IBID: A Life

by Mark Dunn

  The idea of turning wholesome Katrin into a sex-kitten is one with which none of us would be comfortable.

  3. “You have dodged the bullet for far too long. The time has come to put your characters through the event that historical accuracy dictates must certainly have occurred at some point during Katrin’s remembered youth: the San Francisco Quake of ‘06. It is inconceivable that Katrin would remember so fondly the rich details that defined the day-to-day lives of Mama and Papa and young Nels and Dagmar, yet resign to lifelong amnesia the catastrophic carnage that could not help but rip to ribbons the fabric of this close-knit family. You do your viewers a great disservice by pretending that the lives of these San Franciscans were conveniently untouched by one of the greatest tragedies of the early 20th century. Should you wish a less overt approach, I might suggest the following: an episode which takes place before the tragic event in which Mama has a terrible premonition that the town is about to experience carnage on a grand scale. She will be sent to a doctor for counseling but he will dismiss the forewarning as simple dyspepsia. However, in the last minute of the show, the rumbling will begin. It will be a chilling moment. Katrin’s voice will be heard, hauntingly: ’I remember the time that Mama was right. Dead right.’” The following week we would see the family sifting through rubble.

  Mr. Davison, our program is set in a different San Francisco. A San Francisco in which earthquakes do not occur. A San Francisco that does not even rest upon a single seismic fault line. This is our choice. Our viewers do not tune in each week to witness “catastrophic carnage.” They can get that by watching the Roller Derby.

  With all best wishes,

  Frank Gabrielson

  22. “I fired Davison today.” Jonathan Blashette to Andrew Bloor, 3 May 1954, AnB.

  23. “I have lost my best friend.” Jonathan’s Diary, 3 May 1954. The estrangement lasted eighteen months and took its toll on Davison. In addition to being his friend, Jonathan also served as both rudder and fender for Davison, whose interchange with the world often left a deficit of understanding for all concerned. Rather than receding from a society from which he felt alienated, Davison often found himself shoved front and center, there to be ridiculed by a press that had come to dub him “The Wrongway Corrigan of the Eisenhower Era.” Typical of Davison’s struggles in this harsh public light is the “Levittown Incident.” The account which follows comes from The Long Island Courier, August 4, 1955.

  Wandering in the Levittown Wilderness

  by Kerr Barabas

  Levittown resident Harlan Davison, former executive assistant to Jonathan Blashette, three-legged president and CEO of Dandy-de-odor-o, Inc., had a little trouble making his way home on Tuesday night.

  “We were in the middle of dinner,” reports Levittown resident Eddy Rubio, “my whole family and me—and all of the sudden the front door opens and in walks Mr. Davison. He goes straight to my favorite chair, kicks off his shoes and settles himself right down with a New York Newsday.”

  It appears that Mr. Davison was unaware he had entered a Levittown bungalow that clearly was not his own.

  This scene was repeated three additional times as Mr. Davison sought without success to find his own home amidst hundreds of look-alike dwellings, each with an identically landscaped front yard.

  A postwar American dream for many had for Harlan Davison become a personal nightmare.

  “It would help if I could remember my address,” a noticeably embarrassed Davison told police as he was being led away to look for his home.

  Blashette could not be reached for comment regarding his erstwhile employee. A spokesman for Dandy-de-odor-o did say, “Davison never had trouble finding his office when he worked for us, but he once confused Barbara Bel Geddes with Nancy Olson at a product launch party, unfortunately in the presence of Barbara’s father Norman, who was being wooed to design packaging for a new deodorant product.”

  24. “I’m not sure which is worse—having Davison here shambling things up, or having him out there where I can’t help him.” Jonathan Blashette to Andrew Bloor, 21 October 1955.

  25. “Then hire him back and bring someone on board to look after him.” Andrew Bloor to Jonathan Blashette, 26 October 1955.

  26. “Shall we set that fence aright?” Jonathan Blashette to Harlan Davison, 1 November, 1955 Davison Papers. The full text of the reconciliation correspondence follows.

  Dear Harlan,

  I know an old fence that’s been in need of mending for three long years. What say I bring my tool box and you bring yours and we’ll set that fence aright?

  Jonathan

  ***

  Dear Jonathan,

  I’m already there, tool box in hand! I don’t quite know where things went wrong. I know I’ve made some mistakes along the way and I know you’ve been a real trump and let me off easy. I guess the mistakes just got too big to keep brushing aside, huh? I can’t tell you why my brain doesn’t work the same way as everybody else’s. Maybe it’s because I got kicked in the head by that mule when I was fourteen. Maybe that jumbled everything up and left me looking at the world a little crossways. (Or it could have been that second kick when I was seventeen. Can’t really put my finger on which one did the most damage.)

  But I keep thinking back to that day you fired me from Dandy-D. I can’t think of what it was I did that could have provoked you more than the usual. Unless it was that comment about the Ink Spots and the Mills Brothers. Maybe that was the last straw. I’m telling you, honest, Jonathan, I’ve always had a little trouble telling the difference between those two groups—there wasn’t any malice toward you (because I know you’re partial to one of them although I can’t remember which) or to Negro singers in general. You know my grandmother was probably a Negro, so why would I cast aspersions on my own people?

  I know this all happened around Winny’s birthday and I know it always puts you in the emotional crapper when any of those Winny anniversaries roll around. But you know what? At least you had a Winny. And you have Lady Jane and she’s turned into a really special gal. I’m not saying this to get any kind of pity from you. I’m just stating fact. You have loved and been loved back. The revolving door of my love life has spun far too fast for me to know how I felt about any of those dames (or vice versa). And the one chance I did have of walking down the aisle with one of them I pretty much botched up by getting the wedding day wrong and going fishing. It would have been nice to have had a Winny or a Lady Jane, if only for a short while. To trade in that revolving door for the kind that actually opens and stays open. Or maybe one of those Dutch doors where you can open the top part and not the bottom or vice versa just for the fun of it.

  But there is a consolation. Friendship. Friendship with my ol’ pal Jonny, restored to its former shine. I’ve got that toolbox, Jonny, and we’re going to get that fence looking good as new. It’s a nice old fence, and nicer still, to find us both working on the same side.

  Your friend,

  Harlan

  ***

  Dear Harlan,

  It’s a deal. I’ll call you this weekend.

  Jonathan

  27. The cause of death was congestive heart failure. In accordance with her wishes, Great Jane was buried in a simple pine box in the Calvary Baptist Church Cemetery in her home town of Chucking, Arkansas. It was not a well-attended burial service. Yet, in New York City, three weeks later, over 250 people came to her memorial, which was held at Washington Square Methodist Church in Greenwich Village, this number including many employees of Dandy-de-odor-o and at least twenty former Time Square prostitutes whom Jane had reformed and persuaded to enroll in secretarial school. Great Jane had made a lot of friends in the Big Apple. Glover, Three Legs, One Heart, 222-25.

  28. “Goodbye, my Lady Jane. I love you so.” Interview with Cassia Diles who overheard the words spoken by Jonathan at the burial site.

  29. Damage to Jonathan’s art collection was estimated at nearly $3,500,000.

  Cary Bormet did not limit his d
estruction and vandalism to art work held in private hands; in his rampage he destroyed and variously defaced pieces on display in public collections as well. He is most notoriously remembered as the man who relieved himself in Marcel Duchamp’s urinal, “Fountain.” Adding insult to insult, the art-phobic Mr. Bormet made a point of eating three dozen stalks of fresh asparagus two hours before perpetrating the deed.

  30. “And the days dwindle down to a precious few.” Many remember that Walter Huston’s version of “September Song” was among the handful of those songs that Jonathan held most dear in the last years of his life. Few knew that this shortlist also included several of what he called his “silly songs.” JBP.

  “Bongo, Bongo, Bongo, I Don’t Wanna Leave the Jungle”

  “The Too Fat Polka”

  “Good-bye, Mama, I’m Off to Yokohama”

  “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight?”

  “Chica Chica Boom Chic”

  “We’re Going to Balance the Budget”

  31. Jonathan ordered the Happy Family in Ginger House. Others in the dinner party were more adventurous. Davison got the Surprised Squid in Scallion Panties; Caldwell ordered the Plum Duck and Crispy Chicken in Fragrant Pas de Deux; Diles had the Accommodating Prawns in Discourteously Demanding Lobster Sauce; Haverty had the Sauteed Baby Abalone Mushrooms Kissed and Tongue-stroked by Puckered Snow Peas and Honey-coated Testiculoid Walnut Chunks. Bayer, the bravest of all, tried, and nearly finished, the Kong Style Simpering Slippy Shrimp in Velvet Scallop Squirt Curd, Dragged through a Math of Brazed Beef Tailings. Jonathan’s Diary, July 12, 1956.

  32. This period saw a number of major celebrity endorsements. Reinhold, The Story of Dandy-de-odor-o, 188-90. Among the many media personalities approached by Davison was Greta Garbo, who he contends gave serious consideration to ending her long retirement by appearing in a television ad for Dandy-de-odor-o. According to Davison’s journal (10 September 1956), Garbo was also considering two other offers at the time, one for the American Beet Growers Council and the other for Whip-it Whipped Oleomargarine. All three scripts exploited Grusinskaya, the angst-ridden prima ballerina character Garbo made famous in the film Grand Hotel.

  Dandy-de-odor-o:

  GARBO (to an overly perspiring young male companion who has just ended a strenuous game of tennis): I vant to be alone…that is, until you shower and make liberal application of that wonderful male deodorant product Dandy-de-odor-o.

  COMPANION: Roger Wilco! See ya in a jiff, Grets.

  The American Beet Growers Council:

  GARBO (to a waiter in a restaurant): I vant to be alone…with this big plate of sliced beets.

  WAITER: Yes, ma’am. Anything else?

  GARBO: Bring me some tripe.

  Whip-it Whipped Oleomargarine:

  GARBO (to her maid after nibbling a cracker): I love the taste of butter.

  MAID: Au contraire, Madam. It is Whip-it Whipped Oleomargarine.

  GARBO: What insolence. Go away, Cosette. I vant to be alone. (After the maid has departed. To herself.) Mmm. Whip-it. That’s a name I’m sure to remember. (Turning to the camera.) And you will too. Just ask your grocer for Whip-it!

  History will record that Garbo never came out of retirement. Some of Davison’s journal entries I find highly dubious; others are easily corroborated by other sources. This one falls somewhere in between. Indeed, Jonathan’s entry for the same day notes:

  “Davison is trying to get Greta Garbo to appear in one of our commercials. That would be a coup. Or does he mean the comedienne Greta Gabor with the pop-eyes?”

  33. This also included sponsorship of the Miss United States Pageant. Griswold Lanham, “Harlan Davison,” Entrepreneurial History, 13 (1990), 25-42. Davison was also instrumental in winning sole commercial sponsorship for the inaugural (and ultimately only) television broadcast of the Miss United States Pageant, a brief rival to the popular Miss America Pageant. The contest was expressly organized by its eccentric producer Barclay Harwood to determine the most beautiful and talented young woman in all of the forty-eight states except Ohio. Davison felt that the broadcast would be an ideal opportunity to advertise Dandy-de-odor-o’s new deodorant line for women, Dandeene.

  As with almost all of the advertising ventures shepherded by Davison, this one backfired. The stumble created one of the largest customer backlashes in the history of mid-century American trade and commerce. Residents of Ohio, angered over their state’s exclusion from the pageant, staged a boycott of all of Dandy-de-odor-o’s products, including “Dandy fresh swabs,” a product being test-marketed in Columbus and Cincinnati at the time.

  Harwood’s hatred of Ohio was legendary, but still to this day inexplicable. It resulted in a highly publicized altercation with the chairman of the Indiana state pageant and its winning entrant to the national pageant, Barbara Jane Midkiff. The contretemps served as inspiration for a memorable comedy sketch on the television variety program Laffin’ Loud with Leila and Lee. I obtained a copy of the script from the Museum of the Media in Toledo, Ohio. An excerpt follows:

  HARWOOD: Miss Indiana, it has come to my attention that you are a resident of College Corner.

  MISS INDIANA (shaking her head): West College Corner, Mr. Harwood.

  INDIANA CHAIRMAN: Which last time I checked was in Indiana.

  HARWOOD: Interesting. Because I have it on good authority that the young lady isn’t from West College Corner, which, yes, is in Indiana, but from College Corner, which happens to be in…in…(His eyes suddenly roll back in his head and he loses control of his saliva.)

  INDIANA CHAIRMAN: Mr. Harwood, are you unwell?

  HARWOOD (now perspiring and shuddering uncontrollably): In…in…

  INDIANA CHAIRMAN: I can assure you, Mr. Harwood, the girl who stands before you is a Hoosier. She’s always been a Hoosier, haven’t you, Miss Indiana?

  MISS INDIANA: Always? Well…no..

  HARWOOD (regaining his composure): May I ask, then, when it was, exactly, that you moved to the Hooter state?

  MISS INDIANA: I beg your pardon.

  HARWOOD: I said—

  INDIANA CHAIRMAN: Mr. Harwood, I believe that you just referred to Indiana as the “Hooter” state.

  HARWOOD: I did?

  (Miss Indiana nods, scowling. She folds her arms guardedly across her chest.)

  HARWOOD: I’m terribly sorry. My point is this: my sources tell me that you moved to Indiana only three months ago. And for one purpose only: to qualify as a contestant in the Miss United States Pageant!

  MISS INDIANA: It’s true, you’re right. But I simply had to! You’ve made it quite clear that you’d accept no contestants from…

  (Harwood slaps his hands over his ears, and begins to hum loudly the theme from Magnificent Obsession.)

  MISS INDIANA (continued):…the Buckeye State. And why should I be penalized for this? Look at me. Am I not worthy of this pageant? Look at these hips. (Dropping her arms down to their sides and throwing out her chest.) Look at these hoosiers.

  HARWOOD: I’m sorry, my dear. Your beauty and shapely figure are invalidated by the fact that you are from…from…(He goes into a seizure and collapses.)

  INDIANA CHAIRMAN (to Miss Indiana, as he works the end of a pencil into Harwood’s mouth to prevent his swallowing his tongue): Face it, Babs, it just ain’t gonna happen. We should notify your first runner-up. Where is she?

  MISS INDIANA: Back home with her folks. In Cleveland.

  INDIANA CHAIRMAN: Oy!

  34. “High expectation begot profound disappointment, as if a much anticipated Beaujolais revealed itself to be, in sad fact, aged to the point of insipidity, such is my feeling over the failure of this merger” Jonathan’s Diary, 17 April 1957. Jonathan was never more ready to step off the corporate stage, the merger with Gallico Industries permitting his release to pursue, full-time, his interests in venture capitalism, philanthropy, and the search ‘for my place in the universe.’” He writes in his diary at length of his devastation ove
r the turn of events. Davison’s journal also records that Jonathan was not himself for several weeks. Had Jonathan known that Gallico’s anchor product, “Stenchaid,” a groin-directed atomizing cannon, would be ultimately discredited and maligned by the same industry that had earlier touted it as a revolutionary Godsend for obese, wheelchair-bound victims of unaerated-thigh space, Jonathan would not have spent so much time and ink bemoaning the sudden contractual reversal.

  35. “Father, I am ready to take the reins of this swell company.” Addicus Andrew Blashette to Jonathan Blashette, 3 May 1957.

  36. “I would like to groom my son to take my place.” Jonathan Blashette to Andrew Bloor, 5 May 1957. The letter that Andrew Bloor sent in response has been lost. My guess is that Bloor was cautiously supportive. Addy Andy had just turned twenty-two. His experience at Dandy-de-odor-o, Inc. up to this point had been limited to part-time mail-room clerk and warehouse stock boy. Yet the young man was eager to learn the ropes of his father’s business and move quickly up the corporate ladder. And Jonathan seemed unwilling to elevate anyone else. “This isn’t about creating a family dynasty,” he explained at a board meeting a few days later. “The boy is smart. He’s got the makings of a good businessman. I won’t pass the reins until I think he’s ready.” Minutes of the Board of Directors meeting, 10 May 1957, Dandy-de-odor-o Inc., Corporate Records.

  37. “He’s ready.” Memorandum from Jonathan Blashette to all employees of Dandy-de-odor-o, Inc. Fortune Magazine crowed, “Tot of twenty-two takes the helm of multi-million dollar deodorant company. Wall Street scratches its head today. Will it be scratching its underarms tomorrow?” Company stock value plummeted the next day and did not rebound for several weeks. Jonathan, incredibly, knew what he was doing. By July, Addy Andy’s new youthful suntan oil line “Dandy Andy’s Shimmer and Shine” had become the runaway product hit of the summer and the wunderkind of the deodorant industry was on his way to corporate prodigy greatness.

  One of my greatest regrets in preparing this book was the missed opportunity to interview at length Jonathan’s son Addicus Andrew. The CEO and president of DDO Industries gave me all of fifteen minutes of his time, this micro-interview taking place in the back seat of a limo on its way to LaGuardia Airport. Subsequently, I made numerous attempts to schedule a second, more leisurely, meeting between the two of us, but was ultimately thwarted by “scheduling conflicts.” I do not fault Blashette for assigning such a low priority to seeing me; I understand from his secretary Paulette Karlstrom that he had been very unhappy with Cordell Glover’s book about his father Three Legs, One Heart and also by Glover’s interviewing technique, which often involved sitting cross-legged on Blashette’s desk “like an chunky chanteuse sprawled upon an overtaxed grand piano lid.” I wish that I had somehow found a way to gain Blashette’s trust after this experience, but such was not to be.