As I Saw It

by Scott, Marvin; Rather, Dan;

  “I had myself some fun, and enjoyed it,” he said. “Damn near killed myself, but I got my money’s worth.” Aside from his car, Charlie’s $300 sexual encounter would prove to be the most extravagant expense of his entire adventure.

  Having lived a quiet, reserved life for so many years, with no family or friends, Charlie found himself deeply changed by the risks he had taken in venturing out on his odyssey.

  “For the first time, I really felt alive,” he recalled. “I was coming out of my shell.” Though cautious, he discovered that he enjoyed meeting and talking to people, and made many friends. In San Francisco he was attracted to a young woman at Fisherman’s Wharf, and struck up a conversation with her. They talked for a while, and he invited her to dinner. The woman even invited him to join her and her family, who were charmed by the self-proclaimed “salesman” from New Jersey.

  After being on the run for several weeks, Charlie began to feel more confident that he just might get away with his escapade. But he continued to fear being exposed by his New Jersey license plate and personal identification, and made several more unsuccessful attempts to get a false ID. In a number of states he tried to obtain safe-deposit boxes to hold his small fortune, but each bank he visited wanted some form of identification. Each time he would claim he had forgotten his wallet back at the hotel, and leave. He had one of the biggest scares of his adventure after one such visit, in Seattle. Charlie returned to his hotel to find it surrounded by more than a dozen police and sheriff’s vehicles.

  “I got the hell out of there quick,” he recalled. Hours later, he was relieved to hear on the radio that there had simply been a Law Enforcement Awards luncheon at the hotel.

  When Charlie arrived in Portland—where he had considered settling down and opening his hobby shop—he decided to mark the occasion by checking into a nice hotel instead of a motel. He had made it all the way across America in his quiet caper, and figured it was worth a modest celebration. Still, his habitual frugality spoke up, and rather than pay for the hotel’s private garage, he decided to park his car on the street.

  This proved to be Charlie’s downfall. On June 26th, 1978, a couple of Portland police officers in the area were testing a new piece of equipment in their cruiser, an onboard computer linked to the National Crime Information computer system. Spotting a car with out-of-town plates, they punched in the numbers on Charlie’s New Jersey license plate. A short time later, two FBI agents were rapping loudly on the door of Charlie’s hotel room and asking if he was Charlie Walsh. “I said no,” Charlie remembered, “but when they asked for ID, everything I had said Charlie Walsh.” The agents read him his rights and told him he was under arrest, and confiscated his bag of money. Figuring he had no way out, he told the agents the whole story of his adventure. He explained how he had desperately tried to obtain false identification, but didn’t know how; upon which the agents informed him, to his surprise and dismay, that there was a book in the library on the subject. They asked if he had gambled away much of the money in Las Vegas. Charlie told them he hadn’t, adding that he wasn’t a gambler.

  “I’m not so sure about that,” shot back one agent. “Seems you took a big gamble with this.”

  Charlie spent two weeks in a county jail in Portland, waiting for arrangements to be completed for his extradition to New Jersey. He became deeply depressed during his uncomfortable time there, reflecting on the trouble he had gotten himself into. On his way out of the local jail, when he was picking up his few belongings from the property clerk, he was asked to sign a receipt for $22.40—for a credit in the commissary—but he refused, insisting he had no credit.

  “I don’t want the money,” he cried. “It’s those damn computer records that got me into this mess in the first place!” (He was eventually sent a check—which he gave to his lawyer to return.)

  Still, though handcuffed and in the custody of two Jersey City police officers, Charlie said he enjoyed the trip home. It was the first time he had ever flown, and, he would later laugh, “it was part of the adventure.” Other than the criminal indictment, he had no idea what awaited him back in New Jersey.

  Charlie Walsh was greeted at the airport by a cheering crowd, along with television news crews and reporters. I stood among them, shaking my head in disbelief at the mob of supporters cheering wildly for their schlubby folk hero as he stepped off the plane in the same rumpled tweed jacket and baggy pants he had on when he fled. Local papers had a great time with the story. “Good Time Charlie Returns,” one bold headline screamed.

  Charlie was shocked. “It surprised the hell out of me when I walked into a restaurant and people stood up and applauded me,” he said. “Everybody wanted to shake my hand or pat me on the back. I couldn’t believe what was happening; I thought they would boo me.”

  On the contrary, it was the bank that was viewed as the villain. Asserting that Charlie had been an innocent victim, newspaper editorials called for all the charges against him to be dropped. The grand jury agreed, placing the culpability with the bank’s computer error and finding no evidence of criminal intent on Charlie’s part. At the recommendation of the prosecutor, the bank dropped its criminal charges and settled for the money Charlie still had—$74,466 in cash, $14,300 in checks, $3,100 for his car, $2,000 from the sale of what was left of his coin collection, the last $190 from his insurance policy—and, of course, the $85.13 he had left in his bank account. Charlie had lived as frugally during his four months on the lam as he had his entire life, spending only a little over $11,000.

  “I gave them everything I had in the world,” Charlie recounted, “and they turned out to be nice guys after all.” Along with settling, the bank let him keep a $69 television set, an electric razor and a number of other small items he had bought while on the run.

  Still, Charlie was left penniless. He was also homeless: while he was gone, the city tore down the house on which he owed so many thousands of dollars in back taxes. Yet what he lacked in money, he now had in adulation. He had become a local celebrity overnight, and found friendship and support everywhere he went. He was even applauded by workers at City Hall when he showed up to apply for welfare—the cop at the security desk patted him on the back and shook his hand, and a secretary shouted, “God bless you, Charlie,” while another exclaimed, “Wish ya hadn’t got caught—we’re rooting for you.” One city official suggested that Charlie be named Grand Marshal of the next St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

  Later, discussing why people had lauded him as a hero, Charlie reasoned, “I lived out other people’s fantasy. Others wouldn’t do it because of family ties. I had no family, no friends and no job, so I could just take off.” I asked him if he had any regrets. “I kinda wish I’d lived it up a little more, spent a little more of the bank’s money,” he responded. “But if I had it to do over again, I’d probably do it the same way.” Would he do it again if circumstances permitted, I inquired? “Truth is, I probably would, but I wouldn’t want anyone to know that,” he quipped with a twinkle in his eye.

  All things considered, Charlie acknowledged that his life had become far better for his caper. “My whole lifestyle changed,” he said. “I’d always been a loner; now I’m in the public eye, they’ve made me a celebrity and everybody wants to be my friend. They want to help me.” He told me he was hopeful of finding a new job—but wanted nothing to do with computers. “I’ve been done in by the damn technology three times,” he laughed, referring to his replacement by a computer at his job on Wall Street, the bank glitch that had launched his wild ride, and the police computer system that brought it to an end. “I feel like I’ve been folded, stapled and mutilated!”

  4

  MARILYN, THE PINK ELEPHANT AND ME

  Self portrait of me at 15 with camera used to photograph Marilyn Monroe riding a pink elephant at opening night benefit of the circus, 1955.

  Americans idolize their movie stars. They’re a part of our pop culture. But few have earned the distinction Marilyn Monroe did, of becoming a time
less cultural icon. Monroe died more than half a century ago, on August 5th, 1962, but she remains very much alive in the hearts and minds of legions of fans.

  For an entire generation, Marilyn Monroe was a figure of fantasy rather than flesh—but she was quite real. A product of the fifties, she was as real as hula-hoops, tail fins and the Cold War. She was the woman every woman wanted to be and every man wanted to be with. Lois Banner, who taught classes on Marilyn Monroe at the University of Southern California, characterized her as “the greatest enchantress in Western history since Cleopatra.”

  The Hollywood star glowed with baby-doll innocence, but her walk and expressions radiated sexuality. Born Norma Jeane Mortensen and brought up in foster homes, Marilyn Monroe cultivated a public image that belied the way she saw herself. According to those who knew her, Monroe considered herself introverted, shy and oftentimes unintelligent. While she had difficult relationships with men, she had a relationship with the camera that has never been matched.

  In the words of photographer Eve Arnold, “She was the animal trainer and the photographers the beast.”

  * * *

  I will never forget the night America’s Sex Goddess toyed with my camera as a kitten toys with a spool of wool, generating an electric charge with each click of my shutter. The year was 1955, and Marilyn was the star attraction at the opening night of the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus at Madison Square Garden. It was a benefit for the Leukemia Society, and Marilyn rode into the arena atop a pink elephant, drop-dead gorgeous in her form-fitting black-and-white costume sparkling with sequins.

  I was a kid of 15 at the time, and managed to maneuver my way into the event with my high-school press pass. A week earlier, I told the press agents I was doing a story for my high-school newspaper—a little white lie that got me the chance to meet Marilyn Monroe up close and take her picture. That night I put on a sport jacket and nice shirt, loaded my Rolleiflex camera with Tri-X black-and-white film and slung the heavy strobe-flash unit over my shoulder, and entered the side entrance to Madison Square Garden, where I positioned myself in the middle of the pack of newspaper photographers like I belonged there. Unlike many competitive paparazzi today, the photogs back then were nice guys, and didn’t think to bother a kid with a camera.

  Suddenly I saw a flash go off, and turned to see Marilyn walking toward us, strutting past the clowns and circus animals. Wiggling and jiggling just the way she did across the silver screen, she was statuesque, her long legs covered in fishnet stockings, her breasts plump above a skimpy costume, her blonde hair swept back. This was her first public appearance since her divorce from Joe DiMaggio, and I positioned myself in a spot where I knew I could have a clear shot of her walking with her friend and photographer Milton Green, at whose home she had been staying since the split.

  My finger was frozen on the shutter as I snapped away, grabbing several frames as she walked toward the pink elephant that she would ride into the arena. She was radiant and gracious, frequently stopping to the chorus of shouts from photographers exclaiming, “Marilyn, this way—one more.” At one point, she turned from the rest of the pack and looked right at me. I sensed a slight smile as she threw back her head, raised an arm and asked, in a faint voice, “Is this all right?” I couldn’t believe it—Marilyn Monroe had actually spoken to me! As a teenager with raging hormones, I couldn’t help but think, Wow! Wait’ll I tell my buddies!

  There was a magical quality about this beautiful woman in front of my camera. Her smile was real, though her pose seemed studied; she was as large as life. She mounted the elephant, giving me another great shot, and rode triumphantly into the arena to the thunderous cheers and applause of adoring fans. She appeared to be loving every moment of it.

  * * *

  To be loved—for the 36 years of her life, that was Marilyn Monroe’s fantasy. While her lasting love affair was with the camera, millions of fans had their own love affairs with this mystical blonde, the visible Venus of her time. She played the sensuous blonde, a role she came to personify, in such unforgettable films as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Seven Year Itch and Some Like it Hot, and over the last ten years of her life, her movies earned more than $200 million.

  Monroe wanted to be taken seriously as an actress, and desperately sought affection from others.

  “She wanted a home, a family, children,” Lois Banner wrote of her. “Above all, she wanted love.” Yet her marriages—including one to Yankee great DiMaggio, and another to author Arthur Miller—failed, and she fell into deep depression. Her death in 1962 was officially declared a suicide, but with the passage of time, rumors and conspiracy theories have suggested that the Mafia or her purported affairs with President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert Kennedy were somehow related to her untimely death.

  The mystery of her death has added to the mystique that still surrounds her. Monroe’s name has appeared on so many products and establishments that Forbes magazine once listed her as third in its annual billing of top deceased celebrity earners, with her heirs earning in excess of $27 million in one year alone. Even today, so many years after her death, the American public still can’t get enough of Marilyn Monroe. Just look on social media—she has tens of thousands of followers on Twitter, and more than three million fans on Facebook.

  Although she was idolized as America’s number-one sex queen, Marilyn Monroe always wanted more. And she never forgot who her friends were.

  “People made me a star,” she said in one of her last interviews. “No studio, no person, but the people.” And it is the people who carry on her legacy. A columnist once observed that “Marilyn Monroe was the stuff dreams are made of. Her legacy to us is that we are still dreaming.”

  5

  AMITYVILLE—HORROR OR HOAX?

  I joined a midnight séance where a psychic said there was something dark and evil in the “Amityville Horror” house. March 1976.

  I felt a mix of trepidation and excitement as I pulled up to the Dutch Colonial house at 112 Ocean Avenue. The adventurer in me was eager to join in a scheduled séance with a group of demonologists, psychics and parapsychologists. But being one who can get queasy during horror movies, I wasn’t quite sure if I was ready for what I might experience here.

  I was about to enter America’s most notorious haunted house, from which a family claimed it was driven by demonic forces—and where, 16 months earlier, a young man murdered his parents and four siblings. This combination of the diabolical murder of one family and the purported occult hauntings of another would later inspire the book and iconic motion picture The Amityville Horror, a purportedly true story that terrified a global audience, unceremoniously shoved a quiet suburban community into the international spotlight, and spawned a cottage industry that would make it one of the most lucrative ghost stories of all time.

  My assignment, on that chilly March night in 1976, was to determine if there was any credibility to the tales of George and Kathy Lutz that their house was possessed by demons. Three months earlier they had complained of inexplicable, weird occurrences throughout their spacious home. They reported extreme fluctuations in temperature, loud scrapes and banging sounds from rooms, green slime oozing from the walls, swarms of devilish flies gathering in the dead of winter, the appearance of a mysterious red room in the basement, and strange vibrations and the sound of voices at all hours of the day and night. The Lutzes’ youngest child, Missy, described speaking to an “angel” named Jodie who lived in her room, and who Missy said would present herself in the room as a large pig able to change shape and form at will. The family claimed the unnerving events began almost immediately after they had moved in, and the subsequent blessing of the house by Father Ralph Pecoraro, a Roman Catholic priest who said he heard a voice demanding that he get out, seemed to initiate a chain reaction of events that sent the Lutzes and their three children running for their lives a mere 28 days after they had moved in. The family never returned.

  Now I arrived for the midnight gathering, a séa
nce arranged by my producer and colleague Laura Di Dio. The rest of the group, already assembled, invited me to join them at a long kitchen table, in the center of which a crucifix and blessed candles were placed. This was done, they told me, with hopes of provoking the overpowering force believed to be in the house, and drawing it out. Noted demonologist Lorraine Warren exclaimed, “There’s no doubt that something of a demonic nature has haunted this house.”

  An air of anticipation took over as the room became silent. Psychic Alberta Riley pursed her lips and closed her eyes in concentration. Her hands rose to her face as she spoke up in a frightened voice. “Whatever is here—” she began, then faltered. “Is it trying to hurt you?” asked one of the other participants. “Yeah,” Riley managed, then continued, “Something comes at you and makes your heart speed up.” Mary Pascarella, another psychic, described her vision of whatever it was that was demonizing the house as being “like some kind of a black shadow that forms a head, and it moves. And as it moves, I feel personally threatened.”

  Everyone at the table was riveted by these declarations of the psychics. And yet, intense and entertaining as they were, I admit I was skeptical, and experienced little that challenged that skepticism. The only sensation I felt during the entire séance was a slight chill behind my left ear—which nevertheless would prompt author Jay Anson to suggest, in the epilogue to The Amityville Horror, that I had been “touched” by something supernatural in the house that night.

  After the séance, a parapsychologist from the Psychical Research Foundation set up cameras and sensitive monitoring equipment, which the group expected would detect any unusual movement in the house. As Saturday night turned into the early hours of Sunday morning, I curled up under blankets on a sofa in the living room, awaiting any supernatural occurrence. We heard none of the noises or voices the Lutzes claimed to have heard. The only voices I heard that night were those of my crew, wanting to know when we were going to have the sandwiches we had brought along.