by Nancy Bacon
Yes, our pets were spoiled but it’s nothing like today. The dogs didn’t get their bones in Bento boxes, and the cats didn’t have their own Instagram accounts. They were lucky if they got flea collars. Spaying and neutering wasn’t a thing yet, so we’d have assorted litters of kitties running around the house, climbing up the curtains, and swinging from the chandelier. When the kittens were old enough to be weaned, it was my job to round them up in a cardboard box, stand in front of the grocery store and yell, “Free kittens!” And you know what? It actually worked. Well, there was one time it didn’t — so, I found a car that looked like it belonged to someone well-to-do and, grateful it was unlocked, I placed the leftover fuzzballs inside. (Don’t fret, kitten-crusaders! The car was not hot inside.)
In spite of all the horseback riding I did, I was actually a very indoorsy kid. With my bright red hair and skin whiter than a fish belly in skim milk, I was a prime target for all that carcinogenic California sunshine. The smell of Solarcaine haunts me to this day, but back then all moms thought dousing their kids in that chemical haze was a healthy way to heal second-degree burns.
I loved to stay in and read. The librarians would see me coming and say, “There go all the books!” I couldn’t get enough of Nancy Drew, or The Black Stallion series. When I was older, I’d read everything from Judy Blume to Jackie Collins. I read my mom’s copy of Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying when I was about 12. Probably should not have known about “the zipless fuck” at that age, but I was like a sponge for knowledge. I wanted to know everything.
Back in 1974, I was more into age-appropriate fare. I read Mad (I loved the new-movie satires, and I had all of Al Jafee’s books), Cracked, Bananas, and Dynamite. Dynamite was like a cross between People and Highlights. Hawkeye and Radar from M*A*S*H appeared on the cover of the first issue — in the 70s, kids looked up to older stars. Even our “teen heartthrobs” like Greg Evigan and Andy Gibb were in their 20s. We also thought mimes were cool (Shields and Yarnell, anyone?). And magicians who wore tie-dyed leotards ala Doug Henning were off the chain. Dynamite had a special “The Bee Gees vs The Beatles” issue, kicking off the “battle of the bands” craze.
I was lucky, later on in life, to get to interview some TV icons of the 70s — Sid and Marty Krofft, who are the masterminds behind so many kids’ shows, invited me to their office and showed me all kinds of treasures from the old days. This was when they were promoting the first-ever big screen adaptation of Land of the Lost. As for legends of the 80s, I interviewed “The Coreys” (Feldman and Haim, who were every bit as odd as you might guess), The Beastmaster (Marc Singer, a gracious guy), and “Elvira” (Cassandra Peterson, who’s got more depth than her 3D bosoms might imply) and many others.
I read a lot during the day, since we, like most 1970s folks, watched television only at night. We’d start with the evening news. If Richard Nixon came on, I’d be called into swift action to change the channel for my mom. We didn’t have a remote control; they didn’t come standard with sets until the 1980s. Imagine getting up from the couch and hiking over to the television every single time you wanted to change the channel. Yes kids, the channels were actually located on a dial on the set. There were 13 of them, but only three or four had anything worth watching. Also, if you went past the channel you wanted, you couldn’t go backwards and you’d have to turn to the right all over again. It was brutal.
Mom was lax on rules and bedtimes, so I was allowed to stay up late to watch Star Trek reruns and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Carson made the move from New York to Los Angeles — or, more accurately, “Beautiful downtown Burbank” — in 1972. We loved all his jokes about the Santa Ana winds (sorry if you didn’t get it, Middle America).
I was absolutely allowed to watch horror movies. I loved them so much! In the days of yore, their scary titles acted as warnings: Don’t Look in the Basement, Don’t Answer the Phone, Don’t Look Now, Don’t Go in the Woods, Don’t Go Near the Park, Don’t Go to Sleep, Don’t Open the Door, and Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark.
Before cable, before home video, and before streaming — also known as The Dark Ages — young movie geeks were forced to rely on late shows and weekend afternoon creature features to get their fright fix. We couldn’t get enough of Killdozer, The Night Stalker, Trilogy of Terror, The Norliss Tapes, Satan’s School for Girls, Bad Ronald, and Salem’s Lot — every few weeks there was a new one to look forward to.
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark was the most traumatizing of the lot. Kim Darby and Jim Hutton star as newlyweds who inherit a crumbling mansion. Despite dire warnings from the obligatory superstitious handyman, the wife unlocks a mysterious room and opens the bricked-up fireplace. Not a good idea. She unwittingly unleashes a horde of hideous, whispering, murderous mini-demons that only she can see and hear. Or maybe not only her: I saw and heard them in my nightmares for weeks!
The first horror movie I distinctly remember is The Pit and the Pendulum starring Vincent Price. I watched it with my dad at his house. Years later, when I got into the profession of covering and reviewing horror movies, I became a bona fide Roger Corman fan — he directed not only The Pit and the Pendulum, but one of my all-time favorites, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death — and I got to interview him a number of times. One of the highlights of my professional life was when I showed Roger my first short film, which was based on the poem Annabel Lee, and he said I really “captured the spirit of Poe.”
I watched all kinds of movies — I loved The Thin Man series, and Bob Hope and Bing Crosby’s Road pictures. I never thought of movies as being too old, or substandard if they were in black and white. Movies were either good or bad. What’s more, there was a mystique. As a kid, you’re just in a world: you don’t think about the fact people made it, there was a budget, marketing, etc. I learned to enjoy sweeping epics like Gone with the Wind, Giant, and The Godfather by watching them with my mom.
Some of my favorite childhood movie memories are parked at the drive-in. Mom took me to see The Exorcist, which scared the bejesus out of me. For days after, she teased me by imitating the devil’s voice before I went to sleep. Come to think of it, no wonder I never wanted to go to bed.
I was at the premiere of Blazing Saddles at The Pickwick in Burbank. That was a big deal for me, because I loved horses and horses were there! The palomino pictured on the poster was the main attraction, and later in life, I would get to know him as a rescue case (yes, even equine stars hit the skids sometimes).
At the zenith of their popularity, eight drive-in movie theaters operated in the Valley. Screenings began at dusk at the Pickwick, the Victory, the San Val and the Laurel in the east Valley, and the Reseda and the Canoga in the west. Not a single drive-in screen survived the video craze, but the Pickwick lives on as the backdrop in movies like Grease — in fact, young me swung on the very same swings as John Travolta.
Records made even more money than movies, and comedy albums were extremely popular. I loved listening to my dad’s copy of The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart, but I also got into broader comedy when I went next door to the Florence residence and listened to Richard Pryor and Cheech & Chong records with their sons. I was too young to be smoking pot then, but I knew all about it — and I probably still have a contact high from my mom’s parties. (Funny aside: when Mom was in her 70s, she got a medical marijuana prescription. She said, “I’m about 40 years ahead of you, Doc!”)
Gayle and Mal Florence’s sons Jon and Matt were teenagers, and they hung out with my mom a lot. Maybe a little too much… well, I’m sure the statute of limitations for corrupting minors has run out by now. As I’ve said, my mom was irresistible — the Fountains of Wayne guys even wrote a hit song about it decades later, called Stacy’s Mom. They spelled my name wrong though. (Yes, I’m kidding about the song’s inspiration — but in an alternate dimension, it’s totally true.)
Mom — a montage of Joy perfume, Virginia Slims, black coffee, caftans, cats, hot rollers, Aqua Net — was a magnet for male admir
ers from eight to 80. One evening when she was over at Gayle and Mal’s place for a small BBQ party by the pool, she was holding court with her groovy stories and flirting with everyone. Mom was quite the flirt. Men, boys, women, girls, gays — no one was exempt. It was all in fun, and half the time she didn’t even realize she was doing it. It was second nature. Along with our hosts, one of Mal’s fellow L.A. Times sport writers, Harley “Ace” Tinkham, and his wife Ena were there. Everyone was sitting at the patio table, having Sanka and dessert. Ace and Ena were sloshed from imbibing earlier. Ace passed out, forehead-first in cake and whipped cream. Suddenly, Ena accused Mom of making a play for her husband.
Mom just laughed it off and said, “I don’t need your stupid, fuddy-duddy drunk old man — are you kidding me?” Ena’s response was a coffee mug full force to my mom’s jaw. Next thing we knew, there were shards of teeth on the table and blood was gushing everywhere. The ambulance came, and so did the cops. I believe Ena got a free set of bracelets and an all-expense paid stay at a minimalist-inspired pad with 24/7 security. But it wasn’t much justice for my mom. She went through lots of oral surgeries, on top of her cancer treatments.
It was a painful year for me, too. I broke my right leg in three places when I foolishly forced Smokey to jump over a hedge that was too high for him. He slipped upon landing and wasn’t hurt, but he fell squarely on me. Pony payback! I was becoming quite the daredevil and would often come home with bumps, scrapes, cuts and bruises. I simply got back on and rode him home, but my leg really hurt. I told my mom and she said it was probably just sprained and told me to stop whining. It swelled up, and I started limping around like Shakespeare’s Richard III. My mom thought I was trying to get out of doing my chores. (That wouldn’t have been an unfair assessment.) Almost a week later, she took me to the doctor. My broken leg was in a cast for three months.
The cast was cool. But in those days, wearing any kind of protective gear was not. Whether you were riding a bike, roller skating, or on horseback, one thing was for certain: you were not wearing shin guards or elbow pads. Nerd alert! And helmets? Those were for Poindexters or retards who rode the short bus. (Sad but true: politically incorrect words like retard, spaz, and moron flowed from our tongues as easily as groovy, dig, and funky.)
If someone asked you to close your eyes and picture the landscape in Hollywood, you’d probably see palm trees. But in spite of their proliferation, most of the shady sentinels are not native to Southern California. The tall, skinny Mexican fan palms and the feather-topped Canary Island date palms that line so many of our boulevards were imported to beautify the place in prep for the 1932 Olympic Games. The city put 400 unemployed men to work planting trees alongside 150 miles of city boulevards. Los Angeles’ forestry division planted more than 25,000 palm trees, and they still sway above the city’s boulevards to this day. When they were newly installed, The Los Angeles Times printed puff pieces, praising the palms as “plumed knights” with “magical” restorative powers.
But not everyone loves the L.A. palms. In the mid-70s, there was a serial arsonist going around lighting them on fire. I remember one night while I was sleeping, it suddenly got really light in my bedroom. I could see the crackling bonfire outside, so I woke my mom up. (I guess Daisy the smoke-sensing feline was off-duty that night.) She hadn’t noticed the brightness because her bedroom windows were covered with tinfoil (the poor-stoner’s equivalent to black-out curtains).
We called the Fire Department, and crisis was quickly averted.
Shortly after that, we moved. Whether it was to stay ahead of kited checks and angry landlords, jealous wives or palm tree arsonists, it doesn’t matter. It was time to go. Not onward and upward to Beverly Hills, or even Hollywood, but to another humble abode in the San Fernando Valley.
So L.A. is available in paperback and electronic versions. Click here
