A TALE OF THREE CITIES: NEW YORK, L.A. AND SAN FRANCISCO IN OCTOBER OF ‘62 (42 page)

The Beverly Hillbillys
hit home with Los
Angelenos. Starring Buddy Ebsen as Jed Clampett, "a burly
mountaineer . . . barely kept his family fed" who strikes it rich
on oil and "loaded up the truck and moved to Beverleee . . . Hills,
that is . . . swimmin' pools, movie stars . . ." it struck a nerve
with the public. America was fascinated with
the life
, which
was the world of movies, money and moguls, all with some nice
window dressing in the form of scantily-clad young lovelies. People
enjoyed living vicariously through Hollywood, like a married girl
who enjoys hearing about the sexual dalliances of a single
girlfriend.

Dodger Stadium's opening had a similar effect. Color
photos and footage depicting the "Dodger blue" uniforms, the green
grass, the red, white and blue stands, and the blue skies, were
panacea to cold Easterners shivering in front of their TV sets with
wintry conditions outside. This phenomenon played itself out in
football, too. New Year's Day viewers were in awe of the Rose Bowl,
a sunsplashed panorama in the dead of winter. The USC Trojans and
UCLA Bruins became the glamour teams of college football for the
same reason; fans in beach attire on sunny days; pretty
cheerleaders; and gladiators in colorful uniforms doing battle on
the green plains below.

Sports and entertainment were fused by television.
The fan in the stands might, and often did, see celebrities at
Dodger Stadium, but the TV camera caught them up close and
personal, where they could be interviewed, their clothes and maybe
even dates scrutinized in tabloid style.

The Dodgers solved their colorless infield problem
using movie methods. Heavy rain rendered the field thin and pallid
prior to Opening Day in 1962, but Walter O'Malley followed the
advice of his good friend, film director Mervyn LeRoy, who
suggested green dye. That solved the problem. The Stadium Club was
packed with celebrities for the opener, including Frank Sinatra,
Jack Warner and Jimmy Stewart. The opener against Cincinnati came
at the same time as the Academy Awards. "
West Side Story
Sweeps Oscars," read the
L.A. Times
, above the fold.

Hollywood had already played a big role in getting
the Dodgers to L.A. in the first place. In 1957, comedians Jack
Benny, Groucho Marx and George Burns hosted a telethon in support
of a land referendum to build the proposed Dodger Stadium. Ronald
Reagan, president of the Screen Actors Guild, lobbied for the
stadium to be built in the downtown area, not away from the
action.

"For years we have been watching golf courses and
other recreation areas destroyed to make room for sub-divisions and
factories," stated Reagan. "Where is a baseball stadium to go, in
the suburbs, away from the freeways?" The five-hour telethon was a
critical Dodgers success.

In the Coliseum years, Gene Autry, Lauren Bacall,
Spencer Tracy, and Nat King Cole were regulars. Celebrity all-star
games became popular fare, with line-ups that included Phil
Silvers, Dinah Shore, Doris Day, and Mickey Rooney. Local radio
celebrities also got involved. Actor Edward G. Robinson "mowed
down" an umpire with a mock Tommy gun in 1960.

The celebrity events were even more popular at Dodger
Stadium, when Dean Martin, James Garner, and Nipsey Russell became
regulars. Two ex-ballplayers were also popular actors. Chuck
Connors was a former Dodger, now the star of
The Rifleman
.
John Berardino played at USC and for the Yankees, and was now a
soap opera star on
General Hospital
.

"Jack Benny used to sit with Walter O'Malley almost
every night," recalled general manager Buzzie Bavasi. "I gave Danny
Kaye a key to my office and my private box. Rosalind Russell really
loved the game. Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby were there a lot, and
Randolph Scott, Milton Berle, and Cary Grant were real fans."

"Cary Grant was probably the most glamorous regular
- and he was a very good fan," said Vin Scully. "He was not coming
to the ballpark because it was
de rigeur
, the thing to do.
Cary came because he really loved baseball."

"Once, when I was going to pitch the second game of a
double-header, I was sitting next to him and he asked me, 'Is there
any chance sometime that I could go into the clubhouse?' " recalled
pitcher Joe Moeller. " So I took him in with me and he was so
excited to be there - like a little kid. Believe me, the players
were just as much in awe of him."

Movies loved to include shots of Dodger Stadium.
That Touch of Mink
, starring Grant and another baseball
fanatic, Doris Day, featured scenes of game action. "At that time,
a lot of films included shots of the park. It seemed as if the
producers, directors, and writers were going out of their way to
incorporate Dodger Stadium in their movies."

Like USC and UCLA football players for years before
them, many Dodgers played small roles in movies. "Most of the time,
we just did cameos, playing ourselves," remembered pitcher Stan
Williams. "That way, we didn't have to join the actors' union."
Williams, Larry Sherry, Sandy Koufax, Ed Roebuck and Vin Scully
appeared as themselves on the detective show
Michael Shayne.
Williams and Sherry appeared in
The Tom Ewell Show
. Sandy
Koufax gave pitching pointers on an episode of
Dennis the
Menace
. Don Drysdale, whose rugged good looks and caramel-rich
voice were made for the screen, appeared frequently. He went beyond
cameos, playing cowboys on
The Rifleman
and
The
Lawman
. He had a fairly big role in
The Millionaire
, and
appeared in variety shows with Red Skelton, Groucho Marx and Steve
Allen. Big D also appeared on screen with Jack Webb and Robert
Mitchum in the comedy
The Last Time I Saw Archie
.

Drysdale was on
The Donna Reed Show
twice and
appeared as himself in an episode of
Leave it to Beaver
. In
"Flashing Spikes," an episode of the
Alcoa Premiere
anthology series, Drysdale played a fictitious baseball player in a
show that included Jimmy Stewart, Jack Warden, and Edgar Buchanan,
all directed by the great John Ford.

The Giants and Candlestick Park also got involved.
Famed director Alfred Hitchcock had long made San Francisco a
backdrop for many of his films. The movie industry followed suit by
utilizing its vistas, skylines and bay.
Experiment in Terror
was a thriller starring Glenn Ford, Lee Remick, Stefanie Powers and
Ross Martin (later Robert Conrad's sidekick in the TV program
The Wild, Wild West
). In it, a murderer kidnaps a young
woman. The climax occurs at Candlestick during a Giants-Dodgers
game.

"They told us they were going to film the game that
night," recalled San Francisco pitcher Mike McCormick, a Los
Angeles native. "We all had to sign releases and were paid $50
apiece for being in it. They just said to go play and not even
think about what they were doing.

"I pitched a complete game win that night, so I was
on the post-game show in the clubhouse when they brought Lee Remick
down and we were introduced. I signed my cap and gave it to her.
Then she left because they were setting up to shoot other
scenes.

"All the shots with fans in the stands were done
after the game. They were there until three or four in the morning.
We had no idea what it was all about until we saw the finished film
in '62."

Director Blake Edwards (
Peter Gunn
,
The
Pink Panther
,
10
) shot additional close-ups of John
Roseboro, Wally Moon and Drysdale back in L.A. Vin Scully's
play-by-play was integrated into the film. Henry Mancini's score
provided a stunning sound track.

Andy Carey of the Dodgers parlayed his journeyman
career into a photography business. A business-savvy fellow who
wore three-piece suits to the park after having conducted meetings
beforehand (he was also a stockbroker), Carey began a side business
called "Hero of the Day."

"I'd always been an avid photographer and I had my
own portrait studio," recalled Carey. "So one day I brought my
Polaroid camera with me to the park and thought if I took some
shots it'd loosen the guys up. Well, we won the game and the next
night we won again and I took another 'Hero of the Day' picture.
After a few more wins, it kinda got to be old hat just taking
pictures with the guys in their uniform, so I went to John the
clubhouse man for help."

John "Senator" Griffin, the clubhouse man, was an old
school guy with a Hollywood twist. He would wear outrageous garb
like grass skirts, flowered hats, loud ties and kimonos, leaving it
on as long as the Dodgers won. He had more props than a costume
designer - hats, gag glasses, moustaches - and let Carey borrow
them for his pictures. Players had photos taken wearing wigs,
cigars, shaving cream, and other clown acts. The team went on a
winning streak, and Carey's "assistants," Daryl Spencer and Lee
Walls, helped him take pictures after wins all year. At season's
end
Life
magazine ran the best of them.

A recording by "The Dodgermen" was released,
featuring songs such as "The Dodger Song" and "Dodger Calypso."
Danny Kaye sang a song that made good-natured fun of O'Malley. Kaye
and his wife, Sylvia Fine, collaborated with Herbert Baker to
perform a five-man musical drama about the team, which did brisk
sales. The music was played over the P.A. system during batting
practice.

"We all thought it was pretty amusing," recalled
catcher Doug Camilli.

Art Rosenbaum of the
San Francisco Chronicle
wrote that O'Malley was offended by the song's premise, which was
that he was less interested in victory and more so in sell-out
attendance.

"That's absolutely false," said Bavasi. "We sold the
record at the park all summer. It was a big item at the concession
stands. Besides, Danny sat with me almost every night."

Other musical hits of the year included
"Hully-Gully," "Watusi" and "Monster Mash." Dance tunes were Little
Eva's "Locomotion," and the "Peppermint Twist" by Joey Dee and the
Starliters. Young America was seized by a dance craze.

But O'Malley
was
upset by the relationship
between 29-year old black shortstop Maury Wills and 38-year old
lilie-white actress Doris Day. On top of the inter-racial issue,
Wills was married and had a family in Spokane, Washington.

Rumors were rampant, although Wills did not speak of
it with teammates. Both were asked about it repeatedly, yet denied
it. Some 30 years later, however, Wills wrote in his autobiography,
On the Run
, "We had a mutual need for one another. We were
in love - as I understood it at the time. I only had so much love
for another human being because I was so much in love with
baseball. As much love as I had, it was extended to her, but it was
too much for me. I couldn't handle it. I was a baseball
player."

Other Dodgers dated starlets and singers, although
none as conspicuously as the Angels' Bo Belinsky. Aside from
actresses, the town was filled with beautiful girls. The sexy
clothing styles of the West Coast were in, and players met young
lovelies at the beach, in bars, nightclubs, restaurants, the
stadium, and everywhere else. It was an adult Disneyland.

O'Malley did not like that. He knew the boys would be
boys, and could not prevent them from playing the field. He was no
moralist himself, but the team's core image and fan base was
family-oriented. The club went to great lengths, just like
Disneyland in Orange County, to sell a wholesome image. Groupies,
one-night stands and the many results thereof - venereal disease,
abortions, broken marriages, blackmail - were to be kept to a
minimum.

Hollywood was always a potential distraction. For
Wills, it had definitely become one, so he would "pull the shade
and block it all out when I got to the park." In May, Marilyn
Monroe appeared at Dodger Stadium. She was rumored to be involved
with Bo Belinsky, but it was just a rumor, probably stirred up by
Bud Furillo or Walter Winchell. Albie Pearson of the Angels was
tasked with escorting her on the field, and later said that he saw
"desperation" in her eyes. She had recently sung her notorious
"Happy Birthday" song to JFK, but the aftermath had been toxic
politically and emotionally for her. The Christian outfielder
wanted to talk to her about Jesus and salvation, but the
opportunity did not present itself. She would soon be dead, either
by her own hand, by accidental overdose, or worse. Hers was a
cautionary tale in Tinseltown: "All that glitters is not gold."

Los Angeles

"Pull up a chair."

- Dodgers announcer Vin Scully's common pre-game
invitation to radio listeners

Dodgertown, the Spring Training home of the Los
Angeles Dodgers, was in its day the finest facility in baseball. It
was a self-contained village that met most every need the players
had. One of the reasons for this was because Florida was, as late
as 1962, still not hospitable to black players. Built out of old
Navy barracks in Vero Beach, Florida, it had over the years been
modified to become a shelter of sorts for Jackie Robinson, Roy
Campanella, and other black Dodgers.

By 1962, racial conditions had not improved. The
Dodgers had some hip, mod black guys like Maury Wills who were not
one bit happy about the conditions. Unlike many quiet black players
of past years - or even quiet teammates like Junior Gilliam - Wills
thought it was time for the world to wake up. John Roseboro was not
a big talker, but in a less-public way he, too, was fed up with
racism. How could they be treated so well in Los Angeles, and most
of country, and so poorly in Florida? Why did the Dodgers have to
train in Vero Beach anyway? Wills was asked why he did not bring
his family to Vero Beach.