It was while I was working for Tomorrow’s American News at
The Pace Building in Los Angeles, that I first met Glennie. Little did I know
that I would get closer to her family a few years later.
It was 1968 and I left Cast B before Christmas ’67 to spend
some time at Bear Creek Ranch to gain my health back from all that hard work
with the cast (I’m not joking, it was hard!). Well my cast left me to go to
Norway, so when I gained my strength back I was offered a job working for the
twice monthly UWP newspaper that Mead Twitchell and Australian Mike Brown headed
up.
I soon made friends with Diarmid Campbell, a jolly fellow
from Scotland who was in charge of PACEfilm Productions. Diarmid asked if I
wanted to take a drive with him and his wife, Tina, up to Kings Canyon and Sequoia
National Parks. Tina’s younger sister Glennie, was also going to tag along. I
am afraid I was not very good company because I was pretty involved with my new
battery operated Sony stereo cassette tape recorder and a couple of educational
tapes I took along. I never once called her Glenn, it was always Glennie to me.
Tina Close Campbell 2nd from left with friends at Pace Building
I lived at the PACE building while working for Tomorrow's American News and
later when Diarmid arranged for me to join him to film UWP casts in Mexico,
Italy and the Boy Scout Jamboree in northern Idaho. On the way to the Boy Scout
Jamboree where we filmed a small film “Frontiers of Tomorrow”, Diarmid and I
listened to the moon landing in the car. Later In ’69 I joined the Colwell
Strike Force for a few weeks in Washington DC and Florida where we raised funds
for UWP before I joined the cast in Canada who were on their way to Italy.
I also participated
in several local Sing Out projects and UWP shows in the Greater Los Angeles area.
I continued to live in the PACE building after operations shut down in 1970.
Two other fellows and I lived there for several weeks
providing a level of security for the building and many of its valuable
contents. The tapestries, furniture, and hidden treasures were displayed and
eventually sold or auctioned off. I could afford only a few small pre-Columbian
artifacts and a wooden carving of an elephant that I think was a gift to Peter
Howard. It has always been on display in my home, and right now it is on a top shelf
in front of my desk. There is a description typed on a piece of paper glued to
the bottom of a foot of the elephant that says, “From the Tolon Na on behalf of
the Ghana Delegation, representing Government and Opposition, 1957”.
We went to Greenwich Connecticut, a short drive north and I was given a room in the huge home of the Close family that was located a short drive from downtown Greenwich. I was going to be coming and going for the next year and a half so I had the same room each visit. The Close family had a spare bedroom downstairs that we turned into a film editing lab with 2 Moviola film editing machines and a bunch of temporary shelves and tables.
Peter Howard's and my elephant from the PACE Building
In late 1970 I left Los Angeles
and UWP to go on a mission for the LDS Church for two years then home for a
couple years of college, when I got a call from Diarmid asking if I wanted to
help him film 9 casts of UWP during the 1976 Bicentennial celebrations
throughout the United States. He told me we were going to film Superbowl X
Halftime, Indian Reservations, UWP shows throughout the country, Indy 500, UWP
behind the Iron Curtain in Poland and a jillion other things. He said they were
going to pay me this time around. I liked that; travel the world and getting
paid for it. I met him a few weeks later atop one of the World Trade Center
Towers in late 1975 where we discussed more details. We went to Greenwich Connecticut, a short drive north and I was given a room in the huge home of the Close family that was located a short drive from downtown Greenwich. I was going to be coming and going for the next year and a half so I had the same room each visit. The Close family had a spare bedroom downstairs that we turned into a film editing lab with 2 Moviola film editing machines and a bunch of temporary shelves and tables.
Moviola 16mm film editing machine. We had 2 of 'em
We ate meals together but Glennie wasn’t around very much as
she worked in the city (NYC) and had a small loft apartment that Diarmid and I
helped her move into. Ever since then I have loved her distinct laugh whenever
I see her in a movie, or when I hear any audio she has recorded, or during an
interview. I will smile and quietly say to myself, “Yup, that’s Glennie”. I believe some time during this period she
was in the play “The King and I” on Broadway. I didn’t ever see Glennie perform
but I was asked by her maternal grandmother to accompany her (grandmother) to a
Broadway play and dinner. In the city I was expected to wear a suit and tie, at
the very least a tie, so I bought one. I felt rather sophisticated during that
evening.
Glennie’s brother and his wife lived in the same house in
Greenwich as well. I don’t remember seeing him much as I was coming and going a
lot during the Bicentennial year but one time he was there I can’t erase from
my memory. He must have had some bad feelings towards the organization I loved.
He made a temporary sign out of white butcher paper that he taped on our white
Up with People film van covering the red letters “Up” with large red letters matching
the size and style lettering on the paper with the word “F—k”, so it read “F—K
with People”. He showed it to me on the van and he thought it was pretty clever.
I didn’t.
Loading film gear at Big Piney Ranch 1976
Dr. Close (Bill) and his wife were not in Greenwich when I
was there. I am sure they were staying on the ranch deep in the wilderness,
situated near Big Piney and the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming.
During the summer we made our film editing headquarters in a
guest log cabin on that ranch. I stayed in another log cabin. It was something,
I mean paradise on earth! 40 miles on a dirt road in the middle of thousands of
acres of National Forest where wildlife was abundant and the views were
spectacular in every direction. Diarmid’s family was staying there for the
summer so naturally when we were in between filming assignments; we went ‘home’
to Big Piney. Diarmid and Tina had a daughter, Shona, who was a cute 7 year old
that was a handful and a half that definitely had a mind of her own. I can remember
her younger brother, Kier, running around absolutely enjoying the wilds of
Wyoming.
There were a lot of experiences that we had on the Close’s
Ranch, but a few stand out; Dr. Bill had horses so one day, He, Diarmid and I
each took a horse in the back country. It was great seeing Eagles soaring and
Beaver dams on a creek and for a few hours feeling a little of what the cowboys
of yesteryear must have felt.
Another time the
family and I went high on a bald hill overlooking an enormous Wyoming vista for a Sunday picnic. I couldn’t understand
why no trees, bushes, dirt or sand was on top of the high mound. I soon found
the answer to this wilderness puzzle. The view was terrific but it was constantly
windy up there, not the best location for a spread out picnic.
All of a sudden
‘Big D’ (sometimes I called Diarmid that) got to his feet, grabbed his jacket
and ran over to a spot where I could see absolutely nothing but the small flat
ground plants wiggling. He threw his jacket with a mighty toss high into the
air. A toss that Terry Bradshaw (from Superbowl X we filmed that year) would
have been proud. Mystically the jacket went soaring another hundred feet in the
air. What a throw! Well, in truth, it was a powerful invisible dust devil with
no dust.
I jumped up, watched where the small plants were violently wiggling and
jumped in to the fray. Wow, what a feeling, not unlike the feeling of a mighty
wave catching you while body surfing. I felt lighter somehow and wanted the
twister to stick around a while longer because it was an ethereal feeling even
as I was getting pelted by small pebbles. It didn’t last long, but I instantly
knew why no sand or dirt was up there.
On my day off I usually helped build a fence through a large
stand of trees near the compound so if the horses got loose, they would stay in
the area. I sought out a young long straight tree in a dense area where
thinning would be good for the other trees. Pausing for a few moments to give
thanks for giving its life, I chopped it down with an axe, trimmed the branches
and picked out a tree that I could nail it to that would act as a post. The
fence zig-zagged through the hidden stand of trees, but it did the job.
Once, while resting on a log I heard a rustle near me that
was coming closer. A large, I mean LARGE, female moose only 8 or 10 feet away
saw me at the same moment I saw her. I must have been down wind. I didn’t move, I don’t think I took a breath.
She somehow knew I was no threat and slowly lumbered past me on a path that was
undetectable to me.
Another time, (sorry, I love these stories) we all were sitting
on the large back porch enjoying the sunset and calm evening after dinner. The
deck overlooked a large meadow several acres in size that was on the hill below
the main ranch house. The meadow was bordered with an 8 foot high chain link
fence and two young elk were slowly walking across the clearing. Bill said,
“Watch this” as the elk casually approached the high fence. When they got right
up to the fence the teenage male leaned back on his haunches and easily jumped
over the fence in a single bound! No backing up and getting a run at it, just
clearing it with one graceful lunge. Then the she-elk did the same thing. Ya, I
was impressed!
Glennie’s mother was a sweetheart, firm but gracious. She
reminded me of my mother who I didn’t see much during my years away from home.
But her father, Bill? That’s a story with a different cover. Ya, he was a
little like my Pop, but a lot more bad-ass. You didn’t want to ever cross him,
and I made sure I never did. Every evening he listened to his shortwave radio
in the ranch house and he was not to be disturbed while he was paying heed to
the world news on BBC.
I did not know what type of man Mobutu was in the Congo,
only that Dr. Close was his private physician. I did enjoy some of the stories
of his creating a hospital ship going up the mighty Congo River to assist the
indigenous people in distant reaches that had no access to a hospital. But one
event that occurred between me and Bill I did not enjoy! No, not at all. He
took me aside for a private conversation once and said some things I felt he
had no call to say, and he said it in a very threatening manner. He is not
alive to defend himself so I won’t divulge the conversation.
I had heard that Bill and his wife were in MRA for some
period of time. I did not hear of any specific experiences or family gossip
about this time in their lives. After my limited association with the Close
family, and my unfortunate run-in with Glennie’s father, I have wondered many
times since then, just how much of Glennie’s negativity towards UWP could have
been caused, or greatly attributed to, by her father?
--
NOTE January 6, 2019: By the way, in light of a recent radio
broadcast where Glennie spoke in a negative manner about her experience with Up
with People, she never once in my presence spoke negatively of the company I happily
worked for. She was always very friendly to me though I was not around her very
much. Until this evening when Glenn Close spoke about her mother and father on
the Golden Globe Awards, I was hesitant to publish this article. I feel a small
portion of it may be of interest to some.