Pardon My Hearse: A Colorful Portrait of Where the Funeral and Entertainment Industries Met in Hollywood (18 page)

While Kathy was pregnant with our first child, we bought our first home, which was in the Hollywood Hills. One of the most interesting things about living in Nichols Canyon was its history. This newly developed area, which had been used as a Boy Scout ranch for years, soon became almost as famous as Laurel Canyon because of the many movie stars who moved into homes there. They included Morgan Fairchild, Doc Severinsen, director William Friedkin, and Jaclyn Smith and her actor husband, Dennis Cole.

On May 12, 1966, Kathy gave birth to Michael, whom we called by his Russian nickname, Mischa. I still remember my twenty-one hours in the waiting room at Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital in Inglewood, because that’s where I had my first ulcer attack. When my brother and mom showed up at the hospital, my stomach was hurting so bad I could barely sit up. A combination of worrying and no food for almost twenty-four hours had really done me in, so they talked me into going to the hospital cafeteria. John also gave me a pain pill he had left over from a recent root canal, but a painful dental procedure would have been preferable to this waiting. Kathy’s stay at Daniel Freeman did have its upside. Her second-floor window had a panoramic view of Inglewood Park Cemetery, so I felt right at home.

I took a two-week vacation to be with Kathy and help out with our new baby, but we were both quite anxious with this new addition to the family. I’m not sure how most parents react to having their first child, but after running a twenty-four-hour-a-day business for years, I thought this was going to be a piece of cake. Wrong! By the end of the two weeks we couldn’t believe that one little baby could cause such chaos in our lives.

After that vacation, Kathy resumed her job with the United States Air Force, and Mischa was taken to Kathy’s mother daily. Vera’s apartment was on my way to work, so it was convenient for me to drop him off and
pick him up. Meanwhile, my mom lived on the next block from us and would babysit him when we went to a movie. One evening we returned to find that Mischa had given her a bad time. She immediately asked us what a “slonik” was, because he had tried to get her to retrieve it when he was placed in his crib. When she didn’t respond, he kept repeating the word, being very careful to pronounce each syllable. He repeated “slow-neek” multiple times and looked at her as if to say, “What’s the matter with you? Aren’t you listening to me?” Like most young children, Mischa had a favorite toy that he slept with, which was his stuffed elephant. The Russian diminutive word for elephant is “slonik.” Now, wasn’t that simple?

At one point, even Kathy couldn’t understand what he wanted when he kept asking for an “akameaner.” She finally figured it out when he hummed the melody of the song that says, “Oh I wish I were an Oscar Mayer Wiener, that is what I’d truly like to be.” Tell me that sponsors aren’t getting their message through to our kids.

One unfortunate thing that marked this year for us was when our manager, Jimmy Houston, passed away. He never made first calls, but one slow day he decided to go with Newlyn Brunton on one. As they were carrying a loaded cot down a long stairway, Jimmy collapsed. By the time the ambulance arrived, he had died. There can’t be too many people who have died while making a death call.

Before we moved into our Hollywood Hills home, just a few weeks after Mischa was born, we were not aware of the area’s significance in California’s history. Nichols Canyon runs north from just above Hollywood Boulevard to Mulholland Drive, at the crest of the mountain. Our home was near to where the road ends in a cul-de-sac called Nichols Canyon Place. At the top of a dirt trail is a landmark commemorating the burial of James Lankershim, who owned much of the ranchland that eventually became the communities of Studio City, Universal City, and North Hollywood.

In addition to memorializing Lankershim, the fifteen-foot obelisk contains two other inscriptions commemorating prominent aspects of the area’s history. The first plaque reads, “Near here on the banks of the Los Angeles River was fought the Battle of Cahuenga, Feb. 22, 1845.” This battle was fought between California governor Manuel Micheltorena, appointed by the Mexican government, and the previous governor, Juan Bautista Alvarado. Micheltorena was unpopular with the citizens of California, and a revolt formed to unseat him from the office of governor.
A man named Pío Pico would be the last Mexican governor of California before its independence.

The monument’s other inscription states, “The Treaty of Peace between Gen. John C. Fremont and Gen. Andres Pico was signed 1½ miles north at Cahuenga on Jan. 13, 1847.” After the Bear Flag Revolt in 1846, in which Fremont assisted the uprising of American settlers against the Mexican government, Fremont was appointed lieutenant colonel of the California Battalion. It was composed of his survey crew and settlers from Monterey, California. They marched south to Los Angeles and defeated Pío Pico’s forces, led by his brother, Andres Pico. The Treaty of Cahuenga was not a formal treaty between nations, but an informal agreement that ended the Mexican-American War in California. It wasn’t until the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 that Mexico formally ceded California to the United States.

Also of historical significance, Mulholland Drive was named after William Mulholland, who brought water hundreds of miles from Northern California by way of an aqueduct from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles. This changed Los Angeles from a desert town to a thriving community. Even though the aqueduct was an engineering masterpiece, there was great controversy, especially from the people living in Owens Valley, who attempted to sabotage the aqueduct because it drew their water away. Their resentment was captured in a popular local sign at the time: “Flush your toilet, LA needs the water.” The movie
Chinatown
, starring Jack Nicholson, was loosely based on Mulholland’s career.

Mulholland is also remembered for designing and constructing the San Francisquito, or Saint Francis, Dam, which came to a catastrophic ending. When the dam started to leak, he was contacted and subsequently inspected the dam. He announced that there was nothing wrong with it and proclaimed, “All gravity dams leak a little.” It broke a few hours later and many lives were lost. Mulholland never recovered from the guilt he felt about the tragedy.

Old Hollywood had many of its brightest stars living on or near Mulholland, including Marlon Brando, Dan Duryea, Barry Sullivan, Charlton Heston, and Rudy Vallee, who was one of TV’s earliest celebrities. Vallee lived on Macapa Drive, a cul-de-sac branching off Mulholland that he attempted to get renamed Rue de Vallee, which was French for “Street of Vallee.” Some of the newer arrivals in the area included Warren Beatty and Hugh O’Brian, who had a cute sign on his property reading “HOB Hill” for his initials.

Around the corner from us lived Mama Cass Elliot, of The Mamas and the Papas, who died in 1974 of a heart attack that may have been brought on by her drug use and obesity. Ringo Starr later purchased the house. To get home from the Hollywood side of Nichols Canyon, we would always take Franklin Avenue to Outpost Road, which winds its way up the mountain to Mulholland. Just before turning on Outpost, we would always pass the hotel on Franklin Avenue where Janis Joplin died of a heroin overdose. It was always a little eerie to think of all the ghosts of Hollywood who had passed these same roads in bygone years.

Another couple living just off Mulholland was actress Joanna Pettet and her husband, actor Alex Cord. Mischa and their son Damian became friends while attending Valley View Elementary School. One day while playing at their house, Damian showed Mischa a stash of marijuana hidden under his parents’ bed. I guess his mother never heard Tom Lehrer’s song “Be Prepared,” about the Boy Scout motto. He sings, “Be prepared, that’s the Boy Scout’s marching song, be prepared as through life you march along, be prepared to hold your liquor pretty well, don’t write naughty words on walls if you can’t spell. Keep those reefers hidden where they won’t be found and be careful not to smoke them when the scoutmaster’s around, for he’ll insist that they be shared.”

Since my mother lived so close, we would often take her to dinner with us. One evening, while dropping her off, I tapped my horn and waved good-bye to her. A neighbor two doors away was just getting out of his Cadillac. He shouted, “Who the hell do you think you’re blowing your horn at?” I paused a moment and replied, “I wasn’t beeping at you, Mr. Axton, it was just to say good-night to my mom, Louise. You know her, she’s the mother of my brother, John, who your dog bit last month.” Hoyt Axton, the singer, songwriter, and movie actor, lived just two doors up from her. His lack of response reminded me of a line from one of his hit records, “Della and the Dealer”: “The dealer had a dog named Jake and a cat named Kalamazoo, who was cool and never said a mumblin’ word.”

Errol Flynn had a large ranch on Mulholland that was subdivided after his death. A corner of the estate was used to construct a few new homes, and Ricky Nelson built one there. When Kathy and I would take an evening walk, we could hear his sons practicing with their band called Nelson. Two blocks farther up the hill was the famous architectural Mushroom House that was prominently featured in the film
Body Double
.

When Kathy was in junior high, she had a girlfriend named Beverly Aadland. One movie star’s secret that wasn’t kept secret for long was that Errol Flynn would pick up Beverly after school, when she was only about 14. Beverly’s mother knew about their “relationship” but did nothing to stop it. Many years later, Beverly appeared at a San Fernando Valley nightclub. Undoubtedly, many people just came to see her because of the scandal. Her name was well known to the public after their affair and after Flynn’s autobiography,
My Wicked, Wicked Ways
, appeared.

After Beverly’s performance, we went backstage and knocked on her dressing room door. When Beverly asked, “Who is it?” Kathy just said, “We’d like to talk to you,” and before Beverly even opened the door she shouted, “Kathy, is that you?” We had a memorable visit. I asked her how she recognized Kathy’s voice. She said it was a combination of not only her voice, but also her accent. In our thirty years of marriage a few people would ask about her accent, but it was never discernible to me.

By 1968 we had outgrown our old Auto Club facility and decided to rent the recently vacated two-story office building next door and connect the two together as one facility. I rented a jackhammer and demolished a two-foot wall between the two parking lots, which were two feet different in elevation. After my demolition work was complete, the next piece of equipment needed was a steamroller and a cubic yard of hot blacktop that was delivered on-site. This was one project that wasn’t going to get done in a suit. It was summer and already hot by lunchtime. I stripped to the waist and was well into running the compactor back and forth, when our female dispatcher walked by and made a nice comment about my physique.

Our building addition was next to a Ford dealership, and we had a circular driveway in front where Ron and I parked. The parts department entrance was about twenty feet from our driveway. About once a week, we would try to leave and some car would be blocking our exit. I got so tired of having to go in and complain that I purchased a can of red paint for the curb. While painting the curb between the entrance and exit of the circular driveway, a man walking down the street paused for a moment, shook his head, and said, “Only LA would have a guy in a suit painting the curbs.” I didn’t bother explaining.

We were sometimes asked by suppliers to help develop technologies because of our growing experience in every aspect of the funeral industry. For years we had been assisting mortuaries transporting caskets by railroad. The caskets were placed in large redwood boxes for their protection, and these “shipping boxes,” as they were known, were delivered to one of two train terminals in Los Angeles. Often the casket and shipping box would weigh as much as 400 pounds, which wasn’t a problem for the rail lines, and the weight didn’t change the rate. At the time it was common for a family to have their parents or other relatives shipped back east for burial. Most first- or second-generation Americans had roots in an eastern state, and many had purchased cemetery property and family plots. Now that we were in the jet age, these families wanted their loved ones transported by air since it could be done in a relatively short time.

An American Airlines executive named Harry Bate called and asked for a meeting with us. He explained that he was working on a project to get a larger share of the burgeoning funeral transportation by jet market. Harry had even set up what he called the “Jim Wilson desk.” There was no Jim Wilson, but the mortuaries felt more comfortable when they called to arrange an air shipment because the phone was always answered, “Jim Wilson.”

By this time, caskets were being transported by many airlines with the use of a padded canvas zippered bag from a company called Continental Mortuary Air Service, which had facilities at many airports. CMAS operated facilities much as one-way truck rental services do. We had been delivering caskets to their facility at LAX for a few years when Harry informed us about a major problem with this service. All caskets were weighed before being loaded into the jetliner, and this was calculated in the cost of transportation. CMAS bags solved the requisite problem of
lightweight containers, but didn’t address the more important problem of protection because the caskets were often damaged upon arrival.

Harry was on the cutting edge of developing new technologies in shipping cargo by air. At our first meeting, he said he had done research with local funeral home owners and our name kept coming up. He concluded that we were the “go-to guys,” as he put it. He asked us to research and develop a lightweight, sturdy container that would protect the caskets from arriving at their destination with damage. No one knew at what point the caskets were being damaged or who was responsible, because the damage wasn’t discovered until the container was opened at its final destination. He knew that whoever solved this problem would get the most business, and competition between the airlines was fierce. Many families would fly on the same aircraft to accompany the remains, so there were additional incentives to make this work.