geezersgallery.com

Grey Adver­tising fire San Francisco.…early 1980’s

Does anyone remember the great “towering inferno” at Grey Adver­tising on the 27th floor of 50 Cali­fornia Street in San Fran­cisco in the early 1980’s? I was working there at the time as an office admin­is­trator but had majored in drawing and painting in college so I was thrilled to be part of the “ad biz” surrounded by creative types. I was first alerted to the fire by my boss who called me at 6 AM on a weekday to tell me there had been a fire on our floor, (Grey’s offices comprised the entire 27th floor at 50 Cali­fornia), so I was to dress casually in jeans and bring a bucket, rubber gloves and a whisk broom if I had one. OK.….My boss had no idea what the damage was.…she had not been into the office yet to see. So I boarded BART in the East Bay carrying my bucket, gloves and whisk broom and got off at the Embar­cadero Station in San Fran­cisco and ascended the esca­lator to the street level and walked past La Boulan­gerie on the corner of Cali­fornia St., (where I didn’t stop for my usual latte and croissant) to our building. As I got closer I saw 4 — 5 fire engines parked around the street, fire hoses going in and out of the building including up the elevator shaft and firemen every­where. As I entered the building and tried to board an elevator for the 27th floor, I was stopped and ques­tioned by the Fire Captain to whom I explained “I work here. I was told to come into work to help clean up”. I was allowed to proceed, and as I stepped out of the elevator on the 27th floor, the smoky wet smell of burned plastic from melted computers and other toxic mate­rials I couldn’t identify, nearly overcame me. The double doors that were normally open to our lobby area where “GREY” could be seen on the facing wall were shut. I opened the doors and began, at the direction of my direct report, Claudia Ebert, Office Manager and Henry “Hank” McWhinney, General Manager, (who later became Pres­ident of the San Fran­cisco office in 1987) what was what I recall to be a nearly 6 to 12 month reno­vation project. It was deter­mined that the fire started in the media department (the “pink ghetto “as it was called) in the office of the VP. She kept a space heater near her desk and appar­ently it had either been left on or some­thing went wrong with the circuitry. It was fortunate a night janitor discovered the fire soon after it started or all may have been lost. As it was, the Media Dept. was totally destroyed and had to be relo­cated to temporary offices sub-​​let from the B of A — a major client at the time. The rest of the office space suffered mostly smoke and water damage– fortu­nately none of the art work was harmed in the fire. Reno­vating the office over the next several months was both exciting and exhausting. The “new look” at Grey was sleek and classy employing grey and burgundy tones throughout the office. And new, burnished silver “GREY” signage was installed in the lobby. Though the bucket, rubber gloves and whisk broom I was asked to bring in the morning of the fire were woefully inad­e­quate to even begin to clean up the devas­tating effects, there is a humorous footnote about the whisk brooms. It was Robert “Bob” Humphrey, then Grey Adver­tising Western Offices Chairman and CEO, who suggested in his ever up beat demeanor and lickety-​​split manner of speaking that we all procure whisk brooms and just “whisk a little bit here and there every day” and it would all be back to normal in a jiffy. Seri­ously? He was also a firm believer in the “solid tie, solid guy” motto. No striped ties for Grey’s A.E.‘s.…..at least not when Bob Humphrey was in town. The fire also inspired the creative types in our office to come up with a new motto: “GREY Advertising…the hottest agency in town”. Black t-​​shirts were silk screened with the word “GREY” on the front consumed by orange and red flames. They were a “hot item”. Everyone wanted one, even some of our competitors.

Note: some of the other names I recall of people who worked at Grey then are:

Jerry Baker — creative director

Lars — creative director?

Mimi — creative dept. secretary

Gail Rouleau Sherman

In my career as a design/​illustrator (someone deemed that a D/​I was a cartoonist with an ego) I was approached by an author who wanted to publish a book of poetic snippets based on excerpts from Gulliver’s Travels and he needed a cartoonist to create little char­acters inter­acting with photographs of people sans clothes. For example, a photo of a body part with a little char­acter sitting on a finger or a buttock or whatever. He requested that I help him interview models to find the perfect body. I reluc­tantly said I would, got permission from my wife and off we went. The model agency was a little leery about the project but they finally furnished us with several possible choices. It was rather easy choosing as all were viable for the venture. The author at this point thought male figures should be included but I allowed I had other pressing matters and that he and his photog­rapher should make the decision. All went rather well and we had to choose a picture for the cover. I suggested we should use the picture of the large breast with the small man sitting on the nipple. The author preferred a more intel­lectual example but realized my choice was more prag­matic. The book did rather well but was ignored by the Pulitzer prize committee.

David Broad

Click on the Thumbnail for a complete view

I too visited Albert Dorne when I was about twelve years old around 1950. My father, Dick Schroeder, knew him through his critiques of The Famous Artist’s Course and took me along to his studio. I assume it was the same studio as Dave Broad visited, but I don’t remember what it looked like. What I do remember is that my father asked Albert if he was still painting (meaning ‘fine art’). Albert said, “Hell yes, Dick.” “Art is like f — ing; once you start you can’t stop.” My father turned beet red.

Mark Schroeder

JACK ALLEN

What describes a great adver­tising art director is his ability to come up with good selling ideas, designing and laying out award winning ads and have the know-​​how to work within a tight budget. Jack was all of the above.
When it came to budgets, he was espe­cially creative.
Jack discovered two poor strug­gling art students (Dave Sanchez & Mik Kitagawa) from the Ad classes he taught at night.….and inter­viewed them for a position in his department at the pres­ti­gious Young & Rubicam adver­tising agency. Unbe­knownst to these young fledg­lings, Jack’s budget called for just ONE art director. Mr. Allen, at his creative best, took that one salary and split it!.…..Two for the price of one. Hence the term “two-​​fer” will always be asso­ciated with Dave and Mik! Thanks to one Jack Allen.

Mik Kitagawa

In your dreams
Not everyone can look back and say, “You won’t believe this but…” and then go on to tell the most unbe­lievable story. But I can.
It starts when I was a photog­rapher on Sutter Street and a call came from my Chicago agent, Jack Kapes.
The call went some­thing like this: “Jack Allen, we want you to photo­graph a package design solution for a new product from Avon. It’s an after-​​bath lotion. And they want to call it “Birthday Suit”.
Nick Sidjakov will be designing the package and promo­tional material and you need to find a high-​​fashion model that will pose in the nude.  But all in good taste, of course.”
Now I don’t know about you but calls like this don’t come out of the blue for me, ever.
Adjusting my teeth which had fallen to the floor, I gulped an….. “OK” and stumbled off on my model search.
This sounds like an easy job but finding incredible “high fashion” young ladies willing to strip is not duck soup. Believe me.
For days I combed the SF modeling agencies feeling like a pervert and finally gave up on the City by the Bay. I ventured south to Hollywood and contacted some of the photog­rapher friends I had down there.
They sent me tons of modeling sheets but none in the area I needed. So, I hopped on a plane and visited “the” nude modeling agency in LA. “Nudes, sure, we got loads of them.” And they did. I looked through a dozen books of lovely ladies hoping to wind up in movies, maga­zines, on TV and who knows, what else. I didn’t know women came in such various shapes and sizes. I was flab­ber­gasted.
I found a beau­tiful young lady and booked her to fly up to SF and spend a week with me and Nick Sidjakov. Now Nick, ever the charmer, had to be in the studio to supervise the design of the pack­aging  and he asked if he could bring his assistant with him. “Sure”, I said before I even asked the model if she minded three of us gawking at her naked love­liness parading around the set.
On day one of the “shoot” the art director and the copy­writer from Needam, Harper and Steers flew out from Chicago and we now had five drooling, stam­mering idiots plus two assis­tants sitting in canvas chairs awaiting the great strip just before the police could arrive and take us all to the pokey.
As calmly as Gypsy Rose Lee the young lady dropped her robe and day 1 began. She had the most incredible body any of us had ever seen. We took ten rolls of film before I called “break” and reloaded the film maga­zines. Not a pin was heard to drop.
She calmly sat down in one of the canvas chairs “sans clothes” amidst the by then stunned boy’s choir. Hallelujah!
We tried to carry on a conver­sation with her while looking into her eyes but had to give up. I finally told her if it bothered her too much I would clear the set of all the idiots while we reloaded.
“No, its fine”, she said. “I’m from a family of nudists and when I come home from high school off come the clothes. One day we had a small house fire and the local fire department couldn’t decide whether to turn the hose on the fire or on us. The firemen were so cute”
When she said “high school” I started looking for a place to hide, Thank God I hadn’t ferried her across state lines.
The story just got better as the days turned into a week and hundreds of pictures turned into thou­sands and we sadly shipped her home safe, sound and fully clothed.
She was so unin­hibited and un self-​​conscious that we were able to provide Nick and the Art Director, Tom Gorey, with a ton of material for the assignment. Why I didn’t save some of the film for posterity I’ll never know. I shipped it all to Needam, Harper. I just wasn’t thinking straight. It must have been a touch of the flu.
And now, in case you’re looking for the product, the idea was shelved even­tually. Don’t ask me why.
And I won’t give you the name of the young lady for obvious reasons.
I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t believe the story either.
Only in my dreams.

Jack Allen

“I am the luckiest person in this ride called life.”

Life has been incredibly kind to me. Early in my life I was lucky to be on the right high school baseball team that won the cham­pi­onship for the state of Cali­fornia. Lucky to quar­terback the Pasadena Junior College football team in the Rose Bowl. Lucky to be chosen by the creative director at Young & Rubicam Adver­tising, New York, to be his assistant. To also have lived in The City by the bay during the 60’s.
None of this was because I deserved anything on merit. It was simply because I had blind assed luck. To be at the right place at the right time.
Example: When I came out from New York to Art Direct for Foote, Cone and Belding, San Fran­cisco, I wound up editing the newsletter for the Artist and Art Director’s Club of San Fran­cisco.
I decided to get designers to design each issue. And who would I start with?
Marget Larsen, of course.
Marget was the hottest designer in town and the hottest woman on the planet. I was hope­lessly in love with her but about 347th in line.
Marget designed our first issue and I gulped at the price tag attached, (With Marget design always trumped cost.) We set out to produce it anyway. We wound up silk screening it on the floor of the agency at night and begging printing from a friendly printer then hand folding 500 copies to the membership.
I wished I had saved the issue but you can imagine it was not to be topped. Such was working with Marget. She always shot for the stars and if you wanted to be lucky, you hitched a ride. God, I loved her. She was like many of the designers SF boasted of. Nick Sidjakov, Tom Kamafuji, Bruce Butte, Lowell Hererro, Jerry Berman to name just a very few. Follow them around and hope they dropped a few crumbs.

Luckily, they were generous as well as great.

Jack Allen

Well, OK. Here’s the skinny.
In the evenings I was teaching Adver­tising Design at the Academy of Art on Sutter Street. During the day I was Exec­utive Art Director at Young & Rubicam. A big time adver­tising agency now swal­lowed up into a bunch of letters.
Always looking out for young talent, I barely noticed Dave Sanchez and Mick Kitagawa in my class. Raw, eager young kids with a modicum of talent. Slowly I molded them into potential fodder for the adver­tising industry.
Our largest account at Y&R was Kaiser Indus­tries. And aside from “Mavrick” (our #1 hit starring James Garner), Kaiser had a long list of indus­trial products. Each of these products needed many trade ads and programs to help sell them. Perfect for raw,eager, young stupid kids. Bingo. What an oppor­tunity. What a chance to fill their little heads with the glory of working for a big time adver­tising agency. And right out of school too! I decided to give them their BIG break. I based their salaries on how long they had been out of diapers times two and added carfare. Dangling the bait in front of their starry eyes, I signed them up before their mouths closed. I gave them accounts the day they walked in the door and worked their little pink asses day and night until I walked out the door to become a photog­rapher a few years later. Now, there are insin­u­a­tions that I paid them “two for the price of one”.
These are scur­rilous lies. I took them off the street and put them into an exciting world. I set their names in lights.

The ungrateful curs.

Dave would have wound up selling ladies shoes if I hadn’t saved him and Mick was doomed for “B” movies every time a new one was shot in town. If there are any medals to be given they should be on my chest for paying more than they deserved. Hah! Two for one indeed.

Jack Allen

Tom’s Thumb
by Tom Watson

We all have heard the Greek mytho­logical story of “Achilles Heel”. This is the story of “Tom’s Thumb,” however this story is not mythology, it is very true.

Once upon a time in the year of of our Lord 1965, there was a fledging young illus­trator from the Valley of Napa„ far away from the Magical Kingdom of San Fran­cisco. His name was Tom. After studying at Art Center School, Tom had worked for a full-​​service studio in the Hamlet of Oakland for two years, where he learned about the prac­tical side of the business of illus­tration and graphic design. After two years of diverse expe­rience, Tom wanted to try his hand in the Magical Kingdom of San Fran­cisco. So, he left the studio in the Hamlet of Oakland and began looking for larger dragons to slay across the Bay, in the Magical Kingdom of San Fran­cisco. One day, Tom received word from Sir Norman Nicholson of the Magical Kingdom, requesting that Tom accompany him to slay some large fierce dragons roaming the Magical Land. Sir Norman, an expe­ri­enced and well respected Knight of the Round Table (Society of Illus­trators), was one of Tom’s instructors at the Academy of Art in the year of our Lord 1959. Sir Norman had been helpful with advice and moral support in the past, and Tom was very grateful for his noble acts of kindness.

Sir Norman had received several story­boards to slay  for the Milk Advisory Board. He offered to split the work with Tom, but typi­cally the AD was in a rush and wanted them finished and on his desk the following morning.

With assignment in hand, Tom anxiously traveled to his distant lair in the Valley of Napa, with ideas racing through his mind. On his arrival, he burst through the door and told his wife, the fair Lady Joan, that he would be at battle all the night and into the next morning, to slay this large dragon. While lady Joan prepared supper, he worked fever­ishly to do all the pencil roughs before supper, but his mind was moving faster than his hand, and he was drawing faster than he had ever drawn before. While trav­eling to his lair, Tom deter­mined that even with only one break for supper, he would barely have enough time to finish the job of slaying the dragon, and deliver it back to the agency in the Kingdom of San Fran­cisco. Surely, a daunting task for young Tom.

As Tom drew faster and faster, his hand became a blur and his mind was racing fran­ti­cally, making one decision after another. Then, the unthinkable happened! Tom’s right thumb began to cramp and soon it became useless. A wounded warrior, he could not hold his pencil any longer to draw. No matter how he tried to overcome it, it was to no avail. Tom thought this is the end! He would miss his deadline, let down and disap­point his friend Sir Norman, and miss an oppor­tunity to earn his knighthood in the Magical Kingdom of San Fran­cisco. Tom was mortified. Could a stiff thumb end his career? How could he tell Sir Norman that his thumb stopped working, stiffened up and died? It would never be believed by anyone! After taking a short break, he tried once again, but Tom’s thumb cramped again and the more he tried the worse it got. Tom had to inform Sir Norman, for it was the only thing he could do. In receiving the bad news, Sir Norman chuckled and assured Tom that it was only a temporary reaction to his under­standable anxiety  and nervous tension, and it would probably go away after he had his supper. Sir Norman calmed the dejected and near panicky Tom, and told him not to worry, that it wasn’t life or death, and to call him if it continued. Tom felt cautiously better, while eating his supper. After supper, Lady Joan massaged his taut neck, back and arms, which helped him relax before he had to return to his fate. It was now or never, Tom or the dragon?

The next morning Tom walked to his coach, and taking a long breath of early morning air, he was off for the Magical Kingdom of San Fran­cisco. He felt elated and greatly relieved that he had completed the job, killed the fierce dragon, and felt confident that the AD would be pleased with the results. Tom traveled directly to the chambers of the agency that initiated the assignment, as Sir Norman had instructed him to do.  Tom proudly displayed the numerous colored story­board frames to the AD, who was smiling and nodding his head up and down. He then, turned to Tom, shook his hand and exclaimed, “Good job, Tom, I’ll have a purchase order typed up for you before you leave”. That was music to Tom’s ears, and the beginning of many, many more story­board and illus­tration assign­ments in the Magical Kingdom of San Fran­cisco, including special effects conceptual boards for the movie industry throughout the 1990s’.

Sir Norman and Tom remained good friends throughout their career, and to this day, they look back and have a good laugh about their many escapades together in those early days of the Magical Kingdom of San Francisco.

The End