Dad pointed out that I had signed my seven year contract underage because UA didn't want to let me go. My dad had first expressed big doubts about my becoming an "Acting-Singing Sensation," but had become my biggest fan. Now he was on my side when it came to leaving United Artists. Dad wanted me to have a new manager - Elvis' Colonel Tom Parker!
I quit United Artists having traveled thousands of miles on tours and after having made countless television, radio, and record hop - dance party performances, and after having had a Gold Record.
I quit having studied acting with Lee Strasberg at Actors Studio, having auditioned for some movie roles and having appeared in promotionals for other star's films. (We called them movies then.) I quit having the highest hopes to play the late, great James Dean in the bio pic.
But I was also tired of the James Dean comparisons. There were those who were glad I had failed. How could I have ever dared try to "be" him? When could I be myself?
United Artists had decided they could not make the movie. I was told that if they had gone forward with it, I would have had the role. I'd beat out a few other guys including Dean Stockwell for the part, and it meant everything to me to know that James Dean's own family had put the good word in for me that they wanted me to play Jimmy!
I quit United Artists having honed my performance and interviewing skills to perfection. I quit while having great respect for Max E. Youngstein, who had personally signed me to their new label to launch it, and having appreciated all that United Artists had done for me - the publicity, everything. I quit because it was the only choice, in circumstances that were devestating to me.
But I was still young, healthy, talented, and ambitious, and maybe more than anything I had made a lot of friends in the business.
This was when Bessie Little, the publicist entered my life. She had written about me - and many other stars - before, but she had never met me. A woman executive at United Artists who knew the inside story of my circumstances ran into singer Bobby Darin in a cafeteria and urged him to have me come up to see her. That woman personally introduced me to her publicist friend Bessie Little.
(I wrote a bit about Bessie Little earlier in this blog, on the September 10th, 2007 - blog post #23.)
Record companies trying to track me down called Bessie's office.
This gave me hope that I still had a career ahead of me! Bobby Darin was thinking of changing labels himself, despite the success of "Splish Splash." Frankie Avalon, Buddy Knox, Ersel Hickey, and other friends in the music business had urged me to change labels.
The new Clock label was owned by veteran English-born EMI record man Wally Moody and his son Doug Moody. In about 1958 they had Dave "Baby" Cortez, known for "The Happy Organ." The Moodys, who had managed to produce a high percentage of hit records for a small label, won me.
Clock Records had a unique record label design with an alarm clock going off on it, as you'll see when you click on this RCS discography link.
On the CLOCK LABEL I recorded "Honey Baby," and "So Blue Over You."
IT WAS THE SUMMER OF 1959!
A bit on Clock Records... Link to PAISLEYHAZE site!
Little did I know that an even more exciting phase of my life was beginning for me, and that it would be some of my best friends in the business who would give me that hand up when I needed it!
To this day I am grateful for those friends along the way,those friends who never gave up on me!
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