pvitari wrote:Dear Martha,
Thanks for your answer on Ben Johnson. I was really glad you mentioned Ben's wife Carol and his father-in-law Fat Jones as they are not celebrities and it's hard to find information on them. I'd love to hear more from you especially about Fat Jones -- that is, what he was like as a person. While I've been able to dig up details about the location of his business, the films he provided stock for and the years he was in business, I've found nothing about him as a person and I'd love anything you can tell us about him.
Changing the subject, I loved what you wrote about Linda Darnell in your book -- thank you so much for that! She is one of the loveliest actresses and I think very underrated. It's amazing what she accomplished as a 15 and 16-year-old in Hollywood.
One of my favorite directors is Frank Borzage. If you could expand on how you met him, what he was like, I'd love to hear about that too. I've read he was as much a romantic in real life as one might gather from his films which celebrate love, but that his relationship with his wife fell short of that ideal, although he found something closer to it late in life. And also if you knew or met Charles Farrell, Borzage's alter ego in silent films, who co-founded the Palm Springs Racquet Club where all the stars hung out. Was Farrell into polo? I know he loved tennis, swimming and sailing.
One last question, just wondering if you knew horse trainer Don Burt, who died in 2012. I read his book Horses & Other Heroes: Recollections and Reflections of a Life with Horses and enjoyed it very much. He also knew many of the actors and actresses who worked on westerns or in their personal lives owned ranches and enjoyed breeding, raising and training horses, including Robert Taylor, with whom he had a business partnership.
Of course I didn't know Fat well. He was a huge man and very kind and jovial. He knew every horse he had and knew the movie business backwards and forewords. He was a giant in his field. He was a big booster of mine and that always worked out well for me as so often the wranglers that worked with him and 20th and Metro all had great respect for his opinions. Many times the wranglers word was the final word in a casting event.
Frank Borzage played polo on a regular basis at the club where my father played and later managed. I remember him as always smiling, always gentle and a lovely, lovely person. There are two pictures of him in my book. I one of the pictures he and his then wife Rena, Charlie Farrell, and Walt Disney and Mrs. Disney are all standing at the bar in the club house surrounding my mother. My father later was asked to manage the polo in Palm Springs and yes, they spent many good times at the Racquet Club . . . I was too young. Phooey! The all followed the small Southern California polo circuit and I and we were right in the middle of it. I had a wonderful childhood that has been hard to duplicate in my 'grown-up' years.
Well - well - well. I am sort of at a loss for words re the Don Burt thing. I was married to Don before he got famous as a judge. He is the one who sold my Clark Gable cart! I can tell you this. The book you so enjoyed was mostly fiction. Don used my celebrity stories to promote his career. Those are my stories in that book. He even uses my personal vernacular. He also claims Frosty was his horse. Frosty was a fully trained horse when I met Don. I have threatened Tony Lyons his publisher and the American Quarter Horse Assn . with full plagerism law suits if they ever publish one more word about Don Burt and his horse Frosty. I have the full story I lived it . He was my horse. Don did not know Robert Taylor. He met him one time when I introduced them. One time. The stories he tells are pure fiction. Sorry to be so rough. I can tell you a lot more if you want to email me. Send me a personal message and I will give you my email. Sorry to destroy the image you so enjoyed.
[color=#0000BF][i]Avatar: John Cantarini (Martha's husband) on future world record holder Crazy Kid. He won six in a row
on him.[/i][/color]