Springsteen vs Lucille Ball

This is a blog piece about the memorable St. Patrick's Day I saw two show biz superstars in person -- Bruce Springsteen and Lucille Ball.  This happened thanks to my job as a veejay and talk show host for VH1.  If any journalist would want to confirm whether or not "The Boss" and I were in the same location at the same time, just check the guest record for West Hollywood's Sunset Marquis Hotel on March 16th & 17th in 1989.  I don't mean to irritate the those of you who worship at the rock shine of Springsteen, but I flew back to Manhattan thinking that "The Boss" in the late '80s...

...could've taken a tip in the art of celebrity class from the lady who gave us Lucy Ricardo.

We veejays introduced Bruce Springsteen music videos frequently on VH1.  How many times did I mention that a then-unknown young actress named Courteney Cox played the audience fan he brings onstage to join him in the Dancing in the Dark video?  Countless!  A group of us from MTV and VH1 had to fly to New York to L.A. to tape interviews and such for our shows.  I was taping interviews for my prime time talk show, Watch Bobby Rivers.  The hotel was packed with TV and music industry folks that week. TV camera crews were set up by the pool and in rooms for celeb interviews.

I arrived from my direct flight to L.A. and got to the hotel.  I'd stayed there before when shooting features for VH1.  The network had a corporate account with the hotel.  I was acquainted with the absolutely friendly and attentive front desk staff.  That day, the staff was apologetic when I arrived at the check-in desk.  The hotel was fully occupied and my reserved room was unavailable.  Why?  Because, I was told confidentially by the hotel manager, Bruce Springsteen was still in the room way after his check-out time.  There were no other available rooms.  I left my luggage with the bellperson and took a walk.  Something people rarely do in the good weather of Southern California.  I took a stroll in West Hollywood and killed time having coffee at a diner on Santa Monica Boulevard.  I walked back to Sunset Marquis one hour later.  The manager was still apologetic.  He'd contacted Springsteen and told him what the situation was.  He was still in the room.  I took another walk to kill more time while waiting for any room to become available.  I browsed in Book Soup bookstore and Tower Records.  I went back to the Sunset Marquis at the end of a second hour without a room.  Now I'm tired from a work travel day that began early Eastern Standard Time.  I had interviews to prepare. I needed a nap.  Springsteen was being relocated to a star-worthy suite becoming free.  I waited some more, inconvenienced by "The Boss."  He was really hot in those days.

His songs told a story.  And they were shorter than Billy Joel's.  Some hailed him as the rock Voice of the Working Class in the Age of Yuppies.  (Remember that word?)

During the FM rock radio job I had in Milwaukee when I started my professional broadcast career and, years later, my gig at VH1, I'd seen Springsteen in concert about two or three times.  One thing I noticed at each show:  The only other black person I saw at a Springsteen concert was onstage playing back-up for Bruce.  And that was the late, great Clarence Clemons.  The audiences weren't racially mixed like for Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson or even a Bette Midler concert.  Did Bruce's music speak only to a specific part of Blue Collar America?  Were his tickets too expensive?  Did he notice the lack of racial diversity when looking at his audiences?  The Beatles did.  I know because I asked Paul McCartney in my VH1 interview about the lack of black teens in the audience when The Beatles played CBS' The Ed Sullivan Show.

I decided to see if being inconvenienced by Bruce Springsteen could benefit my veejay segments.  I wrote a short note on hotel stationery introducing myself and asking if I could interview him for 2-3 minutes by the pool for VH1.  I requested a couple of soundbites that I could use in my veejay segments.  I didn't need a long interview.  I just needed him to sit down, clip on mic onto his lapel and tell me about his tours and upcoming projects.  Quick, simple, easy and for a network that promoted his product.

I never got an apology for putting me out of a room for over two hours. I never got a response to my polite request for a short interview.  The hotel manager said that he'd delivered my note to Springsteen personally.  The next day was St. Patrick's Day.  I'm having lunch outside at the hotel and -- a few tables away -- there's Springsteen with Patty Scialfa.  I'm right in his eyeline.  I smile and nod.  No response.  But, he was wearing shades and perhaps he didn't see me.  Another hotel front desk staffer came over and asked me if I'd gotten lucky with Bruce.  If he was going to do a brief interview.  I answered, "No."  He hadn't responded at all.  She was surprised and said something along the lines of "Well...he knows who you are.  We pointed you out."  I was the only black veejay/talk show host on VH1.  I was easy to spot on the network.

A buddy of mine was also in L.A. that week on a work assignment.  He was staying with a relative.  The relative was comedian/actor Gary Morton, the second husband of Lucille Ball.  He gave me a number and told me to call him "at the house" when I was finished with work.  I called late that afternoon.  Lucy answered the phone with the distinctive latter-day lower-register voice of hers.

Not only was she very gracious on the phone, she complimented me on my work!  She'd seen my Watch Bobby Rivers interview show when Sally Field was my half-hour guest.  It gets better.  Then Lucille Ball -- a woman who was a Hollywood movie star before Bruce and I were born to run and became an even bigger star on TV thanks to the historic sitcom, I Love Lucy, with her first husband, Desi Arnaz -- invited me to come over to her house for cocktails at 6pm if I wasn't busy.  Of course, I went!  One of the best St. Patrick's Day experiences this Catholic man ever had.  Ms. Ball and I laughed and talked over cocktails.  Gary Morton came downstairs and joined us.  I could not believe my luck and her graciousness.  My buddy, Gary's nephew, was there and watched all this.  As I prepared to leave, she and Gary were about to seat down to pork chops for dinner and watch Wheel of Fortune.  "I'd ask you to stay," she said, "but we've only got two pork chops."  She told me she was going to be in New York in April and, perhaps, we could have dinner then.

Unfortunately, she passed away before making it to New York.  We lost Lucy on April 26, 1989.  I'll never, ever forget that St. Patrick's Day at Lucy's house.  She had balanced international movie and television stardom with working class sensibilities.  When I arrived at her house, she'd been answering fan mail.  She continued to be grateful to her fans.  She appreciated that I knew things about her early films, like 1942's The Big Street.

I grew up the son of working class African-American parents in South Central L.A.  I was a child of the Civil Rights era.  We lived in the curfew area during the Watts Riots.  After my parents divorced and Mom became a single working parent of three, I studied and worked and eventually was able to help her with bills.  In good times and when times were bad, who could always put a smile on our faces?  Lucille Ball as Lucy Ricardo.  I grew up watching her and being inspired by her when I chose to make TV my profession, regardless of how difficult the journey could be.  Guys from my old neighborhood weren't supposed to get talk shows on national TV with A-list celebrities.  One day in 1989, the rocker who was tagged the Balladeer for Blue Collar America was the one who seemed to behave like a high-toned, entitled Hollywood movie star.  The iconic movie & TV star who lived in a big house in Beverly Hills was the one whose kindness and attention connected to my working class heart.  That's why, to this day, I love Lucy.