by Sid Luft
Once I started working for Douglas Aircraft, though, my own life fell into place. I joined the California Country Club, which was started by Fred MacMurray, Johnny Weissmuller, and John Wayne. Bo Roos was their business manager. The men bought the land, refurbished the run-down grounds, and had a drive for membership—and I signed up. I was off work at three o’clock in the afternoon, and nearly every day I went directly to the club to play golf. I played with some amazing people: Babe Didrikson, who loved to gamble, Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen, Ira Gershwin, and Swifty Lazar, among others. It was Arlen who dubbed me the “starker.” I was obsessive about the game, and after a year or so my handicap was down to about six, but I had to keep working at it.
I came to admire my golf chums as I’d admired certain pilots. I had an out-and-out desire to live well, and these men, so entrenched in the entertainment field, seemed to be doing just that. The test pilots at Douglas, on the other hand, were generally rugged individualists, not show business dudes. Wrong Way Corrigan, although a great pilot, was more like a farmer and totally detached from Hollywood. Bert Foulds, one of the scions of Fuller Paint Company, was a test pilot and went his way far from show biz. He was an engineering pilot, and he never mixed—he was in another category in the company’s hierarchy. Tommy Chastain was a fascinating man, but not social beyond the pilot hangouts where we drank. I’d relax with a few pilots in the steam rooms and then we’d go our separate ways. Many of the men were married.
My name began to appear in the entertainment columns. On the bistro scene, I was continually introduced as “Sid Luft, the test pilot,” my entrée to the watering holes on the Strip and the better golf courses. People were impressed. My dream had been realized: I was a bona fide pilot. I’d endured and lived through some harrowing experiences, watched my friends leave and never come back. The glamour of the job had faded—it was no longer about smiling out of a cockpit with goggles, silk scarf, and leather jacket. I’d grown up in the air, so by now it was a bitter victory that people were enamored with me because I was a test pilot. They, too, held an idealized vision of what that meant.
Betty Hutton asked my friend publicist Kenny Morgan to place an item in Harrison Carroll’s column: “Betty Hutton wants to date the test pilot Sid Luft,” and in this way we started going out. Through Betty I met Buddy DeSylva, part of the songwriting team of DeSylva, Brown, and Henderson. He was a tremendous success before he became head of Paramount. He had hits on Broadway and a succession of popular show tunes. Along with Johnny Mercer and others, he formed Capitol Records. DeSylva had hoped I’d get serious with Betty: he believed in her talent and wanted to calm her down, stabilize her. He was dating Betty’s friend and we often went out together. She found the business of flying exciting and pilots attractive. I buzzed her house, showing off in an A-20, blowing out a few windows. This seemed to turn her on. I liked Betty but I didn’t see myself getting married again.
I had known Jeeb Halaby from the pilot scene. He’d been a test pilot at Lockheed and was now a lawyer. One day we had lunch and Jeeb expressed a desire to be fixed up with someone. I thought Betty might fill the ticket and I put them together. Jeeb was so Eastern Seaboard and so clearly on his way up. I thought Betty might trip his batteries in an unconventional way.
It didn’t take, though, and they went their separate ways. When Judy was fired from Annie Get Your Gun, Betty would replace her. Later, Halaby was part of the Kennedy bandwagon—he became head of Pan Am Airways and subsequently the FAA. His daughter married King Hussein of Jordan. Our paths would cross again later, when Jeeb was at a pinnacle of success and I was taking a nosedive.
Around this time Minna Wallis at Warner Bros. approached me and invited me to take a screen test. I was willing, again for a joke. Sophie Rosenstein gave me three scripts to pick from. I was too self-conscious and too square to play a scene with a woman. I couldn’t have pulled off a love scene. Stupidly, I kept thinking what my copilots would think of this “sissy work.” Mark Stevens, a Canadian actor, did the test scene with me. The action involved my bursting into a Madison Avenue office to confront the character’s brother, played by Stevens. I was dressed in typical Madison Avenue Brooks Brothers garb, with hat and briefcase. Steven’s back was to the camera as I came in throwing my hat on his desk and demanding, “Where’s the money?” Each take brought me closer to laughter. It began to strike me as hilarious—the makeup, the set. Somehow I carried my entrance off comically rather than with the menace I was to portray. My laughing was contagious, and now Mark was cracking up, to the exasperation of the technicians.
We threw in the towel and went out for drinks. Stevens told me he was being cuckolded by his wife, confiding he was disgusted but determined to keep his cool. Divorce was inevitable. He managed a sweet revenge by offering to take care of their house sale. According to California law the divorced couple splits the proceeds. When the sale was finalized, he was able to manipulate the escrow so that when it cleared he received all the monies, whereupon he left for Europe, never to be heard from again.
Bill Goodwin was a golfer who was the commercial announcer on the Jack Benny show, and a close friend of Jerry Colonna, a longtime feature on the show. Bill lived with his family in the Valley, in a lovely house where they gave swimming pool parties. It was at the Goodwins’ home that I met Lynn Bari.
I was attracted to her right away. She had hazel eyes, a throaty voice. She was on the dreamy side with a great sense of humor. Her mother had been in and out of at least three clinics for alcoholism; her brother, John Fisher, was a navy pilot, a nice fellow—rather serious, in contrast to Lynn’s personality. They were of Irish and German descent. Their father had committed suicide and Lynn rarely referred to him; I’m not sure if she ever knew him. Lynn’s first husband was Walter Kane, a top agent, considerably older, and known to be a buddy of Howard Hughes. Kane and Lynn were separated when we got together.
Many of Lynn’s friends were married to either directors or songwriters, several of whom were already pals of mine from the golf course. Her closest friends included Cookie Gordon, married to Mack Gordon, the songwriter. Mack was under contract at Fox, writing musicals with Harry Warren, well known for the score of 42nd Street.
Lynn was born Marjorie Schuyler Fisher in Roanoke, Virginia. She’d been contracted as a studio player by 20th Century Fox from age thirteen. She was a successful actress on the border between the A and B films of the day. She was well qualified but had not as yet made major movie star status. Nevertheless, Lynn worked all the time and was well liked. She was tall and slim and people thought she resembled Claudette Colbert. In the B pictures she was the star; in the A pictures she’d play the other woman to Gene Tierney or Alice Faye, or even Sonja Henie, all big stars at the time. She played opposite Edward G. Robinson, who was a charming, down-to-earth person. Eddie was short and Lynn was tall, so he’d stand on boxes in the close-ups. Her biggest role was in The Bridge of San Luis Rey, the Thornton Wilder novel adapted to screen, after she left 20th Century Fox.
One of her friends’ husbands, Bill Perlberg, introduced me to Zeppo Marx. Zeppo owned a successful theatrical agency and also had an airplane parts business. I’d watched him in the popular gin rummy clubs about town and saw how he won and lost, his approach to the gentlemen’s sport of betting. I’d found my new mentor. Zeppo suggested I come work for him, that I’d make a good agent. I began to seriously consider leaving aeronautics.
For some years my heart had been in the air: I was totally immersed in flying and the world of airplanes. I was tempted by several career possibilities: a job with a commercial airline, working for a private company, returning to school for a degree in aeronautical engineering. I had responsibilities, but I decided I was not going to keep working in an industry where I could never earn the right kind of money. I was in love with a lifestyle, and I was ambitious enough to believe I could live as well as our friends.
Lynn preferred the elite sound of “aeronautic engineer,” but to me it spelled little inco
me. I couldn’t see Sid Luft moving very high up in the Christian aviation hierarchy, either. Lynn believed I was too green for the entertainment industry. I didn’t fit the mold and, in her opinion, didn’t have a chance. I didn’t belong to any mogul’s tribe. I disagreed: becoming an agent seemed an excellent way to get a foothold in the business.
15
JANUARY 16, 1943, was a raw day in Los Angeles. I wore leather moccasins, gabardine army twills, and a leather flying jacket. I was looking forward to a break in the grueling schedule of test flying—working from 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM five days a week, generally testing three airplanes per day—and to a chance to be with the woman I loved, away from Los Angeles.
I was due in Washington, DC, to escort Lynn to a gala White House dinner and ball celebrating President Roosevelt’s birthday. The festivities were to kick off a national bond tour. Lynn had recently completed a publicity circuit for her latest film for 20th, and now she was taking off to sell bonds. I missed her and was anxious to be with her for a few days.
I had asked Jake Moxness permission to take off early from Clover Field and had arranged a ride over to Mines Field to pick up a commercial flight to DC. I parked my gear in the adobe cottage off the runway, a hundred yards from the main hangar, where the pilots waited assignment. The pilot’s cottage was not busy that day; usually there were men playing cards, studying accident reports, catching up on information about various causes of malfunctions—prop stalls, system failures—or reading about crashes throughout the world. On this particular day they were short on pilots for delivery, and Lee Bishop, the officer in charge of flight operations, asked me, as a favor, to take an A-20 up to Daggett before I left for Washington.
“Sid, we’re out of pilots.” It was that simple. Not only was it a request from a superior, there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for Lee. So instead of taking off for Washington at 1:30 in the afternoon, I was in the cockpit of an A-20 heading for delivery.
Earlier in the week I’d taken off in an A-20 that caught on fire, but the flames quickly burned out at a thousand feet. It seemed to be a freak situation that corrected itself, and certainly nothing structural was to blame.
I reached the Cajon Pass, where a natural phenomenon created a seventy-five-degree temperature inversion. At eight thousand feet I began to sweat, so I shed my jacket, leaving it lying against the back of my seat. I’d departed Santa Monica airport under normal conditions, but now I noticed that the fuel pressure was fluctuating from 10 to 15 pounds. I checked both motors and they were running normal. I decided to turn on the cross feed, but it didn’t bring up the fuel pressure, so I just left it on and called the control tower at Daggett for landing instructions. I made three attempts to raise the tower: “This is army aircraft with a designation trying to raise the tower. Please come in. Do you read me?”
Nobody was reading me. I began to get concerned. I called the airways range station, and they advised me they would notify the control tower by telephone. I now saw that my fuel pressure on the left engine had dropped to zero. I figured maybe I was out further than I’d assessed. I changed frequencies and called again, this time anticipating trouble. I was able to communicate I was going to bring the aircraft straight in. I tried to determine the cause of the drop in fuel pressure. I attempted various procedures to build up pressure and nothing worked. The engine cell was loading up with raw gasoline. A line had broken. I hit every emergency switch and nothing was working. I was in serious trouble. By this time, I was over the airport at Daggett, three thousand feet above sea level and a thousand feet above the ground. As I proceeded to approach the field I saw blue smoke escaping from the inspection plate in the inboard side of the left engine’s outer casing.
In the middle of the south boundary of the airport I extended the landing gear, and the left engine exploded into flames. I was sitting on a parachute when the fire broke out. I had to make a decision: bail out or bring the airplane in as planned. My mind raced. Was I going to die? I was determined not to panic: if I lost it, I was going to burn up. Somehow I had to stay cool. I feathered the engine and depressed the left fire extinguisher button in preparation for landing. I made a normal approach to the field on one engine, attempting to keep the craft upright. I cut the ignition switches and prepared myself for an exit. When I finally landed the airplane I was going about 125 miles an hour without brakes. I bumped along the hazardous, rocky desert mounds. The fittings were melting, and the aircraft started to cock off to the right. I was told later that I looked like a flaming rocket from hell.
The fire was burning the lines on the left side of the hydraulic system, and there were no brakes on the left. As the airplane dissipated speed the main landing gear collapsed and the plane ground-looped slowly to the left. During this roll I managed to unfasten my safety belt and throw open the hatch, holding on to the control column. As the plane zipped over the rough terrain, the nose wheel collapsed, the centrifugal force of the airplane spun fast, and I was catapulted out of the aircraft. I was hanging on to the control column in the fire and smoke, screaming, “What a fuckin’ way to die.” Twenty seconds felt like twenty years. I knew I was going to burn to death. I thought, if I get out of this, life is going to take on a different meaning. I grabbed the top of the deck and pulled myself onto the wing, managing to jump off it in the opposite direction of the oncoming ambulance. I saw a pickup truck, part of the rescue team, and ran across the desert to the runway to meet it. I jumped on. My cheekbone was broken, I was bleeding, my shoes were burned. The stroke of luck was the navy-issue flight jacket against the back of my seat. It had protected me from the flames; without it my back would have been embers.
I was taken to a small emergency center next to the hangar and administered an IV. Medics cut off the burned skin with scissors. I was conscious. They wrapped me in a sheet and started pumping in 900 cc of blood plasma. Finally they placed me on a stretcher and flew me back in a C-54 to Clover Field, where an ambulance waited to transport me to Santa Monica Hospital. I’d been given a few shots of morphine, and the second shot made me vomit.
Jake Moxness, Lee Bishop, and two engineering test pilots who were consultants to Douglas appeared at my bedside. I was in no condition to discuss aviation emergency precautions, but like a murder victim who lies dying, I was pumped with questions before I went under. They needed to know what happened: What were the symptoms? What was unusual before the crash? Now they revealed I’d survived circumstances that had killed other pilots. “Here’s an opportunity to prevent further accident.” I was told that when I ground-looped, a whole cloud of black smoke went up. The aircraft completely burned up. I knew there was a broken line in front of the fire wall, and in minutes there’d been gallons of gasoline pouring out of the hose right into the cell cavity that held the engine. I couldn’t be much more help than that. The men were evaluating and analyzing the crash as the doctors attempted to sedate me. More morphine was out: they realized I was allergic. Nothing was working, and I was unable to sleep that night. My legs were treated with a spray that looked and smelled like varnish.
The very next day a pilot burned up in Oxnard. As A-20s were being delivered from Ascension Island in Brazil to Dakar in Senegal, more pilots were lost the same way.
Lynn had been notified in Washington. She called me at the hospital, relieved to hear my voice. Yes, I was alive. I didn’t especially care for her to come back and see me in this condition. I encouraged her to continue on the bond tour. Meanwhile the press got hold of the story: “Movie star’s pilot boyfriend in accident, caught on fire.”
The second day I was still numb from the trauma. On the third day I began to experience hellish pain. I suffered first-, second-, and third-degree burns on my face and back and ass. I was able to doze for an hour here and there. My face was lopsided; my neck was swollen. I was unrecognizable.
Marylou and Gussie visited me four days after the accident. They brought me a huge basket of fruit and a bottle of champagne. Gussie left and Marylou stayed on. I was
worrying that Lynn might show up while my ex-wife was in the room. I was in terrible agony, my ass was bandaged, I was leaking blood, and I could never stop feeling pain. They’d been shooting so many drugs into me I was building up tolerance. Every day I’d immerse my hand into some sort of hot saline solution, and a glass boot was attached to the leg and continued to be sprayed twice a day. I had big red sores on one side of my face, and I began to grow a beard on that side. One night, in desperation, I decided to go for the champagne. I took hold of the telephone wire and raised myself up enough to pick up the champagne with my right hand. I managed to open the bottle with the same hand and commenced to down the entire bottle. I got pissed to the eyeballs, and for the first time since the accident I felt less pain. The booze worked! It was marvelous.
When Lynn returned I prevailed upon her to bring me a bottle of bourbon. From the day Lynn came back I drank a quart of bourbon a day. I kept the bottle in my crotch. The doctors didn’t approve, but I wasn’t interested in pleasing the medical staff. I’d been going insane before I discovered the booze. I got up to two quarts a day before I’d pass out.
The Drs. Rooney, father and son, who took care of me were exceptionally kind. They’d reassure me and put their arms around me during rough episodes. There was a big, overweight private nurse who sat near me during the night. One night when I was delirious as a result of the booze and drugs, I imagined she was my copilot. “Fatty, get the fuckin’ gear up,” I commanded. The next night she came on duty and told me what I’d said. I apologized, said I was talking in my sleep. The nurse insisted, “You were drunk and you were terrible to me.” I begged her to be sympathetic to my situation and not report me to the doctors. In any case, I was going to have that booze one way or another. However, I learned to put a hold on my mouth.
