[78-L] Rudy Vallee writes about SEX! SEX! SEX!

Thu Oct 29 11:44:16 PDT 2009

Apologies in advance to those of you who have already heard all or most of 
this.

As I've mentioned here before,  I  was the agent for the Thousand Oaks 
Library for the purchase of the Vallee archive.   My first visit to the 
Vallee home was in the company of the Vallee's agent,  the library director, 
and members of the library foundation.   That would have been less than a 
year before Vallee died.  The TO Library collection of American radio and 
television history was only a year or so old at the time,  but I'd already 
been able to supply them with a lot of worthwhile material,  including 
books,  scripts,  letters,  documents and a variety of ephemera.

We were greeted by Mrs. Vallee and ushered into the living room.  Their 
Spanish-style house was way,  way up in the Hollywood Hills,  and at one 
time been owned by Ann Harding.   Rudy's personal archive and memorabilia 
about his life and career were housed in a sub-building which was underneath 
a tennis court,  but we had to wait for Mr. Vallee to make his appearance, 
which he did,  after we'd been served bad California "Champagne"  over ice, 
along with a tray of very strange nachos.

He wasn't drunk unless,  as Jason suggested,  he was drunk on his own 
fantasies about himself and his future.  I could (and have) told hours and 
hours of stories about my experience with him,  the house,  and (after his 
death) with the purchase of the archive,  but  I'll say that the house 
seemed to be fairly clean although he was not...or maybe it just "Depends" 
on what you think is clean.

He "entertained" us with a non-stop monologue about his life,  mostly 
focused on the women he'd "known" both in and outside of marriage..he seemed 
very worried about the fact that so many people thought he'd had sex with a 
certain very well know singer and film actress while she was singing with 
his band in the early 30s...no,  he'd not had sex with her until 1937 and we 
got a very detailed description of the circumstanced and the experience 
itself.

I should note that the audience for this little ramble included two women 
from the library foundation,  as well as Mrs. Vallee.

We did get a tour of the archive which was,  and is,  amazing in its breadth 
and depth...and quantity.    But Vallee himself was convinced that the house 
AND the archive should be sold as a unit,  and turned into a museum 
dedicated to his greatness...all for a mere 10 million dollars.  He actually 
told us that a rich Arab oil man was planning to make the purchase...talk 
about being stranded on Fantasy Island.

Late in the afternoon, after about an hour of lighting-fast and non-stop 
jabber,   he finally paused to take a breath land told us that  he would now 
give us all a little show.  Most of the people from the library took this a 
cue to flee,  and they  made apologies and excuses about having to be 
somewhere else,  leaving me and one other person to be the goats and sit 
through the depressing little performance.   It was damned depressing,  let 
me tell you.

The only question I asked him was whether or not he had played saxophone on 
any of his commercial records,  and he said no.

Vallee died less than a year later...Mrs. Vallee was back in touch with her 
agent within a week or so of his death,  and we eventually were able to make 
a deal which is why the stuff is now at Thousand Oaks.  I have pleasant 
memories about most all of it,  with the exception of  Mrs. Vallee,  but 
this is not the place to discuss that.

Just one more note,  pertaining to the original post today about Vallee. 
Late in life he became convinced that he had been betrayed and dishonored by 
just about everyone he'd ever known...and he wrote crude and angry letters 
to many of these poor folks,  expressing his displeasure.  He also made 
multiple copies of all of them,  and I recall seeing no less than forty 
copies of a nasty multi-page letter he wrote to Dorothy Lamour...and at 
least a dozen copies of her hurt and bewildered and polite reply to him.

Taylor

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Biel" <mbiel at mbiel.com>
To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2009 10:47 AM
Subject: Re: [78-L] Rudy Vallee writes about SEX! SEX! SEX!

> From: Cary Ginell <soundthink at live.com>
>> Maybe it should Thousand Gropes.
>> I didn't see such a list when I was researching there some years ago.
>> Perhaps Jeannette Berard, who is the curator there, can enlighten us.
>> I did, however, see carefully categorized ethnic jokes so he could tell
>> his racist stories geared toward whatever group he was entertaining at
>> the time. Sure would like to look at those nasty letters he wrote to
>> Ozzie Nelson again!    Cary Ginell
>
>
> I didn't remember he had a grudge against Ozzie, but he was brutal
> against Victor Borge in his third autobiography.  I wonder if there is
> any documentation about that there.  According to the book Vallee was
> using Borge for his warm-up but felt that his program was not as
> advantageous for Borge's style as would Bing Crosby's.  So he suggested
> that Bing put Borge on and he was a SENSATION.  Vallee was royally
> pissed off that Borge was not openly thankful to Vallee for suggesting
> him to Bing, that all that was written about was that he made his
> American broadcast debut on Bing's show.  I've never seen anything as
> nasty in print as that section Vallee wrote about Borge.  I would love
> to know Borge's take on this, but I was much too intimidated to ask
> Borge when I met him.
>
> Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com
>
>> From: mbiel at mbiel.com
>> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
>> Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:30:39 -0700
>> Subject: Re: [78-L] Rudy Vallee writes about SEX! SEX! SEX!
>>
>> Somewhere I have a videotape of one of his last TV appearances, on a
>> program like Merv Griffin or Mike Douglas where with a voice raspy with
>> throat cancer he discusses the fact that he had slept with over a
>> thousand women and HAS A WRITTEN LIST. Have they ever found THAT in his
>> archive in the Thousand Oaks Library? And, perhaps, is Thousand Oaks
>> named after Rudy's thousand conquests???!!!
>>
>> Mike Biel mbiel at mbiel.com
>>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>>
>> From: David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca>
>>
>>
>> You don't know the half of it. Visitors to his home were treated
>> (forcibly) to
>> pathetic displays of Rudy singing or lip-synching his entire musical
>> past. And
>> apparently the house was filthy (as was his night club act). This I know
>> first
>> hand from a researcher in Toronto who set up a couple of interviews with
>> Vallee
>> for TVOntario.
>>
>> dl
>>
>> Jason Beard wrote:
>> > After reading the lengthy discourse of Mr. Vallee's il-LUST-rious 
>> > career, it would seem to me that it is the rambling of someone who 
>> > desperately wanted to cling to whatever remnants of his career he 
>> > possessed. Intoxicated while writing the note? High on himself, 
>> > perhaps...and maybe a little higher on his liquidity of choice.....in 
>> > other words.....
>> >
>> > "WHAT????????????????????????????????????"
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > ________________________________
>> > From: Harold Aherne <leotolstoy_75 at yahoo.com>
>> >
>> > Kudos to a poster at another board I read for pointing this out: a 
>> > letter from
>> > Rudy Vallee written in 1980, proposing a new album and obviously 
>> > written when he was
>> > drunk or otherwise impaired--but fascinating nonetheless:
>> >
>> > http://thesilentmovieblog.wordpress.com/
>> >
>> > Sounds like a swell guy.
>> >
>> > -Harold
>> >
>> >
>> >
>
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