Full Service (34 page)

Days later I was working at an afternoon cocktail party at a fashionable Beverly Hills women’s social event. Most of the ladies present had blue-dyed hair, were wealthy, bedecked in pearls, and in their late sixties to eighties. One of them told me that she knew Tony Richardson and his ex-wife, Vanessa Redgrave. As we chatted I mentioned Linda Lovelace’s lecture at Tony’s place. Well, it didn’t take long for the news to spread around the room. As I was leaving one of the more elderly of the women came up to me and pulled an address book from her purse.

“Do you think you could write down Miss Lovelace’s telephone number for me?” she enquired very demurely, with just a trace of embarrassment.

“Sure,” I said as I dug into my pocket for one of my little black books. Rummaging through it I found Linda’s number and scribbled it into the woman’s address book. She thanked me, placed the book back in her purse, and left to find her chauffeur-driven car. Two weeks later Linda called to tell me that she had just been paid a very attractive fee to give a demonstration of oral-sex and hand-job techniques to a large group of wealthy, dainty old ladies in Beverly Hills. Just goes to show. When it comes to sex, it is never
ever
too late.

K
ew Drive is located on a precipice high in the Hollywood Hills. It is about 2,000 feet above Sunset Boulevard and commands an unsurpassed sweeping view of the entire Los Angeles basin. To the east you look over the downtown area with its cluster of soaring skyscrapers, ribbons of freeways, and glittering nightscape. To the west lies Santa Monica and the shimmering Pacific Ocean. In between those two extremes stretches Hollywood, Century City, and most of Beverly Hills. Beyond all that sprawls an endless carpet of cities and suburbs, including Long Beach, Orange County, and Anaheim. The view is unique, probably the best in all of L.A.

I knew the place well because an old friend of mine, choreographer Jack Cole, lived on Kew Drive. Jack’s major claim to fame was that he was the one who taught Marilyn Monroe how to dance in the 1953 movie
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,
in which she hoofed it opposite the great Jane Russell. Jack had an impressive résumé. Among his other credits are
The Jolson Story, David and Bathsheba, River of No Return, There’s No Business Like Show Business, Kismet, Les Girls,
and
Some Like It Hot
. Getting up to Kew Drive was not for the faint of heart. You had to negotiate a maze of narrow twisting roads, barely wide enough to accommodate one car. Meeting an oncoming vehicle was a major challenge and could take up to ten minutes to resolve. But frankly, the difficulty in getting there and the isolation of the place were part of its charm for me. My favorite property on the road was number 2114, owned by another friend of mine, Dale Orr.

Dale bought the property just before World War II, probably around 1936 or 1937. Dale was gay and had been an army pilot during World War I. Whenever I went up to see him or to take a young trick up there to spend the night with him I always cast envious glances at his charming and cozy two-bedroom house, its garden, guest cottage, and two small empty plots, one on either side of the property. I coveted the place more than anything else in the world. I began going to see Dale often, just so that I could be on that plot of land. As Dale aged he decided to move to something a little more accessible. He set his heart on a small lot behind a grove of avocado trees down the coast near the U.S. Marine Corps base of Camp Pendleton, just outside the town of Fallbrook. When I heard about his plans I went up to see him straight away. I was determined to buy that fantastic Kew Drive property from him.

“No problem, baby,” he said. “I’ll sell you the house for $9,000, plus the two empty lots next door for $3,000. Twelve grand for the lot. It’s a steal. Whaddya say?”

I looked at Dale and thought about it, but felt despondent. I just didn’t have the cash. Nor did I have adequate assets, collateral, or income to approach a bank for a loan. It was a great price, a near giveaway, but I couldn’t cut it. When I told this to Dale he sat me down, looked me straight in the eye, and said, “No problem, buddy boy. I understand. Give me a thousand now and then a hundred bucks a month.”

However, even at those ridiculously low prices, I still couldn’t quite manage it and had to walk away from the deal. I was brokenhearted, but what could I do?

As it turned out, Dale never did move out of the house. Then, in 1952, he passed away, and in his will left the property to a mutual friend of ours by the name of Jack Gard. Jack lived in it for a couple of years, then rented it out, and in the early seventies he decided to sell it. By then the asking price had gone up to $60,000. And that’s when another good friend of mine, the actor, Beech Dickerson, came into the picture.

Beech had been in
The Dunwich Horror
and a bunch of Roger Corman cult classics, such as
Attack of the Crab Monsters, War of the Satellites,
and
Creature from the Haunted Sea
. In the course of his career he had invested wisely and had made a lot of money. He already owned a dozen or so houses in the area, which he rented out. When he heard that Jack was selling his prime real estate on Kew Drive, plus the two adjoining plots and the little guesthouse below the main property, he immediately snapped it up. He and I had known one another for many years, and I had done the odd handyman job for him so he hired me to do general maintenance on most of his properties, including this latest acquisition on Kew Drive. Whenever there was a faucet leak or a broken hinge or an electrical circuit that needed attention I was called in to take care of it. Beech himself moved into the Kew Drive house and subsequently developed both adjoining properties. I sometimes used his guesthouse, located just below the 2114 lot. When I wasn’t in it I would help find him short-term tenants for it. I was so grateful to be able to spend time on that property. It was like living out my fantasy. Eventually I landscaped the garden for Beech and personally dug a hole and installed a tiled swimming pool for him there. It was situated in front of the living room, off of which I added a small terrace with tables, chairs, and a barbecue. This made it possible for folks to swim or sunbathe and enjoy a unique view overlooking all of L.A. below. It really was stunning. We had many skinny-dipping parties and evening get-togethers there.

In 1977 one of the short-term tenants who rented Beech’s little guesthouse off and on was the Spanish-born cinematographer, Néstor Almendros. He was in L.A. for a month from New York. Néstor and I had known each other for a couple of years; he was a quiet, unassuming man who moved from Spain to Cuba at the age of eighteen to be with his father, who had been exiled because of his anti-Franco political activities. Néstor had discovered his love of cinema in Havana. He founded a film society there and began to write film reviews. Further studies in film took him to Italy, and then, on his return to Cuba, he began to make short, experimental films. He was noticed by the critics in New York and so he went to the Big Apple to make a couple of acclaimed shorts. In 1959 his life changed dramatically. The Cuban Revolution took place. Fidel Castro came to power and Néstor returned to Cuba. Two of the films he made there were banned by the new Communist regime so he moved to France, where he soon began shooting films for major French directors such as François Truffaut. Néstor rapidly gained a reputation as a master of motion picture lighting. He didn’t use light to illuminate his subjects, he painted with it. He liked subtle light sources such as candles, oil lamps, the rays of a weak late-afternoon sun, diffused shafts of light as they shone through lace curtains, dark skies, twilight, the delicate play of light as it reflected off surface textures. His images were masterful, every frame of every film a true work of art. It wasn’t long before Hollywood noticed him, even though Néstor much preferred living and working in New York.

In 1978 director Terrence Malick hired Néstor to shoot his epic romantic drama,
Days of Heaven,
starring Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, and Sam Shepard. Néstor spent a lot of time in L.A., especially during the preproduction and postproduction processes. He shot camera tests, checked out color filters, oversaw the laboratory work as the film was processed, and supervised the color timing and printing of the film. Néstor was gay and, even though he was a fairly shy and private person, there were times when I would arrange tricks for him with other guys or even trick him myself.

In March 1979 an extraordinary thing happened. To Néstor’s absolute shock, when the fifty-first annual Academy Awards nominations were announced, his name was on the list for Best Cinematography for
Days of Heaven
. Néstor could not believe it. What’s more, he was in the running against four of the giants in the world of cinematography, Oswald Morris for
The Wiz,
Robert Surtees for
Same Time, Next Year,
Vilmos Zsigmond for
The Deer Hunter,
and William Fraker for
Heaven Can Wait
. Every one of them had either previously been nominated or had won an Oscar, whereas Néstor was the new guy on the block. He didn’t think he stood a chance of winning.

The awards ceremony was scheduled to take place April 9, that year. If memory serves me correctly, I was puttering around Beech’s garden that day while Beech sat on a deck chair reading the morning newspaper. At around noon Néstor came sauntering up from the guest cottage below, dressed in shorts, a T-shirt, and flip-flops. He greeted us and then lay back on one of the chaise lounges on the lawn at the side of the pool. Nominees, presenters, and guests at the Oscars were required to arrive at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in downtown L.A. by around four that afternoon. The pomp and circumstance of the so-called “red carpet” arrival was scheduled to take place at five o’clock and the actual awards ceremony at six. The timing was crucial, as it was going to be televised live, starting at five o’clock local time and at eight o’clock on the East Coast. Yet, here we were, all three of us hanging around the garden as if we didn’t have a care or a concern in the world. Time was ticking relentlessly into the afternoon hour yet Néstor was behaving as though he didn’t intend to budge. I noticed that he hadn’t even shaved yet.

“Aren’t you going down to the Dorothy Chandler for the awards tonight, Néstor?” I asked.

“You crazy?” he replied. “You know I can’t beat any of those other four guys.”

Beech and I immediately ganged up on him, scolding him for not wanting to go. Then Néstor came up with the lame excuse of not having anything decent to wear. Beech and I looked at each other in disbelief. Here was this guy who had come all the way from Spain, Cuba, and Paris, made it big, and then become internationally recognized for his first major Hollywood feature film. How could he
not
go to the Academy Awards? He had been nominated for the highest goddamn award that the world’s film industry could bestow on anyone. He
had
to go.

“C’mon, Nessie,” I yelled. “Inside.
Now!
”

Suddenly Beech and I were in sync. We managed to drag him inside, pulled off his shorts and T-shirt, bundled him into the shower, and got him cleaned up. As Beech rubbed him down with a towel I ran a razor over his beard stubble. Beech rummaged through his wardrobe and found him a dark suit and a nicely pressed white shirt. We forced him into the clothes, then found an appropriate tie and some black socks. We shoved his feet into the socks and a pair of shoes, combed his hair, and looked at him.

“You’ll do,” said Beech. “Scotty, start the car.”

Before I dashed outside I realized that they would never let Néstor into the auditorium without a ticket. I shook him, demanding to know where it was. He said he thought he had left it in the glove compartment of his rental car.

I dashed out to his rented car, rummaged through a pile of old papers in the glove compartment, and, miracle of miracles, there it was. I dashed back into the house, grabbed him, and, with Beech’s help, shoved him into my own car. With the engine spluttering we pulled off, kicking up a cloud of dust as Beech stared after us, his hands on his hips.

How we made it down Kew Drive to Outlook Mountain Drive and then onto Laurel Canyon Boulevard heading south without careening over the edge of the cliffside or slamming into any other traffic I have no idea. We screeched onto Hollywood Boulevard and gunned it towards the 101 Freeway, often tearing through traffic lights split seconds before they turned red. Thank heavens the cops weren’t around. Most of them must have been downtown at the Music Center directing a steady flow of stretch limousines to and from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. As we swerved onto the 101, exceeding the speed limit by at least twenty-five miles an hour, I yelled to Néstor to think of something to say in case he won. Clutching the dashboard as though he were on a rollercoaster hell-bent on his way to certain destruction he merely whispered, “I won’t.”

“Won’t
what
?” I yelled back at him.

“Win,” he squeaked.

I left it at that and concentrated on my wild ride downtown. By the time we pulled up outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion the crowds had thinned. The press corps had left and taken their places inside the auditorium. The hundreds of fans who had stood outside were drifting away. The ushers were closing the main doors. On one of the monitors in the courtyard I caught sight of the master of ceremonies, Johnny Carson, beginning his opening gambit to the awards proceedings. Shit! Were we too late? I flew out of the car, yanked Néstor out of the passenger seat, bulldozed him toward the entrance, shoved his invitation into his hand, yanked open one of the doors that an usher was trying to close, and pushed Néstor into the foyer.