geezersgallery.com

In the 1970s’, I was a Creative Director for Scroggin, Reed Adver­tising in S.F., and we acquired a new account called West­coaster Golf Carts. Later, Otis Elevator Co. bought West­coaster, and suddenly the ad budget skyrocketed. We created an ongoing national ad campaign, including brochures and spec­i­fi­cation folders requiring a multitude of photographs. We decided that with a substantial annual budget, we could now approach a dynamic golf star to endorse the golf cart, and photo­graph him with the product.  Lee Trevino was one of most charis­matic and popular golf stars the sport had ever seen, and he was our first choice. After an hour of nego­ti­a­tions, myself and the account exec­utive cut a $400,000. deal with Lee Trevino Enter­prises, which was his endorsement ventures, separate from his golf profession. Lee was actually the last to know about it, since his manager did all the endorsement nego­ti­a­tions, and had authority to okay the deal. Lee signed it, and we had our man in the bag, so to speak. Tech­ni­cally, we had our man in an Otis Elevator golf cart, with a different beau­tiful model each time we scheduled a photo session. The photo sessions had to dovetail with Lee’s pro-​​am tour­nament schedule, where he didn’t have the pressure of playing against the top pros. I had to follow a star golfer around the various courses, with a photog­rapher, a beau­tiful model and an Otis Elevator golf cart during the pro-​​am tour­na­ments. Well, someone had to do the tough assign­ments! When he had a spare 30 minutes or so, I would find a scenic location for the cart, pose the model and Lee inside or outside the cart in various situ­a­tions.. while fans looked on with interest. Lee was amiable, cheerful, told jokes and would flirt with the model, who eagerly flirted back. He lived up to his repu­tation as a ladies man and a fun loving, easy going guy.

Lee had been in the Marine Corps, and had the Marine Corps symbol of an eagle and globe tattooed on his arm. In most of the photos, part of the tattoo showed. The owner of the agency became concerned, and wanted to have the tattoo airbrushed out, before the client saw the photos. My dad was a “leath­erneck” Marine as a young man, and I knew the pride and inde­pendent attitude that is typical of a Marine. I knew that tattoo was probably a source of pride to Lee, and he wouldn’t under­stand airbrushing it out. It was a part of who he was. I took the photos to be approved without removing the tattoo, hoping the client would not find it a problem. As it turned out, not only was it NOT a problem, but the client had also been in the Marine Corps, and thought it added char­acter to the endorsement. So, “Trevino’s tattoo” remained, and appeared throughout the campaign. Later I found out that Lee had a tattoo of his first wife’s name removed from his forearm, but appar­ently that was before. Getting approvals from the client was “a walk in the park” after that, and Lee gave up a total of about 20 (twenty) hours of his time to earn almost a half a million dollars, which his manager requested be spread out over a four year period ($100, 000. per year) for tax purposes. Lee’s 20 hours of time fell within the first six months of the contract, and then his oblig­ation was essen­tially over. Not bad for a guy who started working in the cotton fields of Texas, at age five.

In the mid 1970’s to the early eighties, I coör­di­nated a very inter­esting docu­mentary art program for the National Park Service. The program had been going on between the New York Society Of Illus­trators and the Park Service in Wash­ington D.C. I had received word that they wanted to include a profes­sional art society on the west coast into their program “Artists In The Parks.” A parks official flew out from Wash­ington D.C. To meet me, discuss the program and their needs. Fortu­nately our Society Of Illus­trators was having an annual exhibit in the lobby of the Crown Zellerbach Building at the same time. After having wined and dined him I took him to see the illus­tration exhibit. He was very impressed with the caliber of talent in the San Fran­cisco Society Of Illus­trators. Two days after he flew back I received a phone call. “We were now part of the program.” I was asked to assign those artists willing to travel and partic­ipate in the program to a national park or monument in the U.S. Upon their return an artist would produce one or two paintings with complete freedom to express their inter­pre­tation of the park visited. One assignment I had included trav­eling to Glacier Bay National Monument, Alaska and Klondike National Historic Park in Skagway. Skagway Alaska in 1976 was a quiet village, tourism was minimal. In a conver­sation with one of the resi­dents upon my arrival, I told him my purpose for being there. He imme­di­ately suggested an afternoon excursion to my wife and I. Our guide offered to take us to a ghost town called Dyea, site of the starting point for the gold prospectors in the 1898 Yukon gold rush. We accepted his offer and found ourselves bouncing over an old dirt road in his truck for miles. We climbed up and over a mountain until we came to a spot where the road ended. ” Now we have to hike in the rest of the way”,Our guide said. My wife and I looked at each other with appre­hension. The only thing visible was thick brush and heavy timber ahead. I told my wife I would fall back behind her and our guide as we hiked in, as a safety measure. Was this guy for real or had we accepted a ride from a possible Klondike mass murderer? The thoughts went through my head. After about a half mile hike through mosquito infested brush we suddenly came into a clearing. There before us were a number of old deserted cabins from the 1898 gold rush. Many cabins still contained remains of furniture and some utensils on the tables. We saw an old grave site with sixty head stones This was at the base of the steep Chilkoot ice steps that the miners climbed on their way to the gold fields of the Yukon. As the story has been told the miners waited for days to climb the ice steps single file burdened down with all their gear. On one occasion one slipped and fell bringing the others down with him resulting in the deaths of sixty miners, All now buried in that grave yard. After safely returning that afternoon to Skagway, we reflected on what we had expe­ri­enced. I now had much reference material to complete my commission for the park service. It was truly a walk into history . Many illus­trators that traveled to various national parks and monu­ments had their own adven­tures and completed a wonderful series of paintings for the U.S. National Park Service.

Norman Nicholson