THE LAST WORDS OF BIG TEX…

Well, Guy Lombardo was at Louann's one night. I was selling popcorn table to table. They had a special table set up for them out in the middle of the club. I walked up to the table, but it was dark and I didn't recognize him. So I asked if he'd like to buy some popcorn. He looked up at me and said, "I'll make you a deal". He and his band were there with their wives. He said, "We want to go dance. If you'll sit here and keep an eye on the ladies' purses, I'll buy all the popcorn you've got." So I did, and he bought all my popcorn. I made more money that night than I ever thought I'd make in my life. Roy Orbison was there signing autographs. I wasn't selling popcorn that night. I was out picking up beer bottles off the tables. I used to like cleaning the tables. I'd sniff the beer bottles. On occasion I might have even sipped some beer out of a couple of them. Hell, when you're a kid you gotta get your beer where you can. So, Roy Orbison was over there signing autographs. He looked over at me and said, "Would you like an autograph too?" I said, "That's okay, I'll get one next time you're here". And he never came back to Louann's.

BUD BUSCHARDT, HE’S SUMP’N ELSE!

The second weekend that I was at WFAA, things really changed. That was the weekend of November 22, 1963. I was still in school that day and they let us out early which was something they never did. So, I asked my professor “Dan, what do we do in a case like this?" He said, “There's my desk. There's my phone. You call RIverside 8-9631 right now.” So, I called, and actually got through the switchboard, and asked for Mr. Turner. And as luck had it, he happened to be on his way to lunch and ran into Jay Watson (WFAA Program Director) and Jerry Haynes in the lobby. Jay said, “I need studio quickly and camera live, whatever you can do.” And Turner said, “Well, what’s the big deal?” Jay said “The President’s just been shot.” And then it was absolutely crazy. I was running from studio to studio. Don said, “Strike all the studios you can."

A STARCK REALITY, THE GREG McCONE STORY

"Well, I am bringing up issues of concern but at the same time, I'm being hired to implement what it is they want to do." So, I said to them, "I don't know how you're gonna get a $10.00 cover charge or how six toilets are gonna take care of 2,000 people on a Saturday night, I've alerted them to my concerns. Now it's my job to figure out how to make it work." Now, Phillipe Starck's answer was, "This will be no problem. The men will use the ladies, the ladies will use the men's" and that's exactly what happened.

LET ME PUT A SMILE ON YOUR FACE!

When Joy Simmons opened the Comedy Corner, she wouldn’t book me, because she was booking all these LA acts with guys that had been on Carson, or this show or that. But Dallas didn’t know who they were, so they weren’t drawing very big crowds, and she finally booked me. And she said, you’re going to have to be the middle act. So, I middled for Gary Shandling, and I middled for Kevin Nealon, and next thing you know, she hired me to headline. And I put more people in there than some of their LA comics. And started headlining there. Bill Engvall was the in-house MC back then.

MEMORIES OF DALLAS PARTY AT OZONA WITH THE WOO BROTHERS!

 

August 3rd, 2019 7pm at Ozona for our…

AN OAK CLIFF GIRL

We had no car, and I’ll resist the story that we walked a mile to school in the snow, but yes, we walked to school, no matter the weather. If we needed to go where legs wouldn’t take us, we would ride the bus. Sometimes, we had to take a paper transfer from the driver, in order to reach our destination, but we rarely left Oak Cliff. In fact, I distinctly remember my Mother telling us, “There is no reason to go to the other side of the Trinity River.” We took the Dallas Times Herald newspaper. It was known as the paper for “our side of town.” We had paper boys who rode their bikes and we knew all their names and where they would throw our paper. Our mail was delivered by a mailman (never a woman) who would walk to the door and put the mail in a metal box by the door.

AFTER TRYA HEATH

The 25th of June 1979 was a warm day in Mesquite, children were out playing, enjoying their summer vacation and it was a relatively quiet day in the city. However that all changed the afternoon of that same day when six year old Tyra Heath left apartment #1051 at Cascade Park to play outside. Ten minutes later her mother Janice Heath called for her to come back to their apartment however she did not come home and a quick search turned up that she was no longer where she had been playing earlier.

GENE COOK, ‘BOOGIE MACHINE’ & PLAYBOY

So many headliners at Playboy - Chevy Chase, Jesse Lopez, Mel Torme, Charley Pride, Professor Irwin Corey - we didn't get along so well. He was a grabber and grabbed Cathy's tush. I chased him all across the club and folks thought that it was part of the show. Luckily for him Tony Signori grabbed me and got me to settle down! The dance team that was there had moved on and were working the Playboy Club circuit. That was the 'Dance Machine'. While I was Maitre'd I spoke to our boss Tom Labella about our dance group, "The Boogie Machine" with Cathy and Rick Marshall. We auditioned for Joe Cimino and he hired us. Our time there at Playboy club is what truly validated us. It put us on the map. Before that we were working different places around Dallas, Texarkana and other small gigs. We had to work to book them, but when we got the gig at Playboy, it was really the start of something special. Doors really began to open for us, not to mention the other stuff like having a seamstress to make our costumes which we had always done ourselves.

VICKI HANKS ROGERS

"I worked at some rock and roll clubs like Sneaky Petes, Mother Blues, but primarily at Sneaky Petes there in Medallion Center. Then I heard about the Bunny search in the summer of 1977. It was absolutely crazy. They had us go through all the different preliminary, sending in pictures, resumes. That was the first elimination. Then they notified us, then we all came in. You came in through this big gate, filled out your information, attached some pictures, they would look it over and then they would setup callbacks if they liked you. Then after that interview, they would let you know if they wanted you to come back in for the final group. They did a story on me when the Bunny search happened in the Scene magazine for the Dallas Morning News. I was pretty cocky back then and told them 'I may not be the best looking, or have the best body, or be #1, but I can definitely be #99!'"

PLAYBOY – PART 1

Do you know where the downtown McDonald's is on Commerce Street? That was where the Playboy club was supposed to be. It used to be the Aaron Brothers Fur and the Dorsey Building. It was a 6 story building that everyone tried to buy but nobody could get the deal done. I was friendly with them. The reason I wanted to buy it, is it is an entire city block. You could make an entire circle around the location which was highly unusual in downtown Dallas. So anyway, I knew the guys that owned it and went ahead and bought it with the idea we were going to put the Playboy Club there.