Coffee, Tea or Me? Page 15
George C. Scott
Ed McMahon
Red Sutherland
Julie Harris
Truman Capote
Joe Garagiola
Charles Percy
Van Heflin
Hoagy Carmichael
Jimmy Breslin
Jackie Robinson
William B. Williams
Tony Bennett
Tony Martin
Tony Randall
Richard Nixon
Gregory Peck
George Burns
Charlton Heston
Sonny Tufts
Frank Fontaine
Jimmy Cannon
Veronica Lake
Louis Sobol
John Peckham
Lionel Hampton
Fred Robbins
Edie Adams
Herb Caen
Louis Nye
Peter, Paul & Mary
Alfred Hitchcock
Janis Paige
Bud Collyer
James Mason
Jack Lemmon
Jack O’Brien
Frederick A. Klein
The following celebrities have also flown with us:
Jack Paar
Joan Crawford
Robert Goulet
Art Linkletter
Celeste Holm
Susan Hayward
The N.Y. Yankees
Ed “Kookie” Byrnes
Jack Carter
Gary Morton
Jerry Lewis
George Jessel
Anthony Franciosa
Broderick Crawford
Joey Adams
Judy Garland
Johnny Mathis
Jerry Lester
Julie London
Sidney Poitier
Hedy Lamarr
Zsa Zsa Gabor
Allen Funt
Mort Sahl
Danny Kaye
CHAPTER XII
“Wow! We’re Going to Work a Press Trip!”
MEMO FROM: Supv. Carlson
TO: T. Baker
ACTION: Special assignment.
Report Mr. Craig, PR Dept.,
Main Office, 0930 8 May.
“I got a memo, too,” Rachel told me when I showed her mine. “Wow! Sounds like we’re going to work a special party or something with Huntley and Brinkley and Walter Cronkite and all those people.”
“Let’s call Dan and see what he knows about this. He must know who Mr. Craig is.”
I dialed the number of Dan Lindgren, our airline’s public relations representative at Kennedy Airport. We’d met Dan one day when he was frantically trying to find two stewardesses to pose for a publicity picture. He’d dragged us out of the snack bar, only after Rachel made him show his airline ID card, and herded us over to the fountains in front of the International Arrivals Building. We took off our shoes and stockings and were wading around in the pool portion while a news photographer snapped us from every angle. It was supposed to be a cooling picture in the midst of New York’s record heat wave.
Things went nicely until a Port Authority police car drove up and arrested Dan for trespassing in the pools. Dan managed to talk the cop out of confiscating the film, but was taken away from the scene to explain things at headquarters. Despite all the police nonsense, the picture made the papers, and we proudly sent many copies back home to parents and friends.
We’d run into Dan occasionally after that in the terminal. He was usually with a big, handsome fellow named Sonny Valano, the airline’s official photographer. It was Sonny who answered the phone when we called.
“Sonny?” Rachel asked.
“Yeh.”
“This is Rachel.”
“Who?”
“Rachel Jones. Remember the pool . . . And the cops?”
“Oh, yeh. How’ve you been?”
“Fine.”
“Good. Wait a minute.”
There was a moment of silence. Then we could hear Sonny screaming profanities at a messenger who had obviously arrived late. Sonny muttered as he came back on the line. “OK, Sally,” he said, “What can I do for you?”
“This isn’t Sally. This is Rachel. Rachel Jones.”
“Oh, yeh. How are you, Rachel?”
“Fine.”
“Good.”
More silence. I broke it this time.
“Sonny, this is Trudy and . . .”
“Who?”
“Trudy. Trudy Baker. I was in the pool, too.”
“Oh, yeh. How are you?”
“Fine.”
“Good.”
“Sonny, we’ve gotten special assignments for some press flight. We’re supposed to report to a Mr. Craig on Tuesday morning. Do you know what it’s all about?”
“Sure. I requested Rachel and Trudy.”
“How could you request us if you can’t remember our names?”
“I keep a file.”
“Oh.”
Sonny excused himself again to take some prints off the dryer that were about to go through for the second time.
“Sorry, Trudy, but . . .”
“This is Rachel.”
“Right.”
“I was saying, Sonny, about this press trip and wondering who Mr. Craig was.”
“Jeez, I left a roll of negatives in the soup. I gotta run. Here’s Dan.”
Dan Lindgren got on the phone and we all went through the identification process again.
“Dan, we were asking about Mr. Craig. Who is he?”
“Yuuk.”
“Oh.”
“But don’t tell him I said that. We work for him.”
“OK.”
Dan explained about the trip. “It’s to introduce our new 727 service to Atlanta. We fly a whole planeload of press types down there and wine ’em and dine ’em and bring them back the same night. Big drag but Sonny thought you’d like to work the trip.”
“We’d love to go. Just the two of us?”
“No. Sonny got a third girl. I think her name is Betty O’Riley or something similar. Know her?”
“Yuuk.”
“Oh.”
“But don’t tell her I said that.”
“OK.”
“How’ve you been, Dan?”
“Terrible, Sonny and I were out here until two this morning working with a gang of faggy photographers and lesbo models. They were doing a brassière ad. You know, broad in bra on wingtip under moonlight? And I’ve got to be here tonight to VIP a columnist’s dog. It’s a poodle, I think. And we’ve got a news-caster up in the club getting boozed up. He’s flipping because his flight was delayed an hour. And Sonny has to shoot a retirement dinner for some captain. And, let’s see. On, yeh. John Craig, the guy you have to see, our boss, is coming out tonight to meet his wife. They’re going to LA for the weekend. And boy, do I dread seeing him. He’ll smile at me and pat me on the back and ask how my family is. I’ll tell him everyone is great. He figures that’s all he has to do for me for the next six months. He read at Dale Carnegie or someplace that you always ask your employee how his family is. Then you can knife him for another six months. He’s really bad news. But he’s the fair-haired boy of the new VP and he’s swimming in power. Oh, I almost forgot. An African starlet is arriving at eleven and we have to do a picture and a release. And some circus lions and tigers are being shipped to Memphis on air freight. More pictures, if they can get the model to put her head in the cat’s mouth. See? That’s how I am.”
“It’s a shame I asked.”
“Anytime. Have fun with Craig. He’s really not very bright, and you can put him on easily. See you on the trip.”
We saw John Craig on the appointed morning. He was kind of seedy-looking in a corporate way, a refugee from the low-paying city rooms of newspapers to the higher-paying conference rooms of public relations. He liked girls and he told us so. It was disconcerting to talk with him; he seemed to go into deep thought before every sentence, even a simple one like “Hello.”
“Hello,” we said back.
“I saw your picture in the paper and thought you’d be perfect for this press flight. I always appreciate a good-looking couple of stewardesses.”
“But Sonny said he was the one who . . .”
Craig cut Rachel short. “Yes, good old Sonny. Good boy. OK, here’s what we have planned. We’ll have a meeting with Mr. Looms in about ten minutes. He’s our vice president for public relations. Brilliant man. I think he’ll like you. It’s his first press trip and he’s a little on edge about it. He’s never been in the aviation industry before. Lots of PR experience, though. He’s been with eight different companies in the past seven years. All of them as VP. That’s quite a record.”
It obviously was, but we didn’t know how to take it. It sounded bad to us. Anyway, we were still thrilled with the thought of serving all those big names of the press. And management was certain to notice us. What worth such notice would bring was dubious, but it seemed important nonetheless.
The meeting was held in Mr. Looms’s spacious office. The carpeting was thick, and we enjoyed sinking into it with each step as we took chairs across from the massive desk. Behind it sat a head, a huge, balloonlike head with red, wavy hair. Below the hair was a large, forced smile. He looked like a clerk who issues marriage licenses.
Other people started coming in, including Dan Lindgren, Sonny Valano, John Craig, and an assortment of men and women of the PR department. Looms swiveled around so his back was to the people. When everyone became very quiet, Looms spun about in his chair and slammed his fist on the desk.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” he began, his tone extremely angry. It seemed a strange way to start a meeting. “I want a perfect press trip next Sunday. A perfect one. I won’t tolerate any mistakes. Understand that?”
Heads went up and down.
“We’re really going to sell this airplane. Atlanta is just the beginning. Pretty soon, we’ll be offering it to passengers coast to coast.”
A big man interrupted. He was obviously his own person as he blew his nose in a red railroad handkerchief. “Stewart,” the man said, “this airplane will never fly coast to coast. It can’t. It doesn’t have the range. It was never meant for coast-to-coast travel.”
Looms obviously didn’t like this kind of factual back talk from a subordinate. He slammed his fist on the desk again and yelled, “Scotty, stop trying to destroy this project.”
“But Stewart,” the big man went on, “it’s silly to talk about coast to coast for a 727.”
“Goddamn it,” Looms screamed, “you know what I mean. I need straighter thinking than that.”
The big man, Scotty, sat back with a sigh, a look on his face indicating thoughts of other and better places to be at the moment.
“As I was saying,” Looms drove forward, “I wont tolerate any mistakes on this trip. I want this whole project to have magic, drive, sparkle. Got that?”
Everyone wrinkled his brows in thought except Scotty, who just blew his nose in nasal defiance. Then, Mr. Craig raised his hand, a silly smile on his face.
“Mr. Looms, I’ve been giving this whole project a great deal of thought. Even on the weekends, when I’m with my family, I want it to go off right. I think the key to its success is to try our hardest to put some magic, some drive, you might even say sparkle into it.”
Looms’s face lighted up and he became excited. “That’s the kind of thinking I mean,” he proclaimed to everyone. “That’s exactly what I mean. You do see what I mean, don’t you, John?”
John Craig assumed a semi-humble pose and said through his smile, “Yes, I do, Stewart. Yes, I do.”
“See,” Looms said to the group. “That’s the kind of thinking I’d like to feel I’m surrounded with. You’re all paid enough to think that straight.”
Scotty belched and said he had something to do. Looms’s eyes followed his imposing form out of the room. Dan Lindgren leaned over to me and whispered, “There goes the smartest guy in this whole damn airline. Looms hates him for that.”
Looms stood up for the first time. “I know what you’re all thinking. You’re all thinking I’m a bastard and a tough guy. Well, I am. But I know how to get the most out of my people. Always have, everyplace I’ve been. And we’ll have a perfect press trip.” His scalp was beaded at the edges of his red hair.
Craig stood up in a gesture to end the meeting. “I think I speak for everyone in this room when I say how fortunate we are to have your kind of leadership, Stewart. We’ll give ’em hell on Sunday.” Craig wasn’t sure if it was Christian to give ’em hell on Sunday. But Looms was obviously pleased by his comment about leadership. And Craig was pleased Looms was pleased. They beamed at each other as we all left the office.
The flight was to depart Kennedy at noon the following Sunday. We arrived at ten, and after checking in with crew scheduling, went down to the lounge area. There was a crowd of people drinking from the makeshift bar set up in the corner. Sonny lounged against a wall, a Yashica-Mat camera around his neck.
“Gee, the press gets here early, don’t they,” Rachel said.
“What press?” he responded. “It’s all PR people. The press won’t arrive for another hour.”
We noticed a tall, gaunt man standing talking with Mr. Looms and some other men. It looked like our airline’s president, Mr. Lincoln, at least as we remembered him from his picture. Sonny confirmed that it was. Looms spotted us, broke away from his group and bounced up to us.
“Hi there,” he said. “I’m Stewart Looms, vice president of public relations. I didn’t get a chance to say hello at the meeting last week. I hope you’re pleased I selected you for this trip. I saw your pictures in the paper and decided right then and there you would be perfect.” We looked for Sonny but he had quickly walked away.
“We’re delighted,” we said.
“Good. You just stay near me and everything will be all right. And don’t let that tough talk of mine at the meeting scare you off. You’ve got to be that way with your staff. I’ve been very successful with it. Eight vice presidencies in the last seven years. That’s really going some, wouldn’t you say?”
“Oh yes, Mr. Looms.”
The press arrived and headed immediately for the bar. Looms was everywhere back-slapping and chitchatting, always with an eye on Mr. Lincoln. We strained to recognize any of the press people in the lounge. There wasn’t one who even looked vaguely familiar. We asked Dan Lindgren about it.
“Why should you know any of them?” he asked in return. “You don’t really think Craig is capable of lining up any names, do you? This whole thing is a game. Craig ends up inviting guys from Turtle Breeders’ Quarterly, assistant editors from makeup magazines, secretaries from NBC, CBS, and ABC so they’re represented on the sign-in sheet, and maybe a guy or two from a daily paper who live off free PR food and booze. The best bet he came up with today is the managing editor of a New Jersey weekly, a personal friend. Like I said, it’s all a game. Craig fills the place with bodies and Looms, silly Looms, thinks he’s done a fantastic job.”
“That’s awful,” Rachel said.
“Sure. And Mr. Lincoln thinks Looms has done a great job because of all the people. When nothing appears in print or on TV, they all chalk it up to bad breaks. It’s all pretty silly, when you think about it.”
“How much do they spend to be silly this way?” I asked.
“Fifty, maybe sixty thousand. But don’t worry about it. Enjoy it now. Pretty soon everybody will be drunk and you’ll be fighting for your life.”
“What a sick way to make a living,” Rachel commented as the absurdity of the thing began to sink in.
“Not really,” Dan said. “It’s just this bad when you have a psycho like Looms running the show. It used to be better. Lots of great people in this department. But they’ll all pick up and leave soon.”
“You too, Dan?”
“I’ve already got lines out all over town.”
The lounge was bulging at the seams now. People were everywhere, drinks in thei
r hands and a great deal to say to each other. Each received his periodic pat on the back from Mr. Looms, and there was never a PR man too far away with an instant drink.
All the chatter was brought to a halt when Looms leaped up on the table and held his hands up to the people. “Quiet, please. Quiet, please,” he said, looking to Mr. Lincoln for approval of his approach. The president just scowled.
“Hey, ye gonna need coats in Atlanta?” a drunk yelled from the rear of the room.
This question seemed to fluster Looms. He asked a staff member at the side of the table about the coats, and the staff member said everyone should bring coats.
“Yes, indeed,” Looms answered the drunk, “coats in Atlanta.”
“Hooray,” another drunk yelled from the bar.
Looms continued. “Well, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to get on down to the big bird.” He chuckled at his terminology—terribly inside. He looked at Mr. Lincoln who seemed pained. “Well, as I said, we can go down to the 727 now and get in our seats for the trip to Atlanta. Everybody ready?”
No one answered Looms, which upset him. He jumped down from the table and patted Mr. Lincoln on the back. “Well, Mr. Lincoln, guess we’re ready to go. Sure got a fine group of people here, didn’t we?”
Mr. Lincoln took a final sip of his drink. “Who are they all, Looms?”
Looms was quick on his feet. “Oh, you know, top-echelon folks from the nets, wires, dailies . . . that caliber. We’re right in there with the best today.” Lincoln snorted and walked away from his PR man.
Looms spotted Craig as he was walking out with the group and grabbed his arm. “John, we’ve got top people here today, haven’t we?”
Craig was fast on his feet, too. “You bet, Stewart. What we’ve done is to really dig and find the people who can produce . . . really produce for us. No sense having the managing editor of The Times or Newsweek. They can’t do anything for us. We’ve got the do-it guys. The guys with some magic and sparkle.”
“Good boy, John.” They walked out together proudly. Behind them came the last member of the magical press corps, the cartoon editor of Welfare Weekly.
We helped the drunks into their seats, fumbled with their seat belts, gave the special PA announcement for the occasion, and sat back as the plane streaked down Runway 31-Left at Kennedy. The wheels had barely left the ground when everyone seemed to get up at once. They clustered in the aisle, first in a large group in the rear, and then moving up to the front.