Lawrence Mace In Search of Whole Rainbows, Unpublished Manuscript, 1994, 1952, 1948, 1942
- Lawrence "Larry" Mace, 1994, 1952, 1948, 1942
One time Ocean Park and now Santa Monica resident; Arthur Murray Dance Instructor; lettered in gymnastics at SMC & UCLA; earned a doctorate in educational psychology and has enjoyed successful careers in publishing and hang-gliding instruction, 1994
pp. 107-108 (circa 1942, Lawrence is twelve years old)
"Our favorite outing was Venice Pier at the beach west of Los Angeles. A fat, jolly lady robot rocked backward and forward, laughing incessantly above the front of the fun house. Ernie [Lawrence's younger brother] and I would play there for hours. We groped our way through a maze of mirrors and staggered through an obstacle course of moving stairways and walkways. An operator blasted compressed air through holes in the passageway floors, forcing girls to hold their dresses down with both hands.
"There was a huge hardwood slide with lanes for several riders. It was convex and then concave several times. We started by sitting on a burlap pad high up near the roof of the building, then hurtled down the slide, going weightless flying over each convex bump, finally scooting out onto the flat surface at the bottom.
"There was a twenty-foot rotating, hardwood disc with a slight downward incline from its center. We climbed onto it and sat at the center with our backs together. The disc began to rotate, moving faster and faster. Soon, the centrifugal force began to take its toll. One after another we lost our positions, sliding outward off the disc, crashing into a padded trough surrounding the disc.
"Sometimes a rider was able to center perfectly and stay on while the disc spun at top speed. There were metal buttons embedded in the hardwood near the disc center. Whenever maximum centrifugal force failed to dislodge a rider, an operator pressed a switch sending electricity to the buttons. The perfectly centered rider then left his position quickly, to the delight of everyone watching.
"Ernie and I both loved the fabulous, scary roller-coaster on the pier, but our favorite ride on the pier was the Dragon Slide. The dragon wrapped itself around a one-hundred foot conical tower. Its tail stuck straight upward at the top, with its huge head next to the bottom of the tower.
"The slide was inside the spiral dragon, constructed from split bamboo strips attached to the inner walls of the spiral. A rider sat inside a heavily padded bag, on a swivel board, at the top of the dragon tail. An operator pivoted the board from horizontal to vertical. The rider plummeted straight downward into the dragon tail, spiraling around and around, finally zooming out the dragon's mouth. It was an awesome thrill. The Dragon Slide was closed and torn down after several years. A bamboo strip had come loose from the slide impaling a rider."
pp. 224 - 225.
"High school gymnastics in Southern California was far ahead of Northern California in 1948. All schools in the Los Angeles area had gymnastics teams, and competition there was fierce. Often, I heard of new, impossible movements on the rigs and high bar that gymnasts were doing in LA.
"In particular, I heard of a place called Muscle Beach in Santa Monica, near Los Angeles, where the greatest of all high school gymnasts congregated on weekends to practice together. I hitchhiked four-hundred miles south one weekend to see the place for myself. The rumors were true. I was dazzled! In Oakland, I was a top gymnast. At Muscle Beach I was a novice again. I learned several movements that weekend that astonished my teammates the next week at Fremont High in Oakland.
"There were many other things going on at Muscle Beach that caught my attention. It was a Mecca for circus acrobats and night club performers from all over the world. They did stunts and tricks that amazed me, performing on a mat-covered wooden platform. It was raised above the sand with bleachers along one side for spectators who watched and applauded.
"Nearby there was a fenced weight lifting area. I watched several of the strongest weight lifters in the United States working out, lifting impossibly heavy weights.
"There was a full length mirror on one side of the weight lifting enclosure. The body builders were easily distinguishable from the weight lifters. They spent much of their time in front of the mirror, flexing particular muscle groups after pumping up those muscles by exercising with weights. They were training for muscular bulk and definition rather than sheer strength like the weight lifters.
"There was table tennis, played on concrete Ping-Pong tables. I watched the current US table tennis champion meet all challengers.
"There were chess boards attached to tables. I heard that the current world chess champion played there sometimes.
"There were volleyball courts on the sand nearby. I had never seen volleyball played with only two players on each team. Defending players dove headlong into the sand to save and return a ball hit hard downward from above the net by an opponent. Two-man beach volleyball was invented at Muscle Beach.
"I met forty-year-old Deforest Most, Manager of Muscle Beach for the City of Santa Monica. Moe, in later years, became a hero and long time friend. He greeted me then for the first time, making me welcome immediately in the friendly fashion that was his trademark. I was impressed when he told me he held the world record for consecutive, bare handed giant swings on the high bar. He showed me the palms of his hands. They were like thick leather from performing on the bar."
pp. 247 - 252
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 exhibitionist 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 were 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 exhibitionistic 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's. 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's. 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. 297 - 301
Chapter Twenty-nine: The Manchester
"November 1952 . . .
" . . .
"Clyde [Adams] had a small Triumph motorcycle stored at home in Oakland. He lent it to me for transportation while I was on leave. Riding it was great fun. I headed east to my early childhood home town of Modesto to spend an evening talking with my father, then rode three hundred miles south to Santa Monica and Muscle Beach. I felt exciting anticipation riding the last few miles into Santa Monica. It felt much more like home than Oakland.
"My friend Deforest Most, who directed Muscle Beach for the City of Santa Monica, greeted me as if I had not been away two years: "Hi Larry. Glad you're back." Moe and I continued our close friendship where we had left it. He was surprised to hear there was so much acrobatic activity in Hawaii. There would be much interchange between the two places during the next twenty years. Many of my friends from Honolulu came to visit Santa Monica, and many from Muscle Beach made trips to Waikiki.
"I met a new long time friend, Stan Turner, my first day back at Muscle Beach. Stan, The Hand Stand Man, weighed one-hundred-twenty pounds and could do a hand stand anywhere, any time. We spent long days doing hand balancing together. We were both in top shape, learning tricks together I have never been able to do again with any other partner.
"Our most impressive accomplishment was a cannonball to a high hand-to-hand. Stan stood in front of me facing away. I grasped his hands from behind. Stan then jumped upward and outward away from me, as I pushed upward to give him height above the ground. Near the top of his jump, he brought his knees up to his chest into a tight cannonball tuck. He rolled forward, diving downward toward the ground, then swung from my arms backward in his tight tuck between my legs. I then swung him strongly forward again through my legs and upward. At the proper instant, he came out of his tuck position in front of me to shoot upward above my head to a high hand stand. Our movements became so beautifully coordinated that I did not bend my arms at all as I swung him upward to the high hand-to-hand position. Never again have I seen the move done by anyone as well as we did it together.
"I stayed with Stan during my leave, at his small apartment at Crystal Beach, one half mile south of Santa Monica. Stan loved motorcycles and kept his classic, Vincent Black Shadow in his front room. It was beautiful. He said the engine was "temperamental," and I never saw him ride it. He seemed content merely to look at it. I chained my friend Clyde's little Triumph outside on Stan's porch at night.
"Thirty days passed pleasantly with one day melting into the next. Moe, Stan, and I balanced together every day, perfecting trio tricks. Muscle Beach was laid back as always. I slid easily into the relaxed beach atmosphere. . . .
"I explored Santa Monica on the Triumph. It was a friendly, medium-sized, middle-class place. One day I rode into the mountains north of the city. I parked for a long time, sitting on the motorcycle, looking out over the sweep of the Santa Monica Bay. The day was cool and clear, I could see the hills of Palos Verdes twenty miles south with the outline of Catalina Island visible off the coast. Santa Monica and West Los Angeles sprawled directly below. It was a rare moment. I decided, 'This will be home for me after the Navy.'
"Babe Westerlund had come to live near Muscle Beach with his wife Lucille. He was a fifty-five-year-old acrobat who had worked in professional show business all his life, in excellent physical shape for his age. He did impressive routines on the horizontal bar and some hand balancing every day with Stan and I. Recently, he had disbanded his trio balancing act, The Nonchalants, and talked much about it. It had been a a top act for many years on the night club circuit throughout the US.
"Babe and Lucille began to learn juggling together. They practiced hours every day, developing a juggling act they planned to 'take on the road' after they perfected it. They had met each other late in life. Now each was the center of the world for the other. Stan and I became their friends.
" . . .
"Christmas came. I stayed with Stan on liberty, riding the little Triumph motorcycle from Long Beach north to Muscle Beach. George Ball's Tropic Village, Gathering Place For Artists, Musicians, And Romantically Inclined People was located at Crystal Beach, one block from Stan's apartment. I spent Christmas eve there drinking beer and dancing.
"Earlier that day I had done hand balancing at Muscle Beach with a fellow my age who showed promise as an acrobat. I saw him early in the evening at the Tropic Village. What a surprise! He was dancing with another man. I had not suspected he was homosexual. The two kissed passionately, mouth to mouth. It was one of the shocks of my young life! I had never before seen men do that.
"An attractive woman was sitting alone at one of the tables. She looked toward me as if she wanted to dance. I approached and started a bantering conversation. She responded encouragingly. Suddenly, in the midst of my banter, she glanced behind me to one side. A look of alarm crossed her face. I turned to see what could be causing her to react in that manner. The last thing I remember that Christmas Eve was the sight of a woman with a beer bottle in her hand, raised above her head.
" . . . The Tropic Village, on Christmas Eve, had been a fierce, violent lesson in bohemian romance. I decided to avoid gay bars in the future.
" . . .
"During my two months in California on leave, and then my first month aboard the Manchester, I usually spent Saturday evenings, when I could, dancing to the Spade Cooley Band at the Santa Monica Ballroom on the Santa Monica Pier. The fun culminated finally at midnight on New Year's Eve. Stan and I, with a third acrobatic friend, did a standing three-high column in the middle of the crowded dance floor. We held our three-high during the end of 1952, into the beginning of 1953. What fun! That was the last time I would ever dance to Spade Cooley, "The King of Western Swing." Soon, he murdered his wife and died of cancer in prison. The Santa Monica Ballroom burned down and was never rebuilt.
". . ."