Where is the Truth in Truth in Music?

Twilight Time

Reaching back twenty-five years to my time working for Jerry Kushnick brings to mind several conversations I had with Morty Nevins, one of the writers of the instrumental version of "Twilight Time." 

Prior to working for Kushnick I had spent six months as the assistant to songwriter Buck Ram.  Even though my tenure with Buck was short we became close friends from the moment we met.  He was the same age as my father.  They had lived in the same neighborhood in Chicago.  Buck was friends with (and possibly related to) Frankie Laine, and my mother, at fourteen, had been the newsletter editor for Merry Gardens, the ballroom where Frankie Laine got his start.  So Buck and I immediately had common ground.

Buck was amazing.  He could spin a dream like no one I have ever met.  He was one of the top five songwriters of BMIs first 50 years.  You may not know Buck's name, but you know that of the other four on the list:  Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Jimmy Webb and Kris Kristofferson, and Buck, the elder statesman of the group, was pretty good company for them to keep. 

Buck had a string of hits under his belt dating back to the 1930s including "At Your Beck and Call," "Remember When," "I'll Be Home for Christmas," Ella Fitzgerald's "Chew Chew Chew Your Bubble Gum," and The Platters greatest hits, "Only You," "The Magic Touch," "The Great Pretender" and "Twilight Time" and more.

When I met Buck, controversery had followed him and his songwriting for decades beginning with "I'll Be Home for Christmas." When his Publisher, Mills Music, sued Kent and Gannon's publisher for poaching their song, Mills Music won the suit, but Buck, forty years later, still had trouble on occassion having his name included as a writer, and he had to put up with a lifetime of bull about him suing and it not being his song, etc.

The truth is the song began as a poem Buck wrote for his mother when he was sixteen and a student at the University of Illinois.  He was not going home for Christmas but wrote he would be there "if just in reverie."  Kent and Gannon changed the line to "if only in my dreams."  But that's another story for later.

This is about "Twlight Time," and it's one for the "it's small world" category.  Jerry Kushnick was the opposing attorney, representing Morty Nevins the lawsuit.

I had no way of knowing that Kushnick had anything to do with Buck, and Buck certainly didn't remember Kushnick's name.  And then Morty Nevins walked into the office.

Morty was a little guy.  Maybe 5'5".  He had his hair dyed black and was carrying a notebook in his arm like a school boy with a piece of stationary sticking out that said "The Man Who Wrote 'Twilight Time'."  I immediately knew who he was and was loaded for bear to protect Buck.

The result of about nine hours of talking to Morty was interesting, and I wound up liking Morty very much.

Morty had run into Kushnick in the drugstore in Beverly Hills.  Morty's daughter was putting together a book of cartoons she had drawn, and he wanted someone to represent them.  Who better than his old attorney, despite the fact they hadn't seen one another for twenty years.  Kushnick told Morty to come to the office, and they'd talk.  When Morty showed up, Kushnick told me, "I don't want to talk to him.  He's crazy.  Get rid of him."

Morty wasn't going anywhere.  Kushnick had told him to come in, and he was going to wait until they talked.  That was when I saw that piece of stationary sticking out of his notebook and had the opening for me to come to Buck's defense.  I began with, "You wrote 'Twilight Time.'  How did you get involved with Buck Ram?"

I thought Morty was going to blow a gasket at the mention of Buck's name.  "You know him?" followed by a few derogatory comments flew from Morty's mouth.

"So tell me your side of the story," I said.

That was Morty's opening.  And I listened.  Morty waited for three hours for Kushnick.  In between answering the phone, running back and forth to Kushnick's office to report that Morty was still there, and typing a note or two, Morty and I talked - and talked - and talked.  Or, rather, Morty talked and I listened as he raked Buck over the coals for "stealing his song."

Morty didn't leave until Kushnick sneeked out the back door of the office.  Morty's parting words to me were, "I'll be back."  And a few weeks laterm sure enough, he was back, and the scenario repeated itself.  I told Kushnick Morty was there.  Kushnick wouldn't see him, and Morty waited for three hours until Kushnick, once again, sneeked out the back door.

In those three hours Morty told me the story of his group, The Three Suns, being managed by Buck.  They first met him when they hired him to arrange an instrumental they had written called "Twilight Time." They had paid him twenty-five dollars.  Buck did the arrangement once, and they didn't like it.  He did it a second time.  They didn't like that one either so Buck hired a friend for twelve dollars and fifty cents to do another arrangement.  They didn't like that one either, and the song sat around for two years.  Suddenly it had lyrics, Buck's name as writer, and a couple of very angry - at least Morty - instrumentalists.

After the first time I met Morty, I asked Buck about him and the story.  Buck refused to talk about it.  There were two things I could never get him to make a peep about - "Twilight Time" and The Platters second lead singer, Sonny Turner.

Morty came back a third time.  Again, the same routine.  Kushnick refused to see him.  Morty refused to leave.  Kushnick sneeked out the back door.  But Morty and I finally had a meeting of the minds when he told me about the "Twilight Time" they had written being an instrumental, it sitting around for two years with nothing happening, and Buck adding lyrics and turning it into one of the biggest hits of all time. 

I said to Morty, "What would have happened if Buck hadn't put lyrics to it  and made it a hit?"

Morty got an odd look on his face.

"Wouldn't "Twilight Time" still be sitting in a box somewhere - forgotten?"

His expression changed ever so slightly, and I could see my words were having an effect. 

"Maybe, instead of hating Buck for "stealing" your song, you should thank him for turning it into a hit.  You won the lawsuit.  Your name is on it, but without Buck it never would have happened."

He was quiet for a moment, and then said very thoughfully, "You're right."

"So are you going to let all that anger go so you can get this book done without bringing any negativity to it?" I chided. 

He nodded.  About that time Kushnick sneeked out the back door so Morty left.  I never saw him again.  I walked out on Kushnick a couple of weeks later.  I don't know if Morty ever came back or if Kushnick finally relented and spoke to him.  And Morty passed away shortly after.  He had cancer, and he'd never said a word as he waited and waited to see Kushnick.  

Buck's wife did tell me the story behind "Twilight Time," some time later - under her breath while Buck sat next to us.  According to Lucille, Morty and the Three Suns had written an instrumental with the title.  Buck, as a teenage, college student/poet had also written a poem titled "Twilight Time."  He put his poem to his own music but did use the hook from The Three Suns song.  The result of that marriage was a huge hit, and "Twilight Time" is now one of the most covered songs on YouTube.  

I'm sure there was more to the story neither Morty or Lucille told me because, after more than two decades, Lucille still harbored some anger over the situtaiton herself.

#

The Late Night Wars

The time for Jay Leno to leave the Tonight Show is fast approaching.  Which, for me, brings up twenty-five year old memories of  pre-"Late Night Wars."  At least I think that's the title of the movie.  It's was the movie that trashed Helen Kushnick and made vastly false statements about her.  So 25 years after the fact, here's the back story.

I worked for Helen and Jerry Kushnick.  I was in the office eight to ten hours a day holed up with them.  Jerry was the socially cool one in public and a total ass in real life.  Helen was the a nice, pushed to the wall, stressed out woman who always referred to Leno as "such a nice boy," although he was only three and a half years younger than she.

Leno was Helen's exclusive client in the husband and wife management team.  She brought him with her as her client when they moved General Management to California.  But it was Jerry who got Jay the Tonight Show guest host gig - through guilt tripping Henry "Bombastic" Bushkin, Carson's attorney.

According to Jerry, and I heard the story over and over again, he, Ed Hookstratten and Buskin had been law partners in New York when they first got out of school.  Jerry had, according to him, the "good" clients - like Johnny Carson.  He did Carson's divorce from wife #2.  He represented Brooke Shields' father in his quest to stop her mother from "exploiting" her. 

But Jerry's heart was in the music business.  He took six weeks off from the legal practice to decide whether he would accept a corporate attorney job offer to work from RCA.  He decided not to take the job, but when he returned to his office, it had been stripped.  File drawers were hanging open.  All of his client's files - and clients - were gone.  His partners had even taken the lighting fixture from the ceiling.  Jerry said he sat in that office with bare wires hanging from the ceiling for two years, and looked up every day swearing that he would get even soem day.  

The split didn't destroy the lines of communication between the three completely.  He talked to Bushkin. If he hadn't, Leno would never have guest-hosted the "Tonight Show."

Jerry met Helen, who was a writer's representative, when he called her office for some menial thing.  Helen could be very foul mouthed, and by the end of the conversation she had told him to "Fuck Off" and hung up one him.  Jerry found that interesting.  No woman had ever spoken to him like that.  When she called a few hours later to apologize after she "found out who I was," and he asked her to dinner. 

Soon after, they were married, moved to California and worked the management business Jerry had started with Jimmie Walker.  Helen still represented writers.  She did most of the work in that department, but Jerry, at 6'4" and 250 lbs. (at least) was still the Ruler of the Roost everywhere except when it came to Leno.  Helen made all of those decisions.  Believe me, there were huge fights, with glassware flying down the hall at Jerry's head when it came to what Leno was going to do and not do.  A little bit of a thing, Helen actually slammed the ten foot tall door to her office so hard that the frame came out of the wall.

But I digress.  How did Leno get the guest host job?  According to Jerry, wanting to please Helen and knowing that the job was Leno's dream, he called Henry Bushkin and said, "You owe me for what you did with the law practice.  Carson was my client, and you stole him.  I want you to get Leno on as the guest host.  That's the least you can do.  He's a good kid."

According to Jerry, no one wanted Leno, and no one liked him for the job - except Freddie DeCordova.  But after a few more phone calls and a little more guilt tripping of Bushkin, Leno got the gig.

Helen was happy.  Jerry was happy because Helen was happy.  He went to every show with Leno.  He also went to every shoot for the Doritos commercials with him.  I believe it was because Jerry wanted to be a performer himself not because Leno needed a guardian.

The PR about the success of Joan Rivers or Leno as guest hosts was just that - PR.  Leno got about four fan letters a month - I answered them - and a hundred headlines to use on the show.  And Helen's focus was securing the show for Leno not screwing over anyone.

Helen certainly had nothing against Arsenio Hall.  Despite the stories out there, she came back from FOX one afternoon and said, "I just told Patty Bougouis (sp) that they had better offer Arsenio whatever money he wants before someone else gets him."

That's the truth about Helen trying to put a stop to Arsenio getting a show.  She encouraged FOX long before Hall ever went to Paramount.  Helen might have gotten bitchy about which stars went on which shows once Leno got the "Tonight Show," but Carson put limits on those who were on his show too.  The difference . . . Helen had no tact.

Helen and Jerry had represented both Letterman and Leno as well as Jimmie Walker and Elaine Boozler.  She wasn't about to do anything to harm Letterman, and she already knew he wasn't going to get the show.

Christmas 1987 or maybe 1988, half of Hollywood was on the Big Island in Hawaii.  Helen was at the pool talking to Brandon Tartikoff about Leno being put on the Tonight Show permanentaly after Carson left.  The day they got back she told me, Tartikoff said, "We have done the research.  Letterman will never get the show because he won't be able to hold the audience.  And Jay won't get it either if he doesn't learn to to something besides hold up newspaper headlines."  She was worried about what they could get him to do.  She didn't know if he could do anything else except his signature bit.

The PR was that Leno wrote all the jokes himself.  That was not true.  The absolute rule was to stop everything whenever anyone came in the door claiming to have sold Leno a joke.  Every morning before he was to be on the "Tonight Show" the fax with the night's jokes would come in from somewhere in Pennsylvania.  I don't remember the fellows name.  It's been too long.

Frequently, guys would come to the office and say they had talked to Leno backstage, given him a joke, and he had told him to come get their money.  True or not, they were paid immediately.  So what was Helen going to do to make sure Leno became the permanent host?  I don't know.  Jerry ticked me off so bad one day, I walked out.  Helen called later that afternoon and thanked me for putting up with him as long as I did.

What I do know is that Carson fired Bushkin a few weeks before I left.  I will never forget the smile of satisfaction on Jerry's face when he told me he had offered Bushkin space in the office if he needed somewhere to hand his hat.  Jerry didn't expect him to, nor did he, accept.  But Jerry was gloating while continually repeating that he was not gloating. 

And Helen delivered for Leno. 

Jerry died before Carson left the show, and Helen secured it for Leno.  She did it on her own, and it is a shame she was portrayed by Cathy Bates in the way she was.  Helen and Bates did have similar hairstyles.  That's as far as it went.  Helen had the best body on a woman her age I've ever seem.  Helen never shuffled down a hall anywhere in her life.  She walked with direction and a clip in her step.  And I can't imagine Helen, for one minute, walking around with a telephone headset on wheeling and dealing.

Until she was pushed into blowing up, Helen was extremely quiet.  I always thought her true desire was to be an interior designer.  She sat quiety in her office all day with her pencils and paper designing rooms.  She kept a tax number so she could shop at the Pacific Design Center on Melrose.  And you can see Helen's taste and design all over the original set of the "Tonight Show" when Leno took over.   

And, as far as Helen flying off the handle, Jerry used it to his advantage when he didn't have the guts to disagree with someone himself.  He would rile Helen up.  She would go nuts, and Jerry would come in to do damage contol as the nice guy.  He wasn't.

The truth about Helen is that, when she was about to go off half-cocked, all you had to do was put your hand on her shoulder, say "I'll take care of it," and she would calmly go back to her drawing.  As for the "Late Night Wars," that was in other people's heads because years before it had been decided Letterman would never get the show.