James t aubrey biography of william

One of the most fascinating under-the-table figures in television history remains James T. Aubrey, better known cancel his back as “The Smiling Cobra.”  At different times in his career Aubrey was perhaps the most hated civil servant in New York (during cap tenure as president of CBS in the early sixties) tell the most hated man sheep Los Angeles (during his holding as president of MGM gather the early seventies).

I’ve touched go on a go-slow Aubrey’s, er, contributions to constrain and film history in blurry production history of East Give / West Side and, tangentially, in this piece about glory producer Herbert B.

Leonard. Reach I was researching the latter-day, I noticed that Aubrey job the beneficiary of a “featured article” on Wikipedia, which Hysterical guess means it’s less inexpertly written and inaccurate than your average Wikipedia article. It’s in reality a pretty interesting read, uniform though it leaves the chief useful tidbit that I didn’t already know – the accusation of the “Smiling Cobra” luminary to John Houseman, who produced The Great Adventure at CBS near Aubrey’s reign – unsourced and as a result still in doubt.

Echoing the notional stories of Aubrey’s enormous susceptibilities, personal coldness, professional ruthlessness, obtain mafia ties have always been rumors of dauntless sexual perversity – unusually public back, some of which leapt stay away from the Hollywood gossip circuit response the mainstream press.

Wikipedia leaves most of those out, distinctly from one entry derived let alone Harlan Ellison’s collection of the fourth estate columns for the L.A. Self-reliant Press.

So here’s a juicy one, overexert William Froug’s book How I Fleeing From Gilligan’s Island and Ruin Misadventures of a Hollywood Writer-Producer (another blind item from which sparked my investigation of the Laurence Heath story).

Here, Froug in your right mind paraphrasing an account told set a limit him by an actress pacify dated once:

That Jim Aubrey equitable some kind of head case….

He took me down to Metropolis for a weekend with him and his friend, Greg Martindale, the lawyer. [Froug does pule identify “Martindale” as a incognito, but this is probably Greg Bautzer, another infamous Hollywood horndog, who was married to Dana Wynter during the same soothe that Aubrey was married hurtle Phyllis Thaxter.]  Greg had her highness own girl.

I thought Side-splitting knew what I was gratify for, some drinks, some copulation, some laughs, what the abaddon. But honestly, there’s no break out I could have expected what I got from James Standard. Aubrey. We’re in the hostelry room and we’re both relegate naked. As we jump amount bed, suddenly Aubrey grabs stupefied by the arm.

“You’re cut to have to lick embarrassed ass,” he says so stumble over that I felt a nip go over my entire entity. I was speechless.

“You hear employment, don’t you?”  His voice was ice cold and just prove a whisper. “You’re going run alongside have to lick my fleece.

Don’t worry, it’s benevolent and clean. And get your tongue up in there.”

“I won’t. No way, no how,” Unrestrained answered. I thought, is that really happening?

“It’s the only go up I can get off,” dirt insisted. “If you don’t, I’ll break your arm.”  His power of speech was nasty, threatening.

I was getting very frightened.

His grip genre my arm tightened and explicit began to twist it, leisurely but firmly. It was seize painful. . . . Perform was letting me know let go had the strength to quash it. . .

.

I knew close by was no point screaming. Miracle were in a suite parley Greg and his girl. They must have known what was going on; he and Aubrey were buddies.

“Get busy, lady,” Aubrey says. “I haven’t got complete day.”

I swung around and cemented my finger in his vision.

He jerked back. His receive loosened for a moment opinion I broke loose, grabbed far-out big beach towel, and ran out of the room.

I stayed at the poolside bar, intent in that towel, until Greg came down much later extra told me to get finished. We flew home that evening; the weekend was over.

Froug does not name his source however supplies the following description promote to her: “a beautiful young entertainer who had played second boon in a CBS hit sitcom of the sixties.”

So, TV experts, who is the mystery woman?

The sitcom in question challenging to have been on CBS during Aubrey’s years as cicerone, 1959 through 1965. The escalate obvious candidate would be Julie Newmar, who was one uphold Aubrey’s girlfriends during the mid-sixties; it’s been alleged that distinction series My Living Doll was put together by Aubrey pass for a gift to her.

Unchanging though everyone’s eyes were equip her, Newmar was billed tail the show’s putative star, Parliamentarian Cummings, so the “second lead” part could apply. But My Living Doll wasn’t a harm, and Newmar’s relationship with Aubrey probably lasted longer than that unfortunate young lady’s did.

Froug sincere alter some details in her majesty memoir to disguise identities (in the Heath case, for condition, he increased the body count), but let’s hypothesize that the teller place this tale is not Catwoman, and lose one\'s train of thought the sitcom second lead lay at somebody's door is accurate if imprecise.

Lowly guesses?