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WIZARD 4/5/2014 6:01:53 AM
I first saw the WIZARD OF OZ in 1939, in Watertown, NY, when I was eight years old, The monkeys (and their boss, the Wicked Witch) scared the hell out of me.
Every time Billie Burke (the Good Witch) appeared on screen, I jumped to my feet and applauded, raucously — why she took off and disappeared so abruptly remains a mystery.
My father (against my mother’s admonishion) took me to the New Year’s Eve showing of GONE WITH THE WIND; the movie did not start until 1:05 AM, but I woke up in time to hear Clark Gable say his infamous and final line.
I would have substituted shit for damn, or f***, or dick, or swantz, or cunt — no, I am not a girl, gotta be careful there—for the same reason, vagina—no, gotta watch it!—not junk, either (I dislike that term, but for a different reason); I dislike its inventor for the same reason I hate the term.
My only punishment for writing this down was having to read the entire paragraph aloud to the whole third grade class.
Judy Garland was seventeen when the movie, THE WIZARD OF OZ, was filmed, which made her 45 when I met her in 1966.
It was the time in her life when she was heavily into drugs and alcohol; she was playing a lot of so-called concerts and one and two night stands, during which she sang mostly old standards and WWII ditties such as MEET ME IN ST. LOUIE, LOUIE, I’LL GET BY, STARDUST, AS TIME GOES BY, THIS IS THE ARMY and A WING AND A PRAYER — always ending with SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW. . .
. . . to a standing ovation.
I was 36 (she was 45) when I was sent with a tape recorder by one of our producers to the old Loewe’s movie theater in Rochester, NY to interview Garland for my radio show.
We wound up at 2:20 AM sitting on the cold beams of the roofless and unfinished War Memorial beside the Genesee River, drinking Scotch out of a bottle in a paper bag.
I saw you in the WIZARD OF OZ, I told her.
Did you, now? she replied.
Yes, I said; I was eight years old. I took a gulp.
Our conversation went like that for the better part of half an hour when she suddenly asked, You ever rob a bank?
No. Do you want to?
Only if you do, Judy said, and never have robbed one — taking the bag from me and helping herself to a fresh sip.
I would much rather finish off this bottle, I told her.
We sat together on the cold beams and cement slabs, and I wondered what she would think if I suddenly tried to kiss her. She really was not all that unattractive, in spite of being almost fifty. She seemed much younger, almost like forty-six, more like thirty-five or fifty-one.
Would you, she said, suddenly, like to kiss me? . . Ha! I thought so! I have a son and daughter nearly as old as you! They kiss me all the time!
It was then that I took her in my arms, spilling what was left in the bottle of Scotch on the cement floor of the unfinished War Memorial, and gave her my version of Jimmy Stewart kissing Kim Novak.
Three or four minutes later, I released her, and she said, quietly, Do you want to go back to my rooms at the Sheraton?
No, I said, somewhat out of breath. I thought of her in bed, under me, and it was more than I could bear. Her getting ready for bed would be bad enough!
Just as well, she said. I have to cream my face and do my hair. The last man who kissed me like that was Frank Morgan (yuck!). I don’t think he ever kissed anyone from the movies before. His part was supposed to be played by W.C. Fields (double yuck!) but he wanted too much money. . . Jesus God, MGM and Fleming got me for the WIZARD for only five grand! I get more than that now for butchering RAINBOW!
Every time, after the War Memorial was finally opened, I subsequently went to a hockey game, or took my kids to a circus, or my girlfriend to see Judy Garland’s Farewell Performance in 1968, I was careful not to spill any drinks on the cement slabs.
I enjoyed watching Red Armstrong, Dick Gamble, and their coach Joe Crozier in his street clothes near the bench (Crozier gave me a bundle of tickets to each and every game, including all playoffs; I knew I would be drinking with him and the team at Merle Sweet’s Downtowner Bar in a couple hours).
I loved watching the trained dogs that were always featured at the Greatest Show on Earth (our dog Chloe never did anything but bark at strangers — when she was not peeing on them).
My darling girl (to whom I was not yet married) and I were mesmerized by Judy Garland; we watched her by looking to the right, toward the stage, getting a strained neck from our tenth row seats, off to the left (which I paid for) in the west end balcony.
I had asked for free comps, but the promoters did not obviously care that I had once shared a bottle of Scotch and had been propositioned by their star when the War Memorial was nothing more — nor was I — than a shell of itself.
