movie memorabilia – Page 4 – Boy Outa Brooklyn

Orgy in Times Square

The old New York Times building on W. 43rd st. NYC — **Oy, if only I had a nickel for every time I went into the old NY Times building.**

As a fifteen-year-old messenger in Times Square, I get a whiff of the newspaper game by making deliveries to the New York Times. I get to hang out in the newsroom – full of smoking men banging away at typewriters, and in the proofreading room – full of smoking men squinting away at galleys. The paper’s underground printing presses literally shake 43^rd Street when they run at full tilt. The pressmen come up to the street for air wearing admiral-style hats formed out of that day’s front page – a bit of old New York life that is gone forever.

I make regular deliveries to the offices of Broadway producers and to the apartments of gossip columnists where I get a flavor of “the business they call show” and the Public Relations racket. And, I see the ad campaigns unfold in Times Square for the blockbuster movies of that summer. Of course, I’m more interested in the brabusters of that summer. My pace slackens as I inch past the marquees for Orgy at Lil’s Place or Sinderella and the Golden Bra or the many nudist movies like Goldilocks and the Three Bares. I spend three months walking around midtown Manhattan with a perpetual teenage hard-on. No wonder I attract creepy, confusing attention from creepy, confusing men.

David Merrick - Broadway Producer — **David Merrick – he *was* Broadway in the 1960s and 1970s**

**Walter Winchell invented the gossip column and was still hanging on in ’65**

Dorothy Kilgallen - gossip columnist — The “female Winchell” – Dorothy Kilgallen.
She was about to spill the beans about the JFK assassination but committed suicide or was murdered. You decide.

Movie poster for Sinderella and the Golden Bra and Goldilocks and the Three Bares

Movie poster for The Orgy at Lil's Place — SEE the “Art” Class – go on…
you know you want to SEE it.

Boy Outa Brooklyn a murder memoir by Jack Antonio
Image: the smiling face of Steeplechase Park in Coney Island, Brooklyn — Available as a paperback and eBook amazon.com
amazon.co.uk
And as an eBook here
https://books2read.com/The-Boy-Outa-Brooklyn

The Fifth Beatle

Vintage postcard of the Paramount Building in Times Square, NYC — **From Frankie to Ringo**

In 1965, I land a messenger job with a penny-ante advertising agency in the Paramount Building in Times Square. It holds the theater where Sinatra had sung to screaming Bobby Soxers in the 1940s. In 1965, the Beatles movie Help! is playing there. To get into the elevator lobby, I have to fight my way through the screaming daughters of those Bobby Soxers.

Screaming Beatles fans in New York City — **Their granddaughters are screaming for Justin Bieber.**

Kung-Fu Love

Newspaper ad for Fists of Fury starring Bruce Lee — **The undisputed King of Kung-Fu movies**

I hear a Black teenage couple arguing. He has been dragging her into movies on 42^nd all day. She pleads, “Do we gotta see another kung-fu movie, Jerome?” They later pose for souvenir photos taken on the street corner in front of painted backdrops of the African jungle and ancient Egypt. A lop-sided rattan chair salvaged from a garbage heap serves as King Jerome’s throne in both locales. In one photo, he holds a rubber spear and in the other a cardboard sphinx. Yvonne stands beside her seated Lord. In the jungle, a leopard-skin print drapes her torso. In Egypt, a Cleopatra-crown rocks unsteadily on her Afro. Jerome pays extra to have the photos framed.

King and Queen fall asleep on the subway back to Bed-Stuy and miss their stop. Tomorrow, after Yvonne leaves for work, Jerome tapes the framed photos to the boom-box radio that is permanently attached to his shoulder. And, he returns to 42^nd to see another kung-fu movie.

Black teen with a boombox radio — **He prefers to hear his Brahms on a boombox**

A funny thing happened on the way to the proctologist.

Proctological instrument — **It’s all in the wrist**

No matter how calamitous or inappropriate the circumstance, give an actor the chance to rattle off his resumé and he will not disappoint. Proctologists wait until they have me in the most compromising of positions before they ask, “So, you’re an actor. Have I seen you in anything?” And, even with the proctologist fisting me like Malcolm McDowell, I groan, “Unnhhh, damn, well, did you see… unnnhh… Trojan Women at Theater 54?” The same scenario plays out with urologists. I have a camera inserted through my urethra into my bladder for a cancer check. As the Doctor and I watch the live and exclusive footage of my bladder wall he asks, “Now, you’re an actor. My wife and I loved CATS. What did you make of it?” Actresses endure the same with their gynecologists.

Funny doctor adjusting his rubber glove. — **He loved WICKED, too.**

Caligula Conquers Times Square

Movie marquee for Caligula — **“Sadism, gore and extreme violence…” and that was just in the men’s room!**

I want to impress my classy new girlfriend with my “too cool for school” Brooklyn savoir-faire. So, I take her to a 42^nd Street bughouse to see the movie Caligula produced by the skin magazine Penthouse. It’s a credible version of the story interspersed with scenes of incredible sex and it’s the only XXX movie to star John Gielgud and Helen Mirren. There is a Black gentleman sitting directly behind us. He is actively engaged with the film and adds a running critique to the on-screen action. When Malcolm McDowell coats his arm with lard and “fists” a kitchen slave, our critic leans forward and informs us that, “Dese Romans are some sick muthafuckas.” When a Centurion has his penis sliced off and thrown to the dogs, the Black gent jumps up whilst grabbing his crotch and informs the entire audience, “Damn, I could feel dat shit.”

My night with Jack Wrangler and Harry Reems

One greasy night, I find myself at a porn-industry party at Eddie and Jett’s. The guest list is a veritable “Who’s Who” of degeneracy – gay and straight. (“Hey, isn’t that Harry Reems talking to Jack Wrangler?”) And, the badinage is scintillating. (“Even her crabs have herpes!”) But, I take a break from the shop talk to catch some cable in the bedroom. That’s where Jett corners me –

“Whatcha watchin’? Hey, you’re a good-lookin’ guy.”

Uh oh! Where have I heard that before?

“Ya know, the adult film producers wanna use you hippie-type guys. Ya wanna try making a porn movie?”

“Oh Jeez, I dunno…”

“I caught you lookin’ at Sandy. Ya wanna do a movie with her?”

“I dunno know if I could do it. I mean, I never…”

“You’d get paid to fuck all the girls at this party. How ’bout it?”

“Jeez, Eddie’s sister would kill me.”

“You could fuck me and neither of ’em would know. I gotta friend downstairs. We could make a quickie-loop right now to see if you like it.”

Peep show theater in Times Square, NY — **Site of my proposed porn debut**

Donut Porn

Dripping glazed donut — **I know what you’re thinking and you’re going to hell.**

On my way to meet Shmuel, I decide to cast my fate to the winds and become a total voluptuary. I will splurge my last dollar on a donut and coffee in a pigsty way East on 14^th Street. I’ve always hated 14^th Street and Columbus Circle and that pedestrian-tunnel that runs under 42nd Street and Shepherd’s Bush in London and all of Los Angeles. Certain places give me nausea and make me break out in intense psychic hives. 14^th Street is the worst of the worst. But, I’m there and I’m hungry so I plunk down my buck, pour flyspecked sugar into my plastic cup and dunk my stale donut into the greasy brown fluid that passes for coffee. This is when the young woman sitting next to me asks if I’d like to fuck her on film. I’m tellin’ ya, in ’70s Manhattan, an actor on his uppers can’t even enjoy a cup o’ Joe with a sinker without being offered porn stardom.

The gal in question is kinda chubby but kinda cute with an impressive full head of brunette ringlets. She speaks in a heavily slurred Greek accent – heavily slurred because she is heavily stoned and falling off her stool.

Original movie poster for Deep Throat — **The birth of “porn chic”**

I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts.

The drag-artist, Charles Pierce as Mae West — **The comic-genius, Charles Pierce as Mae West**

DIVERTIMENTO ON DRAG

Allow me to expound on the subject of men performing in women’s clothing, aka Drag. More specifically, I wish to discuss the surprising and surprisingly potent erotic effect that Drag exerts on the female of the species. I am aware that some women dispute this fact but I can do no more than honestly recount my experiences as a female impersonator. So there.

In South Pacific, I played a World War Two sailor who entertains the troops by wearing a hula skirt, a bra fashioned out of two coconut halves and a mop for a wig. Not a sexy outfit. Or, so I thought until I got it on. It drove the women crazy. The chorus girls slinked up to me and whispered words in my ear that would have made a real sailor blush. The spinsterish theater secretaries were the worst. They cornered me and fondled my coconuts while hissing about what they were going to do to my tits and then to me. But, as soon as my coconuts came off, the erotic spell was broken. No coconuts = No dice.

Two coconuts — **Naked breasts… er, I mean, coconuts. Oh, hell, even I’m confused!**

Elvis in Indy

Ad for '76 after shave lotion - Bicentennial kitsch — **Aqua Velva for patriots!**

And, this being America’s Bicentennial Summer, Tiny accents her décor with all manner of “1776” memorabilia. She has, in fact, decorated her apartment entirely from late-night TV commercials. True, I don’t spy any paintings from the “Vincent Price Fine Art Collection” – available only at Sears – but I feel sure that a Popeil Pocket Fisherman and Veg-O-Matic lurk in the closet. Everything that can be encased in clear plastic slipcovers is so encased. And, Tiny’s place smells like the burrow of the chain-smoker she is. It doesn’t help that her windows are painted shut.

Dressed in a floral print housedress and with the two remaining hairs on her head wound around curlers, Tiny leads me into her bedroom. She gets down on all fours to reach her collection of commemorative Elvis Presley liquor bottles stored far under the marital bed. In order to reach the bottles furthest away, Tiny is forced to hike her dress up and arch her back. Thus, she presents to me like a mandrill in heat. Realizing her compromising position, she coyly glances back over her shoulder and, using her most girlish voice purrs, “Now don’t you get no ideas, Buster. I love my husband.” It is a Herculean struggle but somehow, I resist the urge to bury my cock balls-deep in her pert ass.

Souvenir book of Elvis Presley in Harum Scarum. — **The Sheik… er, I mean the King!**

Her collection of commemorative Elvis Presley liquor bottles is a wonder to behold. Here are a dozen bottles, containing a variety of spirits, molded to evoke the figure of “The King” at various stages of his career. Here is “Sun Studio Elvis,” young, blond and full of jism, the bottle filled with Jack Daniels. Here is “Harum Scarum Elvis” attired in Sheik garb and filled with Hennessey. Here is “Aloha from Hawaii Elvis” complete with detachable lei and filled with Kahlua. And, Tiny’s favorite, “Viva Las Vegas Elvis” karate-kicking in a white cape and filled with Drambuie. Little do I know as I admire Tiny’s collection of commemorative Elvis Presley liquor bottles that “The King” has but one year to live.

Dining with Zulus

Movie poster for Zulu starring Michael Caine

I do my best to avoid Doris and Daddy but one night he corners me while I’m eating “sausage and mash” in the kitchen. No sooner have I casually mentioned that one of my favorite war films is Zulu than Daddy’s drooping regimental mustache springs to attention and he is off, seizing the opportunity to re-fight the entire Anglo-Zulu War on my plate. I am more trapped than Michael Caine at Rorke’s Drift –

Painting of the Battle of Isandhlwana — **My sausage didn’t have a prayer!**

“Let’s say your mashed potatoes are the British encampment near Isandlwanda here… mmm… perhaps that’s a bit too much potato… there, that’s better… your sausage… here… represents the Zulu army under command of Ntshingwayo kaMahole Khoza… an untenable position I’m sure you will agree… now your broccoli…”