Call Me Lumpy: My Leave It to Beaver Days and Other Wild Hollywood Life (24 page)

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Authors: Frank Bank,Gibu Twyman

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BOOK: Call Me Lumpy: My Leave It to Beaver Days and Other Wild Hollywood Life

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Page 119

She's got this big grin on her face.

It was no bigger than the one I got on mine.

I don't think I ever emptied that cup of sugar.

We just headed right for the bedroom and that was it.

Now, here's the deal.

The reason she has that apartment . . . this was a pretty nice apartment building . . . there was a guy named Billy Gray. He was an old guy who owned a big nightclub in Los Angeles. It was named Billy Gray's Bandbox.

It was a famous nightclub. Mickey Katz used to be there. Billy was Joel Gray, the actor's, dad.

And Sarah was Billy's mistress.

And he used to call her at, like, 1 o'clock in the morning to make sure she was home.

Enter the balcony.

What we did was, I got Sarah a 25-foot phone cord and dropped it over her balcony into my bedroom. So when the phone rang, Sarah would pick up the phone, and she'd go, "Hi, dahlin'. How ah ya?"

So we used to have that phone in my bedroom down below, pumpin' away. She tried to make it sound like she was sleeping and, meanwhile, we'd be goin' at it while he was on the phone.

She'd go, 'Oh, dahlin', ahm jus havin' a terrible nightmare. Ah gotta go turn ovah and I'll talk to ya tomorra."

Bam. Hang up. Bang. We're back at it.

This went on for a few months and then Billy "The Kid" Byron moved in with me. And I liked to share things. So I shared Sarah with Billy a couple of times.

But Billy was smaller. Billy was very thin and Billy was about 5-7, 5-8. I was about 6-foot tall and about 180 pounds. Plus I had a hairy chest; Billy didn't have a hair on his bod.

So, actually, Sarah liked me, which was an upset, since Billy The Kid was one of the great ladies men of the western world, as I've mentioned before.

Not often did someone prefer me over The Kid.

But that was neither here nor there, anyway, because I liked the world in those days.

Which got me into some pretty deep trouble, I might add, with the second girl I was gonna tell you about.

That would be Marlene.

I had been dating this one girlher name was Susanoff and on for about five years. So Susan and I break up and it was pretty much mutual, but, you know, you're still kinda torn up about that.

So the very first Saturday night after we were broken up, I was up on Sunset Strip.

Page 120

First we went to the Whiskey. Then we went to Gazzari's.

Gazzari's was like, at the time, a very "in" dance club.

So I'm leaving and I'm in my Knights uniform . . . white tennis shoes with no socks, good-lookin' jeans, no shirt and a barracuda jacket zipped up about three-quarters of the way with the sleeves pushed up. And a gold chain around my neck.

I'm feelin' cool, even if I haven't scored so far that night.

Now I'm in my yellow Cadillac convertible, and it's about 3 o'clock in the morning. I'm over on La Cienega and Third Street, in front of this flower shop.

I look over in the left-hand lane and I see a girl that, oh . . . was about a 13 on a scale of 10.

She was just flat-out beautiful.

But, even better than that, she was smiling at me.

Needless to say, I smiled back at her.

And before the light had a chance to turn green, I just yelled out, "Hey, let's go get some coffee somewhere."

She cranks the smile up to about Mach 3 and says, "Sure, why not?"

So the coffee happens to be at my apartment and the next thing you know, we're makin' it for about three or four hours.

And then she stayed over and slept.

And the next day she stayed over.

And then the next day she stayed over.

And we were havin' a really great time.

And then, about . . . I don't know . . . about a day or two later, she says, "Why don't we get married?"

I was crazy. And I went, "Hey, why not?"

You know, real cavalier.

So before you know itshe's from this real nice family in West L.A.I'm over at her parents' house and they start planning this big ol' wedding.

I don't mean a little wedding.

I mean a big -ol' wedding.

Which we heldlet's see, I broke up with Susan on Thanksgiving . . . this was like the first week of December that Marlene and I met . . . we held the wedding on December 29th. At this temple over on Pico.

So it was that quick.

But, see, Marlene was a real beautiful broad. She was a gorgeous girl. I was 21. This was 1963. "Beaver" had just finished. And, like I said, she was just absolutely beautiful and she was a great lover and all that good stuff.

So I said, "Yes," crazy fool that I was. She was great in bed and I didn't want to lose her. I mean, what did I know? I'm 21 years oldyou're not smart enough to figure those things out.

Page 121

I didn't dislike her.

She was nice.

And I knew that we had a good time.

So we got married.

And my old man was just the cutest guy at this wedding. I'm standin' there, I'm smilin'. Because Leonard is sitting down on the first row with all my buddies. And he's saying to all my friends, "Screw him. I'm the best-lookin' guy here."

I'll never forget that.

That was so funny.

I got a kick out of that.

I'm laughin' and all my friends are having a big old time. We had a great time at my wedding.

Then Marlene hopped in my car and we drove to Las Vegas for two nights.

Then we went up to Lake Tahoe for two nights.

Then we went to San Francisco for two nights.

And then back home.

The night that I get home, I'm sittin' there and I'm talkin' to Wallace on the phone. He says, "OK, you're back. Now whatta ya do?"

And I went, "Yeah. What do I do?"

All of a sudden it hit me and I went, "Am I crazy?"

The answer, without missing a beat: "Yeah. You're crazy. You're absolutely a lunatic."

So I walk into the other room and I say, "Marlene, we have to talk."

And I said, "You know what? We had a good time.

"But," I said, "I want out."

She said, "We just started."

So she goes ballistic on me.

I don't remember all the verbiage. It was 34 years ago.

But the gist of it was, "I'm madly in love with you. How could you do this to me? Ta-da, ta-da, ta-da."

And she called me every name under the sun.

But, hey, I was every name under the sun, I guess.

That was fair.

But I also figured that getting out was the right thing to do.

Better then, than waiting another five years or 10 years.

I mean, maybe it would have worked out . . . I don't know. But I was still too young and I was just having too good a time chasin' everything inor out ofa skirt.

So anyhow, my biggest mistake in this whole deal was when I left the keys to the Cadillac on the dining room table.

Page 122

In the middle of the fightwe were in the bedroom fightingshe runs out of the bedroom, she grabs the keys to the Cadillac, she bails.

Now I'm sittin' there in the apartment and I'm sorta scratchin' my chin and I'm sayin', "What the hell's goin' on here?"

So I call Wallace. I say, "Hey, Wallace, I just told Marlene I want a divorce."

And he started laughing like Steve does.

He goes, "What, are you crazy?"

And I went, "No. For the first time I'm sane."

And he says, "Well, yeah, we all thought that, too."

Because, you know, my friends were always my best critics. That's what friends are for.

Sure.

I think Wallace said something poignant like, "Well, you're not going to be able to bang her anymore."

And I said, "I know. But I'm really worried about the car."

He goes, "You're kiddin'."

I said, "Yeah, she's got the Cadillac."

So Wallace comes over. And then I get a call from UCLA NeuroPsychiatric Center.

The cops had caught Marlene going 90 miles-an-hour down Sunset Strip, headin' toward the beach.

And they brought her in through UCLA Neuro Psychiatric in a strait-jacket.

She was hysterical.

And it wasn't too cold of me, was it, when I said, "Is the car OK?'"

Because that's what I did say.

Cold? It was real cold.

Maybe I'd apologize to her all these years later if I saw her, because that was very vicious.

But when you're 21, I guess you're capable of doing things like that.

I would never do it now.

I would never do something one-one hundredth that mean or uncaring to someone now.

But the only thing I thought of in those days was me.

That's the true name of that story.

I don't have the slightest idea what happened to Marlene. I don't think I ever saw her again. We wound up getting an annulment. I think the annulment was something to the effect: we didn't love each other.

So that was grounds for annulment instead of divorce. But I don't know what happened to her. I really don't. Oftimes I wondered.

Page 123

As for her folks and the money they spent on a big wedding, yeah, that was really bad.

And I felt bad about that.

But I didn't ask for the big wedding. That was my rationale.

And I wasn't planning on doing what I did. I just came to my senses. The way I figure it, shit happens. And that was also before people said that shit happensbut, if no one else was aware of it at the time, Marlene and I definitely knew that shit happened.

(Although maybe Marlene more than me.)

That's the story of my Six-Day War with marriage.

It lasted about as long as it took Israel to take over the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from the Arabs.

But it taught me one history lesson.

Sometimes the biggest idiot I met was me.

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