A Hollywood Talent Manager Tells All Part 2
Marcus and Craig were quickly surrounded by several white college girls, who I supposed were getting their jollies by showing each other just how liberal they were by hanging out with two black musicians. Marcus was sitting on a couch, each arm draped around a pretty, young girl, and both of them were falling all over themselves trying to out-nice one another. Marcus was certain he was going to get laid that night, but he didn’t come close.
I was getting pretty bored, and I mentioned to an attractive and equally unimpressed young woman standing nearby that I thought college parties had lost a lot since I was of college age. On reflection, I was probably wrong. I suspect they were just as bad; I was just a lot younger. Like me, she was not drinking and like me, just watching what seemed to be a lot of forced merriment. I introduced myself and said that seeing how sick I could get wasn’t really my idea of a wonderful time, and she agreed. I asked her why she was at this party for which she obviously had no taste and she explained that Jennifer, one of the girls with Marcus was a friend of hers.
Jennifer’s father had died recently and Dolores promised to look after her and make sure she didn’t get into any trouble. I said that was nice of her, and the conversation pretty much ended there. I was just about ready to leave when Marcus asked if I wanted to join him and Jennifer for dinner before his show the next night. “Wait a minute,” I said, “let me see if I can get a date, too.” I walked back to Dolores, the young lady with whom I’d been talking, and asked her if she would like to join me and her friend, Jennifer, and Marcus. She accepted, more I think to watch over her friend than because of my scintillating personality.
She also made it very clear that the date was for dinner, not for any sex or fooling around. That was fine with me, although if she had said she wanted to have sex with me, I probably wouldn’t have turned her down. She was, after all, very pretty. The next night, the four of us went out early for Chinese food. When we arrived at the restaurant, it was completely empty except for the manager, a couple of waiters folding napkins, and a bartender “arranging the olives in numerical order,” to cop a line from actor Jim Backus.
The owner took one look at us, one white guy, one black guy, and two young girls, and ushered us to the back of the restaurant in a corner, out of sight, in the event I suppose, that any other customers showed up. I said to Marcus, “How did he know I was Jewish?” He replied, “I guess he figures we’ve got to be trouble makers. You know what us Negroes are like when we get around white girls.”
(Excerpted from “The Beach Boys Meet Cyreno on Gilligan’s Island: The Misadventures of a Hollywood Talent Manager” by Jack B. Lloyd. Soon to be published by Bear Manor Media. www.bearmanormedia.com)
A native of San Francisco, Bob Mills served in the Navy from 1956 to 1959, graduated from San Francisco State University in 1962 and the University of California Hastings Law in 1965 and practiced in Palo Alto, California from 1966 until becoming a television writer in 1976, whereupon he ceased all contact with lawyers. He wrote for the “Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts” 1976-77; “The Bob Hope Show” 1977-92 In 1973, he married his wife, Shelley, with whom he lives in Studio City, California.
