“Where have they gone”? If a film editor named Alfred Hitchcock out of London’s West End, could build an international reputatioon with “The Lady Vanishes” then when we in the prime of life, printing presses of the Hollywood Citizen News, could we ask The Daily Bruin’s UCLA’s Ralph Jackson, the Public Relations scribe and night editor “Where is your mother Deanna Durbin hiding, Ralph?”
II
In that whirlpool of alliances, marriages, divorces, adoptions, the leading lady in question is Deana Durbin. Ralph’s father, the director Felix Jackson, had split from Ralph’s mother, the MCA agent Phyllis Jackson, for the charming musical wisp……Deanna Durbin.
But how could this be? Wasn’t she the same age as Ralph? How could contemporary currencies recognize such entanglements.The new mother being the same age of the father’s
son, from his first wedlock?
III
Talented as she was Deanna Durbin, hitting those high C’s,amidst Felix Jackson anointing her into a musical Greta Garbo(“I vat to be alone”) how could she maintain her pitch? …an Aussie streaming Joan Sutherland, discovered in London’s opera venue on the South Side.
Her cosmic consciousness of lung power, attracting conductors like “Stokie” (Fantasia), Sir Thomas Beecham, Andre Kostalonza,Leonard Bernstein, Hollywood Bowl’s Leonard Slatkin’s father, Zubin Mehta.
IV
In this mist, Deanna Durbin’s step son Ralph Jackson invited yours truly, a fledgling football& tennis scrub, to his parent’s lofty penthouse in the hills, above the UCLA campus. Here in this highly aired ambiance, the celebrity of Felix Jackson, his new bride Deanna Durban, sought out their “son” Ralph’s contemporaries on the Daily Bruin: . the night printing editor at the Hollywood Citizen News.
Bill Stout, (skin color editorial, CBS radio correspondent,), Yosal Rogat (the Mayor), Dwain Esper (into being editor of the Van Nuys Green Sheet, Bob Lupo (Detroit Free Press, card player, deli man at Zucky’s in Santa Monica, Lazar related to Bogy’s agent, Chuck Panama, Ann Hebert, Al Franken, Bob Segal, Eric Julber turned legal eagle, Vanessa Brown (Chicago’s “Quiz kids”) Bob Azar, Julie Becker, Ann Stern, Frank Mankewicz, Peace Corps, Senator Bobby Kennedy’s secretary….. Al Sliver, bookie Post & Paddock race horse touts and football point spread, Hollywood Park, Santa Anita racetracks, Coliseum sports enthusiasts, cartoonists ,reviving legends like track star and L.A. Mayor, Tom Bradley, Jackie Robinson, breaking the color line in baseball, Kenny Washington, Bob Waterfield, Ralph Bunche, Nobel Peace Laureate, Woody Strode, Tom Fears, Burr Baldwin, MooseMyers, Jerry Shipley, ROTC Colonel Skip Rowland, Coach BurtLaBruchere, (1946 Rose Bowl contender v. Illinois) Bob Waterfield, backfield coach, husband of actress Jane Russell (“The Outlaw”)
Al Kapp, cross country track snd mile relay, Johnny Patee miler,Craig Dixon, 110 220 yard hurdler on Ducky Drake’s team…Ducky as trainer, Betsy Drake’s father: Betsy, Cary Grant’s third wife.
Basketball coach Wilber Johns, his initials trumping immortal John Wooden.
AF ROTC Colonel Bing, Bill Ackerman, graduate manager and tennis coach. Professors Charles Titus of Politics, “Sociological Foundations of Education”, Professor Frederick Woellner,(“Heaven is on the way to it”) a Hilgard Avenue, neighbor of producer Sam Goldwyn, his abode on Sunset Boulevard, off the campus.. Doctor Franklin B. Murphy in his role as Chancellor,creating the guest house, from his office in the Administration ,opposite the Law School.
Professor Sam Selden, Chairman of Theater Arts, who offered to read and produce “Mozart and Mushroom Barley” in his department…James Dean, getting the Department’s award. …Professor of Constitutional Law Aarvo Van Alstyne, sending us to his roommate at Yale Law School, Dean Lou Pollock.Students Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, “weapons of mass destruction” President Bush…Anna Freud, the Herr DoctorSigmund ’s daughter on a stipend,her office above Dean Pollocks’...
But nowhere to be found was Ralph’s new surrogates? Where were they hiding? At Bruin Bench’s Sports Editor Herb, sitting at the basketball time keeper’s table? (Ed Pauley Pavilion).
V
Publications advisor Harry Morris of Riverside, guiding advising on the issues…Southern Campus yearbook, Daily Bruin bylines (Midwood High’s Argus, Stan Lomax of WOR, without the byline).
Here in this scramble of greasepaint and printer’s smudge, could a freshman out of Midwood High School, scraping by onBernie Sanders sandwiches from Brooklyn, find himself?
A caravan of highly sounding greasepaint ambition…Gloria Jean, Bobby Breen, Dennis Day…..on the make.
ABC news at Sunset & Vine, basking in optimism..”Lissen kid, could you scribble a thinking man’s estimate post WW2, in adamong the City of Angels? We’ll air it!”
VI
But like in Alec Guiness’s “Lavender Hill Mob”, the Daily Bruin wetting and experience was a smokescreen for the aspirations of personas, asserting their Gene Autry, Shirley Temple assent to the penthouse of Ralph’s newly parentalalliance.
Felix Jackson and his daughter wife…Deanna Durbin.
VII
Moving forward sixty some years into cyber space, Bernie Sanders out of Brooklyn and Brattleboro, Vermont ,as a SocialistMayor, Senator , grasping for the Presidency of the United States, along with Hilary Clinton, herself a former Senator from the Big Apple, and erstwhile Secretary of State, Eugene O’Niel, the playwright, and father in law to Charlie Chaplin, his daughter Oona, Charlie’s daughter bride, opened on Broadway…his one actor “Hughie”.
VIII”.
Could this be? A topsy turvy merry go round…..a quest for the gold ring? A free ride?
Indeed!
February 12,2016 The City that never sleeps.
