But Frank, who is more resourceful than a starving fox, came up with the solution. Adman Reg Spurr, a friend of Frank’s, was planning a small social gathering at his home the next day. And what a day it would be!
That night the prince rested, for tomorrow he would prince!
The following afternoon we whooshed up to Spurr’s rambling, stucco home in the Hollywood Hills, and while I sat regally in his convertible, Frank walked into the house and gave Spurr and his guests the following pitch: “Look, folks, I’m in a bit of a spot. I met a Saudi Arabian prince…”
“A prince?”
“Yeah, a prince. King Saud’s son. I met him at a party some Egyptian friends of mine threw in Beverly Hills the other night. He wants to see how Americans really live, and he asked me to show him around town. I’ve got him out in the car and—”
“Right now?”
“Now. So look. I’m gonna bring him in. Now don’t panic! He’s a regular guy and he doesn’t want any fuss made over him. Just remember to address him as ‘Your Highness.’ But one thing—be casual!”
With a brand of dignified casualness of his own, like Calvin Coolidge eating an ice-cream soda, Frank played doorman and opened both car and house doors for me.
And once inside: “Your Royal Highness Prince Hair, may I present—”
“Xeer,” I corrected with a condescending manner, pronouncing the “X” as though I were swabbing my throat with it. We had selected the name because it was unpronounceable.
“Hair,” said Frank.
“Xeer,” said I.
“Ah, yes … Your Highness, may I present—” And around we went. To each of the men I gave a typically soft Arab handshake, and a “How are you? Sank you very mush.” The ladies each got a kiss on the hand. “How charming,” someone whispered, and I leered slyly at Frank.
Then no one moved.
“Would Your Highness care to sit down?” asked Reg’s wife, Betty.
“Why not?” I answered disarmingly. I hastily spotted the most imposing chair in the room, marched over to it like Yul Brynner imitating Sir Cedrick Hardwicke, and sat down, curling my fingers around the arm rests as though the chair were a throne. And, so help me, I felt majestic, even though I was wearing desert boots, Bermuda shorts and a loud peppermint-striped shirt.
No one spoke. The TV was tuned in to a pro football game. I pulled out a cigarette and Frank nearly broke a leg rushing over to light it for me. Then after scruting everyone deliberately through my inscrutable sunglasses, I fastened my royal eyeballs on the TV screen. Everyone sat down and did likewise.
No one spoke for five minutes.
Suddenly, “Asualcay!” reminded Frank in pig Latin. “Do you like football, Your Highness?” asked Denny Owen, a rugged college footballer.
“Foutball?”
“Ah—don’t they play football in your country?”
“I—sink—no.”
“Well—” And he good-heartedly launched into an explanation of the game. This seemed to ease the tension considerably, and someone else asked me if I would like a beer, and even though I would have preferred some Old Sayonara, I gave him the royal oui. Denny and Frank went into the kitchen. I overheard this conversation:
DENNY:
Cripes, I can’t hardly stand it! A prince! Here! And watchin’ the Rams on TV!
FRANK:
Take it easy, will ya, Denny? He’ll hear you.
DENNY:
What’s the deal on the candy-stripe shirt, huh, Frank?
FRANK:
Oh, he’s just trying to be one of the boys. Here, give him his beer.
DENNY:
A can, Frank—a can? We gotta give it to ’im in a glass!
FRANK:
Nah, he’s a regular guy, I tell ya.
DENNY:
Well … O.K.
And at this point I turned on my thro—er—chair, and saw rugged Denny carefully wiping and rubbing the top of the beer can with the tail of his clean white shirt!
But this did not end the kitchen capers. Standing by the sink with Betty Spurr a short time later was Melanie Mouzas, a Southern belle of Greek extraction. “My, my, Betty,” she drawled, looking in my direction, “you sho is movin’ up!” I love spreading happiness.
Meanwhile, the Rams won the game, the TV was turned off and everyone became convivial. I learned later that some of the people in the room rather sided with the Israelis in the Arab-Israel dispute, but they were warm and friendly, and never gave a sign of their feelings. They were even suggesting night clubs that they thought I should visit, places like the world-famous Mocambo.
“Yesss, what about zis Mookomboo?” I said. The prince’s next step was kismet. The show was on the road.
iii
At the Mocambo that night, they were expecting me. Frank had telephoned ahead, and “Right this way, Your Honor,” said the maître d’ as he led me to the best table in the club.
“It’s ‘your ighnesshay,’” Frank murmured in tightlipped pig Latin, and “My achin’ back, I goofed!” yelped the maître d’, slapping his forehead with the heel of his hand.
Mary Morrison, owner of the Mocambo, joined our table and brought with her the featured entertainer, Edie Adams, of Daisy Mae fame. Edie noted my dark glasses, suggested that if my eyes were sensitive to light, it might be wise to wear contact lenses. I promised to discuss the matter with the royal physician. The ladies left.
Then Jack Morrison, who claimed kinship to Mary, sat down with us.
“Is Your Majesty on a business trip?” he asked.
I ignored the question and “Ixney, ixney!” whispered Frank. He then told Morrison in pig Latin that I was in some trouble back home, and he had best stay clear of the subject.
Morrison wiped his brow and suddenly summoned the Mocambo’s instrumentalists. They clustered around our table, and soon music was in the air and a clarinet practically in my ear.
“Any requests, Your Majesty?” asked Morrison.
“You’ll have to speak more slowly, Jack,” advised Frank. “The prince sometimes has difficulty understanding.”
“Oh. Uh—does—Your—Majesty—have—some—favorite—song—or—tune?” Morrison queried, spacing his words carefully. I popped a cigarette in my mouth and Frank lit it.
“Ah. Well, I do not know,” I faltered, putting the em-pha-sis on the “not.” “I sink—French music, purhops.”
I got French music. Boy, did I get French music! At Morrison’s command, the quartet swung into a medley of French songs that lasted half an hour. They played every French number they knew, and when they’d done that, they started making some up. Then they started all over again.
By the third go-round of “La Vie En Rose,” Morrison had made some phone calls, and soon we were joined by the owners of the Encore and the Crescendo, and a star choreographer from one of the major film studios. As each one arrived, Morrison would explain in a whisper, “He’s killed someone in Saudi Arabia and now he’s in exile. Speak slowly.”
Then, “Your Majesty,” he said, turning to me, “I want you to be my guest this evening. I’d like to take you around to a few clubs and show you a bit of what we call ‘Americana.’”
“Yesss, sank you very mush”—and with a hiss, a blare of French music and a wake of turned heads, we were leaving.
“Incidentally,” whispered Frank to Morrison as we hit the door, “call him ‘Your Highness.’ ‘Your Majesty’ is reserved for his father.”
Morrison slapped his forehead. “Oh, my achin’ back!”
At the Encore, Frankie Ortega and his piano were the featured entertainment. Ortega was introduced to me, and before he could get back to his piano to start the show, Morrison caught his arm and whispered in his ear. Ortega nodded. In a moment, I was hearing “La Vie En Rose,” Autumn Leaves”—in short, the lot.
“Your Maj— Your Highness,” Morrison probed, trying to penetrate my dark glasses with his stare, “isn’t there some one song that is your favorite?” I said yes and
told him what it was. Quicker than you could say Nebuchadnezzar, Ortega was at the microphone saying, “And now, ladies and gentlemen, a special request number dedicated to our charming royal visitor, Prince Khairallah el Hair from Saudi Arabia.” Then came applause. Then came the song. The song was “Danny Boy.”
The Crescendo, where the Mary Kaye Trio was singing up a storm, was much the same old Arabian Nights story, except that Frank Ross, the very talented comedian of the trio, nabbed me as we were leaving and said he would be “honored if Your Highness were to be my guest for dinner some evening and meet my family.” I was deeply moved.
I was moved equally by Jack’s little speech in the car as we headed for our next destination. I had protested that I could not allow Jack to pay for all this gala entertainment.
“No, no, no,” declared Morrison firmly. “In my country you are my guest.”
“You are very kind, Zhack,” I said. “You know—you know how zey treat my fazzer in New York when he come, and ziss Mayor Wagnair.” I was referring to the classic concrete-and-steel cold shoulder from New York’s skyline and New York’s mayor when King Saud visited the United States.
“Believe me, Your Maj—Your Highness, believe me,” said Morrison, and nearly drove off Laurel Canyon cliff as he waved his arm to emphasize a point, “what happened in New York was not representative. That is not—am I talking too fast for you, sir? Well, what Wagner did was not representative of the American people. We’re just not that way. I mean, I know I’m not that way. I mean, I don’t care who you are or what your politics or religion is. You’re my guest and I respect you, right? I mean, if I came to Saudi Arabia, you’d do the same for me, right?”
“Yesss, yesss,” I hissed brokenly, and for the first time removed my dark glasses to dab at what I hoped would pass for tears in my eyes. “I am so happy you say ziss, Zhack!” I sobbed.
“That’s okay, Prince,” said Morrison. “Look, someday I’m gonna visit your country and you can show me around, right?”
“Yesss.” I was silent for a time, brooding. Then “Zhack,” I said, “before you come, you mus’ send to me wire, so I tell you where I am. I am not always in same palace. Sometime in Jidda palace, sometime in Riyadh palace, sometime uzzer palace. If you not come to right palace, sometime not easy to travel to right one in my country. Maybe zey not allow you.”
“Yeah,” said Jack, wide-eyed. “Yeah, yeah.” We nearly went off the road again.
In the flip of a bat’s wing, we were in the San Fernando Valley, at a place called “The Rag Doll.” “Look, Your Maj—“Your Highness,” explained Morrison before we went in. “Anybody can take you to the Mocambo and the Beverly Hilton and those plush places. I mean, you’re used to that kind of big-time operation. Am I talkin’ too fast for you? No? Okay. Well, look, this Rag Doll—this is it. This is real Americana; this is the way the American people really like to live it up. But get set for something unusual!”
It was unusual, all right. It was crowded with teen-age bopsters, and on the stage were the Four Russo Brothers, a mad, radical quartet who stood up and gyrated as they played. I’m sure they’d never played a slow number in their entire careers. But their moment had come. One of the Russos took the microphone, announced a “special request for our charming and honored guest from Saudi Arabia”—here the quartet picked up with “The Sheik of Araby” for a few bars—“Prince Hair, the son of King Saud!” Then they swung into a medley of French fox-trot numbers, and as they did, I felt a tap-tap-tapping at my shoulder. I swiveled around.
“Your Highness,” said a young, blond-haired lad seated at the table back of me. “Your Highness, please pardon me. I’ve been working up my courage to say hello to you for half an hour. You see, I’d like to shake your hand. I’ve never shaken hands with a prince before. I mean, I’ve never seen a prince before. Gee, I hope you don’t mind my talking to you like this.”
“For why I mind?” I said warmly.
“I mean, you’re a prince.”
“So, prince cannot talk to uzzer people? I am not different from you; no, not different.” I shook his hand, chatted with him for a bit, and turned back with his “Gee” still hot in my ears. Morrison’s date, who had been sitting beside me and had heard the entire exchange, leaned over to me, peered glowingly into my dark glasses, and, with her hand on my arm, whispered, “You’re so kind.” Well—maybe I am.
As we said good-bye to The Rag Doll and a ridiculous evening, we ran into the emcee, Lou Southern, who was just coming in the door.
“Lou,” said Morrison, “I want you to meet a real right guy, His Royal Highness Prince Hair—”
“Xeer!”
“Uh—Chair—King Saud’s son.”
“Why, yes,” glowed Southern, pumping my hand up and down, “I recognize you from your pictures!” I got out of there fast.
iii
But my name was spreading even faster. Two days after the Mocambo bit, I found myself invited to a special viewing of a TV rehearsal by NBC studios in Burbank. Frank drove me out there, and when we pulled up to the gate he asked the guard for an NBC public relations Joe who was to be our guide.
“Is that the Prince?” whispered the guard.
“Yeah,” whispered Frank.
“Yes, sir,” snapped the guard, “park right through there in the ‘star’ lot, sir, and use the artists’ entrance, sir.” We were “in” again.
The public relations man nodded as Frank cautioned him to “speak slowly,” and then took us on a tour of the facilities. As we headed for the George Gobel set, “Here comes three guys who look like they’re takin’ over the joint!” Morey Amsterdam squalled at us in high good humor. I gave him an uncomprehending freeze as I walked by, and “Sh-h-h, I’ll explain later,” whispered my guide to him in an aside.
We sat in the audience bleachers and watched George Gobel, Eddie Fisher, Phil Harris and the Rose Bowl Queen quip through rehearsal of an hour show. Then the public relations man stepped down onto the set, whispered something to Gobel, and soon the two of them were coming up our way. Gobel straightened his tie and patted back the barbed fringe of his crew-cut as he approached.
“Well, there you are, Your Highness,” he called out.
“Yesss, I am here,” I hissed.
“George Gobel, Prince Hair,” said the public relations man.
“Xeer, Xeer,” I insisted … “I am glad to meet you, Mr. Zhobel.”
“Gobel, Gobel,” said George. “How did you like the show?”
“Iss what?”
“You’ll have to speak slowly, George,” said the public relations man.
“How—did—you—like—the—show?” repeated George.
“Verry nice, verry. Verry funny. Also, you sing verry nice, I sink.”
“Oh — thank — you — for — the — honor — Your — Highness.”
“Is nossing. Before you do zis you are singer, no?”
“No. I — sang — in — a — church — choir — when — I — was — a — boy — but — then — my — voice — cracked — and — it — was — never — good — enough — after — that — so — I — took — up — comedy.”
“No, you sing verry good.”
“Thank — you — for — the — honor — Your — Highness.”
“Nossing,” I said, and lit my own cigarette, which was bad, because the cigarette lighter I used came from the University of Southern California. I had purchased it at the campus book store following my interview, and when you flipped the lid, little chimes played “Fight On.”
“Well, well, well,” said George eying the lighter and forgetting to slow down.
“Uh—His Highness,” said Frank, “was the guest of the Arab Students’ Club at U.S.C. last month and they presented him with the lighter as a little memento. Heh, heh,” he laughed weakly.
“Well — isn’t — that — nice?” said George. “Well — gotta — go — see — what — I — did — wrong — at — rehearsal. Thank — you — Your — Highness — fo
r — this — great — honor — in — visiting — us.”
“Iss nossing,” I said, and as George left, I turned to the public relations man and said, “Mr. Zhobel, why he speak so slow?” The p.r. man didn’t know.
But he did know that Leo Durocher, now an NBC man, was near at hand, and he introduced him to me.
“Well, Your Highness,” said the affable, quick-talking, ex-baseball great, “great pleasure to be able to meet you.”
“Iss nossing. Pleasure for me. I sink I know you are who. You are wis Brooklyn Dozhars; yes, you are very famous. You are—how you call it?—ze Mouth.”
“Ah, no, Your Highness,” chuckled Durocher. “It’s The Lip. But I left the Dodgers and went with the Giants. Then I left them, too, and now I’m with this studio. You like baseball, Your Highness?”
“His Highness used to watch the Air Force boys at Dhahran play ball quite a bit,” explained Frank.
“Oh, yeah?” said Durocher, brightening. Then, at a machine-gun clip, he began, “Well, it’s a great thing, O’Malley bringing the Dodgers out here, you know, Your Highness. But they got problems, see? I mean, the problem is the ball park. Now they got this Coliseum. But with the Coliseum, you’ve got home plate situated in the east corner, so the sun is shining right in the batter’s eye!” He took a baseball stance and gripped an imaginary bat.
“Now what batter’s gonna want to stand up there with the sun shinin’ right in his eyes, huh? I mean, how would you like it, Your Highness, huh? No, you wouldn’t. It’s a problem, didn’t I tell ya?”
He put his arm around my shoulder and someone shot our picture together. “I’ll send you the print, and you can send it home to your father,” said Lippy kindly. “Now, O’Malley and the Dodgers, I don’t know what they’re gonna do about a park. That doggone sun.” He looked at me. “Say, Prince, you’re all right. You really know your baseball.”
Which Way to Mecca, Jack? Page 22