Other San Francisco Memories

Miscellaneous San Francisco Items
My parents let me go down to visit my sister, Shirley, in June of 1947, to see my favorite comedian, Danny Kaye. I had seen all of his movies and here was a chance to see him in person. They had just bought me my first good camera, an Argus C3, for a graduation from high school present. I took this picture of him from the audience. This was his last performance in San Francisco. After he and the other performer, singer Georgia Gibbs, finished their 45 minutes, he came to the front of the stage and asked if any one wanted to see the movie that played between acts. It was “The Lone Wolf in Mexico” and everyone roared “No!”, so they performed for another 45 minutes. At the end, a lady from the audience gave them some flowers and another lady, a cake.
The line waiting to get in was backed up a long way up Golden Gate Avenue so, to thin out the audience, he told every one to come to the stage door and he would give us an autographed 8x10 photo of him, which I did.
I also saw Tex Ritter at the Golden Gate Theater. He sang all his favorites like “High Noon” and “Rye Whiskey”. He was a shy person and didn’t say much between songs, but there were some funny things he said. One was “As you slide down the banister of life, remember me as a splinter in your career” and “If all the women wore wooden dresses, all the men would be hunchbacked from looking through the knot holes”.
I saw quite a few other celebrities in San Francisco in the 60’s and 70’s. I saw Miles Davis at the Blackhawk. It was early and the crowds hadn’t come in yet. He was “noodling” with 5 other musicians (I recognized Pete and Conde Condoli). He left the group, lit up a cigarette, got a drink and came and sat on a bar stool next to me. He put out his cigarette, went back to the group and blended in seamlessly in the song they were playing.
I saw Turk Murphy and his New Orleans Jazz Ban on the waterfront, Harry Belafonte at the War Memorial Opera House and, at the Hungry I, Mike Nichols, the Kingston Trio, Richie Havens (who opened Woodstock with “Here Comes the Sun”) and Dick Gautier who was Hymie the Robot on “Get Smart”.