There’s no way to talk about getting sober (the first time which lasted for ten years until I met opiates) without talking about Jan Mccormack. And there’s no way to talk about Jan without praising her beyond all sense, and not because of who she was in the industry or what she did in Hollywood. She had a noble heart. It’s as simple as that. And she will forever hold an exalted place in my life. Jan was my friend and my mentor.
I met Jan when my mother called and said, “Darling Annie Ross has a relative named Jan McCormack who’s a big personal manager and I want you to meet her.” Now it’s unclear exactly how or if Jan and Annie were actually related, but their common denominator was Ella Logan, the Scots actress and the original star of Finian’s Rainbow on Broadway. Ella was Annie’s aunt and Jan had somehow ended up living with Ella as a child for a summer. Annie lived with Ella too, though not at the same time. Jan would hear Ella praise Annie and developed a childhood worship of her from afar.
Annie and Jan had reconnected somehow and Annie was out in Los Angeles staying with her. Jan had promised to help her launch an acting career. Jan had been partners with the late great casting director and manager, Joyce Selznick. When Joyce died Jan took over the business and her stable of talent. Her biggest client at the time was David Hasselhoff who was at the peak of his Baywatch fame on which she was a producer. She handled an interesting if eclectic assortment of actors, writers, and directors. I called Jan and asked if we could meet for dinner and she quickly agreed.
We met at Adrianos, a lovely restaurant in the Beverly Glen Center, the outdoor plaza at the crest where Mulholland meets Beverly Glen. The Glen Center as it was called by the cognoscenti had tony restaurants and hi-toned take out joints popular with its foodie clientele.
Jan and I hit it off immediately despite a 40 year age difference (I’d always been an ancient kid). She had short blond hair, wore black tailored pantsuits and walked with something of a swagger. We laughed and talked the night away. She’d eventually come to call herself my WCM for “West Coast Mom.” That Jan raved about me to all her clients and friends was a given. We’d so bonded. My mother too would become one of Jan’s closest friends.
I’d recently moved into a tacky sixties apartment in Studio City because I’d just broken up with a woman I never should have been with in the first place, because—standards (of which I had very few in the dating department). I chose this building because two of my oldest friends—we’d been kids together in Miami—lived upstairs: Mona and Jill. We were like sisters and partied almost every night on booze and coke which we bought from a neighborhood dealer.
It was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and I’d planned on the usual coke filled night with Mona and Jill. They came down to my digs with wine and . . . meth. Not coke. “Can’t you get coke?” I asked disappointedly. “No Tim’s away for Thanksgiving”, Mona said, referring to our dealer with the great pearlescent pink Peruvian flake. “But we got this meth, try it.” My response to “try it” was always the same: “Why yes, I think I will!” Plus it was the only game in town.
I’d just moved into this apartment and still hadn’t unpacked. But propelled by meth, I proceeded to put everything away, put a bookshelf together, organized my books by size and in alphabetical order, and arranged my kitchen to perfection. I think Jill helped me organize all the files in the corner of the room which was to be my office. This went on all night.
The problem was we were still very busy and wide awake the next morning, which was Thanksgiving. None of us had slept, nor felt inclined to, and I had to be first, at Loretta Feldman’s house, an English country manor set down on the Studio City side of Laurel Canyon, where I’d have an early dinner with her, Annie Ross, and other friends of theirs, and then on to Jan’s, who’d have all her family and clients there for dessert.
Now Annie and Loretta drank pretty good so I didn’t think drinking with them would be a problem. Loretta was the widow of the late comic actor Marty Feldman and when drunk she’d lapse into tears of “Mart oh Mart, why’d you leave me Mart?” He’d died while shooting a film on location in Mexico. She had a deep throated English accent and would—out of nowhere— break into a husky version of “The best is yet to come and babe won’t it be fiiiiiiiiiiinnne.” as a counter to her despair over “Mart oh Mart.” It was a schizophrenic juxtaposition of despair and antic song. Annie was a jazz legend, whom, along with John Hendricks, practically created scat singing by putting inventive lyrics to saxophone solos. They were famous for the song Cloudburst among others and Annie wrote the hit, Twisted a number with clever lyrics set to a Wardell Gray saxophone solo. Twisted would later be covered by Bette Midler and Joni Mitchell.
In the fifties, Annie, who at the time was lovers with Lenny Bruce, was deported back to the U.K. for being a heroin addict. But she was back in America now. And living with my mother.
By eight in the morning Jill, Mona, and I were one fourth into a fifth of vodka and I remember very little of what happened next. I do remember sitting at Loretta Feldman’s dinner table, though not how I got there; I remember coming to in her guest room where’d I’d been dragged and thrown into bed presumably for passing out at the table. Then I remember being at Jan’s house, a drunk, high, slurring wreck. Everything in between—cut from the film.
Loretta had someone drive me and dump me at Jan’s. She could have called her and said I couldn’t make it. I was unwell. Sparing both Jan and me the humiliation, but I imagine her dragging me to Jan’s door and announcing “Here’s your protege Jan. Show her off to your family and David Hasselhoff!” presenting me, Lillian Roth in I’ll Cry Tomorrow.
Loretta and Annie didn’t have to bring me to Jan’s and the reasons why they wanted to humiliate both Jan and me are complicated—to say the least. But it had to do with Loretta’s jealousy over Jan’s fondness for Annie. Annie really didn’t have a mean bone, and I’ll always believe Loretta concocted the plot to bring me to Jan’s. Though I’m not blaming them for my being high.
The next memory I have is sitting in Jan’s living room with David Hasselhoff. I was seeing double which I tried to correct by focusing on a statue of Boy Extracting Thorn From Foot in the corner. Jan must have been running from guest to guest making excuses for me. The girl she’d so raved about. Her son drove me home that night and that’s the last memory I have of Thanksgiving.
The next day I’d never felt so bereft and low. I’d screwed up in front of Jan and betrayed her. The one person who believed in me. I called her the following morning sobbing. She made me apologize to her sister Lori and brother Buddy and I told her I’d never drink or do drugs again. The next day I went to an AA meeting and kept my promise for ten years (again until opiates).
A week later Jan called me to say she’d set up an interview for me with Jay Bernstein the mega manager, when just the week before I’d ruined her Thanksgiving.
“Out of the tree of life, I just picked me a plum
You came along and everything started’in to hum… 😂
These are such entertaining, great reads!! Don’t make us wait so long for next installment, please!!
They don't make 'em like Jan anymore.