Hello Darlin' (18 page)

We checked into the Diamond S, the grand old hotel with onion-domed towers and a ballroom
at the foothills of the Elkhorn Mountains. We were given a tour of the Western-style
building from Jim Sandal, the hotels manager, who’d previously headed the local school
and hospital for the developmentally disabled, which was nearby.

As he showed us around, our conversation was drowned out by a thunderous noise outside
the hotel that was so loud everything shook. We ran to the front porch and saw six
army helicopters land on the front lawn. Then about thirty uniformed soldiers walked
through the lobby and into the restaurant. They were from a National Guard unit celebrating
the end of their yearly training.

Lunch was exceptional, especially the service. Every time I took a sip of water, the
busboy literally ran over to refill my glass. It was like that at every table. The
waiters and busboys took orders, brought food, refilled drinks, and cleared dishes
with unusual dispatch. They fixed their eyes on each table, intensely studying every
single movement
waiting to do their job. There were about fifteen waiters and busboys, and something
about them was different.

“What’s with the waiters?” I asked Jim.

“They’re from the school,” he explained. “I get the ones I’ve known for a long time,
train ’em, and they’re real good workers. They stay here for five days, then go back
for two days.”

“They get the weekend off?”

“No, it might be the middle of the week. Might be the weekend. It doesn’t matter to
them.”

Jim was proud of his staff. They did their jobs well and he gave them the best life
possible. They were mostly in their thirties and forties, and Jim was like a father
to them.

We enjoyed the baths. We soaked several times a day for the five days we were there.
The indoor and outdoor pools were filled with natural mineral water coming out of
the ground at a constant 104 degrees. A hundred years earlier, Indian tribes that
were often at one another’s throats observed a truce on these sacred grounds, which
they called Peace Valley. The pools were therapeutic, and so was the conversation
with the people we met in the pools.

Every afternoon I wandered into The Owl Bar for a toddy and a poker game with some
of the locals. We also visited nearby radon mines, deep, dark caverns known as “healthy
mines.” Years later it was discovered that radon is a deadly gas; in fact, now we
test our home for it. But then people with terrible arthritis and rheumatism would
sit in those mines for hours, swearing the cool radioactive air gave them relief.

Getting to see the country on trips like this gave my family a broader and open-minded
view of America and the different ways people live. And Boulder, which couldn’t have
been friendlier, would play an oddly significant role in my life years later.

T
here was always a fascination with how we managed the special effects on
Jeannie.
Television was very low-tech in those days. Whenever Jeannie used her special powers
to pop something new into the scene, we would shoot up to a certain point, the director
would yell, “Freeze,” and we would literally hold that position until the camera was
cut a few moments later. Then they’d make whatever change was necessary and we’d resume
shooting.

One time Barbara and I were doing a scene in which Jeannie popped in on an elephant.
After the director told us to freeze, they brought in a live elephant, except they
brought him in backward, so his ass was to the camera. We couldn’t turn him around.
He wouldn’t budge. The director said, “We’ll just have to live with it, let’s resume.”
After he rolled camera, I first showed my astonishment and then resumed my conversation
with Jeannie. As I protested the elephant being there—he was right next to me—he lifted
his tail and broke wind, literally all over me. Perhaps that’s what the elephant thought
of my acting.

Somehow we managed to hold ourselves together and continue on
till the end of the scene. Once the director called “Cut,” I burst into laughter
and quickly rushed offstage to shower and change my clothes. It was probably the most
mortifying moment of my career. But there were plenty of great moments, too, especially
working with guest stars like Sammy Davis Jr., Don Rickles, and Chuck Yeager, who’d
broken the sound barrier. We had fun.

In the midst of all this, Maj and I managed to save up the incredible sum of $15,000.
We lived frugally. Hell, we didn’t have time to do anything lavish, I worked so often.
One day my accountant suggested I should think about buying a house. He also suggested
we look in Beverly Hills. But Maj’s dream had been to live in Malibu, so we looked
there and found a big, pink, asbestos-sided house we liked on the beach in the Colony.
It cost $115,000, and we put down $15,000—the largest expenditure we’d ever made.

Maj was thrilled.

I didn’t know what to think.

“Woman, you’re going to ruin me,” I said before going to bed for the next three days,
feeling like I’d never get out from underneath the $100,000 mortgage.

Maj oversaw the move to Malibu. After I managed to get out of bed, I joined Maj and
the kids in our new home. We had our first candlelight dinner, on the floor—a bucket
of Kentucky Fried Chicken on paper plates. We rebuilt that home twice over thirty
years, but Malibu felt like home from that first day we moved in.

A few weeks later, Carroll and Nancy O’Connor came to visit with their little son,
Hugh. Carroll and I were sitting on the bulkhead, watching our two boys play on the
sand. Hugh and Preston were about six years old, separated in age by three days. They
played with their Tonka trucks. I’d just remarked how we were so fortunate to live
in such a safe community when Carroll and I stared in horror as a single-engine, open-cockpit,
pre-World War II plane made an emergency landing on the beach, missing our children
by not more than five feet. It came so close the boys were sprayed with wet sand from
the wheels.

The two of us ran down the beach and saw the plane buried nose-first in the sand.
The pilot was climbing out of the open cockpit, uninjured. As soon as he saw us, he
began yelling that he could’ve made a perfect landing if he hadn’t had to pull up
and bounce over “the two little bastards playing in the sand.” I had to physically
restrain Carroll from attacking the guy and beating him into a bloody pulp.

Malibu was the perfect place for us. By now we’d enjoyed thermal springs all over
the world and Maj had promised to copy that soothing environment when we settled down.
For Christmas, Maj designed and supervised the building of a large hot tub. It was
one of the only, maybe even the first, of its kind. In researching it, she spoke with
one of the Jacuzzi brothers, manufacturers of the original water pump, and discovered
that he’d invented a head that mixed water and air to help alleviate the suffering
of his own paraplegic son. She used those special heads in our tub, putting them at
varying heights so they’d massage different parts of the body—neck, elbow, back, leg.
She also made it deep in parts, so we could stand and get a full-body massage. We
could also lie down in it. We became the most popular house on the beach because of
it, and within a few years she’d built six for friends who lived in Malibu. They marveled
at her creativity and would ask how she came up with her ideas. They came naturally.
Her father had been an inventor. And just as naturally those hot tubs helped to define
life in Malibu.

Our house was located at the end of the street. For a few years, Maj held sway over
the Colony’s egg-dyeing event the day before Easter. All the children in the Colony
brought their eggs to our house. One year Jennifer Grant came walking in with her
father, Cary, in tow. He was carrying a carton of eggs, ready to be dyed. He looked
at Maj, offered his eggs, and asked, “Should I have boiled them?”

My wife, a lifelong fan of Cary Grant, said, “For you, Cary, I’ll boil them.” She
would’ve boiled a hundred dozen if he’d asked.

We took our civic duties seriously. I judged the annual chili cook-off, led impromptu
flag-waving parades up and down the beach while
dressed in a flowing caftan, and shopped at the grocery store in a yellow chicken
suit. My behavior earned me the nickname the Mad Monk of Malibu.

Living up to it came naturally. I remember when President Nixon froze workers’ wages
but not income from investments in the stock market. I was outraged by what struck
me as a fine on the working class. I thought labor should’ve protested. They didn’t,
but I couldn’t ignore it. On Labor Day, my family and friends and I built a giant
ten-foot-tall chicken out of chicken wire and yellow tissue paper and then paraded
it up and down the beach in protest of Nixon’s policy, but mostly because of the chickenheartedness
of the labor unions. As it happened, a
New York Times
reporter was in one of the homes on the beach and reported the story, which got national
play but not a word from labor.

Then I also had my silent Sundays when I didn’t utter a single word. These silent
Sundays actually started on a Friday after I’d spent two straight days taping rodeo
scenes for an episode of
Jeannie
titled “Ride ’Em Astronaut.” When I woke up Saturday morning I couldn’t utter a sound.
My doctor said I’d strained my voice and advised me not to talk until Monday.

Since I didn’t have to work until Wednesday, I spent four whole days without speaking
and I rather enjoyed it. On the next Sunday, I decided not to speak again. By Monday,
I felt rested and refreshed. Not everyone liked it, though. My daughter, Heidi, then
twelve, left me a note that I found when I went to work.

“Daddy, as you know, I love you very much. But yesterday you were a big shit.”

Maybe so, but I continued not talking on Sundays for twenty-five years, and all of
us learned to adapt. A mystique developed around my silence. People thought it was
a religious or mystical thing. I never explained because the truth was not as interesting
as the myth. It allowed me to have some fun, too. At one fund-raiser for the summer
lifeguards, I posted a sign on the outside of my van that said “Hagmananda
Listens.” For five cents a minute people could come inside and talk to me about anything
for exactly five minutes.

They found me dressed in colorful robes and surrounded by flowers, candles, and incense.
Before anyone said a word, I handed them a card, warning that I would not speak, or
give them absolution or advice. All I promised to do was listen. I also promised not
to divulge anything they told me. And boy, did they tell me. Often I got more than
I bargained for.

One man came in with his son and asked if he really could tell me
anything.
I nodded. He introduced his boy, who was twelve, then explained that he was married
and that he loved his wife very much. But one day he and his son returned a day early
from a camping trip and found his wife in bed with his best friend.

As soon as he got those words out, he burst into tears. His son sobbed just as hard.
It was very emotional and difficult for me not to comfort them. Then my little egg
timer went off, signifying their five minutes were up. When he asked if he could buy
another five minutes, I vigorously shook my head no and they left.

I was wondering how I was going to recover from that ordeal when the guy stuck his
head back in and thanked me. He said he’d never told anyone about that and just talking
about it made him feel better. He said he still loved his wife and was going to make
it work. It turned out to be one of the nicest moments.

*   *   *

By
Jeannie’s
fourth season, the show’s ratings had dropped and there was talk about cancellation.
I didn’t want to see it end. I liked the show. But either way it didn’t seem like
I’d be out of work. The studio wanted to sign me to a deal that would keep me in their
future projects. While
Jeannie
might have been struggling, they still saw me as a draw. Jackie Cooper, the production
chief at Screen Gems, called me in for a meeting. As a child, Jackie had been in the
Little Rascals and starred with Wallace Beery in
The Champ,
one of the most moving
films I’d ever seen. He’d also starred in his own successful series, called
Hennesey.
I liked him very much, but most important, I trusted him.

He wanted to make a deal that would keep me with the studio. He said it could be lucrative.

“Just give me better scripts for
Jeannie,”
I said.

Jackie took a deep breath.

“Larry, I can’t give you better scripts. It’s the nature of the game that if you find
the right formula you stick with it.”

“Its not working, though. Better writers could help.”

“Look, kid, I’ve been there. I know what you’re talking about and I sympathize with
you. I can’t give you any better scripts. I would if I could. The show will likely
be dropped from next season. All I can give you right now is more money.”

I finally saw the light.

“Okay, Jackie, that’s a good idea,” I said resignedly.

Jackie said for me to talk with Chuck Fries, the studio’s chief financial officer,
and ask for $5,000 a week. It was a large sum for those days, but he assured me I’d
get it. Before I left his office, he had me write two words on the palm of my left
hand: SHUT UP. Whatever happened, he implored, I was to let Chuck do the talking,
and if I felt like saying anything, especially something that would piss off the man
who controlled the studio’s purse strings, I was to look down at my hand and do what
it said.

So I went in and talked to Chuck, who initially offered me a five-hundred-dollar-a-week
raise, not anywhere close to what Jackie had told me to ask for, and I wanted to tell
him that he was full of shit. But I opened my hand, looked at those two words, SHUT
UP, and I did just that. As much as it killed me, I didn’t say a word. A few weeks
later, though, I got the raise just as Jackie had promised, plus a $100,000 bonus,
which at that time was a serious bit of dough. Best of all,
Jeannie
was unexpectedly picked up for a fifth season.