Lawrence Mace In Search of Whole Rainbows, Unpublished Manuscript, 1994, 1952, 1949, 1948, 1942
Chapter Twenty-five: Muscle Beach
"Several months after beginning Navy electronics school in 1949 at Treasure Island near San Francisco, I began to spend almost every weekend at Muscle Beach in Santa Monica near Los Angeles, four hundred miles south.
" . . .
"The four-hundred-mile trip to Santa Monica Friday nights typically required eight hours of hitch-hiking. . . .
"Santa Monica in 1949 was a friendly beach city located northwest of Los Angeles. Usually I arrived there about midnight Friday night. Several large hotels lined the beach at the top of hundred-foot cliffs called the Palisades. One of my beach friends was a night clerk at the Georgian Hotel. The lavish lobby was deserted after midnight and my friend allowed me to sleep there on a comfortable, overstuffed couch. He woke me when he finished work at six o'clock Saturday mornings.
"Deforest Most was in his early thirties, managing Muscle Beach for the Santa Monica Recreation Department. At eight Saturday morning, Moe raised an American flag over a small green utility building, officially starting the beach day. He allowed me to use the building to change into a swim suit and store my navy uniform.
"A nearby wood acrobatic platform was ten-by-forty feet, raised two feet above the sand. I helped Moe pull heavy, thick mats from a large, weatherproof compartment at the end of the platform, spreading them so that they covered the entire platform surface. I would then spend much of the next ten hours on most Saturdays on those mats, learning and teaching hand balancing and acrobatic adagio. My first year of weekends at Muscle Beach was one of the most rewarding periods of my life. I was beginning a twenty-year love affair with acrobatics and that fabulous place!
"There were many talented regulars at the beach every weekend. They came as much for fellowship as for exercise and practice. Some were current or former show business professionals from circus or nightclub entertaining. Often they had a particular expertise they practiced and performed at the beach, such as head-to-head balancing, or juggling while doing acrobatic tricks. Each did their own thing, while tourist onlookers applauded appropriately.
"Non-professionals, such as I, were often new converts to the brotherhood of acrobats. We came from gymnastics, weight lifting, body building, wrestling, or other athletic realms. These other activities at Muscle Beach each had their own group of enthusiasts, congregating in a particular areas surrounding the central acrobatic platform. Spectators assembled in the bleachers in front of the platform next to the beach boardwalk. They provided a powerful audience for any exhibitiionist who might be lured into learning hand balancing, adagio, or acrobatic pyramid tricks. A few, such as I, got carried away by it all and became acrobats for life.
"Some of the greats of Muscle Beach were in their prime. My friend Moe was renowned as the strongest bottom-man in the world. He could support enormous human weight. It was not his sheer strength that was crucial, but rather his ability to balance moving, shifting body weight of two or more people in towering tricks high above his shoulders. Steve Reeves had won the Mr. America contest about the time I began spending weekends at Muscle Beach. He weighed more than two-hundred pounds. Moe weighed only one-seventy-five and I weighed one-eighty-five. Once Moe and I took Steve atop a standing three-high. I stood on Moe's shoulders and pulled Steve upward, facing me, to stand on my feet. He then climbed upward, around me, to stand on my shoulders. Steve was a heavy body builder, not a skilled acrobat. It was a remarkable feat for Moe to support and balance so much inexperienced, moving human weight so high in the air above his shoulders.
"Harold Zenkin always had been my candidate as the greatest hand balancing acrobat of my early Muscle Beach years. He was a strong bottom-man like Moe. Also, he was an exceptionally valuable help to newcomers such as I. Everyone admired his skills and teaching talent. He had an inspirational effect, leading others to attempt and learn astounding, difficult feats.
"Russ Saunders was a Canadian competition diver and stunt man who dominated the Muscle Beach Acrobatic platform as his own domain from about 1949 onward. I did not get along well with Russ during my acrobatic beginnings, but I admired him greatly for what he could do and what he taught others to do. Usually, he worked with his own semi-closed group of associates on new stunts for professional purposes. I learned much watching him. He looked down upon me during this early period as an upstart, unworthy of his help or notice. I hated his egotism and pretense of self-importance.
"Little Frankie Vincent was five feet tall and weighed one-hundred-thirty pounds. He could do a hand stand anywhere. But also, he was an amazingly strong, all-around acrobat. Once Frankie, Moe, and I performed a three-high hand-to-hand, reversing the normal order. Frankie usually was a top man, but on this occasion he decided to take the bottom position. I thought he must be joking. Surprisingly, Moe stood on Frankie's shoulders, taking the middle position. I then climbed upward to Moe's shoulders and did the high handstand in Moe's hands on top of that strange looking, top-heavy column.
"Acrobatic adagio combines male-female dance movements with lifting, balancing, tossing and catching. There were always many attractive girls at Muscle Beach on weekends. I learned a few basic adagio lifts, then began to teach any comely young lady who wanted to learn. What fun I had every Saturday, lifting attractive girls, with the ulterior motive of finding a date for that evening! I was much more successful finding partners for adagio than obtaining dates.
"We usually performed acrobatic tricks and routines on the platform mats on Saturdays from early morning until it became too dark to see in the evening. Muscle Beach was located next to the long Santa Monica Pier where the Santa Monica Ballroom perched out at pier's end over the ocean. Spade Cooley, The King of Western Swing played there with his orchestra every Saturday night for many years. I would shower and dress at the beach Saturday evenings, then go to the ballroom to dance.
"The crowd was young and enthusiastic. From eight until nine o'clock it became a lively audience for the weekly Spade Cooley Television Show. After that, I had rollicking fun until two in morning as part of a group of regulars who came every Saturday night. I looked forward most to the fast numbers, mixing acrobatic adagio movements into the swing dance framework. It was an exhibitionist's feast. I was delighted when girls sometimes asked me to dance with them. Saturday evenings became continuations of what I had been doing during the day, but now it was all set to music.
" . . .
" . . . at the Santa Monica Ballroom, I got to know an auto mechanic named Ted Bacon. We were there one Saturday when he met a tall, beautiful blond named Ramona. I watched as they got involved during the next weeks. Ramona's best friend was Beverly Frank, daughter of a Los Angeles police officer, attractive and convenient. We enjoyed each other's company. She lived thirty miles southeast of Santa Monica. Several Saturday nights, at two in the morning, Ted, Ramona and I took Beverly home after Spade Cooley. We would stop to eat, then stop again to park on a hill top. It was usually dawn when Beverly finally arrived home. She seemed to want a long-term, closer relationship with me, but I did not have similar inclinations. Soon, I found other girls for early Sunday morning company following Spade Cooley. Ted and Ramona were married and started a family. They continued to be my friends for many years.
"I was usually among the first to arrive at Muscle Beach Sunday mornings. Again, I helped friend Moe pull the mats out onto the acrobatic platform. Sunday was much like Saturday, only more crowded. There were more performers and larger audiences of spectators. Sometimes, there was a virtual sea of faces for thirty yards around the platform as people sat in the bleachers and on the surrounding beach, watching the acrobatic entertainment. I would enjoy a second full day of exhibitionistic exercise and fun.
"Such Sundays always passed too quickly. Soon it was four o'clock in the afternoon. I would cold-shower next to the weight lifting area on the beach, put on my Navy uniform, then begin the long hitch-hiking trip north to San Francisco. First, I rode a Santa Monica local bus several miles east to Sepulveda Boulevard, then began to hitch-hike along this main route north. . . ." pp. 247 - 252