Rosemary by the Sea
By
Jon Gregory Presco
Copyright 2019
Everyone must have a friend, or two. In L.A. this is not a given because of the mass identiy crisis most people were having. I lucked out. I had two friends after living in L.A. for two months. Here is the list of people who went to my High School.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_University_High_School_(Los_Angeles,_California)_alumni
Bryan Maclean invited me to my one and only Hollywood-like party, held in the home of Mark Owen in Bel Air. Mark’s father owned a brand new white 1961 Thunderbird convertible. We were sixteen. It was a wild party. The Bel Air Brats trashed the place. Mark was stripped down to his underwear putting on war paint in the bathroom. Bryan got a ride with a cute chic, and was out of there. When Mr. Owen came home, I am down on all fours picking up the poker chips that some rich brat threw helter-skelter on the floor. I forget Owen’s name. Let’s call him George.
George is standing there in the doorway, with his jaw dropped. He had a blonde bombshell by his side.
“Who are you? What’s going on? Where’s my son?”
“Mark’s in the bathroom. My name is Greg. There was a party. They trashed the party, and left.”
George sat down on the sofa leaning foreward.
“I don’t get it. Why are you still here. Why are you cleaning up my house. Why do you care?”
“I’m from Oakland. We don’t desert someone when they are in trouble, are having a bad time.”
Just then, the bathroom door is thrown open, and out rush Mark, who I just met that evening, covered with watercolor paint. He has a headband with toilet paper for feathers. He comes at his father with a big butcher knife in his hand. He is screeching;
“I’m going to kill you! You will soon be dead!”
George does not flinch. The floozy grabs his arm as Mark hops about them on the sofa. Mark makes stabbing motions.
“Die! Die!”
“Cut it out!” George says. “Sally, take my son in his bedroom, and give him a good fucking!”
Sally takes Mark by the arm and leads our crazed warrior to his room. I am – blown away! George looks at me, and says;
“You are one stand-up guy. Let me shake your hand. I’ll give you a ride home!”
In months, George and Rosemary are engaged to get married. Mark and Christine are an item. Bryan was invited to Sharon Tate’s house for dinner, the night the Manson Killer’s came knocking, but, he decided to keep a previous engagement. Mark was telling me for an hour he was going to ambush his father. I took him seriously. When we became good friends, he told me his father brought him home prostitutes all the time. George had been a preacher man. He made much money holding Elmer Gantry-like revivals. Then, he got tired of his own bullshit! He was addicted to sex, and wanted to get his son addicted. He was a player in Sex World. There was a border, a demarcation line that took you into the True Status of this place built in the desert by Oil Money.
I think I got an Art Book, here, written by a loser, a guy that didn’t win, or, become a success. I could have gotten off the train and staked my claim. I could have been – somebody!
At sixteen I am ‘The Creative Observer From The North’. I can’t figure out the Bel Air Beach Club. There was a high hedge that kept wealthy Bel Airites clear of the common folks, who looked out to sea when they swam. The Airites were more than happy to behold their swank Olympic size swimming pool. When I caught my Muse away from the ocean, not even looking at it while she read her book, I thought about this surreal scene.
I surmised this apartheid was practiced in order to keep low-life’s from drooling over their Blonde Babes in bathing suit. This is why I am obsessed with Rena Easton. She has no idea what she had done when she walked out onto the Common Sand at Venice Beach in her Killer Bikini. Then, she marries a Commodore and lived on the Isle of Wight. Sir Ian Easton raced the White Crusader, which would just fit in this swiming pool. Ian, was the real deal. He was not a phony. If this was my movie, I would have Rena walk out in her patriotic colors. At the far end of the pool a model of the White Crusader, comes bearing down under full sale. It grows larger and larger. Now, you are on board.
The model below has a body very similar to Rena’s. She was The American Prize that Ian took home to England. He captured her during the Trojan Wars. The White Crusader was named by Princess Diana.
Rena stood nude by the edge of the bed. Her full fluff filled my mind with a immortal wind that once drove the prows of Greek ships across the azure sea. Going home. The porpoises lead the way.
Then, from over the horizon, The Great Equalizer, came. This is the song I credit with starting the Rock and Roll Revolution. It played all day in 1961, from blaring radios on both sides of the hedge. Everyone was………………doing it!
https://la-confidential-magazine.com/the-hollywood-history-of-hotel-bel-air
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Crusader
The 12-Meter yacht White Crusader was designed by Ian Howlett and built at Cougar Marine, Southampton for the 1987 Louis Vitton Cup 12-Meter race series. The winner would have the right to challenge Alan Bond‘s syndicate and the Royal Perth Yacht Club for the 1987 America’s Cup in Fremantle, Western Australia.
The 12-Meter racing yacht White Crusader began life named as Crusader and was renamed after a £1 million pound advertising investment by British businessman Graham Walker of White Horse Whisky fame who added the word White to the boats name as part of the sponsorship deal.
The America’s Cup potential challenger was officially named by HRH Diana, Princess of Wales at the 1985 Earls Court Boat Show, London.
Alas I found Bryan Maclean’s father, George. He was a premiere architect for Hollywood Stars. He built the home my kindred, Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, lived in, and was Godfather at the Christening of her son, Christopher Wilding. George Maclean was a good friend of Robert Stack, who dated Liz. Bryan said he learned to swim in Liz’s pool. Was this pool located at 1375 Beverly Hills Estate Drive?
George was the quintessential Hollywood-Los Angeles architect. He was Howard Roarke to the rich and famous. His house he built for the Trousdale Estates, is the Acme of Southern California success, that is enjoying a new Renaissance. Add to this the murals Garth Benton did for movie stars, and Christine Rosamond’s artwork, and the fact Bryan and Christine were lovers for two months when we were teenagers, then here is the lifestyle many can only dream of.
Bryan had seen the model I made for the house I designed when I was seventeen. He informed me his father was a famous architect. Bryan’s mother was an artist, as was one of her parents. I wish I knew her maiden name. Elizabeth, George, and Bryan were saved and became evangelicals. George and Bryan removed themselves from the Success Gauntlet.
Christine was married to actor, Rick Partlow, and lived in one of Micky Rooney’s houses. Garth did some acting, and was married to actress Harlee McBride. Tim O’Connor was like a member of our family. His father was a famous actor of the same name.
Michael Wilding was an artist, and thus was the reason Liz married him, in my opinion. Her family were art collectors. She encouraged Michael Jackson to become an artist. Michael Jr. may come out with a Mommy Dearest-like book that inspired the Rosamond Fib that she hid in the closet to paint. Bryan drew Beach Bunnies in our art class. Christine did not show her forbidden artwork to her lover, because this work did not exist.
Liz Taylor championed Gays stricken with AIDS. Her daughter-in-law, Aileen Getty, came down with this fatal disease. The Getty family owns the largest art collection in the world. We are talking about an Artistic Dynasty.
Sometimes I ask what the purpose of this blog is. The more I dig, the more I find. Wait till you see what I found out about Eric Nord.
Jon Presco
Copyright 2016
https://rosamondpress.com/2012/05/07/garth-benton-is-dead/
A memorial celebration of the life of architect George MacLean is scheduled at noon Wednesday at Bel Air Presbyterian Church in West Los Angeles.
MacLean, who designed shopping centers for the public and mansions for film stars, was 68 when he died of cancer Dec. 1 at his ranch near Hemet. He most recently had pulled away from the Los Angeles social scene, said his longtime friend John Green, the composer and conductor.
At Work Developing Land
“George had been living as an evangelical Christian the past 10 years but he was developing estates on his Hemet property,” Green said.
MacLean was the chief architect for Westlake Village in Los Angeles, the Acapulco Princess Hotel and Estates in Mexico and the International Shopping Bazaar in Freeport,
http://www.marmol-radziner.com/restoration/meisel-residence
http://aflippenlife.blogspot.com/2013/10/trousdale-estates-life-above-it-all.html
Elizabeth quickly fell in love. What she didn’t know was that the home, which was made of glass and adobe, was designed by architect George MacLean with her in mind. In her book, An Informal Memoir, Elizabeth describes the unique interior: “One whole wall was built of bark with fern and orchids growing up the bark, and the bar was made of stone. And the fireplace had no chimney. There was a device making the smoke go down under the building and out through the barbecue pit.” Elizabeth also recalled that “You really couldn’t distinguish between the outside and inside. And all the colors I loved—off white, white, natural woods, stone, beigy marble. The pool was so beautiful. There were palm trees and rock formations—it looked like a natural pool, with trees growing out of it. It was the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen.” The state of the art home also featured an intercom, automated doors, light dimmers, automated curtains, and a movie screen. The architect later became godfather to Elizabeth’s son, Christopher.
After Elizabeth put the home on the market, Ingrid Berman toured the home as a potential buyer.
Ms. Taylor’s connection to the fight against AIDS grew deeper still when her daughter-in-law Aileen Getty revealed to the woman she called “Mom” that she had contracted HIV in 1984. Far from turning her back on Getty, Taylor grew even more committed to the cause and saving the life of the daughter-in-law she loved and the mother of two of her grandchildren.
“Without the love of Elizabeth Taylor in my life, I would probably be dead — if not physically, most certainly emotionally,” Getty told The Advocate in 2011. “Mom loved me through my shame and held me tight. This can be very difficult: If you do something wrong, sometimes you feel that you want to be scolded or punished for your actions, as opposed to being loved and supported. Mom just loved me.”
Born in Los Angeles in 1947, MacLean drifted towards the music scene and became a roadie for the Byrds. In the mid-Sixties, the tall blond musician would hang out at Ben Frank’s, a 24-hour diner on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip. As he recalled on television, “Bobby Jameson, a friend of mine, told me about the audition for the Monkees. He said: `You ought to go down there, you’re what they’re looking for. You’ll make $750 a week.’ That was an enormous amount. But he didn’t tell me that it was comedy,” explained MacLean. “So I went down there being the hip, street- wise guy, gravelling my voice, and it was wrong. Thank God it was the wrong approach. They got the impression I was a seriously drugged- out guy. ”
http://www.johncodyonline.com/home/articles/2008-09-BryanMacLean.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPZjVD_7kI4 mckee
Bryan MacLean’s mother was an artist and a dancer, and his father was an architect for Hollywood celebrities such as Elizabeth Taylor and Dean Martin.[1] Neighbor Frederick Loewe, of the songwriting team Lerner & Loewe, recognized him as a “melodic genius” at the age of three as he doodled on the piano. His early influences were Billie Holiday and George Gershwin, although he confessed to an obsession with Elvis Presley. During his childhood, he wore out show music records from Guys and Dolls, Oklahoma, South Pacific and West Side Story. His first girlfriend was Liza Minnelli and they would sit at the piano together singing songs from The Wizard of Oz. He learned to swim in Elizabeth Taylor‘s pool, and his father’s good friend was actor Robert Stack. Bryan appears in the 1957 Cary Grant film An Affair to Remember singing in the Deborah Kerr character’s music class. Maria McKee is his half sister.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-bryan-maclean-1044305.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westlake_Village,_California
http://www.curbed.com/2011/3/23/10476208/the-many-homes-of-silver-screen-star-elizabeth-tayor
He created homes for such stars as Elizabeth Taylor, Robert Stack and Dean Martin, and he was affiliated for several years with Daniel K. Ludwig, the builder, shipping magnate and financier for whom he designed office buildings and hotels.
MacLean, who studied art and architecture at USC, is survived by his wife, Gene, sons Bryan and Joel, his mother, Lillie, and a brother, Charles.
Rosamond Press 