Louie, Take a Look at This!

by Luis Fuerte

  And the day wasn’t over yet. When we arrived at our hotel, the greatly hospitable Georgians (who had set up the 2 a.m. party in our honor) were waiting for us with another gathering and dinner. As tired as we were, how could we refuse? The banquet hall was filled with endless food, drink, and good cheer. We learned that the Georgians had made a considerable effort to cobble together the food for our dinner—they wanted to show us kindness and friendship even though they had so little to share.

  The air in the room grew hazy and reeked of the cigarettes everyone seemed to be smoking. We were anxious to leave, and, after some time, Dr. Blair took us all back to the airport. We were accompanied by some of the people who’d initially greeted us upon our arrival at the airport, so it was a grand send-off. We said our goodbyes to Dr. Blair and the Georgians and plopped back into our seats. It was after seven in the evening, and after just one day in Georgia, we were headed home.

  The engines started up, and the pilots requested to taxi to the takeoff point. But the takeoff didn’t happen—the airplane stayed in its spot on the tarmac. After a short while, the pilots disembarked and walked over to Dr. Blair. They told her that the air traffic controller, who had identified himself as a private in the army, was refusing to let the airplane take off.

  I couldn’t believe our run of bad luck. All our trouble with the delays in getting there, and then the shoot, and now this? But Dr. Blair, who’d worked with and around these kinds of situations during her time in Georgia, gathered Harry, Hayden, and our pilots and marched right up and into the tower. There, according to Harry, they found not only the army private, but two Russian women who told the group that even though the Russians no longer ruled Georgia, they still commanded the airport—and the airplane was not taking off.

  Dr. Blair demanded that the airplane be allowed to leave, but the three refused. So she got on the phone and called the minister of health, getting him out of bed, and explained the situation. She handed the phone to the private.

  “You will let the plane go,” the minister said.

  The private, not believing the voice on the other end of the phone really was that of the minister of health, argued. “Anyway, you are not my boss,” he finally said, handing the phone back.

  But to his surprise, after some time, the actual minister of health showed up in the tower and chewed out the young man, ordering him to let the airplane take off. But the private and his muscle of Russian women stuck to their guns. They controlled the airport, and there would be no takeoff. The frustrated minister left. Just after he departed, the Russians said there might be a way of solving the problem. If the Americans could come up with $10,000 for a landing fee, they’d let the plane leave. In this poor economy, three entrepreneurs had found a way to get rich quick.

  No one had that much money, so they called the State Department and explained that the Russians were demanding $10,000 in cash. The State Department folks said they’d look into it and would call back. With the Russians content to wait, Harry, Hayden, Dr. Blair, and the pilots returned to the tarmac.

  The pilots, all former military-aircraft jockeys, separated themselves and talked earnestly over a map. One of them showed the others something on the map, and they nodded their heads in agreement. They walked over to Harry and Hayden and showed them the map.

  “Here’s the drill,” one of the pilots said. “The Russians took their fighter aircraft back to Russia, so they don’t have any planes in the area.” He ran his finger across the map to Russia. “We know it will take at least forty minutes for them to scramble the jets out here. Turkey’s airspace is only twenty or thirty minutes away,” he said, pointing to Turkey. He looked up at Harry and Hayden. “What we’re going to do is take off and get into Turkish airspace before the Russians can get their fighter jets here.”

  He presented the idea as a declaration, but his eyes asked if they agreed with his daring plan. They said they liked the idea, seeing that the timeline could work, with the only alternative being sitting on the tarmac for who knows how long, perhaps even creating an international incident. Now they had to come up with a story about the money that the Russians would believe.

  They devised a story that the State Department had agreed to pay the $10,000 and were on their way to the airport with the cash. They radioed the tower with the fake news, telling the Russians that the money was in a car just outside the airport. And since the cash would arrive at the tower shortly, the pilots asked if they could taxi the 727 to the end of the runway, so they could take off after the money was in the Russians’ hands. In their excitement over their impending riches, the Russians agreed.

  The pilot taxied to the runway, waited a few seconds, then pushed the throttle forward. The old plane shuddered as its engines spooled up and began rolling the old jet down the runway, gaining speed. The trio in the tower saw what was happening and got on the radio, shouting and cursing at the pilots, demanding that they stop. But the 727 passed the tower, lifted into the air, and got into Turkey’s airspace before Russian jets could get to the airplane. What an experience!

  All of this happened without Huell and me knowing the full story. My hat is off to Harry, Hayden, and the pilots for coming up with their daring plan to get us safely home.

  We flew back on the same route, only in reverse. The trip seemed to take even longer this time, perhaps because I was so anxious to get home, and now that I was aware of the many stops the plane would be making, I counted them off one by one.

  The best part of the trip home was that I got to sit in the cockpit with the pilots. From time to time they’d leave the cockpit and pop into the main cabin for breaks and snacks, so I struck up conversations with them. In the cockpit, I chatted with the pilots and even flew the plane—no, not really, but the experience was fun, and it kept my mind off the fact that I was more tired than I’d ever been in my life.

  A mere two days after the beginning of our journey to Tbilisi, we landed in Florida in the good old US of A. I tell you, it felt great to be back on American soil. After dropping off Mr. McElroy, whom we had picked up in Dallas, we flew straight to Burbank Airport, where we said goodbye to Harry. Huell and I had traveled halfway around the world to spend a single day on the ground—and for all that trouble, we didn’t have anything useful in the can to make a show.

  Yet we knew we had gained something valuable. If the idea of the show hadn’t fallen apart, we wouldn’t have ventured into Tbilisi’s marketplaces, and we would have come back to America unaware of the terrible economic toll the collapse of the Soviet Union had taken on the Georgian people. It was a tragedy we had witnessed and captured firsthand, one that few Americans knew about at that time.

  HUELL IN CONTROL

  California’s Gold was Huell’s baby all the way. He developed the idea, got Wells Fargo to sponsor it, and had all the California PBS stations guarantee they’d run the series before they even saw it. Given my camera work on the Videolog “Elephant Man” show, he knew he could trust me to capture his vision for California’s Gold.

  Many ideas for the show came from Huell’s meetings with his production staff and from audience feedback. Fans from all over California would suggest places and events to visit—usually a fair, festival, or historical celebration. Sometimes, he just wanted to go out, explore, and film something that captivated him. As owner and host of California’s Gold, he had the final say on what we shot.

  All the equipment I used belonged to Huell, down to the batteries in my camera gear. I’d go out shopping with him and he’d tell me to buy whatever gear I needed, never balking at the price. After all, it wasn’t like we were shooting brain surgery—we made the most of what we had, and not even the most expensive gear in the world could have rivaled our teamwork and passion for the shows we created.

  Huell was also very involved in the editing process. In the show files are pages upon pages of handwritten notes describing cuts, segues, where the music comes in and goes out, his narration, and various scene lengths down to the milli
second. In some files, Huell’s editing notes are just about all that’s there. Outside of my involvement as an engineer, only a couple of trusted editors were allowed to have creative input.

  As you know, my job was to be behind the camera, and I never had the slightest interest in being in front of it. But Huell did manage to get a shot of me in one show. We were doing a show in San Pedro on master divers, the guys who go down deep in diving bells. The plan was for him to go down in a bell and for me to shoot the bell as it popped to the surface. The hatch would open, revealing Huell after his adventure down below.

  He went down in the bell, and when it came back up, the hatch opened and out popped Huell, grinning while taking a picture of me with a small camera he had concealed. He thought it was funny, taking a picture of me taking a picture of him, and he edited that into the show. That was my first and last television cameo.

  Although viewers never knew my face, Huell was always generous when it came to recognizing my contributions to California’s Gold. He referred to us as a team, telling viewers that I was responsible for the look of the show. As a matter of fact, he once said to me, “You know, Louie, people come up to me all the time and ask me about you, wanting to know who you are. I hear it everywhere I go.”

  I was tickled, and asked, “What do you tell them?”

  He laughed and said, “I point to someone random and say, ‘That guy is Louie,’ and they go over and talk to him.”

  But Huell was human like all of us, and a couple of times, he let his ego get in the way. A few times when I was with him, we’d see fans coming over, and of course he’d expect them to gather around and gush over him. They gushed over him all right—but when they saw me with my camera, they’d ask if I was Louie, and sometimes they’d leave him to gather around me instead, shaking my hand and telling me they always wanted to know who that guy Louie was that Huell talked to. He wasn’t always happy about losing the attention of fans.

  One time when we were together, Huell was approached by a few fans—but when someone saw me and told the others who I was, they left him to talk with me. When they went back to Huell and told him they’d finally gotten to meet Louie, he stared at me, not pleased. I threw my arms up and shrugged my shoulders. “Don’t look at me like that, Huell,” I said. “You created this monster.” It took him a bit of time to get over it, but he did. He always did.

  In all the years we were together, Huell never submitted a California’s Gold show for an Emmy award. Because I thought we had shot some outstanding shows that were worthy of Emmy consideration, I once asked him why he never considered submission. He carefully considered his response, and then said, “Louie, I’m afraid to lose, that’s why.”

  I don’t think his fear was due to a lack of confidence in the programs. He identified a lot with California’s Gold—it was a reflection of his vision, his creativity, himself. If the show lost to any program he thought of as lesser, I firmly believe that he would have considered himself a loser.

  But there was one thing he did for me that led to recognition for California’s Gold. Impressed with my work on the episode, he suggested that I submit the “Golden Gate Bridge” shoot for an award from the Press Photographers Association of Greater Los Angeles. I submitted the show—and it won! It felt great to win an award for shooting a California’s Gold show, and I was grateful to Huell for encouraging me to submit it.

  To this day, I wish he had submitted California’s Gold for Emmy consideration. I think we would have swept the field year after year. But, as I said, Huell was in control—and he always had the final say.

  Enjoying menudo with Louie’s mother, Josephina Fuerte.

  BEYOND CALIFORNIA’S GOLD

  Huell never stopped thinking. He came up with new show ideas constantly, and many of them were outstanding. One of his most successful was 1993’s Visiting with Huell Howser, which we called Visiting for short. It began its nineteen-year run about two years after he’d created California’s Gold. Visiting was a KCET production, which meant the station owned the show but Huell had creative control, and I did all the shooting.

  Whereas the backbone of California’s Gold was the beauty and history of the state and its people, Visiting told more personal stories. It centered on the diverse communities in Southern California, with many of the shows featuring the comings and goings of regular people. Since most episodes took place in and around Los Angeles, we could usually complete a shoot in a single day.

  Huell’s big appetite and love of food led us to shoot quite a few shows at restaurants. One show told the story of menudo, the Mexican tripe soup rumored to possess curative powers for hangovers. The first part of that episode was shot at Juanita’s Foods, the largest maker of canned menudo in the country. The second part was shot at a Mexican restaurant that I liked in Colton, a small town next to San Bernardino. I told my mother that we were going to shoot there, and she got so excited she asked if she could come along, promising that she’d just sit and watch to see what I do.

  I said, “Mom, after all this time, you don’t know what I do?”

  She said, “I know, I know, but I have never seen you do it!”

  Well, she arrived at the restaurant all dressed up and looking so nice that Huell decided to interview her for the program. He sat next to her at a table with a big bowl in front of him as she explained all of menudo’s subtleties. Filming Huell’s first taste of the mythical Mexican soup was great fun, and I’ll never forget his thoughtfulness toward my mother that day. It was such a thrill for her.

  Huell was continually creating new shows for KCET. He and his staff were champs at uncovering interesting subjects all over California, and viewers loved the shows. In addition to Visiting and California’s Gold, Huell developed California’s Golden Parks and several one-hour specials, including a tour of Frank Sinatra’s Palm Springs home. During our time together, we shot hundreds of shows, traveling everywhere from Death Valley and the Sierra Nevada to San Diego and San Francisco.

  Huell also created shows that he personally shot without me as his cameraman. One of them was a series called Hot Summer Nights. From the early evening to around 2 a.m., he took a small handheld camera out into the streets of Los Angeles to capture the feel of the city at night. He met people everywhere he went and interviewed them; these were people who probably would never have been on TV if it weren’t for Huell. It said a lot about his belief that everyone has a story to tell.

  Of course, not all of Huell’s program ideas worked out. One of them was called The Bench. The idea behind it was to go to a park, sit on a bench—Huell with his microphone and me with my camera—and just wait for someone to walk by. He would approach the person in an attempt to get some interesting dialogue going, such as why he or she was in the park that day—anything to flesh out a good personal story.

  Huell knew he was good at interviewing, and maybe he thought that was enough to get complete strangers to open up to him with compelling, watchable stories for no good reason. On our first shoot of The Bench, we videotaped people who came up to us, perhaps out of curiosity about the two friendly-looking guys just sitting there with a mic and camera. That turned out so-so. The second time out, we were at a big park, with no bench in sight. We set up anyway and waited for someone to come by, but after a while Huell just walked right up to a man and began talking to him.

  “Why are you in the park in the middle of the day?” Huell asked. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

  Apparently, the questions didn’t sit well with the man, but Huell got some kind of interview on tape with him. After the shoot, I asked, “Huell, the name of the program is The Bench. Where’s the bench?”

  He just laughed. “Louie,” he said good-naturedly, “I don’t know if this bench thing is going to work.”

  Although those two episodes of The Bench went on the air, we didn’t shoot many more. With neither theme nor structure, the show was completely dependent on the hope that random people walking through a park would have inter
esting stories to share. As it turned out, all the interviewing talent in the world couldn’t turn every stranger into a confidant—with or without a bench.

  HUELL BEHIND THE SCENES

  A lot of people didn’t know that Huell was afraid of heights—but he showed it on only a few shoots. If you listen carefully during shows that involve heights, you’ll hear him groping for words and frequently saying that he is “way up there.”

  One such shoot was at the Marine Corps Air Station in Santa Ana, famous for its huge wooden blimp hangars built back in 1942. We were in awe of the huge size of the buildings! Huell came up with the idea of filming the hangars up in the roof trusses so viewers could get a better idea of their enormous size. We slowly climbed hundreds of feet up a steep, knee-aching stairway, only to discover that the only way to get around on the trusses was by walking over narrow wooden catwalks that led from one to the next.

  Our guide took off through the trusses, and Huell began walking behind him, holding onto the rail with a death grip. The guide walked the narrow catwalks as easily as if he were on a sidewalk. Huell, on the other hand, was nervous—and I could hear it.

  As he was making his way along the aerial walkway, Huell said, “I assume it’s sturdy, ’cause I gotta tell you, it’s a little strange right now.” He followed that with, “This is the original wood, and I assume it’s sturdy?”

  Our guide assured Huell again and again that the catwalk was safe, but by the sound of his voice, I don’t think Huell believed him.

  I have a fear of heights, too, but staying focused on the act of filming saved me from worrying about slipping and falling to the concrete floor far below. Shooting Huell and the hangar left no time for distractions—but poor Huell had to do the walk-and-talk to give his viewers perspective on the hangar’s immense size. I tell you, it was a relief for both of us to be back on the ground.

  Another show that revealed his uneasiness with heights is the Visiting story we did on the then-tallest building in Los Angeles. We were up seventy-three stories, interviewing the window washers who had the task of cleaning the building’s thousands of windows from top to bottom. A narrow ramp connected the main building to a window-cleaning platform that telescoped outward, leaving a space between the scaffold and the building. Looking down from the walkway, you could see tiny people on the sidewalk far, far below.