Page 52 - Been There… Done That!

Gary Graham
That was one of the biggest lessons I ever got in my life. Sure I was sick, but that decision to go on made the crowd happy and made the club owner happy regardless of whether it made me happy, but somehow it did. I got through something I had just thought was basically impossible. I call this kind of lesson going through the school of hard knocks. It is not so much that I learned because I was so damn smart, but that I developed an understanding that, if something hurts, don’t do that again.
I always felt a little intimidated when famous people came to the office we had located at 202 North Canon Drive in Beverly Hills, just one-half block off Wilshire Boulevard. One day I was sitting at the desk when the door swung open with a booming voice asking, “Where’s Red?” I must have been in shock as I was slow to answer and then it was, “Goddamn it, where’s Red?” It was Lee Marvin, bigger than life, standing right in front of me. He broke out laughing when he saw I was speechless. I told him John would be back shortly and he said he would just wait and wanted to know how much for a cup of coffee.
When John came back they talked. Lee was wanting to know if we would work with his girlfriend, Michelle Trijola. He said she was driving him nuts to make a record. We agreed and worked with her for a few weeks and finally took her to the studio and got two songs recorded and later sent to be pressed to a 45 rpm record. Lee was ecstatic and couldn’t thank us enough. A lot of visitors to that office were superstars such as Linda Evans (who was at that time filming the TV series Big Valley) and occasionally the famous gambler Nick Dandolas, aka “Nick the Greek.”
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