Hollywood Studio Magazine (March 1971)

Richard Webb (upper far right) with a group of young Paramount stars in 1948 when they all appeared in "Isn't It Romantic" - Billy De Wolfe, Patrick Knowles and Webb, with actresses Mona Freeman, Veronica Lake and Mary Hatcher. Alan Ladd and Webb in an off-camera chat for O.S.S. a Paramount spy drama of the 40's. Was a Communist for the FBI,” "Maura Maura” with Errol Flynn, "Distant Drums” with Gary Cooper, "This Woman Is Dangerous” with. Joan Crawford, "Carson City” with Randolph Scott and a few dozen others that Dick has grown used to being scowled at one day for being a cold-hearted killer the night before, and back-patted by fans who saw him as a hero on another show. But the greatest reaction to him comes from young folks who remember him as Captain Midnight. The series played continuously on TV from its first season of 1953 until 1966 when it was in umpteen re-runs on local stations and UHF-TV as "Jet Jackson, Flying Commando." Young fans also grew up with his U.S. Border Patrol, now on the Captain Midnight repeat route. Webb recalls the horror expressed by his theatrical agent when he learned Dick had agreed to do a "kid” show, (Captain Midnight - (1953-1966) complaining Webb would never again get out of what he considered a childish rut. But when the agent saw 15,000 children and parents gathered to cheer Webb during personal appearance tours, the agent smiled all the way to the bank with his 10 %. Besides TV and movie roles, in 1966 Webb wrote, produced and directed a picture titled "The Legend of Eli and Lottie Johl" as a "dry run" to test audience appetite for stories about ghosts and the supernatural. It became an ABC-TV movie feature. Prior to that film venture, Dick had been intrigued by ghost stories. In fact, a ghost told Webb to write a book about the ilk. This experience is one of the eeriest and most difficult to try explaining (even by deep-dyed doubters) of the 45 strange stories about ghosts of California that Webb relates in his book. He assures the reader he never spoke directly to the excarnate spirit (that's an earthbound spirit that once lived as opposed to a discarnate spirit that has never been born) of a former stuntman friend on his Captain Midnight series. Webb admits he is not consciously psychic but eagerly consorts with those who are and makes sure to pray in advance to ward off the evil spirits. He says if you invite ghosts, you'll get your share of "malefics" because, if a person is evil when alive, he isn't going to turn instantly angelic in that other world. Webb also has found that, if ghosts give shivers to humans it is natural that we living folks can frighten poor ghosts. Webb asks the question, "Are show people kooks?", then acknowleges his investigative interest in astroly, psychic phenomena, telepathy, the occult continuing life, spiritualism, card reading, numerology, Ouiga boards, palmestry, crystal ball gazing, head and foot reading, flying saucers, tea leaves, clairvoyance, levitation, mutation, automatic writing and speech, hypnosis, astral projection, witches, motor automation, trances and possession, magic, hallucinations, multiplex personality, sensory automotisms, ectoplasm, and pure genius. Some of these edge their way into his stories which primarily are about that manifestation of force or energy called a ghost. He points out that ghosts are like electricity: we know little about the subject other than being positive it's there. Writing in a style remindful of Will Rogers (which ain't bad, brother), Webb has little time for third-hand tales. What he tells are experiences he had personally or got directly from the mouths of those who saw, heard or felt. He makes good use of the actual colorful words of the narrators he contacted. It also is refreshing to know that ghosts aren't exclusive to castles, vacant mansions or haunted houses on hills. All of his ghosts walk and stalk deserts, mountain ravines, logging camps, hotels and motels and a variety of typically Western structures. Instead of Buccaneers or dead misers, Webb gives his readers folks like a Chinese cook who comes back to point the finger at five lumberjacks who lynched him, and a coterie of Indians. One of the redskins shocked a string of motel patrons by arriving through the walls entirely nude and there was a playful group of these original Americans that threw pans around a kitchen until distracted housewives got together and shooed the unseens away forever. The stories come from places with colorful names: Trona, Bodie, Bridgeport, Panamint Valley, Lone Pine, Cantil, the Sierra Nevadas, the Alabama Hills, Randsburg, the Red Mountains, Monoville, Smith Valley. The nearest the author comes to leaving California is the western shores of Lake Tahoe where folks often see a fisherman ghost strolling at the hour at which he drowned decades ago. A goodly number of stories come from Bridgeport where Dick heard his first ghost story while on location there in 1946 with Robert Mitchum for "Out of the Past." Fortunately he has gone back to this fertile ghost country during his Turn to Page 35 9