothy Parker line about men who “never make passes at girls who wear glasses.”

Palin’s comments were offered between dancing enthusiastically  to “Doin’ the Wasilla,” the terpsichorean craze that started in Alaska before sweeping into heretofore quiet enclaves of the Pacific Northwest including Bellingham, WA, a community often referred to as The City of Subdued Excitement. Purists of the dance obsession, which pays homage to Palin’s book-banning attempts while mayor of the small Anchorage suburb, insist dance floor gyrations be performed while holding a book over one’s head. Book selection is an individual matter with only the Bible considered in poor taste.

Still governor in spite of an exhausting show business schedule, Palin was questioned about her looming film career. Indicating she has been approached to star in an original story whose working title is “Juno in Juneau.” Palin described the plot as a “teen-age pregnancy amid all the poignant laughter surrounding the obstetric developments that such an event creates.”

Asked about her favorite “We Love Sarah” episode, Palin proffered a preference for “Sarah Goes North,” a spin-off of sorts arising out of “Sarah Walks to Russia” in which she creates political tensions by criticizing Russian cooking and suggesting moose stew is much better--particularly among Alaska’s nabobs of haute cuisine. The unforgettable “Sarah Goes North” may be recalled by viewers as this past year’s Christmas show inspired by a comment parallel to the memorable one about how geographic proximity makes her some sort of expert on Russia. Lynchpin of “Sarah Goes North” is a Palin statement suggesting that “the North Pole is so near it gives me an intimate closeness to Santa Claus.” As viewers know, the show set in Santa’s Palace includes a Hugh Hefner-like fireman’s pole enabling Santa transport from his round bed to an Icicle Bar; it set an all-time Nielsen record among rabbit-eared, cable-connected, Dish-dispatched, Comcast-conductive, Direct-delivered U.S. homes.

Then there are Palin’s book deals that include a How To epic about the vicissitudes of sexual engagement in cold climates. Titled: ”Guv Love or How to be a Hero in Zero,” the soon-to-be-published book is full of creative ways to deal with such problems as what to do when there aren’t enough blankets to go around. A great many of Palin’s solutions were gained through personal experiences, according to word around Anchorage. Brisk sales are predicted for such countries as Finland, Greenland and Iceland in addition to Alaska. A Russian language version is anticipated although distribution will be limited to Eastern Siberia and such communities as Bymyakan and Dweieyecmibunsov near Murmansk. Both have registered temperatures approaching -90 degrees.

Palin’s people are working out details that would make possible the inclusion of a CD of Best Cold Weather Songs including Alice Ghostley’s New Faces of 1952 paean to “Fairbanks, Alaska” and whose lyrics bring heartfelt understanding to those who live there. It’s difficult to forget the last lines of the song: You’ll wake and you’ll discover, a polar bear’s your lover….in Fairbanks, Alaska

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Eternal Skybox By Bob Sanders

Die-hard Chicago Cubs fans, hoping for their first World Series title in 100 years, now know they can at least be buried in a Wrigley Field look-alike when they do.

“Beyond the Vines,” an internment location at Bohemian National Cemetery on the Windy City’s Northwest Side, will provide “eternal skyboxes,” otherwise called urns for those who have moved on from the deliriousness of Cubs mania. 

A key factor in the bereavement process, announced at the recent ground breaking ceremony, will be an ivy-covered memorial wall--some 14 feet high and 35 feet long. Featured will be a stained glass window created to remind observers of Wrigley’s green scoreboard. Prices range from $5,000 for the home run burial with single, double and triple options costing less. Thus far, the subject of concession stands has not been introduced. All this should attract the attention of filmmaker Oliver Stone who has made much  out of less. 

Word of the Wrigley miniature brings to mind one of Hollywood’s largely forgotten films giving one the kind of pause suggesting that, perhaps, memories of “The Loved One” entered into the creation of “Beyond the Vines.” 

“The Loved One,” produced in 1965, is largely a send-up of the funeral business and, as it was promoted, offers something to offend everyone. The film succeeds in no small measure thanks to writers Terry Southern (“Dr. Strangelove”) and Christopher Isherwood whose inspired lunacy was based upon Evelyn Waugh’s novel. Directed by Tony Richardson, “The Loved One” explores bizarre marketing aspects of the funeral business with a remarkable cast including Liberace as a creepy casket salesman, Rod Steiger as cosmetician “Mr. Joyboy” and Jonathan Winters in twin roles.  Winters plays the Blessed Reverend Wilbur Glenworthy of Whispering Glades and his brother, Harry Glenworthy of Happier Hunting Grounds Pet Cemetery. 

There are secondary targets in “The Loved One” including the Los Angeles British movie colony’s John Gielgud, wickedly sardonic as Robert Morse’s uncle, providing biting insight. Robert Morley is corrosively condescending as the colony’s leader and it is by way of Gielgud’s suicide that we learn of the offensive practitioners of the death trade.  

Whispering Glades is a take-off on Forest Lawn, a Southern California institution where countless film celebrities are buried. It is owned by the Blessed Reverend who has better plans for his real estate: an old-folks home with a dependable turnover. He also schemes to free up his land by sending Loved Ones into space for eternal orbiting, a subject whose obvious progression is thankfully interred as plot development.

Commercial sham and vulgarity are the coinage of the Blessed Reverend’s realm with its denizens offering Gladespeak--cleverly disguised jargon uttered in false reverential fashion by mortuary minions including sleek women called “comforters” who minister to the “waiting ones.” One of the comforters provides love interest of a sort beyond the film’s title.   Anjanette Comer, as Aimee Thanatogenos, is decidedly dippy and falls in love with poet Morse (Dennis Barlow) who gives every indication he would be deeply challenged by the slightest suggestion of sexual aggressiveness on Comer’s part.

Steiger, superb as “Joyboy,” the chief embalmer whose epicene flutter is beyond hideous, has a mother (played by Ayllene Gibbons) with an eating disorder. I will not attempt to describe what she does to the contents of a refrigerator.

“The Loved One” came out of Waugh’s disappointing experiences in Hollywood where he had been summoned to do a film treatment of his best-selling “Brideshead Revisited.”  People who should have known better finally realized the book is about Catholicism (“Oh, I thought YOU read it”) and Waugh was sent packing but not before compiling material for “The Loved One.”

It’s quite likely inspiration for the film was the result not only of “The Loved One” but, also, two non-fiction books about the mortuary business: Jessica Mitford’s “American Way of Death” and “High Cost of Dying” by Ruth Mulvey Harmer. Both were published two years before Richardson’s film was released to very mixed reviews. 

With Hollywood now cranking out re-make films seemingly eye blinks apart, “The Loved One” in new drag should offer compelling opportunities 43 years later by way of Chicago cemetery real estate providing fan fulfillment “Beyond the Vines.” It’s also a perfect title for a film about a family torn asunder by split loyalty to Chicago major league baseball teams, the Cubs and White Sox , who battle for World Series inclusion. A Cubs fan, one of two brothers, dies as a result of being hit by a game winning home run ball while sitting in Wrigley’s left field bleachers. This, as Alfred Hitchcock would point out, is the McGuffin of the piece. The faux Wrigley Field burial ground, to the redo what Whispering Glades is to “The Loved One,” is owned by Stetson Frickert; we’ll bring back Jonathan Winters to play not only Stetson but Earl Avarice, Cubs owner. The film, as with the original, will give us two penetrating looks at society: the baseball business and its new-found cousin: eternal peace for die-hard Cubs fans. And, yes, Woody Allen should play Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig.

As a-former Wrigley Bleacher Bum with sufficient awareness of mortal coil departures, I feel eminently qualified to write “Beyond the Vines.”  However, I’ll not reveal any more of my plot for obvious reasons.

Ready when you are, Mr. Stone.

Haldeman & Ziegler & La La Land By Bob Sanders

Chronologically speaking, my Bob Haldeman and Ron Ziegler experiences were at the end of my 13 years with TV Guide so I’ll relate my Los Angeles highlights in that order. For those of insufficient recall, Haldeman and Ziegler were two of the major players in Watergate. We’ll get to them at the end of this communiqué and no fair peeking. 

Joe Finnigan became a pal and confidant in 1966 when I was transferred to head up the office located in Hollywood near Sunset and Doheny. He was a good guy and fair-handed reporter without being a patsy in a town where patsies are revered.

Having first written about Tinseltown for United Press where Vernon Scott was a peer, Finnigan had moved to the Guide where he did feature articles and helped fill the yellow pages of the National Feature Section. Lest your fingers do some erroneous walking, the yellow pages referenced carried the latest about shows in the planning stage, star tidbits and network maneuverings.

Whether or not Joe was assigned to take me under a protective wing I know not. He did take me along on some assignments and we managed some carousing, much of it business-connected. One evening we hooked up with actor Robert Wagner in a bar near Universal Studios. Talk led to Natalie Wood and R.J. said he felt her mother was the cause of their divorce four years earlier. 

The Academy Awards rolled around and Finnigan and I, dressed in tuxedos, wandered across a Santa Monica parking lot en route to the festivities. As we ambled toward the Santa Monica Auditorium, a teen-ager approached me with a very direct question: “Are you anyone?” “No,” I answered, “but my friend is.” Joe worked the gig while I did a reasonable impression of a gawker. Properly credentialed, I was admitted to a basement area where photographs of winners would be taken prior to TV, radio and print interviews.

It was somewhat surreal watching the Oscars awarded on TV, then seeing the winners moments later as they moved from photo opportunities in one area to interviews in the media cavern. To get from photos to interviews, the stars climbed three steps to a small platform, then down three. 

I have a vivid memory of that evening when Julie Christy won an Oscar for Best Leading Actress in Darling. Presented her award by Julie Andrews who had won the honor the prior year for Mary Poppins, the two finished with photo ops and headed for the stairs where I stood. Andrews was arguably the biggest star in the business then and her ebullience suggested she was delighted with Christy’s good fortune—she being a fellow Brit, don’t you know? Climbing the stairs, they poised on the platform just before Christy was enveloped by the media mob. I noticed Andrews’ bemused smile.

“How quickly they forget,” was my observation to her as she descended in regal manner. She laughed, then stopped and we chatted a few moments. I couldn’t help but think what a fragile thing success is in such a tough business. 

Getting bored with my TV Guide job and a curriculum vitae heavy on party going, I began looking for other work. It was through KNBC-TV manager Jimmy Parks that I met a couple of guys who were all but on their way to Washington and key White House jobs. They were H.R. “Bob” Haldeman, eventually sent to prison for participating in the Watergate cover-up, and Ron Ziegler. The latter, as press secretary, would offer a dogged defense of a presidency struggling for survival. When I met them they were employed by advertising agency giant J. Walter Thompson. Haldeman, vice –president in charge of the L.A. office, and protégé Ziegler were looking for someone to replace Ziegler as Disneyland account executive.

After 15 rather chilly minutes with Haldeman, I was passed along to Ziegler with whom I discussed at some length the games of his profession: advertising, promotion and marketing. The next day I got a call from Parks asking how things went. I replied in the affirmative although Ziegler and Haldeman seemed to me “distracted.” “Don’t you know about them,” asked Parks who went on to explain to this political ignoramus that they were Richard Nixon’s people and would go to Washington with him when he won the next year’s election. Parks suggested it was all but set in stone and, indeed, it was.

I didn’t get the job I was interviewed for in 1967 although Ziegler spoke with me at length a second time. I was a finalist—probably competing with two other applicants. While I rarely play the What If game, I have wondered about the large number of Southern Californians who were drafted into the Nixon Administration on the basis of fraternity palships at USC and business connections. Some of those people went to prison.

As Nixon’s miscast press secretary, Ziegler had impossibly bad media experience as in none. The President’s damning tapes make it clear communications with the young man were quite limited. Those tapes reveal both Nixon’s press paranoia and a reluctance to keep Ziegler fully informed. In terms of similarity of style, George W. Bush did the same thing with some of his press secretaries—most notably Scott McClellan who eventually returned the favor by writing a book, What Happened-- both damning and self-serving.

Perhaps Ziegler’s most embarrassing moment came in 1973 at a veterans’ convention in New Orleans when Nixon, irate about press pursuit, was caught on camera shoving and spinning the beleaguered press secretary.

Ziegler’s death in 2003 received a lot of press attention. Of the many obituaries I read, only the New York Times made reference to the White House spokesman having coined the term “photo opportunity” to describe a news event staged to create favorable images. At 29 the youngest ever White House press secretary, Ziegler also added to our language by calling the Watergate break-in a “third-rate burglary” and described Nixon’s denying White House involvement as “inoperative.”

It was shortly after the Haldeman/Ziegler interviews that I got a call from Playboy and soon I was on my way to Chicago and 23 terrific years.

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Air Travel by Bob Sanders

I must confess to more than my normal confusion when it comes to this Nation’s airlines. Not only am I perplexed but think what it must be like in the airline industry when one of its members is sued for serving peanuts while another absorbs a wealth of bad public relations when a mother and daughter are kicked off a flight because a flight attendant becomes convinced the child is squirming, a situation to be revisited in this tale. Then, there is the bizarre case of a three-hour flight on a toilet seat inflicted upon a passenger because it was the only seat available.

While these are increasingly challenging times, it seems as though the airlines more than most industries offer a greater contrast to the way things were. My confusion becomes even more pronounced when the words of philosopher George Santayana are recalled: “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Few have accused Santayana of being a dummy.

I’m not sure I even knew of Santayana in the days when air travel was so different than today. One of the joys of flying when we were, roughly, half-way through the past century, was the relationship between customers and the many air lines whose ticket agents worked in concert. The air travel industry’s role then in routing passengers was as a highly professional cohesive group rather than self-involved component parts. If a passenger, for example, had to get from St. Louis to Birmingham, then a second airline was brought into play for the Atlanta to  Birmingham phase. The customer was always right (having been declared so by Merchandise Mart Hall of Famer John Wannamaker)  and when was the last time you heard that line of warmth and intelligence?

Proof of the contrasts of my then and now airlines attitude occurred in 1957 while employed by TV Guide in Rochester, N.Y. I had to make station calls in Plattsburgh and Burlington, Vermont and the only way by air was Mohawk Airlines to Albany where a New York Eastern flight to Montreal stopped before landing in Plattsburgh.

Arriving in Albany via Mohawk with a roaring headache, I learned aspirin were not sold at the airport, then about the current size of Bellingham International, a rather fanciful name arrived at because of 10-minute flights into Canada. Four years a ‘hamster  as we laughingly call ourselves, I remain baffled that the Empire State back then had a postage stamp-sized airport with an unfathomable aspirin attitude. Fortunately, a woman passenger sympathized with my headache and offered one of Bayer’s best.

The woman had three very attractive and well-behaved kids in tow—all under kindergarten age. Also on their way to Plattsburgh, we shared the disappointment that came with the cancellation of the flight from New York. Today, that would have been that—passengers told to fend for themselves. Suddenly, an Eastern employee materialized and began herding us into an airline limousine that would take us to Plattsburgh. Not to worry.

The Plattsburgh trip was something like 150 miles and I recall my rather intense appreciation of the limo’s luxurious interior whose approximation I would not encounter for another 11 years—not until my employment by Playboy Enterprises and the decidedly euphoric use of Hugh Hefner’s limousines. The mother had her hands full with the kids and I thought I’d be a nice guy and pay some attention to one youngster thus lessening the woman’s burden. I began bouncing the boy on a knee—not a wise decision.

Halfway to Plattsburgh, the youngster I was entertaining decided to throw up on me, an act that created an embarrassing check-in at the Witherill Hotel, a charmer of some 20 rooms and the kind of place Rodgers & Hart had in mind when they wrote “There’s a Small Hotel.” The night manager sized up my plight: The suit I was wearing being a one and only for the two-day trip. Further, this was a Sunday evening. “I think we can take care of that,” said the manager with a difficult-to-believe take-charge manner.

Sure enough, the suit had somehow been dry-cleaned overnight enabling me to make possible the Plattsburgh call plus Burlington, an uncommonly attractive community across gorgeous Lake Champlain.

When I returned to Rochester, my unpacking produced the only coat hanger I ever took from a hotel. Property of The Witherill Hotel, the hanger hung for a long time in closets of a number of homes I either rented or owned. The sight of that hanger always reminded me of a mannerly time most young people today would regard as antic or without understanding.

If Santayana is right about the consequences of not learning from history, it appears the airlines haven’t learned a hell of a lot from their experiences. Or, maybe they have. To introduce further honesty into these more than 50-year-old memories, Eastern and Mohawk Airlines flew off into the sunset (the later becoming part of Allegheny Airlines eventually evolving into US Air and US Airways) and the Witherill’s lights were turned off a long time ago. Maybe customers’ rights, those limo rides and weekend dry cleaning put the companies at risk.

I like to think otherwise.

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Ronald Reagan on the Road By Bob Sanders

That anguished hand-wringing by the conservative media over John McCain’s decision to rebrand himself by adopting Theodore Roosevelt’s spirit of reform was somewhat stunning. The suggestion that a Republican running for the White House without either Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan as a role model was enough to be met by chilling reaction including that of  Joshua Hawley of National Review Online.

Proffering that conservatives believe TR was a big government “closet socialist,” Hawley cranked things up a bit by suggesting that the Rough Rider was no Reagan. Indeed, he’s not.

I met Reagan in the fall of 1961 in Kansas City while employed by TV Guide. My office was located at the corner of 10^th & Grand, close to the Hotel Muehlebach, scene of so many large luncheons and dinners. Few K.C. hotels were capable of handling such events then and the Muehlebach won business pretty much by default. During his Presidency and afterwards, Harry Truman maintained an office there. Reagan would return to the hotel 15 years later to pitch for delegates at the Republication National Convention at which Gerald Ford was nominated.

The year I met Reagan had been one of triumph and change for him. President of the Screen Actors Guild, the actor had worked out a strike settlement in the face of charges that his connection with the General Electric Theatre (he both hosted the Sunday night show and was 25 percent owner of it) put him more on the side of management. In spite of the charges, he received a standing ovation at a mass meeting that produced a landslide approval. That November, just after I met him, he was re-elected to his sixth term as SAG president. A liberal from the time he became old enough to vote, Reagan was turning toward conservatism largely because he reviled Communism. His marriage to actress Nancy Davis eight years before also was a factor.

Earlier that year, my magazine had run a cover of Reagan and we received a number of 18”x12” blowups for distribution to stations carrying the General Electric Theatre. The photos usually wound up on lobby and corridor walls. I kept one for myself knowing that my mother-in-law, Allie Weiler, was an ardent Reagan fan. Armed with the blow-up, I approached the dais where Reagan had spoken impressively at a meeting of the Kansas City Advertising Club.

“What’s your mother-in-law’s name?” he asked. “Allie,” I replied. “How do you spell that?” I told him. He then wrote a glowing paragraph to Allie—something like 50 or 60 words—making reference to what a “wonderful” son-in-law she had acquired. It was charmingly effusive and his words and photo quickly became a prized possession of my wife’s mother who provided a place of honor in the vestibule of her Bristol, Virginia home. “Are you expected somewhere right now?” asked the future U.S. President. I told him I didn’t have to be back in the office for a while and he invited me to his room for a drink.

When we got there, he ordered a couple of scotch and waters (I learned later a screwdriver was his favorite drink) from room service and we began talking. Based in the Quad Cities for 18 months during the recent past, I commented about WOC, a Davenport radio station where I knew Reagan had worked early in his career. I had pushed the right button.

WOC was an unusual station and may still be. With call letters standing for Wonders of Chiropractic, WOC was founded by Bartlett Joshua Palmer, the son of Daniel David Palmer. The senior Palmer, a Canadian, had originated Palmer Chiropractic College in Davenport spreading the gospel through teaching and practice. His work was carried on and extended by his son, usually referred to as B.J. I recalled that a huge picture of Palmer graced a wall of the station’s lobby and that the picture looked not unlike Andy Gump, a chinless bombastic blowhard comic strip character (1917-1959). Reagan laughed heartily and suggested I had a pretty good eye.

As we continued our talk, he commented about Walter Annenberg, the owner of TV Guide and a major philanthropist-to-be. “Apparently Walter has spent much of his life hounded by the thought of his father’s time in prison. I think it’s a shame. I think his dad got a bum rap,” said Reagan. Triangle Publications Publisher Moses L. Annenberg, who founded most of what his son inherited with the exception of TV Guide, spent 18 months in Lewisburg Prison for tax evasion and was released a few weeks before his death in 1942

During our two-hour conversation accompanied by more scotch and water, I sensed his longing for those early days in radio when he learned his craft, first at WOC, then at sister station WHO in Des Moines. We know so much about Ronald Reagan and, yet, there is so much we don’t know. Perhaps he was always an incurable romantic who spent the second half of his life reserving everything beyond his beguiling personality for Nancy and Nancy alone. When I mentioned how radio had been a defining part of my youth and how I used to sneak a radio into bed with me to hear such shows as “Inner Sanctum,” and “The Hermit’s Cave” complete with characters my imagination had defined so clearly, Reagan went into high gear. An enthusiastic collector of popular culture trivia with an emphasis upon the entertainment industry—and a baseball nut to boot—I was an excellent audience for him.

Reagan’s memory was remarkable. I got the feeling he could pluck any given day out of the past and provide the nuances of those experiences that had contributed so much to who he was and, in retrospect, where he was going. Politics did not come up in our conversation with a single exception. That was the role Franklin Delano Roosevelt had played in Walter Annenberg’s version of his father’s prison sentence; it centered on retaliation for contributions to the Republican Party. Everything else concentrated on sports and TV with oblique references to the film industry where age had moved Reagan, then 49, from leading man to G.E. television spokesman.

I was particularly curious about Reagan, the sports announcer who used to recreate Chicago Cubs games. Having acquired the name “Dutch” Reagan after moving to WHO, he was assigned to announce Cubs and White Sox games. The home plate umpire’s balls and strikes decisions were sent by wire and Reagan ad-libbed everything else including fan reaction, the weather and game interruptions when the wire service momentarily broke down. In the words of biographer Ed Morris, “he could out-talk Bugs Bunny.”

Sensing he wanted to reminisce about his old announcing days, I questioned him regarding recreations of Cubs games. His eyes twinkled and he began a game description of a contest that had occurred in 1934. It was WHO Sports Director “Dutch” Reagan at his mellifluous best on a 50,000 watt clear channel that reached Mexico and islands in the Pacific. Not until he was President would he command such an audience at one time. It was Cubs coverage that took him to the West Coast the next year to the team’s spring training camp at Catalina Island and discovery by Warner Bros.

My memory of a long ago conversation with the most totally charming person I’ve ever met is vivid. His enthusiasms, his interest in me and his great good humor are the sorts of things one never forgets. I can still hear him doing that Cubs game complete with references to Chuck Klein, Stan Hack and manager Charlie Grimm. As time warps go, it’s hard to beat.

Also, I can’t help but wonder about Ronald Reagan’s death by Alzheimer’s Disease. Is it possible he was done in by all that information he acquired and maintained over his first 83 years? Perhaps a mind can only hold so much until it goes on overload.

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Fireworks By Bob Sanders

Did anyone else have queasily mixed emotions while watching Fourth of July fireworks displays? 

At the risk of being called un-American during these times when 10 percent of our public believes Barack Obama to be a Muslim, a lapel flag is often considered to be just this side of a Purple Heart while the far right rejects suggestions that the invasion of Iraq really was about oil, I wish to quarrel with fireworks. Would someone please pass the Pepto-Bismol.   

Yes, fireworks—that red, white and blue opportunity for grown men to prove to their kids that they, too, can be kids and blow tin cans at least 10 feet in the air. In my youth in Lakewood, Ohio, one of the neighborhood kids blew one at least 15 feet. Unfortunately, one of Bobby Hall’s fingers went with it--a development that chilled at least six of us. I think the destructive agent in use was called a super cherry bomb.  

Fireworks in the world is not a mom and pop operation. The Chinese provide 98 percent of America’s overall pyrotechnic needs and 80 percent required for displays. The American Pyrotechnics Association indicates it represents a $930 million industry here and who would wish to quarrel with such an august body, lobbying efforts and all. This figure may be modest considering the American propensity for guns, noises including bad music for our tin ears, and Sylvester Stallone movies. Our national attention span being what it is, logic suggests that Americans have an infinite capacity to absorb brief noises, then move on to even higher decibel counts. Just keep it jack-hammer simple. The hearing aid industry revels in all this and I guess that’s where the Chinese come in. 

As with other emerging nations, China has been having some production problems. It’s not easy furnishing the world with booms and skyward flourishes; those production problems include rising labor costs and soaring prices for raw materials. There is evidence a shortage of fireworks exists. Welcome, China, to the real world. 

For those of you out there whose internet order never arrived, please bear with the Chinese who recently lost $25-30 million in fireworks orders. At least that’s what they admit to losing but this is a world where truth is all too often a sometimes thing. Our world, which used to be much more orderly, is beginning to resemble the plot of a Marx Bros. movie with Groucho something of a stretch playing a guy in Liuyang whose fireworks factory is overwhelmingly confused and beginning to look like Detroit on a bad day. Liuyang is the fireworks capital of the nation and Groucho’s factory, one of 900 there devoted to fury and beauty, has been experiencing multitudinous explosions. Groucho longs for the good old days in Liuyang where the manufacture of chopsticks was so very, very quiet. 

With the world’s eyes this summer on the Olympics in Beijing, some athletes will be competing while wearing masks in attempts to handle what promises to make Los Angeles smog idyllic by comparison. Meanwhile, the Chinese government has banned fireworks shipments from Sanshui, a port that handles 20 percent of China’s fireworks exports. I guess word of the Liuyang explosions reached Sanshui. How Groucho could possibly handle these plot delineations is anyone’s guess, but he can always sing “Hail, Fredonia.” 

Whether you find yourself talking with someone recently returned from China or somewhere else in this rapidly shrinking world, the message is that the United States has reached its lowest level ever in terms of regard by other nations.  We had the world in our hip pocket shortly after 9/ll and our impressive capital (now, there’s a word in George Bush’s vocabulary) was quickly squandered.  

If after eight years this country is finally going to talk with other nations, even those bad and questionable, perhaps it would be wise to prove that we are better than we appear to be. Maybe it’s time that we simply called a halt to the fireworks and give the money to good causes like cancer research, Africa or the penguins of Antarctica. In a strange pragmatic way, it really doesn’t matter and Groucho needs your support. He’d much rather manufacture chopsticks. 

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