Chapter Twenty-Eight White Productions and Beginning a Family

Twenty-Eight
White Productions & Beginning a Family

As I mentioned in the previous chapter I had begun to work at White Productions and Sue and I started dating and early in 1967 we got married. It was a very simple wedding in the chapel at Hollywood Congregational church. I don’t even remember who was the Best Man and Bride’s Maid. Sue’s mother was there and one or two other friends. Dale White did have a nice little reception party at his home up in Hastings Ranch.

Sue’s mother was originally from Canada and her first name was Ruth but Sue called her “Pooie”, and so Pooie it was. When she came to LA she worked for the film studios as a secretary and I believe that’s where she met Tommy who was to become Sue’s father. I only saw Tommy a few times. He worked as a Prop Master in the studios and had worked on many major movies with most of the big names of the time. I remember a couple of times when we met up with Tommy and the two times I remember dad was with us.
One time he was living in the Santa Monica area and I believe we met him at an ice rink. If my memory serves me right, Ginger was with us that time. The other time we met up with him was at Santa Anita racetrack. I think dad like and was impressed with Tommy. Later on he moved to Palm Springs where he eventually died.

Pooie had a home in Hollywood on N. Lucerne Blvd. just south of Melrose. That’s where Sue was living when I met her. Sue had a close friend who lived across the street named Karen Kamp. Karen later became involved in our family. Karen’s father also worked in the film industry in sound. Pooie lived in that home for many years and I believe she died there a short time after Brad graduated from high school.

Sue and I got a nice little one bedroom apartment on N. Kenmore just south of, yep you guessed it, Melrose. I guess I had something about Melrose. It was right by the Hollywood freeway. The freeway was literally in our backyard. If I remember correctly, Sue attended LA City College which was just four or five blocks east of us between Melrose and Santa Monica.

I don’t remember exactly how this came about but shortly after the marriage, Pat Miller and I went on quite an extensive journey to make a sales film for Alenco Cranes and Windows company headquartered in College Station/Bryan Texas the home of Texas A&M. Sue went along with us as our script girl and general assistant. Brad became a traveler before he ever saw the light of day. Sue was pregnant with him at the time. I remember one time we were shooting in the window assembly area in Alenco’s factory and it was really hot. We became rather concerned about her and her health. But she was fine and came through it well. Our liaison with the Alenco company was really a nice guy. Some of the things I remember about College Station/Bryan was everyone were fanatics about the Aggies football team. Barbecue was a big thing there and we tried out two or three places and they were all good. They would slow cooked their meats over night in a wood fire pit. One other thing I remember was at that time some counties in Texas were dry and some were wet. You couldn’t buy packaged alcohol in College Station/Bryan because it was in a dry county, but just a few miles away across the Brazos river was a wet county. The locals would make their daily runs to the Brazos.

On the Alenco Crane portion of the film job the three of us and the liaison drove from Texas to Detroit to shoot some film of the Alenco Cranes on actual job sites. One day we were filming a tree trimming crew using a crane in a residential area. A few of the residents came out to see what we were doing and wondered if we were shooting a scene for the “Fugitive” TV show. They expected to see David Jensen run out from one of the houses or something.

Driving back to Texas we stopped over in Chicago and were able to go to the Museum of Science and Industry and in one of the exhibits you could go down into a recreation of a coal mine. Also, we went to Morton’s Steakhouse an elegant restaurant near Lake Michigan. Standing on the shores of Lake Michigan in the Fall with the wind coming in off the lake is an experience you don’t forget.

On another film project about four of us drove from Pasadena to Daytona, Florida to shoot footage of a father and son motorcycle racing team for Yamaha motorcycles. Dale knew personally the father and son and we shot a lot of other footage of them locally in southern California. Fortunately for the Yamaha film the father and son team won the race.
Another regular client and friend of Dale’s was Mel Marshall. He was responsible for making audio tracks for filmstrips produced by Brigham Young University for the Mormon church. Mel was a real nice guy. Pat Miller, the White Production guy we went to Texas with, and a guy by the name of Art Romans did most of the narrations for the film strips. Art became a close friend. He was the friend I mentioned in chapter twenty-five Name Dropping that did the holiday show in Beverly Hills that I met Carole Burnette at. A friend of Mel’s and an actor by the name of Gordon Jump did a lot character voice work on the film strips. Gordon later was cast in a major role in the TV comedy “WKRP Cincinnati” (1978 – 1982). After the TV show, Gordon was the Maytag repairman for several years.

In the next chapter my experience with Academy Awards winner Dennis Muren and The Equinox.