Between the Bylines Read online

  Schwarzenegger went on to do the book with a freelance writer named Douglas Kent Hall, and it wound up on the New York Times bestseller list for eleven weeks.

  I often wonder what would have happened to me had I done Schwarzenegger’s book.

  Schwarzenegger is known to be unfailingly loyal to his friends—just look how many of his old bodybuilding pals appeared in his many films—and I might have missed a lucrative opportunity to be involved in his enterprises.

  I’m sure I did.

  But at least I now had an opportunity with Gillian to atone for another one of my numerous misjudgments. Or was it a misjudgment?

  Chapter 14

  As I flew to Nice that late December, I remember being comfortably inclined in a Delta business class seat—God bless the buddy passes!—immersed in a book, which long had been a hallowed ritual of mine on those lengthy flights to Europe.

  I recall it being George Clare’s Last Waltz in Vienna, because I later would discuss it in detail with Gillian. This moving, tragic account of Austria’s Jews after the Anschluss—the annexation of that country by Nazi Germany on March 12, 1938—and Clare’s parents’ ill-fated destiny to Auschwitz after escaping to France ranks among the most compelling I’ve ever read.

  It wasn’t exactly unusual that I was reading an Austrian author since in the previous few years I had become addicted to such other ones as Stefan Zweig, Arthur Schnitzler, Joseph Roth, Egon Friedell and Franz Werfel, all exquisite craftsmen and artful storytellers. This was before Gillian introduced me to Iris Murdoch, the great English novelist.

  Anyway, I also remember on that momentous flight that, after turning off the overhead light to snooze, I began reflecting deeply on this strange renewal I was about to have with a lady I hadn’t seen in almost thirty-nine months.

  Thoughts flowed ceaselessly across my mental screen that kept me awake until I later alleviated such a condition with a Valium. How surprising it was that I was actually going to see Gillian again after I long ago had concluded such an occurrence never would happen.

  But then I began thinking about how unlikely developments, even shocking ones, had long become almost commonplace in my life, even before my being nabbed in flagrante delicto by X in my early days at the Herald Examiner.

  Frank Sinatra (far left) and Tommy Lasorda (far right) pose with Los Angeles Herald Examiner sportswriters (from left) Jack Disney, Allan Malamud, Pam King and Doug.

  What line would odds makers have posted on my traveling around the country with the Los Angeles Dodgers and realizing my goal of becoming a sportswriter on a metropolitan newspaper by the time I turned twenty-four?

  And I doubt there is a high school senior in America—definitely not these days—who experienced what I did in April 1961 after getting into a brief noontime scuffle with a tough Mexican kid in front of Fowler High School.

  A teacher broke it up and ushered the pair of us into the office of the vice-principal, Dan Petersen, a stern fellow who was in charge of disciplining students.

  Neither of us was contrite during the session with Petersen, and I was especially vocal about what I would do to the Mexican kid if I had a chance to duke it out with him again.

  “OK, guys,” Petersen finally said in exasperation. “You wanna settle it? I’m going to give you guys a chance to do so. Let’s go to the gym, and you guys can put on the boxing gloves and go at it.”

  And so a few minutes later, in the middle of the old Fowler High basketball gym, there were this Mexican kid and me flailing away at each other as Dan Petersen, John Pereira (the head football coach) and Helen Jorgensen (the school nurse) observed the spectacle.

  I landed the harder punches in the early stages, which I dominated. But the other guy never went down and never got tired. Alas, I did. After a while, I couldn’t catch my breath and couldn’t raise my hands, and the Mexican kid pummeled me unmercifully. I finally fell to my knees in surrender.

  I’ll never forget when I went to my sixth period a cappella class and one of my friends—his name was Bobby Eiland—asked me, “How badly did you kick the guy’s ass?” I looked at him with embarrassed humility and said, honestly, “I didn’t. I got tired, and he wound up kicking my ass.”

  We both suffered facial bruises and black eyes—the fight lasted more than ten minutes—and could you imagine the legal uproar and lawsuits that would ensue today if a high school vice-principal forced a couple students to settle their differences with their fists?

  Actually, I have no problem with what Dan Petersen did, since it resolved the issue between the Mexican kid and me. We got along fine after that.

  Another implausible incident—oh, was it!—came during my gambling peak in September 1984 when I came to the conclusion early one week that the New England Patriots, who were three-point favorites, were an absolute certainty to cover the spread at home against the Seattle Seahawks.

  I told my friend Donnie “No Win” Kramer, a total gambling degenerate, about my prediction, and he readily agreed with me.

  “Let’s go to Las Vegas and bet on it,” I said, even though I could have done it with one of my bookmakers. “They’ll be showing the game live there on satellite.” This was long before the advent of DirecTV and the NFL Package.

  I was living at the time with Karen D., the lady I had met when I was in Palm Springs to interview the boxer Gerry Cooney, and told her I had to go to a stag party my brother-in-law was giving in Tucson. That was a minor fib compared to the whopper I later would lay on her that caused our final breakup.

  So Donnie No Win and I departed for Las Vegas on a Saturday afternoon, stayed that evening at the El Cortez and scurried down to the Barbary Coast the next morning to bet $3,300 to win $3,000 on the Patriots minus three points. We then sat in the hotel’s sports book to watch New England reap us a nice profit.

  Heavyweight contender Gerry Cooney clowns around with Doug and Johnny Ortiz (right).

  Doug shares a laugh with former Rams and Giants defensive lineman Fred Dryer, whose post-football career included starring in the TV series Hunter.

  Only we watched in disgust as the Seahawks streaked to a 23–7 halftime lead, meaning we were behind nineteen points in our betting proposition, meaning we figured to lose our $3,300 investment.

  We decided to fly back immediately to Los Angeles to spare us further frustration, and the mid-morning game—it started at 10:00 a.m. (Pacific Standard Time)—was over by the time we reached LAX. We were both sullen and depressed, as all gamblers are who have blown a large amount of money they can’t afford to blow.

  As we slowly walked through the terminal, I noticed a television showing a football game in one of the lounges. I curiously peeked in, and NFL scores were streaming across the bottom of the screen. And then I saw an amazing sight that resulted in my screaming out to Kramer, “We won! We won! We won! The Patriots won 38–23. They outscored the Seahawks 31–0 in the second half! Incredible!”

  I began jumping crazily around, and the lounge patrons stared at me curiously. “Buy all these people a drink,” I told the bartender. “I just found out I won $3,000 after I thought I had lost $3,300.” All the patrons started cheering.

  Another surprising development in my life—actually, a frightening one that came ominously close to my suffering severe bodily damage—resulted in my making the news instead of reporting it. It happened on a Thursday afternoon in mid-December 1978 when I was at Blair Field in Long Beach, where the Rams held their weekday practices.

  I was in my seventh season of covering the Rams for the Herald Examiner and took particular delight in breaking stories before they appeared in the rival, much larger Los Angeles Times, which I did often because of the close relationships I had built up with several Rams players, including Fred Dryer, a star defensive end who would go on to become a TV star in the hit series Hunter.

  I was fed a lot of information that wasn’t privy to other reporters, and Fred Dryer had phoned late the previous evening to inform me about a locker room fight that h
ad taken place earlier in the day between the Rams’ tough linebacker, Isiah Robertson, and the team’s center, Rich Saul.

  Dryer told me that Saul had choked Robertson into unconsciousness.

  “Rich came out to the field after the fight and said, ‘I think I just killed Isiah,’” related Dryer.

  I already had had several obscenity-strewn run-ins that season with Robertson about negative items I had written about him in the Herald Examiner—he had threatened to dislodge my head from my shoulders more than once—and I was wary about questioning Robertson about the incident as he walked off the Blair practice field.

  But I did, and Robertson didn’t react well to such interrogation. His eyes widened malevolently, he yanked off his helmet and was set to bash my noggin with it when a couple individuals—the Rams’ coach, Ray Malavasi, and a reserve running back named Larry Marshall—tackled Robertson to the turf.

  “Worst decision I ever made…I should have let Isiah kill you,” Malavasi later would often tell me.

  I’m sure Malavasi, a peerless defensive coordinator but a mediocre head coach who wound up being fired by the Rams, was kidding—or was he?

  After Robertson’s attack, which was reported in all the media outlets and stripped across the top of the Herald Examiner sports section’s front page in an article written by Melvin Durslag, the Rams owner, Carroll Rosenbloom, angrily ordered me off the Blair Field premises.

  Both Durslag and I that season had fallen out of favor with Rosenbloom for our persistent criticism of his intemperate decision to fire George Allen—and replace him with Malavasi—during the summer after the Rams lost their first two exhibition games.

  A Robertson sequel occurred a short while later on New Year’s Eve when I walked into a Long Beach nightclub called Bobby McGee’s searching for a lady friend—naturally, I had strayed from my wife that evening—and nearly collided with Robertson.

  When he saw me, his eyes once again widened malevolently, and he once again came after me but was intercepted by the nightclub’s bouncers, one of whom, John Corbett, became a well-known actor. I didn’t realize that Robertson had stopped pursuing me and frantically sprinted out the front door all the way to my car, where a friend of mine was seated in the passenger seat.

  “That was the fastest I’ve ever seen a human being run,” he said. “You could be an Olympic sprinter.”

  Once again, I had escaped the wrath of Isiah Robertson, who, to paraphrase Mike Tyson, had evil intentions on my anatomy, which he easily could have ravaged since he was a powerfully built six-foot-three, 240-pounder accustomed to delivering bone-jarring hits. Isiah and I made up a few years later, and he even came down one afternoon to our ESPN studio in Culver City and spent an hour with Joe McDonnell and me reminiscing fondly about our differences.

  Famous Los Angeles criminal attorney Paul Caruso (left) poses with Doug and Rams quarterback Vince Ferragamo.

  Doug meets with former Rams coach George Allen (center). The late Los Angeles Times sportswriter Bob Oates is at right.

  And now yet another unlikely occurrence was about to transpire in my orbit. Why did Gillian decide to send such a conciliatory letter to me last month after such a long period of intractable coldness? Was she reeling that badly from a romantic breakup, or was there another reason? Why, suddenly, had she even agreed to meet me in Cannes? Why did I even want to see her again when I had other women, a couple of whom I actually liked, I was seeing in Los Angeles?

  It’s not as though I had been sitting forlornly around pining for Gillian, which I certainly hadn’t been.

  Strange.

  Chapter 15

  On the early evening of December 29, I left the Noga Hilton in Cannes in a rented car for the short ride—less than twenty miles—to the Nice Cote d’Azur Airport to pick up Gillian, who was due to arrive at 8:00 p.m. In those days, non-ticketed folk were allowed to go to arrival gates and greet incoming passengers.

  I was an hour early, and a little nervous, which necessitated my having a couple vodkas to calm the nerves. Naturally, Gillian’s flight from London was delayed, necessitating my having a few more toddies during the agonizing wait.

  When the plane finally arrived at 10:30 p.m., I was standing behind the roped-off area as the passengers exited the gate, curious what Gillian would look like to me after such a lengthy absence, curious how the imminent interaction would unfold between us.

  When I saw her emerge, I couldn’t believe it. I was immediately captivated by her youthful features that had such an angelic quality about them. I’m not sure I had even noticed those qualities in the past, or at least hadn’t dwelled on them as I was doing now. I couldn’t contain my enthusiasm, and perhaps fueled by the excessive amount of alcohol I had consumed, I blurted out loud enough for everyone to hear, “Gillian, I love you!”

  Gillian turned and looked at me, managed a wry smile and shook her head slightly. What had I been thinking three years ago when I so cavalierly stood Gillian up on a New Year’s Eve date? Was I a total numskull? I knew the instant Gillian emerged from that passenger gate that long-ago night at the Nice airport that I wanted this woman to become a permanent part of my life.

  We made it back to the Noga Hilton by midnight and went up to the room to get rid of her suitcase. Since there was only a king-size bed in it, I said quickly upon entering, “Don’t worry, I’ll stay on my side of the bed.”

  She nodded softly, and a few minutes later we were on our way down the La Croisette to Farfalla, a popular restaurant located across the street from Palais des Festivals, headquarters of the Cannes Film Festival. I was on an adrenalin high, in an ecstatic state and excitedly kept telling Gillian how badly I still felt about what had happened between us and also kept telling her how great she looked.

  My contrition seemed to have an effect on her, since she was smiling and laughing and evincing a sense of warmness as I went through my usual tavern ritual of talking to everybody in our vicinity. Like in the past, Gillian was enjoying it, which only spurred me on more. Of course, I didn’t ignore Gillian; I asked her about her personal life, which she told me hadn’t exactly been filled with happiness in recent times. We stayed for a couple hours and straggled back to the Noga, where I kept my promise. I slept on my side of the bed.

  I had been coming to the South of France—and staying in Cannes—for several years at the instigation of Melvin Durslag, who was an early mentor of mine at the Herald Examiner, along with Bud Furillo, and whose sage advice on pertinent life matters long had been vital to me.

  Melvin was a nationally acclaimed syndicated sports columnist for Hearst’s King Features for many decades, and he was an elegant wordsmith with a light touch. He also was a regular contributor to TV Guide when that publication was owned by the media mogul Walter Annenberg and had a weekly circulation of more than twenty million at its peak.

  Melvin and his wife, Lorayne, were Europhiles—they’d had been visiting the old continent at least twice a year since the 1950s—and the South of France was one of their favorite destinations.

  I, too, immediately became enamored by the area and, in particular, with Cannes. I savored its food; its nightlife; its bright, picturesque setting; and its scenic boardwalk next to the Mediterranean that was terrific for strolling, jogging and people gazing. I had been visiting Cannes annually since 1989.

  Gillian and I went for an hour-long run the next morning—it was a cold but clear day—and then we took a train to Monte Carlo, where we visited the casino. It was in front of that famous edifice that I took a photograph of Gillian, and little did I know that five and a half years later it would appear in the Press-Telegram after her death. In it, Gillian, wearing gloves and a dark overcoat with her thick brown hair cascading down past her right shoulder, peers strangely away from the camera, and there is a look of inscrutability on her face.

  Prior to the Mike Tyson–Leon Spinks heavyweight fight in Atlantic City in June 1988, longtime Los Angeles Herald Examiner sports columnist Melvin Durslag (left) is see
n with (from left) Doug, Leon “The Bartender” Bartolini and Donnie Srabian.

  Gillian in front of the Monte Carlo Casino in Monaco in December 1997.

  I’ve studied it closely over the years, and while I originally thought I detected a barely perceptible grin on Gillian, it no longer is visible to me. I now see a wistfulness covering her poised features that might well have unconsciously been betraying a presentiment that lurked deep in the recesses of her soul. Indeed, when I behold the picture now, I find it a little haunting and often get the chills.

  We had lunch that day at the Café de Paris near the casino and then walked up to the Palace, where my favorite childhood actress, Grace Kelly, once held sway as a princess, married to Prince Rainier.

  After leaving Monte Carlo, we went to the quaint seaside village of Beaulieu and then walked a mile to Cap Ferrat, one-time residence of David Niven, Charlie Chaplin, Liz Taylor and Richard Burton, Somerset Maugham, Winston Churchill, King Leopold of Belgium, Jean Cocteau and many other celebrated individuals.

  It’s a gorgeous area along a peninsula that juts out to the Mediterranean, and there is an astonishing serenity about it.

  “Ah, if only I was a descendant of a Rothschild, we’d be living here one day,” I told Gillian as we walked around the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild that once belonged to a member of the legendary banking family, Beatrice de Rothschild, who willed the extensive property overlooking the Mediterranean that featured nine gardens to the French government.

  “No, Douglas, I don’t ever want to live in one of these villas,” she said. “I don’t need one of these huge homes to be happy.”

  “Good,” I countered. “Because one day you’re going to reside in my 1,400-square-foot hovel in Long Beach.”

  She laughed heartily. The statement seemed outrageous at the time, but I meant it.

  After being reunited with Gillian for less than twenty-four hours, I already had made up my mind that I wanted her one day to be my wife. Certainly, it was an impulsive feeling, and Gillian herself would have to be amenable to such a union, no certainty. But I viewed Gillian differently this time and had quickly come to realize that she was a special commodity without vexing encumbrances.