By Baron Hans vonBeavis
Man of a thousand stories
Written in my off hours whilst working from home during the COVID-19 zombie apocalypse. The following is the third in a series of stories about the baroness. These stories are true as she remembers them.
As a child, the baroness didn’t go to school like most kids. Growing up on the CBS Studio City (she calls it CBS Radford) lot in the southeastern San Fernando Valley, California, she attended elementary school classes between takes. Being overly smart and preconscious, she questioned her teachers about a variety of subjects.
Since she started at four years of age when she did her first movie, she’d learned camera left, camera right, which is backwards to we mortals. For her, left was right and visa versa. To this day, I channel my previous life as a soldier when I ask her to move to the right, she moves to the left, and the NCO in me says: “Your other right.”
When she was studying math at an early age, she had a problem that frustrated her and approached the teacher.
“I don’t get this problem. Why do I have to learn math, anyway,” the baroness asked with royal innocence.
“Because someday you’ll have to balance your checkbook,” the teacher answered.
“I’m a movie star,” she said after a pause. “Why would I have to balance a checkbook when I have an accountant?”
Little did she know at that tender age that Hollywood loves most actors for 15 minutes before it turns its back on them, and that she would, indeed, need to balance her own checkbook. Many years later, a fan sent her a coffee cup with a drawing of a bored waiter with a pained expression and the caption “An actor’s life for me.” Kinda sums it up.
This is the downtown set at CBS Studio Center where the baroness and Tracie Savage were rehearsing a taxicab scene when Brian Keith passed by on his way to the studio commissary. The baroness frequently visited Anissa Jones and Johnny Whitaker on the “Family Affair” set . Photo by Rob of robonlocation.com.
Her imperious nature and attitude of certainty were developed early. She was five or six, rehearsing a scene on an outdoor street set, when actor Brian Keith walked by and said howdy. He was filming his own show on a nearby CBS sound stage and was on a break between takes. Child actors Anissa Jones and Johnny Whitaker on his show were friends with the baroness; years later, Johnny was our house guest and performed the part of a gumshoe in a live broadcast of our OG radio program. Our small radio troupe was performing at a nightclub once favored by the likes of John Wayne. Being radio, everyone changed voices to play multiple parts, to include the baroness playing the part of a thug named Frenchy in a low, gravely voice that made the audience guffaw. It was a visual thing, being that she’s quite petite. After that, Johnny and the rest of us successfully played it for laughs. Great show.
“Hey kiddo, how ya doin’?” Keith asked in a friendly tone. He was a famously nice guy.
Instead of simply responding in kind, she was ticked that he’d broken her concentration.
“Mr. Keith, I am rehearsing,” she declared.
Her fellow actors and the crew were shocked, shocked I tell you! to hear her speak to a big star of movies and television like that.
Keith took it all in stride. He raised his hands in surrender.
“No, no, she’s right,” he said gently. “She’s rehearsing.” With that, he continued on his way.
A publicity still of Brian Keith as Uncle Bill, Anissa Jones as Buffy, and Johnny Whitaker as Jody from the show “Family Affair.” Anyone who ever was a soldier should know Jody cadences.
The baroness’ (ahem, cough-cough) interesting way of looking at life continued. Decades later, when she was approaching her quinquagenarian moment in life, we flew to Los Angeles from Honolulu to attend a memorial service for a friend, a retired L.A. County Sheriff’s Department sergeant. Coincidentally, she’d been asked to sign autographs at “The Hollywood Show,” an event beginning the next day at the Westin Los Angeles Airport Hotel. That particular autograph signing show is the only time I ever accompanied her to one of those. I call it my “honey wagon” husband audition.
No, not that kind of honey wagon.
The event featured a bunch of actors who had performed in James Bond movies and science fiction productions. The late Robert Conrad was the featured actor.
Fans seeking autographed photos and selfies visited her table, chatted with her, then moved on to their next celebrity. I’m not one who seeks out autographs, but I did get to meet a few of them.
Half a year before that, I began circulating birthday cards around the world to her friends and family. By the time her birthday arrived, the cards were laden with good wishes in multiple languages.
Tracie Savage from a scene with the baroness, circa 1971. She was with the baroness when Brian Keith walked up to say howdy. Tracie is better known for her work as a Los Angeles news reporter.
The evening of her birthday was a Saturday. During the day, I met some of the actor and/or producer friend’s of the baroness, and chatted with many more actors, especially from sci-fi, during the day. I invited some of them to help celebrate her birthday in the hotel bar. One of them she knew well was Max “Jethro Bodine” Baer, who was signing autographs earlier along with Donna “Ellie Mae Clampett” Douglas. Another (whom she didn’t know but who I thought was pretty cool) was Richard “Jaws” Kiel, who I met that day at breakfast before the ballroom doors opened. Giant Kiel was cruising about in a mobility chair at that point in his life. Both he and Baer were briefly at the gathering, stopping by on their way to dinner. Other guests included Alba’s TV family cast members; Tracie Savage, a fellow child star turned reporter who testified in the O.J. Simpson trial; a few lovely ladies from various Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton James Bond movies–I’m pretty sure the lovely Carolin Munro was one of the guests, as she introduced herself as the helicopter pilot shooting at Bond in “The Spy Who Loved Me;” a gossip reporter; twin sisters Erin and Diane Murphy who both played Tabitha on “Bewitched;” her buddy Victoria Meyerink, a sweet former child star Elvis sang to in “Speedway;” and other lifelong former child star friends. The bar tab was astronomical, but it was her birthday and an opportunity to celebrate it with her TV and movie friends.
The King croons to Victoria Meyerink in the film “Speedway.” Victoria was dubbed “America’s Pint-sized Sweetheart” back in the day.
There’s a photo of the baroness with Melissa Gilbert of “Little House on the Prairie” fame, taken at Alba’s sweet 16 birthday party, that shows them reacting to something off-camera. Judging from their facial expressions, Alba and Melissa didn’t approve of whatever was happening. History was about to repeat itself.
At the Kodak moment during the birthday party when she opened her gifts and cards, she found the cards I’d painstakingly sent around the globe for dozens of autographs. The baroness made a similar face to the one from her 16th birthday, looked at me, and in front of the assembled guests her takeaway was:
“You told everyone I’m 50!”
Yes, I had. But just before that, the beautiful Tina Cole arrived at the party, sashayed into the center of it, looked around and hollered: “Where’s the birthday girl? She’s turning 50!”
(In part four, Baroness vonBeavis visits “Craggy Island” for Tedfest, boards the MV Plassey shipwreck, dines with Her Hollywood Highness Maureen O’Hara in Glengarriff, and takes high tea in the “Parochial House” used for the TV show “Father Ted.)
The Adventures of Baron vonBeavis 