Chapter One

If I knew where it all began I would begin at the beginning. Oh, there is the obvious beginning, the 27th December 1949, 1:15 am at Kings College Hospital in London, England, but that is the beginning of life only, not the beginning of the LIFE, as in life-style, I suppose.

Being born rather late in my parents lives, for the times, might have had something to do with my inclusion into their world of social activities. My father, Geoffrey Steele, an ex-British army officer, actually Cavalry, the First Royal Dragoons escaped the regular army after the war by becoming ill with bronchial fibrosis and no longer fit to partake of active military service. He was quite pleased with that decision as his entire family (the male side anyway) had practically been wiped out from being in the regular army, so he could now proceed with his real love of acting. He had begun his life in a tin-roofed shed in Potchefstroom, So. Africa on June 27th, 1914. His father George Frederick Steele had been in charge of his regiment (The Royals) and when his mother Muriel had traveled down there to visit he was born there. He only spent the first 10 weeks of his life in So. Africa before returning with his mother to England and soon after came the news that his father had been killed in Ypes, Northern France during a battle in the First World War in 1915. This was when my father was only 10 months old. Later on his mother re-married Alistair Sinclair Campbell who took them all to his tea plantation in Shanghai, China in the 1920's.

Then back to England where all seemed idyllic till "Jimmy" as his step-father was called died as a result of being mustard-gassed in WWI. So, two people close to him had been killed off by the British Army (and the Germans) as he saw it, and though he did his duty and went to St. Andrew's, Eton and Sandhurst, where he was a champion at the high-hurdles, destined for the 1936 Olympics, only to have those hopes dashed by having to go and join his regiment in India and Egypt. Those were the Olympics that Hitler refused to shake hands with Jesse Owens and all hell broke loose a few years later with the onset of WWII. My father entered the world he loved, that of the theatre and early days of television. He acted in and produced the very first play ever televised on electronic television in the world. A play called "Marigold" televised from the Alexandria Palace in London in 1936. He later worked with Cecil Madden at the BBC and is in a book called 'Adventures In Vision' all about the early days of television. He soon traveled to America with his mother and took up residence at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, from there he pursued a career in Hollywood and did many films such as Casablanca, Terror By Night and so forth.

My mother was born in Cedarhurst, Long Island, New York on September 26th, 1911. Her father, Joseph A. Shay was a barrister (lawyer) who worked on some famous criminal cases such as the Becker trials in the 20's and 30's. Both her mother and father had come from Syracuse, New York and before that the families had been from Germany and had fled to avoid their sons from being drafted into Bismarck’s' army. A socialite in New York and Palm Beach, Florida, my mother was educated in France and Switzerland. She had come back to New York and married and divorced twice to two men of the F. Scott Fitzgerald era. Her first marriage to Thomas Frances Murphy ended after only six months and the second to Winthrop Gardner Jr. of Gardner's Island, New York ended some scant nine months later when he ran off with the Olympic Ice Skater and actress Sonja Hennie. My mother headed for California after that and got into pictures, under contract to Cecil B. Demille in the 30s doing such films as 'Balalika' with Nelson Eddy and 'The Women' with Joan Crawford for George Cukor among many others, some 23 in those early days of her career.

My parents met around the swimming pool at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in August of 1941. Though they had apparently seen each other at various parties around Hollywood, especially at the home of Maggie Roach, who my dad had dated and who was also a friend of my mothers. Maggie was the daughter of Hal Roach, producer of the Our Gang Comedies. Four days after they met again they went off to Las Vegas and got married in the jail with two drunks in the drunk tank as witnesses!

My parents, Geoffrey & Mildred Steele

With the war well underway in Europe all it took was the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941 and my father and mother went back to England so that my dad could rejoin his regiment. The whole thing taking longer than usual as the Cavalry had not been mechanized as yet so the Army put them up at the Savoy Hotel in London. As my father had a background in show-business he was sent up to Barnard Castle in Yorkshire to make training films for the army and never went over the Channel.

This was a blessing as his entire regiment was wiped out at Bengazzi in North Africa. After the war, as I said he was down to 142 lbs. which on a 6'1 1/2" frame was a little too light with this bronchial fibrosis and he was deemed permanently unfit for any form of military service. After trying to make a living in the theatre and the newly established television industry in post-war Britain, and after my birth at the end of 1949 they decided to try America again. The Korean War was going by late 1950 and there were openings everywhere to be filled till the soldiers came home again. My father obtained a position at NBC in New York as a UPM (Unit Production Manager) and we moved to the Hotel Versailles on 57th and Madison, then to the new Fresh Meadows in Flushing and finally out to Atlantic Beach, Long Island, a house on the beach.

Then onto Hollywood in 1954. I guess it was the parties in Hollywood and the then burgeoning San Fernando Valley where we lived eventually after a few apartments in West Hollywood like The Gables on Fountain. Some of my earliest memories of the fun life had to offer was centered around these parties. The planning and organizing, the preparations, the good mood everyone was usually in getting ready for and during these events. Then there were the parties themselves. These elaborate affairs left over from a bygone era. In the fifties they were still a left over from the 30s and 40s, just as today we tend to recreate our glory days of the 60s and 70s. There were the monthly parties held by the Astrologer Carroll Righter. He would have a party each month for each astrological sign, usually with the symbol for that sign somewhere on the premises. For instance, a ram on the lawn for Aries, a bull for Taurus, twins for Gemini, and so on. Even a lion for Leo! He would introduce you around by sign, not name. "Mr. Moon Child" (never Cancer),"I'd like you to meet Miss Capricorn," and so on. But, I digress, as I probably will do continuously throughout this narrative. The people also, I know they had a lot to do with forming my ideas of what was fun. To a small child of 4, 5, or 6 years of age having the likes of Cary Grant, John Carradine, C. Aubry Smith, Boris Karloff, Jon Hall, Maxwell Reed, to name but a few, be the uncles that always become of your parents friends changes your level of reality, and normality to say the least. To a young mind, seeing "Frankenstein" at night on TV and then seeing Boris Karloff at a Halloween party in the bar-room my father built in part of our barn/garage in the then very rural Van Nuys, well you can imagine a slight blurring of the lines of reality. I spent many a week-end at the Carradines' ranch in Calabasas, now an historical monument I understand. John Carradine was married at that time to Sonia, and my parents home seemed to always be a refuge for one or the other of them when they had an argument going on in Calabassas.

I had a few horseback riding adventures at the ranch. Like when the horse I was on, at about age eight, suddenly took off, my dad jumped on Sonia's grey Arab stallion, Snowy, bare-back, and took chase. My horse had come to rest by the time he had caught up, on the other side of what is now the Ventura freeway. Thank goodness it was only a seldom traveled highway back then!

I must add here the continuing love for horses I have always had. My father had been in the British Cavalry, the First Royal Dragoons, now the Blues and Royals. I was placed on a pony at 15 months of age riding at 18 months, at about 10, with reins tied and arms crossed I was set over six 3 foot jumps. I still ride my beautiful Tennessee Walking Horse stallion Sun's Dark Chance almost daily, as I have since I got him in 1985.

I guess all of this did a good deal towards making all the mundane things, like school, not quite for me. Oh, the learning was interesting, the discipline, regimentation and boring stuff that restricted me to their pace instead of mine, was not at all my cup of tea. I don't think I ever really liked school, though I can remember liking the process of learning, the trouble with that was when I was interested in something and wanted to carry it further the powers that were the teachers went onto some other subject that didn't quite capture my interest. This also helped to alienate me from most of my contemporaries, it was much more fun to crawl all over 'Jungle Jim' AKA Jon Hall at a cocktail party, or to ride on the back of Maxwell Reeds' motorcycle, a'la "The Wild Ones" than to play with kids my own age outside of the social scene I found myself in with my family. Other children always seemed to have too many time limits and restrictions put on them anyway. I was a shy child around other kids, with a sophistication far beyond my years. It was hard for me to communicate with them on a kids level. But with the friends of my parents I blossomed. I don't know that this was always such a good thing, but it hasn't caused any deep-seated traumas I can think of, not in the past 50 odd years anyway, and the memories are far richer than any playground adversities I may have had.

I can envision at the age of 6 or 7 after leaving a party in Bel Air one night with my parents with a contingent of their British Colony friends in tow, to party on at our house in the Valley. A dear friend of my father's and fellow English actor, Ronald Long, much the worse for drink, insisted we stop at a market on the way, to buy a duck. The only duck in existence was frozen. When we got home it was still frozen to the density of a brick. But Ronnie persisted in bar-b-quing it anyway, all the while reciting the Witches' [Weird Sisters] speech from "Macbeth" ("toil, toil trouble and boil...") These kind of things were the stuff my memories were made of. I can't recall much of anything in my day-to-day life with the neighbourhood children, or at school. (By the way the duck was nothing but blackened bones in the end) At least my parents were considerate enough to let me stay up into the wee hours so as I could join in the merriment. Looking back into my memories it seems now that my life then was full of experiences like that. Of course life wasn't always a party, but it's pretty much all I can remember with any clarity. The absurd and silly stuff especially. Lots of fun for a child growing up in a world of adults who never grew up, who never wanted to grow up. Not really very practical though.