Hollywood Studio Magazine (May - June 1968)

imi The editors of Hollywood Studio Magazine are happy to introduce W.C. Tuttle to our readers. A veteran of 1000 magazine stories and 125 books, Mr. Tuttle’s amazing career began in 1915 when he sold his first story. Now 83 years young, he lives in North Hollywood. As an early day screen writer at Universal, we thought it appropriate to include him on the same page as our modern day contributors. We expect to see more of his old fashioned humor on our pages in the coming issues. “Luv.” The TV nominees are Clarence (lion) and Judy (chimp) in Daktari,” Arnold (pig) in “Green Acres,” Ben (bear) in “Gentle Ben,” Higgins (dog) in “Petticoat Junction,” Junior (dog) in “Hondo,” Lassie (dog) in “Lassie” and Lord Nelson (dog) in “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies.” Many previous Patsy award winners will be in attendance along with those animals who have just begun their television and motion picture careers and who will be the “stars of the future” in the animal world. By W.C. Tuttle In 1917 I was a cartoonist on a Spokane, Washington, daily paper, when I received a letter from the manager of Universal City Studios offering me a job as script writer for Harry Carey, the cowboy actor. Did I take it? Well, my wife, three-year-old son and my mother-in-law, headed south by train to rent a home in Hollywood, and—hey, do you remember the jalopy bus that ran out to Universal? Anybody who claimed they went over Cahuenga Pass in high gear was branded a hopeless liar. Well, I paid my two-bits for the ride, along with several others, among whom were Hoot Gibson, who later became my golfing pal. The passengers came to me and asked if I had taken the Cahuenga Agreement, which was “I hereby promise that if the jalopy gets stuck, I’ll help shove it over the top of the Pass”. Anyway, I had to push it, along with the others. When I got to Universal, I found that the manager had been fired a week before, and no one seemed to remember his name. My job skidded. Later, I picked up some of it, because Harry and his wife became very friendly with my wife and I —and Harry was one of their money-makers. They made a lot of my stuff. In fact, one manager liked it so well that he swiped one of my original scripts, made the picture under his name, and threatened to sue me, when later I re¬ wrote the tale and sold it to a magazine. When Harry, Hoot Gibson and I showed him his mistakes, he withdrew his com¬ plaint and left California. Those were the good days, in which I made a good salary, writing for Independent Producers. Later I became President of the Pacific Coast Baseball League, the only salaried job I ever had in California. My salary was less than I paid my eight umpires. That was in 1935. But now, I’m 83 years old, and I realize why men will go on strike for more salary. W.C. Tuttle PATSY AWARDS TO EE HELD AT UNIVERSAL The American Humane Association’s 18th annual Patsy Awards will be held at Universal Studios Tour Center on June 1, it was announced yesterday by Harold Melniker, director of the Association’s Hollywood office. The Patsy awards are presented each year to the top animal performers in motion pictures and television shows. The show will be an all-star animal extravaganza open to the public, on several acres of the Entertainment Center at Universal. Nominees have been selected from some 20,000 animals which appeared in American Humane Association-supervised productions during 1967. All of the nominees had “starring” roles in feature films or first-run television productions. The winners will be voted my motion picture, television and pet writers from newspapers throughout the U.S. In addition to the awards, the program will feature such outstanding events as a sheepherding demonstration performed by the top trained dogs in the entertainment industry, a demonstration of various stunts as they are performed for both television and motion pictures including fighting horses, falling horses and other dangerous stunts seen many times on the screen. The Patsy awards will be presented by some of the top personalities of Hollywood. Four of this year’s motion picture nominees appeared in “Doctor Dolittle”-Baron (dog), Chee Chee (chimp), Polynesia (macaw) and Sophie (sea lion). Other nominees include Ben (bear) in “Gentle Giant,” Pogo (dog) in “Eight On the Lam,” Sir Tom (mountain lion) in “The Cat” and Storm (dog) in The Craven award will be given for outstanding work by an animal actor which has not been featured in a “starring” role. A new award will also be presented this year for the first time to honor the best animal performance in AHA-supervised television commercials and advertising campaigns. By W.C. Tuttle It was the winter of 1912.1 was living in Western Montana, when Canada dumped one of it’s worst blizzards onto us. It was a very small town, one store, one saloon. There were only three thermometers in the town, and they had all frozen up. The wind was, and I’m merely guessing, over sixty miles an hour. A half-dozen of us were hugging the old box-stove in the general store, trying to warm our overalls, when the store-keeper thought he heard someone at the front door. finally he went back there, yanked the door open, and in fell a man and a couple of dogs. He was so coated with ice that we had a difficult job of recognizing him as Matt Sullivan, an old rawhider, who lived forty miles back in the hills. We broke the ice off his whiskers and propped him close to the stove, where we poured whiskey down his frozen old throat, until he was able to open his eyes. Everybody knew Old Matt. The store-keeper asked him if he had traveled all the way from his cabin, and he nodded. The proprietor said, “Of all the crazy damn-fools I’ve ever seen, you’re the craziest, Matt. Why did you do it, in this storm?” “I—I huh-had to,” whisptered Matt. “You had to? For God’s sake, why did you have to, Matt?” “I-I searched the damn shack, Jim; and I discovered I was out of tapioca.”