Garry Simpson - TV Director Par Excellence

I have just learned of the death of Garry Simpson at age 97 in Middlebury, Vermont. Garry had an extremely distinguished career as a television director, a small part of which was directing my father’s TV show, “Ford Festival,” in 1951-52. He became a very good friend to both my parents for the rest of their lives. He helped my mother through my father’s death, storing great quantities of Melton memorabilia from my father’s office in his Greenwich, Connecticut barn. When he moved to Vermont to help start Vermont Public Television, in the late 1960s, and my mother had to clear out the barn, she had a great big bonfire. On it went all the records, correspondence, photographs (mostly duplicates of what she saved). My father’s history literally went up in smoke. Her choice. Who knew that decades later I would wish for all that material when researching my book? Oh well. Garry personally helped me with my research, talked to me at length, commented on my manuscript, and gave me things from his own archives that were relevant to my father's career. Garry helped my mother find a home for the kinescopes of "Ford Festival" at Dartmouth (long, long before I was married to a Dartmouth alum and went to work at the College). Some years ago I rescued the kinescopes from Dartmouth's attic, and donated them to the Museum of Television and Radio in NYC.

Here’s a link to a multi-part interview with Garry on the Archive of American Television:

http://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/people/garry-simpson

Palm Beach Post story on the Autorama

And here is what appears on the reverse of the photo, in my father's own hand:

Recently, Eliot Kleinberg at the Palm Beach Post did a multi-part story on the Autorama, at the 50th anniversary of it's closing. Here's the link:

http://www.historicpalmbeach.com/eliot-kleinberg/2011/10/hypoluxo’s-autorama-celebrated-star’s-cars/

As a result, I was able to contact Peggy Patterson McClellan, daughter of Gladys Patterson, who ran the gift shop at the Autorama. "Mrs. Pat" was very patient with this seven-year-old who constantly wanted to "help" in the shop. Peggy has sent me a wonderful collection of Melton memorabilia, including scrapbook, photo album and my father's spats, linen driving cap and goggles!

The photo above (early 1950s) is one that Peggy sent. I'll post more later.

(In case you can't read my father's handwriting, the reverse of the photo says: "James Melton & Leonard Stokes, both from Moultrie, Georgia, at a recent rehearsal of the CBS TV show "Toast of the Town" -- JM rehearsing a production number "Ghost Riders in the Sky"-- Stokes was one of the cowboys in the scene. But the costumers sent him the wrong costume. Instead of a cowboy suit he was sent the uniform of a Union Soldier! When he showed up on the stage, Melton drew a gun on him. (Note: the proper cowboy costume arrived shortly thereafter.) Shades of Chickamauga!

Happy Halloween

Every father seems a big man to his daughter, and mine was no exception. Big, as in hero. Big, as in physical size. Big, as in larger-than-life persona who dominated any space he entered.

Later, after he died, and when I was grown up, I discovered that my childhood perception of his physical size was not a matter of perception but of actual fact. A friend and I were going to a Halloween costume party. My mother kindly loaned Joe my father's white dress naval uniform—the one he wore at the Metropolitan Opera—so that we could go as Lieutenant Pinkerton and Cio-Cio San from "Madama Butterfly." Joe was a big man, but even so, we had to stuff the front of the jacket with a small pillow to keep it from hanging off him like a limp rag. My father was a big man.

An appreciation

Margo and her dad c. 1955

Greenwich, Connecticut

Every little girl thinks her father can move mountains. Mine could move rivers and roads—literally. When we lived in Weston, Connecticut, the quiet country lane we lived on ran too near our house, he thought, so he had it moved. This involved, in addition to rerouting the road, dismantling the ancient dry stone wall that ran the length of our property, and moving that too.

Later, when we moved to Greenwich, a brook bisected the backyard, shrinking my play area beyond what he deemed acceptable. So he had the brook moved thirty feet further from the house to allow more space for my outdoor activities.

Here was a man who could move roads and rivers—what couldn't he do? He couldn't stop the march of time, the change in musical tastes, the decline of his career—all of which severely diminished his stature in his daughter's eyes. He died broke and broken when I was fifteen years old. I never forgave him. I forgot him. It wasn't until many years later, in the course of researching a biographical memoir about him, that I rediscovered my father. The rediscovery of what made him such a "big man" gave me a more sympathetic perspective on the pressures that caused his decline. Here was a man who felt that the impossible was possible—it just might take a little longer or cost a little more. Here was a man who created most of the 'lucky breaks' in his career. Later, as the music business changed, and his career was on the wane, in his desperation he created enemies not opportunities. Here was a man who gave all he had to the world but had nothing left to sustain himself when the upward path began its downward course.

James Melton is still a big man to his daughter—only now the picture is a truer, more fully formed one.

1939 New York World's Fair

James Melton's Stanley Steamer at the World's Fair

The James Melton collection at the American Jubilee Pageant

Last week my e-friend Tim Martin forwarded me several photos from the 1939 World's Fair, so without further ado, that's my topic for today.

In April of 1939 the New York World's Fair opened. A much-needed antidote to the Depression, it touted technology as the means to economic prosperity, not only for Americans, but as a ray of hope in the midst of Europe's troubling times. Among corporate sponsored exhibits at the New York World's Fair, American automobile companies figured hugely. The General Motors “Futurama” was a 36,000 square-foot scale model of what America would be like in the 1960s, a good deal of which vision was based on the supremacy of the automobile. The Ford Motor Company “Road of Tomorrow” showed how the automobile industry spread employment, from raw materials through manufacturing to sales.

While the theme of the Fair was progress and modernity, the American Jubilee Pageant, largely sponsored by Studebaker, celebrated what we’d come from, America’s past glories. My father was asked to provide ten antique cars to be driven in the Pageant four times a day. In order to assure ten in constant working order, he had to have many more than that. By opening day he owned thirty. What a convenient excuse to expand his collection. The cars on display ranged from an 1896 Ofeldt Steamer to a 1914 Packard twin-six seven passenger automobile.

The American Jubilee Pageant was an extravaganza with music by Arthur Schwartz and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II—a kaleidoscope of American social and political history from George Washington to “the next president” who would be elected in November 1940. The revolving stage on which the pageant unfolded was 270 feet in diameter, large enough to accommodate horses, buggies, cars, it was complete with details like real flowers growing in real earth in real gardens. There were 350 performers in various vignettes about George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and “the next President.” Cars from the collection of James Melton were featured in a section called “The Struggle Buggy Days,” which included twenty-four long-legged “American Beauties,” and tableaux about financier and gourmand “Diamond” Jim Brady and turn-of-the-century singer Lillian Russell. The venue for this exhibit alone held 7,000 people. Admission was 40 cents.

In September 1939, the Bell Telephone Company (for which my father later starred on radio in the weekly “Telephone Hour”) in cooperation with the Veteran Automobile Club of America, sponsored a “Veteran Automobile Day” at the World’s Fair. It included prizes for the most picturesque costumed driver, the car driven from the greatest distance, and events such as a race in reverse gear, and a cranking contest, all of which was followed by participation of the cars in the American Jubilee program itself.

It seems amazing to me that during the Depression four cities managed to mount major expositions—Chicago’s Century of Progress (1933), the Texas Centennial Exposition in Dallas (1936), San Francisco’s Golden Gate Exposition and the New York World’s Fair (1939). They were all celebrating hope and progress. The New York World’s Fair opened in April of 1939, the following September, Hitler invaded Poland.

1939 World

Richard Hankinson

Remember that 1960s Nat King Cole song with lyrics about the “lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer”? They sure got the lazy part wrong, at least as far as my life is concerned. Crazy? Yes, happily busily crazy. Wanting to be outside in the garden, rather than inside in front of my computer (no, I don’t have a laptop). Hence my inattention to blogging. Apologies. I'm back from vacation and back on track now.

Last week I was in Maine, and had the opportunity to visit Dick Hankinson, who was my father’s accompanist in the 1950s.

Dick Hankinson c. 1952

As a very recent Julliard graduate, Richard Hankinson, a charming and talented young man from South Carolina, was hired as my father’s newest accompanist in September 1952. He came so highly recommended that my father hired him without an audition. However, he insisted that Dick sign a five-year contract, which was unheard of in those days. Forty years later Dick candidly told me he would have left sooner if he could have, because he was on call 24 hours a day. Their first year together involved a grueling 250 days on the road. This was particularly difficult for the recently married Hankinson, although his new wife did whatever she could by way of making herself useful to the operation in order to accompany him on tour.

When I interviewed Dick for my book in 1991, he told me: “Musically, Mr. Melton was difficult to play for. He sang classical music in almost a pop style. One didn’t accompany him, rather, he sang on top of the accompaniment.” (Did this come from having sung with a dance band in his youth, I wonder?) “He insisted that all accompaniments be memorized. I objected to this, because it left no room for pianistic interpretation; I felt it made things sound mechanical.” But, of necessity, Dick ended up complying. It did look very impressive not to have any sheet music on stage.

Dick moved on to other pursuits in 1957, and retired to Maine in 1985.