THE FACTS BEHIND BLOOD ALLEY

George Coleman, a burly teamster, was John Wayne's transporta­tion manager on many of his mms. He had that position in a film Bob was signed by Warner Brothers to make in 1954, "Blood Alley."

Fiction: Coleman refused to rent a bus to take the crew members from a Bay Area location to San Francisco for a night outing. Robert, indignant over George's lack of concem for his fellow crew members, took him to task at the end of a long pier. An argument fol­lowed. Coleman lost. The 278-pounder found him­self floundering in the cold waters of the bay after what was publicized as "a little bit of horseplay." "Horseplay" my ass. Bob was mad.

After Coleman dried out, he protested to director William Wellman and to the assistant director, Andy McLaglen, the son of actor Victor McLaglen. Bob was fired as-typically-he didn't elaborate any defense; besides, he didn't like the part. So, the story goes, John Wayne took over Bob's role.

Fact "It never happened!" Brother Robert is adamant about it. The real truth lay in that John Wayne had a contractual glitch with Warner Brothers, needing one picture to fill out his obliga tion before contract renewal. When Warners told him that he could do "Blood Alley," Wayne said, "Mitchum is doing that one."

The powers that be at the studio simply pushed a button. "Mitchum is doing that one" became "Mitchum was doing that one." The elaborate story of Bob's recalcitrance with George Coleman became fodder for the media. Both Bob and Coleman denied the story, but the studio heat was intense. Something that had never happened became a studio legend.

But now the record is set straight.

***

Much has been written about Marilyn Monroe, but the thing that stays with me is Bob's comment after her tragic death: "Marilyn was much too fragile for Hollywood." He was not referring to her physical courage. When she and Bob were filming Otto Preminger's "River of No Retum" in 1953, a beautifully shot Cinemascope Westem, they rafted on the Bow River of Canada-without stunt doubles.

The raft started swinging out of control when the crew-manned security line snapped. They careened with alarming speed toward the turbulent rapids and could easily have been dumped in the rough water and jagged rocks. Bob insisted that Marilyn leave while she could with the help of the crew following on shore, but she refused until Bob could also be taken off the raft. 'You shouldn't be out here," she told him. 'You've got the flu so I don't get off until you do."

They got off-with a great deal of shouting and waving from the anxious crew. The raft didn't make it.

Marilyn's Achilles' heel lay in her caring too much.

Another member of that picture's cast was Westem actor Rory Calhoun,known to his peers as "Smoke." Bob and Rory became instant friends, reflecting Robert's penchant for running with the mavericks. Bob told me about Calhoun once when a columnist wrote a disparaging remark about Smoke's "pretty face."

"His real name is Timothy Francis Duggan and he spent time in Oklahoma for a little thing called 'armed robbery,'" Bob said. A few years later,

Rory was riding a horse in Griffith Park when a producer saw him and was impressed with the way he straddled a saddle. The producer asked Rory if he was in pictures. Smoke told him no. The producer suggested he should try the business. Smoke got an agent, and learned that the producer wanted him to change his name. And Rory Calhoun was bom.

In rapid succession Bob did William A. Wellman's "Track of the Cat" for Warner Brothers (based on a very strange allegorical tale by Walter Van TIlberg Clark) and "Not As a Stranger" for United Artists (based on a verypopular novel by Morton Thompson). While making the latter film under director Stanley Kramer, Bob worked with Frank Sinatra and they became close friends. For years Bob would get a Mother's Day card from the singer that read, "Happy Mother's Day. You Mother!"

Following "Not as a Stranger," Bob did a remarkable fIlm, "The Night ofthe Hunter." For sheer ability Bob deserved the Academy Award for his role as a psychotic hymn-singing preacher pursuing two small children for a hidden fortune. Unfortunately, the fIlm was a financial disaster. I have long since shed the illusion that the Oscar goes to the "best actor" or the "best actress." The fIlm has since become a popular cult classic.

It was the only picture actor Charles Laughton ever directed. I met him and he told me that Bob rated among the fmest talents". . . ever to perform anywhere." If you see the fIlm, look and listen to Bob as he stands in the water, watching the two children drift away from him, escaping on the river. My brother is either stark, raving mad, or one fine actor.

WHO SAID IT WOULD BE EASY?

WHEN WE REACHED Hollywood, Brother Robert offered us his beloved " Oochee-Papa-Poontang Wagon as temporary haven. Within two weeks we found a suitable apartment in the San Fernando Valley.

Bob had gone to the Cannes Film Festival prior to our return. The news media wallowed in reporting and photographing actress Simone Silva embracing Bob on the beach. She came bare-breasted at him in a deliberate attempt to create a wave of publicity for herself. Bob, seen throughout the world press with those uncovered breasts crushed against his chest, was totally unaware of her existence before the incident.

It might do skeptics well to ponder that the bizarre event didn't demean him. Miss Silva's pathetic attempt to use Bob as a springboard to fame wound up in suicide in 1957 because that cherished "fame" she wanted so desperately never came her way. Bob was deeply moved when he learned that she had died by her own hand in London.

***

I started working again in the industry by doing three "Fireside Theater" segments in quick succession, but still had to supplement my income. Luckily, I had worked once for George Meyers, a contractor who built and hung garage doors. George was a former wrestler who stood 6-foot-6 and weighed 220 pounds. Despite all of that, he was a gentle, kind man who readily hired me again.

One day I jumped off a ladder without looking. A nail in a 2-by-4 pierced my boot, lodging so deeply in my left foot that a carpenter had to claw it loose with his hammer. Somehow I worked the rest of the day. A few days later I was hospitalized in St. Joseph's in Burbank with osteomylitis, an inflammation of the bone. While I was in the hospital, George brought me a bottle of vodka and a quart of 7-Up. He had no opener so he cracked the neck of the 7-Up bottle on the bed frame, waiting for the broken pieces to settle that he might pour.

Just then a Sister came into the room and caught us in the act of pouring. She harassed George, all 6-foot-6 of him, out the door like a wren pursuing a mastiff. The poor man didn't get a chance to say "Good-bye." I almost fell out of bed laughing. My laughter soon slowed to a dribble.

Workman's Comp paid me $35 a week. My funds disappeared rapidly. Soon, we were facing grim reality. I couldn't even pay the gas bill.

My foot was still heavily bandaged when I drove over to 20th Century-Fox Studios, where Bob was doing night scenes in "Man With the Gun," a formula Western which co-starred Jan Sterling, Angie Dickinson and Henry Hull. It was part of a five-picture deal bob had made with United Artists through his own DRM Productions.

In my quiet desperation, I kept hearing the dialogue that I thought would soon pass between us.

"Jesus, John! Can't you even come up with fifty bucks?" "Well, you see.. ."

"Well, dammit! if you'd only been more carefull"

By the time I reached the studio I was ready to blurt out, "Who needs your God-damned fifty?"

When I pulled up to the gate, the guard told me where they were shooting. Bob was working in every scene so I went to his dressing room, where I found Big Tim Wallace. He was most solicitous but I ignored him.

'What's the trouble, John?" Tim pressed me for an answer.

A stout vodka served to aggravate my already vile mood. "It's none of your business, Tim." I was snarling.

He kept haranguing me until I told him that if he said one more word, I'd belt him. He said the one word and I knocked him into a comer. Just then Bob returned from the set, sized up the situation and gave me a tap with the butt of his prop revolver. It subdued me enough that I raged out of the studio without further violence. Instead of carrying my anger home to Nancy I had the good sense to park on a side street and fall asleep in my car.

I called Nancy from a phone booth at six the next morning. She was near hysteria. Bob had called her from his dressing room, informing her of my maniacal behavior. She told him I was trying to borrow fifty dollars before the gas was turned off.

Shortly after she talked to Bob, a messenger arrived at our house with a check for $2,000, a red rose for Nancy and a note which read, "Dear Nancy, If ever you need anything again, you call and tell me. Don't let the bull out of his corral, hurting. Love, Bob."

While I was lying around, waiting for my foot to heal and feeling sorry for myself, my oid Army buddy, Natividad Vacio, who had kept me from going to Davy Jones' Locker back in '45, came to visit. He plunked a guitar in my lap, told me to quit moaning and learn something. Because of his insis­tence, I became a pretty good guitarist and folk singer.

***

Lenny Geer was Bob's stunt double on "Man With the Gun." Lenny still relates the story of Bob's innate concern for his fellow workers revolving around the shirt that Bob wore in the picture. Lenny was doubling for Bob in a shoot-out sequence and after the final exchange of gunfire and stunt fall, the wardrobe department came to the fallen Lenny and started to cut a ragged hole-simulating a bullet hole-in his beautiful Pendleton shirt.

"Hold it!" Bob admonished from the sidelines. 'That shirt looks good on Lenny." He ordered the wardrobe man to tear the inexpensive double's shirt he was wearing and re-exchange it temporarily with Lenny's good one. Lenny wore that Pendleton proudly for a long time.

MY BROTHER THE MOVIE ACTOR

EARLY in 1942, Brother Robert was finally signed by a producer, Harry Sherman, to do his first picture and went on location to Lone Pine, near Death Valley National Park, to film "Border Patrol," a United Artists release in William Boyd's Hopalong Cassidy series.

"Border Patrol," which also featured Duncan Renaldo and George Reeves, wasn't released until April, 1943, one month after the opening of his second picture with Boyd, "Hoppy Serves a Writ." Bob was finally getting a chance to show his stuff on a horse in these action-oriented, low- budget United Artists Westerns.

Bob had been told to wait on the comer of Cahuenga and Hollywood Boulevard for the stretch limo to take him to the Lone Pine location. Veterar actor Pierce Lyden was also waiting to be picked up on the same comer.

(Years later, remembering that meeting and first picture together, Bob penned his autograph on a photo dedicated to Pierce as the man "who witnessed my deflowering." Lyden and I worked on many Westerns and in series in later years and remain in close contact. He's authored four profusely illustrated books about movie badmen. Bob and I are well represented.)

Some dozen years later, I sat in Bill Boyd's office and heard this from Hoppy himself. "I was watching your brother from behind a wagon when he went up to the horse he was assigned to ride. The pony still had his winter range hair on him and had already thrown the cowboy Bob was replacing The poor 'poke, an actor named Charlie Murphy, had been killed in the fall.We all wondered whether Bob was man enough for the job.

"Well, he mounted that pony and got thrown pretty hard. He climbed on

again and hit the dirt again.

"Then he walked up to that horse, grabbed him by the bridle and told him

off. 'You son oj a bitch!' he whispered. 'I need this job, so it's you or me!'"

Hoppy looked at me solemnly. "Then Bob hauled back and whipped that

pony a right hand that made it roll its eyes backward. Bob climbed on him for the third time. Rode him well for the rest ofJ the picture."

Hoppy stopped talking to look out the window at the Western set down on the company street. "Look at that," he cried. He pointed to a "cowboy" parading down the steet, walking with happy abandon. Happy gritted his teeth. "That's what casting sends you nowadays. Wouldn't make a pimple on a real cowboy's ass!"

***

Bob did an incredible amount of acting in 1943. He worked in fifteen films, a tribute to his acting ability and his stamina. Among these were "Mine-sweeper," 'The Leather Bumers," "Colt Comrades," "Riders of the Deadline," "The Lone Star Trai!," "Beyond the Last Frontier," "Corvette K-225," "Follow the Band" and "Bar 20." And a propaganda war picture from Universal called 'We've Never Been Licked," which depicted how Richard Quine (an actor who later became a film director) overcame a Japanese spy ring operating in America and prevented it from stealing a secret formula.

For years, that film was run at College Station in Texas. The "Aggies" treasured it because it was their campus, Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College, that was used for the main location. They ran that print until it was completely wom out.

The last picture Bob filmed that year was another war epic, "Gung Hal", depicting the 1942 attack on Makin Island by Carlson's Raiders. It was one rousing combat film starring Randolph Scott as Evans S. Carlson, and it featured Noah Beery Jr. and J. Carrol Naish as fighting Marines.

Bob told me that Naish's wife Gladys, having a penchant for strong drink, once backed her brand-new Cadillac from her driveway straight into an oncoming ambulance. The slightly damaged vehicle of mercy now had a new mission, and straightaway took Mrs. Naish to the hospital. J. Carrol showed up later in a black suit with appropriate shirt and tie, carrying a black "doctor's" bag. After ascertaining that his wife was alright, he made his "rounds" at the hospital by checking all the attractive females' vital signs. He started on the top floor and, when he finally scurried out to his car, had examined-titillated-a number of patients not necessarily in dire circumstances.

Richard Bartlett, a very good motion picture director, invited me to dinner at his home one evening along with the Naishes. Also invited were Rusty Richards-at one time the top tenor with the Sons of the Pioneers-and his wife Amy. Mrs. Naish was quite taken by Rusty and his singing, and gushed on about it at some length.

J. Carrol listened to the gushing, then glared at her. "Shut your mouth'" he snarled, adding through gritted teeth, "Gladys, sweet darling!" This went on until he led her out the door. The last I heard was, "Get in the Goddamned car! Gladys, sweet darling!"

***

The night "Gung Ho!" was previewed in Hollywood, Bob and J. Carrol stopped by to pick me up. They had four Marine Raiders with them who had fought on Guadalcanal. A strange feeling crawled over me during the screening. Here were Marines who had actually faced the enemy and I was watching a movie depicting their sacrifices. It came as a surprise to me to find that those gyrenes who had been close to the dreadful reality of war were in awe of film people as much as the film people were in awe of the Marines. I began to look at movie crews in a different light.

***

By 1944 the war was swinging our way. The newsreel theaters that sprang up on Hollywood Boulevard were doing a landslide business. It was reassuring to see news and documentary-type films showing that the enemy was losing. American and British naval power had been amply restored and great advances were being made against the Japanese in the Pacific by the middle of that year.

Bob did five movies in '44. In "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo," he was barely noticed as part of the daring Jimmy Doolittle raid of 1942. But in RKO's production of Zane Grey's story, "Nevada," co-starring Anne Jeffreys and Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, Bob's portrayal of a cowboy named Nevada, his first starring role, earned picture makers' attention. From then on his roles began to take on greater significance.

TRIMMING THE MINGE

While finishing "Fire Down Below, "Brother Robert went over to London to film interiors. He met a young lady who most certainly would rank high in the stories pertaining to "most unforgettable characters." Mavis Purvis was bom within the clear sounds of the Bow Bells, and was as Cockney as an English lassie could be. Mavis deserves a chapter by herself, but I shall condense her story-which is like attempting to stuff a rhino calf into a kangaroo pouch.

Bob related the whole story to me: "I was driven to the studio in a furious downpour of rain when I saw this pathetic little wren of a girl standing by the front gate, water streaming down her face, and hunched against the rain like a bird on a telephone wire. I rolled down the window, inquiring what in God's name was she doing outside in that terrible rain.

"Oh, Mister!' she cried out. 'I've never seen the inside of a studio. Could you 'elp me to see the inside of the studio?'

"I opened the car door. 'Get in.' When she was settled and the car moved inside the studio, I asked her name.

"'Mavis Purvis.' she rang out. 'From London.'"

The English crews are not noted for their manners; the gentlemen on "Fire Down Below" were no different. They would pass by Robert, asking him bluntly why he'd picked up such a pathetic creature. "Why a bird like this?" asked one. Another chimed in, "You can get any bird in England. Why do you bring in a sad little sparrow like this 'un?"

Bob threw up his hands in despair. How could he relate to them the innumerable times in his life that he had been on the outside of the candy store looking in? How could he explain the many untold incidents in his life that had left scars on his inner being?

Mavis needed desperately to be recognized as a person and Robert instinctively knew it. He even went so far as to get her ajob in the wardrobe department. .

"I was in my dressing room with Brian Owen Smith, my personal wardrobeman on the show," Bob continued. "Brian was a gay but double tough. Mavis' timid knock came on the door so I bade her to come in. She paused like a frightened deer as she looked at Brian. 'Go ahead, Mavis, say what you want to say.'"

Bob realized that she wanted to confide in him.

Brian heaved a resigned sigh. "I'm a bloody fag," he snorted. "Couldn't care less about your personal life!"

Mavis explained to Bob that she was now 19 and had never been laid.

"Oh, they muck me about. But they never go the 'ole route."

'Well," Bob pondered, "would you let us see it?"

"See my minge?" Mavis was appalled.

"How can I make a judgment if I've never seen it?" Bob and Brian nodded in agreement. Demurely, Mavis lifted her skirt and pulled down her panties.

She waited for their judgment.

"Dear Mavis!" Bob cried out. "How can you expect a young swain to wade through that jungle down there? It's like being on safari. You've got to mow that thatch before any sane man will look at you twice."

"Trim my minge! You wants me to trim my minge?"

"It's not what I want. It's what you want."

Mavis was two hours late the next moming. When she came demurely to Bob's dressing room, he reminded her of that fact.

"It's all because of Mum and my minge," she explained. "I was in the bath when Mum sang out, 'Mavis, what on earth are you doin' in the bath? You'll be late for the studio.' 'Trimmin' my minge,' I yelled through the door. 'Oh,' she said perplexed. 'Trimmin' your minge? May I see?'"

According to Bob, Mavis' mum was so delighted by the neat appearance of Mavis' minge that she wanted her to trim hers. "That's what made me late for the studio," she told him. "Hair everywhere! It was a complete turmoil. But when I finished, Mum held up a mirror to see the results. I couldn't help but think of you, Robert, at her reaction. Mum gave a deep sigh and breathed, 'Dad'll like that.'"

***

In 1974 I took Nancy and Cindy to Europe. We stayed in Marbella, Spain on the Mediterranean Sea and after a visit to Cadiz, Frontera de la Jera (where they produce a lovely sherry wine), Seville and Cordoba, we wound up in London. Dutifully, I called Mavis. "Oh, John," she bubbled. "My husband, Lex, is playing tonight at the Prince of Wales Club in Tottingham Hale." She proceeded to tell me the way to the club.

In our party of American tourists was Martha Adams, a young lady who had been Bob's consort at the Player's Guild in Long Beach, and who was now Mrs. Martha Fisher of Sacramento. Although divorced, and again on her own, she was still wonderfully naive.

When our party arrived at "Tottin'am 'ale," we were whisked to the club where Lex's band was playing. The headliner that evening was a female impersonator. Martha, who was from Long Island and had a distinctive New York nasal accent, looked at the long-armed, almost truck-driver-like entertainer for some time. "Mavis, is that really a man?" She had to speak loudly to be heard.

Mavis looked at her incredulously. 'Yuz never sees a female impersonatin' a female, duz ya?"

The band was roaring mightily so it seemed that any conversation would be confidential. "But Mavis," Martha droned, "the gown is so tight!"

The band stopped abruptly.

'Where does he put it?" Martha shouted at the top of her voice.

Mavis was not deterred by the silence. "Tucks it up 'er ass, dearie." Martha gulped down her martini, nearly choking on the olive.

While I was still in London, Mavis told me that the place she wanted to see in America, more than any other, was the Grand Canyon in Arizona. "I suppose you'll laugh at that," she told me earnestly. "I've seen it in the flicks and in the rotogravure. Scientists say that it's one of the world's most remarkable sites for viewing the eons of the time that're etched on its walls. Civilizations risin', civilizations fallin', and all the while the mighty Colorado River's cuttin' its way to the sea."

She became pensive for a moment. "I can imagine that standin' on the edge of that great chasm could make you feel kinda small. Just think of it. Flyin' 9,000 miles- just to be made to feel fuckin' small!"

***

When she and her husband, Lex, finally flew to America, I took them on an extensive tour of mountain and desert country. Ben Nevers is the highest peak in Scotland: at a little over 4,000 feet it would be only a foothill in California.

I drove them to Big Bear Mountain which hovers some 5,000 feet higher than Nevers. We drove down the mountain on the Mojave Desert side.

The day was glorious; you could see forever across the desert.

Lex was aghast at the awesome distances. "How far be that peak?" he asked, his Scottish burr very pronounced.

"About 200 miles away," I answered.

"Half the length of England!"

It was about 9 p.m. when we arrived back in the San Fernando Valley. I was driving up Coldwater Canyon when Lex asked if we could stop to look down at the Valley floor. We all stood silently on a ledge while Lex drank in the sights of the sixteen-mile long valley.

"There must be a million people down there. Trucks, fire engines, cars. All the while up here ye hear nae sound but the soughin' o' the wind and a few crickets."

Just them Mavis rent the air with an uncontrolled spate of flatulence.

"Well, I've done my bit!"

"And killed six crickets along the way, n' doubt!" Lex roared.

ROBERT, TOUGH AND TENDER

Bob told me that Laughton, who spent years concealing his homosexuality, chided him gently over the publicity he had received from the "hamburger" article. "Bobby," he wheezed, "all of us have skeletons in our closets, but most of us stand by the closet humming a distracting tune while trying to edge the skeletons back into hiding by pushing them ever so surreptitiously with a foot. But you, Bobby! You drag your skeletons into the open and rattle them so all the world can see. You, Robert, must stop rattling your own skeletons."

***

Bob showed me a letter he had received from a man in Marked Tree,Arkansas. The writer told Bob that he needed $10,000 immediately.

"If you don't send it to me," the letter continued, "I hope you die of the cancer."

That's a hell of a way to start your day. Bob had no connection whatsoever with the sick bastard whom I considered ripe for a mental institution. So much for the "glamour" of having a great deal of money.

***

In 1957, Bob did a memorable John Huston movie with Deborah Kerr, "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison." Bob played a tough Marine stranded on a Japanese-held island with Deborah, who portrayed a nun. Bob genuinely loved Deborah for her innate gentility and her inner beauty. After working with her in the mid-1980s in the TV-cable movie "Retum to Fairborough," he told me that he still considers her the apex of the many stars with whom he has starred.

"Heaven Knows" was made on Tobago in the West Indies on very rough terrain. At one point Bob noticed that Deborah's feet were hurt­ing her painfully. He knelt down, un­tied her shoes, took them off and kneaded her feet tenderly. She almost wept when, after gently replacing her shoes, he said, "Gotta have you around for the next shot."

This was after he crawled four times through stinging nettles to get a shot John Huston wanted done to perfec­tion. Bob's bare chest and arms oozed with blood; Huston wanted to know why in hell he hadn't told him of the ordeal.

Bob's reply was terse: "That's the shot you wanted, wasn't it?"

Huston marvelled at him. Bob was matter of-fact; he wasn't play­ing to an audience. He was just doing his job.

***

In 1956 Bob went to Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean with Jack Lemmon and Rita Hayworth to make "Fire Down Below," a Colum­bia picture sandwiched between "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison" and "The Enemy Below." Brother Robert started going on one tear after another, and got so drunk that he beat the hell out of two American sailors. Dorothy flew down to Tobago to put the lid on his roistering. It was no small chore for her to settle him down, but she accomplished it well enough to get the show finished-without any more head bashings and bloody knuckles.

***

When we were children in Delaware, our uncle would often take us to the

Atlantic Ocean at Bowers Beach, twelve miles from the Woodside Farm. Once, on the beach, I saw a small sand shark lying dead near the water's edge. Brimming with scientific curiosity, I thrust a small stick into its anal aperture-an incident that years later Bob would retell, his imagination truly reaching Andean heights.

In 1957 I played a very small part in "Operation Mad Ball," a zany military comedy starring Jack Lemmon. I wondered why Lemmon was always staring at me. I should have known: Brother Robert. A few months earlier, while shooting "Fire Down Below," he had walked the white coral sands of Tobago with Lemmon on a beautiful Sunday morning.

"Look at all of this," crowed Robert. "Azure sky, cobalt sea, white sands, green palms. Why, we're doing what we like to do, getting paid well, and working in Paradise."

Jack wasn't buying it. He offered guardedly, "We have to do water scenes.

At night."

"So?"

"There're sharks out there," Lemmon quavered. 'We have to work in the water with sharks."

Bob waved that off. "Sharks, schmarks. I've got a brother who screws 'em!

"My God!" Jack was astounded. 'You're kidding!"

"No I'm not." Bob had him now. "My brother and I were at a party on Catalina Island and it got to be dullsville. I suggested we swim ashore to Malibu and catch some action there. We dove into the water and, several hours later, were within sight of the Malibu pier. Suddenly, in the moonlight, I saw a great dorsal fin appear and head straight for my brother. 'Oh, dear God,' I prayed, 'save him!'

"Not to worry. Brother John reached up with his left hand, grabbed that big fin and hauled himself aboard the shark. He started diddling the beast with his right hand and-before you knew it-the two were in love. A great wave caught them offguard, heaving them onto the sand. When I got ashore, John was astride the creature in full control. I swear the great shark tumed her head back to him and grinned her approval."

I had forgotten Bob's tall tale until Lemmon's attomey called me on the phone to ask verification for Jack's autobiography. He wanted to know if the tale was true. I laughed and set the record straight.

I've kicked myself ever since then. I could have set another record: In "The Guinness Book of Records."

***

While in the Caribbean, Bob, as usual, spent most of his spare time with the native people. The recording world was delighted to find that he could sing calypso like a native, and Capitol recorded a disc that was very successful. It was no great surprise to me. After all. we had harmonized our way into the hearts of those Alabama folks on Shades Mountain.

***

"The Enemy Below" (1958), directed by actor Dick Powell, was a tremen­dous picture in that Bob and Curt Jurgens brought the sea war of World War II into a microcosm of human courage and valor under great stress. Bob portrayed the commander of a U.S. destroyer in pursuit of a U-boat captained by Jurgens. It was the first picture of Doug McClure (who would later star on TVs "The Virginian"), whom Bob had affectionately dubbed "Hammerhead." Around the set Bob quietly became a mentor for the neophyte actor.

When they were returning by car to their respective hotels one evening, an assistant director turned abruptly to McClure, informing him that he was finished with his scenes and that his plane was leaving Honolulu Airport at eight o'clock that night. Bob looked at Doug to see tears coming into his eyes. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" Doug cried. "My parents are flying in tonight to spend my birthday with me."

'Tough shit," snarled the assistant. 'You're through, and that's that." "Driver, stop the car," ordered Bob.

"What?"

"Stop the car!"

The car lurched to the curb.

"You," Bob said, "get out!"

"What?" The assistant couldn't believe it.

"Get out before I knock you out!"

The assistant got out.

When the car moved on, Bob turned to Doug and handed him a set of keys. "Here," he said. 'These're to my suite. Use 'em as long as you like." "What about you?" McClure asked.

"Oh," Robert answered cheerily, "I imagine that somewhere on this island, someone might take in a stranger."