The Garner Files: A Memoir (4 page)

“Why not?” he said. “You’re a big-time star now.”

“Well, you’re my brother, and if I get you a job in the movies and you don’t pan out worth a damn, it’s not only bad for you, it’s bad for me. If you want to get in the movies, you’re going to have to do it yourself.”

Jack got busy and worked in the business doing different television parts here and there. It was a good ten years before he ever worked with me. That didn’t change how we felt about each other, because I think Jack understood what I was talking about.

It finally got to where occasionally Jack did work on my shows. But every time he did a
Rockford
episode, he had to go in and read. Sometimes he didn’t get the part, sometimes he did. But Jack worked on many other shows, too. In fact, he worked so much that he finally got a Screen Actors Guild pension. Jack’s day job was as a golf professional. He was a popular teaching pro in Los Angeles for thirty years. He’s retired now and lives in Palm Springs.

T
he set-to with Red and my father’s departure for California when I was fourteen were my emancipation. The day my dad left Norman, he dropped me off at a dairy farm where he’d arranged for my room
and board in return for doing chores. I slept on a cot in the cellar next to the washtub. I can still smell the damp laundry. And the cow shit, which I had to sweep up every morning. I lasted about three weeks.

That’s when I began supporting myself. I got up at 3:30 every morning to sweep out the administration building at OU before going to my junior high classes. I understood right off that nothing would be given to me; still I daydreamed a rich relative somewhere would die and leave me a fortune.

Didn’t happen.

My father wasn’t bad. He just wasn’t there. He couldn’t handle the responsibility of raising three young boys. And he had several wives after my mother died, three or four; we’re not sure to this day. Dad got married for the last time when he was in his mid-sixties, to a sweet woman named Grace. I called her “Mama Grace” and I loved her. She was the closest I ever came to having a real mother.

On my eighteenth birthday, I was in Odessa, Texas, out of work. The only thing I’d eaten in three days was the crackers I could steal off tables in restaurants. I called my father in California and said, “Dad, for my birthday, could you lend me fifty dollars?” And he said, “I’m sorry, son. I don’t have it.” Grace came on the line and said, “It’ll be there in the morning.” She wired the money, and I got back on my feet. I stood by her for the rest of her life.

Dad and I got closer after I became an actor, and toward the end of his and Grace’s lives, I got to spend time with both of them. I eventually forgave my dad everything. He may have had a drinking problem and married the wrong women, but he wasn’t evil. He died in 1996 at the age of eighty-five. We lost Mama Grace in 2002.

I
’d started driving on country roads when I was ten and got my license the summer after I turned fourteen, when I was hired by a salesman for Curlee Clothes to drive him around the state of Texas. I was a combination chauffeur/traveling secretary/babysitter. I took
care of the samples, kept the books, and tried to keep my boss away from whiskey. He had an ulcer and mixed his Scotch with milk. He wasn’t supposed to smoke, either, so I doled out his cigars. He’d take a suite at the Baker in Dallas or the Rice in Houston where he’d sit around all day drinking with the buyers. I’d end up doing the selling. The guy offered to adopt me, but I wanted to be on my own.

I worked in food markets and clothing stores. I cut trees for the telephone company. I hauled Sheetrock. I was a dishwasher, a janitor, a dockworker, an oil field roughneck, and a carpet layer. I worked on a line cleaning chickens. (God help you if you accidentally nicked a gizzard.) I was a hod carrier on a construction site—that’s the guy who brings bricks to the bricklayer in a box at the end of a pole.

I was also an insurance salesman, but not a very good one. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Here’s some widowed mother of three who can’t afford to put food on the table . . . I’d take one look at her and say, “No, ma’am, you don’t really need insurance.” Otherwise, I tried to give my all. I was usually the best worker they had, though I never really liked to work and never stayed on a job more than a few months. I don’t think I was ever
fired,
but I’d quit as soon as I’d saved enough money to coast for a while.

In those days, I went whichever way the wind blew. I had no ambition and wasn’t interested in getting an education. I just drifted here and there. I never had a job I liked enough to stick with until I took up acting, though it would be two or three years before I began to enjoy it.

When people ask me if I had a “bad” childhood, I’m never sure how to answer. I just did what was necessary. I had to make a living, because nobody was supporting me. While other kids my age had chores and allowances and curfews, I was holding down grown-up jobs because I had to feed myself and put clothes on my back and a roof over my head. It was simply a matter of survival. People have said it’s right out of Dickens, but I didn’t think I had it tough, because it was all I knew.

Looking back, I think I was better off having to do it earlier than later. Tell you what: You want to put pressure on somebody, live through the Depression. In Oklahoma. In the dust. After that, studio executives don’t bother you at all.

G
rowing up in Norman I was lucky to have two great friends, Bill D. Saxon and Jim Paul Dickenson.

I’ve known “Billy Dee” almost my whole life. We’re the same age. We went through grade school and junior high together, and we’ve stayed best friends these many years. Bill’s late wife, Wylodean, was also a dear lifelong friend. She was in my class all through school. Over the years, she always welcomed me to the Saxon home, where I spent a lot of time. Most important, Wylodean made chicken-fried steak just the way I like it.

When I was growing up, Bill’s family lived on the street behind us, and our back porches faced each other. I remember playing with him along a little creek that ran between the houses. When we were in our early teens, Bill and I worked together at a combination feed store and hatchery. We’d drive the truck to take feed and seed out to people, and we’d bring back chickens.

Bill’s dad and another man owned a bank south of Norman in a little town called Paoli, Oklahoma. They had all their money loaned out on broomcorn and cotton. When the Depression hit, the bottom dropped out of the market for both crops. The bank went belly-up and Mr. Saxon came back to Norman, where relatives took him in and helped him get back on his feet.

Oklahoma was a place where people “hunkered up” with each other to survive. It was also a place where a man’s word was his bond. Sure, we had hustlers, but they were so few and far between that you could spot them a mile away. Most people were honest, and they took care of each other. Not like LA. People here—at least those in the entertainment business—will look you right in the eye
and lie to you. They lie even when there’s no reason to. I’ve never understood that and never will. Out here, I’m a lead sinker in deep water.

Over the years, Bill Saxon and I played golf together all over the world. He owned a jet (he was in the oil business), and I had entrée to just about any course you’d want to play. We combined our resources, playing everywhere from Pebble Beach to St. Andrews to courses all over Europe and Asia.

J
im Paul Dickenson was also the same age. He was a smartass who thought he knew it all. The thing of it was, he
did
. He was a handsome kid; everybody said he looked like John Garfield. Jim Paul looked mature and he
was
mature. And suave. A real ladies’ man.

When we were in tenth grade, Jim Paul dated a senior girl. The two of them were doing things Bill and I had only talked about. We’d be cruising in Jim Paul’s mother’s car and he would stop at his girlfriend’s house and climb in her bedroom window. Bill and I would wait in the car, imagining what was going on. Later Jim Paul would fill us in on the details. Wow! We also thought it was cool the way he used the F-word in front of adults and got away with it. In short, we looked up to him.

Jim Paul’s mother, Fern, was divorced. A lot of people in town looked down on her because she drank. I remember her driving down the street with a beer bottle in her hand. But Fern had a good heart. She owned a rooming house a block away from Campus Corner, a busy district across from the OU campus with shops, restaurants, beer joints, a pool hall, bookstore, and movie theater. “The Corner” was popular with both Norman youth and OU students—the fraternity and sorority houses were within easy walking distance. A number of OU basketball players lived in Fern’s house and it was a great place to hang out because (a) it was near the Corner, and (b) Fern didn’t care if you drank or smoked or stayed up
late. There was usually an empty bed, so I often slept there, free of charge.

W
hen World War II broke out, I, like most young men, was filled with patriotic fervor. I couldn’t wait to get involved. And get away. I wasn’t old enough to be in the regular service, but the minute I turned sixteen, Jim Paul and I quit school and joined the Merchant Marine. My dad had to sign papers for me because I was underage. As soon as we enlisted, Germany surrendered. They must’ve heard we were coming.

We went through boot camp in St. Petersburg, Florida, and then I took the train to New Orleans, where I shipped out on a seagoing tug bound for Cuba and South America. I was aboard ship for two months, and I was miserable every minute. I lost thirty-five pounds because I couldn’t keep anything down. The ship’s doctor said I had “mal de mer.” Mal de mer? Hell, I was
seasick
. Fortunately, the Merchant Marine was like a civil service job: you could quit, and I did. But Jim Paul was a better sailor than I was. He stayed in for several years and went all over the world. I went to California.

W
hen I arrived in Los Angeles, I moved in with Aunt Grace Bumgarner. She was what they used to call an “old maid,” though we found out years later that she’d been married once. In my family, you thought you knew people, but you didn’t.

Everybody said Aunt Grace was crazy about me, but I thought she was just crazy. She was a real busybody, always sticking her nose in other people’s business. She knew exactly what was wrong with everyone, including the family back in Oklahoma. A domineering soul, she decided I should be an actor and would have talent scouts come and look at me at the A&P where I worked, but I refused to talk
to them. I didn’t want any part of it. She also tried to make me go back to high school, but I just wanted to goof off. After the set-to with Red, I’d gotten pretty cocky. Nobody was going to tell
me
what to do ever again. With my father absent and me supporting myself, I didn’t have to answer to anyone.

Bill Saxon joined the Marine Corps late in 1945 and was stationed at El Toro, near San Diego. It was an easy hitchhike to Hollywood, where I was working at a filling station. On a weekend pass during the Christmas season of ’46, Bill and a Marine buddy got a hotel room right at Hollywood and Vine. I joined them and we all went looking for girls. We didn’t find any. It got late, and I stayed the night. There were only two beds so I slept on the floor. The two Marines stayed up all night moaning about how unhappy they were—it was their first Christmas away from home and we were all just teenagers—but I was quiet on the subject. When they pressed me, I finally flashed my good-ol’-boy smile and said, “You know, it doesn’t make any difference to me where I sleep.” Billy Dee told me he never forgot that. They were depressed and homesick, but there I was, lying on the floor, happy as can be.

I
was never much of a student. I could get A’s when I applied myself, but I rarely applied myself. I just wasn’t interested in going to school. Not until the day when I saw two beauties on a streetcar. When I found out they went to Hollywood High, I enrolled right away.
Goodness gracious,
there were more good-looking girls at Hollywood High than in the whole state of Oklahoma.

While I was a student there, the Jantzen people were looking for guys to model their swimsuits, and the gym teacher gave them my name. I wasn’t interested until I heard they were paying $25 an hour. That was more than the principal made! We went out to Palm Springs to shoot over a weekend, and I made good money, but I hated
modeling. I felt like a piece of meat. The worst part was having to “look charming and smile,” which is what they were always telling me to do.

I wanted to play football for Hollywood High, but there was a slight problem: I never went to classes and I got kicked out. I was still under eighteen and had to go to school somewhere, so I chose the Frank Williams Trade School, where I think I majored in first aid. I also played football for the Hollywood Boys Club as a punter and linebacker. A coach from Southern Cal saw me and said he wanted me to play for them if I ever graduated from high school.

About then I heard from Harley “Doc” Lefevre, the football coach at Norman High. He said he needed help fast or he was going to lose his job. So I went back to Norman and played for him. I won’t say I was a
ringer
or that I got
paid,
but I was two years older than most of the seniors on the team and had open credit at a local clothing store. And I didn’t have to get a job.

Doc wasn’t exactly a role model. The only one of his players who had a car was Pud (rhymes with “good”) Lindsay. Pud’s family owned the Norman Steam Laundry. It was his folks’ car, but he drove it to school every day. Doc didn’t have a car, so he’d get Pud out of class to drive him around town. After running a few errands, Doc and Pud would go hang out in a coffee shop for the rest of the day. I’d get in on it, too.

Doc wasn’t much of a disciplinarian, either. During a game against one of the high schools from Oklahoma City, some guys in the stands began ragging me. “Hey, pretty boy!” and stuff like that. They kept it up, and it got embarrassing. When I came in to punt, I kicked the ball and started jogging off the field, but I kept going right past the bench and into the stands after them. It turned into a brawl, and they had to get the police to break it up. The other guys got arrested and Doc winked at me as I trotted back to the bench.