by Peter Corris
‘Box Office’
Browning
From tapes among the
papers of Richard ‘Box
Office’ Browning
Transcribed and edited
by Peter Corris
Copyright © 2014, Peter Corris
First published by Penguin Books Australia, 1987
FOR
Drs Paul Beaumont, John Burgess,
John Elder & Graeme Pittar,
with thanks.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
'BOX OFFICE' BROWNING
APPENDIX: The antecedents of Richard Browning
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
The death in August 1984 of Richard Browning did not go completely unnoticed. The Pasadena Standard for the 20th day of the month carried this short report:
Pasadena, Friday. Police have no further clues in the case of the mysterious death of Richard Browning. Browning, whose body was found on his avocado ranch by Edwin O. Bradley yesterday, was in bed with a gun beside him. A considerable quantity of money, liquor and drugs was also found in the room. Bradley, who was delivering an order of liquor phoned in by Browning two hours before, deposed that he saw a young, blonde woman jump into a car and drive off at speed' just before he reached the house.
Richard Browning is believed to have been born in Australia. He enjoyed modest and erratic success as a film actor from the 1920s until the 1970s but has lived in obscurity since that time. Efforts are being made to contact two of his former wives who are believed to be still living. At a low point in his career Browning was given the ironical sobriquet 'Box Office'.
An autopsy revealed that Browning had suffered a gunshot wound in the chest which might have been self-inflicted. The wound could have been sufficient to kill him but the quantities of liquor and drugs found in his system could equally have been the cause of his death. No trace was found of the blonde woman. Only one of Browning's wives, of whom there were certainly four and possibly five, was located. Mrs Pauline Potts of East Palo Alto, who had a brief film career as Pauline Kiss, expressed indifference when she was told of Browning's death. Her prediction, 'I bet he don't own the ranch', proved to be accurate. Browning appeared to have no assets beyond some expensive clothes and a De Lorean car. (The drugs and money were confiscated by the police and subsequently disappeared.) The owner of the avocado ranch described him as a 'free-loading, blackmailing, squatting son of a bitch'.
The Pasadena authorities contacted Browning's agent, N. Robert Silkstein Jr., who suggested that they sell the De Lorean to pay for the burial expenses, and burn the clothes. However, the clothes along with several crates of liquor were delivered to Silkstein in Los Angeles. Silkstein drank the liquor and stored the clothes in the basement of his office building along, as he said, 'with some other crap that that bum had left with me over the years'. I investigated this material in 1984 when I was in Los Angeles researching a book on Australians in Hollywood.
The great bulk of the Browning papers consists of unpaid accounts, letters threatening to sue, subpoenas and the like, but, in addition to his erratically kept scrapbooks, which were of immense value to my research, I found ninety-seven cassette tapes, stored in a box which had formerly contained Old Grandad bourbon whiskey. On these tapes Browning had recorded his memoirs. The box had evidently been kept at the farm and was delivered to Silkstein along with the liquor. The cassettes were erratically labelled and numbered. Browning evidently broke off recording sessions and resumed them at whim and on whatever tape was to hand. Hundreds of hours have been spent on attempting to put the record in chronological order. This work is as yet incomplete but it has been established that the words transcribed from the tapes and published here represent the first chapters of Richard 'Box Office' Browning's long journal.
Browning's voice is occasionally indistinct on the tapes, either from age or the effects of liquor or drugs or all three, so in several instances his meaning has to be guessed at. I have attempted in punctuating the text to reproduce Browning's style of delivery. A few footnotes have been added to clarify matters which Browning took for granted or to add information of interest.
As to the authenticity of Browning's record, it is difficult to judge. Although an old man when he began recording, his memory appears to have been particularly good, especially when he had photographs, letters, news clippings and other supportive documents. Sometimes, to his annoyance, his memory fails him. Broadly speaking, his accounts of the major public events of his time agree with the accepted historical record. However, in his version of his own involvement in these events, and his dealings with his contemporaries, there may be a large element of invention.
His motivation, at first, was money. N. Robert Silkstein recalled Browning 'coming in here, smashed as usual, and saying that he was writing a best-seller. This was some time in the 70s; he'd been after a bit in Jaws - didn't get it of course – and he needed dough. I never saw a word on paper and who'd give a shit, anyway?' For once, Silkstein's commercial instinct failed him; Richard Browning's biggest part was his life – active involvement in two world wars, survival of Prohibition and the Depression and participation in half a century of moviemaking. Alone in his Pasadena farmhouse, obsessively telling his story, he gave a great performance for the tape recorder and there was no agent around to take his ten per cent.
P.C.
Sydney, 1986
1
It was Les Darcy1 who gave me the idea to go into pictures. I was walking along by the Cooks River one day, it must've been in 1916, and here's Les standing on the bank, sopping wet and wrapping himself in an overcoat that must have cost twenty quid.
'Hello, Dick,' Les said. 'How's tricks?'
We wouldn't have met since our school days, almost eight years back, and I'd grown – to six foot two and twelve stone in fact – but Les had recognised me and spoken up like the uncomplicated fellow he was. I'd seen him of course, pounding chaps to jelly in the boxing ring.
'Not bad, Les,' I said. 'What're you doing?'
'Making a filum,' says Les. The water was dripping from his trouser bottoms all over his boots, good boots they were, too. His hair was lying flat on his Irish skull and he was slowly turning blue around the mouth. It was July, you see, in Sydney, Australia, and no time for swimming, especially in the Cooks River which is dirty, cold and has treacherous currents. Now Les Dorsey, which was how they used to pronounce the name, was not the smartest kid at the Oakhampton Public School, but he wasn't the dumbest either. Knowing Les, I knew the next question to ask.
'How's the money, Les?'
'Not bad. Better than for fightin'. 'Course, it's not as much fun.'
Les started to shiver and a bloke ran up with a blanket and wrapped it around him. 'We're going to have to do it again, Mr Darcy,' this bloke says. I ran my eye along the bank a bit and saw a few people standing around; a big, burly fellow was carrying a bull horn, another had a sheaf of papers in his hand and when the group broke up I could see a camera on long tripod legs standing on the river bank.
Les pulled the blanket around him. 'Dash it,' he said. That was Les. You or I would've said something stronger but Les was a good Catholic boy and that was about as strong as his language went. What can you expect of someone who thinks it's fun to climb into a ring at Rushcutters Bay stadium to go twenty rounds with the top middleweights in the world?
Les jogged on the spot. 'You should have a go at this game, Dick. You've got the looks and it's not dangerous, not really.'
'What're you doing now?'
'I have to jump into the river, swim out a bit and save a girl who's supposed to be drowning. Piece of cake, but they can't get the dashed camera angle right, or something.'
'Girl,'
says I. 'What girl?'
But Les was jogging and looked ready to do some sprinting. I'd seen him swim back in our school days and I knew he could plough across the Cooks River and back for an hour or so without turning a hair. I also knew that he'd be more interested in how many times he could swim across and back than in any girl. I was different; I left Les jogging up and down and went closer to the water.
Out in the middle of the river there was a sort of raft and standing on the raft was one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen from that day to this, and, believe me, I've seen a few in the spots where they congregate. She was a little blonde, not more than five foot, and her clothes were wet and clinging to her and the sight was more than you usually saw in those days unless you were paying through the nose for it. Wasted on Les, was my first thought, and Just the job for me, was my second.
I watched while a man and a woman who were also on the raft made hand signals towards the bank. A short character in knickerbockers and shirt sleeves plucked the tripod legs out of the mud and moved the camera closer to the water and the big chap, whose muttonchop whiskers and full rig with watch chain I could now see, raised the bull horn to his mouth. Les stripped off his clothes and made his very considerable muscles ripple. I waved and moved away. I've never been an envious man and I was glad to see old Les enjoying himself and making money. Pity I hadn't thought to touch him for a sovereign though. Les sprinted to the water with his boots on.
I sighed and started to climb the bank, slipping a bit in the mud. At the top the first thing I saw was a brand new six-cylinder Buick, gleaming like a sunrise and with a pair of boxing gloves resting on the bonnet. Enough said. Les's car. He must have had more money than all the kids from Oakhampton Public School, and their parents, had ever spent in all their lives. Don't take that for jealousy or spite; I had absolutely no stomach for the way Les earned his money and he probably knew it. It was hard to tell with that shrewd little Mick whether he was kidding or not when he said the picture game would be right for me because I had the looks and it wasn't dangerous. He might've remembered my trick at school of delaying the fisticuffs until a teacher arrived and then looking innocent. That wasn't Less style, he'd punch first and take the thrashing afterwards. It never seemed smart to me, but here we were, eight years on, and he had the Buick and I was on my uppers.
I was back in George Street, heading for the centre of the city, before the thought hit me that I could've asked the film chaps for a job. I suppose it was the sight of the blonde on the raft that drove practical matters from my head – she wasn't the first woman who'd cost me money and she wasn't the last by a long chalk. I had a room at the Hotel Metropole, but don't let that fool you; I had the price of one drink in my pocket and not a penny more.
So I ignored my aching feet and the wear and tear on the shoe leather, let the trams go past and walked. There were a few cars in the street, none as flash as Les's Buick, but most of the traffic was horse-drawn. The street smelled of horses and dust and those are the two smells I associate with Australia in those days.
I turned off at Hay Street to take part of the walk through Chinatown. I don't know why, but I've always liked Orientals. I liked them up around Maitland where they fossicked around the old diggings and sold things door to door and I liked them in the East later where they were as thick as flies. Why, one of my wives was part Chinese which shows that I've never been anti-coloured. As I pushed my way along Dixon Street, threading through the market stalls and the shoppers and the merchants in their white shirts done up at the neck with no tie and their wide, black trousers, I whiffed what I later discovered were jasmine and incense but were then just known to me as China smells.
With the old nostrils flaring and the eyes on the lookout for women with mysterious slanting eyes and narrow bodies wrapped tight in silk, I felt good about being in the city and bad about the thought of going home which would be my fate unless something turned up soon. Outside the hotel I brushed the dust off my clothes and shined my shoes with my handkerchief before striding across the lobby to collect my key at the desk. This was getting to be more of an ordeal day by day as my stay lengthened and my funds ran out. I was finding it harder and harder to stay away from the hotel (hanging around would have been a sure sign that I was an idler). Why else d'you think I'd have taken on a hike to the Cooks River?
The chandeliers seemed particularly bright in the late afternoon gloom and the carpet seemed particularly thick and restful under my tired feet, but all I could think of was that these were luxuries I couldn't afford. I grinned cheerfully at the desk attendant's quizzical look, took my key and went up the steps in a sprightly manner that caused my knees to tremble when I got out of sight of the lobby.
I drew a long, hot bath in the bathroom at the end of the hall, and whistled 'I love a lassie' while I scrubbed. Then I lay in the soapy water reviewing my situation. My expensive college education hadn't prepared me for this tight spot and I couldn't believe that my lack of breeding made any difference. Now you may wonder what a one-time pupil of a glorified shed like the Oakhampton Public School was doing lying in a bathtub in the Metropole under the gold-plated taps, skiting about his college education. Well, it was no credit to me. My Pa, William Browning, was descended from a convict (a fact that the family later kept very dark) and my mother was a bog Irishwoman named Colleen Kelly. Their six children, of whom I am the youngest, were evidence of their lack of sense and one of the causes of their poverty. Pa share-farmed at Oakhampton as a neighbour of Ned Dorsey's when the run of luck that lasted until his death (and maybe beyond) started. First, he found a massive gold nugget on the farm and was canny enough to take Mother's advice about getting a miner's licence before he announced the find. He multiplied some of the money on the Muswellbrook Cup and invested some more in a company that made a piece of mining equipment – a water pump or a safety lamp or something. The company started paying dividends from the day Pa laid his money down and pretty soon Wild Bill' Browning was filthy rich.
Which was why I came to spend five years at Dudleigh Grammar while my older brother Tom remained illiterate until he drank himself to death at forty. Well, it was more than two years since I'd left Dudleigh, somewhat under a cloud because of a cricket match. I won't go into the details. Tennis and cricket were my sports at Dudleigh and I'd done well at both, but the honour of the school and all that sort of thing never meant as much to me as money in the pocket. It's easy to throw a tennis match; who hasn't double faulted at the wrong time or missed a vital smash? But it's a bit harder at cricket to get away with. Anyway, I'd bet on the other team, got three of my own side run out and hit up a catch to the bowler that his grandmother couldn't have dropped.
I suppose I was a bit obvious about it and the school found it could get along without me, the fees 'Wild Bill' was happily shelling out and the donation he'd promised if I matriculated. I intercepted the last of Pa's fee cheques, did a bit of artwork on it and got by on the proceeds for a while. Then it was a pound here and a pound there, some lucky punting and a soft job with a wine and spirit importer selling the better stuff to the better people. I took a commission or two a little early to cover some betting losses and that job went west. Finally I touched Pa for money by mail, got a bit but also the message that there'd be no more until I showed up in Newcastle (where the Brownings now lived in style) and gave an account of myself. That was how things stood as the bathwater got cold around me.
I've learned a lot of useful things in my long, useless life and one of them is this – never take away a paper you pick up in a hotel lobby. Read it, sure, do the crossword, but put it back where you found it. After my bath I spruced up a bit and went downstairs intending to spend my remaining cash in the bar. A paper was lying on a chair; I picked it up, glanced at it, and tucked it under my arm.
'Sir. Mr Browning!'
One of the whey-faced desk attendants was beckoning to me and I went across.
'When were you intending to settle your bill, sir?'
'You've stayed beyond the period covered by your deposit.' He looked at the paper under my arm. He'd seen it all before – guest without the price of the daily rag in his pants – he could probably read my mind. 'Considerably beyond.'
No 'sir' this time, you see. I tried to act huffed, said 'Tomorrow' sharply and turned on my heel. He had the last word though.
'First thing.'
I had a bottle of stout because I thought I might need the sustenance with lean times coming up. I took the drink and the paper over to a table as far from the lobby as I could get. I took a drink. It was an occasion: in front of me I had the last drink I could pay for and a paper I'd got for free. It was time to smoke my last cigar. The cigars were a perk of the wine-selling job. Quite rightly, the boss had thought it looked well for his salesmen to be seen smoking the best and he made us a generous allowance of Havanas. A keen smoker from ten years of age, this was apples to me.
I puffed, swallowed and opened the paper. There it was on page 3. I can see it today:
FRANCIS LONGFORD FILMS 'THE BOUNTY'
The item went on to say that sequences for the Crick and James production of The Mutiny of the Bounty were being filmed at Watson's Bay. Leading screen players, George Cross, John Storm and William Power had been engaged etc. etc.
I drew in smoke and tried to remember what I'd heard about the Bounty mutiny at school. It wasn't much: rebellion against lawful authority, seamen cast away on a savage island, mutineers hung from the yardarm, Captain Bligh's heroic open boat voyage to somewhere. It sounded like a rattling good yarn in which there had to be a spot for a stalwart chap like me – preferably as one of the loyal officers standing to attention while they strung up the mutineers.
Watson's Bay was only a ferry ride away and I could raise the price of a ticket by selling a shirt, but I had the problem of the hotel bill. The bar was filling up and I finished my drink and cigar and stood up to go because I didn't want to be caught in a drinking school and not be able to shout my round. I'd folded the paper after reading the film bit and the sight of it lying there beside the smouldering cigar butt gave me an idea.