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  He was all smiles, so I was correct in guessing it was good news.

  “I’ve an audition for you.”

  “What is it?” I inquired.

  “It’s a young Robin Hood type of adventure. The working title is Bandits of Sherwood. Since you are so good with a sword and bow you will be a natural.”

  Now it was news to me that I was good with a bow. I hadn’t handled one more than two or three times in my life and they were more toys than the real thing. So I did what they did in Hollywood, make believe.

  “I’m fairly good with a sword. I will have to work on the bow part.”

  “That’s good, your sword work will be much more important. They will do cut a ways for any archery.”

  “When is my audition?”

  “In about fifteen minutes. I checked with Ron Dodge and he doesn’t need you till after lunch so you are good to go.”

  There is nothing like being thrown into the deep end.

  “Where do we go and am I dressed okay?”

  “They don’t care what you wear for this.”

  Mr. Baxter led me to another set where a Director, Mr. Stanley Butler was waiting with a small camera crew. He gave me some lines to read. I asked him if he wanted a British accent. He told me that would be great if it was easily understood by an American audience. I switched to my Sir Nicklaus voice and he loved it.

  The Producer was there though he sat there silently and I wasn’t introduced. I hadn’t seen him around the lot, so I hadn’t any idea who he was. Mr. Baxter and he were in a deep conversation while I worked on my audition lines.

  I read through my lines silently a few times, then out loud. There were only a half dozen, so I actually memorized them on the spot. When I told them I was ready they had me run through in front of the cameras without filming. Once they were satisfied with the lighting we were ready to go. One nice thing I noticed the grips were people I had worked with before, and they seemed to be on myside, at least they took the time to really get things correct.

  I did two presentations for the camera and Mr. Butler said that was enough. We had to wait several minutes for a stunt man to arrive. I was told the stunt man would be testing my ability with the sword. I strongly suspected who it would be. Sure enough I heard Sammy as he was coming around the corner.

  “These damn teenagers you bring in here have never held a sword and wouldn’t know the pointy end if I stuck it in them.”

  About then he caught sight of me. “Well, some of them know the pointy end, hi Rick.”

  He had brought protective gear for us with him, but set all, but the swords down. Let’s do it Rick, show them what you have.”

  The Director said, “Roll” Then we were at it. It was really fun. We were both showing off with different strokes and parries, we actually did some Errol Flynn stuff, jumping up on tables. All of a sudden I heard, “Cut!”

  “That was wonderful,” exclaimed Mr. Butler. “Where did you learn that?”

  I bowed as I pointed to Sammy, “My teacher Sir.”

  ‘We will call to let you know, but you are a very strong contender for the part.”

  I heaved a sigh of relief. They hadn’t asked me to draw a bow. I probably couldn’t have drawn a real one with the biggest box of Crayola’s.

  As we were walking out Mr. Baxter said, “You got the part.”

  “What do you mean, they said they will call, that means they want to see other people.”

  “That’s what he said to save face. He could hear Tim Hughes, and me talking. Tim knows all about your other movie with Wayne, and I told him about the TV special coming out late spring. He also knows you have been on Jack Paar, and get into the entertainment columns on a regular basis.”

  “That makes you a draw, Butler also sees that the crew has picked you. They showed their support in the way they set you up. An upset crew can ruin a movie and with it a Directors career. You have the part.”

  “Okay, what should I do now?”

  “Try to use some of those magic contacts you seem to have in the press. That would force the issue if done properly. If they praise you as a pick for Bandits of Sherwood, it will be more pressure to select you. Now the question is how much do you want to make on this movie, it is definitely a B movie and will be doing good to gross ten million. That means you can make between one and three hundred thousand.”

  “Go for two hundred thousand and three points. The movie will have to break fifteen million for me to make three hundred thousand. That will show I have some skin in the game. Also I would like to see an aggressive schedule like Sir Nick, start on April 13 and finish by May 18. That gives me one week off between pictures and then back in Ohio for an event I have near the end of May.”

  “An aggressive schedule will keep the cost down. It will also have you working more than you have had to on Sir Nick.”

  “I know, but I have finished school for the year, so I have three to four hours more a day open.”

  “Are you some sort of genius that can learn quickly?”

  “No sir, I’m not dumb, but the important thing is that I’m organized and not afraid to work. Put that together with private tutoring and I can go through the material very fast. I’ve never had an I.Q. test, but I think I am normal or a little above, but nothing special.”

  “Well Rick, you’re accomplishing special things, so that makes you special in my book.”

  “Thank you Mr. Baxter, now I had better get over to my set.”

  “I will call as soon as I hear something.”

  “Okay.”

  I got to the set in time to see Mr. Wayne tear into a group of actors who hadn’t done their homework. They played the role of the Regulators, the businessmen who had control of Johnson County. The three actors hadn’t got their lines down pat and needed more run throughs than necessary. I learned several new phrases. I didn’t think you could do that sort of stuff with goats.

  Rather than get involved with that mess I went to lunch a half hour early. Lunch was always fun, you would never know what you were going to see on any particular day. It looked like half the British Army, from the Revolutionary War was there today, Redcoats everywhere.

  For some reason there were always actors dressed as Indians. After a while you didn’t even notice them. To round it out there were Spanish Conquistadors, 1920’s Flapper Girls, two great white hunters and of course me, dressed as a 1890 cowboy. If you came back tomorrow the costumes would change, but it would still have the wonderfully weird feel to it.

  After lunch till two o’clock they had me in front of the camera. It was all talking in one setting rather than action shots, so it was just reciting lines. I was becoming fairly good at it, and my English accent so ingrained that I had used it while shopping several times.

  Today was different I couldn’t deliver a line correctly to save my life. I was so glad that Mr. Wayne had left the set. If he was present he would be eating me alive. After an hour the Director threw up his hands in despair and told me to, “Get out of here, come back tomorrow ready to work!”

  Chapter 4

  Though it wasn’t what I had planned. It worked in my favor as I was going to drive to Industry, and go to the Workman – Temple residence. I had read up on the early history of California in the library. My ancestor’s brother, John Rowland had led a party of settlers, with William Workman, to be the first white settlers in California.

  They had settled in the LA area, both owning large tracts of land. The Rowland family whom I had never met still owned some of the original parcel in Industry. The Rowland house, which was the first brick structure in California, still stood. I would like to visit someday but my mission was to check out Don Pio Pico’s grave. He was the last Mexican governor of California.

  His remains were moved to the Workman – Temple family graveyard in 1921. I was hoping that whatever I was looking for was buried behind his tombstone. I had cut up a coat hanger to make a probe. If it was buried deeper than that I wasn’t going to find it.
I’m not about to go digging big holes in a graveyard. It just wouldn’t be right. Besides it would scare the heck out of me if I hit a coffin.

  The drive down was pleasant. I had to stop for gas once. The gas cap located behind the license plate was convenient. I wondered how it would work with a continental kit. I had thought about having one added, but decided not to.

  Getting back on the road I came up behind a gasoline tanker, I had to back off a long way. There were stones on the road and the chains, at the back of the tanker to ground it from static electricity, were kicking them up. I finally gave up and pulled over and got an ice cream cone from a Tastee-Freez. This let the truck get away. The ice cream was good also.

  I arrived to find an abandoned overgrown mess. The house was in great disrepair. It would take a major effort to restore it. Since no one was around I walked around the back of the house and found the family grave yard. It didn’t take much hunting to find the graves of Don Pio Pico and his wife.

  I returned to my car and retrieved my coat hanger probe. I took a long look around, but no one was in sight. Returning to the grave I probed behind the back of the tombstone. About two feet out I hit resistance about six inches in the ground. Probing around it appeared to be a rectangle of four inches by twelve inches.

  I returned to my car and drove into Industry, stopping at a hardware store to buy a garden trowel. Heading back to the cemetery there still was no one in sight. I dug up the combination of sod and desert sand around the spot I had probed and set it aside. I then dug down deeper to find a metal box wrapped in oil cloth.

  The box was not locked. Upon opening it, I found a handwritten note.

  “If you find this note, please call this telephone number and state you’re calling on the lost family. After writing down the phone number please rebury the note in the box.”

  It was signed, William Rowland.

  I wrote down the number in the back of my ever present little black book. Everyone carried one to write down phone numbers. Of course if you were a teenage boy they were supposed to be girlfriends. I didn’t have very many numbers and most of them were adults like scout leaders, Jackson Engineering contacts, guys at school, or movie business.

  What did that say about me? The only girls I had numbers for were Janet Huber, Pam Schaffer, Judy King, Cheryl Hawthorne, and now Nina Monroe. Not an impressive score according to all the songs I heard.

  After that I reburied the box wondering what it was all about. I headed back home. This was Dad’s to sort out. It was past ten o’clock in Ohio when I got home, so I didn’t call. What I did was practice my lines. Knowing them hadn’t been the problem it was saying them with the proper conviction.

  I was used to succeeding in most things I tried. I didn’t like today’s failure at all. I had managed to put it aside, when I went down to Industry, but now was the time to face it. As I went over my lines they didn’t feel right to me. I pulled the original script and reread it instead of using the daily shooting script.

  When I reread it, it dawned on me. There was a problem, and I was it. I was taking the scene out of context. Movies were never shot as a straight through story, but as the logistics and economics dictated. Sir Nicks character had been growing as the story went along, starting as your basic upper class spoiled brat to a capable young man who took responsibility for his actions.

  This scene was a throwback on his development. I was trying to play it as responsible Sir Nick instead of spoiled Sir Nick. It wasn’t the words I was saying it was the body language I was using. Using this discovery I went over the lines again and it fell in place.

  Wednesday morning I couldn’t rush through my daily routine fast enough. Dick Wyman had to get me to slow down on the track. He wanted to know where the fire was. I explained how I had screwed up yesterday and now had a chance to redeem myself.

  He told me not to make too big of a deal about it, all actors went through it several times in their career. They would forget where the scene fit into the movie and do it all wrong. The trick was to figure out the problem, apologize, do it right and move on. The worst thing I could do is blame other people for my problems.

  Since I knew I was the problem why would I want to blame someone else? If I had a motto it would be, fix it and move on.

  At the studio my first act arriving at the set was to find Ron Dodge and apologize for yesterday’s performance. He agreed with my take on the problem and told me it was okay, but I had to get it right today.

  Fortunately I did. It didn’t seem natural to me to be a spoiled brat, but I channeled Paul Grant and it worked. One thing I thought of last night, I had always accused Denny and Eddie of being spoiled brats. I now understood they were anything but. The one in danger of being spoiled was Mary. She had three brothers who absolutely doted on her.

  Well, Eddie, who was closer in age didn’t put up with as much nonsense as Denny and I. Even as I thought about that I realized we didn’t let her get away with things completely like cheating at Monopoly. The more I thought about it she wasn’t that spoiled either.

  Paul Grant would be my role model for spoiled from now on. I had the gross thought that he had been dead long enough that his corpse would be spoiling by now. Yuck!

  Ron Dodge came over to me as we finished up shooting before lunch. “Rick, you are turning into a professional actor. You had a bad day like everyone has and bounced back. You handled it in a mature fashion, not taking out your short comings on the rest of the world. That is rarer than you may think. You seem like an adult in a child’s body.”

  “Thank you for the kind words. May I ask a favor?”

  “Within reason,” he replied.

  “Could you have a daily script written up where I get to throw Mr. Wayne in the water trough?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Just as a joke, it would be great to see the look on his face.”

  He chuckled as he replied, “Strike that comment about being an adult in a child’s body.”

  Lunch was the usual parade of people dressed from across the world and across the ages. I was joined by the key grip who had asked me about the box car.

  “It worked real well. We rigged up a set to give the motion. It worked so well, we are now having the box car top being built. There is no doubt it will work. I will be the key grip on Bandits of Sherwood. I’m looking forward to working with you.”

  “You know more than I do, no one has called me yet.”

  “They will soon, your agent is in negotiations as we speak. From what I hear you will like the deal.”

  It is a small tight world we live in, and there really aren’t any secrets. I should remember that.

  After lunch it was back to the salt mines, well the movie set. Mr. Wayne was there all dressed and ready to go. One of the writers came around and handed us all a new daily script. I suspected its contents, and jumped down to the end.

  I got there just as an explosive yell came out from Mr. Wayne.

  “There is no way in hell he is going to throw me in a horse trough!”

  We all burst out laughing, led by Mr. Dodge. Mr. Wayne caught on immediately.

  “Who put you up to this Ron?”

  Mr. Dodge was still laughing but managed to point towards me. I would’ve thought he would have waited at least a minute before throwing me to the wolves.

  Mr. Wayne shook his fist at me and said, “You will pay, Ricky, when you are least expecting it.”

  Now that was a threat to fear from someone with Mr. Wayne’s resources. We settled down and were able to get two scenes in the can. While I wasn’t invited to see the overnight rushes I had been told that things were going well.

  After we were done at five o’clock I went to the stunt area for my workout.

  Chapter 5

  After my lifting I hunted Sammy up for sword work.

  Sammy had another man with him, Rod Bell. Rod was an archer. They didn’t even have to tell me, all the gear he had told the story for him.

  Afte
r introductions I was given a tour of the bow. It was a full size six and half foot English long bow. Rod had me try to draw it. I actually was able to pull it back easily. I commented on this and he laughed.

  “This is a beginners training bow, it has a twenty five pound draw. If you couldn’t pull that we would be taking you to the Doctor. A regular long bow used in war could have a draw over one hundred and fifty pounds. Today a sixty pound pull is the norm.”

  “We will work you up to a sixty pound bow. That will force you to go through the proper motion to draw a bow. This will look good on the screen.”

  “What is the proper motion? I thought you held your left arm stiff and pulled the string back with your right arm.”

  “Not at all, you keep the string in your right hand up tight to your anchor point and bend your whole body weight in to the horn of the bow to draw it.”

  He demonstrated it to me, and had me practice the motion. My anchor point was my chin, where the string touched my body, when the bow was fully drawn.

  “Also we have to fit you with a bracer so you won’t tear your arm or hands apart. You are big enough to use standard three foot long arrows.”

  “Rick, it takes a lot of practice to become accurate with a bow, more than a handgun. We don’t have time for that. Any shots in the film will be done by a trained archer. We will show you drawing the bow correctly and loosing, but that won’t be the arrow flight shown.”

  I knew I wasn’t an archer, but this burst my bubble. We worked for half an hour on the proper draw of a bow. Rod told me he would bring a bow with a forty five pound pull tomorrow to see how I did with that. The higher the poundage I could pull, the more realistic it would look on the screen.

  I hadn’t said anything, going with the flow, but everyone seemed to think I had this movie part.