Marc Savin was my first, Beverly Hills, step-brother. I loved him from the moment we first met at LAX when he was assigned the duty of picking mother and I up at the airport. You could not help but appreciate Marc's physical beauty. He was an Adonis standing in the airport in his tan, fringe jacket. Tall, blonde, blue eyes, California surfer look with an edge of brilliance and danger. As I got to know him, my feelings turned to admiration, great respect and genuine fondness.
Marc had his own apartment on Beverly Glen Drive. He drove a cool, light blue, convertible Alpine Sunbeam, just like the one I had seen Don Adams drive on Get Smart (who would in fact much, much later on in my story become the neighbor leasing the house next to stepfather number three in Beverly Hills for quite a few years). But I digress.
Marc seemed to have it so all together. In my 11 year old eyes he was a god. Lee Savin, Marc’s dad, was to be my second Beverly Hills stepfather. Mother met him at the New York world's fair, in the Hollywood Pavillon where she was working in 1964 after leaving California and Beverly Hills stepfather number one.
Mother was great at getting married. She was extremely pretty in a Marilyn Monroe type way; but with a tall, thin model's body. She wore clothes beautifully. She could be charming and engaging. Even disarmingly funny at times. Although, she did not have higher education and married my father very young, she read a lot and was a quick study. She had the ability to easily gain people's trust and friendship.
For a women born and bred in the small town of Iola, Kansas with an abusive grandmother that would lock her up in the garage when she was bad, she didn't do badly in life at all. At least, for many years.
But, as with many who grow up without love, even when it is found and it is very real, often ways to sabotage relationships, or get into the wrong ones completely keep us from finding real happiness.
The trained therapist within requires a voice here. (mom's downfall doesn't come until way farther on in my story - decades even - with Greek tragedy levels intensity). But, we revert back, often unconsciously and seeming without our control, back into what we learn about who we are in those early years, the unloved and unlovable child. We find our way to recreate that if we don't get healing in some fashion along the way that let's us learn and believe that we deserve more and are, in fact, worthy of such.
I am far from a Freudian, but the man knew a great deal on this, as did his daughter. From my own experience, I can say my first hand experience fits with their theoretical models.
Fortunately, in Wichita, Kansas I was blessed with a loving, warm, demonstrative grandmother for my first 11 years despite complete abandonment by both my mother and father. Even later when mother retrieved me and brought me to Beverly Hills, her abilities to show love and consistency were muted and limited.
The trained therapist within requires a voice here. (mom's downfall doesn't come until way farther on in my story - decades even - with Greek tragedy levels intensity). But, we revert back, often unconsciously and seeming without our control, back into what we learn about who we are in those early years, the unloved and unlovable child. We find our way to recreate that if we don't get healing in some fashion along the way that let's us learn and believe that we deserve more and are, in fact, worthy of such.
I am far from a Freudian, but the man knew a great deal on this, as did his daughter. From my own experience, I can say my first hand experience fits with their theoretical models.
Fortunately, in Wichita, Kansas I was blessed with a loving, warm, demonstrative grandmother for my first 11 years despite complete abandonment by both my mother and father. Even later when mother retrieved me and brought me to Beverly Hills, her abilities to show love and consistency were muted and limited.
I did not know my father. She could never bring herself to tell me much about him. despite my on-going attempts to get something more from her. What I know is that he was Irish, Bill McCormick was his name, he was a commercial artist, a wall muralist for banks and buildings. He played jazz sax. And, he was abusive during her pregnancy and she left. That's it! And, it was never enough.
Step-father number one was a Vegas high-roller type with a drive-in theater in the army town of Junction City, Kansas where Fort Riley was located. Mother said I could not stay with them because it was too rough in the town. I never believed her. I was certain she and Warren did not want me to stay with them. He was never very warm towards me the times that my grandparents took me there for the weekends on the occasions that we drove the 4oo or miles to get there from Wichita. He had leukemia for most of the years they were together and to avoid having her having to squabble with his sisters over his estate, he left her $80,000 wrapped in foil in the freezer. That was her ticket to California where she met Sy Bartlett, my first Beverly Hills stepfather.
I only had the pleasure of meeting Sy Bartlett shortly before his passing. He was a pilot in World War II, was scheduled to pilot the Enola Gay that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima but the Pentagon decided his strategic skills were more needed there so Tibbits was sent instead to pilot the plane. Sy was a pilot during all of WWII and wrote the screenplays A Gathering of Eagles and Twelve O'Clock High among others. He was a wonderful and warm man; I am glad I met him.
His penchant for standing on the dining room table at 3 am, reciting Shakespeare with a half-gallon of Smirnoff Vodka in hand, however, ultimately drove mother away after about a year or so with Sy.
She had told me she was married to Sy and Lee, the second Beverly Hills stepfather but their Wikipedia entries do not list her. So, they co-habitated I assume.
In Beverly Hills, initially we lived in the rental apartments between Wilshire Boulevard and Burton Way. The Beverly Hills ghetto; the lower east side of the community. Lee Savin had been an attorney in New York and wanted to produce films. After leaving Sy, mom went to New York to model. That was when she met Lee while working at the Hollywood Pavillion at the New York World's Fair in the 60's. He had produced a few films, like Harlow (the real B version one, two were done) but he produced a sensational, extravaganza. It was the first filmed concert with tons of big names, the Teenage Music International (TAMI Show). But the Beach Boys legal wrangling kept the film from distribution after only a short release. There were only bootleg copies available for years. Finally, in the 2001 it was re-released on DVD. But, it was too late to be the sensation that it could have been. It was an innovation and in 2003 entered into the National Film Registry. Lee was already passed on by then and unfortunately never got to know. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/arts/music/21TAMI.html?pagewanted=all
During the limited release time of the film, I was fortunate to see it in Kansas where I had lived with my grandparents since birth. Mom was the Production Assistant on TAMI. She loved to tell the story of the Rolling Stones refusing to leave their dressing room to perform when she tried to get them on stage because they were getting high. Later, I would learn from Keith Richard's admission to a journalist that they were intimidated following a legendary performance by James Brown. That was what kept them lingering.
Grandmother had taken me to see the TAMI show. It was too cool to see my mom's name run by on the credits for half a second. The kids in Kansas thought I was making it up. How could anyone in Kansas be involved in films in anyway? Funnily, on the Beverly Hills kids side, Kansas wasn't a real place in terms geography, at least, kids there only associated Kansas and Wizard of Oz. I can't even count how often I was asked if I knew Dorothy and Toto. I had a strangely juxtaposed in life and the Wichita to Beverly Hills move was a culture shock in many ways.
But, I had been California Dreaming with the Mama's and Papa's and wishing I could be a California girl with the Beach Boys for the last year. Mother coming to claim me back from my grandparents after 11 years was a total surprise.
Now, it was official. I had arrived. I was a full-fledged California girl. Even at 11 years old, the Los Angeles air tingled with possibilities on the tarmac at LAX airport. I could not wait to soak in every last ray of what was ahead.
Marc went to Santa Monica Community College but HENAC, the radical organization in the Student Union building on the UCLA campus, was more his collegiate home. He was a follower of Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin in the Youth International Political Party (YIPPIE's).
Basically he recruited me to the YIPPIE brigade and I thrived there. It was a place to put my abundance of energy and overactive mind that had gotten entirely bored with school when the older junior and senior guys graduated from Beverly Hills High. My social life kept me, at least appearing on campus, for my freshman and sophomore years.
The world of political activism engaged me. It was meaningful and important. We needed to stop a war that was brutal, unprecedentedly inhumane, undeclared and financed by an out of control government on behalf of the military industrial complex that was the primary beneficiary of the only value reaped from the mess...profits.
When I should have been in class at Beverly Hills High School studying The Crucible or Dandelion Wine and dissecting frogs, I was Xeroxing flyer's for anti-war demonstrations in the HENAC office, the campus radical organization in the UCLA student union building or passing them out to students and passersby in the streets of Westwood. Then there were the demonstrations themselves, sit in's on and off campus or supermarket grape boycotts on behalf of the United Farm Workers. Plus in between activist duties there were the love in's at Griffith Park, with free concerts by bands like Canned Heat and Jefferson Airplane or hiking through the canyons on LSD or mescaline. Psychedelics were always my favorite.
My radicalism extended to my high school campus too. I staged a walk out off the Beverly Hills High campus with support from HENAC. Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman gave us suggestions and I followed through. I have to say "I" and not "we" staged because, all my fellow BHHS activist students that were supposed give speeches, chickened out at the last minute. I had to give everyone's speech plus my own.
Fortunately, my passion about this cause ran so deep that I was well informed and had the facts pretty straight in my head so it wasn't that hard to effectively deliver the other three speeches too. About 250 kids walked off our privileged campus that day. The walk out was done as a show of solidarity for a high school in East LA, following an uprising there that extended well beyond the school and was the impetus for many positive changes in the Hispanic educational system. There was an HBO movie with James Olmos made about that dynamic period in East LA's history called Walk Out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkout_(film)
The East LA schools were long deprived by the LA school district's allocation of funding. Integration benefits had not been realized and there was no affirmative action. At Beverly High, we had one black student. He was the son of Ella Fitzgerald the jazz singer. We did not have any Hispanic students.
Unlike the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) or the Black Panthers, the YIPPIE's were completely non-violent and very colorful. Street theater was their methodology to gain followers and enlighten. They staged multiple events.
No bombs or burning banks down like the other groups. But, they managed to get lots of press, attention and converts. It was an exciting movement to be affiliated with. One event was done on Wall Street by the group to illustrate the money hungry greed of the venue. Abbie, Jerry, et al threw money down to traders on the floor and watched them scramble to get it. Anti-materialism was a big part of the counter culture values of the decade. I burned money with Abbie and Jerry on the streets of Westwood to demonstrate how insignificant it was. We also burned draft cards and with the feminist, I even burned a bra.
Young boys were dying by the 10,000's in Viet Nam. Ultimately, around 80,000 or so. We saw pictures of coffins draped in flags returning from Viet Nam every night on the news. Magazine covers with pictures of crying, Vietnamese children on fire from Napalm running through streets were on every newsstand. Unlike, our hidden from view, wars today - we knew and saw repeatedly what devastation was taking place. Not only did we want to stop it but we were also looking for meaning for our lives that were contrary to that of our parent’s generation.
In other words, we were looking for a predominant life motivation beyond just emphasis on the accumulation of wealth and status. Those alone were not aligning well with the world that we were seeing. In fact, destroying the world was the true view. It still is when those are the primary motives. At the same time, drugs were expanding people's awareness. New ideas and creativity reached novel heights. It gave us a generational collective of sorts. A power all our own. Perhaps for the first time since the Ancients we were seekers of things like truth, beauty, justice and other universal ideals.
For me, that was also another aspect of Beverly Hills that had become a big turn off by that time. I rejected the materialistic values entirely after about 3 years. It happened sort of in a flash with an image still embedded in my mind to this day. I saw a senior girl at school get out of her yellow XKE Jaguar in a knee length rabbit coat and heels in the parking lot on campus for first period. I felt a combination of horror, disgust at the flamboyance and disbelief - this was high school for God's sakes.
By that time, I was always wearing jeans, a combat jacket from the army surplus store with a cowboy shirt and cowboy boots. The mini skirts and go-go boots were no more. I started off the first years from grades 8th to 10th quite fashionable and mod-ishly attired (Carnaby Street style because a family friend owned Paraphenalia in Beverly Hills that specialized in the hip London clothes). But, those days were passed and my girly girl ways replaced with androgyny. So, when I saw Vicki get out of that Jag, my simple Midwestern sensibilities and rapidly rising anti-materialism were flat out insulted. That incident changed me and my radicalization was complete in an instant.
Abbie was my favorite YIPPIE. I adored him. He was wild like me. He would do or say anything. He had more energy than ten people. Later it was revealed that he was bipolar. Not surprising at all. Just like me he found an ideal place to channel the energy and make a difference - with activism. Just like me drugs had gotten him too. But, the 1960's were the perfect years to be manic. You could just plug in and ride the wave.
The Democratic National Convention in 1968 was the biggest event the YIPPIE's were engaged in. Their theatrics included running Pigasus, a play on Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology, as President of the United States for the Youth International Party. Pigasus was purchased by activist/folk singer, Phil Ochs and the candidacy was announced during the massive protests at the convention where the Chicago 8 (if you count Bobby Seale that is) were arrested and charged with inciting a riot. Their arrests were followed by another street theater in the court room for months during, perhaps, the most publicized trial prior to OJ Simpson.
Abbie and Jerry came to UCLA all the time and always did their best to get us incited to riot and keep up the fight with various ideas and planning sessions. Abbie was a master at incitement. He was so charismatic. I was quite involved with staging and promoting the Chicago 7 (8) defense fund rally at Pauley Pavilion. Although, Judge Hoffman was originally going to release them to attend the event, he changed his mind. But, we sold out a good portion of the Pavilion anyway even without them there and donated all the money to the attorneys handling the group's defense.
Volunteers of America by Jefferson Airplane: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_0sg0XDfmg&feature=related
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