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Re: Hollywood's WILD WILDest stuntman
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TomWeaver999
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Jul 8 09 8:37 PM
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The last time I saw THE WILD ONE (Brando), I realized that Whitey is in like half the movie -- every time there's a crowd shot, any hour of the day or night, there he is. Add up all the seconds in which you see him in the background and I bet he's in the movie as much as some of the stars!
And, yes, Whitey is in some of the WWW reunion shots in I TALKED WITH A ZOMBIE. There'll be an interview with him in my next book of interviews (strictly WILD WILD WEST); here's the section where he talks about leaving the show:
<< An actor named Ramon Novarro was killed [in October 1968], murdered by a young man from back east somewhere. This young guy had made some phone calls from Novarro's house to his girlfriend, so the police later followed up on the calls and picked the girl up and had her extradited to Burbank. The police had her in their custody one night at the Back Stage, police from Chicago who were working on the Novarro case. It just so happened that I was there that night too. Me and Dotti and my brother Billy and his wife Alicia had been to the Imperial Garden over on the Sunset Strip for dinner, and now we were sitting in a booth at the Back Stage. There in a booth in the corner were them two or three cops from Chicago, and the girl, and Bob Conrad, and a couple friends of ours, Norm and Bob from the North Hollywood police. Naturally, my wife being with me, we didn't drink heavy, we were just having a drink or two.
My brother Billy had on what they called a Nehru jacket, and this Chicago cop came by, drunk, and started picking on Billy's Nehru jacket. And he reached over to Billy and flipped his tie and said, "Buy your tie a drink." My brother, who was about as fast as a guy could be, jumped up, and I said, "Sit down, sit down, sit down..." The cop was just more or less jokin', but it irritated Billy. I sat Billy down, and this cop went on to the men's room, or wherever he went. When he came back by, he again reached over and touched Billy's tie and again: "Give your tie a drink." Again I sat my brother back down and I said, "Now, listen. Shut up about these cops. Don't worry about these cops, just sit down and let's have a drink." Well, Bob overheard me saying "cops." I don't know why he took it out on me, but he jumped up and ran over and stuck his finger across the table at my nose: "You say 'cops' one more time and you're off the show!" And I knocked the shit out of him! I just reached over and stuck one on him, and I went over the table after him. The only thing that saved him was Norm and Bob, the North Hollywood policemen; one of 'em had me around the throat and one of 'em had a hammerlock on me. They were tryin' to keep me off of Bob, and they were talkin' to me: "Whitey! Whitey! Whitey! Settle down now, settle down!" I was gonna work on Bob that night, and he knew it--he kept back-pedalin' away from me.
Bob said, "I'll see ya at work in the morning," and I said, "No, you won't see me at work. You don't want me back to work." He kept after me to forget about it, but I said, "No. you'll never forget about it, Bob, so...let's just don't worry about it. I won't be in." Well, he talked to me a little bit, kept telling me, "Come on in," and I said okay.
I didn't feel good about it, but the next morning I took my script and walked on in, walked over to the outdoor set where we were gonna work that day. Everybody was there, the associate producer Leonard Katzman and everybody, and when I walked on the set, Bob approached me, chest out, and said, "When you get time, I want to see you in that ring" [the Joe Palooka boxing ring]. He was challenging me in front of all the gang, because he was embarrassed over what happened. Well, that just upset me so bad. Red was standin' there, and Dick Cangey, and Tom Huff, and Jimmy George, and the producer and actors. It embarrassed the hell out of me. I said, "You're in the ring right now, Bob. Let's get your ass out the gate, let's get out there on the street, and you and I will have it out. We'll straighten this thing out. There won't be nobody responsible but me and you." Well, he couldn't take me up on it, because of his contract with CBS. I throwed my script and said, "Now, stick that up your ass," and I turned to Leonard Katzman and I said, "Thank you, Mr. Katzman, and everybody, for all these wonderful times," and I started walking off the set. And Red and Dick, as God is my witness, were walkin' along with me: "Whitey, don't go, don't go, don't quit!" I said, "Hey. Guys. You saw what happened. How can I stay? I can't stay under these conditions." My guys loved me so much that they didn't want me to go off the show. But Bob pulled that on me. With Bob, it came down to "I forgive you but I don't forgive you."
And later on, down the road, I got paid. Bruce Lansbury was the producer of the show, and the brother of Angela Lansbury incidentally, and he went ahead and paid me for two episodes that they had yet to do, that I didn't work on. But I had kinda prepared 'em, and so he paid me. Bruce Lansbury was a super-great guy, a terrific guy to have in your corner. In 2002, he came to the Golden Boot Award show [at Merv Griffin's Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills] when I got the Boot, and I was greatly honored by his presence.
On Balboa Boulevard in Encino, about a mile from my house, and about a mile from Bob's house, there was a golf course with a jogging trail around it, and it was great to go jogging there. During the run of Wild West, Bob and I would always go there; we could do an Air Force 11-minute mile at that time. Later, after Wild Wild West was cancelled, but the falling-out between me and him was still fresh in our minds, I was out jogging the trail and I saw ol' Bob comin' toward me. I just kept joggin' toward him and about 100 feet before he got to me, he stuck out his hand and said, "Friends?"
I said, "Bob, I was always your friend. I was never anything but your friend, Bob. You're the one that wanted to tear it up." I told him the truth that day, standin' there on that jogging trail. I said, "You're the one who tore up our friendship, Bob. I loved you like a brother and I worked for you hard, I gave my all for you, Bob, just because you gave me a break in the business." And he and I became talkin' friends again. Then one night I was in my car and I heard this horn a-honkin' alongside of me and I said, "What the hell is that?" and Dotti said, "It's Bob Conrad, in the next lane." He was a-wavin' at me and a-wavin' at me. We stopped, and he said, "Let's go have a drink," and I said okay. So me and Dotti and him drove up on Ventura Boulevard and we sat there in some bar 'til two in the morning talkin' about the good ol' days. Our fight didn't even come up at all, we just talked about the fun we'd had [on Wild Wild West]. But I nnnever got to work with Bob again...not one more day did I ever get to work for him. He had several TV series after Wild West, and he never called me to work for him. I never worked on anything Bob ever did after that. <<
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Hollywood's WILD WILDest stuntman
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