Full Service (30 page)

On Monday morning I bid everyone good-bye and drove off toward the main road north to Los Angeles. In my rearview mirror I watched Hoover, Fred, and the tall, lanky young guy waving good-bye to me. Though Fred and I remained friends for years, I never saw J. Edgar Hoover again.

A
nother fascinating person I met in the sixties was a guy by the name of Sascha Brastoff. When we were first introduced he was probably in his midforties. He had originally come out to Hollywood from the East Coast. Not long after his arrival Darryl Zanuck signed him to a seven-year contract as a costume designer at Twentieth Century Fox. Sascha was an ambitious, highly energetic, and talented individual. He had an eclectic background as a ballet dancer in Cleveland, Ohio, a window dresser for Macy’s department store in New York, and a very gifted ceramicist. In his spare time Sascha was often throwing clay, firing up kilns, and designing plates, pots, ashtrays, vases, platters, jars, and other ceramic ware. The hobby rapidly became a passion and soon movie stars and studio executives were enthusiastically buying up his beautifully crafted wares. As a result, two years after starting work on the sprawling Twentieth Century Fox lot in Beverly Hills he wangled his way out of his contract with the studio and set up shop as an independent ceramics artist.

Millionaire industrialist Winthrop Rockefeller discovered Sascha’s work, took an interest in it, fell head over heels in love with Sascha, and joined his fledgling enterprise as a financial backer. With that kind of support Sascha moved into larger premises, surrounded himself with a large staff, and was soon regarded as one of the top ceramic artists in the country. Each piece that came out of his workshops carried his name and signature, commanded a very high market price, and became a valuable collector’s item. He threw a party at his premises whenever he launched a new product line and it was something of an honor to be on his guest list. Apart from his beloved ceramics, Sascha revered two other things above all else: he enjoyed dressing up as a drag queen and he relished giving blow jobs to his many boyfriends. With his witty sense of humor he was the life of any party as he whirled and twirled around the room bedecked in exotic gowns, high-heeled shoes, and Carmen Miranda–style fruity headgear. Dressed in drag Sascha frequently went to parties where there were a lot of straight young single men. He would go around and grab each one of them individually, take them into a closet, a bedroom, a storeroom, a restroom, or anywhere suitable, and suck them off. Nobody ever cottoned on to the fact that the shapely, leggy, big-bosomed bombshell with the velvet tongue and soft, silky lips was a man and not a woman. When Sascha was in drag he looked, walked, talked, and behaved exactly like a woman. You simply could not tell that he was a man. He was so good at cock sucking that every straight guy he ever serviced swore that it was a woman who had just given him a blow job. He was gentle, he took his time, and, with his artificial long fingernails there was no way you could guess that he was a man in drag.

One Saturday night Sascha was invited to a big fund-raising party for the Santa Monica Police Department. It was a gala black tie affair. The event was sponsored by the mayor’s office of the City of Santa Monica. The venue was a large hall on the second floor above a swanky store at the corner of Broadway and Fourth Street. I had been invited to the function and turned up at the appointed hour with my date, a pretty hooker friend by the name of Betsy. An hour later I noticed that Sascha had still not arrived and I began to wonder whether he was going to make it to the party.

Just after nine o’clock—fashionably late—a big black limousine pulled up downstairs and out stepped a dazzling woman, swathed in furs, feathers, and pearls. Oddly enough she was unaccompanied and so she was escorted upstairs to the party by two security guards and a bouncer. As she floated into the main room everybody stared at her. She was bewitchingly beautiful and she moved so sexily that every red-blooded male in the room could not take his eyes off her. Half a dozen men, a mix of young and middle-aged, broke away from little groups around the room and surrounded her like vultures descending upon a kill. Each of them nervously shuffled around her, vying for the honor of fetching her a drink or offering her a cigarette or accompanying her onto the dance floor. One of them finally edged out the others and the lady threw back her head, pursed her lips, accepted his hand, and they casually minced their way toward the hors d’oeuvres table on the far side of the room. As they glided past Betsy and me the gorgeous damsel turned and winked. Oh, my God! Why hadn’t I realized it earlier? Despite the heavy makeup, lipstick, eyeliner, and unbelievably long, artificial, felinelike lashes it was unmistakable. I knew that wink anywhere. The “lady” was none other than Sascha Brastoff, playing the part better than I had ever seen him do it before. He and his chaperone sailed past us and disappeared into the throngs of people.

About a half hour later the guest of honor for the evening arrived. It was the Santa Monica chief of police and his wife. As soon as they entered the room they began to mingle among the crowd. The cop’s wife was known to be a bit of a boozer and she headed straight for the bar. Half an hour later she was well oiled and giggling away amid a crowd of her usual friends. Betsy and I helped ourselves to some food and maneuvered our way through the room. It was getting hot and stuffy inside. We reached a French-style glass doorway that opened onto a narrow balcony and stepped outside into the cool, fresh air. I leaned over the side and then looked across to the next balcony. At first I wasn’t sure what I was seeing but as my eyes adjusted to the shadows and the ambient splash of neon light from the building across the street I could clearly make out the form of the chief of police leaning with his back against the railing of the balcony. His legs were spread apart, his head was turned skyward, and he was moaning in agonized ecstasy. Kneeling in front of him with his faced buried in his crotch was Sascha. I could clearly see the wig on Sascha’s head bob up and down as he sucked on the big, burly cop. Clearly, the Santa Monica police chief had no idea whatsoever that this ravishing woman with the deft fingers, ruby red lips, and magical tongue was a man. If he did, I shudder to think what would have happened. He probably would have hurled Sascha over the balcony and then tossed the splattered leftovers into the Pacific. Fortunately, by the time the little balcony escapade had played itself out the cop’s wife was far too loaded to notice the dazzled look of satisfaction on her husband’s face as he happily stumbled back into the room, fumbling with his fly.

A
BRITISH GUY
in his late twenties by the name of Brian Epstein came into my life during the early sixties. He came from a wealthy Liverpool family and made a few trips across the pond to Los Angeles. Brian was gay, although he did his best to conceal the fact from his rather conservative Jewish family. Before his first visit to California a friend suggested that he contact me when he arrived in town so that I could set up a trick for him. He was a pleasant enough, unassuming sort of guy and, as things turned out, I tricked him myself. We became good friends. Brian was dark-haired, good-looking, and slightly stocky. He had a very pleasant disposition, was fairly quiet, and had a good ear for music. He started out as a salesman in a music store that was owned by his father in Liverpool. Keen to become acquainted with new bands, he visited clubs, bars, and dives around the city, writing about them in the local
Mersey Beat
magazine. It was then that he first came across the name of a little known rock group called the Beatles.

Brian loved their music. Ironically, he seemed to be the only one who did. Most of the critics and experts in Liverpool dismissed the “Fab Four” as “just another band.” But Brian was persistent. After attending many of their performances he signed a contract with the lads in early 1962, becoming their manager. He inspired them, coaxed them, pushed them, and encouraged them to write more songs. He made them change their image. He was responsible for their first recording session in London, and their first commercially released LPs. The rest, as they say, is history.

In 1964 Brian arranged the Beatles’ first visit to America. On February 9 of that year they appeared on the
The Ed Sullivan Show
. The night they appeared on TV, seventy-three million people in nearly twenty-four million households watched them, at that time the largest audience in American television history. “Beatlemania” began sweeping the world. Groupies—swarms of young girls who religiously followed the group, trying whatever means they could to get into bed with them—began harassing and prowling around after the foursome. By August of 1964 Brian had arranged a multicity North American tour for the group. On August 23, the boys arrived in Los Angeles from Vancouver. The moment their aircraft touched down Brian called me.

“We’re in deep trouble, Scotty,” he wailed. “We’re due to stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel and the groupies have already found out about it. They’ve completely encircled the place. I can’t risk putting the boys up there. They’ve got to get some rest and peace and quiet. They’ve got a performance tonight. Is there anywhere you know where we could put them up where they’ll be safe?”

Brian was clearly desperate. I had to think fast.

I wracked my brain and thought of my old pal, Charles Cooper, a very wealthy and successful couturier, whose clothes were very much in vogue on both coasts. Charley had a home in Manhattan and a luxurious one here in L.A., on Curson Terrace up above Sunset Boulevard, not too far away from the Chateau Marmont Hotel. The house commanded a stunning view of the city, and had an ambling secluded garden and a large pool. It was gated, surrounded by high walls, and perched on a steep parcel of land that made it virtually impenetrable. Anyone trying to access the house from the side or back would need mountaineering gear to scale the cliff side hill and reach the tall fence. I immediately called Charles in New York.

“You coming back into town soon, Charley?” I asked.

“No, Scotty,” he replied. “I’m out east for at least another month. Why? Need anything?”

“As a matter of fact I do,” I said.

“What?” he said. “I’ll do whatever I can to help, you know that.”

I told him that I needed his house for the Beatles and their manager. At first he didn’t believe me but finally he bought my story and said that it would be his pleasure to accommodate the boys. Not only that, but by midafternoon a constant stream of delivery vehicles arrived bearing flowers, fresh fruit, champagne, and mountains of food.

I took a cab to the Beverly Hills Hotel to meet Brian. I knew he had a limo for the boys, plus a minibus for their luggage, gear, and musical instruments. I planned to ride to Charley’s N. Curson Avenue property with them. Although I had some trouble getting through security and fighting my way through an army of young girls intent on breaking into the hotel I eventually got to the suite where Brian was staying. He was more than relieved to see me and immediately took me over to another suite where the boys were holed up, patiently waiting to be moved to their new digs. I didn’t know what to expect as the security guard let us in. I was half expecting to see four stoned young men surrounded by clouds of pot smoke. Instead, I found the four of them just sitting around trying to stave off boredom. They were the sweetest, nicest young men I had met in a long time. Spiriting them out via a back entrance, we bundled them into the limo and drove them to Charley’s house, the minibus following close behind us. By late afternoon they were happily splashing in the pool. The next morning the private security company I hired to keep an eye on things told me that at least a dozen young women, using flashlights in the dead of night, had actually managed to scale the cliff and reach the perimeter fence around the house. Fortunately, they were all apprehended before they could enter the house itself. If I had my way, I would happily have let them in. Why shouldn’t those four talented young men have had some fun? Don’t you agree?

B
Y THE MIDSIXTIES
I had become very good friends with one of the most charismatic and feisty ladies in town, the singer and actress Carol Channing. I had first met Carol at a private dinner party and subsequently worked for her, too. She was a bombshell of a woman and her personality was dynamite. She was a devout member of the Christian Science movement and was committed to living a healthy lifestyle. Whenever she was invited to a cocktail party or a dinner she always brought her own bottled water with her. Many of her friends and associates found the habit funny, as this was long before bottled water became as trendy and as widely used as it is today. She would arrive at a function with her distilled water in special glass containers that had been designed for storing blood plasma. They were completely airtight. Carol was terrified of viruses, bacteria, and germs. When she was seated at a dinner table she would ask me to bring over one of the containers that she had brought with her and that I had earlier stowed in the refrigerator. Heaven forbid if I or anyone else dared try to open it for her. She also brought her own food to parties and wouldn’t touch anything else.

I met Carol while she was still married to her second husband, Alexander Carson, with whom she had a son named Channing. She absolutely adored and worshipped that boy. In the early fifties I introduced her to a producer and publicist friend of mine, a guy by the name of Charles Lowe. Charley was the original producer of the long-running TV comedy series
The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show
. I remember his offices, which were in the old Carnation Building on Wilshire Boulevard. Charley was gay and I often fixed up tricks for him. He was an efficient and respected professional, much admired by everyone in the business. One day, at a friend of mine’s party at the Chateau Marmont, I suggested to Charley that he manage Carol because she really needed someone reliable, responsible, and honest to take care of her business affairs and to book gigs for her. I thought Charley was the ideal person to represent her. Further coaxing got Charley and Carol together, and within a short while she appointed him as her business manager and publicist. I was thrilled. They saw a lot of each other, often dining out and frequenting popular nightspots and supper clubs together. But Carol had lots on her mind. She had recently separated from her husband, Alexander Carson, and began to worry about losing custody of her son Channing. One evening after she bared her soul to me I pondered how I might be able to help her. I got an idea. I called my old friend Frank McNamee, a judge in Nevada. At the time he was the second highest judge in the state. I explained Carol’s problems to him. Frank was immediately sympathetic and asked me to get Carol to contact him. I did so and within days Carol was on her way to Nevada to meet with Frank. He turned out to be an absolute angel. He put her up for three days in the guest suite of his apartment in Las Vegas and gave her advice. Later on he helped her out further by signing an affidavit stating that Carol had spent thirty days staying with him in his home. In Nevada that was usually construed as being evidence that two people were having a relationship, and, according to state law, it entitled Carol to a divorce from Carlson. It also gave her custody of her son.