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Anita Venezia

The Man who Made Hollywood Great

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I can honestly say that I have been an avid movie buff before the term was ever coined. As a child I collected 8×10 B&W lobby cards and kept a scrap book of Hollywood stars that I could never dream of meeting as I was raised on the other side of the world in Cape Town. But I was wrong. I attended two Academy Award events and met, or rubbed shoulders, with some of Hollywood’s greats.

At the 75th Academy Award event at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion my 6’4” husband Richard accidentally bumped into John Wayne, also 6’4”, as he turned around at the foyer bar Wayne commented “excuse me big guy” and sauntered up to the bar.

Trying to be blasé we mingled in the foyer where people smiled at one another thinking everyone present “had to be somebody”!

Wayne, having won Best Actor Award for “True Grit” in 1970, was presenting an honorary award to Howard Hawks.

So how did we have the good fortune to get such coveted tickets? It just so happened that Haskell Wexler, who was initially cinematographer for Coppola’s “The Conversation”, got fired and did not want to attend the awards. A Hollywood friend asked him for the tickets and in turn gifted them to us. It was a dream come true. Wexler won Best Cinematographer in 1977 for “Bound for Glory”.

That Oscar year in 1975 featured the creme de la creme of Hollywood greats; Best Picture and Best Director went to Francis Ford Coppola for Godfather II, Best Original Music Score to his father Carmine Coppola. Best Actress Oscar went to Ellen Burstyn and Best Actor Art Carney who beat out Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino.

The dynamic MC lineup was Bob Hope, Shirley MacLaine, Sammy Davis and Frank Sinatra. To focus on the spectacular “The Great Gatsby” that won Best Costume Design Oscar, a vanilla-toned vintage car drove slowly to centerstage as backdrop for a Roaring Twenties dance routine.

During intermission several bars became magnets for thirsty attendees and I went out an autograph hunt scoring the first one from OJ himself who starred in “Towering Inferno” that won Best Theme Song “We May Never Love Like This Again”. We met up with friends Lloyd and Dottie Bridges, our Bear Valley neighbors, who attended as their son Jeff was nominated as Best Supporting Actor for “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot”.

On that April night there was a very heavy rainfall and everyone clustered outside waiting for valets to deliver their cars. Glenda Jackson, who had an umbrella, invited Goldie Hawn and me to share her shelter. Most were making a dash to the Beverly Hills Hilton for a post Oscar dinner party.

John Wayne, nicknamed Duke, was born Marion Morrison in Iowa in 1907 and the Hollywood studio gave him the iconic new name. He made 140 films from 1930 to 1976, most being Westerns and war films. In 1970 Wayne won the Oscar for Best Actor for “True Grit” beating out Jon Voight, Dustin Hoffman, Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole.

John Wayne, a conservative Republican was encouraged to run for office but preferred acting and producing. He was married three times, had seven children and loved boating. Wayne was larger than life, not only in stature but also in character and ideals. The Duke did everything to extreme; he lived hard, loved hard, drank hard, smoked four packs of cigarettes a day, and epitomized the Golden Age of Hollywood for four decades.

In 1977 we attended the 49th Academy Awards when “Rocky” won Best Picture and Peter Finch won Best Actor posthumously who beat out Giancarlo Giannini nominated for “Seven Beauties”. The highlight of the evening was when Muhammad Ali surprised Sly Stallone by sparring with him onstage.

Yes those were glory days when Hollywood had elegance and glamour, the masters of ceremonies were truly witty, and Oscar winners thanked the Academy for the honor and recognition.

Revisited: Mutiny on The Bounty

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I don’t remember when I first became interested in the history of HMS Bounty and the mutiny by the crew that took place in 1788, or Pitcairn Island where the renegades settled. My childhood fascination was probably sparked by portrayals in rerun movies, and being an avid stamp collector, I yearned for Pitcairn stamps.

As a youth I was fascinated by the “Mutiny on the Bounty” story and we had learned in history class that the ship had actually docked near my own hometown, Cape Town, South Africa, before crossing the Indian Ocean to Tahiti.

Then, a few years ago, my friend, Wallene Nelsen, and I, visited Smithsonian Museum of Natural History where we were invited to the off-limits botany specimen storage room. The curator showed us actual plants collected on Captain Cook’s expedition in the 1770s by Sir Joseph Banks. Banks was the same botanist who referred the Bounty’s William Bligh to King George III, to bring breadfruit saplings from Tahiti to Jamaica. Imbued with curiosity, I requested to touch the leafy specimen before it was returned to the drawer.

Thus, the islands were vaguely on my radar with the Bounty having docked in my own hometown, yearning for Pitcairn stamps, and being so close to the actual breadfruit specimens collected by Joseph Banks.

As the story goes, after cruel punishments and floggings by Bligh, Master’s Mate Fletcher Christian commandeered the vessel and banished Bligh and his followers to an open boat, setting them adrift in the South Pacific Ocean. After many weeks at sea they finally reached land, returned to England and demanded the mutineers to be hanged.

Although the mutiny was romanticized in books, it was not until the story hit the big screen that Fletcher Christian became a maritime hero in three films; Clark Gable and Charles Laughton, Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard, and Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins, in blockbuster renditions of the nautical crime of the century.

The thrust of the HMS Bounty story was that Sir Joseph Banks referred Bligh to King George III to secure breadfruit plant saplings in Tahiti, then to deliver them to Jamaica to grow as cheap foods for slave workers. The trees yielded about 200 high protein fruits per season and also provided timber for outriggers and latex for boat caulking.

Successful transplants of seedlings to Jamaica meant bonuses for Bligh and success for botanist Banks. The ship’s great cabin was refitted to hold over 1000 plants—plants that required much of the ship’s limited drinking water.

While on the extended Tahiti layover, the crew nurtured the Jamaica-bound breadfruit saplings for ten months, as many of the sailors became enthralled by the tropical maidens. Bligh admonished the raucous sailors, and some were mercilessly flogged. When the Bounty departed Tahiti with breadfruit saplings, the crew rebelled.

Fletcher Christian had taken up with an island maiden and was not about to abandon her. With his anger roiling, Christian lead the mutiny against Bligh and banished him along with eighteen others, to a twenty-three-foot open boat, to fend for themselves in the vast ocean.

He commandeered the HMS Bounty with eight roguish sailors and returned to Tahiti to pick up six local men, eleven women, and one infant. The hijacked Bounty zigzagged the South Pacific for nine months in search of safe harbor far from Britain’s reach. In January 1789, they landed at an inlet on the volcanic outcrop island of Pitcairn in a four-island archipelago. Christian named the inlet “Bounty Bay,” and settled his ragtag colonists near abundant food sources. They stripped the Bounty of lumber, canvas sails, and supplies, scuttled it, and set it afire to prevent escape.

I would imagine they redeemed the breadfruit samplings to grow for food and used all possible survival devices as they colonized their lost paradise, invisible to the outside world.

But trouble was brewing in the utopian paradise as British sailors, and the Tahitian men, fought among themselves, often over women, and many died in the first two years, including Fletcher Christian.

John Adams was the sole mutineer survivor as shortly after their arrival, all the others died. Some were murdered, one committed suicide and others died from various causes. In any case, their names remain etched in history; Fletcher Christian, Matthew Quintal, William McCoy, William Brown, Isaac Martin, John Mills, John Williams, and Ned Young, whose descendent, Kevin Young, has added to this story.

Despite despair, isolation, and fear of capture, survivor John Adams, the Tahitians, and subsequently future descendants of seven generations have lived on Pitcairn and Norfolk Islands for 230 years to the present. The multi-generational descendants, living links to the storied Bounty, are still preserving their Anglo-Tahitian culture.

Isolated Pitcairn Island, an Overseas British Territory, has the smallest population of any democracy in the world. It lies within the Henderson, Ducie and Oeno archipelago. Pitcairn, the only inhabited island, is 3,500 miles equidistant from New Zealand to the west and Peru to the east, has a combined area of 1.6 square miles, and the highest point is 1100 feet. It has internet access and one television channel. Adamstown is the capital.

In the 1930s, the population swelled to 233, however, today only about 50 people live on Pitcairn. No planes can land, no big ships can dock. Water and fuel are scarce, and to preserve energy, electricity is turned off between 10 pm and 6 am. Island transportation is by foot or quad ATVs, and passengers, supplies, and mail arrive from New Zealand once every three months on the island ship, Silver Supporter.

Accommodation and meals for visitors can be arranged at local homes with advance reservations. Most families have vegetable gardens and fruit trees. Breadfruit is harvested by “shooting down” as they are too high to reach. There is one school, a church, medical center, general store, and post office that still sells collectible stamps and first day covers.

When cruise ships visit, they drop anchor in deep waters, and weather permitting, passengers are ferried into Adamstown by longboats or ship tenders, where locals eagerly sell handmade wares, wood carvings, jewelry, tapa cloth, island honey, and handmade soaps. Pitcairn Island is actively seeking immigration and offers free land to those who qualify.

So, with my triad of links to HMS Bounty that moored near my birthplace two centuries before, avid Pitcairn stamp collecting, and a serendipitous Smithsonian connection with botanist Banks’ specimens, I decided to contact some Pitcairn inhabitants for my story.

Heather Menzies Young kindly put me in touch with Pitcairn’s deputy mayor, Kevin Young, a direct descendant of original Bounty colonist Ned Young, who emailed me his own words for my ALIVE article:

Life on Pitcairn can be busy. Our aging community is very small, so keeping the island maintained and functioning at a reasonable level requires all but the very young and elderly to participate in some way. Combine this with a self-reliant lifestyle, and time becomes a much-valued commodity.

In the summer months, a number of cruise ships break their journey between French Polynesia and South America with a call at Pitcairn. If the passengers come ashore, our population can swell to a few hundred for the day. Other ships invite us to set up a market on board so passengers can buy local crafts and wares. A popular choice is to write letters and postcards which are brought ashore and mailed from the Pitcairn Post Office. With some ships carrying several thousand passengers and crew, it can stretch us to capacity for those hours but the interaction with passengers and supplementary income is always welcomed.

Passengers often ask how we live on this small remote island. When they learn our homes are similar to theirs with electricity, satellite broadband, and appliances there’s often surprise. What’s less familiar to them is drinking rainwater from unpolluted skies, fish caught from pristine waters, and vegetables fresh from the garden for the evening meal.

If they were to ask me why I live on Pitcairn, I would tell them I was born here, a direct descendant of the Bounty settlers. My family has lived here for 230 years. Some set great store by the connection to the Bounty but I live here because I chose the Pitcairn lifestyle in retirement over the equivalent, time demanding, urban life in New Zealand I returned from. Pitcairn’s rugged beauty and sub tropical climate is a bonus!—Kevin Young

Rita Hayworth

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She was a child night club dancer, an actress, a mega movie star, and a princess. She was Brooklyn-born Margarita Carmen Cansino, known to millions of admirers the world over as Rita Hayworth, Hollywood’s Golden Era “Love Goddess.” The actress had earned the unique moniker after the statuesque beauty starred in the 1946 film noir masterpiece Gilda.

Budd Burton Moss was Rita Hayworth’s longtime agent and managed her career up to her passing in 1987. I interviewed Moss for ALIVE Magazine in September 2014 in a piece entitled, “Starmaker: Hollywood Talent Agent,” when he published his memoir.

Moss called me recently about an upcoming documentary on Rita Hayworth to be filmed by the German Bremen-based Bremedia Produktion GmbH, who have formulated a story-line treatment of their documentary to be aired initially in Germany and France. Henning Van Lil and Katja Runge will be commencing work on the German-produced documentary for a French-German network to be aired throughout Europe in mid-2020 titled, Rita Hayworth—Glamour and Drama of a Hollywood Legend.

During a recent phone interview, Henning told me production will commence in October and will be filmed at relevant locations with interviewees in New York and Los Angeles. Burton Moss, their U.S.A. producer, will be suggesting locations and arranging interviews of those who were connected to the star.

The producers’ treatment spells out how they plan to film the documentary by exploring her domineering father’s influence, his overpowering control, and how it played into her future with five failed marriages and being manipulation by Hollywood Studios during her 37-year career.

Henning Van Lil, a twelve-year documentarian, will focus on Hayworth’s backstory, her tireless tenacity, and the intricacies of one of the 20th Century’s most iconic movie stars; beautiful, vulnerable, courageous and exploited.

Burton Moss and Foster Hirsch will hopefully be arranging interviews with Robert Wagner, Angie Dickinson, Constance Towers, Diane Baker, and the daughters of Gary Cooper and Orson Welles.

Rita Hayworth’s life was exciting, if not downright tumultuous. Her Seville-born father, Eduardo Cansino, was a flamenco dancer, and Irish-American mother, Volga Hayworth, danced in New York. Margarita, born in 1918, performed on the stage at the tender age of four, and by twelve was her father’s regular dance partner. He defied child labor laws by taking his pre-teenage daughter to Tijuana, Mexico, where they did as many as twenty shows a week in nightclubs.

At the age of eighteen, Margarita married an older man to break away from her demanding father. Realizing her star power potential, her husband introduced her to the head of Columbia Pictures. The Studio neutralized her “Latin” look, receded her hairline, dyed her dark hair red, and changed her name to Rita Hayworth. They put her through grueling speech lessons and an exercise regimen that helped the shy dancer evolve into the studio-molded femme fatale and sensual sex symbol that never knew a real childhood.

After several B-movies, Hayworth did not yet have a breakthrough film part but the perfect role and an iconic photoshoot was on the near horizon. Bob Landry took a photo of Rita in a silky negligee for the August 1941 Issue of LIFE Magazine. His camera malfunctioned, the flash failed thus the image had a shadowy chiaroscuro quality resulting in the pin-up photo being one of the favorites of wartime GIs.

The LIFE Magazine photo caught the discerning eye of genius filmmaker-director Orson Welles who was internationally celebrated for his visionary Citizen Kane masterpiece film. Welles set out to marry Hayworth in 1943 and the following year Rebecca was born.

Innovative Welles re-invented his wife for The Lady from Shanghai part, and with scores of media onlookers, had the hairdresser cut her trademark red hair short and dyed it blond. A brand new Rita emerged, shedding the sensual-dancer-voluptuous-siren persona that had made her into a Hollywood icon.

Hayworth had already been featured in about half a dozen “ethnic” roles in the early years then came the breakout 1941 FOX Studio bullfighting film, Blood and Sand, with Tyrone Power and Anthony Quinn. By 1942 she was dancing with Fred Astaire in You Were Never Lovelier, followed by Cover Girl in 1944.

In 1944 the sensational star was named the top box office movie star in the world. Many years later the American Film Institute named Rita Hayworth as one of the top 25 female screen legends of all time and listed the cinematic screen icon among AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Stars.

Rita starred as “Gilda” in the film noir movie as a nightclub singer who removes long satin gloves with such sensual finesse that it set her on a trajectory to unequaled stardom. The post-war film was an international sensation and a short time later, she married a prince.

It was during the 1948 Cannes Film Festival when Rita Hayworth caught the eye of dashing Prince Aly Khan who owned a lavish chateau on the Riviera. Several times the bon vivant had watched “Gilda” in his private screening room and set out to pursue the star. The playboy prince gambled at chic casinos, drove fast cars, owned Irish race horses, had married socialites, and targeted the voluptuous movie star who had just divorced Orson Welles.

Being considered one of the leading movie stars in the world, she had also been pursued by Ari Onassis and the Shah of Iran. But the suave Prince Aly Khan, whose own father was literally worth his weight in gold, charmed her with diamonds, pearls and lazy romantic days at his terraced chateau.

After a whirlwind romance and a speedy divorce from his wife, the charming prince married Rita Hayworth and she became a bonafide American princess. Their daughter, Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, was born in 1949 in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Hayworth lived in Europe with her husband and two daughters but the fairy-tale marriage faded into twilight and ended after four years followed by a bitter child custody battle. Soon after returning to Los Angeles she married crooner Dick Haymes who was severely in debt and whom she divorced after he cleaned out her bank account. One more marriage and a career total of 61 films followed.

Budd Burton Moss’ uncle was Sam Zimbalist, his mother’s brother, and his father was film editor at Fox which later became 20th Century Fox. Zimbalist produced Ben Hur which won 11 Oscars in 1959 and he was the first person to earn an Academy Award posthumously, having died in 1958 during filming in Rome.

Moss first saw Blood and Sand as a youth, and years later at a Fox Studios commissary, he finally got close to the silver screen idol who was lunching with studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck. A few years later Budd Burton Moss was Rita Hayworth’s agent/manager, confidant, and friend up to her illness. In 1976 he accompanied Hayworth to London on a TWA flight and just before landing she became agitated, demanding, and short-tempered for no apparent reason.

In 1980 it was revealed that her mood changes and agitation was caused by a then-unknown illness, later diagnosed as Alzheimer’s Disease. In 1987 Rita Hayworth passed away.

Today, Rita Hayworth’s daughter, Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, dedicates much of her time and effort to raising both awareness and funds to help find a cure for the mind-stealing disease of Alzeimer’s that touches the lives of about 50 million people worldwide. Princess Yasmin is president of Alzheimer Disease International and Alzheimer’s Association as well as serving on several boards.

Farewell to Philanthropist Kenneth E. Behring

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One of Danville’s leading citizens, Kenneth E. Behring, passed away on June 25 just days after his 91st birthday. I recall his poignant answer during my last ALIVE Magazine interview. “Mister Behring where do you get your unbounded energy to do all the things you do?” He answered with humility. “I have such little time and so much to do for all the people who really need help…” 

In September 2008 I wrote an article for ALIVE Magazine on Kenneth E. Behring entitled, “A Man on the Move.” He was an energetic philanthropist who did extraordinary works of charity in the United States and in over one hundred countries. 

In my article, I used the word “Wheels” metaphorically to describe the man on the move who was literally born in a moving elevator when his mother was en route to the maternity ward and he never ever slowed down. 

Ken Behring was born in Illinois and raised in Wisconsin, and in 2004 he penned his best-seller autobiography, “Road to Purpose,” revealing that he had earned his first million dollars by age 27 and shared what had given him the impetus to succeed beyond his wildest dreams. With his dynamic wife of seventy years, Pat Behring, at his side, he never considered the possibility of failure and approached each challenge with gusto and an inimitable drive to succeed. Behring exhibited the simple eloquence of determination, dedication, and a solid, “hard work” ethic. 

Behring’s business successes and works of charity are too numerous to mention, however, a few monumental achievements define his love of life. Ken Behring bought and sold cars; invested in properties; developed the town of Tamarack in Florida; was one time majority owner of the Seattle Seahawks football franchise; planned and developed the Blackhawk housing community and golf courses; donated 2,800 acres to Mt. Diablo State Park; built the Blackhawk Automotive Museum in 1988; supported the Smithsonian’s Hall of Mammals at the Museum of Natural History, and the American History Museum in Washington, D.C.. 

On Ken Behring’s birthday in June 2000, he was eager to share his good fortune, as he founded the nonprofit venture, “Global Health and Education Foundation,” and financed and delivered over 1,100,000 wheelchairs to people in need of mobility in over 100 countries. 

In 1988, Behring and partners built the world-class Blackhawk Museum that exhibits some of the nation’s finest classic car collections. After succeeding in multiple museum ventures, Behring challenged himself by spearheading 25 museums in China. The Blackhawk Museum today boasts several permanent exhibitions other than classic cars; Spirit of the Old West, Out of Africa, Into China, and The Wonderful World of Nature, featuring an extensive collection of natural history specimens and artifacts.

The legacy of the Kenneth E. Behring Global Health and Education Foundation will continue to be headed by sons David and Jeff Behring, and Mrs. Pat Behring will continue to chair Blackhawk Museum Volunteers who assist with docent tours and fundraising for the bus transportation of school children to visit the many permanent exhibitions at the Blackhawk Museum.

Our community was made better—extraordinary, in fact—largely due to the equally extraordinary efforts and man, Mr. Kenneth E. Behring.   

Actor Extraordinaire Robert Wagner

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About four years ago I requested an interview with legendary actor, Robert Wagner. The idea came to mind as I was writing my “Starmaker” piece on Hollywood agent Budd Burton Moss for the September 2014 issue of ALIVE Magazine. When I finally got the call from Budd Moss recently that the long-awaited interview was granted, I knew my quest to learn things about the superstar that were heretofore unknown, was about to be realized.

Robert Wagner was very generous with his time as we spoke on the phone for nearly half an hour. “Did you know that Budd Moss and I were grammar school students together?” he asked. While I had composed my questions carefully, the conversation took on a more friendly tone. “Budd told me about you. I’m looking forward to meeting you someday,” he continued, “Do you ever get down to LA?” My heart missed a beat or two.

I was curious about Robert Wagner’s early years in Hollywood; the movies, the many television series, and his producing experiences that may make for an interesting Talese-style piece. “Could you tell me about your early successes in the industry?”

“The 50s, 60s and 70s were a different era. We’d pitch an idea and put it together. Today decisions are made by committee and large corporations,” he explained. I was in my element as being a movie aficionado most of my life I never missed a movie and I must confess I had carried a torch for the excruciatingly handsome Robert Wagner since seeing him on the big screen decades ago on the other side of the world. I asked about A Kiss Before Dying, one of his early movies in 1956.

“I enjoyed working with Joanne Woodward in her first film, A Kiss Before Dying, she was terrific. I stop and see her when I visit the East Coast,” he added.

“May I call you RJ?” I asked and explained that I had read his memoir.

Makings of A Star

Robert Wagner, known as RJ to family and friends, recently turned eighty-eight, but has not slowed down one bit. My problem was where to start to write a piece on such a giant in the world of film and television, so I read his poignant memoir, Pieces of My Heart.

I learned about his childhood, dreams, career, loves, and losses that make up the man who has been an iconic movie star and producer for nearly seven decades. In his memoir, Wagner admits to a difficult childhood; raised by a strict German-American father who moved the family from Michigan to Bel Air, California, to ease his wife’s asthma. The disciplinarian father sent young RJ to several boarding schools, including the Hollywood Military Academy, where he met many sons of the Hollywood elite.

As a teenager, Wagner decided to be an actor, and being a rebel with a cause, tenaciously pursued his dream. To earn money, he caddied at the Bel Air Country Club for the likes of Fred Astaire and Clark Gable, and the golfing friendships gave him entree to premier movie moguls. The handsome young man easily moved in the right circles which served as stepping stones towards the fulfilment of his filmdom dream. He attended school with the son of Norma Shearer and Irving Thalberg, dated daughters of Alan Ladd and Gloria Swanson, and hitched rides with the likes of Errol Flynn.

Being a natural athlete, Wagner excelled as a diver, swimmer, tennis player, and horseback rider, and he was precisely situated in the perfect place to break into the business where dreams of the big screen came true.

RJ put himself front and center of the action as he hung around Catalina Island hotspots where movie stars moored their boats. He played baseball with John Ford, John Wayne, and Ward Bond. Clark Gable took him to MGM to meet producers, and he attended parties at the home of Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs, called Tarzana. And yes, they even named the town “Tarzana,” for the jungle tree swinger.

Wagner tells of the time he worked on the John Ford project, What Price Glory. Director Ford’s nickname for Wagner was “Boob” which he’d shout across the set. “Yes sir Mr. Ford,” he’d answer, and then listened intently for direction.

Wagner said he enjoyed working on the film with Corinne Calvert and James Cagney. “I used to jog Jimmy’s horses for him… he had Morgan’s and trotters.” In What Price Glory, as the character Private Lewisohn, Wagner had to die in Cagney’s arms.

By the time RJ was 18 he had signed with 20th Century Fox as a contract player for six months in 1948, at the behest of Darryl F. Zanuck, for $75 a week. Twelve years later, and groomed to perfection by the studio system, he was making five thousand dollars a week.
Robert Wagner soon took ownership of the word “debonair,” as the very elegant man-about-town segued to unbridled stardom.

From Films to Television

I asked Robert Wagner which picture was the most influential to his career. “In 1951 I got my first billing in Halls of Montezuma with Richard Widmark, but my first big break was With A Song in My Heart in 1952 with Susan Hayward. After that film I got 5,000 fan letters.”
With a Song in My Heart, a post-war patriotic film, was a box office hit directed by Walter Lang and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck. Robert Wagner’s epic two-line cameo as a young, war-wounded soldier, with Susan Hayward portraying the life-story of singer Jane Froman, brought audiences to tears.

By 1956 Wagner was highly sought after and starred as a conniving villain in the film noir thriller, A Kiss Before Dying, where he met his demise. Spencer Tracy, having worked with Wagner in Broken Lance in 1954, requested that RJ get star billing and his name above the title, and then suggested him to play his young brother in The Mountain in 1956. The action-packed film about a perilous climb to reach a crashed plane was made on location in the French Alps, thus bonding their friendship.

With his career at full throttle, he quickly became a hot property. Life was good. When Robert Wagner met the beautiful actress, Natalie Wood, he knew he had found the right person. They fell head-over-heels in love and were married in 1957. Considered to be Hollywood’s premier star couple, they were living the perfect life with perfect friends in a perfect house.

Hectic schedules, studio commitments, and factors that besiege many Hollywood people all culminated into a perfect storm of marital turmoil. By 1961 the once-perfect couple had separated and RJ moved to Europe. While living in Italy, Wagner met up with his longtime producer friend Darryl Zanuck who cast him as an Army Ranger in the cameo-studded, The Longest Day, with Richard Burton, John Wayne, and Sean Connery, which brilliantly portrayed the 1944 D-Day invasion of Normandy.

By the mid-1960s, Wagner had honed his comic sense of timing in the blockbuster Pink Panther series, and later as the sinister, eye-patched

“Number 2” in the 1990s Austin Powers franchise. On the “Panther” set he became good friends with David Niven and Peter Sellers, and in his memoir, he writes of their escapades at the Cortina D’Ampezzo ski resort in the Italian Dolomites.

I asked RJ about his best film work and most difficult project. “I loved making the Pink Panther and working with David Niven,” he said. “The most difficult projects are the television series because you have to keep pounding them out.” He says in his book that the cost to produce a television series runs about $2 million per hour.

Wagner had seamlessly segued from block buster films into the small screen niche in the late 1960s with the It Takes a Thief series which garnered him an Emmy nomination. Later he starred with Stephanie Powers in the enormously successful, Hart to Hart series, and then he had a recurring role in the NCIS franchise.

Wagner shared the screen with his longtime buddies, Fred Astaire and William Holden, in the blockbuster hit disaster drama Towering Inferno in 1974. Over seven decades, Robert Wagner has starred in over 80 films, several stage plays, and has produced and starred in umpteen television series and movies.

I couldn’t resist asking him his favorite actor and actress. “There were many. That’s a tough question,” he answered. “I know, that’s why I asked you,” I chuckled. “I would say Fred Astaire and Spencer Tracy, but later I loved working with David Niven. My favorite actress… I worked with the best; Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, and of course, my very close friend, Liz Taylor. She was one of the finest actresses and we worked together in There Must Be A Pony, a film I produced that was beautifully written for Elizabeth. Stephanie Powers was also great to work with on Hart to Hart. She brought a lot to the project.”

I asked about the most challenging film he worked on and got the impression there were none except for The Mountain with Spencer Tracy, only in that there was a heart stopping case of vertigo during a cable car malfunction when the cable detached in the Chamonix Mountains near Mont Blanc. In his memoir, Wagner writes an interesting account about the terrifying incident involving Spencer Tracy.

Life, Loves & Losses

In Wagner’s memoir, Pieces of My Heart, he writes fondly about his four-year love affair with Barbara Stanwyck, who was 24 years his senior when he was only 22. They had worked together on Titanic in 1953. Stanwyk and Wagner remained very close friends until she passed in 1990.

In his poignant memoir, he reminisces about some of the world’s most beautiful women that he dated, including Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe and Joan Collins. While he was smarting from the breakup with Natalie Wood, he found solace in making films in Italy. Director Vittorio De Sica cast him in The Condemned of Altona, where he worked with the divine, Sophia Loren.

After working in Italy, he married Marion Marshall in 1963 in New York. They returned to California and bought a ranch in Tarzana near the old Rice Burroughs place. Their daughter was born in 1964 named Kate, “for Hepburn,” he said.

But through all his ups and downs and loves and losses, there was only one woman who still owned his heart. Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood found themselves often in the same place at the same time. They were remarried in 1972 and the following year their baby daughter, Courtney, was born. Their lives again had become blissfully perfect until fate intervened.

One rainy November night in 1981, they were on their yacht, “Splendour,” off Catalina Island, when Natalie tragically drowned. President Ronald Reagan and Queen Elizabeth sent their condolences and the world mourned.

You Must Remember This

Robert Wagner married Jill St. John in 1990. They had been longtime friends as Jill, Natalie, and Stephanie Powers were in ballet school together as young girls. Jill St. John starred in the television series, Banning, and Tony Rome, with Frank Sinatra, as well as scores of films. She is well known as one of the fabled “Bond Girls,” having starred in Diamonds Are Forever with Sean Connery. Jill, being a Cordon Bleu-trained chef, penned a popular gourmet cook book and has been a regular guest on television cooking shows.

Today the Wagners are very involved in charity work, and RJ is on the board of the Tracy Clinic of Hollywood that supports hearing-impaired children. He has penned three books including, You Must Remember This, I Loved Her in The Movies, and his most recent New York Times best seller memoir, Pieces of My Heart.

He told me he had another book in the works with the working title, Heroes, about the 1950s Hollywood blacklist period. “I knew a lot of people who were affected. It was a difficult time in America,” he said.

The Wagners live in Aspen and are busy with book signing events and personal appearances. I asked about the upcoming Burton Moss Hollywood Golden Era Award, designed by Edwina Sandys, he will be receiving in October. “I spoke to her you know. I’ll show the sculpture to my grandchildren and say, ‘see your grandfather was highly respected’,” he laughed.

RJ to Receive the Burton Moss Hollywood Golden Era Award

This year, the second annual Burton Moss Hollywood Golden Era Award sculpture will be presented to Robert Wagner, at the Gold Coast International Film Festival, in New York. Last year was the first annual Burton Moss Hollywood Golden Era Award presentation named after the man who represented some of Hollywood’s greatest stars: Bette Davis, Robert Vaughn, Tom Cruise, Cliff Robertson, Sidney Poitier, Ruth Roman, Cyd Charisse, Mia Farrow, Larry King, Constance Towers, Tippi Hendren and Rita Hayworth.

The first award, in 2017, was presented posthumously to Rita Hayworth and accepted by her daughter, Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, at the New York City home of sculptor Edwina Sandys, who is Sir Winston Churchill’s granddaughter.

The award was created to preserve the legacy of the golden age of Hollywood and shine a spotlight on those who made it great but who may not have been sufficiently honored for their lifetime bodies of work.

The award presentation coincides with the Annual Gold Coast International Film Festival, founded by its executive director, Regina Geller Gil. Among the advisory board members to nominate the recipient of the Burton Moss Golden Era Award are Larry King, Joel Grey, Richard Thomas, Tippi Hendren, Carole Shelley, Katherine Quinn, Greg Mullavey, and Edwina Sandys.

The Burton Moss Award sculpture is an original work of art created by sculptor Edwina Sandys to be presented in October at the Gold Coast International Film Festival in New York. Sandys has exhibited in London, Dublin, New York, Toronto, Washington D.C., and Rome. The United Nations has installed five of her monumental sculptures at U.N. centers around the world.

So, after my four year wait to interview the most auspicious and enduring actor, Robert Wagner himself, here is my story on one of Hollywood’s most accomplished performers who not only brought elegance and savior faire to the Big Screen, but also represented the Golden Age of Movies that not only made people cry and laugh, but fall in love.

Vanishing Venice

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The unique history of Venice has been embroidered with intrigue, romance, art, music, and politics for over 900 years. The serene city shimmers where grey-blue waters roll in from the Adriatic and where it’s 118 islands have stood like a sentinel as foreign ships carried silks, spices, jewels, and other treasures over the centuries.

     Today the serenity is broken by towering mega-cruise ships carrying tourists that swarm the piazzas and narrow streets, compromising the city’s fragile infrastructure. Many locals feel that the city’s maintenance, soaring costs of living, and loss of quality of life may exceed the value of tourist revenues that flow into the coffers annually.

     The gleaming white cruise ships, some soaring twelve stories high, not only threaten fragile ecosystems, cause pollution, and churn up narrow waterways but the millions of tourists put a heavy strain on the city’s services.

     Venice, comprised of six districts called “Sestieri,” is spread over a 3.5 mile area, with each district being surrounded by canals connected by narrow foot bridges. Most of the city’s surrounding areas often remain deserted while the tourists crowd the hotspots around the Piazza San Marco. Many of the finest shops never benefit from the visitors even though their own rents and costs of living soar, and even restaurant owners have stated that they don’t benefit much from day-trippers as they often eat on board or snack al fresco in the piazza.

     Although thousands of tourists pour into the city daily, most sleep on board and the hotels don’t reap the benefits. The Cipriani, Gritti Palace, and Bauer charge about $550+ per night and are also finding stiff competition in the Airbnb rentals that help the private homeowners retain their properties.

     The locals have started to revolt against the onslaught of huge crowds that clog the streets and disrupt daily living. Last summer over 2,000 residents marched from the Arsenale along the Riva degli Sciavoni to demonstrate to government officials that they have had enough of the massive tourism, now estimated to be about 25 million per year.

     The movement “Mi no vado via” (I am not going away) reflected the fact that Venetians are literally being forced to move from their homes to the mainland because rents and services have priced them out of their hometown and their lifestyles cannot be sustained. “Venice is vanishing before our eyes and the soul of Venice is dying,” a marcher lamented.

The Drawing Room of Europe

     Venice is no stranger to visitors arriving from the sea. For centuries, the city was the largest shipbuilding port in the entire world and artisans and merchants from the Middle East and Mediterranean Basin traded there. In 1797 when Emperor Napoleon disembarked on the Mola Quay, and upon viewing the spacious Piazza San Marco proclaimed, “This is the drawing room of Europe,” then proceeded to loot its priceless treasures.

     For centuries the wealthiest merchants lived along the meandering “S” shaped Canal Grande in palaces that necklace the banks in elaborate arabesque, baroque, and rococo architecture. Most buildings in Venice are supported by oak and alder pilings, some of which have sunk into the mud about half a foot in depths as shallow as sixteen feet, and maintenance is ongoing.

     Today the population of Venice has dwindled to about 50,000 residents—about half of what it was in the 1980s. Many days the visitors can exceed the native population by double with between 35,000 to 60,000 tourists arriving daily with an estimated 470 cruise ships docking in Venice per year.

     UNESCO named Venice a World Heritage Site and warned the Italian Government and Commune of Venice that if they failed to obey the resolution urging the city to implement the prohibition of large ships and tankers from the lagoon by the end of last year they would place the city on the list of endangered heritage sites, along with others in Asia and Africa.

     It seems to have worked as by the end of 2021 the problem will be mitigated with all ships weighing in excess of 55,000 tons will be embarking at mainland Marghera Dock instead of Marittima in Porto Di Venezia.

No-Go Zones and Some Solutions

     Venice is not the only place where mega-tourism has caused problems. Mass tourism has increased since 2017 because of budget air travel and the cruise ships’ deep discounts. And since China has relaxed travel restrictions, their growth has added another 60 million tourists per year to the already 1.3 billion annual travelers.

      In Venice, to mitigate the cultural problem of visitors from China, the city has initiated a program of hiring Chinese police who accompany the Caribinieri on joint patrols to assist with language and customs.

     Many countries have created no-go tourist zones to preserve the fragility of heritage sites near mountains and beaches that have been compromised by large tour groups and holiday overcrowding. Among the worldwide locations that have established no-go zones are New Zealand, Thailand and the Galápagos Islands to stall the onslaught of planes, helicopters, boats, cars and buses that not only clog pristine areas and add to massive garbage problems, but also spew pollution. Many countries are forfeiting big tourist dollars to maintain the natural beauty and protect the environment.

     In Venice, a partial solution seems to have been presented by two young entrepreneurs who are using their good-natured expertise to mitigate the problems with overcrowding in the Piazza San Marco. They have founded “Venezia Autentica” to raise awareness about their beloved city and have formed a plan to guide visitors away from congested areas and to hotels, restaurants, and shops off the beaten path.

     Valeria Duplot and Sebastian Fagarazzi have a following of 25,000+ viewers on several social media sites and regularly take people through virtual Venice that visitors may otherwise never see. They introduce Venice to viewers by sharing their knowledge with commentary while walking along side streets, historic sites, and secret gardens with 360 degree views of Venice through their own Venetian eyes.  You can see it for yourself by visiting VeneziaAutentica.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

San Ramon Wonder Boy

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Do you remember what you achieved by age eleven? Memories of exciting childhoods seem to stay with us forever as we recall our favorite family vacations, movies, music, and what we hoped to achieve.

San Ramon student Connor Roham, age eleven, will have a lot to remember as he has already garnered a mountain of achievements. At age two Connor played the piano; at six took his first piano lessons, and at seven played at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York.

Since then, he has won several national and international piano competitions held in New York City and at age ten was invited to perform on the main stage of Carnegie Hall at Stern Auditorium. We all know that playing at Carnegie Hall is every musician’s dream and Connor has already performed there six times.

These are gigantic accomplishments for a young man who is not yet a teenager and who has already achieved what could seem impossible. Showing an early understanding of advanced math and classical music by the age of six, Connor was accepted into the high IQ society Mensa after having scored an IQ of 173. Membership in the society requires supervised intelligence tests that score in 98 percentile or higher to qualify.

There are only 134,000 Mensa members worldwide with 3,400 under the age of 18. The youngest member was admitted at the age of two years and five months who could already read, count in three languages, and was able to identify and locate most countries in a world map puzzle. In short, to become a Mensa member one has to be very, very smart.

Connor is a precocious young man who is partially homeschooled and already studies math and science at high school level. He attends classes at Davidson Academy for Profoundly Gifted Youth which requires IQ and achievement tests in 99.9% range nationally. He also attends a SRVUSD school for Social Science, Writing, and PE. Connor’s most favorite subjects are Math, Human Anatomy and Ancient Civilizations. He gives piano lessons to children and plays with his beloved Westie terrier, Millo.

Connor has already decided his future profession and wants to enter the medical field as a Pediatric Surgical Oncologist convinced that his dexterity on the piano can be translated to doing delicate surgery on children. His dream is to attend Stanford.
Recently at a Friends of the Blackhawk Museums membership event at the Behring estate, Connor was invited to be guest pianist and his rendition of “La Campanella” by Franz Listz so stunned the audience that he was promptly invited to a future performance.
Frederic Chopin is his favorite musician whose compositions of scherzos, mazurkas, and polonaises are the most challenging works, so it stands to reason that Connor would admire this musical genius who wrote and performed his first composition at the age of seven in 1817.

Connor desires to eventually bring back classical music to the mainstream for his generation and believes in the therapeutic power of music.

Frederic Chopin died of cystic fibrosis in 1849 and being Connor’s favorite composer, Connor plans to organize a fund raiser concert. Wearing hats of both pianist and impresario he is hoping to work in tandem with the Palo Alto Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, targeting the summer of 2018 for the charity concert.

His mother, Faranak Nekoogar, explained to me that Connor’s main focus is to qualify to participate in the prestigious Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw in 2020 and 2025. The event in Poland happens every five years and is open to only 350 musician applicants ages 17 to 35.

Connor has been featured twice on ABC7 News, San Francisco and New York, KTVU Channel 2, and all performances and upcoming events are available at Connor Roham Piano on YouTube.

Creativity comes in many forms and Connor, being not only an accomplished pianist, wrote a musical piece at six entitled “Memories of London,” and showed me the draft of his first book written at the age of eight to introduce children to classical music, “Say Hello To The Great Composers” which includes a Q&A quiz and fun facts.

Connor is well-rounded and also enjoys golf and Tae Kwon Do. I asked what he would like people to know about him besides playing Carnegie six times; “I want people to take me for more than just being a child prodigy…”

He loves cars and attends the monthly “Cars & Coffee” event at Blackhawk Museum. Upon a recent visit to New York he dragged his parents to the Manhattan Motorcars Dealer of elite multi-million dollar automobiles and scored a private tour to view the high end inventory. “The Lambourghini Centenario was my favorite,” he said.

I researched his favorite car and it all made sense that this young man would be dazzled by the 2017 mega-dollar masterpiece one-off line of only 40 ever made that reaches top speed of 217 mph and commands a whopping $2.3 million.
Connor’s parents both have doctorate degrees in science. His mother, Faranak Nekoogar Ph.D, is the Chief Technology Officer at Dirac Solutions Inc. and has authored five technical books and over twenty inventions in the field of wireless technology. Connor’s father, Sassan Roham Ph.D, is Director of Engineering at Lam Research, a leader in semiconductor capital equipment manufacturing.

When I asked Faranak what was most important to the family the answer was simple: “Our family emphasizes science, music and humanitarian causes.”

Night at the Museum

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The Blackhawk Museums of Danville, known for their premier classic world class automobile exhibition International Automotive Treasures, has recently launched two new exhibitions; Art of Africa and Into China with a third Wonders of Natural History opening later in the fall. The Spirit of the Old West exhibition that was launched in 2014 illustrates the visual history of the American West through the journeys of Plains Indians, settlers and pioneers which has already attracted large numbers of visitors and thousands of Bay Area schoolchildren.

The popular exhibition takes viewers through the past with a collection of historic artifacts that depict the varied American cultures and how people lived in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the ways the American Indians and the pioneering newcomers interacted during America’s greatest westward migrations. Western History is portrayed through an unrivaled scope of antique and historic artifacts including eagle feather war bonnets, weaponry, apparel, peace pipes, a tipi, and an ox-drawn covered wagon.

Among the attractions and interactive exhibitions that excite children the most are the animal mount specimens such as buffalo, bear, moose, wolf, beaver, and an American eagle. The exhibition is anchored by a 140-foot long topographical diorama with 9,000 hand-painted figures portraying the lives of the West’s settlements, Plains Indians, the Gold Rush, the Iron Horse railroad, and other events  that affected the course of history,

The member-supported Blackhawk Museums, founded in 1988, is one of the Bay Area’s must-see museums offering several diverse attractions on three floors that are continuously evolving with new exhibitions that span four continents with the Art of Africa, Into China, and this fall the Wonders of Natural History that will explore the creatures of the highest mountains to the deepest oceans.  

Ken Behring, philanthropist extraordinaire, is realizing his longtime dream of bringing history and culture to the Bay Area communities through educational state-of-the-art exhibitions.  His longtime connections to China, and several countries in Africa, have led to his involvement in the founding of over 40 Museums of Natural History.  In addition to his expertise in founding museums, his Wheelchair Foundation, a subsidiary of Global Health and Education Foundation, has also delivered over one million wheelchairs to those in need of mobility, has provided fresh drinking water in drought-impacted areas, and also sponsors eye surgeries bringing the gift of sight to many. 

The Blackhawk Museums, in addition to the on-site exhibitions, offer several outreach programs that include the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, ongoing lecture series, and educational and entertaining special events such as Cars & Coffee which attracts car club enthusiasts and as many as 1,200 vintage automobiles that gather the first Sunday of every month. In addition to regular activities for the membership, the museum also sponsors open-to-the-public fund raising events.  

One of the largest annual fund raising events, sponsored by the Friends of the Blackhawk Museums, aptly titled Night at The Museum , offers a live auction, dinner, dancing to live music, costume prizes, and historic reenactments featuring Jesse James, General George Custer, a Buffalo Soldier, and other iconic western characters. Costumed reenactments will carry guests through the portals of time into the Spirit of the Old West exhibition where the Plains Indians and pioneers are recreated amid authentic artifacts in the ambiance of “Cowboy and Indian” Western history.

One of the most exciting aspects of the third annual Night at the Museum live auction is the opportunity to bid on once-in-a-lifetime experiences; a Photo Safari at the Ezulwini Game Reserve in South Africa; Behind-the-Scenes Museum Experience in Washington D.C.; Monaco Historic Mille Miglia Races 2018; Indianapolis 500 Paddock Box Experience for Two; Vintage Land Rover Old Ghost Towns off-road Excursion, and the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance VIP Experience.

The state-of-the-art Blackhawk Museums exhibit various collections where visitors can stroll, not only through the past, but across continents. Besides the American Indian and Cowboy experience the visitor can enjoy the stunning Art of Africa featuring Massai and Makonde cultural examples of village  handicrafts of hand-carved ebony, blackwood, and rosewood sculptures, musical instruments, ceremonial masks, apparel and animal paintings representing Sub-Saharan Africa; Tanzania, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Nigeria.  

Further down the museum’s West Wing the visitor passes through the Moon Gate and enters Into China pavilion to view a vast collection showcasing Chinese sculptures, porcelains, jade carvings, mother-of-pearl inlaid boxes, silk embroidered lantern screens, Tang Dynasty horses, silken embroidered robes, a Buddhist Shrine altar proscenium, a Forbidden City Golden Throne replica, and artifacts that explore the impact of Chinese aesthetics on Western Culture.

The anchor piece in the vast pavilion is a massive carving known as “The Dream”, a monumental work of art inspired by the “Peach Blossom Spring” fable and immortalized in the novel Shangri-La.  The expansive “Shanshiu-style” sculpture is fashioned from 1000 year old fossilized tuchen root wood found only in Burma and Laos. The hand-carved scene of mountain spires, rivers, lakes and seas is where fishermen and contented village dwellers live within a 4th century fantasy Utopian fable.

Mr. Zhang, the art work’s designer and master carver, told me it took four craftsmen five years to carve and who were guided by the fossil’s natural forms that dictated the flow of the art work. In addition to carving the intricate masterpiece it took a decade to remove and transport the subterranean fossilized root wood from a forest in Burma.

The Into China collection represents the cultural embodiment of China through this unique trove of art and utilitarian objects of great beauty. Ken Behring maintains that museums have a special way of uniting people of all cultures and, in addition to donating to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington D.C., his vision has come to fruition by introducing the exhibitions  to the Blackhawk Museums showcasing the International Automobile Treasures, and history of the American West, Sub-Saharan Africa, and China.  

The Friends of Blackhawk Museums is the fund raising volunteer auxiliary arm of the member-supported museums that sponsor several events each year to benefit the Children’s Education and Transportation Fund. No large institution can function without the indefatigable services of their dedicated volunteers, therefore Friends of the Blackhawk Museums is accepting applications for interested volunteer docents and guides who wish to share their knowledge on guided tours for adults and children visitors.  Since the program’s inception in 1991, with children’s education as its primary mission, about 190,500 students have visited the museums. The Blackhawk Museums is a not-for-profit corporation with IRS 501 (3) status. As always, museum members attend the exhibitions and lecture series free of charge.

The Night at the Museum fund raising event will be held on Sunday October 15th at 5:30 pm. Guests are encouraged to wear “Spirit of the Old West” attire. The dinner and Live Auction starts at 7:30. Tickets are $90.00 per person. Call: 925.736.2277 x234, or email NATM@BlackhawkMuseum.org           

Blackhawk Museums, 3700 Blackhawk Plaza Circle, Danville, CA 94506

 

 

 

Night at the Museum

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Imagine if you will, attending a fund raising event at the Blackhawk Museums in Danville, and being greeted by numerous historic re-enactment characters such as General Custer, Jesse James, a Civil War soldier, and others who emerge from the shadows of America’s Old West history. Several such characters will be on hand to share stories of our rich past and guide visitors through the museums’ “Spirit of the Old West” exhibition.indian slider

Friends of the Blackhawk Museums is sponsoring “Spirit of the Old West – Night at the Museum” event to benefit the Children’s Education and Transportation Fund. The Western themed event at the Blackhawk Museum commences at five o’clock on Sunday, October 2 with a no-host reception followed by dinner, dancing to a live band, and live auctions.

Among some of the most exciting auction items are; a private tour for six guests to Jay Leno’s Big Dog Garage in Burbank; four credentials to the 2017 Pebble Beach Concourse Club d’Elegance; a two night Tri-Valley Wine hotel package for four; “Night at the Museum” overnight sleepover; and a Monterey Weekend, two-person package that includes use of new Jaguar.

While strolling through the “Spirit of the Old West” exhibition, costumed characters will re-enact historic events with ‘first person’ accounts including Plains Indians, Settlers, Wagon Master, Frontier Army, Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley and General George Custer who will invite visitors through the portal to the Old West’s thrilling past.

The “Spirit of the Old West” gallery features authentic Plains Indian 19th century mounts of buffalo, American eagle, bear and wolf specimens.  A 140-foot long, three-dimensional, topographical diorama of miniatures depicts a visual history of the American West including buffalo hunts, wagon trains, and General Custer’s Last Stand.

The exhibition includes thematic features such as historic photographs, a tipi, a covered wagon, and an extensive collection of Western memorabilia and artifacts such as Plains Indian eagle feather bonnets, buffalo horn headdresses, buckskin garments, tomahawks, war shields, ceremonial pipes, cradle boards, tools and spear points.

The Culture of the Old West is contextualized in the exhibits including all aspects of the West’s human presence; the Plains Indians, Cowboys, Homesteading Settlers and Pioneers, Cavalry and Wagon Trains—themes that formed the landscape of American Western history.

Friends of the Blackhawk Museums, a volunteer organization, raises funds to benefit the Children’s Education and Transport Fund that enables Bay Area schoolchildren to visit Blackhawk Museums’ International Automotive Treasures and the “Spirit of the Old West” exhibitions.

Last year over 8,700 children visited the museum, 3,600 of them brought by the Museum-sponsored bus program. Since the Museum’s school program inception in 1991 over 186,000 students have visited with a growing attendance since the opening of “Spirit of the Old West” exhibition.

“NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM” Event – Sunday October 2, 5 pm $60.00 per person

Tickets: www.BlackhawkMuseum.org or NATM@BlackhawkMuseum.org         

Phone: 925.736.2280 ext. 234 or contact Joyce Tucker 925.736.9393

 

The Forgotten History: A Century of Silence

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One hundred years ago, in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire, now Republic of Turkey, the systematic persecution and annihilation of ethnic minority Armenian Christians, culminated in 1915 during the Great War. It is estimated that 1.5 million Armenians were targeted for mass murder or died on forced deportations. Menfolk and boys were killed first and then tens of thousands of women, children and the aged were sent on death marches through Syrian Deserts to Ottoman Aleppo or Iraq.
Armenians, perceived as enemies of the State, were killed en masse as early as the late 19th century, the concentrated massacres peaking eight months into the Great War. On the night of 24th April 1915, at 8 o’clock, orders were given to arrest Armenians in the military, political leaders, and intellectuals thereby decapitating their powers of influence. Many were killed immediately in methodical massacres; others were sent to relocation camps or deported. ThinkstockPhotos-97759413-1

The Ottoman Empire’s persecution of the minority citizens of Christian Armenia and Turkey is one of humanity’s most forgotten catastrophes in near-recent history. The impact of that ethnic-targeted genocide continues to cast long shadows across the psyches of the ten million-strong Armenian Diaspora descendants all over the world.

Red Sunday, the 24th of April 1915 was initially recognized in 1919 as the culmination of the ghastly genocide. This 24th day of April 2015, a century later, the Armenian Diaspora in four corners of the earth will collectively commemorate the Armenian Genocide Centennial.

Red Sunday has historic importance to Armenians as it was on that fateful night when the template for the genocidal exterminations reached a zenith, first with mass arrests, and then subsequent executions. According to document archives at the Armenian Genocide Museum Institute an extermination proponent stated in February 1915: “The Armenian Nation should be entirely exterminated so that no Armenian is left in our country, and that their name be completely forgotten. Now we are at war and no such occasion will ever occur—loud protests by the World Press will remain unnoticed…”

Ironically the tactical launch to satisfy the “Armenian Question” culminated on the eve of the Allied Forces invasion on Turkey’s strategic Gallipoli Peninsula on 25th April 1915. With the strength of 32 navy cutters, British allies, and Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, ANZAC, attacked six beaches. The strategy was to take Gallipoli and then forge north to Constantinople. It never happened. The Turks decimated the allies, and ANZAC forces suffered 8,700 deaths and 28,000 casualties. The death toll during the eight-month Battle of Gallipoli proved devastating thus becoming the iconic metaphor for defeat.

Scholars ask why Armenian civilians were targeted during the Great War upheaval. Most likely the distraction of battle was the opportune time to target their country’s own citizens under the guise of war. Though the majority of those exterminated were civilian men, women and children, the Turkish government maintains that their deaths were war-related during the chaos of battle. But facts to the contrary continue to loom with evidence that massacres were government-ordered and not just collateral damage across the nation. Documented history tells the truth.

At the persecution onset the dreaded S.O. — “Special Organization”—first disarmed Armenian military personnel and sent them to labor camps where they perished, and other groups of fifty were dispatched to die in the desert. The objective of the governing elite—“Young Turks” Committee of Union Progress (CUP) — was to eradicate those who stood in the way of their nationalistic plan. ThinkstockPhotos-146763345

The geopolitical climate in the disintegrating Ottoman Empire, too complicated to address here, was a hotbed of dissent by several groups including the Armenian resistance. In 1908 Sultan Abdul Hamid II was deposed in a bloodless coups leading to “The Young Turks” gaining more power thus setting the nation on a trajectory to pan-Islamism. It was under leadership of Sultan Abdul Hamid II the when the slaughter of tens of thousands of Armenians in the late 19th century may have served as a prologue for the ensuing wartime genocide. The success of the initial mass killings of civilians may have paved the way for subsequent unhindered exterminations during the distraction of the First World War.

It was those 19th century massacres of Armenians that ignited the first wave of migrations, and then a mass exodus in the early 20th century took them to the Americas, Russia, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, France, Iran, Britain, and Egypt. The Great Diaspora to all four corners of the earth began.

In 1915 officials conceptualized extermination plans to eradicate Christian Armenians perceived as ‘a threat to the state’. The State-endorsed Armenian Genocide strategy was launched setting into motion pan-Islamism as the state ideology and the Turkification of Armenia in eastern Anatolia. The template for extermination gave the government carte blanche to target the Armenians thus setting a trajectory of death.

In April 1915 concentrated roundups followed; influential leaders were assassinated, then the intelligentsia, industrialists, lawyers, journalists and bankers were imprisoned, tortured, and then murdered. Witness archives and oral histories tell of atrocities; crucifixions, burnings, drowning, and beheadings. Gangs and armed Ottoman soldiers searched homes, snatched gold and jewelry, seized guns, kitchen knives and confiscated all weaponry. Armenians were defenseless, without guns, or money, echoing the prior century’s mass killings of unarmed citizens.

Deportations followed, towns and cities were systematically emptied of Armenians—real estate, family homesteads, and moveable assets were confiscated. Many civilians were ghettoized in concentrated centres. Men and boys as young as ten were removed first; many were bound with ropes and drowned in the Euphrates River, axed, or marched to gorges and murdered. In the guise of deportation women, the aged and young children were forced in caravan walking marches hundreds of miles over mountains, deserts and barren dunes without food or water. ThinkstockPhotos-147695053

Armenian exiles died by the tens of thousands, dropping on roadsides from dehydration, starvation, disease or exhaustion. Many who had survived the march were barefoot, in rags or near naked, parched, starving or dying upon arrival in transit camps in Ottoman Syria or Iraq.

Some marchers in the procession of death miraculously survived, and they lived to tell their spellbinding stories of peril, their stories of epic courage, and their stories of horror that will live on forever through generations of descendants. Today Armenians continue to preserve their ancestral culture by retelling the stories told by their heroic forefathers, and their miraculous endurance to live through the most unspeakable carnage with the iron will to survive the destination of death.

Their oral histories tell how thousands of marchers were murdered en route, robbed or taken as slaves at waystations, and how thugs on horseback plundered the defenseless human convoys. The marauders’ rewards for looting the exiles were sacks of money and gold booty. The carnage burned deeply into the collective forever memory; memories how the Tigris River ran red, roadsides were strewn with bodies of women and children and how mothers tried vainly to save their infants. By August 1915 gangs were sent to bury or burn the dead, and destroy visible evidence that forced deportations to remote regions were in actuality ploys to kill Armenians shielded from prying eyes.

Some researchers contend that Armenians were targeted when Turkish nationalistic reasoning may have perceived that the Ottoman Empire, in power since the 14th century, was at risk from within and thus were forced to destroy the ethnic minority for survival. The once-mighty transcontinental Ottoman Empire, that even spanned the Mediterranean Rim, crumbled soon after the Great War.

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Why is the Armenian Genocide of 1915 still one of the world’s best kept secrets? Why is there such little global outrage by human rights activists about the systematic annihilation of a Christian minority in their own ancient homeland? And why won’t powerful nations, including the United States and Britain, recognize that the systematic extermination of 1.5 million Armenians was genocide? As a matter of fact President Ronald Reagan was the last president to actually use the term “Armenian Genocide.”

The answer lies partially in the fact that Western Nations need Turkey as a powerful ally against global terrorism. The United States shares a strategic airbase in Incirlik with Turkish forces and remains a crucial ally. Turkey still adamantly contends that Armenians died en masse during the chaos of war and not as genocidal targeting.

Efforts continue to raise awareness of the Armenian Genocide with concerted advocacy or through such organizations as World Affairs Council of Northern California where a speaker recently remarked; “repercussions of the event still shape relations between Armenia and Turkey as well as U.S. policy.

Armenia and Turkey still do not have diplomatic relations, and the border remains closed. Armenia shares a border with Iran and Turkey and has close ties with Russia having geo-strategic significance…”

Many of the world’s Armenian Diaspora descendants through organizations such as the Council of Armenian-Americans work indefatigably in solidarity to draw attention to the massacres and ask that the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians be recognized as genocide. The word “genocide” was actually ignited after the Armenian mass killings when Raphael Lemkin invented the term in 1943 to describe the surgical ethnic cleansing and premeditated extermination within legal parameters. And Adolph Hitler himself remarked on the Armenian mass killings when he initiated his own satanic plan.

The present Turkish government continues to deny that the country committed genocide, and contends that the minority Christians perished due to “civil unrest, wartime losses, disease, general chaos or the Ottoman Empire’s civil war with Armenians.” The use of the word “genocide” is forbidden in context of the Armenian Massacres thus remains the ‘Achilles’s Heal’ of history.ThinkstockPhotos-458066479-2

The Armenian communities have collectively petitioned that Turkey use the term Armenian Genocide to restore honor to those who perished. Turkey has stood steadfast to minimize the century-old unconscionable acts of a century ago. Rumor has it that the Turkish Embassy in Washington has endowed $3 million to leading universities including Harvard and coincidentally many of those professors grant “academic absolution” by denying the genocide issue as nothing more than war-related loss of life. Armenian advocates contend that by denying the exterminations were not only crimes against humanity, but premeditated genocide, robs the victims of all moral order.

It’s taken a century for Armenians to forge a path to healing through recognition of the truth. In January a court case in Strasbourg has gained notoriety owing to a high-profile civil rights lawyer representing Armenia in a case against a Turkish Genocide denier. Amal Clooney has made a case against the denier by eloquently bringing forth evidence that the mass massacres of 1.5 million Armenians qualifies as genocide as it was systematic and premeditated not just random wartime deaths.

The world became aware of the massacres after the Great War Armistice when war crime investigations started. The Entente—British, French and Russian powers held the Sultan and his subordinates responsible for the extermination of Armenians as “crimes against humanity”. It was the first time the potent phrase had ever been used, the phrase now burned into our collective psyche.

Armenian communities demand to be vindicated by the use of the term “Armenian Genocide” instead of the less impactful word “massacres,” however, Prime Minister Erdogan contends the term insults Turkishness and refuses to allow foreign powers to define their history. But with continued human rights advocacy, archived evidence of the ethnic cleansing will gradually come to light, and is hoped that Turkey will restore Armenian dignity by confronting the ghosts of the past and admitting the intent in April 1915 was genocide and not just random acts of wartime violence. ThinkstockPhotos-527015261

FROM ANCIENT ARMENIA TO CALIFORNIA
As we navigate Armenia’s deep history, we discover their habitation can be traced to four millennia, and their ancient culture was the epicenter of the cradle of civilization. The kingdom since time immemorial spanned the Caucasian Mountains to the Armenian Plateau long before the Ottoman Empire existed. Their first writings date to 600 BC, and archeological data points to its earliest civilization at Urartu as early as 980 BC, now the Lake Van region in Eastern Turkey. And the Bible tells that Noah’s Ark came to rest on Mount Ararat after the Great Flood.

Armenian Christians were early followers of Jesus Christ and the first nation to adopt Christianity as the national religion influenced by apostles Bartholomew and Thaddeus. The Mother Church was founded in Armenia in 301 AD.

To commemorate the 1.5 million Armenian Christians who perished in the 1915 genocide the Apostolic Mother Church, Echmiadzin Cathedral in Vagharshapat, will commemorate the “April Martyrs” by the mass canonization of those who died a century ago during the blackest days of history.

Even today the ancient history of Armenia lives in the souls of descendants of those who were banished from their homeland—the magnetic draw is still powerful even five generations after the Diaspora. Poignant stories of the Armenian survival bear testimonial to their tenacity, deep religious beliefs, love of family, and rock-solid determination. The Armenian Diaspora that radiated to all corners of the earth is estimated to be ten million. They are driven to preserve their ancient heritage by creating personal inner sanctuaries of resolve and solidarity. Their soulful connection to their ancestors’ struggle dwells deep within; it is part of their collective memory lest their ancient culture be forever obliterated.

I contacted four such women of Armenian heritage, descendants of those who migrated, those who marched, and those who survived the genocide.

Rose Mozian Riley explained how her mother Eliza Mashlakian escaped the genocide in Turkey. She was born about 1900; at fifteen her father arranged for her and her sister to leave Konya (known as Iconium since 3000 BC). He put the teenage sisters on a train for the 445-mile journey to Constantinople, now Istanbul. Fifteen year old Eliza worked as hospital nurse for a Doctor Tod. Through a heaven-sent twist of fate Armenian Dickran Mozian in Visalia, California saw Eliza’s photograph and proposed marriage. She accepted. They married in Visalia, later settled in San Francisco.

Eliza’s daughter Rose Mozian Riley remarked with resolve. “We can’t go back, Turkey will never admit what they did to our people, but we can’t dwell on the past, it’s too agonizing. To rebuild our past we do charity works for Armenia through our church. A few years ago we went to a poor Turkey village and through fund-raising we built them a water system. We Armenian-Americans must do our best to support them, to help our people survive.”

Eliza Mashlakian’s bittersweet love story will never be forgotten; her legacy endures through three generations of proud Armenian-Americans who cherish the memory of the young girl from Konya who came to America one hundred years ago.

Nairy Kabaklian Colello tells of her family from Erzerum and Adabazar, exiled on the desert march to Iraq. “First of all, four of my great-grandparents died, my grandparents survived the genocide. They were orphaned and shared stories about tragedies they experienced. They saw their fathers taken first, one bound by rope and thrown into the river, the other shot when he resisted being separated from his family. My great-grandmothers and children were forced from homes that had been in the family for centuries, forced to migrate barefoot in the heat of summer across deserts from Turkey to Iraq. Both great-grandmothers perished, but by some miracle the children survived. A Turkish soldier sold my grandfather at age 7 as an indentured slave. He escaped at 11 and started a new life. My grandmothers and families emigrated from Iraq to America in 1965. Some stories are too painful to share…”

Armenian-Americans continue to connect to their homeland with charity works; Danville teenager Sophia Collelo is gathering art supplies for an Armenian orphanage.

Lucy Yaldezian was also passionate about her heritage and told me her family’s story: “Both my grandmothers were sisters; they marched from Arapkir to Aleppo, Syria with an aunt and four small children all under nine. My grandmother’s husband was murdered; her sister was a mail-order bride who went to marry an Iranian in Paris. My grandmother found refuge in Eritrea where I was born. Our family was stateless. My family legacy has been difficult to overcome, but I will not let it define me.”
After hearing the account how Lucy Yaldezian’s family survived the 300-mile march through the desert to Aleppo, I asked her about ending my piece with resolve and highlighting the solidarity that runs through the veins of Armenian Diaspora descendants. I discovered during my conversations that it’s not the fear of remembering the genocide, but the fear of forgetting. “We are truly survivors. Happy people with loving families and the families are having babies. More Armenian babies are coming into the world—Armenians are replenishing, it is joyous.”

Rose, Lucy and Nairy are deeply involved in their churches and the Bay Area Armenian community. I gleaned valuable research about Armenians and the April 24th Armenian Genocide Centennial from their website www.rememberanddemand.org and Twitter hashtag #rememberanddemand.

The last Armenian-American I spoke with was Jacqueline Kazarian, William Saroyan’s niece: “William Saroyan was my Uncle Bill— the most alive, interesting, challenging and creative person I have ever known. He was a reader and wrote about things he loved and understood— the Human Family and all that entails…” The Saroyans emigrated from Bilbus, Armenia in 1905. William Saroyan (1908-1981) was born and died in Fresno. He won the coveted Pulitzer Prize in 1940 for “The Time of Your Life” which he refused stating his play was no better than any of his other works. In 1943 he won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay for “The Human Comedy”, and his song “C’mon-a-My House” sung by Rosemary Clooney, hit the all-time charts.

No writer can capture the spirit of quintessential solidarity with more eloquence or soulful fortitude than one of Armenia’s most favored sons, the high-caliber literary giant whose works transcend time. William Saroyan: “I should see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are unanswered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia. See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water, burn their homes and churches. Then, see if they will not laugh, sing, pray again and speak in their tongue. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.”

 

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