The White Period

Biff Manard, Playgirl

Biff Manard, Playgirl

His thick, dark voice was instantly familiar even though I hadn’t heard it in thirty-one years. The only other time I had been in touch with him, was when he wanted to borrow a hundred dollars, but all that was via email. I had tracked him down on Facebook the week before, because I wanted to know if it was okay to use his real name in the book I’d just finished about the time I moved to L.A. in 1977. I still hadn’t decided whether it would be a memoir or a novel. Jay, my lawyer husband, thought I needed the rights– either way.

Biff was in Vegas, living in a room in Mike Callie’s house. He was the guy who used to own the Laugh Stop in Newport Beach. Mike said Biff was drunk most of the time, with a hip replacement and two knee replacements, and that he’d been burned pretty badly when he fell down drunk and was hit by a car.

When he said that, I clutched hard and felt like crying for the split second it took to remember he had hit me, and it had been more than once. But in the split second before that, I thought about what an incredible specimen he had been in his youth. How could it be that this Play Girl centerfold was an old man? Mike said he used a cane. Oh well, I thought, karma. So I had called him, and now he was calling me back. I wanted to know, once and for all, what happened, what really happened, not just what I remembered happening.

That day my phone rang, I’d been crossing the street in Beverly Hills on my way to a haircut that was part of getting ready for The Arbonne convention in Vegas, and hopefully, a stop to see Biff and get his signature. But first, I wanted to ask him why he hit me, and I wanted to know who told what to the police.  “It was a very small world,” he said. “Everybody knew what everyone else was doing.”  Evidently, I thought, except for me. Everyone knew except for me. “I guess a lot of women were obsessed with you,” I said.

“You were,” he said, “You said I represented your dark side.”

“Would you say that all the stuff with the strike made you feel so bad you hit me?”
“Nah,” he said. “That was chemicals. My white period.”
Hmmm. I wonder. “All I know,” I said to him, “Is that any time before that era and any time since then, I never would have let anyone hit me, so I know cocaine can make you crazy.” But I didn’t feel that excused anything.

A few days later, as I got in my car to drive to Vegas, the Arbonne convention and a stop to see Biff. My husband said, “Don’t engage with him. Don’t try to fix him.” Then he handed me the life story release he’d drafted. He had no need to worry. There was no fixing Biff Manard.

Biff Manard Memorial Collage by Jeannine Campi

Biff Manard Memorial Collage by Jeannine Campi

Argus Hamilton’s eulogy for Biff Manard captures the spirit of the day, and reading it, you can’t even see his 1979 girlfriend spinning in that vortex. It did seem like fun, until it wasn’t. When I tracked down Argus after 30 years he acted like I’d only been away for the weekend. He had no idea what had really happened.

“RIP–a Comedy Store legend—Biff Manard died tonight in Las Vegas after a long illness at age seventy-one. Biff starred in Make Me Laugh and wrote and co-produced the comics segments on the show with Marty Cohen….Biff was an anchor of the the 1970s Sunset Strip comedy scene and a hell raiser second to none. our pack of wild comics all lived at the same apartment complex on North Laurel, a block above Greenblatt’s on Sunset, a half mile from the Comedy Store. biff loved to hold court in the afternoon and write jokes with fellow comics in the marijuana stahge of the day. Later, after everyone had showered, killed the crowd, we often re-grouped together and partied till dawn, like it’d never end. how he loved to laugh, and encourage other comcs to keep it real…..Biff LOVED wordplay…My first week at the Comedy Store in April of 1976, still an open miker, fresh out of OU, I was at a party at Alan Bursky’s parents apt at that North Laurel address…not knowing anyone. Biff walked up to me and snarled. “So…Argus…I hear you hang out at the Polo Lounge?…”Yes’ i replied, “So,’ he grilled me, “Who was that named after, Marco Polo?”…..Pulling out a reply from god knows where, I blurted, “No, Biff, it was named after Genghis Lounge!”….he fell on the floor laughing, grabbed Tim Thomerson, told him the line, and within a week, I was hired as a doorman, emcee and Mitzi’s runner, thanks to Biff and Ollie Joe’s influence with Mitzi…we would raise a LOT of hell together In the next ten years, with comedians Alan Bursky, Mitchell Walters, Allan Stephan, Kip Addotta, Marty Cohen, Debbie Klegman, Mike Binder, Tim Thomerson, Ronny Kenney Robin, Richard, Dave Tyree, Ollie Joe Prater, Charlie Hill—centered nightly together at the Comedy Store and welded to each other in our Joy of Raising Hell …..a core unit of the funniest people of our generation, young, bulletproof and irresistible. NO ONE had more fun than we did, NO ONE and that’s saying something for the late 70s in LA. Biff was there EVERY night, until six in the morning arrived and time to crash. and he consciously decided to keep swinging until the end. How he made it to 71 is a tribute to an incredible constitution. Love you Biff and Our Era is the favorite time of my life. if I had a time machine, I’d go back to 1979 and stay there when we were all unbeatable….see you at the coffee table on the other side.” Argus Hamilton, American Comedian.

Beater

 

Beater & the TypewriterI used double strength chemical straightener on my hair and a piece the size of a salad plate fell out at the crown.  It was the night he told me I was too fat to go to The Comedy Store and told me I didn’t know how to clean a bath tub.  Trying to be pretty.  Backfired. No choice but to cut it off.  Hated it.  Ugly.  Mad.

 

 

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Nothing to Write Home About

Brook Simons & Will SampsonFor thirty years I’ve been pretending to be a real princess. I know how to wear pearls and how to write a thank you note. I know the dress codes for Connecticut, York and Pacific Palisades. I can pass for being one of the girls I grew up with. But inside I’m dogged by a mark, and I’m tired of feeling like I’ve soiled myself. For thirty years, I worried what would happen if anyone found out. As I sit on my balcony overlooking the mountains of Topanga and sip a glass of wine with the husband, I think, I’ve been a good mom, and I’ve waited to tell this story till my daughter was twenty-one and out of college, even though it won’t be the first time she’s heard it.

This is the story of what went wrong when I first moved to California in 1977.