The Global Gratitude Show with Bill Wilkerson

0:00Welcome to the Global Gratitude Show with Tanya Anderson, where hearts open, kindness connects us and stories of giving light to the world. Each week, Tanya brings you inspiring voices from around the globe, people spreading hope, love and gratitude in their own extraordinary ways. So take a deep breath, open your heart, and get ready to celebrate the power of positivity. Let us together, we're making the world a little brighter. One thankful story at a time. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome from the City of Angels. I thank you for tuning in today. My guest is someone that I've known very long time back to 1967 or 68, just a few years ago. I met him at Millfield School and International Co-Ed Boarding School in Somerset, England, which was about 30 minutes drive to Stonehenge if you were going as the crow flies.

1:02Millfield was a very causal Paul Dunn School with offspring of royals and royals, and also children of, let's say, Alistair is like Elizabeth Taylor sent her two sons there. It was an amazing place. Can I call you chili? Yeah, you can. It makes life easier because your father was bill, so I'm not talking about chili. Okay. All right. Okay. So, chili and I were really, really good friends, but we were part of a group and like high schools anywhere, you know, you select your group and then they're your besties. So, Bill, Chili's American, Ross was from Ireland, John was English, Pinder Ross was from Greece, and Jeff was American. Let's begin. Chili, tell me what it was like growing up in Hollywood and rather privilege family. My dad was in the film industry. He published a Hollywood trade paper called The Hollywood Reporter's Till Exist Today.

2:03So, my sister and I, I like to say that we were born and lived on this island because it was very isolated. It was in a state in Bel Air. No sidewalks, right uncensored boulevard. Everything had to be transported, friends. If we wanted to play it with somebody, we just couldn't walk across the street. We had to drive us there and yeah, and it was a, it was a very sheltered existence and it wasn't until the time when I went to Millfield and you and I got to know each other. That I really began to sense my own independence and that's what I wanted. It was very sheltered, it was very isolated. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of happy memories during that time. It wasn't until that I started to get out of the house and go on my own and when I came to the UK and went to Millfield and started to make my own friends and things like that, that things really changed. Yeah, and I think that's one of the reasons that you're such a wonderful musician as well

3:05because you expressed yourself, so you're playing the guitar and then the way you and Ross and Pind Ross and everybody would come around. You guys would just sit in the grass and start playing and all our fellow students would just come around and sit down and listen and those were magical times because we were absolutely absolutely magical. We were almost like a subculture, you know? Yeah, I've often thought, well, can something like that be recreated today? And it's still on my list that I need to go visit Ross, but he is primarily into Greek traditional Mediterranean music, so in one sense, where polls are part in terms musically. We had this soul connection, so I mean, who knows, but I have fond memories at that time because that was one instance where two people could come together, share a common language. Whenever we got together, there was a very little word spoken between us. We would sit down and we would play music.

4:07I remember. Yeah, when that was it, and as you know, we used to do these folk concerts on Saturday and night, right, which were like practically standing room only and no cover charge. And what was really interesting about it when I looked back is that the majority of it was improvised. Absolutely. And I can't see a lot of music today where that's like the, I mean, it may exist. It certainly exists in Ross's culture where, you know, it's instrumental and you worked off a template and improvised like very much like Indian music. But what Ross and I did, I mean, it was unique to that time, but it's certainly unique today because younger musicians who I bump into, never stray from a certain template. And I say, you know, why don't you take your guitar, put it in a different tune. And just play around with it and they said, oh, no, no, no, we've never do that.

5:09Yeah, but see, I essentially, I think you guys were channeling, right? Well, I, I, I think there was something spiritual going on. Oh, yeah, that we did not understand. And in the fact, I think we took it for granted as I say. I mean, we just showed up. All of our free time was spent playing music. And even when classes ended at the end of the day, Ross lived in Holley's, which is just right down the road from me. And I would go to his house or he would come to tour or we would go to somebody else. I mean, there was always after hours activities where we would be playing music when we are another. It's such a wonderful way to express yourself as well. Yeah, I just, I'm not a professional musician anymore. But one of the things I do do is that I've learned that music is medicine. I have to play it because there's a vibrational force about it that heals me, not sure physically, but certainly on a soul-connected level.

6:11Oh, absolutely. It does that. When I sat down and play and I have to tell you, there was a period of time, started around 1989. Now, I was active in the music industry for 25 years. Uh-huh. And in 1989, there was this seismic shift because rap came in and it was like this tsunami. Right. And all of my contacts in the music industry that I went to to sell my songs were no longer interested in songs anymore. They were interested. They were, you know, it was, it was very much fad-driven. And I said, well, this is a time for me to make my departure. And there was a period of time when I was a very depressed and I just didn't play music. The guitar student corner of my room was in touch, piano, anything. Because it's a dream. You were mourning the loss. Probably. Probably. I needed, I needed to find some connection and that came from two sources. The first one was, I went to see a movie with my sister in 1992 called Bugs You with

7:12Oran Bady. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember you telling a hunt. And I remember my sister and I stayed until the credits roll. Uh-huh. When I turned to her and I said, this isn't the story. And it was such a powerful big film with all this publicity that I started to reach out to all of my media contacts and say, you got to write about this. I'm giving you the scoop here. This film isn't based on the truth. I mean, some of it is the early years. Anything to do with the flamingo is not. They just didn't believe me. And remember getting so pissed off, I don't know if I'm allowed to say that. Um, but we're big kids here. Yeah. I became so frustrated this sort of this reticence that I came up against where I just said that to hell with it, I've got to write this as a story as you know, yes, yes, as I knew it. So that was the first thing. That was my first insight that the door opening for me to a new career, which is writing,

8:15which I've never looked backwards from. Right. The second thing that happened was I took my guitar to my dear friend, David Naley, who's a master guitar repairer for him. Yeah. And they took it to him. And I said, Dave, there's something wrong with this guitar. But I want you to do something to it to make me fall in love with it again. Wow. I love that. That's very cool. So what we did was we stripped off all the varnish. We didn't step to the guitar that you should never do to a guitar today because after you touch it, there's no resale value blah, blah, blah. We did all of these things. We took off all the varnish. We didn't repaint it. We did a lot of tweaking. And I remember I got it back and it was a really hot summer's day in LA. And in my room, I had an apartment in a 1927 quadriplex that had no air conditioning, no fans or whatever. So I just opened all the windows. Wow. And it was too hot to wear clothes.

9:15And basically, I just got completely naked. I put this guitar between my thighs. And I just played for hours, non-sensically. Wow. That same quarter. And I realized it didn't matter. It was the sonic energy of it that was healing. I love that. Yes. It brought me back to the place where I wanted to be, which was to feel that love of playing. There's two components here. There's listening to music and there's playing to music. And with that one incident, instance did, was it allowed me to fall in love with playing music again? By the same token, it reopened the door for me to listen to the music of my past. And really feel that connection that I did with it when we were kids. Back in the days. Back in the days. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So basically, that's what happened. Now with Ross, he's always been, when he plays music, it's like a sexual orgasm.

10:15I mean, it doesn't matter. He showed me a video where he lives in a house with like 200 instruments hanging on the wall or whatever. And he just pulls one down and he plays it. And I think that's wonderful. I'm reminded that that's the kind of connection that I have to have more or less than a daily basis where Polar to guitar and sit there uninterrupted. It's kind of like a form of meditation. That's the way I look at it now. Oh, absolutely. Yes. I'm chanting a mantra, sitting there playing something and it's not, it's, it's not some sort of rigid practice, practice schedule where I have to practice Beatles songs or whatever. It's just playing the instrument and feeling good with it. That's the way I look at it. Oh, it's very healing. I mean, I mean, I'm not a musician, but I think the way you describe it, I completely understand. It is, it's like you went to your inner core again. You're true love. It's like pulling somebody up and saying, okay, you know, we've been distanced for a while. Hey, you know, let's get back on track because basically I really love you, you know,

11:16right? Yeah. I just, I think that what I've learned in life is that we have these buses that come along to T-bonus and really knock us off the road. It's the only way that I can describe it. I mean, forgive the analogy. Maybe I haven't been T-boned. Yeah, just really knocks the wind out of us and causes us to question. That's what happened when I finished the manuscript to my first book, The Men Who'd Been in Las Vegas, which is based on the frustration of watching the Bugsie movie and not seeing that it was truthful. And I finished the manuscript and I reached out to every publisher and agent that I knew and they rejected it universally. I did get some letters back from the agents that I knew that were like family friends or whatever, oh, the book is too short, oh, there's not enough interest or whatever. And I remember getting depressed about that and I had a time share in a place called

12:17Ramota, California. Oh, right. Yeah, down there outside of San Diego, but yeah, we used to, when I was growing up, we used to have a ranch there, but there was a time share that I bought into there because I always liked the area and I took myself down there for a week and I paced the carpets in my bare feet for a week to make a decision. And that decision was, do I take years of work on this manuscript and because everybody's rejected it. I then toss it into the closet with the other projects that nobody is interested in. Right. That's option one. Option two is, I put my money where my mouth is, I believe in the project, I publish it myself. And these were the days before there weren't that self publishing was really looked down frowned upon. Right. I remember that. Yeah. There weren't many outlets or whatever. So basically I would be on safari by myself. And I remember it came, I came to the end of the, the seven days and it came down literally

13:19to a coin toss. And I said, right, I'm going to publish this book for better or worse, don't know what's going to happen. So I published the damn thing. Nobody would, and Hollywood would touch it because of my family, political connections with the reporter, probably they saw too much as a hot potato. Who knows? Absolutely embrace the book. Everybody who could give me a review or write it, they did. I mean, it was so highly, finally, the universe responds, right? Exactly. But here, here is the real lesson that I was taught. Once this book was between two covers and was out there making us rounds. The same people who rejected me, by the way, by the way, I sent them a copy of the book. Good for you. And I signed it and I said, thanks for your interest or whatever, you know, just to be positive about it. And the strangest thing happened. A lot of these people wrote to me, back said, oh, the book is the book of genius.

14:21Okay. So what changed? They rejected a manuscript. The moment I published it and it was between two covers, it became a completely different animal. Yeah. It's funny, isn't it? Yeah. So that's the lesson that it taught me is that a manuscript is kind of like a version of literary junk mail. The moment you get it out there, where it, it, it, it max of a commercial presentation for a lack of a better description, right, of the tenor of the arguments completely change. I mean, like they say, same candy, different wrapper. Well, exactly right. And that's, that was one of the things that I had to learn is that from that book onwards, I said to myself, right, I'm going to do everything myself. And if people don't like it, I mean, that's fine. I'm going to do it anyhow. And surprise, surprise, every book that I've come out with, I mean, some of not sold that well. The reviews have always been phenomenal, the interest. And so it taught me that I just need to keep calling my own instincts if I believe in

15:25something. Exactly. You're gut feeling. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm now starting to get back into music production. My son has been helping me with all these wonderful programs. Wonderful. Yeah. Well, that's why you texted me about that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Greenlit as a miniseries. So we were involved with Johnny Depp. Oh, you can say remember some of that. Uh-huh. Yeah. And ABC. And it was all heady. And I was so excited for you, too. Wow. Yeah. It was great. I was like the dream team. It was like, I kept pinching myself saying, my god, you know, Johnny Depp at that time was the biggest star on the planet. Right. Yeah. We had this big production company behind us, ABC. And then it was dropped.

16:26So that's when I decided to publish the Hollywood Godfather, which is the second book about my dad, which is the all encompassing biography. And by the way, people can get this on an Amazon. Um, but I thought that my TV and filmmaking days were behind me. Maybe again, it's because of the political connection with the reporter or whatever. And so I just put that in my rear view me mirror. And I said, I'll just concentrate writing books and music and be happy with that. So over the past year, my son, who is incredibly gifted kid, he was the one who designed truth social for Donald Trump. And he was the one who put that together. So it shows you the level, not politically, but what he's capable of doing. Yeah. Over the course of this last year, he's been sending me these little AI videos, uh, most of which are called AI Slop, you know, kiddies doing some results and pools and everything

17:31is like that. Right. Right. It's very clever. Yeah. Then he sent me one video that this guy did. It's, it's a mock pharmaceutical commercial and, um, this guy does pharmaceutical commercials that start at half a million dollars and they go up, but he does this one for five hundred dollars that looked exactly like a pharmaceutical commercial. The quality was phenomenal and he did it on one of these platforms. When my son sent it to me, I saw it. I immediately called him up and I said, I don't understand this, but I want to be a part of this. So what I'm working with him now is that within two years time, these programs will be so powerful that I can take a script of from my, uh, from our old Hollywood TV series, feed that into one of these programs. Yeah. Amazing. And in two hours, have I finished film that just blows my mind, but listen, I want you to explain

18:33to everybody. I, you know, it's remarkable because you know, my, uh, my roommate here is a cinematographer from France. And you show me like a little mini beauty just as a joke, like a shootout in my living room. It's really small. And you save the girl and she screams and she's got a type and he's skirted all that up. And we're just laughing. Just saw it like a night before last, when I got back from San Diego. Yeah. What I want you to do is like, uh, give, give the listeners a, like a bit of a background about your father, how he's starting, uh, you know, I mean, it's so like you say Hollywood reporter, it's amazing. It's industry standard to this day, but how he came out from back east and how he built a life for himself and then, you know, the Hollywood connection, you know, that his favorite actresses, the nightclubs and then, and then talk about the mafia connection and how the, the bugsy thing, you know, came, you know, came to light and you're like, you said that to me. I was surprised. So he's kind of like, it's kind of like his bio, like his background because it's so

19:33interesting how he came out and just took so many opportunities and was, it was very successful. Yeah. He was in the movie industry in the 1920s, making what we're called one or two realers. These were silent films back in the day. Uh-huh. And then, of course, when the movies converted to sound in 1927, 1928, it became a different industry. He did everything behind the camera. He never acted, but he was a writer. He produced, um, uh, he worked with a lot of these silent stars. One of the, the great tragedies is because the film that was recorded on back in the day was Night Rate Film, which was very flambable, and we don't have a lot of silent films anymore because they either went up in smoke because of the material that was made of. It degraded very quickly. There are institutions like AFI, the American Film Institute, which are trying to, seriously trying to preserve films, and they open up these film cans and there's just nothing

20:36but dust. I've heard about that. Yeah. So it's, we hardly have, I've heard there's one film of his that still exists in the process of being restored, but that would be fabulous. Wow. That would be fabulous. So he was, um, he was a film distributor. He made films, everything behind the camera. Then, um, he wanted to start his own film studio, but he needed to get distribution through the big studios who he worked for. He knew all these guys, right, and when he approached them, they all universally rejected him. Okay. Same old story, right? Yeah. So these are the people that he made money for, et cetera, et cetera, and my father was not one to take it on the chin. And that's funny. Just put it like that. I know. Right. I'm going to say, right. Lightly, yeah. Uh, he, he was based out of New York and he got into the trade paper industry. He worked for a magazine called Film Daily, which is very big.

21:37He didn't work for Variety. Variety was one of the first big ones. All right. And then basically, he, uh, I'm going to kind of long story short here, but basically, he saw the opportunity of starting the first trade paper out in Hollywood where films were shifting from New York to Hollywood because mostly because of the climate. Yes. Yes. And, um, so he sold his interest in a Manhattan, in his Manhattan trade paper. He raised more money and he did something was very typical of, uh, of him, which was he wanted to double his money. So this was 1929. He went to the, he went to the stock market, put all of his money in this one stock or whatever. And the stock market crash, he lost all of his money. Oh, my God. Awesome. So that didn't deter him. He still made the move to Hollywood, telling how raised some money, uh, which I think, which I think was mafia money, but we'll get into that later. Right. He's very enterprising. Yeah. I mean, I just, on my days, when I'm feeling quam, I remind myself that this guy lived out

22:43of a suitcase. Yep. And whenever he was wiped out, he would say tomorrow is another day. So that's, that's an old expression. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, let's, let's go. Yeah. Another go. And this is a guy who did a lot of stupid stuff. I mean, he, uh, was a chronic gambler and blew millions, but we'll get into that in second, but anyhow. So he starts the first trade paper in Hollywood, 1930. And the first thing he does is in very Donald Trump fashion, he goes after all the studio heads who rejected him. Oh, he writes, he writes a daily column called trade views. Right. Right. I mean, the paper would have survived without that column, quite honestly. But that was his mouthpiece, I mean, like a pit bull. He went after 20th century Fox, MGM, no kid is guys like Louis being air and Jack Warner and stuff like that. All these guys, we was very loyal to it one time. And, um, he's mad and, and wouldn't you give him this distribution right for his movie

23:46story because they didn't want the competition. The time for revenge. Yep. And so that's what was called the Hollywood studio wars. David against Goliath, it was my father, who was this unknown, who drifted into town now straight out of a Western and wanted to take on all of these 800 pound gorillas. It's a great story. I mean, it's it would be like us trying to take on, I don't know, Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or whatever. It's not wild. You're right. And, um, so he really carved out a bumpy road for him for years. There was this rocky situation where when moment, they would, uh, fund him with advertising support. Uh, the next moment, he would, uh, there would be a bad review in the reporter of one of their films and they would cut off advertising support. I mean, it was on, off, on, off, I mean, continually. And, um, so while this was going on, and this is enough of a battle, I mean, this, this

24:47would keep me occupied, uh, if I did it, but he and his wife who helped him, uh, who was helping him with the reporter, she was one of the columnists, so she wrote a lot of the content. They were from New York and they really missed good food. And at that time in Hollywood, I, they were like diners and, I mean, five dollars on the level of East Coast eating really just didn't exist. No, gotcha. And so he and his wife, Edith, got together and said, look, we're going to start some kind of East Coast deli here and what my father did, which I thought was very clever. Or is that he got the franchise for Fortenham and Masons and London was the first one in the United States. Yeah. Wow. So, and so every time from Fortenham, Masons, uh, came to the, the, the places called the Vondom, Vondom 1 in spirits company. Right. Um, and so it was supplied by Fortenham and Masons, which for, for all the British X-pats

25:47immediately from Charlie Chaplin to all of these people, I mean, they thought, they died and went to heaven. It is time to migrate. Yeah. So, well, I mean, they were living in Hollywood at that time, but they just didn't have access to Fortenham and Masons unless they, they couldn't fly to, to London, they would have to take a, uh, a boat. Right. Yeah. I went to a notion liner. Yeah. Exactly. So, we may have thought that was an incredible marketing tool. And then the next year, he opened up probably his most successful restaurant called Cafe Chocolate Arrow. Oh. And that was the first, what he wanted to do is he wanted to, he wanted to be the first one in Hollywood to sell legal boosts. It was a prohibition, and prohibition was going to be repealed very soon he heard. So on, on, on that information, he went to Europe, he bought all these fines, wines, and campaigns. I mean, in tens of thousands of dollars worth. Amazing. And they were shipped to California, but they couldn't be unloaded because it was illegal.

26:51So the boat had to more five miles off the California coast. He run it in. All right, until, until now, I'm sure there was a mafia connection to it. So once prohibition was repealed, all the fantastic booze from Europe came to the cafe, Truckadero, and really put that on the map. No, kidding. How surprising, really? He was very, very clever with that. He knew his clientele. He knew he was in touch with their snobbery. That's a good statement. Yeah, there you go. Well, and I, I, I think you got to know your audience and he knew his. Yes. And by the way, this was during the Great Depression. He charged the highest restaurant prices in the United States during the Great Depression. And it made him a millionaire. Yeah, I mean, whatever. I mean, you look at the menu now when a steak was like $1.75, but we have to factor in inflation and stuff like that. And today, that steak would probably be a Gordon Ramsay prices, for instance.

27:56Of course. Yeah. You know, seven, seven year 80 bucks. Uh-huh. And then you, then you add in the alcohol and stuff like that. But the cafe truckadero was always booked. People, people told me when I interviewed them, that the only way to get into the truck where you had to book weeks in advance. No weeks. Now, but so go ahead. No, no, you say what you want to say. I know I would like you to also talk about, you know, just like, like, line of turner and some of the actresses that would come in. And so, so basically, the more powerfully became with the reporter, uh, it gave him the more credibility. This is when he became the godfather of Hollywood. Okay. And so we have to understand that during the time that he was operating in a Hollywood the studios owned their talent. All right. Once you were under contract to a studio, yeah, they basically owned you. Yeah. Yeah.

28:56Yeah. From from all of these great stars from Clark Gable to, you know, Lana Turner to, I mean, Mickey Rooney or wherever, if they had a grievance, there was no place for them to go. When my father came along, the more power that he gained, more and more of these movie stars would show up at his office and say, Billy, I got a problem with the studio or with this. All right. Can you fix that? Straight out of the godfather. Yeah. Of course. He would say, you would say, don't worry about it. I'll take care of it. There's a very famous story where, um, Jimmy Cagney, who was a real hell, hell razor apparently. And he was fired by the studios and he came to my father in tears. My father's secretary at the time was a member of the George Kennedy who saw and heard everything because his offices were just right across the hallway from my dad. And my dad always left the door open, so he needed a shot at George to help him with something and blah, blah, blah. And Cagney shows up and literally, this is what George told me, got down on his hands

30:01and knees and sobbed into my father's pants, handcuffs, and said, uh, I've really screwed myself this time. I need your help. And my dad said, you go back to the studios, you be a good boy. I'll take care of it. Wow. And he did. I think he was with warners. I think of the time I might have to go back and look, but he made the call to the studio ahead and say, listen, you have my word, Cagney is going to behave himself. Just let him back him and then from then on, everything was fine. So that's some sort of a microcosmic example of the amount of power that my father had. Now he discovered movie stars, the first movie star he discovered was Clark Gable. No kidding. Yeah. Um, my, my father was really on the out to Louis B. Mayor who ran MGM, right? This is in the book Hollywood Godfather. I'm kind of shortening the story as much as possible, but Louis B. Mayor could see that just by banning my dad and the reporter that he wasn't going to get rid of my dad.

31:05He offered my dad some enormous amount of money that I think was like $200,000 to pack his bag and go back to New York. I'm not kidding. Yeah. I mean, it was just, it was, it was at the level of bribery. I mean, it was just, and my father and my father made a bet with Louis B. Mayor. He said, I think it's easy for you. So we're going to plan to fake story in the reporter that only you and I know about. Uh oh. Uh, if, if I don't bring you more than 500 press clippings because the, the, the reporter items are picked up all over the country by the newspapers, then I promise you I'll pack my bags and I'll go back to New York. They shook hands on it. And then Louis B. Mayor says, well, we want to write about it. He says, well, if you've got somebody that's up and coming, you want to discover, and he said, well, I've got at least on Louis B. Mayor's desk, apparently, we're all of these glossy 8x10s in my, why bet and, and, and, and, and, and my dad leaves through him and he said, well, what about this guy?

32:07And he's, and Louis, the mayor says, uh, this guy's never going to happen. His ears are too funny. Oh God. Whatever. Oh, jeez. And, and my dad said, well, we'll, we'll, we'll write about him. I'll write about him and we'll see what happens. So what's the guy's name? Clark Gable. Okay, fine. And the column still exists. In the corner of my book, my dad wrote this fake piece about how, uh, uh, Clark Gable was the sensation of the decade. Uh, he's box office blah, blah, blah. I love it. So Hollywood. Yeah. Very, very Hollywood. And, and so we have to understand that the bet was predicated on the fact that my father had to deliver these press clippings, which this is in the day before Photoshop or whatever. I mean, you couldn't fake these things. Yeah. Exactly. A couple of weeks went by and my dad returned to the cardboard box to Lee B. Mayor's office 5,000 on Lee B. Mayor's desk that was picked up from that one piece. Really?

33:08Why? It wasn't 500. It was 5,000. That's, that's really out there. Unbelievable. I mean, the amount of people, amount of outlets all over the United States that picked up items from the reporter was just unbelievable. Uh-huh. At that point, Lee B. Mayor had to become a convert. He had to become a believer. It was, it was, it was that, I mean, he was the evidence. Yes. Yes. And so, and so from that point on, Lee B. Mayor took out yearly advertising, contract, um, but um, he discovered other movie stars as well. One of them was Lana Turner. Now, the story behind that is that right on the corner, the county corner of uh, sunset in Highland where, where Hollywood High is still today. Yes. Um, was an ice cream parlor called Curie's ice cream parlor, which the high school girls used to go and congregate. I mean, as we all used to back in our day, we had our place that we went to. You and I went to the black cat and street princess.

34:09You know, I mean, there was, there was always a place that we thought we couldn't go to pubs. I thought that was classified information, though, just kidding. Yeah, whatever. Whatever. And uh, uh, my dad used to go, he used to take a break from the office, walked down to the corner to Curie's ice cream parlor, order a coke and sit there and look at jail bait. Now, I'm embarrassed to mention this, but I mean, it's, it's, um, it's true. He along with Errol Flynn and a bunch of others, uh, they knew where all these high school hangouts were and they, they would just go and look. Uh-huh. This is a story goes one day he's in there and there's a group of teenage girls and one of them really stood out. He knew the proprietor, the guy behind the counter and he calls this guy over and he says, I, can you make an introduction with this young lady I'd like to meet her? And he said, sure, Billy, no problem. And so he goes to, her name was Judy Turner and the proprietor says, uh, that's Billy

35:10Wilkerson. He, he owns all of the reporters, a very powerful man and he would like to meet you and Judy was very suspicious and this is what she told me. She said, I mean, what for because she can imagine what she was thinking. Yeah, exactly. And the guy had to reassure and he said, look, he's only up and up. He's a very powerful guy. He just wants to meet you. So there was the, the, an introduction was made and my dad pulled out his business card and this is verified by Lana Turnie, pulled out his business card and he said, how would you like to be in pictures? Here's my card. Oh, wow. That's amazing. Right. She repeated this exact same story. So I know it's coming from the horse's mouth. And a couple of days later, she and her mom, Mildred, we're in my dad's office and my dad wrote a letter to Agent Zepo Marks, one of the Marks brothers who was a big time agent. We don't know what the contents of the letter is, unfortunately, but basically it was, you'd be fooling not to represent this young lady. She's going to be a star blah, blah, blah.

36:10And the rest of the story, whatever the letter, Zepo Marks signed her and she became a movie star. It's just, it's just, I love hearing stories like this and I think also, you know, most people are pretty interested in the machinations of Hollywood, but also, you know, your father was there, like the genesis, really. And so it's so remarkable how he carved out this life for himself and then when he has a setback, he just, he just takes a different road and just goes about it the other way. You know, it's really remarkable. So let's talk about, I mean, so you had the nightclubs, he had, he had other nightclubs too, like was. Oh my God. He had a whole, look, so let me see if I can name them, Vondom, Cafe Trockadero. There was a habidashary that he owned called Sunset House. He started the flamingo hotel in Las Vegas. There was Legalon, there was Club LaRue in Vegas. I think I've named them all. Well, it may. Yeah, I mean, it's one after another and they were all successful in one way or another.

37:15Some were so successful that they went bankrupt. That's a whole different story in and of themselves. But one of the things that always, always bothered me because it didn't make sense. So this man is successful as he was, was a chronic gambler. And I was lucky enough to find some of his racetrack checks from 1944, 1945. Oh my God. And his casino checks, I mean, these checks would, during that time would go up to like $27,000 a session. Wow. I mean, it was just the amounts, the amounts today are staggering. But back then, we have to understand that the medium income was like $1,700 a year. Oh, yes. Of course, of course. So this was a guy who would go to the races every day and blow $500 on a race. It was just a staggering amount of money. So my question is this, how did this guy who had this gambling problem was able to fund these glamour policies, these wonderful glamorous nightclubs and restaurants and whatever.

38:19Because I, and I put this in my book is that this is a man who would take the payroll from the reporter on Fridays and go gamble it at the racetrack, lose it, and have to come back, tell his employees, sorry, I can't tell you today, all right? Yeah. So, so with this scenario, how does this guy come up, the thousands to build these restaurants and nightclubs? And the only thing that makes sense is, is that starting from the prohibition era where he ran and owned Speekies is in New York. And for Jimmy Walker, it was the mayor of New York at the time. In order to get the best booze, he had to go to the, to the mafia because they had with the best booze, he didn't want bathtub gin. He was starting his Speekies, he's where some of the most glamorous ever. Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He had to pay a membership fee because the quality of the booze was, I mean, straight from Europe, nothing was tampered or adulterated or anything.

39:20Right. So, he had two sources where he got his booze. Number one was the mob, people like Bugsy Siegel and Myrlandsky and then the other source it was, was Joe Kennedy, uh, who was the booze manager. Yeah, my mother used to say that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, he got a lot of his booze from Joe Kennedy as well. So, we can put him in the same category as a mobster. I know, there you go. The truth is the truth, right? Well, the thing is that they were all fishing from the same well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good way of putting it. Which was prohibition booze, so, so I could change, yeah, so it's birds of the feather as far as I'm concerned. But now, Chili, we have about 10 minutes left and I would like you to tell listeners a little bit more about the flamingo and when the party started to move to Vegas and those kind of things that were going on. So, my dad was losing a tremendous amount of money gambling to show you how terrible

40:23his gambling habit was. He would hire a private plane. This was before executive jets or anything like that. Of course, but he, but he would hire a private plane from Los Angeles, I think it was called Los Angeles Municipal Airport, it's not LAXs, we know it today. And he would board this plane. He would fly to Vegas. And he would spend an afternoon, maybe even two or three hours, winning or losing money, mostly losing. And then the plane was standing by and it would fly him back to LA. Well, there was, there was the warriors of 44, 45, he was really taking a pounding to the degree where he couldn't pay for basics for his, for the reporter, for ink or paper or whatever. The money just wasn't there. And so, he was having dinner with one of the few movie models who really liked my dad.

41:25I got him with Joseph Skank, who is the chairman of 20th Century Fox Pictures. Wow. Skank really loved it. Yes. Skank really took a liking to my dad. Now, Skank himself was a big time gambler, huge, but he had the money to back it up. My dad was part of his, his poker games where the movie moguls used to get together and have these high-stake no-limit games, poker games, where they would be betting with like $5,000 chips and my father would be placed on a, on a weekly basis from these games. One or two of them were cheaters, like Samuel Goleman was a cheater. Had my father found that out, my father used to carry a gun. I think he would have finished Samuel Goleman, but anyhow, that's a different story. Yeah, I'm getting a real visual on that. Yeah. So, anyhow. He and Joseph Skank are, my dad is over at Joseph Skank's house having a quite dinner together. And my dad is confiding in Joseph Skank.

42:26He said, look, he does know if he can go on. This gambling addiction is completely taking a toll on him. And Joseph Skank gave him a piece of advice, which was absolutely golden. He told my dad, look, if you're going to gamble on the Kasa, because that way if you gamble and lose, the house is going to win, because gambling addiction really is based on the activity itself. Uh-huh. Okay. I mean, it's just like this. He was in the adrenaline junk. So, the theory being is that if he started his own casino and lost, the money would just be recycled. It would, the casino would lose if he won. I win, win. I, whatever I do, I win, win, right? Yeah, exactly. And so, he took the Skank's advice to heart. And that's when he started to put together this idea for the flamingo. Now, he wasn't sure about the idea because it's in the middle of a desert. I mean, let's face facts here. Okay.

43:26I mean, initially he thought about doing an operation in Cuba where you have those warm Caribbean breezes and stuff like that. You're near the ocean. That's very picturesque. There's a lot for the tourists to do. So, the idea of plunking this casino and hotel in the middle of a desert, and by the way, some already existed. They were more like motels. Yes. The natural. Okay. And casinos are existed already downtown in the recallsados joints. So he, that's what he decided to do. He got his architect and builders together. He came up with a budget and he started to build. And it was after the war, this was 1945-1946, building materials were scarce. So he's paying through the nose, through these materials, what he could get. And then he started to gamble thinking, well, I will just get more money from the casino to buy more building materials.

44:28And that was a disaster because basically, the short story of this is that he gamble practically all of his construction money to the point where he had to pay off all the builders and stuff like that, the workers. And so the skeleton of the flamingo just sat in this desert like the skeleton of some giant fish or whale or whatever it was. Today, he's doing an inventory of the site because he's thinking of selling it to somebody else. He already purchased the land and everything was here. And he's doing an on-site survey with his builder, Bud Rollsden. Okay. And out of nowhere, this car drives up and this very tap or businessman dressed in the suit. Uh-oh. You can imagine, you know, in the very, in the very, yeah, yeah, yeah. This guy introduced himself as G. Harry Rothberg. He was a businessman who represented the syndicative investors who wanted to invest in his project

45:33his idea. Cut a long story short. This is in my, my book, The Man in the Loss, I guess, which tells this story by itself. Rothberg offers my dad a million dollars to finish off the project. My dad would be a third owner in the enterprise. He would own the land. Those are really sweet dirt deals for my dad. Yes, it sounds good. And you know, and he would be the, um, the operator he would call all the shots. So he signed the contract, got the million dollars, building like crazy, the supplies, trucks are coming with supplies. And then one day, another car drives up with three characters, most said way, Gus Green Bomb and Bugsy Seagull and they introduce themselves as their, as my dad's new partners. Well, he knew all of them. He knew all of them. That is so why give me such a visual. That's amazing. He had done business with Greenberg and most said way before so he knew them. He knew of Bugsy Seagull because Seagull was active in the Hollywood.

46:36He was quite the ladies man and he was a social butterfly. Well, what's he handsome like Warren Beatty? Yeah. Well, he was, if you look at photos of me, he was a very handsome guy at one point. He had designs on becoming a man, a idol like his, like his friend George Raff. So he had eight by ten glosses made of himself, a screen test, apparently nobody knows where the screen test is, but, but, but the fact is, is that once he showed up, once these guys showed up at the site and introduced themselves to my dad, my dad knew that he was toast. Uh-oh. Because even though the contract said that he was in charge of the operation and was going to make it successful, he now knew what he was dealing with and they were not going to leave him alone and it's exactly what happened. That's cool. It got to the point, threatened my dad's life. He said, if you don't, if you don't get out of this project, I'm going to kill you.

47:37It's as simple as that. And that's when my dad took the hint and he hid out and in Paris for months until he knew that Bugsie Segal was going to get killed and then once Bugsie Segal was killed, he came back to the States again. What year was that about, Chile? That was 1947 when Segal was killed. They became partners in 46 and then it was downhill from there because Segal wasn't going to let my dad control anything. Segal was the one who wanted to call all the shots and he just didn't have the experience. My dad had the minus touch and I think the syndicate, the syndicate that he partnered with, which was headed by Mara Lansky, the smart cookies in that syndicate knew that my dad would create a success by which they would all benefit by. Uh-huh. That's Cannon was Segal who wasn't taking orders from anybody.

48:37Yeah. He wanted to be the guy to get all the credit. I mean, that was his ego. And you find that in every circumstance is that every time there's something good going that might be maybe slightly illegal or something like that and everybody's making a lot of money. There's always somebody who is discontented, who brings down the entire operation. Right. Jealous and yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. If Segal had allowed, my dad to do his job, Segal would have been a multi-millionaire. He'd still would be alive. Um, everybody would have benefited. I mean, it's as simple as that. Yeah. So, so that's one of the things, uh, about the mafia that my dad was involved with, that even though they were gifted at finding booze for him, at taking care of certain things for him, there was always one in the group who was going to cause problems.

49:38Yeah. And everybody's really strong-willed and, yeah. Absolutely. And nobody knew what to do. I mean, I'm sure Marlansky and Bugsie Segal were childhood friends, just like you and I were. Okay. Right back. And I'm sure Marlansky went to, you know, went to Ben Segal and said, hey, look, you got to cut it out. Let this guy Billy Wilkerson do his thing because he's going to make us a fortune. And I just think that Segal was just too high on power. I mean, it just, once you got a taste of certain things, though, there was just no keeping them back. Yeah. Power is heavy stuff. It doesn't matter what industry. Absolutely. Absolutely. Power is heavy stuff. So listen, before we wrap right now, I would like to give a shout out to a musician Ross Staley and his beautiful wife Kelly who I've met because, you know, I've been to the house twice in Crete. Yeah. And we love him. We miss him. And I want Ross on my show, too, which would be good, you know.

50:39You have to. You also have to get Stuart Copeland to the musk. I wish. I actually have his email address up. And, you know, and I became friends with his brother. I don't think you know that story. Maybe I told you about it. I went to a pre Grammy party like years ago, like like 20 years ago. And I didn't know anybody, but it was really cool that that invite came from a man from a New York who very heavy into, you know, the Emmys, stuff like that. And sorry, the Grammys. And he had been over in Milan and walked into my friend's store on that. I can't even remember, uh, Vila, I want to, anyway, it's like at the rodeo drive of Milan. And, uh, my friend Kevin McDonald, uh, scabbing, you know, like helped him shop for whatever he's gonna wear. And he said, I'm going to the Grammys and then Kevin started saying, well, my friend Tanya lives in LA. So, uh, he, I got an invite. I got two invites to go.

51:40And it was really cool. We're in Beverly Hills. There were two houses side by side. It was February. It was cold. But, you know, they have orchids in the pools and they're making leechy martinis. And I, and I just said, well, I got to ask somebody how I can find Stewart Copeland. So I, I'm looking around and I just, I don't know anybody, chili, you know, and I said, let me ask this guy. That's this guy. Sorry. Sorry. My name is Tanya and I went to school with Stewart Copeland. Would you have any idea how I could get in touch with him? He said, well, his brother Ian owns a, as a popular restaurant called Backstage Cafe in Beverly Hills. Two days later, I went to, I went to Backstage Cafe, walked in, sat at the bar by myself. And I ordered the chili. That's all I had in a drink, you know, Ian comes out from behind the bar, puts his arm around my shoulder. He doesn't know me from Jack. And he said, look, we got the best chili in town. If you don't like it, I'll give you a full refund. And I looked up at him and I said, I went to school with Stewart at Millfield. And from that moment, we were friends. Wow.

52:41And Ian was tremendous because he had a Grammy week. You couldn't believe anybody would come in. It was amazing. It was just a fabulous, fabulous restaurant. But yeah, he's, he, he passed in, I think 2006, so he was a super, super guy. Yeah, so yes, I would love to have Stewart on the show. And again, a happy shout out to Ross, everybody in Crete Knows Ross, because I was there on a layover on business about five years ago, and I asked, just for fun, I was with my colleagues and I said to the front desk people, the reception people, I said, if you heard of Ross daily, they started singing one of his popular songs and I'm like, see, I said to my colleagues, I said, there's the proof, you know what I mean. But also before we go, I'd like to remind listeners that you, you're the author of Hollywood Godfather, The Life in Crimes of Billy Wilkerson by W.R. Wilkerson III.

53:42And thank you, Chili, for being here today. This has been really fun. I'll have to invite you back, because we, we, we haven't uncovered enough yet, I think. So listen, have me back and then just think of stuff that you want me to go into detail about and I'll be glad to do it. It's always fun to talk. Absolutely, right. Okay. Thanks a lot. Thanks a million. Love you, miss you. We'll be interested. Love you, miss you, too, sweetie. Take care. Bye. You've been listening to the global gratitude show with Tongue Anderson, here on The Brushwood Media Network. Every week, Tongue brings stories that remind us. Tongue is a universal language, one that transcends borders, upless hearts, and inspires us to give back. If today's conversation touched your heart, share the gift of gratitude. Pass this episode along to someone you love and help the ripple of kindness grow. Join us next time for more voices of compassion, joy and hope, celebrating the goodness that unites us all. Until then, remember, be kind, stay grateful, and keep sharing the love.