|
Howard Rieder
Howard Rieder
provided a collection of memories about Signal Corps
Photographic Center, and some stories about what happened after
the service:
I was stationed at
SCPC from May 1952 to September 1954. I ended up
as a Cpl. attached to the Sound Branch.
I have many memories of good times with a great gang of
people; sadly a number of them have passed away
all too soon: Walter Pfister, Grant
Tyler, Dick Mansfield, that I know about.
There were a lot of
fun things that happened during that time; Joe
Flaherty, Jr. was there amongst us and I was pleased
to see his bio and really was aware of many of the
things he had accomplished in his life. Joe
was brilliant and feisty in getting what he needed for
the TV studio, like telling Sgt, Callichio that
his entire staff was going to work in the TV studio and
they would have none of that army stuff that day.
The sergeant was speechless, but bought it.
I went on to journalism, producing a variety of film
and recording projects, and was Director of Advertising,
Public Relations, and Sales Promotion for Thomas Organ
Co. and Revell, Inc. I retired after 15 and
1/2 years from Nissan Motor Corp. as one of its
advertising managers. I have a B.A. and an
M.A. in Televison-Cinema from U.S.C. and have taught
Cinema production in several schools.
Interestingly, I have a file of the SCPC (and it was
called Signal Corps Pictorial Center during my tenure)
Post Newspapers, Many of the people there at that
time are mentioned and shown, both civilian and
military. But that doesn't tell all the
stories of some of our crazy adventures. If
there is interest I can retell them.
While at Nissan on a NYC trip, a friend arranged for me
to tour the old studio. It was amazing to see the
changes and the similarities, but the most interesting
was the boarded up barracks across the street from the
studio building.
I now live in Prescott, AZ, where I volunteer in
producing video productions for the City of Prescott.
FYI, amongst
the gang at that time were Wally Pfister
(our PIO) who went on to CBS News and ABC as
V.P. of Special Events and whose son is a
cinematographer and was just nominated for an
Academy Award. Dick Mansfield
went on to be a producer at Chicago Public TV,
Ira Levin was at that time a produced
playright and went on to write more plays and
novels, Dick DeRoy (our company clerk)
wrote for Studio One and other shows during his
time at SCPC and was a prominent writer-producer
of TV (Remington Steel), Don Peterman who
did the cinematography for Splash, Men in Black
and other films and who, based on the credits of
some films has a son following in his footsteps.
Grant Tyler was a clerk in the main
office of the studio, having come from Ted Bates
Advertising. Grant's aunt was (Dame) Bea
Lillie, a very famous stage star. She had
an apartment on East End Drive and when not
there we could use it for parties. There
were others, but my memory is blurring.
There was the day when we handcuffed (borrowed
from the prop department) Grant to the stairway
banister after morning role call because he had
long legs, could run very fast and beat everyone
to the wash basins every day. It was
all in fun. Grant took it well and
was just late in shaving and showering that day.
And there
was the time when a new lieutenant was in charge
of the morning roll call and curtly ordered
Sgt. Baylor (he with a very wicked sense of
humor) to drill the men at 6:15 in the morning.
You might recall the blacktop behind the
barracks faced a six story walkup just over the
chain link fence. In 30 seconds,
every window had a sleepy head looking out
wondering if war had been declared.
We paraded and upon orders from the good
sergeant counted cadence very loudly.
We performed that morning for an audience,
something our little rag tag group of NYC
soldiers did very very seldom. At
8:30 when the studio office came alive, every
line on the switchboard was blinking red, and
the lieutenant who ordered the morning drill was
never seen again. We were late for shaving,
showering, dressing, and breakfast that morning.
That's all I have for right now that I can
remember, except a couple of hangovers sitting
in the re-recording theater.
It has been a lot of fun remembering ...and things I had
long since forgotten have been brought to mind.
Maybe Joe Flaherty can come up with more from our era.
When I toured the studio during the late 80's I
remember the G.M. who took us around talking about the
Officer's Club as he showed it to us and remarking how
they had removed the false walls and got back to the (I
think) tile and art deco decorations. Anyway, it
was neat. It was apparently the only
facility in which to eat then. The cafeteria we
ate at in the very back of the studio was long since
gone. If you contact the studio, they might be
able to send you some pictures and a facility brochure.
I'll send the
newspapers which Wally Pfister edited along as
soon as I reread them. I'm going to send the
originals as I know you'll appreciate them.
They will have lots of names of the people who were
there then.
By the way, I really like delving into the history of
things. I grew up in radio in L.A. and
recalled a lot of that for someone there who was
interested. For awhile, my long term memory is not
too bad; short term is lousy.
The post
newspaper may help to identify people there at
that time. Most of us, by the way,
in the place, other than the cooks and motor
pool were older, that is, we were drafted
generally after college and chose the two year
term. Some of the officers in Second
Signal (which lived on the third floor of the
barracks) were ROTC and were in for longer.
2nd Signal went on the TDY's to other stations.
One of the guys there, a Lieutenant, was Jay
Sandrich who became well known as an Emmy
Award winning TV director, for Mary Tyler
Moore's show amongst others.
A couple of
the guys in our unit (camermen) also went on
TDY's: Lester Marks and Boots
Barnes. Both had served in Korea and I
think, WWII and if you opened their footlockers,
there were medals a plenty. Both
were exceedingly modest about their exploits.
This does give me an opportunity to remember
some happy times....and some not so happy times
--- As a Californian I had never seen
snow, but the day of the first snow when I
arrived back at the barracks, I was handed a
shovel and told to clear the sidewalk...and you
remember how long and wide that was, I'm sure.
One other bit of information: we
were in two barracks: 2nd signal in one
and us in the other. The two
barracks were located in the back of the studio
and were abandoned by us in 1953 or early 1954
(I'm not sure which) when the new facility was
built across the street from the front of the
studio. That space was used to build
two new sound stages for Kaufman Astoria
Studios, one of them housing the Bill Cosby
Show.
One sad note, on a trip to NYC before the
studio was acquired and after it had closed, I
asked the obliging cab driver to take my by to
facility, It was a poignant moment to look
at the buidling with windows smashed and at the
lab building across the street in mighty
disrepair, glass block broken in pieces and
graffiti on the walls.
I noticed
the name of Herman Korman on one of the
entries, and I remember him well; he was
head of the projection section, and a very nice
and helpful person to me.
Hope the above is of interest to the
"survivors."
(Posted March 16, 2006, updated August 21, 2020.)
|
|
|
