Read My Happy Days in Hollywood for Free Online

Fred and I wrote for a USO show called
Take a Break
. We created skits for the show, which was performed on army bases around America. They couldn’t afford to pay me as a writer to travel with the show, so they paid me as a drummer who did writing on the side. We did an eight-week tour and had awonderful time. I made friends with a young singer-dancer named Tom Kuhn, who would later play an important role in my life, and some people who would go on to become Broadway actors, such as Ken Mars
(The Producers)
and Nancy Dussault
(Do, Re, Mi)
.
    During our time on the road I worried a lot about being drafted. Although the war in Korea was over, they were still drafting soldiers, and we were all on the list. Fred decided to serve in the army reserves and volunteer for two weeks a year for the next six years. Some of my other friends were exempt because they were the sole males in their households, or had a minor health problem that made them not eligible. Not me. Even with my illnesses, the army said I was in perfect shape. So, I had to make a decision for myself.
    If I waited for my number to be called, I would have to serve for three years. However, if I offered to go right away, I would only have to serve two years. So that’s what I did. Instead of going back to graduate school at Northwestern in the fall of 1956, I went to New York and joined the army. I lost my fifty-dollar down payment at Northwestern. My career in journalism was put on hold, and I became a soldier in the United States Army. The recruiter said I would first do basic training and then head on a boat to Korea. My mother worried, “You know how nauseous you get on boats!”

3. KOREA
Welcome to the United States Army, Mr. Marshall
    O VERNIGHT I WENT from being a college student to a “Fighting Machine.” I had a degree in journalism that I could do nothing with because for the next two years my full-time job was for the United States of America. I was sent to Fort Dix in New Jersey for a day, and to Fort Knox for basic training. In Kentucky we spent eight weeks learning routine soldier tasks like marching in place and loading a gun. My dad had helped me fill out my application, and he wrote down that I was a television cameraman. I had done some camera work in college, but the claim was mostly fiction. But Dad said, “Don’t put ‘writer,’ put ‘television cameraman,’ because television is going to be big.” Dad was notorious for doing this kind of thing. Even though I wasn’t a cameraman, he knew that if I stretched the truth, I would get a better assignment. He excelled at inflated résumé writing. I guess he also had confidence that I was smart enough to learn how to be a cameraman on the fly. Dad was right. That title qualified me for service in Astoria, Long Island, where I worked in a division that made army instructional films.
    The films we made were about everything from how to read a map to how to detect venereal disease. I acted in one movie about dogs and ended up getting bitten by the dog. It left me with a fear of dogs for the rest of my life. The head of our unit was a lieutenant named Richard D. Zanuck, whose father was Darryl F. Zanuck, a famous producer and head of 20th Century–Fox. Richard would later become a producer and studio executive himself. In the army,however, he was a little aloof and not very friendly to enlisted men. Then, I didn’t consider moviemaking a profession I was destined for. It was just a nice way to pass my time in the army.
    I worked in the film department for two months. The best perk was that I could go to Broadway shows for free if I wore my dress uniform. You had to stand up for most of the show, but it was worth it. The bad news was that I had to live with my parents and Penny, which was a bit of a letdown after being so independent at college. But the time flew by as I awaited my foreign assignment. Most of my friends and I had put down that we wanted to go to Germany. But it turned out the