I just learned that a former neighbor, friend, actor, magician, and comedian Carl Ballantine, died last November. His daughter was my across-the-hall neighbor for 7 years and Carl and his wife, Ceil, lived a couple of blocks up Beachwood Canyon from us in the Hollywood Hills.
He was truly a larger than life guy and I’ve known a few. (Broderick Crawford used to introduce me as his son). Brod had nothing on Carl…well, a hundred pounds or so.
If the front door of my apartment was open, Carl would walk in, cigar in mouth, and join whatever was happening. Watching TV, he’d join us on the couch. Eating, “Where’s my plate?”
He was also a magician, a bad one (he said his best trick was his two daughters), and was a member of the Magic Castle in Hollywood. He gave me several passes to the Castle, one of which so un-impressed my girlfriend (my performance, not Harry Anderson’s) that she married me. (Trust me, forgetting to set a new Camaro’s parking brake on a hill so that the valet has to jump in and save it from rolling onto Franklin Ave, and eating un-cut horseradish on the first bite of prime rib, leading to total red-out, does not impress the girls. They do laugh, though. And remind you every time you have prime rib for the next 28 years [so far].)
The FOG’s will remember him from McHales’s Navy and, perhaps, The Tonight Show with JC.
I am very glad I knew him. He makes me smile even writing this.
Pat
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