Los Angeles "Marianne's Coming of Age" Book - Marianne L'Heureux

Anecdotes about living in Los Angeles with Father before moving to Tokyo, Japan

Other Chapters on Los Angeles in the book are: Chapter 26. Louis Armstrong and Chapter 27. A Trip to Tijuana - Al Lettieri.

Chapter 25. Jose Greco

In Manila Mother, my stepfather Peter, and my younger brother Danny accompanied my older brother Jan and me to the airport to catch our overseas flight from Manila to Los Angeles. I had been living with the Hagedorn family for six months in Manila before leaving for Los Angeles; I had mixed feelings about my future.....I was sad to leave Mother and Danny who had moved to Hong Kong with my stepfather Peter. Jan was closer to our mother than me; he was unhappy about going to live with Father in California. I missed Father when I was in Manila, and I was happy going to live with him again.

On our journey back to the United States, Jan and I had a stopover at the airport in Hawaii; we gorged ourselves on pineapple and coconut drinks and admired the verdant tropical green hills we saw. On a hill near the airport it had been raining, and further away on a hillside we saw a rainbow, a good omen.

When we arrived at LAX airport in Los Angeles, Father was waiting for us at the arrival gate. He looked about the same as when I last saw him over a year ago when I left Long Island. Father was wearing a leisure suit and an open collared shirt. We waited at the terminal with our two suitcases; Father went to the parking lot to bring his Lincoln Continental around to pick us up. We drove directly to Santa Monica where he had rented a three-bedroom house. Father furnished the house with vintage furniture from the Salvation Army store. I liked my bedroom and felt safe in Father’s care; however, Jan was restless and unhappy at first. He did not settle in as easily as I had.

Father was not working and had not found investors to open his own restaurant; he was away much of the time looking for opportunities. He unexpectedly showed up at our house one afternoon in what looked like a red DeLorean. The passenger and driver’s door opened vertically; it was a luxurious and expensive looking car. The car belonged to the estranged wife of a famous actor, and Father told me he needed me to babysit for the lady’s son as he was going out to dinner with her. When I opened the car door to get in, the door swung up and hit me on the chin.

We drove north up along Pacific Highway 1 to the canyons in Malibu and drove up to an isolated ranch house on top of a hill at the end of a winding road. After being introduced to the beautiful blond lady Father was seeing, I met her son. Father drove off on his date, and I fell asleep on the upper bunkbed in the little boy’s room. I woke up when I heard a window breaking in the kitchen. I climbed down the bunkbed and went into the hallway. I saw that Father and his date had come back to the house; they were in the master bedroom on a big circular king-size bed covered with a blue satin coverlet. Father jumped out of the bed and went into the kitchen to see what was going on. The lady’s husband was trying to crawl through the kitchen window he had broken. Father looked over his shoulder and saw me standing in the hallway; he grabbed me by the arm, and we ran out of the house. Getting into the DeLorean we made our getaway and drove straight back to Santa Monica along the Pacific Coast Highway. The following day, the lady had someone drop her off at our house; she retrieved her car keys from Father, got into the DeLorean and drove off. I never saw her again.

Jan and I attended school in Santa Monica for several months and I learned to cook in home economics class. Father was at home one morning and saw me in the kitchen measuring out flour and butter, adding eggs and baking soda, to make a cake. He looked amused; I never saw him use a cookbook all the years he was in his restaurant cooking.

I liked my school; I had to explain to my classmates and our neighbors why I had a dark tan; I told them I had been living in the Philippines. Mother had moved to Hong Kong with my younger brother and stepfather Peter, and we did not have much contact with them sadly.

When Jan and I finished school in June, Father got a job in Malibu as the chef at the Holiday House resort-hotel on Pacific Coast Highway, a famous watering hole and restaurant for movie stars. It was owned by Dudley Murphy, a World War I aviator back in the day. Murphy had directed silent and early sound movies. Many famous celebrities patronized the Holiday House back in the day. Father managed Geoffrey’s Cliffside restaurant at the Holiday House. All three of us, Father, Jan and I, shared a hotel room suite; Jan and Father slept on a couch and daybed, and I took the double bed.

We were there for two months during the summer. Jan and I ate in the kitchen at the restaurant and walked along the beaches. The beaches in Malibu are mostly privately owned but no one told me; I wandered along the beach. At sunset, Jan and I would sit in the lounge chairs around the swimming pool at the Holiday House; we had an unobstructed view of the front entrance and saw movie stars and patrons going into the restaurant. Later on, when we returned to the hotel room, we watched television.

Before school started in September, Father opened a restaurant in West Hollywood off Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street and called it called “Lucky Pierre’s.” I was enrolled in Selma Avenue Elementary School between Hollywood and Sunset Boulevard; Jan was enrolled in Middle School. Father rented a two-bedroom duplex for us off Hollywood Boulevard in what looked like a small English cottage; two bedrooms upstairs and a large living area downstairs. We were there for two months before moving over to the Ardmore Apartments located on Franklin Avenue near Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue.

Father’s restaurant was situated on the ground floor of a tall residential building. The tenants were mostly wealthy elderly people; some frequented the restaurant. Jan and I ate dinner at the restaurant every night; on school nights we left before sunset to get back to our apartment. Jan was solicitous of me; he kept an eye out as we were living in Hollywood after all, and I was only eleven years old.

One Saturday night I was sleeping on a bench along the back wall of the restaurant when a group of dancers and entertainers came into the restaurant after closing time. The group was the entourage of Jose Greco (1918-2000), the Italian American Flamenco dancer who appeared in the films “Sombrero,” “Around the World in 80 Days,” and “The Ship of Fools” among others. Greco had just finished a performance at the Hollywood Bowl, the dance troupe had come into the restaurant to unwind, and to drink and eat.

I woke up on the bench when a Flamenco guitarist opened his guitar case, took out his guitar and started playing. Jose Greco jumped up on a table and started dancing Flamenco. The musicians clapped their hands in unison with Jose Greco’s dancing, a cacophony of Flamenco music and dance. The party went on until the wee hours of the morning.

The following morning, an ambulance pulled up in front of the entryway to the building. I asked Bobby B., an actor who was a waiter at Father’s restaurant, what had happened. He said that the Flamenco troupe had made so much noise one of the elderly tenants had to be taken to the hospital.