The series had been on for eight years, and certainly by now our relationship with MacMurray was established: it was all business. My Three Sons was just a workplace for the star, and we were his junior colleagues. When it came to personal issues, he stiffened and steered clear ... unless your issue impacted the show. I was damned curious about MacMurray’s reaction to Chip’s real-life bride.
Stan introduced Sandy to MacMurray at a publicity function, and she was sporting her go-go-dancer look: short miniskirt, boots, long black wig that buried her face in hair, and thick black eyelashes. I think she was shooting for Priscilla Presley but looked more like Morticia of the Addams Family. It was impossible to miss MacMurray’s shock and disapproval. He was a very conservative man, easily rattled by anything that smacked of counterculture or weird. The awkward handshake that ensued looked about as heartfelt as a family patriarch welcoming Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, into the family.
Soon after that meeting, MacMurray broke from his rule of avoiding personal issues and took Stan aside to voice his concerns. Stan responded with the “true love” speech, and MacMurray quickly retreated, sensing that he’d crossed his own line of ethics with his “boys.” MacMurray said nothing more about Sandy and accepted the inevitable, like we all did.
The wedding took place at the Little Brown Church in Studio City, a chapel famous for quickie unions. Of the show’s cast, only the “sons” attended the ceremony. Fortunately, the tabloid press, which today loves to shred celebrities for their missteps, was still in its infancy. Stan’s teen marriage was pretty much overlooked by the press.
Seven years after it began, the marriage ended. Their union did produce something wonderful, though: a daughter named Samantha Livingston. She has grown up to be a beautiful woman who loves her dad unconditionally.
Now that Stan was out of our Milbank house, Gene and I became best friends. Gene was three years older than me but only a grade ahead in school, which was North Hollywood High. It wasn’t that he was dumb; he just enjoyed the social whirl on campus. We made quite a pair. I was very serious about getting good grades and never cut classes. Gene, on the other hand, was dubbed the “phantom of the hallways” by the school’s vice principal for his truancy reputation.
In tenth grade, I worked in the attendance office, and my job was to deliver messages to students during classes. More often than not, while I was walking about the campus delivering a summons, I’d encounter Gene bursting out of a boy’s bathroom followed by a cloud of cigarette smoke. The “phantom,” on the run as usual, would accompany me on my errand and then vanish into the next available bathroom hideout.
North Hollywood High had the dubious distinction of being the only campus in Los Angeles that didn’t enforce a dress code or make you cut your hair. The place became a magnet for every teenage rock-and-roller and hippie freak in Southern California.
I showed my allegiance to the brave new world by letting my hair grow really long and dressing like a hippie, complete with love beads and leather-fringed vest. After years of feeling like I was walking around at school with a big scarlet letter, “E” for Ernie, on my forehead, I finally felt like I was fitting in.
Maybe I was just maturing and wasn’t as sensitive to being made fun of. Maybe my peers were growing up, too, and weren’t as eager to rub my squeaky-clean TV image in my face. More likely, everybody was just too stoned to care anymore. This was the late 1960s, after all.
CHAPTER 18
The Times They Are A-Changin’
Going back to work on MTS for its eleventh season was tough for a couple of reasons. First, I was actually enjoying public school, and second, Fred De Cordova announced that he was leaving at the end of the upcoming season. My good pal was asked by Johnny Carson to produce his late-night TV program, The Tonight Show. With his showbiz and society connections, De Cordova was the perfect choice. My loss was certainly Carson’s gain.
Work plodded along under a cloud. De Cordova was on his way out, and the show’s episodes felt more dated and out of sync with the times than ever before. The real world was in turmoil with wars, social upheavals, and political scandals, yet we were still locked into stories about Ernie’s lost dog or Chip’s big science project.
The performances by the actors, adults, and kids alike began to feel rote, too. Even the addition of new characters such as Robbie and Katie’s triplets, Steve Douglas’s new wife, Barbara, and her daughter, Dodie, didn’t add enough spark. No offense to the fine actors (Beverly Garland, Ronnie Troup, and Dawn Lyn) who came onto the show. It’s just that these injections of life felt like booster shots being given to a terminal patient. The unique concept of the show, a single parent raising three boys in an all-male household, was long gone.
As shooting continued that year, more problems began to surface. Don Grady announced that he wouldn’t be returning next season, assuming we’d be renewed. Grady had worked on the show for more than a decade and was ready to pursue his musical ambitions full-time. The veracity of the show’s title, My Three Sons, was up in the air again.
William Demarest, now pushing eighty years old, was in fairly good health but having memory problems, forcing the writers to limit his dialogue.
MacMurray, too, was in his mid-sixties and showing impatience with his new TV daughter, Dodie. Dawn Lynn, the feisty little actress who played Dodie, occasionally liked to reach out and pull on Fred’s toupee. That was a big no-no.
As for my character, I was the only “son” left in the house. Chip married Polly (Ronnie Troup) and was gone. Robbie, Katie, and the triplets had their own place, and Mike, well, nobody knew what the hell happened to him. The lack of children at home really undermined one of the show’s basic charms: MacMurray’s relationship with his boys. Dad had all that folksy wisdom and nobody to counsel anymore. The empty nest only exacerbated the dearth of creative storylines.
Around this time, a new television program exploded into the public eye: All in the Family. That cutting-edge, incendiary show was a dagger into the heart of our benign sitcom reality. All in the Family tackled topical issues such as the Vietnam War, unwanted pregnancies, and racial bigotry in a way that was as honest as it was funny. The cultural revolution that was taking place out on the streets had finally reached TV entertainment. The CBS censors really had their hands full now.
Despite the game-changing success of All in the Family, MTS stuck to its wholesome, nonthreatening format. The younger actors on MTS lobbied hard for more challenging, topical episodes, but the producers held steadfast to the original tone of the show. In retrospect, this was a wise decision.
It would have been a disaster for MTS to mimic Norman Lear’s new shows with their controversial storylines. If we had done so, Steve Douglas might have recommended to Katie that she should get an abortion rather than have the triplets. Uncle Charley would have come “out of the closet” and revealed he was gay. Ernie, depressed over his lost dog, might have overdosed on Barbara’s Valiums.
Drastic changes in the MTS format wouldn’t have worked in a million years. You can put ballet shoes on an elephant and call it a dancer, but it’s still a plodding pachyderm any way you look at it. It was best to be true to what we were: sitcom dinosaurs from another era. Our fate was to keep on marching until we keeled over, extinct from exhaustion.
Fred De Cordova’s last day of shooting arrived, and it was time to say good-bye. Everyone in the cast liked him, or at least respected him, but I loved him. I watched him speed away in his red golf cart, Mr. D’s Dragon, and actually cried. I had the urge to give him one last farewell hug, and I ran after him, sobbing the whole way. I arrived at his office, but he wasn’t there. In fact, the place was already empty. I couldn’t believe how fast his private suite was cleared out. Then it really sunk in: my great friend, a guy I adored and emulated to a fault, was gone. He was off to New York and most likely never to be heard from again. That’s showbiz.
I felt terrible and very lonely as I headed back to North Hollywood High for another seme
ster. The future seemed so bleak. Then, things unexpectedly took a turn for the better. I met a girl.
CHAPTER 19
My First Girlfriend
Tina Harris. What a wildcat. I was totally unprepared for our emotional roller-coaster relationship. Tina was my age, sixteen, and going on thirty-nine. She was a natural-blond Swede and built like one of Hugh Hefner’s curvaceous wives. In contrast to her physical beauty, she was a wiseacre with a salty vocabulary delivered out of the side of her mouth. If we’d met in the 1940s, I would have called her a “broad” or “one swell dame.” Her stunning looks and bawdy language always drew stares, especially from her horny teenage admirers. I was right there at the front of the pack, gawking and drooling.
I was no Brad Pitt, and I knew my chances of wowing her with my nerdy looks were pretty slim. It occurred to me that I did have one advantage over my competitors: fame. For the first time I was not shy about playing the celebrity card. Raging hormones were driving me to pull out all the stops. Just for the record, I was still a virgin and getting laid was a high priority. I’d had a few dates but had never ventured beyond kissing and some clumsy breast squeezing. I had to talk to this blond teen goddess.
My plan was to stand behind Tina in the lunch line, act all nonchalant, and hope to start a conversation. On my first attempt, the ploy worked. She glanced back at me, and I croaked “hello.” To my surprise, she said hiya! and maintained her eye contact, waiting for me to say something else. Holy crap, I had done it; I achieved the unimaginable, I got her attention. Unfortunately, my tongue seized up. I searched for a few words, any kind of utterance at all that would end my brain freeze. None came.
Suddenly, Tina was tackled from behind by her screaming, giggling best friend, Helen. In a flash, she dragged Tina away, destroying our beautiful, albeit silent, moment. I’d have to switch to Plan B.
Gene knew the location of Tina’s locker, so I thought I might be able to catch her there, give her a friendly wave, and hope for the best. I staked out the locker for days, but Tina was never there. I learned that pretty girls rarely need books to get through school, or life for that matter. I’d have to come up with another plan.
I recently got my driver’s license, so I figured I’d borrow my mom’s silver Lincoln Continental and park it in front of school. Cool rides are always chick magnets, and I hoped that the car’s sexiness might rub off on me. It was nerd desperation at its lowest.
To make the plan work, I parked in front of school two hours before the morning bell so I could snag a prime, highly visible spot. This had to be true love; nothing else would have gotten me to school that early.
I waited and watched students arrive, but Tina didn’t show. Damnit! That was two hours better off spent in bed. I figured I had another shot at letting her see me behind the wheel of the big Lincoln that afternoon, after school let out.
The final bell rang, and I made a dash to my silver chariot parked out in front of school and waited for Tina to appear.
Just like in a movie, she bounded down the steps of Kennedy Hall, and our eyes met. A faint smile played on her lips as she saw me sitting behind the wheel of that shiny, sexy vehicle. I felt like Mr. Cool as I waved for her to come over, offering her a ride. My heart raced as she started walking toward me.
Just as she neared my car, Helen blasted out of nowhere, bellowing like a moose in heat. Tina looked over at her pal, and the spell I was weaving was broken. Helen leaped on Tina like a giant octopus, wrapping her arms around her, and hauled her away, again. Like many teenage girlfriends, they were attached at the hip. I wondered where I could get a “hit man” to rub Helen out.
As luck would have it, my first moment alone with Tina happened by accident, while I was driving my dad’s shit-brown, banged-up Chevy Caprice.
I came to a stop at a red light and saw Tina standing on the corner, waiting to cross the street. My head throbbed with an instant adrenaline rush. I beeped and offered her a ride.
She hesitated, thinking it over. As I waited for her decision, I half expected Helen’s screaming head to pop out of a street manhole and spoil our chance meeting, once again. That thought may have crossed Tina’s mind, too, because she darted for my car and hopped in.
Once we were able to have ten seconds alone with each other, we clicked immediately. I wound up driving Tina to her home, a triplex bungalow in a seedy section of North Hollywood. Her parents were divorced, and she lived with her seventy-year-old dad, a house painter by day and heavy drinker by night. That explained the contradiction between her world-class beauty and blue-collar personality.
We went from our first meeting to our first kiss quickly. I could tell she had a lot more practice at this than I did. No big surprise there, me being a virgin. We’d hang out at my house or drive to Leo Carrillo beach and smooch like mad, fueled by bottles of cheap red wine. I was eager to graduate from just petting to real sex. Tina, though, always pulled back when my pawing and clawing got a little too hot. That left me frustrated as hell, but I didn’t push things. I was in love and trying to go with the flow, although the “flow” on my part was getting pretty stopped up.
After a few months of dating, another problem developed. Tina didn’t have a driver’s license, so I became her chauffeur-on-call whenever she needed a ride. I happily obliged because it was another opportunity to be with her. The fun started to wane when Tina began asking for rides to Gazzarri’s Nightclub on the Sunset Strip ... without inviting me to join her.
At first, it was no big deal for me to drive her to a nightclub every so often and not be asked to join her. Dancing wasn’t my thing, so I was kind of relieved. Nonetheless, a token invitation would have been nice since we were going steady. Soon the occasional night out became an every weekend event; that’s when I became worried and voiced my concerns. Tina laughed off my questions and described her evenings as a “girl’s night out” with Helen. She told me I was just being paranoid. Absolutely. My fear was confirmed when I accidentally discovered her secret life in Hollywood.
After dropping Tina off at Gazzarri’s one night, I went to visit with a photographer friend of mine. He lived right around the corner from the nightclub and shot pictures of famous rock-and-roll bands like the Doors, Steely Dan, and Van Halen. Looking through some of his picture albums, one photo jumped out: Tina, in the arms of a very popular rock star. She was sitting on the rock star’s lap with her blouse wide open, breasts hanging out, and guzzling a beer. My photographer buddy didn’t know that Tina and I were friends, and I certainly didn’t know that she was one of the boldest, most successful groupies on the Sunset Strip ... until my buddy told me.
Apparently, Tina would sleep with just about anybody with a shag haircut, leather pants, and an English accent. What a kick to the gut. Not only had I been lied to, Tina was having sex with everybody in town but me!
I exploded the next time I saw her, and Tina confessed to her secret life. She tried to calm my hurt feelings by claiming that sex with rock stars was meaningless. It was nothing more than “bragging rights” with her friends. Our love, on the other hand, was something special. She hoped that it would remain pure and last forever. This, obviously, is where we differed. I didn’t want some kind of holier-than-thou relationship. I was hoping that things might get completely vile and nasty. Something pure and special, my ass. I wasn’t Jesus, and she certainly wasn’t the Virgin Mary.
After the dust settled, I forgave her. That’s how horny and desperate I was at sixteen. Hope, and boners, spring eternal.
I continued driving her to the clubs on Sunset Strip. After I dropped her off, I’d kick myself all the way home for being such a hopeless wimp. I was just too young to face the facts: it’s better to be single and all alone than to be in a relationship where you are treated like a chump.
Eventually, Tina saw that her “chauffeur” was disgruntled and about to quit. In a last-ditch effort to salvage things, she decided we should make love and take our “pure” relationship to a new level. What a disaster
that was.
Our sex was without feeling and over in about twenty seconds. The “new level” that she spoke of was a trip to the basement for my male ego, which took years to recover. Like I said before, Tina liked to laugh, and I was her willing clown. You gotta start somewhere, I guess.
CHAPTER 20
A Kindred Spirit and Partner in Crime
Now that my Driving Miss Tina days were over, I started making new pals at school. One kid in particular, Chris Craven, was to become my best friend and a huge influence on my life. Unlike most high school kids, Chris seemed worldlier and savvy. He turned me onto Jack Kerouac’s books and knew about people like Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters up in San Francisco. Surprisingly few teens were aware of their influence on our changing world.
Chris and I also shared a love of old movies and theater. His dad, Eddie Craven, was a character actor under contract to Paramount Studios, and his uncles Frank and John were both Broadway stars, appearing in the original production of Thornton Wilder’s classic play, Our Town.
I first noticed Chris when he was performing in a play at a school assembly. His performance really stood out, particularly an improvised moment at the end of the show that brought the teenage audience to its feet.
The play, a Japanese melodrama called The Lost Princess, starring my friend Gene and was performed in sign language in the Kabuki tradition. It was a nice idea to present something different, but the drama teacher badly overestimated the patience of her audience. Everybody was bored to tears by the show. Most of the kids at North Hollywood High were either underachievers or potheads, more attuned to Bugs Bunny cartoons than obscure Oriental theater. This absurdity was not lost on Chris who had to mime his part of the mute propman.
The Importance of Being Ernie: Page 9
