Jonathan Winters: Entertaining the Crew

Jonathan Winters: Entertaining the Crew

As the receptionist at United / Western Studios in the 70s, I did a lot of money, but for a young woman with open eyes he had more important things that the advantages of a large salary.

The recording studio is located in the heart of Hollywood and over the years has hosted major artists from all genres of music to settle in an album project. I was starting in business as an aspiring songwriter and get my foot in the door to greet several stars who came to work was a real treat.

The Beach Boys had cut some early successes in Studio 3 with recording engineer Chuck Britz, Barry Manilow recorded "One Voice" in Study 2 and Study 1 was filled with a 60-piece orchestra, when Frank Sinatra sang " New York, New York ".



States / Western had an excellent team and smaller rooms which hosted voiceover talent for sessions that lasted a couple of hours at most. It was my job to show the talent that the study would be in and offer coffee or water before the session. What a thrill to meet Orson Wells in his "Serve not come soon" Gallo day.

Greer Garson, Burt Lancaster, Dinah Shore, Roy Rodgers and the Sons of the Pioneers, Nelson Riddle, and countless other giants in their day would grace the halls of United / Western Studios, but none made an impression as Jonathan Winters .

A project planned on the basis of old newspaper cartoon, Pogo was booked for several weeks and Jonathan stopped by the office every morning before going down the hall to the study.

The team working in recording studios can be a pretty hard when it comes to being impressed with the talent. What is glamorous to the public is just a day's work for them and rarely saw the kids during the day. (Hang in office would seem that they had nothing to do.)

But when Jonathan came to work, suddenly, the office was full of everyone from the janitor to the CEO as the legendary comedian entertained every morning. What a wonderful way to start the day! After a half hour or so the producer would come to break the game, knowing that this improvisation "warm-up" with us was probably what Jonathan needed.

The project went too fast and on the last day at noon, Jonathan walked through the front door and walked over to my table with a serious expression.

"What is it, Jonathan?"

"I met two girls on the street and asked for my autograph."

"Is not that a good thing?"

Totally dejected, said, "They thought I was Jackie Gleason.'m Not that fat, am I?"

"Oh, my, not at all!"

With a sigh of relief this comedy genius turned and went back to work, visibly relieved.

And I was left with wonderful memories of Jonathan Winters.