by Sid Luft
Four other A-20s had caught fire, and none of the pilots survived. So the A-20 was finally grounded over the United States. The problem was caused by the exhaust stacks, which had been shortened to gain more speed out of the airplane. This caused more vibration on the warm-up when the engines reached a certain temperature for takeoff. What was needed was simply to weld two rings on the pipe from the fuel pump that attaches to the hose going to the fuel gauge. For one extra clamp, all those lives had been lost.
My first day back on the golf course after the crash was blissful. I was sensitive to the environment. The fairway looked gorgeous, the grass was brilliant green, the trees were magnificent, the sky was a luminous azure—life was a valentine. I’d have been just as thrilled if it were snowing or if I were soaked through, wet and shivering. I was alive! Everything was measured by the accident, and it gave me a vantage point from which I could appreciate life with renewed respect and pleasure.
Surviving the crash left me with a long-term sense of optimism and privilege. I found out I was blessed with coordination under pressure. By not bailing out of the aircraft and bringing it in, I was able to help the engineers determine the crucial engineering defect that was killing other pilots. Both Win Sargent and Lee Bishop thought it was a good idea for me to meet Douglas himself. And so I was paraded in front of the main man.
Donald Douglas had become successful at an early age. Rumors had circulated around this rather quiet, aloof man. He lived in the Pacific Palisades, with the wife and children on one side of the house and Mr. Douglas and the mistress on the other.
Win said, “Mr. Douglas, this is Sid Luft, the pilot in the A-20. We thought you might like to say hello.”
Douglas looked up. “Very nice to meet you.”
I began to babble, because although he acknowledged my presence, he was cold as ice. “Well, sir, I guess the reason I’m still here is due to the ability of that airplane to stay afloat with one engine and under those conditions it’s a miracle . . .”
Douglas’s office was handsomely paneled, with indirect lighting. There was a striking display case filled with artifacts and objets d’art. It was daytime but the office was dark. We were not asked to sit. We remained standing, and this, too, was off-putting. I continued to talk nervously about a how I felt like a piece of straw that was driven through a telephone pole during a tornado. This went over like a ton of bricks. He was not going to say one congenial word. I let the “straw” fall, and we got out of there.
More appreciative was Vance Breese, a flier who performed mostly experimental work as a freelance pilot and was the Chuck Yeager of his day. I’d see him at QB meetings (we were both members of the Quiet Birdmen, a flying club). Years later I ran into him in a Santa Monica restaurant. I was with a friend, actress Marianna Hill, and he paid me one of the nicest compliments. He said, “You know, when we studied that accident, you became one of our heroes.” I like to think he wasn’t just bullshitting me because I was with a great-looking blonde.
Douglas Aircraft sent me to recuperate at a resort in Colorado Springs, south of Denver. Lynn joined me, and we decided we couldn’t wait much longer to marry. Colorado Springs proved to be a place of destiny. It was there that I met Ted Law, a Texas oilman, a great sportsman, and a lover of horses, someone with whom I was to have a lifelong bond until he passed away in 1989. He was a good-looking man, married to a woman who was seriously alcoholic. I was to learn from Ted not to walk away from tough situations. Ted was enamored with the world of show business, and although he didn’t make any of his homes in Los Angeles, we did become partners in Walfarms, our racing stable outside of the city. And he went on to invest in A Star Is Born.
16
AFTER SIXTY DAYS, I went back to work with my hands and leg bandaged. I thought it was crucial for me to return to work, yet I’d involuntarily relive the disaster. I’d change my clothes at least twice a day due to nervous sweats. I’d have nightmares, quick flashes of the scene—hanging upside down, burning up alive—and it left me a wreck, like men who survive battle scenes but can’t ever pull out of it. I was sent to a psychiatrist and temporarily put on some kind of sedative.
In those days, test pilots couldn’t get insurance, but I received a settlement of $7,500 through workers’ compensation. Subsequently, American test pilots petitioned for insurance and won.
I wore civvies the moment I was off the field. And occasionally men would perceive me as a draft dodger. Generally the feelings of hostility came from a guy in uniform. One afternoon, I was having drinks at the Beverly Wilshire bar with Simmons, a friend recently out of the army. Simmons manufactured gas tanks for the aircraft industry. There were some girls at the bar, along with several soldiers who were working on This Is the Army for 20th Century Fox. They were military men playing extras. One of the men tugged at a girl’s hair and fondled her. She said, “Please don’t do this.” This went on for some time, and finally I said, “Hey, be nice. Don’t bother her.”
The first line out of his mouth was “You fuckin’ civilian, stay out of it.”
I didn’t let it alone. “Knock it off, don’t cause any problems here.”
He came over and pushed me, “You fucking civvy.”
It was going to be trouble: two of us and six of them. “Don’t push me,” I ordered. I pushed his hand away and everybody stepped back.
Simmons was rougher than me—he was ruthless. He grabbed one of the soldiers by the hair and cracked him against his knee. The guy was unconscious in seconds. I hit one of them over the bar. The girls were screaming and the bartenders called the police.
The barmen told the police to arrest all the men but Simmons and me. Glass was everywhere, the bar destroyed. The press had a field day: “Simmons and Luft put away half the cast of This Is the Army.” I used my fists but I didn’t have the strength of Simmons, who weighed two hundred pounds and had a worse temper than mine.
On May 15, 1943, the headline in Louella Parsons’s New York Journal-American column read, LYNN BARI TO SPEED WEDDING WITH FLIER.
Hollywood
Lynn Bari is trying to arrange with 20th Century Fox to get time off to visit either Guaymas, Mexico or Las Vegas. Now it isn’t fishing that is interesting the lovely Lynn in the famous fishing resort in Mexico, nor is it a vacation that may take her to Nevada. She wants to establish a residence. You have guessed it. So that she may be free from Walter Kane before November, the date her final decree comes due. She is eager to wed Sid Luft, courageous young test pilot who was so badly burned in a plane crash last January. . . .
The marriage ceremony was small, a few good friends, in the home of producer Bill Perlberg and his wife, where we were to spend a good many evenings drinking, playing cards, and enjoying ourselves.
I continued to fly for seven months after returning to Douglas. But Zeppo Marx kept on me about changing to a career as an agent. Zeppo belonged to the Hillcrest Country Club, and he would invite me to play golf with him there. The Hillcrest was drowning in folk who were important in the industry. And the members were territorial. One table would be the famous comedians’ table, with Jack Benny, George Burns and company, and so on. A particular hum would invade the club when Al Jolson arrived. Jolson had a vibration to his very presence; you could feel his entrance like a rubber band spinning in your ear. I tried to avoid the excitement. It’s difficult for today’s generation to understand the power of the man. It was based on the public’s devotion to him, like certain rock stars. In this way his fans were responsible for the tremendous position he held in Hollywood.
Zeppo influenced me in many ways, especially gambling. I learned early on if you do not have the money to pay a gambling debt, you simply don’t gamble. When Zeppo told me something, I knew I could believe it. His brother Harpo, who was an extraordinary comedic actor, would get his golf ball stuck in a trap, run to the ball, remove it, and place it back on the green for all to see. Not Zeppo; he was a genuine sportsman.
He had originally opened a theatrical agen
cy for his older brother Gummo. The agency, located on the Strip, had terrific clients like Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray—directors, writers, a host of celebrities. It was very successful. Gummo had returned to the garment business, but then gave it up to come out and help run the agency with Alan Miller. Gummo was older than Zeppo and married to Miller’s sister. Miller was a lawyer and partner in the agency, so it was all in the family. When an employee named Henry Willson left the agency, a spot opened up for me. Willson went on to represent Rock Hudson and other young, good-looking men. He specialized in this field, changing their names, grooming them, and advising their careers.
Zeppo convinced me to leave Douglas and join the agency. The first person I signed was the singer Ella Mae Morse. She was a successful recording artist for a while and was in a few movies, but her acting career never took off.
Abelardo “Rod” Rodriguez was a close friend and a lead pilot whose father was the former president of Mexico. We met at American Transport Company, and later we both flew for Douglas Aircraft. We shared an apartment briefly when I was finally divorced from Marylou. Rod owned thousands of acres of land in Mexico, and he invited me to start a development business with him. I was tempted, but I was under contract with the Marx agency and married to Lynn Bari. After the years of flying during the war, I wanted to stay near my wife.
Rod was persistent. “It’s a wonderful company, we’ll fertilize the land, develop it.” Eventually Rod went into business with Bing Crosby, and they developed the land and became multimillionaires. Coincidentally, he married Arthur Freed’s favorite actress, Lucille Bremer, who played Judy’s older sister in Meet Me in St. Louis. She retired from films to marry Rod.
My own wife was strong minded, and Lynn’s willfulness worked against her. She resisted my guiding her career and was reluctant to admit that Darryl F. Zanuck was a power in her life. Darryl had plans for her. Lynn was an excellent actress with a sultry presence on screen. And later she’d prove her ability onstage. At one dinner party, Lynn, having had a little too much to drink, made a social blunder which I believed cost her a career.
It happened just as her contract was coming up for renewal. Betty Grable, World War II’s most famous pinup, was the studio’s big earner, and she’d gotten pregnant before she married the trumpet-playing bandleader Harry James. This infuriated Darryl. That night he made some derogatory remarks about Grable. Lynn was not a close friend of Betty’s, but she resented the remarks—she took it as a general slur on women. Zanuck could be uncouth. He angered her, and when she was in the powder room with some of the women, not holding back, she said, “That bucktooth bastard.” As fate would have it, Virginia Zanuck happened to come in. “Lynn, I want you to tell that to Darryl.” Virginia escorted Lynn, who was pretty high by now, to where her husband was playing cards, “Darryl, Lynn has something to tell you,” she announced. Darryl looked up from his cards, took in the situation, and said, “Tell me later.”
Several weeks passed and someone called from the studio. Lynn’s option had not been picked up. I pleaded with her to apologize: “Your career’s at stake.” She refused. Now she was without a studio’s protection. Our relationship suffered more strain.
I bought one of the first Cadillac convertibles made after the war. Friends enjoyed a ride in the car, and I often gave Peter Lawford a lift. I’d known Peter since he was a kid parking cars for a living. His parents were English gentry, and Lady Lawford had pretentions. His father, an elderly man, was a general from Britain’s faraway colonial past. Milt Ebbins, Peter’s personal manager, told me years later that Lady Lawford dressed Peter as a little girl until he was eleven. I knew her as a stage mother determined that Peter would work in show business. Peter was charming and broke. He’d stop by our house in Westwood and have dinner with us. And he was welcome—Lynn adored him. Peter was known as “America’s Guest,” an appellation that stuck even though, until he became a substance abuser, he was very fair about moneys, a gentleman. He just wasn’t a sport.
One afternoon, Peter invited me to drive by the Hillcrest bowling alley in Beverly Hills. Inside was a jolly group of friends enjoying themselves. Judy Garland Minnelli showed up in her bobby socks and saddle shoes looking like a teenager. Everyone wanted a ride in my convertible, but I had another agenda. I felt extremely sophisticated in comparison.
By late 1945, I had realized that agenting was not for me, and what I really wanted to do was produce pictures. After a year of going in and out of major studios, I was more intrigued by motion picture production than ever. I talked a lot with Brynie Foy at Fox, a man I respected. He had been at 20th Century Fox for years and became the head of Eagle-Lion. Fox was shooting a film about the famous racehorse Seabiscuit. I had my idea to do the story of the great thoroughbred Man o’ War. Brynie told me I was barking up the wrong tree. “You can’t make a picture about a winner.” I told him he didn’t know about the one and only time Man o’ War lost a race, which was the central theme of the screenplay I had in mind.
I began to seriously research racetracks, horse owners, bloodlines, every detail related to horse racing, and I was falling in love with it, just as I’d fallen in love with aviation. Lynn was not happy with my new passion. She had enjoyed sitting at the Turf Club and playing at the races, but to her horses were an amusement, not a business. In fact, in her mind, to be serious about horses was lunatic.
Lynn was also really frightened by the idea of me moving into production. She had been disappointed at my decision not to pursue an engineering career, but she certainly recognized the futility of opposing my interest in the entertainment field. So she was not hostile to my working as an agent. But producing was another matter; in her view, no door would be opened to me.
Lynn experienced the entertainment industry as hopelessly nepotistic. She thought I’d have to start as a second assistant director—some sort of technician—which had been Eleanor Powell’s idea back when. I was not talented like Arthur Freed of the famous MGM Freed unit, for whom Judy had starred in so many pictures. Freed was a gifted songwriter and a genius with screen musicals, invaluable to the studio. But I thought I saw other entry routes. Lou Schreiber, whom I admired, was a tough-minded person who ran 20th Century Fox, but he’d also been a lackey of Al Jolson’s. By doing the bidding of one of the great powers in the business, Schreiber had been able to make small pictures, which led to him becoming qualified to produce big-time films for 20th. So there were ways. Lynn remained unconvinced, but we were not yet at war over the issue. As in love as I was, even devoted, I needed to pursue my field of interests—I wanted that freedom. And tension was slowly building over this factor.
One night I was on my own, going to meet Ted Law at Ciro’s to discuss financing strategies for Man o’ War and a few other movie ideas I had on the burner. I was making my way into Ciro’s when I accidentally bumped into a navy captain coming out the door. He didn’t speak, he just came at me with his fists. “You fuckin’ civilian.” Those words were coming at me again. I was already upset from a marital dispute and my anger spilled over. Two big MPs watched us brawl. Naturally, the captain had no way of knowing my background, but I challenged him on Sunset Boulevard. The doorman reported the incident to Frank Sinatra, who was apparently impressed by my actions. My reputation was building.
Lynn had an eye for the trappings of wealth. She’d make wisecracks to me about the size of the rings and brooches worn by some of the women. But I knew, underneath, she hankered after all of it. I wished she could have whatever she fancied. I certainly intended to try to make her dreams come true. She’d grown up on the lot, matured into a professional actress. She felt she’d paid her dues, having married an older man and gone through the usual starlet humiliations.
She’d experienced trauma in her life, endured the alcoholic mother, and now she was to suffer again. We found out we would be parents for the first time. Lynn was happily pregnant, eager to be a mother. This child would certainly bring us together in a profound way. Both of us anticipate
d the new addition. When the time came, Lynn was hospitalized at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica. It was a natural childbirth; everything had gone well. Except the little infant girl was born with a mortally deforming disease.
“Your baby is not going to live,” the doctor announced. I was in a fog.
He asked me if I wanted to see the child, and I mumbled, “No.”
Then he said, “I’m sorry, but you have to.”
I was crushed. It was so overwhelming, I couldn’t speak. I saw our poor, tortured-looking newborn daughter. I burst out in uncontrollable tears. I felt so inadequate. I thought of bringing the tragic news to Lynn. How could I? I asked a nun to go to her.
We were in our separate hells after this. Lynn was inconsolable. We didn’t sleep together for some time. We rode the tide of tragedy, and the following year she again became pregnant. This time she gave birth to Johnny, a beautiful eight-pound baby boy.
Lynn continued to be irked by my racetrack affiliations and aspirations to produce. Doug Whitney, an agent for MCA, would be having drinks with Lynn when I’d come home in the evening. He was a successful New Yorker who had anglicized his name. He’d greet me with “Here comes the boy producer!” invariably rubbing me the wrong way. If it hadn’t been such a sore subject, I might not have cared. Doug had a crush on Lynn and enjoyed putting me down. They shared the opinion that I was an upstart.
