JPM, I'm an old fart from way back but never had a problem keeping up with "kids" 40 years younger than myself and can easily complete an hour's worth of aerobics without tiring - but it sure gets boring.
When my recon buds got out of the Corps scuba diving was becoming popular among the Hollywood set so a couple of them got invited to work at Universal Studios (this was way before they opened the Universal Studios Park) and when they weren't doing water work, they were falling horses and roping horses out in the San Fernando valley when most of that valley was horse and farm land.
My best USMC bud (Jack Tyree) was one of those guys who everyone loves and so he was asked by some of the Universal stars of that time to teach them how to scuba dive in one of the pools in the valley.
As a result of the classes he gave, he became close to most of the top stars in the movie business and knowing how much I liked the movie business he would invite me to Hollywood to meet his new found friends. (At that time I was stationed at Camp Pendleton so it was only a short drive north.)
A short while later a group of the guys who were starring in The Virginian TV show asked Jack if he would join the gang in forming a Scuba School to train all the stunt people who were working in motion pictures ... so Jack became a partner with the likes of Jaqmes Drury and Doug McClure and a few other TV stars whom most of you have never heard of.
And then Jack was a background character in The Virginian because he couldn't act worth a shit.
Then they encouraged Jack to take acting lessons and that's where he met Goldie Hawn and if I recall the story correctly, each of them made a promise to each other that if one of them made it big in the movies, he or she would 'pull' the other with him/her.
So Goldie made it big and Jack started appearing on the silver screen in small but noticeable roles. And since he was a great guy he had the run of the lot at Universal and would invite me whenever I had liberty to watch them film the major TV shows of that time.
I forget the names of most of those old shows but one day James Garner saw Jack walk on the set and he flubbed his lines while trying to acknowledge Jack.... and he flubbed those lines about 9 times because there was one unfamiliar word he had to used and it totally threw him off.
Finally he got it right and he walked right over to us and said, "Damn, Jack! I'm sorry we had so many retakes but that line threw me. But I'm glad you waited because I want you to be in the next movie we're making. Who the hell is your agent?"
Jack never had an agent because everyone knew him anyway. So Jack gave Jim his number and within a month he was working on Stage #X (the hughest stage at Universal that housed the life size ship that was used in Mutiny on the Bounty and many other major films).
There was a popular book back then about a bear and her cub that were burnt in a forest fire and grossly disfigured but lived and were attacking campers (Prophecy??) and Jack had the "bear" part and wanted me to play some minor role in that movie, but I had to turn it down due to MC obligations, so I missed my big career making opportunity.
Then he wanted me to play a small part in some Prince Valient type movie but again, the Corps came first But I did have the opportunity to go on set and play in a huge foam rubber castle and swing swords on the huge round table that all the knights sat around with some of the principal characters who starred in that movie.
Jack and Anthony Quinn were good friend also and Jack acted as one of his Indian sons in one of those movies. Also a good part in some little whorehouse movie and "How the West Was Won" and the original Planet of the Apes, among a shitload more
Then one day I was visiting and Jack gets a call from one of the major studio owners. Jack had gotten his son out of trouble more than a couple of times and this studio ower would call on Jack if an actor was causing trouble and had to be 'corrected' in a private manner (meaning the newspapers could not get involved.)
SO we go driving off into the Hollywood Hills and Jack stops his car in one of the best mansions up there and asks me to wait as he'll only be a second. And maybe 30 seconds later he comes out of the mansion with an Oscar in his hands asking me to hold it for a while.
And he goes back inside and twenty minutes later he comes back out and asks for the Oscar back and takes it back inside.
When he got back to the car I asked him, "What was that all about!"
He was sent to the house because a major actor was threatening to hit his major actress wife and when Jack got inside, the actor became irate and ran off to get some sort of a weapon. When he left the room Jack saw the Oscar on the mantel and thought, if I was him I'd use that to try to hit me with. SO he brought that Oscar outside so it couldn't be used as a blunt instrument.
So he goes back inside and the actor is a bit worried now and says,"Sorry" and convinces Jack that he is calm now and that all is well. And the wife agrees, so Jack leaves and never had to go back again because that actor never worked at that studio any more.
Jack and his studio friends started two of the major stuntmen's associations in Hollywood. I think that the first was Stunts Unlimited and I forget the other's name. I visited their present day office a couple of years ago but all the old timers I had known back in the good old days were either dead or retired and only one young kid had heard of Jack Tyree because his dad had worked with him several times in the past.
Jack died while making a jump in Topanga Canyon during the filming of the Sword and the Sorceror. And there's a strange story there but this has been too long already. Maybe later if there's any interest.
How about playing cards in Errol Flynn's secret hide-a-way?
Or "stealing" whatever was needed on Friday nights to make motorcycle movies on the weekends and returing it before it was found missing on Monday mornings?
Sorry, got off track there a bit.....
Rita Hayworth was originally Margarita Carmen Cansino (I had to look that on up).
Here's a PHOTO ...
