L.A. Confidential,
page 2
Bacon refuses to dwell on tragedy, however. He knows enough funny
stories about Hollywood to hit the comedy circuit. He tells a
tale of two press agents who were assigned to publicize Mae West's
next picture. They bought 300 parrots and every day for two months
kept repeating the film's title, It Ain't No Sin, to
the parrots. They intended to send the
parrots to film reviewers across the country, who would unwrap
the cage and immediately hear the parrot plug the film. The very
day the agents crated the parrots to ship, a memo came from the
front office changing the title of the 1934 movie to Belle
of the Nineties.
Another story involves Hollywood director Raoul Walsh -- known
for such films as High Sierra and The Naked and the
Dead -- who bribed a funeral director with $500 to lend him
the corpse of the just deceased John Barrymore. He spirited the
corpse to the home of Barrymore's pal, Errol Flynn, who was driving
home from the actor's wake. The meticulous director propped the
corpse into Flynn's favorite chair with a drink in his hand. When
Flynn walked into the living room, "I aged 30 years on the spot,"
Flynn later confided, adding: "Barrymore would have appreciated
that crazy thing."
Jim Backus, the actor-comedian who was the voice of Mr. Magoo
and played the millionaire on Gilligan's Island, told
Bacon about a prostitute in Rome who hit on him for $50. Backus
rebuffed her by joking he never paid more than $5 in America.
When Backus and his wife walked past the same streetwalker an
hour later, the harlot commented, "See what you get for $5."
The funniest comedian Bacon says he ever met was Milton Berle,
who became a lifetime friend. "He had absolutely the best timing
of any comedian in show business," says Bacon. "I first met Berle
in 1933 when I attended his show at the Palace Theater during
the Chicago World's Fair. A woman sitting next to me kept elbowing
my ribs during Berle's punch lines. At the end of the show, Milton
introduced the woman as his mother, who then turned to me and
said: 'Do you want to go backstage and meet my son, the comedian?'
I went backstage and we became close friends."
Berle's mother made Milton a comedian by advising her son to
deliberately sabotage a dance troupe number in which Milton was
performing. She told him to start off on his left foot rather
than the right like the other dancers. Milton's faux pas threw
everybody off, and pandemonium erupted on the stage. That night
Milton Berle the comedian was born.
Born in Buffalo, New York, in 1914, Bacon attended Notre Dame
from 1933-36, leaving his senior year to help his parents, who
had lost their home in a flood. He earned a journalism degree
from Syracuse University in 1943 and then served in the Navy.
After leaving the Associated Press in 1966, he wrote briefly for
the Hollywood Reporter and then for 17 years for The
Los Angeles Herald-Examiner. He still pens a column
for Beverly Hills [213], a periodical that is available
only in the Hollywood area and on the web at www.beverlyhills213.com.
In person, Bacon is remarkably laid-back and soft-spoken for
a man who once held his own with the biggest egos in the world.
He serves lunch and insists his guest take the leftovers. The
only trace of an ego comes when he reveals that he has perfect
recall. "I never used a tape recorder or took notes when I interviewed
stars," he says. "When the stars noticed my empty hands and blank
expression, I could almost hear their minds scream, 'I got to
say something to get this guy interested,' so they came across
with the goods." When asked how he managed to escape the perils
of alcoholism after cavorting with legendary drinkers of his era,
Bacon smiles. "I don't think I succeeded too well, not with that
crowd. I drank a lot, but I haven't had a drink for two years
this May. My doctor eighty-sixed me for good because of heart
problems. I'll tell you the truth: I don't miss it. The only time
I miss drinking is on Saint Patrick's Day."
In 1947, one of Bacon's early A.P. jobs was boarding Al Capone's
funeral train traveling to Chicago from Florida, where the notorious
mobster had died. On his way to the baggage car to view Capone's
casket, Bacon ran into Capone's brother, Ralph, who recognized
him and asked where he was going. When Bacon replied he was going
back to see Al's body, Capone said: "You don't want to do that,
do ya?" The words stopped Bacon cold. He quickly answered, "No,
I don't" and left. "Mafia hoods have a way of telling you something
that has nothing to do with the words coming out of their mouths,"
Bacon chuckles.
"In those days, I used to eat in Ricci's restaurant on Randolph
Street in Chicago. It was the hangout of Frank 'The Enforcer'
Nitti and the Mob. They knew I was a newspaperman, we would say
hello and that was about it. I didn't want to get involved with
them in any way. Believe it or not, the Chicago police would arrest
those guys for vagrancy. It was the only way the police could
get them off the street for a while. I would go down to court
when they were pleading. Those guys were loaded with dough. Al
Capone's income used to be a couple million dollars a month. He
had whorehouses, gambling joints, loan-sharking, everything. He
always needed money to pay off judges and cops."
Years later, Bacon believes the Mafia killed The Outfit,
a gangster film that ridiculed the Mob. It starred Robert Duvall
and Robert Ryan; Bacon had a bit part (he has moonlighted in more
than 600 films). When MGM previewed the The Outfit in
Chicago and Detroit, the Mafia hated it so much that a Mob boss
allegedly called the head of MGM and threatened to burn down one
of his Vegas hotels if the film was released nationally. Fact
or not, the studio pulled the film.
Hollywood still plays it too safe for Bacon. "I started here
when the studios exercised total control over the actors. Then
I saw the agents capture Hollywood from tyrants like Jack Warner
and Harry Cohn. Those eras produced great films. Now corporate
committees that always keep their eyes on the balance sheet run
Hollywood. The end result is all the lousy movies we have today."
Because of those "silly films with car crashes and electronic
special effects," he doesn't attend many movies.
His favorite film of all time is Casablanca, which never
had a completed script. "Bogie told me they would get new pages
every day," he says. Runner-ups are Citizen Kane, Gone
with the Wind and The Godfather. He watches classic
films and Seinfeld reruns at home. He never reads the
trades. His favorite author is still the late John O'Hara,
author of Pal Joey and a fellow member of the Holmby
Hills Rat Pack.
The most fascinating person Bacon ever met was Howard Hughes,
the renowned aviator and movie producer whose fame sky-dived after
it was revealed that he lived his last years as a batty long-haired
recluse. Bacon defends his pal: "There's been no man like him
in our time. Hughes accomplished everything in aviation. He broke
all the speed records, he flew around the world, and he designed
planes. In 1953, about 90 percent of the aircraft flying in the
world were either designed by him or had a Hughes part in them.
He did more for aviation than anybody." When he entered the film
industry and became head of RKO Pictures, Hughes had to fend off
starlets. Lana Turner was so sure she was going to wed him that
she had all her towels and linens monogrammed HH. When Hughes
refused, she cried, "What am I going to do with all my towels
and linens?" Hughes told her: "Marry Huntington Hartford!"
Once, during an interview, Bacon mentioned to Hughes that he
was hungry. So Hughes flew him from Santa Monica, California,
to Tucson for a hamburger. On another occasion, Hughes treated
Bacon to a dinner at the ritzy Chasen's restaurant in West Hollywood,
but they ate at a table in the kitchen, away from the glamour
crowd. "I once wrote a book that included a whole chapter on Hughes.
If Hughes hadn't died before its publication I would have sold
a million copies -- he would have bought all of them. He hated
publicity that much!"
Hughes was probably worth $2 billion, but he never had any money
on him, Bacon says. He once borrowed a nickel from Bacon to make
a pay-telephone call. He sold TWA for $500 million and then carried
the crumpled-up check in his pocket for six months before he cashed
it. "He had no concept of money," says Bacon.
In 1971, Hughes personally picked Bacon to sit in on his press
conference from the Bahamas, where he debunked the Clifford Irving
autobiography hoax. That was the second biggest story of Bacon's
career. Bigger still, it showed the world how the high and mighty
knew Bacon as well as he knew them.
"I look back at my life today, and all
I can say is, it was a lot of fun -- much better than pumping
gas at the Shell station. If I had to live my life over again,
I would change only one thing: I would be a golf pro making a
living on the PGA tour. Seriously, I had the best newspaper job
in the world. I not only covered Hollywood, I traveled the whole
world. Even when I was at home, the AP would often roust me from
my nest to cover other news stories, everything from the World
Series and Super Bowls to presidential visits, brush fires, floods
and even the Watts Riots, where I saw more combat than my tour
of duty in World War II."
The biggest scandal Bacon ever discovered about big stars was
how nice they were, he says. "People like Cary Grant, Clark Gable
and John Wayne were the nicest guys you would ever want to meet.
Hell, I don't think John Wayne ever knew he had become the top
actor in the world. He only saw himself as a guy living on a ranch,
where he loved to be."
Like his friend, Duke Wayne, Bacon never took Hollywood too seriously.
"I always looked upon it as a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta,"
he says. "I just sat back and enjoyed it."
* * *
Robert Cubbage is an award-winning journalist who currently writes
for an alternative newspaper in Spokane, Washington.
