Remembering the ‘Rat Pack’……Frank, Dino, Sammy Davis, Jr. Peter Lawford, (JFK’s brother in law)
Joey Bishop into Dino’s grief, sitting in the lobby of the Bel Air Hotel, off Stone Canyon Road, on hearing his son crashed his AF F16 into a San Jacinto Mountain in the Mojave Desertambiance. ……Lake Arrowhead, Big Bear the Creative Arts school, above the desert and March AF Base..
San Bernardino innards into Palm Desert, 29 Palms, the Pinto Mountain, Joshua Tree. Rancho de Mirage.
That San Jacinto Mountain range… Victorville, Palm Springs,Riverside, Dusty Acres ….
II
The Brooklyn College alumni listing 29 Palms Esther Herbert 3000 miles away from Nostrand and Flat -bush Avenue junction….. hacking out those phone calls into Esther Herbert 29 Palms abode, the telephone electric lines and water pipesbeing laid, giving Jimmy Cagney’s museum a semblance of Prospect Park’s Parade Grounds where Lefty Sandy Koufax discovered his star power for striking out enemy batters in the National League, the Dodgers vacating Bedford Avenue’s Ebbets Field for Chavez Ravine and the City of Angels.
III
Dean Martin staring straight ahead. Breaking up Ernie Glucksman Colgate Comedy Hour, his alter ego the demoniacJerry Lewis, living out his tumultuous life in Las Vegas.
Was Dean Martin swept away by the trauma of losing his beloved son…not having Ernie Glucksman as a surrogate father, observing the loss of himself. His loving son, who transcended the image, the Sunset Strip ‘Dino’!
IV
How could the father’s grief be mitigated? Could Mr. Glucksman hold his discovery in his arms, bemoaning his Philadelphia night club revelation….’Martin and Lewis’ a revolutionary comedy team’.
The absurdity of those laurels, Ernie Glucksman, raising the stakes to the television pioneers of the Colgate Comedy Hour…the slam dunk… the “Martin & Lewis” from downtown.(beyond the 3 point line)
Milton Berle’s Texaco Hour, Fred Allen’s Allen Alley Ed Sullivan ..Sam Levinson, Jimmy Durante’s “Good night, Calabas”.
V
So Dean Martin into his crushing trauma. .. into his solitary confinement, staring bleakly ahead into Stone Canyon RoadUCLA’s Chancellor Dykstra’s 9lenny Dykstra kin) office, a student gardener across from the hotel and Judy Garland’s marriage with Sid Luft, a WW2 AF veteran, managing her ”Over the Rainbow” engagements.
Robert Riskin and Fay Wray (“King Kong’s” lady) pink stucco mansion off to the golf course, below President Ronald Reagan’s Bellagio Road retreat (the Travis’s, son Roy, UCLA opera composer .)
VI
Groping with his faith in being alive, living the best of dreams,being discovered by Ernie Glucksman.
Having Jerry Lewis as his sidekick A grown man crying in the Bel Air Hotel lobby, thousands of stars
away from his first taste of press agency notoriety, since exitingfrom his mother’s womb.
February 7, 2016, The Bel-Air Hotel lobby revisited.
.
