And There I Stood with My Piccolo

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20. SAN FRANCISCO HAS MORE PERSONality than any other city I've ever been in: big, good, kind, friendly, the Golden Gate, the food, the people, their appreciation of music and sculpture and honest art, hills, the Family Club, the Bohemian Club, Dr. Margaret Chung—ask any flier about Margaret Chung—Julius's Castle, Golden Gate Park, the Opera House, the fine musicians, the symphony, and Pierre Monteux. I sure do admire Monsieur Monteux. He only knows me as a composer, although I played the flute under him when he guest-conducted in New York in my Philharmonic days. He is one of the world's great conductors and has made the San Francisco Symphony one of the great orchestras of our time. His music comes first, and that's honest with him—not a pose. Ask the photographers and interviewers who try to see him on a rehearsal day. On other days he's full of charm and graciousness and stories. 141 He was conducting in Paris a certain year when the symphony players were pretty independent, as they had a lot of outside work like the FoliesBergere and the hotels that were more lucrative than the long-haired jobs—so every rehearsal, Monsieur Monteux would see different faces among the players, until by the last rehearsal everyone in the orchestra had sent a substitute but the timpani player, whom Monsieur Monteux addressed as follows: "You, sir, the timpanist, you have attended the rehearsals faithfully." "Thank you, sir." "Every one of them." "Thank you, sir." "In fact, you are the only member of this orchestra who has personally attended every rehearsal, and I want to express to you my special thanks and extreme appreciation." "Thank you, sir. Uh—Monsieur Monteux " "Yes?" "My only regret is that I will be unable to play at the concert tonight." Well, I was very happy in San Francisco and proud, too, on account of a "Meredith Willson Day" that the mayor hung on me after my first symphony was played. Are you self-conscious when the photographer 142 asks you for one of those handshaking poses and you have to look somebody in the eye for five or ten minutes before the picture is snapped? Well, believe me, I am. Herb Caen—now why in the world should anybody spell Cane like that?— Herb Caen, a remarkable San Francisco newspaperman , told me one time that it's very easy to "cheat" in such a shot by looking slightly higher, at the person's forehead. Then the picture looks like you are looking right at them and nobody's embarrassed. So that day at the City Hall I thought I'd try it. The only trouble was that the mayor was bald as a grapefruit, and when the picture came out it didn't look eye-to-eye at all. It looked like I was doing just what I wasdoing: inspecting His Honor's hairless dome with considerable astonishment. And if I'm ever invited to the City Hall again I'll be very surprised and no thanks to you, Herb Caen. Anyway, I was sorry to see radio's headquarters unmistakably pushing southward to Los Angeles. But one day a young man by the name of George Gruskin, who didn't look a day older than twentythree but who was actually only twenty-two, came to San Francisco representing the William Morris office. He wanted to know if I had an agent, and I said no, and by the time his plane left for Los Angeles that night I had one and he was it, and before the year was out I was in Hollywood on the 143 Maxwell House radio program, partly because of this George Gruskin, partly because of a tall thin Mormon. Every Mormon I ever knew was a wonderful person, and that goes for the King Sisters. This tall thin Mormon named Don Cope was a mighty fine producer at NBC in San Francisco, but he went to New York to work for Benton and Bowles, which is an advertising agency that put on the Maxwell House radio program, and Don Cope became the producer of it, and that's how he and I met again in Hollywood. And I've been with the Morris office, including George Gruskin, Bill Murray , and Abe Lastfogel, ever since, with a handshake for a contract. That's the best kind...