More SID Grauman
By Tom Teicholz at 16 March, 2009, 11:32 am
There’s always more than can fit in one column (particularly these days as editorial space shrinks). With regard to Sid Grauman, first off I alluded to the practical joke played by Grauman on Lubitsch that caused him to have or almost have a midl heart attac. Here’s the story.
Lubitsch was apparently afraid to fly, Grauman knew it.. So Grauman arranged the following stunt, The next time Grauman was on a flight, up in the air, it suddenly hit turbulence, and then two men hired by Grauman, dressed as pilot and copilot burst out of the pilot’s cabin, wearing parachutes and then opened the escape hatch and jumped out. As mentioned above, Lubitsch did not take it well.
Another trivia item is that Fatty Arbuckle who Grauman knew from vaudeville days surrendered to police in the infamous case that undid his career, with a call from Grauman’s office.
And last but certainly not least, Mark Simon told me that one of the reasons that he was interested in Grauman is that Grauman was one of the few gay men at that time who was fully admitted into the inner circles of the Hollywood moguls. Neal Gabler’s book, “An Empire of their own” confirms Grauman’s homosexuality, but most accounts refer to Grauman as a “lifelong bachelor.” Simon told me that there were so many aspects of Grauman’s story that set off his “gay-dar” One account has that Grauman allowed no one to contact him in the morning in his hotel room — and because his brokers could not reach him, he lost his fortune when the market crashed in 1929. Grauman lived for much of his life in the Ambasssador Hotel, with his mother living in a suite across the hall. Need we say more?
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