Frank & Charli

by Frank Yandolino

  After we presented our storyboard to the government, we expected a favorable decision, not only because we were confident in our work, but also because of who was involved with what we planned to do. Specifically, we had Richard Green and Stan Dragoti, who were well-respected partners of Mary Wells. Plus, Stan was married to model and actress Cheryl Tiegs. We collectively pitched the Johnny Horizon television series, and we were feeling confident. But all of a sudden they told us they were instead giving the project to Hanna-Barbera, the famous animation studio. Wallcrest had worked it out so that Hanna-Barbera would offer him a job when his time in Washington ended. What? You could do that?

  From that point on, whenever I made a deal with someone who had control over something that I needed, and they received little or no benefit by giving it to me, I made sure to offer them something on the back end—in many cases, a job.

  I loved being the art director at MPA. It gave me an opportunity to make a statement. Ironically, my messages almost always went straight past my clients, even though they were right under their noses. My disguised statements were often political, but the clients only saw something they thought was hip and modern and that promoted their product. One client, for instance, was the Seagram liquor company. I was against the use of alcohol in advertising, especially in promotions that would be seen by young kids and old drunks. So I used my art to tell the truth. In one particular piece, I depicted a modern bar scene with stools that had American flag seats. People’s asses sat on them while drinking. The bar countertop was also painted in an American flag motif. If you looked closely, you could see in the far corner a fallen liquor bottle spilling alcohol on the flag. No one at the agency or the client realized what I did. They all thought it was very modern and patriotic.

  In other ads, even more subliminal—and truthful—advertising was included without the knowledge of the client. One such ad included a shadowed image of two people having sex, frozen inside an ice cube floating in a glass of alcohol. I always got off using subliminal images.

  Today there is nothing subliminal about what we see in the media. Politicians and stars promote their messages and songs with images that openly degrade women, police, religion, and race. Some say this is a reflection of our time, a rampant freedom of speech. I say these unending contrived images that distort reality are the beginning of the end of America.

  Some say you can’t use the word “God.” I say what’s wrong with God? Words don’t have the same meaning anymore, whether in standard conversation or when expressed in anger. The same people who angrily say “Jesus Christ this” or “Jesus Christ that,” for instance, frown when the winter holidays are described as “Christmas time.” The word “fuck” is used to express so many meanings, and often no meaning at all, while the term “nigga” is a word explained by some as a term of endearment, but for black people only. We have to reevaluate our relationship with vocabulary, and with it our morals and the images we project, to find some truths we can all agree on. Otherwise we can forget the Woodstock Nation and prepare for a world more like Sodom and Gomorrah.

  Not too long ago, I was speaking to about fifty young students at Bloomfield Music College in New Jersey. One of the young ladies held her hand up.

  “How do you get a job after graduation and get ahead?” I thought about Richard Steinberg when I answered: “Lie, then learn.”

  The class gasped. The faculty instantly regretted asking me to speak, but I finished my thought.

  “First, you grab the ball. Without that, you have a problem of control and you’re lacking risk. Without risk, there can be no reward worthwhile. But how do you create that opportunity? When you graduate, find an entry-level job or even an internship, and stay at it for a few months. While you learn your job, learn the job from the guy next to you, too. Then quit. When you go looking for your next position, tell the person interviewing you that you did the other guy’s job. For me, it was watching the assistant art director while I held an art mechanicals position. I went to the next company saying I was the assistant art director and that I was looking for an art director position.

  “I kept doing that for about two years. Start a little at a time; the worst thing that can happen if you get caught in your lie is you get fired. So what? Your mother won’t know, and you’ll have gotten paid. You do this until, finally, you are able not only to do what you say you can do but much more. Once you grab the ball you can do great things.”

  I hope the young lady got the point. It’s not entirely about “lying.” As an artist, it isn’t always easy to succeed in the world of business. We want to let our freak flag fly; we want to be open and creative. We hold the world to such a high standard. Combining that side of us with the cut-throat capitalism of America is like speaking sign language while wearing mittens. Art seeks to capture truth, and that truth comes from within the artist. And this pure sort of expression can be at odds with our culture, since exploring art in order to make truthful discoveries is not often a recipe for capitalistic success. Somewhere along the way, then, the “truth” gets compromised. My choice to lie up-front gave me a better opportunity to portray an undistorted truth in my art. And since I seemed to be highly qualified, the guys hiring me felt like they were producing art that portrayed a truth they wanted to sell.

  In most cases in the distant past artists were bound to paint and capture the truth in their art as they worked for the noblemen, kings, and popes who commissioned them. Other artists have painted simply because they had to, and would do it even without payment. In today’s world some artists paint strictly for the money and will distort the truth. This holds true not only in art, music, and writing, but is actually most evident in the media and especially in politics.

  My unforgettable relationship with the artist Salvador Dali sprouted from that single, chance meeting on the street. I like to think he realized that I, like him, was an artist grabbing that ball of opportunity, and that that’s why he called us on that late Sunday afternoon shortly after our encounter on Fifth Avenue. Charli and I were home when the phone rang. It was that one-of-a-kind voice on the other end.

  “Yan Doo Linoo … Dali … Tonight. Lutece, 7:30. Goodbye.”

  Click.

  Dali hung up. I didn’t utter a word. Charli and I met the Dalis at Lutece, a four-star French restaurant in Midtown. We stepped into a dining room adorned with crystal chandeliers and plush velvet, high-backed chairs. The atmosphere was crisp and white. Dali and his entourage of twenty people were already there, sitting at tables that had been pushed together. It was like walking into a surreal Fellini movie.

  Dinner started with Chef Soltner’s famous Alsatian tart. We drank bottles of wine as the room dimmed. With the giant Parisian mural behind us, I spoke to Dali. We debated the color red while Gala and Charli hit it off together.

  In Charli’s Words

  When the first telephone call rang that Sunday, I could hear Dali’s voice blaring through the phone from across the room telling us to meet him for dinner at Lutece. Excited, I got all dressed up. Frank and Dali had a magnetism, an understanding of each other right from the first moment that, to this day, amazes me. I was young. I certainly had not met anyone like Dali, or Gala. I must say, she had the power in that family. She was old to me, full of wisdom.

  Dali suddenly decided dinner was over, and it was time to pay the bill. He waved his hand in the air and, as if on cue, the maître d’ hurried over to present the check to Dali who simply grabbed it and signed his name. The maître d’ took the check to a different table, giving it to a man no one seemed to know. Dali tipped his golden-handled cane at the man, put on his cape, and off he and Gala went. They must do this all the time, I thought. Gala and Dali went everywhere for free. Amazing, funny, inspiring, that evening was a life experience I will never forget.

  The Dalis lived at the St. Regis Hotel. What little I saw of their apartment was cluttered with all kinds of things, new and old paintings, drawings, sculptures, flowers, artifacts, and bottles of c
hampagne.

  The truth is that the Dalis liked, no, loved me as much as I loved them. I think I made my biggest impression on Dali when I helped him with a TV commercial for a new product, a women’s nylon stocking. He wouldn’t tell anyone his idea; I called ahead to the photo studio to schedule Dali’s arrival for the shoot, granting his wish: “Yan Doo Linoo, make sure there is a model there wearing only nylons.”

  Dali showed up with his entourage. He instructed the camera to roll. Without hesitation he approached the model and lifted her leg, placing her foot on a pedestal, signed ”Dali” in thick black marker across her leg, and walked out. For this, he was paid $50,000 dollars.

  From that day on, when anyone would present him with an idea or a project, he would look at them and say in his memorable voice, “Only if you can do what Yan Doo Linoo does. He makes the checks fall from the sky.”

  Dali and I met often after that spring afternoon when I made cash fall from the sky. Once, during lunch at the Plaza Hotel’s Palm Court, we had just finished a conversation about whether or not we dream in color.

  “Do you see the colors reflected from the light and shadows in the corner of the ceiling beams?” he asked. He was serious, as always, never wasting words.

  “Yes, I do. Shades of gray, magenta, blue, and white.”

  “Do you not see the purple hues and shades of burnt umber?”

  I thought I saw what he saw. We connected. I stared up at the corner. When something came over me, I blurted out, “I’m dyslexic.”

  Dali fingered his mustache while answering matter-of-factly, “I understand this problem. Art will set you free.” The way he spoke and the look on his face gave me the impression he knew from personal experience. He answered sharply, looking directly in my eyes, sort of through them, to my mind, my brain, and beyond. “That’s how I saw it,” I offered.

  “You cannot see exactly what I see.” Then he schooled me as he began his lecture, “We are looking at the reflection from different angles, Yan Doo Linoo. We cannot see the exact same colors. That is why the artist is so important. It is he who captures the colors of moments, documenting visuals for others to see from his perspective.”

  I sipped my wine, listening to him as he continued.

  “The painter must unlearn old habits of reason and thought. The artist sees things through his mind’s microscope, then documents them one stroke at a time. Habitual common sense dictates reality. You see, Yan Doo Linoo, you must rethink and change that habit. You must see things as they appear only to you, and exaggerate them in order to make your point. This is the difference between appearance, reality, and interpretation.”

  I realized he wasn’t just talking about the reflections in the ceiling. It was a lesson on why the artist and his art are so important. What I believe he was saying in a nutshell is that the artist must be creative and truthful and his art should come from within and never disappoint. I put this lesson of the importance of creativity into my own words in an analogy: Once upon a time, all bakers made and sold loaves of bread in the local market to everyone in their neighborhood. Then one day, a baker across town decided to slice his loaves of bread. Now people came from all other neighborhoods to buy his sliced bread.

  The thing that separates classes of people is the ability to be innovative.

  I’m reminded of a story in the painter Arshile Gorky’s biography. He asked Dali how he could become famous, how he could get his art known.

  “Meet me at the New York Public Library steps,” Dali answered. “We will invite the press and you will piss on the lions.”

  I am sure Gorky didn’t realize just how serious Dali was. Gorky wrote that he did not show up for fear of becoming famous and being deported at the same time.

  Gala taught me just as much as Dali did, maybe more. She was a true character. I sometimes walked through Central Park with her. On one occasion, I thought she was hitting on me. As I flirted back, she was highly insulted.

  “I can flirt with you. You cannot flirt with me. Who do you think you are?”

  Gala gave Charli and me the greatest gift imaginable. She saved our marriage. On another occasion at dinner with Dali and Gala at the St. Regis, Gala interrupted our conversation as only she could, asking me to sit on her lap. I was embarrassed to do it. She insisted, so I did. There I was, a grown man sitting on her lap, not knowing what to say, everyone watching. I looked her in the eye, held my hand to my heart, and stupidly barked out:

  “It does my heart good to be with you.”

  She immediately punched me in the head. “This is where your heart is.”

  Sheepishly, I slumped back to my seat. Charli sat beside me. As I started another conversation with Dali, I heard her talking to Gala.

  In Charli’s Words

  While I was working at the Saks Fifth Avenue hair salon, I met a very attractive English woman named Kathy Keeton. She liked me and I liked her. We talked about personal things—girl stuff, mostly. She was involved with magazines and was starting a new one called Viva. I told her all about my Frank and his new project—erotic sheets and pillowcases. Soon enough we met Kathy and her boyfriend Bob for dinner. He was an older, handsome man with very curly black hair, wearing a fluffy white shirt opened to mid-chest and what seemed like fifty gold chains and trinkets on his neck. Frank and Bob connected immediately, spending all their time together. At first I did not realize that Bob was Bob Guccione, owner of Penthouse magazine.

  Frank called me one day and asked me to meet him at the St. Regis Hotel. I walked in and there they were, Dali, sitting in a throne-type chair, and Frank next to him, talking about the colors and the designs in the room. A dozen beautiful people and Penthouse Pets, Miss January, etc., surrounded them. I found Gala and we took a seat far away in the background, drinking vodka and eating caviar. I was upset, newly married with this Italian hippie who had Miss January draped all over him.

  As Frank was knee deep in conversation with Dali, I asked Gala, my voice shaking, “How do you do it?” “What, darling?”

  “How do you just sit here while all these beautiful women are around Dali all the time, flirting and propositioning?”

  Gala reached across the table and picked up a cashew nut, her other hand taking mine and gently opening my fingers. She placed the nut in my palm and touched the nut with her beautifully unpainted fingernail, then closed my fingers around the cashew.

  “If you hold a bird tightly in your hands, when it can, the bird will fly away. If you let the bird go free, it will always come back to you. You can never stop the artist. The bird must fly.”

  That moment was a lifelong lesson. I never interfered with Frank’s work. If he went on trips, stayed out all night, anything. As Gala said he would, he always came back to me. Gala’s story really worked for me. I tell this story to most women I meet. I had many opportunities to worry about my bird. For a while Frank and Dali would meet at the St. Regis and the Plaza Hotel almost on a daily basis. On several of those afternoons, I would sit with Gala off in a corner sipping our vodka and as usual eating caviar on little filo pastries with chopped onion and egg whites, laughing and enjoying great conversation. Gala was a wise, tough, and very opinionated woman. She taught me many things, most importantly, to keep my own space and life, not just to follow Frank. To always tell him the truth, to trust him, praise him, and encourage him, and of course always show unity and unequivocal love. Just as she did for Dali and he did for her.

  They were not afraid or embarrassed to openly display their unwavering love for each other. As a matter of fact they enjoyed playfully teasing each other in public, reinforcing for everyone to see that neither one of them could be replaced.

  Dali seemed to always be checking on Gala, looking over, more concerned with her in the background, sitting with me. Always asking what he could do for her. If you look in many of Dali’s paintings you will see her, either as the main object or in the background. He was madly in love with her. It’s the same with Frank and me. I’m in all the pictur
es, regardless of all those Pets, models, princesses, and ballerinas. And they know it.

  Frank is truly an artist, working on many canvases at the same time. He has the guts to try whatever comes his way, as he says grabbing the ball of opportunity twenty-four hours a day.

  Dali was my inspiration and my guiding light. He taught me to always be what and who I am, not what others want me to be. To believe in my convictions, trust my artistic talent, and be confident. He reaffirmed my own philosophy to grab the ball every time.

  CHAPTER 8

  Fritz

  Ever since Charli moved into my life in 1971, the mementos of her life began to mingle with mine, things like her boxes of clothes, photo albums, some records, and lots of her credit card bills, which I paid off (she still tells everyone about it; it’s great PR for me).

  The most notable evolution occurred in my bathroom, as bath oils, makeup, fragrant soaps, hair and skin care products, rollers, and blowers invaded, all foreign to me. I’ve never spent more than five minutes in the bathroom. I do what I gotta do and I’m out, and the same goes for my bed. On the other hand, Charli seems to spend two hours or more, and when she comes out, she’s still not ready.

  Our apartment resembled an art gallery, with paintings and sculptures by artist friends of mine taking their places on the walls and within the nooks of our famous bookcase. Among them were my great friend Joe Lombardo from our time painting mess trucks in the army, and Fritz Moody, a modern abstract expressionist. Fritz was a wild man, with long hair that he never combed and a bluish-black long beard, resembling Blackbeard the Pirate. He spoke with a deep, slow voice, and whatever he said always sounded philosophic.

  Joe and Fritz each painted one of our bedroom doors. Fritz’s painting was intricate, complicated, deep, and dark. Joe’s, on the other hand, reflected him: fun, light, and flowery. Eventually, someone, including me, had painted every door in our apartment. We also had a wall in the hallway that everybody who came to the apartment (it seemed like a hundred people a month) signed with their own unique signatures and colors.