Hello, I'm John allre Before you listen to this episode, a couple of
things. These are podcasts from the first season of Who Killed Teresa. They
haven't been heard in over four years. They're raw. It took me a
while to develop a style. A lot of people like them that way,
unvarnished. Others commented that it was amateurish. Nonetheless, here they are.
I'm edited. I haven't gone back and listened to them, I haven't cleaned
them up. Thanks for listening. And once again, life isn't fair.
Justice is blind and dysfunctional, and some cops aren't smart and dedicated like on
television. This is Who Killed Teresa. I never knew her in life.
She existed for me through others in evidence of the ways her death drove them
working backward seeking only facts. I reconstructed her as a sad little girl and
a horror at best. Could have been a tag that might equally apply to
me. I wish I could have granted her an anonymous end. Relegated her
to a few terse words on a homicide Dick's summary report, carbon to the
coroner's office more paperwork to take her to Potter's Field. The only thing wrong
with the wish is that she wouldn't have wanted it that way. As brutal
as the facts were, she would have wanted all of them known. And
since I owe her a great deal and am then the only one who does
know the entire story, I have undertaken the writing this memoir. Welcome to
the podcast This is Who Killed Teresa? And I'm your host, John Allore.
This is a podcast about criminal justice, social justice, and some unsolved
homicides from Quebec in the late nineteen seventies. And today we're gonna We're gonna
deviate from the script a little bit. We've had a couple episodes that are
interviews and frankly they've been a little heady, little academic, so I need
a break, and just to give you update. There are some some trails,
some unanswered questions from past episodes that need to be followed up on them.
They will be followed up on in future episodes. Just these things take
time, so I'm unwilling to say anything definitive until until I get a few
more answers. I'm almost there, and when I am there, we'll pick
back up on the trail of Teresa what we'll call the Teresa lore Cases.
But until then, I thought, Hey, it's August, it's the summer.
Let's um let's have a little fun. We could all we could all
use that. So today we're we're going to talk about I mean long,
long before the events surrounding my life became the subject of true crime. I'll
let you in in a secret, I was a bit of a true crime
junkie before all of this, anyway, And so we're going to focus today,
particularly on some of my exploits when I lived in Los Angeles between the
years of I believe it was in nineteen ninety four to nineteen ninety eight.
So for La listeners, I know there's some of you out there from La
Santa Monica in North Hollywood, this episode today is dedicated to you. I
call it My Walk in La Noir three Stories, and we're gonna start today
with some talk about the author James Elroy. Now, if you remember,
I did an interview with Michael arn't Field on crime and literature, and one
of the things that got cut from that interview was a long passage where we
talked about Elroy. We talked specifically about how you know, when he broke
out with Killer on the Road and Brown's Requiem and all these fantastic novels.
You know, a lot of people were kind of like, man, what
an imagination? Where does this? Where does this stuff come from? And
then come to find he releases in nineteen ninety six his memoir My Dark Places,
which is about the murder of his mother, and we kind of go,
oh, I see that that the fiction is being fed by a real
life event and then it's being churned back out into fiction. Isn't that fascinating,
that feedback loop? Anyway, we had a long discussion about that.
In la crime literature, we got into the Michael Connolly novels, particularly the
character Harry Bosh, and I'm I've not read any Connolly. I'm kind of
passed reading forty or fifty crime detective novels. So I but Michael's praise for
it, Michael Arnfield's praise for it led me to kind of short track solution.
So I started watching them. The series on it's on Amazon Prime here
in the United States called Bosh. Um it's three seasons, and I binged
right through it. The first thing I want to say about Bosh is yet
you know, um, it's it's not particularly fantastic. It's no wire,
you know, by any means. Um. It doesn't set the world on
fire, but it's certainly lights of lights of lights of fire in my heart.
For a number of reasons, you know, it's a little too pat
The characters aren't fully developed. But the guy who plays Bosh there, Tolliver,
I can't remember his first name. It's he's got some fantastic Hollywood name.
He fits the bill. Uh and uh. You know, all of
the set pieces are fantastic, the locations and the interiors of homes and hotels
and flophouses, they just look perfect. They're not shy on product placement in
Bosh. If you watch it, I just don't see a guy like Harry
Bosch entering a bar every time and immediately knee jerk responses. All have a
fat tire. Just it's like, okay, sure, sure, pal.
And it seems like every every young adult under the age of eighteen in the
show can be coerced or information be can be drawn from them from a coke
or a diet coke. It's preposterous. Nevertheless, as I say, it's
you know, it's la noir um. It's got those elements U and it's
it's somewhat Transfercile. So this got me thinking a little bit about about el
Roy and the time, the time I spent in La. Now I should
begin by saying, my my exploits in La began somewhat auspiciously the night before
I was to fly out there. Um was Friday, June seventeenth, nineteen
nineteen ninety four. So if if if you know that day, that's that's
the native the night of OJ's run towards the Tijuana border. So I can
remember clearly, um watching this at a friend's television, Jillian's television in her
apartment. That would have been late afternoon, so we he was around three,
so I think around six o'clock Toronto time. We were we were transfixed
to this on her television. And then the next day that was it.
I was. I was in La. There, I was and met my
friend Bobby, and we quickly, you know, went out for drinks.
He kind of showed me around the town and lo and behold, it's midnight
and there Bobby and I are at Gretna Green, at Nicole Brown Simpson's house,
and we're routing around the front and back of the place. Playing junior
to detective. Sure enough that the police pull up and and say, what
are you guys doing here? And we say, well, you know,
I was looking around. He says, ah, a couple of looky lose.
Where are you from? I say, I'm from Toronto, and lo
and behold the next day in the Los Angeles Times, there I am looky
lose from as far away as Toronto, Canada have been captivated by the case
of O. J. Simpson. So that's that's where I started in in
LA. Not long after that, I was I was living along the beach,
and um, a friend of mine sent me. He said, you
need to read this novel. It's called American Tabloid. It's by this author,
James Elroy. You'll love it. Um, he said, I'll send
it to you. And while I was waiting for it, I had a
lot of time on my hand. At that time, I didn't have a
job yet yet. Um, so I'd spend afternoons the Barnes and Noble at
the Third Street promenade. And this, this was a novelty at this time.
All of a sudden, you know, these big bookstores we were back
and they were three floors high and there's Starbucks in them or some coffee equivalent.
I don't think Starbucks was in at that time. I think Arms and
Nobles have had their own coffee place and you could actually sit in a chair,
you know, and they'd let you, you know, read the books.
You would have to buy them. So while I was waiting that,
I remember just sitting in this Cineamonica Barnes and Noble UM starting to read American
Tabloid. And that's that's kind of where it's it started. UM quickly burned
through the the the La Quartet, which includes The Black Delia, includes um
La Confidential, which they based the movie on, and then the the The
Underworld Trilogy as it's as it's known. UM begins with American American Tabloid and
became really really transfixed on on all of these things. So, you know,
my partner in crime with was Bobby. He's the same guy who who
who the night first night I was there about at Gretna Green and so we
quickly, you know, we wanted to go to all these places and suss
them out. So you know, we'd go to Parker Division, which was
then the police headquarters, and we'd go to you know, Old La and
Um to Rampart, and I think La Confidential features Um. You know,
all of his senior officers eat at the Pacific Dining Car. So even though
we couldn't afford it, we'd go to the Pacific Dining Car and you know,
you'd order something called a I had on the menu something called the baseball
steak, which is exactly what it sounds like. It's a It's a piece
of meat, you know, the size of your your fist, and you
know, in the shape of a baseball, and you know, carb this
meat probably cost you fifty dollars, which neither of us could afford. But
what did week here were we were hanging out in La Confidential land. We
went to the site, of course, where the Black Dahlia was her Elizabeth
Short is her name, where her body was found, which is sort of
just on the edge of the kind of the west South suburbs of LA was
just developing then, so it was an empty field. And the section I
read at the beginning is actually the opening of el Royce Black Dahlia, and
Elizabeth Short has been become famous with that moniker, which is funny. You
know, A fellow podcast Misconduct, which is hosted by Colleen and Eileen.
Actually just this week have an hour long special on the Black Dahlia on Elizabeth
Short, where they debunk a bunch of myths about that case. It's one
of the most gruesome if you don't know it, in LA history, and
it's it's infamous. She was found the torso was cut in half, drained
of blood. It was her mouth was cut into a joker like Grimace.
She died from a blunt trauma to her to her head and from other wounds.
Sections of her of her skin, of her flesh were flayed off.
It's just a completely horrific crime. But the black Dahlia, that Moniker is
that was created by an oppress after she had died. If you last Elizabeth
Short, if you said her, hey, you're the Black Dahlia, she
wouldn't know what the heck you were talking about. And and certainly el Roy,
that's why I read it, romanticizes the case greatly. I think there's
a great point in in conflating the death and murder of his own mother with
the Dahlia case, which which he clearly does um and he brands her as
a as a whore, and there is there's no evidence whatso whatsoever of Um
of Elizabeth Short being a prostitute. Anyway, if you want more on the
Dahlia case, you should check out the Just Go to Misconduct podcast. It's
it's a great episode. And no, I'm not This is not a cross
reference promotion or anything like that. I just happened to to listen to it
because I knew I was going to be talking about Dahlia. So that's why
that is. So back to to elroy Um. You know, I think
probably his most famous work is La Confidential, and that's because of the movie
that was made by Michael Curtis Uh in the late in nineteen nineties is durring
H, Denny de Villo, Guy Pierce, Russell Crowe, etc. And
you know, Russell Crowe is a tough guys like you know, like a
you. You don't look like rock Lake. You look much better in rock
Lake. I'm the ghost of fucking Christmas past. You know, I don't
know, I don't know where. You know, this idea of gravel monotone
Um evolved from as the voice of urban vigilanteism. But it's it's kind of
stuck though, as the voice of you know, hard boiled nor I guess
I guess it goes back almost probably the Bogart in Multese Falcon. You know
he's got that flat monotone and all that. But now it's I mean,
I'm even doing it right now, right, it's ridiculous. But if you
I mean, if you look at um, you know, any of the
Batman movies. Um, it's the same thing, right, I mean Batman,
I was like this the resin gul right, and then and then you
even have like, you know, Harvey Dent getting into it. I'm Dent,
we need to save the city and all this, and then Robin is
like, ever since I was in the Orphanage, I knew you were the
Batman. I knew it all along. Hey I'm not wearing hockey pants.
I mean what it's like everybody. I mean, I swear if the movie
was you know, if you didn't have the visual, you'd have no freaking
idea who was talking? Because everyone is talking like this except Commissioner Gordon,
who's you know, he's sort of up like this, Hey, Batman,
get the bad light, you know. God God bless him, God bless
Gary Olman for doing doing something different. But anyway, that's my that's my
stick. I'm work workshopping it. That's my stick on the voice of film
law, which you like this anyway, back to back to James Elroy.
So, to make a long story short, so I met Elroy twice and
I think, uh, you know, around this time, you know,
I kind of want to I guess, kind of know what. So what's
going on with my sister's case and how does this factor endo all this?
And I would say at this time, and this is right around the time
my brother came to La to visit me and we had and he was investigating
my sister's case. So this stuff was and I but I was not really
I was. I was not yet like an apostle of it. I was.
I was interested, but I had other things going on. But I
was definitely thinking about it. You know, I hadn't come to you know,
sort of like a hard conclusion. This is a murder. This series
of cases related. I didn't know at other cases, but it was it
was certainly swimming around my head at that time, without a doubt. Um
So, So the first time I met James Elroy UM was at a reading
in like either Brentwood or Westwood. Um and it was right. Well,
it must have been ninety six because because My Dark Places was out and at
that time, when you bought a copy of My Dark When I have a
collection of first editions of el Roy's books, and some of them, some
of them I bought on eBay and he had already signed them, and some
of them he signed personally. But around this time, copies of My Dark
Places would be released with a little sticker on it that said signed by the
author. And if you if you look inside, sir, sure enough they
are signed. But it's just his initials. It just says, um,
it's just a J and an E. So I wanted something better, So
I took a copy of My Dark Places to this reading and I was going
to have James Elroy sign it and I and I arrived early and lo and
behold, he was there. He was just hanging out. I'm having a
coffee or something, and no one was in this bookstore, and he was
me and my friend Kenson and his then girlfriend. And so I got up
the nerve and I went up and I started talking to him, and he
was very receptive. And we're sitting there talking. I'm holding my copy at
the book and I kind of tell him my story. You know, I
have this sister and she died mysteriously and minded in a murder, but we
don't know and blah blah. And he takes my copy of My Dark Places
and he immediately says, he says, ah, yeah, man, I
know she lives, baby, she lives, and he signed it. She
lives right there. Now you can argue with me on this, but to
the best of my knowledge, Elroy never signed that book or any book she
lives that way prior to that. I mean, if you, for instance,
if you open my copy of Black Dahlia, it's it's inscribed to someone
else because I bought it online, and it says LA nineteen forty seven streets
overflow with black blood, and it's got his signature, and they're all signed
like that. One of them he drew a picture of his bulldog in it,
and they all have kind of some kind of crazy yeah yeah baby,
you know, crime daddy, oh blah blah blah kind of stuff in him.
But this was the first time, to my knowledge, he said she
lives in it. Um. So jump forward to years later. I'm now
living in North Carolina and Elroy's back and to let you know how much further.
He was doing a reading of The Cold six thousand at a bookstore in
Durham, North Carolina called the Regulator Bookstore. So I went. I went
again and had my copy of Cold six thousand out. He seemed at this
point, you know, he was he was like a caricature of James Elroy.
You know, he was the Hawaiian shirts and all the daddio lingo.
But he seemed to be, you know, removed from himself a little bit
in the whole stick, so ended he was. Obviously he was more famous
by now. So I got in line, and I wasn't going to kind
of reintroduce myself because I didn't see there's much point to it, And unprovoked,
he just took my book and he just signed it she Lives. I
mean I didn't even request that. That's how he signed them. And as
it's about, to the best of my knowledge, subsequent copies that he that
he autographs of his books, a lot of them are are inscribed she Lives.
And it's it's obviously a reference to his dead, murdered mother. But
I like to think that I was the impetus to create that. So that's
my first LA story. I'm work shopping it and I'm sticking them with it.
Today's podcast is brought to you by Audible. Get a free audio book
download and thirty day free trial at www dot audible trial dot com. Slash
w kt over one hundred and eighty thousand titles to choose from for your iPhone,
Android, Kindle, or MP three player. Now, I know what
you're gonna say. You're gonna say, whoa wait a minute, wait a
minute, do you sell out? You said you'd never do ads on this
podcast, And just just hear me out here, all right, hear me
out number one, never say never. Number two. I'm just experimenting with
something here, all right. First of all, the first time somebody came
to me and said, do you want to monetize your podcast? I had
to use their platform, and I was like, no, I don't want
to. I want to do that. I want to do it my way.
Some other folks came forward and made a better offer, and I thought,
there may be there may be a way for me to make this work
for certain podcasts. I certainly don't want to be pushing pampers and prozac when
I'm talking about unsolved murders in Quebec. That's a little too close to the
bone. But if we're doing an episode like this, which is a little
a little further out there, I figure maybe this is something that can can
work. And I have no idea if anybody will even use this stuff.
But nevertheless, the third reason is is I've said to you that, you
know what, I once upon a time I was an actor. Why the
hell do you think I went to LA and try as I might, they
would never let me be a voice over actor. So screw you. Now
I can be my own voiceover actor, all right. So so for this
podcast, bear with me. If it doesn't work, I'll stop doing it.
But maybe for certain ones we can give it a go. So on
that subject, I thought, hey, why don't you check out audible.
It's not such a bad idea. Um, all of Elroy's, James Elroy's
titles, you can you can get there. There's this guy named Dick Hill
who's who's apparently the king of of of true crime podcasts, and he does
he does, he does all the Connolly books as well. He does Brown's
Requiem. I listened to him. I like him because for one reason is
because he doesn't dog like nasty and doctor time. He talks in a regular
voice. I like the way, you know, the way he does it.
And then some of the some of the other titles by el Roy.
Elroy narrates one of them himself, which is interesting. But the La Confidential
is done by David Strathhern who was who was in the movie that would be
very good. White Jazz is narrated by the late great Jerry R. Back,
which would be fantastic. So um, I would say, you don't
give it a try. You can download your free audiobook today. You go
to audible trial dot com against forward slash w kt and again that's audible trial
dot com forward slash w k T for your free audio book. So this
is part two True Hollywood Stories. In part two, when I arrived in
La, I needed a job, I didn't I didn't have And if you
ever, if you're at least back then, I don't know what it's like
now, but back then, you know, if you needed a job and
you were you know, you were young, you'd you'd look in you know,
you'd look in the trade papers and you know, backstage LA or something,
and you'd see somebody you'd needed an administrative assistant or something, and you
go, oh, that'd be all right, I don't do that, and
you know, so you'd go out to the location. It was always kind
of mysterious what the you know, what the business was, But as soon
as you walked in the door, you'd realize it was porn. You know,
you were going to be an admin assistant for the porn industry. And
that's never too attractive. So, you know, it's really hard. If
it's hard to break in in la as a as a, you know,
in the industry, it's equally hard to just make a living there. Um.
So I but I did answer an ad. There was a guy who
put an ad in a paper. He was he said he was from Brooklyn.
He didn't know how to drive, he needed a driver. And you
know, I had scant assets. But well, the one thing I did
have that we did have, I had a Plymouth voyager van, a great
Plymouth voyager of the Van. So I thought I could do this, So
I answered, I answered the ad. Um. The guy's name was we're
gonna call him Gabe mots Um, and Gabe was a famous lyricist. He
had um he had written all the lyrics for all kinds of songs for a
highly celebrated star from from the seventies who was who was still alive? Tons
and tons of hit golden platinum records. He Gabe went on to write,
um a lot of lyrics for Disney movies. Um and he was very very
famous. Um but he didn't drive. Um and and he he actually talked
like this, Uh, yeah, I don't drive. I never learned how
to drive in uh in Brooklyn. So I just I just need someone to
drive me around. He would like this, and so so um uh and
and my days would consist of this. I would I would pick him up
in the morning at his apartment. He lived off Sunset Boulevard. If you're
if you recall where the Virgin Record store is or was. I just I
can't imagine a record store still being there. So he just lived up the
corner from Virgin Records in Hollywood. Um and, um, you know,
i'd I'd ride the elevator up to like the twelfth story and this was there
was kind of a posh hotel, although his place was a bit of a
dump. Um but there were a lot of celebrities living there. Benstein lived
there and I'd ride the elevator occasionally with him. Slash from Guns n' Roses
Live lived there, and you know, you'd so you'd ride the elevator with
him. And then you know, people who've never been to LA or kind
of like, whoh you met Slash, and you have to realize the nature
of meeting celebrities in LA. It's totally different. You know. It's it's
like, you know, you're standing in a grocery line with a celebrity,
big deal. It doesn't mean you're friends or anything. So this was like
this was this was riding the elevator every every morning or the acca, you
know, every second week with Slash and his then girlfriend. You know,
he was obviously coming back either from the studio or night partying or something.
And and in the in the like nine months I worked for for for for
uh Gabe, Uh, you know, I never got I think about as
far as I got was morning Slash he just kind of nod, uh.
You know, he bare chested, leather jacket, jeans, top hat.
I'm not kidding, you know, sunclass aviator glasses, Slashing and el So
I'd pick I'd pick Gabe up. You know, all these gold records on
the on the wall and all that kind of stuff, and I just have
to drive him around. And as he did his errands, he'd take me
to the podiatrist and Beverly Hills, So I take him to the podiatrist,
let's uh, let's pick up my uh my laundry on on Ventura. So
you know, you'd have to go all over the Hills and you know,
into the valley and that he he liked to go to I don't know,
in Albertson's or a Vaughans, I don't know what. But we specifically had
to go somewhere in in the valley for his grocery shopping because they were the
only ones who sold the really good Mitchelline's lasagna. And I don't really understand
this because Mitchelline's was a franchise in every single supermarket, but nevertheless we had
we had to go there so um so that you know, this is what
I would do, and um um it was kind of it was. It
was. It was kind of a depressing lifestyle. You know, cash under
this table. Um that got that got really bizarre. Now, now Gabe
had this younger Gabe was about fifty and he had this younger boyfriend named Mark,
who was who was rough trade man. I mean the only time I
ever saw Mark, you know, he was bare chested and cut off jean
shorts and just ready to party, you know. Um and um he looked
like an l a rough trade party boy to me. Um. He didn't
live with Mark. He lived in like West Hollywood, m And one night
Mark got in trouble and um, he got arrested. He was found prostituting
himself and in in West Hollywood, and there were drugs involved, and he
got he got he got thrown into county jail in downtown of La. I
remember we had to go to this place where he was arrested, this apartment
which I thought was going to be his apartment, you know, to pick
up his things, and it was you know, it was like this bungalow,
the shit ass bungalow with absolutely no furniture and if there was a mattress.
You know, there's drug paraphernalia all over the place. You know,
they were popper bottles everywhere, this this kind of thing. So I don't
I don't know what we were intending to collect because I didn't see any clothes
there or anything anyway, So I spent the better part of a week,
you know, between the jail and the bail bondsman. I mean I remember
being up three in the morning running Gabe over the bail bondsman and thinking,
this is not for me. This is this is great fodder for or novel,
but this is this is not for me. Um. And then and
then like like going into the La County jail and you know, Marty insisted
because he's scared coming right into the two way glass lock up with with him.
So you know, you're you're going down this just this narrow, green
painted corridor, you know, past the benches in glass, and it's like,
okay, you know, on your right as huge black guy, huge
black guy, huge black guy. Oh there's skinny Mark, you know.
And and Marcus sitting there pathetically like in an orange jumpsuit. You know,
you could tell he'd been crying, and and you know he's you get me
out of here, Get me out of here, please, please, Gabe,
you know, and it just it all became like like too much.
It became just just crazy. And you know, is these episodes of of
of this kind of of like deep ship nonsense. And then moments of mundanity,
of running Marty back to the pediatrist or to pick up his laundry,
and it just seemed to be He's in much of a story, I admit,
but it's all I got at this point, me running around this guy
Gabe back and forth, um, and he was this, but he was
this, you know, outside of that, he was this famous talent.
He was always kind of talking about, you know, I just got to
get back on my feet. You know, if they just take one lyric
from me, they'll see I'm the you know, I'm lumpy, the next
star. I can bring it back. I know again, they just guy
have some faith in me, you know, running back to the jail.
Jeez. So that was my That was my first job in LA was being
the driver, um, and then getting caught up in this kind of tawdry
sort of story and West Hollywood laws Angeles. My parents excelled at appearances.
They were a great looking, cheap couple along the lines of Robert Mitchum and
Jane Russell and Michale. They stayed together for fifteen years. It had to
be the sex. He was seventeen years her senior. He was tall and
built like a light heavy weight. He was drop dead handsome and possessed a
massive wang. He was an ineffectual man who came off dangerous at first reading.
She bought the physical package and the charm that went with it. I
don't know how long the honeymoon lasted. I don't know how long it took
them to get disillusioned and seed their marriage to dry rot Part three in Cold
Blood. I don't really remember where this script came from, but somehow somebody
brought a project forward among us. It was a it was a play.
It was called Last Called and it was about a fictitious meeting between JFK.
John F. Kennedy and Sam Giancanna. You know, one night before he
died. Jeff K died in in some Italian eatery. So there were two
main characters in the players, gen con I and JFK. And then there
was there was one other guy. Somebody, somebody had to play sort of
like the owner of the restaurant or the waiter or something, somebody to you
know, to kind of come in the room occasionally and break things up when
you know the dialogue wasn't going anywhere. You know, Serve them drinks,
serve them food. This kind of thing. It was a pretty straight stick,
right. It was character piece, two guys sitting at a table talking,
you know, about the Cuban missile crisis, and you know, I
don't know al Capone's ship. I don't even remember um, you know,
interspersed with the heavy dollops of um. Really like profane dialogue about Marilyn Monroe.
So the guy who wrote it, I can't remember his name is,
but he's you know, he was from a different era, right, he
was from rat Pack, you know, Las Vegas Times. His claim to
fame was that he had been Lenny Bruce's lover. That's that's all. That's
all I knew. I didn't know him for anything other than being having been
Lenny Bruce's lover, and had he had written this play Last Call that was
was written, you know, like Ocean's eleven. And I don't mean the
remake either, I mean the really painful one with Frank Sinatri and Sammy Davis
Junior, Peter Lawborn. Now all this, I mean just really corny dialogue.
But somehow somebody said, what John, you should play JFK. And
his friend of mine, who was Italian Tommy. Tommy should play Giancanna,
and we enlisted my friend Bobby Bobby who who was who was with me that
first night at Gretna Green. Bobby was a film director, but he was
always game for a good time. So we got Bobby to direct this thing,
which we really didn't think was going to be very, very difficult.
You know, as I say, it's two hand or two guys on stage,
you know, talking nah like JFK, ridiculous ship like this. Um
and then and then we of course we needed um, we needed the third
guy. We needed the owner waiter. So um, we got a real
restaurant oder. We got a guy named Steve Restivo. I don't know who
knew him, but you know, he's significantly older than us. Um.
You know, he was in his I think fifties or sixties. Then I
was. I was in my late twenties, Lily, a little young to
be playing KFK. But hey, what the hell, it's Hollywood, right,
it's make believe. So we got this, this real this, this
this real Italian restaurant owner from the valley to be a UM and uh,
you know, the thing was was destined, you know, I said,
we had the first of all, we had to rewrite the script because it
had it had all this stuff in there, like I don't know, it's
one of the lines was something about it, I'd really like to go down
on Maryland's Collie Flower. It's like, you know, no, please,
I I you know, I I don't even want to. I don't want
that image in my head if you don't mind. So we need we need
to strike that. And I remember the guy Lenny Bruce's a Lover was really
offended that we had we had basically we took his play and we gutted it.
And somebody had written a famous biography on JFK. I can't remember the
guy, so Washington Post Report or something, and and I basically transposed a
bunch of ships from that book into into this play to make it a little
more palatable and to bring it up to, you know, to nineteen nineties
standards. UM. So we had this thing and we'd um, we'd you
know, it isn't no, there's no budget for these kinds of things.
I don't even know how we eventually paid for this space we were doing.
I certainly didn't pay for it. I think I think Tommy did the guy
play in them. Gian Kanna Um, but we'd we'd rehearse at Bobby's house,
who also lived in the in the in the valley. Actually, to
be more precise, we'd rehearse at Bobby's mommy's. We we rehearse in her
garage, um until she got fed up with us. And then we'd rehearse
at Steve Restivo's restaurant, which was was in Studio City. Um. His
restaurant was at four three four nine twanga. I haven't even I've been away
so so long, I can't remember how to pronounce that. It's not to
junga twanga, I believe. Um. So we'd we'd rehearse at this restaurant,
and the thing was put on at some shit hole you know, holds
twenty thirty people. Theater would be generous in in North Hollywood. Um.
And initially, yeah, you know, we were doing we had a month
long run and I remember the first couple of weeks. We're friggin rough man.
I mean, I'm telling you there was there was nobody there, you
know, but you know, somebody's girlfriend in the box office person, you
know, this kind of thing. Um. But as fortune would would have
it, Um, So Tommy worked at this coffee shop on Melrose called Stir
Crazy, and it was kind of a hangout for for people that Jake Kasden
hung out there, who was Um the writer their Kasden's son, Um,
and um Phil hoff Philip Hoffman hung out there. And Tom knew Phil Hoffman,
he knew him really really well. And this, um, this was
before I mean he was a he was, he was a star. He
had already made that that Pacino picture where Pacino's blind, and he was about
to fly to Italy to do the thing where he appeared in Drag with with
de Niro. He was about to do He was about to do that.
So I'd met him a few times. He was not a friend of his.
I'd met him at Stir Crazy. He's over coffee and and Tommy convinced
Hoffman to come in and see this play. And Phil Hoffman loved it.
Um, he didn't. He didn't love me. I I mean, he
didn't say anything about about my performance, but he loved Tommy in it.
And he's like, this is your vehicle. This is the thing that's gonna
make you. You know, we got to turn this into a showcase,
all this kind of thing. And Phil Hoffman gave US two thousand dollars to
extend the run for an additional two weeks, and he got the word out.
I remember sitting there and performing one night and looking out into the into
the house and there were these two goombas sitting in the front row that looked
right out of central casting for you know, like The Godfather or you know,
some some Mafia movie. And it turns out they were. They were.
There are a couple of guys who were who were like extras. You
can see them in the open wedding shot of or the opening wedding scene in
the first Godfather movie. So they they they were They were again life imitating
art. They were um in quotation marks actors who were you know, of
the criminal element who had heard there was this play about Gankana and wanted to
come and see if it was accurate or fun and they liked it. I
remember them seeing it, coming them back, you know afterwards, and he
did a a job, you know, did it did all right? You
know, this kind of thing. So it was um, you know,
all of a sudden, you know, for the last two weeks were playing,
are playing a packed houses and all this kind of thing, and we
thought it was going to be the beginning of great, great things like this.
This was going to be the catalyst shitty theater to propel our our our
film careers in Los Angeles. So, based on this experience, you know,
we wanted to follow up the momentum. We're like, you know,
we got to do another project. We got to do another project, you
know, because you know the name of the game in la is you do
it. You do a play, you do a showcase. You like,
I don't know, agents and casting directors out they never come, but you
always believe in your head that they will come, you know. Um,
Nevertheless, you need to propel this fantasy. You know, the next show
will be the one where everyone comes, you get signed, you know,
and then and that's it. You're on You're on your way on the the
utter bullshit fantasy treadmill which is Hollywood. Um, you're better off buying a
lottery ticket. So we found this other vehicle. A Canadian writer Michael McKinley
had written a play um called Walt and Roy and this couldn't miss man,
This was this was a great idea. It was um, it was about
Walt and Roy Disney and the sort of plot was It's the eve of Walt
and Roy going to the Bank of America to request alone so that they can
make snow white, and Walt and Roy are up all night kind of agonizing
their pitch. That was. That was really it, and we were like,
well, this is it. This was this is great. This is
a property from Canada. No one's seen it. Um will do it.
It will get discovered, you know, it'll rub off good on Mike Hill,
rub off good on us, and we're off to the races, and
and everything that could go wrong with the production went with with that. So
to begin with, we said, why why mess with success? We we
assembled the same team. Bobby directed I would play Walt um Uh, Tommy
would play Roy Um and uh. Actually at first it was not Tommy who
was going to play Roy. Andy Buckley was going to play Roy. And
some people you probably if you know Hollywood, you know Andy Buckley. Buckley.
Andy was the love interest of the vice president on the first year of
VP. He's in the New Jurassic Park movies. He's all He's all over
HBO. You see him a lot in HBO. And Andy, Uh,
Andy and the the we had all been friends. Andy and Tommy or Bobby
and I and um originally he was going to play Roy Disney. But you
know, of course he he bailed and h Andy had a habit of this.
Um I remember for you know, like two years earlier, he was
in a production of The Heidi Chronicles playing Scoop and he got booked in a
role and he couldn't do it. So he talked me into stepping into the
role a Scoop like for a week and he's like, oh, it'll be
fine, it'll be fine, they'll rehearse you and all that. They didn't.
They didn't frick and rehearse me. I spent a Sunday evening for an
hour with the stage manager walking me through the blocking. Um and then Thursday
night I was on for four nights. There's absolutely terrifying experience. Thank you,
Andy, thank you so much for that. Um So anyway, um
so, anyway, Andy bailed, so we got Tommy to come in and
to do Roy Disney. And as I say, it just it just didn't
click, man. I mean to begin with, we we chose a theater
in Teluca Lake, and I think we are sentimentally attached to that because the
original Walt Andy studios had been had been over there, so are like,
well, this is a great idea. Well they and nobody lived around to
Luca Lake. Or it wasn't to Luca Lake, its Silver Lake. To
Luca Lake is the valley. It was Silver Lake, so old Hollywood,
way way way out on Sunset Boulevard. Um, the past. You nobody
lived there and then let alone now I'm sure. And so you know,
you're asking people to, I don't know, take a two hour bus ride
to come and see a play. And this theater was this theater was run
by this absolute lunatic. This and he lived in the theater. I remember
he lived up Um like you'd you'd go, I'm not making this up.
You'd go into the lighting booth, you know, up you know, in
the in the rafters of the theater, and there's another door in there,
and you'd walk through the door and you were in his room. And so
the guy, you know, you know a lot of you were rehearsing at
ten o'clock and he'd he'd come out of the room and yell down from the
red knock it up. I get that hell out of here. It's the
close up. And the guy was I remember he was a prodigy of John
Cassavetti's or something. Right, So he's he's like a freaking method actor,
right, So he's yelling at us, but he's he really believes it,
right. I mean, I thought the guy was gonna freaking kill us.
He probably thought he was yelling at Jenna Rowlands or something. He knock it
off down there. I taught you about farther, fucking shut up and Jesus
Christ, so you were under this this. I mean, I just remember
being tense all the time, um, because I thought someone was gonna yell
at me or blame me. So you know, that was the first thing.
And and we do these stupid things, you know that. M Yeah,
you know how along around Gorman's Chinese Theater. I mean, nowadays it's
quite common you have people dress those Disney characters and all this, you know,
taking pictures and signing autographs. I think back then it wasn't the degree
it is now, but there were a lot of people who would play characters
that I remember. Something somebody dressed is something furry, and definitely there was
a batman, you know, there was some there was some guy out there
in black latex with a with a black cowl over his head. And so
we got the idea that we dresses Walton Roy Disney go out there and sign
autographs. So there I am, you know, in two tone shoes with
a pencil thin mustache and you know, suspenders and a tie. And of
course nobody knew who the frigg. I was like, oh the all are
you supposed to be? Dude? And I'm you know, I'm trying to
hustle and hand out pamphlets and no one's having any of it. Besides,
you have to take a bus for two hours in order it comes to the
performance, and it wants to do that, you know, they just they
just want to get their souvens and go back home. But it was it
was for a variety of reasons that you know, part two of our of
our great plan for for Hollywood domination just failed miserably. I mean, nobody
came and um, you know it kind of it just it just ended it
kind of misery. And this this was this was kind of my my sign
off to Hollywood. Very shortly after that, I think within a month,
we had packed the van to leave, um back east, you know,
feeling defeated and like I would never do anything associated with the enter team and
industry. Again, this kind of it was really black world. And I
remember, and you know, to kind of to bookend it, uh,
you know, the night before I left, I've been up too late with
friends and I just had I just had time to kill. I remember sitting
in that Barnes and Noble where I had originally read American Tabloid and I burned
through. I guess it's Peter Erskine's book Raging Bulls, Easy Riders and Raging
Bulls about the sort of a heyday in the seventies of the film industry.
Um, and just just burning through that. I read that whole book.
I think in a two hours sitting. It's just kind of strung out and
defeated. That was sort of that was the end of it from there.
But but as a coda to that, so I mentioned you in the last
call that JFK. Giancana play. We got a real restaurant owner named Steve
or Stevo to be in the play and we rehearsed at his restaurant, which
I said it was at four three nine in Studio City. The name of
the restaurant was Votelos and if you haven't caught up to me yet. Um.
Years later, Votelos became famous because that was the restaurant where the actor
Robert Blake was famous for the film version of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and
later the seventies television show Baretta. Robert Blake was there with his with his
his then wife Bonnie Blake, having dinner. She went out and waited in
the car. They went out together. In the car, Blake says,
Um, I've forgotten my gun in Votelos. He goes back into Votelos to
retrieve his his gun allegedly, well, he's in the restaurant by Blake gets
shot in the head waiting in the car. Blake is arrested, tried for
murder, and acquitted of that murder. But it it became this stuff of
Hollywood lore, the Robert Blake case, And that was the restaurant that we
rehearsed last Call in UM in My Demon Dog Days in Los Angeles. Now,
as I mentioned, today's podcast is brought to you by Audible. Get
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a great listen. And that one is written or is read by Dick Hill,
the same guy had referenced earlier. Who does all of them? The
well some some of the James Elroy and Michael Connelly novels. That's it for
today's episode of Who Killed Teresa? As always, I'm your host, John
Lore and just a few housekeeping things before we sign out. I was away,
as as I mentioned at the beginning programs, I've been away for the
majority of July in Canada, and again, as I said, when I
have things to follow up on, I'll let you know when I can do
a more thorough job. But there. There will be some upcoming episodes about
some of the events and things that happened there, but for now, I
guess it's the summer. Consider this kind of some summer podcasts which are a
little less focused the loft topic, and then we've move into the fall.
We'll get we'll get back to matters of murder. As always, if you
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So once again, thanks for joining the Castle Who Killed Baby? I
love you. Come, Come, come into my eyes. Let me know
the wonder of a baby. You want you now, now, now,
when hold on fast? Would this be the magic