Call Me Lumpy: My Leave It to Beaver Days and Other Wild Hollywood Life (28 page)

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Authors: Frank Bank,Gibu Twyman

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BOOK: Call Me Lumpy: My Leave It to Beaver Days and Other Wild Hollywood Life
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Page 139
A shutdown.
Goldurn it.
In our grief, we barely were able to absorb the rest of the news. Our commanding officer would make sure that if any of us wanted to get into another unit, he would do it. If not, he would just automatically put our name down in a control group. An inactive control group.
It was with a heavy heart and hangdog look that we approached our commanding officer and mentioned that we were, unfortunately, ill-trained for the other tank units where the other guys were going. Us just having arrived and all. Barely knowing which way you turn the turret and key stuff like that.
"Well, to be real honest with you boys, we feel you would be much better off in the control group. If the Army needs you, they could call you up," the officer in charge said.
"Well," we said, damn the luck. "We feel pretty bad about it. But can we please get a copy of this order. Like now?"
We were in a control group 60 days later. Then we petitioned to Washington for an honorary discharge from the United States Army. We'd already served our active-duty portion, we pointed out. And there was no reason why we should stay in the control group and waste all the taxpayers' money and all the paperwork.
We knew they were cutting back. As patriots, it was the least we could do to step aside.
Three weeks later, I received an honorary discharge from the United States Army.
Four months later, Vietnam broke out.
I got out at the end of '62. It was right before the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Once again, the Bank timing is better than Greenwich Mean.
Once again, I am the luckiest man alive.
But I can honestly say I miss the military days. My experience in the United States Army was second to none. I loved every minute of it.
And no onenot Beetle or Bilko or Mile MinderbenderI am proud, to say, can claim he was less of a soldier than I.
I'm sure The Duke would agree.
 
Page 140
Chapter Seven
Bux-Up Bank
We were finishing a pilot for a new sitcom, "Life With Archie."
I was supposed to play the lead, Archie Andrews.
You know, the guy from the "Archie" comics.
This was after "Leave It to Beaver" had just finished its first run.
This was 1963.
"Archie" seemed like it might be a pretty cool thing to do.
I was 21.
I'd play the title role, instead of second banana.
I'd be a real star.
Keep the career on a nice, steady climb.
After six years and dozens and dozens of parts in show business, this was a chance to become more of a headliner.
Barbara Parkins from "Peyton Place" was going to be Veronica.
Would you play kissy-face with Barbara?
I know I would.
Cheryl Holdridge, the cute, sweet girl who used to play Mary Ellen Rogers on "Beaver," the one who was married to playboy race car driver Lance Reventlow, was going to be Betty.
I could see laying some serious Archiekins on her.
Jimmy Hawkins was supposed to be Jughead.
Paul Ford, the guy who played Col. Hall on "Bilko," was going to be Mr. Weatherbee.
Great cast.
Great people to work with.
All systems seemed go.
Then we shot the pilot. We were over at some screening room. We were talking about it.
The sponsor was going to be the American Tobacco Company.
And I heard a representative of the American Tobacco Company talking
 
Page 141
to a representative of the American Broadcasting Company.
They're talking about me on the screen.
And the tobacco guys says this:
"You know, that's not Archie Andrews.
"That's Lumpy Rutherford."
I did not say another word.
To anyone.
I turned on my heels. I walked out the door.
Next morning, I called my agent.
I said, "I'm going back to finish college now.
"I'm going to get on with my life.
"Good luck to you."
That's how I walked away from show business,
I could see that I was always going to be typecast.
I could see I was never going to truly be considered a leading man.
I could see that show business was going to be a never-ending process of trying to convince someone you were good-looking enough, or big enough, or small enough, or average enough or freakish enough or ordinary enough.
It was never about your basic ability as a professionial actor.
I could see that I was going to continue on a treadmill whose speed was always set on: "No. 2." Or "No. 3." Or ''No. 4."
It was not going to be about my reaching No. 1.
I could see you were going to be able to pick up my resume years down the road and on page one would be "played Lumpy" and on page 2 would be "was Lumpy" and on page 213 would still be "the Lumpy guy."
As much as I loved the experience and thrill and honor of being a part of one of the greatest pieces of American entertainment ever"Beaver"I couldn't see playing Lumpy . . . and only Lumpy . . . the rest of my days.
I decided to go back to one of my first loves in life, something at which I felt I could be my true self and excel, something at which I could be No. 1.
The world of finance.
I decided I was going to seek fame and fortune as a wizard of economics.
And I did.
I rose to the top of one of the most successful financial groups in Southern California, opened my own brokerage firm and became truly successful.
I did not become wealthy from the reel world of showbiz, but the real world of business.
Yep, me. Dumpy Lumpy, Dumb as an Ox.
I made it on my gray matter. My smarts. My brainpower. And my other qualities as a person.
I made it as Frank Bank, just-another-guy, not Frank Bank, the broken-
 
Page 142
down ex-actor.
I started from scratch and made a bundle.
I'm very proud of that.
As proud as anything I ever did in the entertainment industry.
But it wasn't without its fits and starts. And no one's beginnings could have been more humble than my own.
But I knew I would make it. I knew I would be successful.
Finance was right up my alley.
It was mathematics. It was people. It was personality. It was guts. It was about learning. It was about diligence and persistence and helping others while you were helping yourself.
Even when I was fairly young, the whole idea of finance fascinated me.
I'd be on the set, between takes, when I was 15, 16, 17 years old. A lot of actors were busy reading the Hollywood Reporter or Variety
I was reading The Wall Street Journal.
I liked reading about the stock market. Keeping track of the market fascinated me.
I'd read the Journal because I thought it was cool to be able to know about, say, Univac. How Univac was going to change our lives.
I thought that was ultra-cool stuff to know.
So I went and enrolled that fall in UCLA
Back in that time, the most popular thing in collegeat least until the hippie culture started to discredit themwas law or medicine.
All my friendsthey had to be doctors or lawyers.
I almost fell into that trap. But as I saw my sophomore year at UCLA unfold, I realized I didn't want to be one of them. I mean, I loved the Knights. I wanted to become one of them and I did. I'll never forget them. A lot them became attorneys and doctors and are outstanding people.
But as far as the people I was seeing in my classes at UCLA, who were headed for law school or medical school, I didn't want to go out with these guys socially.
I thought they were a bunch of self-centered jerks.
Why would I want to become one of them?
So I set about to get my degree in business.
I never made it.
Fate had other things in store for me.
Fate and one Leonard Bank.
It turns out that Dad, God bless him, had been working too hard in the meat business.
He suffered a heart attack my junior year.
I don't know how much you know about guilt, or Jewish guilt for that matter.
 
Page 143
But Jewish guilt is exponential guiltguilt to the two millionth power. It is guilt through the ozone layer and the stratosphere, straight into outer space.
Jewish guilt is where the Mars probe is out there looking at red rocks and red dust.
You can clearly see Jewish guilt orbiting the universe from the Hubble telescope.
And so there was no question what was going to happen once Leonard-the-Sport had his heart attack.
My mom called me up and said six words:
"Your dad had a heart attack."
She didn't need to say anything else.
There was no other discussion or discourse required. No family summit about what would happen next or what my plans might be.
We all knew Dad suffering a heart attack meant one thing for his youngest son.
Frank Bank. Meet the meat business.
It was kind of sad, strictly from a selfish point of view. I was having the time of my life in college. I was on the Dean's list. I mean, actually . . . college was pretty easy.
I had 89 1/2 units at UCLA. I had put in three years.
That was all I was to get.
I left my beloved life as a Baby Bruin and was delivering baby-backs before you knew it.
And it went well, if I do say so myself.
I enjoyed the meat business, to tell the truth.
We were boppin' along, building it up pretty good, my brother, Doug, and Sylvia and I, while my dad was recovering.
Throughout the rest of the '60s, from '64 on, I was in the family business. And the meat business actually could have been really fantastic.
We could have made more money than you could shake a steak at.
Except for one thing.
My idiot brother botched it all up.
I had a big fracas with my brother over the direction we were taking.
I could have had all the hotdogs and hamburgers at the L.A. Coliseum for an account.
I could have had the Weight Watchers frozen dinners for an account.
But my brother and my dad wouldn't go out and modernize our business and borrow money to expand it.
They said, "We don't want to do that. We don't want to screw up a good thing."
That's how my brother and I got to tearing up this restaurant.

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