A question from Phil De Croocq…
I've really enjoyed reading about your exploits "crashing" the studios of NBC Burbank and gaining access to, well, just about every studio and every show that taped there. But I don't recall, or else missed, the backstory of how it all began.
How did you even get the idea to do it? What was your plan the first time you did it? How did you feel the first time walking in? How confident were you going in the second time? And anything else that went into the planning and continuation of your visits that you can share would be most welcomed.
You're right: I left this part out of the story. Okay, here's how I began doing it…
My first real writing job was for Laugh-In magazine, which was kind of a cross between a fan magazine for the show and an imitation of MAD. It didn't last long after I began working for it, inaugurating a pattern which has persisted to this day. Still, I continued to do freelance writing for the company that published it. For some time after the monthly publication ended, they were in occasional conversations with someone — I have no idea who — about doing some more with the Laugh-In people.
The publisher put out magazines for teens focusing on stars like David Cassidy and Bobby Sherman, as well as movie "gossip" magazines, most of which had Burt Reynolds and/or Elizabeth Taylor on their covers. There were talks about doing special features on Laugh-In in those publications and maybe putting out quarterly specials about Laugh-In and the performers on it.
None of that ever happened but one day when some of it looked likely, an editor there asked me if I wanted to work on such projects. I said yes. He asked me if I wanted to visit the set of Laugh-In and watch them tape. I said yes again, only more emphatically.
He gave me the number of someone over at NBC. It's a half-century later and I don't remember this woman's name but let's say it was Zelda Zekely. He said to call her and she'd clear me to visit the set. I called her and she cleared me to visit the set, which on the date in question was on Stage 5 at NBC. I did. I was fascinated and enjoyed it very much. A few weeks later, I went over to do it again. The guard called her office and didn't get an answer but since he remembered me from before, he cleared me again. This time when I visited the set, they were in Stage 3 which adjoined Stage 1 where Johnny Carson was taping.
The Tonight Show was then based in New York but they taped from Burbank now and then. So after watching Laugh-In for a while that day, I went over to watch Mr. Carson's show, standing in that little area where the show's production people sat or stood during the taping. No one stopped me. No one asked who I was.
I think it was during that taping that the following happened. Johnny was answering audience questions during a commercial break and someone asked who'd hosted The Tonight Show before Jack Paar. Johnny said it was not Steve Allen, as most people assumed. He told them a little about the show Tonight: America After Dark that had filled the time slot for not very long between Allen and Paar. He said it was hosted by Jack Lescoulie and later by some disc jockey guy whose name he didn't remember. Then he turned to the staff, amidst whom I was standing, and said, "Someone on my crack research team will know. What was the name of that disc jockey?"
Everyone on the staff muttered "I dunno," which got the intended laugh from the audience and I whispered to a man next to me, "Al 'Jazzbeaux' Collins." He in turn yelled it out and Carson acted shocked that someone really did know it, which got another laugh. I can't quite explain it but after that, I felt like no one would question my right to be there. It's like I'd proved myself useful to have around or something.
The next time I went to NBC, I just walked in and waved to the guards and they let me in. I watched some Laugh-In but I wound up wandering into other studios.
By now, I was freelancing for Disney, which was a few blocks away. I'd take the bus out there (I didn't drive yet) and spend the morning on that lot meeting with editors and picking up or turning in assignments. One day, my editor there — a lovely gent named George Sherman, who passed away way too young — and I were lunching in the NBC commissary with a friend of his when Gene Kelly — that's right…Gene Kelly, the guy who sang in the rain — walked by.
George's friend knew Gene Kelly and Mr. Kelly sat with us for a bit until he had to scurry back to NBC. He was then taping what turned out to be a short-lived variety series for them called The Funny Side. I mentioned that I might be over there later and he invited me to come watch them tape. (The show did not have a studio audience, at least not on that day.)
An hour or two later, I walked into the main entrance at NBC as I had the previous times and I was about to tell the guard that I'd been invited by Gene Kelly. Before I did, he nodded that he recognized me and waved me in. So I walked on in and realized I could probably do that any time I wanted as long as I didn't stay away so long that the guards forgot my face. So I visited any time I had to go out to Disney. Outside the entrance, there was a vending machine that sold Daily Variety and I'd sometimes buy a copy to carry on my way in so I looked more like I was in show business.
I was prepared with things to say (like "Gee, Zelda Zekely was supposed to clear me") if I got stopped but I never got stopped. I probably did this about twelve times, the last three of which were spent in part hanging around the studio where the Golddiggers from The Dean Martin Show were rehearsing. I was trying to strike up a conversation with…well, any of them but one in particular.
Finally on that last exploratory visit, I started noticing stagehands and security guys staring at me like, "Who the hell is that guy?" Before any of the Golddiggers could meet me and therefore fall madly in love as I'm sure would have happened, I decided to stop my network invasions. It just didn't feel like it would be fun to be hurled bodily from the premises and banned forever from Show Business. The next time I entered that building, I had a for-real pass and reason, and I was there to see someone about hiring me.
And I later did work there on a few shows and it was an amazing place, especially with Mr. Carson in permanent residence and the other stages full of shows and specials. I'd pass Orson Welles or Sean Connery or Doris Day and think that if I'd just wandered the halls there for two weeks, I would have run into every single recognizable person in the entertainment field. In today's television industry, there isn't a single place where even a fraction of that could happen. Or someone with as little authorization as I had could even get half past the metal detector.
