from
OLD HOLLYWOOD
to
NEW BRUNSWICK
Memories of a Wonderful Life
I would like to put on record my appreciation of the brilliant and intelligent work done by my Nimbus editor, Whitney Moran. Her research and concern for accuracy has undoubtedly enhanced the content of my book. I consider her participation a great asset to the completed book.
—Charles Foster
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Foster, Charles, 1923–, author
From old Hollywood to New Brunswick :
memories of a wonderful life / Charles Foster.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-77108-072-9 (pbk.).—ISBN 978-1-77108-073-6 (pdf).
ISBN 978-1-77108-075-0 (mobi).—ISBN 978-1-77108-074-3 (epub)
1. Foster, Charles, 1923-. 2. Public relations consultants—United
States—Biography. 3. Celebrities—Public relations—United States. 4. Screenwriters—United States—Biography. 5. Speechwriters—Canada—Biography. 6. Journalists—New Brunswick—Biography. 7. Performing arts—United States—History. 8. Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.)—Biography. I. Title.
HM1226.F67 2013 659.2’092 C2013-903456-0
C2013-903457-9
Nimbus Publishing acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities from the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) and the Canada Council for the Arts, and from the Province of Nova Scotia through the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage.
On the Cover
Jimmy Edwards (lower left) and Benny Hill (top right) were guests of my wife, Irene, and I at a banquet in London in the 1950s. I met Jimmy while in the RAF in Moncton and Benny Hill on Central Pier in Blackpool, England, where he was beginning his fabulous career in 1952.
Table of Contents
DEDICATION
COPYRIGHT
PROLOGUE
1. IN 1943 I MET THE MAN WHO CHANGE MY LIFE
2. SIDNEY AND VALENTINE OLCOT: PROUD CANADIANS IN HOLLYWOOD
3. MEETING MARY PICKFORD: QUEEN OF HOLLYWOOD
4. LOUIS B. MAYER NEVER FORGOT SAINT JOHN
5. ONLY CHARLIE CHAPLIN COULD HAVE GOTTEN ME INTO HEARST CASTLE
6. GRETA GARBO CERTAINLY DIDN'T WANT TO BE ALONE
7. HERMAN MANKIEWICZ TOLD ME A REMARKABLE SECRET
8. CHARLES LINDBERGH ASKED ME TO BE HIS PILOT
9. THANKS TO JACK WARNER, I MADE A FRIEND FOR LIFE
10. BUT EVERYTHING WONDERFUL MUST FINALLY END
11. HOW DO YOU TOP HOLLYWOOD? YOU GO TO NEW YORK
12. THE CONCERT JIMMY DORSEY PLAYED FOR ME
13. RUSS CASE OPENED ONE HUNDRE MUSICAL DOORS IN NEW YORK
14. MY CARNEGIE HALL BIG BAND "DEBUT"
15. ESSEX HOUSE HOTEL, HERE I COME
16. I HAD TO ASK WHO FRANK SINATRA WAS IN 1943
17. THANKS TO COZY COLE, I MET TWO REMARKABLE PEOPLE IN WASHINGTON
18. GLEN MILLER'S BAND KEPT A PROMISE
• MRS. FOSTER, WE WONDER IF WE MIGHT PAY YOU A VISIT? (AS TOLD BY CHARLES FOSTER'S MOTHER)
19. A FORD MODEL T ALLOWED US TO MEET SOMEONE SPECIAL
20. I STOLE WINSTON CHURCHILL'S FLAG
21. MY FINAL WEEKEND LEAVE FROM THE RAF
22. THE DAY RICHARD BURTON REFUSED TO DIE
23. THE TAMING OF THE BOLSHOI BALLET IN LONDON
24. LANA TURNER SAID HE WOULD NEVER MAKE IT IN THE MOVIES
25. AGATHA CHRISTIE: BARTENDER AT THE AMBASSADORS
26. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING WITH A KING IN ROME
27. RICHARD GREENE'S SHERWOOD FOREST VISITOR
28. A GLASS OF MILK SAVED ERROL FLYNN'S CAREER
29. WHEN THE DUKE OF BEDFORD GOT LONST ON THE JUNGFRAU
30. THE SECRET CHARLIE CHAPLIN KEPT FOR FIFTY YEARS
31. SMUGGLING MARILYN INTO LONDON
32. A MEMORABLE MORNING WITH MARILYN
33. Sparky taught me the secrets of baseball
34. Where do today’s stars get their names?
35. YOU MUST WORK TO MAKE CHRISTMAS MERRY
36. AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR TO MY APARTMENT
37. WHY ON EARTH ARE YOU LIVING IN NEW BRUNSWICK
38. THE RAF LET ME DISCOVER A WHOLE NEW WORLD
EPILOGUE
PHOTOS
It was on Thursday, July 16, 1936, that I first realized Atlantic Canada existed. On that memorable day, a very important Atlantic Canadian who had reached his pinnacle of success in England spent more than two hours extolling the wonders of this unique part of North America to a very unimportant person, me.
Born William Maxwell Aitken in Maple, Ontario, in 1879, his family had moved to Newcastle, New Brunswick, when he was under a year old. It was there he published his first newspaper when he was only thirteen. He graduated with honours from high school in Newcastle and had registered at Dalhousie University and King’s College but did not attend either. He attended the University of New Brunswick briefly before quitting to become a clerk in the Chatham, New Brunswick, office of lawyer Richard Bennett, who later became prime minister of Canada. A visit to Halifax when he was eighteen introduced Aitken to John F. Stairs, who gave him a job in the Stairs family’s finance business. When Stairs died in 1904, Aitken, who had demonstrated an astonishing ability to handle huge financial undertakings, took over the company, Royal Securities.
In 1906 Max Aitken married Haligonian Gladys Drury. It was a happy marriage that lasted, sadly, only until 1927, when Gladys died from cancer at age forty-one. By then, the Aitkens, having made a great deal of money in Halifax in a variety of Canadian financial ventures, were in London, England, where Aitken had shown that Atlantic Canadians were equal in brainpower to anyone anywhere in the world. He had taken over one of England’s national daily newspapers, the Daily Express, when it was foundering. By changing the paper’s entire policy he’d made it the largest and most successful in the country, with a circulation of more than three million copies per day.
Aitken had also become a MP for Ashton-under-Lyne in Lancashire and in business became a major shareholder in the growing Rolls-Royce Ltd. During the First World War he had been put in charge of the Canadian War Records Office and was knighted in 1911 by King George V for his work to strengthen England. But he did not forget his Canadian roots. During the war he took charge of recording the success stories of Canadians and made sure they were well publicized in both Britain and Canada. By this time Aitken owned four British newspapers, including the London Evening Standard. In 1917, as a result not only of his business successes but for his quiet generosity and good work for those in need, Aitken was elevated to the peerage. As Lord Beaverbrook, he took his seat in the prestigious British House of Lords.
Why I, in 1936, at the age of thirteen, was talking to this remarkable gentleman is a proud memory I will recall later. But my introduction to the wonders of Atlantic Canada began on a very rough sea trip from Dover in Kent, England, to Calais, France, as I sat beside Lord Beaverbrook en route to yet another country—Germany—where something very important was about to take place.
Lord Beaverbrook was the first Atlantic Canadian I had ever met. But to this day, I remember him telling me that despite his successes in England nowhere else in the world would ever eclipse his memories of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. “You must go there one day,” he said. “If you do, tell them I will one day do something to say thank you for the start I received there in my life.”
He certainly kept that promise. After the Second World War ended, Lord Beaverbrook became chancellor of the University of New Brunswick and while in Fredericton, apart from many large donations to the university, he funded the building of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery and filled it with priceless art. He also built the Fredericton Playhouse, the Lord Beaverbrook Hotel, and the Lady Beaverbrook Arena. He provided millions for scholarships to the university, and spread his generosity to places like the Miramichi where he built the Lord Beaverbrook Arena. A school in Campbellton, New Brunswick, exists because he gave the city the funds, and his foundation of the Beaverbrook Chair in Ethics and Communications at McGill University came from his love of Canada and of Canadians. It would take a lot more space to include all his other efforts to say thank you to Atlantic Canada, but it must be included that Saint John still boasts the Lord Beaverbrook Rink.
During the Second World War, Seven years after meeting Lord Beaverbrook, I visited New Brunswick. In 1943 the Royal Air Force (RAF) shipped me across the Atlantic to New York on the mighty Queen Elizabeth, and from there we travelled by train to 31 Personnel Dispatch Centre in Moncton, where we awaited our turn to be sent out west for flight training. It was my experience in Moncton during those six weeks that brought me back again in 1970 for what I anticipated would be another six weeks.
After forty-three years I am still here.
My wife and I have enjoyed every day of those years and have told many people, including our son, Ian, that nowhere else in the world offers the friendliness and opportunities of Atlantic Canada. Ian and his wife, Sheila, moved here five years ago and are now spreading the same enthusiasm for our region.
I haven’t made the millions that Lord Beaverbrook achieved, nor have I contributed to this part of the world as he later did, but I have learned that what he told me in 1936 is absolutely correct: Atlantic Canada is undoubtedly the best place in the world to live. Since that first meeting with Lord Beaverbrook. I have talked to many other expatriate Atlantic Canadians. One who stands out is the man who made Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) Studios in Hollywood the most illustrious and lasting of all time: Louis B. Mayer. I recall Mayer telling me it was the work ethic he learned in his father’s scrap metal yard in Saint John, New Brunswick, that taught him compassion for other workers and showed him many more abilities not learned in school—like concern for every employee—that made him successful in Hollywood.
I met actor Harold Russell, from Sydney, Nova Scotia, in 1972 when I found myself seated next to him at an afternoon Boston Red Sox game. The Best Years Of Our Lives was an Academy Award-winning film in 1947, and permitted Russell to become the only person in film history to win two Oscars for the same role. He was awarded the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and, as a veteran in the United States Army who had lost his arms in a wartime tragedy, an additional, Honorary Oscar for bringing hope and courage to fellow veterans.
Because I was from New Brunswick, Russell invited me to spend that evening at his home in nearby Wayland, Massachusetts, to meet his wife and family. He used that evening to extol his home country and Nova Scotia. “I’m American now,” he said, “But the Canadian way of life I learned at school in Nova Scotia made me the man I am today, and gave me my ability to weather disaster and come out smiling.”
Two Broadway stars, Christie MacDonald, from Pictou, Nova Scotia, and Donald Brian, from St. John’s, Newfoundland, both spent a lot of time sharing with me their memories of Atlantic Canada. Both were proud to tell me that it was their Canadian educators who gave them the strength to work harder when failure seemed inevitable, and that those people were responsible—much more than all the producers and directors—for the fame and enjoyable lives MacDonald and Brian lived.
Ruby Keeler, another Broadway star from Halifax, and her good friend, actor David Manners (also from Halifax), had nothing but good memories of Atlantic Canada. Ruby told me: “There are no other people in the world as kind as Haligonians. I have many friends around the world, but the ones I must never lose are those I knew when my life was just beginning.”
David Manners told me one night of friends in Halifax he had been able to help on their way to success. “But I would never want their names publicized, because one is now a renowned hotel owner and does not like to recall the rough days of his youth. But I have never forgotten my Canadian friends. I have many friends now, but those from Nova Scotia were and still are my real friends.”
I could add the words of Donald Sutherland, Fay Wray, Jack Cummings, George Cleveland, Henry Beckman, Edward Earle, Wallace MacDonald, Walter Pidgeon, Gordon Pinsent, Joe and Sam De Grasse, and producer Harry Saltzman, for all these successful people made it quite clear that it was the education and family life of Atlantic Canada that gave them the impetus to know they could succeed in life.
I have been extremely fortunate in my life. I have been privileged to meet kings, queens, presidents, princes, dukes, earls, and countless celebrities. Many remained friends for life. Unfortunately, too many have now left this earth.
My schooling ended at thirteen when I ran away to join a circus. Despite this lack of formal education, I was able to pass the aircrew examination that university students were flunking, and at eighteen was accepted as a pilot trainee in the British Royal Air Force. I graduated with my wings in Canada in 1943 when I was just twenty. I wrote comedy for giants like Bob Hope, Jimmy Edwards, Benny Hill, and Jack Benny, and for the best television comedy series in Hollywood, back when comedy was clean and funny. But that was a long time ago. So why did I have all this great fortune? I have always believed the answer is very simple: I was in the right place at the right time.
Though it was unpleasant at the time, I now realize the most important place of all was the Colonel Belcher Hospital in Calgary, Alberta, during the Second World War—for it was there I was befriended by Peter Middleton, the man I always consider the one person responsible for making my entire career and life possible. Only recently did I discover that Peter was an even more important man in the life of one of today’s most delightful, talked about, photographed, and impressive persons who will be on the world’s front pages long after I have left this earth. (The story of Peter Middleton’s influence on my entire life is in chapter one.)
Looking back now, I have no doubt that the best of all these “right” places is the town of Riverview, New Brunswick, which I have happily called home for more than forty-three years.
I can proudly say that since I joined the circus at thirteen I have never once been out of work, nor once claimed employment insurance. Thanks to the work I chose to do, I have travelled extensively around the Atlantic provinces; and like those renowned people I met, I have nothing but praise for the friendliness of people of all walks of life in the communities I have visited.
I celebrated my sixty-fifth wedding anniversary this year. Over the years, my wife and I have together visited twenty-eight countries around the world including most of Europe and South America an exotic places like Hong Kong and Singapore. Today, with most of our travelling over, we just walk three kilometres around the block every morning after breakfast giving treats to every tail-wagging dog we meet. And we thank our lucky stars that somehow we ended up in Atlantic Canada.
I had just completed my twelve-week training course at 32 Elementary Flying Training School (EFTS), at Bowden, north of Calgary. As one of the top graduates of this preliminary pilot’s course, I had been posted to 37 Service Flying Training School (SFTS) in nearby Calgary, where I was to fly the powerful single-engine Harvard aircraft.
Together with the other trainees at Bowden, I had visited Calgary on a number of occasions, and I looked forward to spending a few months in the great city. Our advanced training school was based at what is now Calgary International Airport. In those days it was a very small airport seemingly miles from the heart of the city. A couple days after arriving, we were all introduced to our new instructors. I was a little astonished when I met the man allocated to me. I discovered he was just three years older than me, but figured he wouldn’t be there if he hadn’t the qualifications to teach me all I needed to know to earn my pilot’s wings.
Because of his youth, Peter Middleton was a little different than the other instructors. The officers—and Peter was a flying officer—usually expected us mere leading aircraftmen (LACs) to call them “sir.” Even the non-commissioned pilots expected to be given that same honour. Peter made it clear from the first day we went up in the noisy Harvard that I was to call him Peter. “No ‘sir,’” I recall him telling me, “We’re all in this together; let’s be friends.”
I began to look forward to my days in the air with Peter. His attitude gave me confidence, and after only a week I was convinced that, despite his youth, I had very likely found the best instructor the RAF had ever produced.
But my training ended almost as soon as it began. After only ten days, I developed a fever and a temperature of 104° F. On arrival at the base hospital I was diagnosed with scarlet fever. Two days later I was moved to the Colonel Belcher Hospital in Calgary because I was showing signs of an even worse problem: rheumatic fever. If you don’t know anything about rheumatic fever—which, happily, is rare these days—it gives its sufferers the most agonizing pains in every part of his or her body.
While I was quarantined with scarlet fever I was allowed no visitors at the Belcher, but when it turned into rheumatic fever alone, I was allowed to have friends drop by. The first person to visit me was Peter Middleton, the man I was just getting to respect when my flying days had ended abruptly. “After you went into hospital, I packed all your things in your kit bag,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about anything. Everything will be there when you get out of here.”
Peter and I became great friends. He visited almost every day for the six weeks I spent in the Belcher. Many days he brought friends I had trained with at Bowden. They sat by my bed and tried hard to get me to forget the terrible pain that was with me twenty-four hours a day. Peter was honest enough to tell me the doctors feared my heart might possibly be affected, and that it could well be the end of my flying days—and possibly the end of my RAF days. But he took the trouble to investigate the illness thoroughly and he was able to encourage me with stories of other sufferers who had completely recovered. He urged me not to give up hope.
One of the things that helped me through those agonizing weeks in hospital was a morning radio program from station CFCN in Calgary. Frank Eckersley, the announcer, always started his two-hour show at 7 am with a swingy version of the “Blue Danube” by Ray Noble and His Orchestra. I loved the big band sound of that era and listened every morning, hoping Mr. Eckersley would play a new Glenn Miller or Benny Goodman or Artie Shaw record that I had not heard before.
Peter began to realize what a big role this morning program was playing in my recovery. So he went down to the radio station, talked to Frank Eckersley, and gave him a list of all my favourite songs, singers, and bands, and explained that I desperately needed a boost to get me out of the depression I had sunken into at the hospital.
Frank Eckersley responded.
One glorious morning, I heard my name called as the program went on the air: “Charles Foster, this program is for you. Your friend Peter Middleton has told me about your illness and the pain you are suffering. Both of us hope the music you are about to hear will help get you out of hospital soon.”
For two hours Eckersley played every tune I wanted to hear, talked about the bands, and told me secrets about the singers and musicians. From that day on I called him Dr. Frank Eckersley, for from that day on I started to recover.
Peter was delighted. “So what are you going to do with the leave you will get when you get out of hospital?” he asked. I told him I had once dreamed of visiting Hollywood and had a letter in my kit bag addressed to Sir Charles Aubrey Smith, the renowned British actor then living in Hollywood. He had been a schoolmate of my father at Malvern College in Worcestershire, England. “But I don’t think I’ll have the strength to tackle a journey like that,” I said. “It has always been a dream to see Hollywood, but maybe I’ll just stay in Calgary and take it easy until I can get back to flying.”
Peter wasn’t sold on that idea. He kept nagging me about going to Hollywood. “If you have a friend there, go and see him,” he said. “Leave everything to me. But first I think I can get you a two-week stay at the Harrison Hot Springs Hotel in British Columbia. It has been turned into a convalescent hospital for people in the armed forces. A couple of weeks there and you’ll have your strength back before you know it. How does that sound?”
Of course it sounded wonderful. Anything out of the hospital sounded wonderful—although I must put on record that the doctors, nurses, and other staff members at the Colonel Belcher Hospital had been superb during my long stay with them. I made many friends there but I was more than ready to get back to the world outside.
“I will arrange to collect all your back pay,” added Peter. “I’ll have it ready for you when you return to Calgary from Harrison Hot Springs. I’ve already looked after your kit and personal things, so you won’t have to do a thing except collect that letter to Sir Aubrey Smith, get on the train, and head into the sunshine of California.” I found it hard to believe that one man would go so far out of his way to help another man he really hardly knew, but thanks to the concern of Peter Middleton, I actually began to feel hopeful that I had a future.
Finally, the pains subsided. Peter had kept his word. Everything was set for me to go to Harrison Hot Springs for two weeks to recuperate. The hotel turned out to be amazing. In peacetime it had been a luxury spa, but now it was full of servicemen getting over various serious medical problems. For some happy reason, Mr. Gusseme, the hotel owner, was still running the entire operation. He put me in charge of the library, which allowed me to spend my days selecting appropriate books for the other residents before taking every afternoon off to walk around the beautiful grounds.
Peter called the hotel every day to ask the doctors how I was progressing. At the end of the first week, he actually came up from Calgary by train and spent a day encouraging me to look forward to the future. He was an incredible man. “I’ll meet you at the rail depot when you get back, drive you to the base to pick up what you need, and I already have a train ticket for you from Calgary to Spokane in Washington. There you will be able to get another train that will take you all the way to your destination, Hollywood. Are you going to be fit enough to tackle the trip?” His enthusiasm worked. I said I would be ready. With Peter’s determination and my belief that I had apparently conquered rheumatic fever with no heart complications, I suddenly believed the future was beginning to look bright again.
Mr. Gusseme drove me to the train depot in Harrison Hot Springs. When I arrived at Calgary’s main rail station, Peter was there with Gwen, a nurse from the Belcher. They drove me to No. 37, where I picked up all the things I needed for my vacation. Peter had arranged my leave pass. Twenty-one days sounded incredibly glorious. He gave me my back pay: four hundred dollars Canadian plus one hundred in US currency. Where the US dollars came from I never knew. He and Gwen handed me a rail ticket from Calgary to Spokane and ignored my urging that I pay for it. Then, as a final gesture, he and Gwen drove me to the Palliser Hotel—Calgary’s finest. “We’ve booked a room for you here tonight,” said Peter. “It will be a taste of the luxury we hope you will find in Hollywood at the home of your father’s friend. Have your supper—everything is paid—and I’ll be here at eight in the morning to take you to the station and put you on the train.”
Peter was one of only two men I met in my entire life who never broke a promise. (I’ll tell you about the other much later.) The next morning he saw me safely on board the train before he headed back to 37 SFTS, where some fortunate young student was awaiting the benefit of his outstanding flying knowledge. My entire wonderful life started that day when Peter put me on the train to Spokane. What my life would have been like had he not been enthused enough to encourage me to face the world after my hospital stay, I shall never know.
Because of Peter’s determination, I got to Hollywood.
I met so many wonderful people and made enough memories in Hollywood to convince me to make a success of my life. Many of the people I met back in 1943 would become a major part of my future. But there is something I discovered only this past summer about Peter Middleton. When Prince William (one day to be king of England) and his beautiful wife, Princess Catherine (Kate), arrived in Canada to enchant us with their positive outlook for the future and their completely down-to-earth way of looking at life the delightful Princess Catherine announced that she hoped, while on their visit to Calgary, to see the airport where her grandfather had once been an instructor in the RAF Commonwealth Air Training Program. Yes, Peter Middleton, the man who made my enjoyable life possible, was the grandfather of Catherine Middleton, one day to be the queen of England.
Perhaps you should all take a look back at those people who, in the past, helped your lives in any way. They should never be forgotten. I doubt you will ever have the good fortune to meet one as generous and concerned as was Peter Middleton all those years ago, but hopefully looking back will help you create a few wonderful memories of your own.
Thank you, Peter. This book and my life are dedicated to you.