Don't get too hung up on the favorites because long shots win their share of Kentucky Derby races.

Here's an excerpt from The Goring Collection that will give you some idea about long shot betting and the big win. Don Bowman an FGI operative meets his informant Georgie Bertuccio at the Circus Circus race book and they talk about betting.
 
A cacophony of sounds floated into the restaurant from the casino and slot machine area. Don Bowman and Georgie Bertuccio ate their hamburgers and enthused about the race they had just won.

Georgie was almost giddy with excitement over the win and said, "I don't know how in hell you do it, Don."
Don smiled. "A little racing savvy and a lot of luck."
"What's the biggest win you ever had betting a combination?" Georgie asked.
Don thought for a minute and said, "I expect it was at Caesars a few years ago when I bet The Flower Drum Handicap, for filly's and mares, back at Belmont. I took a four-horse combination and in that mix was a well-bred filly that got in with light weight named Gaily Gaily. The morning line listed her at sixty- to-one."
Then Don shook his head. "I can see it now. The race was on the grass and there was a Cavalry charge down the stretch that ended with a photo finish. My picks came in one two three and five. Gaily Gaily with Julie Krone aboard was the winner and paid $157.80 for a two dollar ticket to win." (Don Bowman never told Georgie how much the combination paid, but I can tell you it was in the thousands.)

Let's go to the Movies   Part IV

HOLLYWOODLAND and The Yellow Barn

As the Model T chugged along they could see something white on a distant hillside. When they drew closer DeMille could see the huge white  sign that read HOLLYWOODLAND.

A land developer had purchased thousands of acres of land and put that monster sign up as part of a sales campaign to attract buyers and sell lots.  Well that huge gaudy sign couldn't have been more appropriate for the hyperbole that would later be spewed out the motion  picture industry to promote their sales campaigns.  Industry ads would be cliché riddled, wild, extravagant, and larger than life stories  about their stars and films.

Well it may not be the Promised Land, but it was the place Burns and Revier had described.  The possible studio building was a yellow barn in the middle of an orange grove, which DeMille rented.  That old barn was the first Hollywood address of the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company.  The exact location was at the corner of Selma and Vine Street just one block south of what later became the most famous and publicly known street crossing in the world -- Hollywood and Vine. ‘The Squaw Man' finally had a home, a place where that little band of fledgling moviemakers could go to work and try their wings.

In the early days the production company had to share stall space with the owner Mr.Stern's horses. But despite that fact Hollywood was born.  However, it would be many years from that early beginning before Cecil B. DeMille would step to the microphone and, by way of the Lux Radio Theatre, announce to America, ‘Greetings From Hollywood.'

During December of 1913 there was plenty of work to be done in that old sun baked yellow barn.  It would be stretching a bit to call it a studio, but who cares about semantics when history is being made.  Starting with their small group, people had to be hired, office personnel, cast and crew, they also had to firm up a deal with Burns and Revier to use their lab for film developing, buy more film along with a thousand other decisions and purchases. Fortunately, there were good people available in all categories, cast, crew and administrative personnel.

DeMille was busy with interviewing and hiring as well as working with Oscar Apfel on their shooting script. Perhaps a feeling of being behind schedule, the director-general was determined to begin filming before the year played out.  As it happened, all the pieces fell into place and director Oscar Apfel yelled, "Action" as cameraman Alfred Gandolfi viewed through the camera and hand cranked film past the lens.  The first scene of ‘The Squaw Man' was shot on the morning of December 29, 1913.  The Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company was in business and its first production was in the works.  The Hollywood movie industry was stretching and yawning it's way to life. It only took the ‘Squawman' crew three weeks to complete major photography, and that was quite an accomplishment, considering the fact that the monopoly trust had spotted their operation and tried to ruin their undeveloped film.

The making of that first movie took on the tone of a western melodrama when rifle shots rang out in the Cahuenga Pass, just missing DeMille and the horse he was riding home from work. The director-general improved his chances of survival by adding a gun and holster to his everyday wardrobe.  He also put out the word that he knew how to use his pistol and wouldn't hesitate to shoot back if fired on again.  It didn't happen, but DeMille wore his armament for many months following that episode.  Even with the shooting and film sabotage a daily threat the major part of the picture was completed in January of 1914, a near miracle.

Well miracle or no they were not home free, because after editing was complete and the company gathered to see the results; that showing took on the form of a nightmare.The projector started and following the title, images began dancing all over the screen, a real fowl up.  DeMille was thinking, not only of his immediate embarrassment, but he'd spent all the company's money.  Well it turned out to be a technical glitch; non-uniform sprocket holes in a batch of English film DeMille had purchased to save money.  It took the director-general and his can of film on a long train ride to Philadelphia and then a wily old film technician by the name of Pop Lubin to find a solution.  Mr. DeMille said years later that at the time, he felt like kissing Mr. Lubin and had he been French instead of Dutch, I expect he would have done just that. Once the long train ride from Los Angeles to Philadelphia was in the past the short trip to New York was like a dream sequence replacing an awful nightmare.

The showing in Manhattan to theatre owners and managers went well.  That group of buyers gave a standing ovation at the end of the screening, and even better than the applause they wrote checks and rented show dates. ‘The Squaw Man' officially opened on February 15, 1914 to an enthusiastic paying audience -- and the film made a good profit.

(To be continued)

Writers Corner:

You have committed to a project, finished the basic research and character prep work and you're all set to begin writing. Suddenly you're overcome with anxiety – you've got a knot the size of a baseball in your stomach. Stop! You are not alone. It might give you some comfort to know that John Steinbeck experienced some of those same anxious moments. In one of his letters written in February 1936, which was included in his ‘A Life in Letters' Steinbeck said, ‘I have to start [writing] and am scared to death as usual – miserable sick feeling of inadequacy.' Then in the very next sentence he said, ‘I'll love it once I get down to work.'

About the Author

Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday's Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

www.tombarnes39.com
www.RocktheTower.com