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Life & Times Transcript

3/9/07

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

The Waldorf-Astoria is a cornerstone of Manhattan, but would it be a good fit for Beverly Hills?

Robert Tanenbaum>> I love the Waldorf. Coming from New York on 49th Street and Park Avenue, it's great. But I don't want 49th Street and Park Avenue across the street from us here in Beverly Hills.

Val Zavala>> And then, Marlene Dietrich was one of Hollywood's greatest stars, but one of her greatest roles was not in the movies.

These stories and more next on tonight's Life and Times.

Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val Zavala>> Nothing says New York luxury like the words Waldorf-Astoria and now that New York brand may be coming to Beverly Hills. Developers want to build a Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on the corner of Santa Monica and Wilshire Boulevards, but that means destroying the beloved Trader Vic's that has been serving up good food and drinks for more than fifty years. Sam Louie takes a look at what the new may do to the old.

Sam Louie>> Beverly Hills. It's the quintessential city of glamour, prestige and luxury. Now its glitzy image may get a New York sheen. The illustrious Waldorf-Astoria Hotel could have a west coast sister here on the corner of Santa Monica and Wilshire Boulevards.

Corrine Verdery>> We really feel that this is the right city and the right location for bringing the first east coast Waldorf-Astoria in Beverly Hills. We feel that it's the perfect place, the perfect location, the perfect city.

Sam Louie>> The owner of this property also owns the adjacent Beverly Hilton. Corrine Verdery is Senior Vice President of the Beverly Hilton.

Corrine Verdery>> The goal for the project is really to look into the future and we think the Waldorf-Astoria joining the Beverly Hilton on this site, combined with the revitalization plan which adds four and a half more acres of green space and gardens and public art, is really the right image for this property. "Waldorf-Astoria, Sculpture Gardens, the entry to the Waldorf-Astoria. . ."

Sam Louie>> But the five hundred million dollar project would mean the end of a Los Angeles landmark, Trader Vic's. This comfortably kitschy restaurant and lounge is a far cry from Waldorf-Astoria's sophistication. Mike Buhler is the Director of the Los Angeles Conservancy and says that Trader Vic's has something the Waldorf could never duplicate.

Mike Buhler>> Trader Vic's has been both the gathering place for celebrities and politicians throughout its five decades. It was a popular watering hole for Ronald Reagan and his cabinet when he was governor. It's also been a popular gathering place for celebrities hosting after-parties for the Golden Globes and the Oscars for many years and also just as a community gathering place for long-time Beverly Hills residents.

Sam Louie>> The Polynesian-themed restaurant was also a big hit with veterans returning from the South Pacific following World War II.

Mike Buhler>> These are tangible reminders of our past and people feel great connections to these places. They maintain the sense of place of where they came from and certainly Trader Vic's is one of the last examples of Polynesian-themed architecture remaining in southern California.

Sam Louie>> But Hilton officials feel that Trader Vic's served its purpose and a Waldorf-Astoria Hotel would need a restaurant of comparable elegance and style.

Corrine Verdery>> We are adding a new fine dining restaurant into the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and we really feel that the project and the community in the future will be better served by adding a world-class fine dining restaurant at that corner.

Sam Louie>> In addition to the hotel, the plans call for two mixed-use buildings each thirteen stories high complete with high-end shops and luxury condominiums with the services of a first-class hotel.

Corrine Verdery>> You could get room service 24/7. If you wanted breakfast with your newspaper delivered every day, we could do that. If you wanted a party catered in your residence by one of our chefs, we could do that.

Sam Louie>> But some are worried that it's not just the luxury services that would be taken to a new level.

Robert Tanenbaum>> I love the Waldorf. Coming from New York on 49th Street and Park Avenue, it was great. But I don't want 49th Street and Park Avenue across the street from us here in Beverly Hills.

Sam Louie>> Robert Tanenbaum is the President of the Beverly Hills North Homeowners Association. He says the project is too massive. He points to the traffic at the intersection of Santa Monica and Wilshire as being bad enough without the new hotel and condo complex.

Robert Tanenbaum>> The Hilton Hotel is in an area that is right across the street from residential and we're trying to hold down on that kind of development because to do that would create, in our judgment, gridlock traffic.

Sam Louie>> Matthew Finerman lives just a stone's throw away from the Hilton. His parents bought the home in the early 1950s. He still remembers the day the Hilton came in.

Matthew Finerman>> Well, I was actually here before the Hilton was built and had the pleasure of watching it go up. We've always considered the Hilton as like a friend.

Sam Louie>> But the size and scope of the project is straining that friendship. It's not just the traffic, he says, but four million dollar high-rise condos would erode the city's sense of community.

Matthew Finerman>> People just tend to cocoon themselves in their home and at work and not really be an integrated community, which is what I grew up with. Again, there's a large reason why we all wanted to live here. It's because of the true community feel and we see that definitely as having a potential to break up that kind of feeling.

Sam Louie>> But Hilton representatives believe the project will enhance the neighborhood.

Corrine Verdery>> What we have is four and a half acres of new landscaping and open space.

Sam Louie>> As for the traffic, the proposal includes widening Wilshire Boulevard.

Corrine Verdery>> We pull our building lines back in the future to add two new lanes to Wilshire Boulevard and use our unprecedented transportation improvements that really would not be done in the city without the help of this project and the property at no cost to the taxpayers.

Sam Louie>> But that's still not enough to satisfy Robert Tanenbaum, who's also an attorney. He says the plan includes only half the required parking spaces.

Robert Tanenbaum>> We know where they're going to park. They'll park in our residential neighborhoods in front of our homes and that's something we want to avoid.

Corrine Verdery>> We take our parking operations very seriously. It's critical to the success and operation of the hotel and we will meet whatever city requirements there are in the future as part of the project.

Sam Louie>> The Waldorf-Astoria project is in its early stages. The project still needs the blessing of the Beverly Hills City Council and Planning Commission and there will be opportunities for community groups and residents to speak out, including those who support it like Fred Hayman.

Fred Hayman>> You can't stop progress. You really can't stop progress.

Sam Louie>> Hayman founded Giorgio Beverly Hills and helped open the current Beverly Hilton. He says the Waldorf-Astoria would be an enormous attraction.

Fred Hayman>> Beautiful clothes, beautiful women, good food, good interior, good surroundings, all the refinements of life, a lot of fun.

Sam Louie>> But Robert Tanenbaum is determined to get the Hilton to scale down the development.

Robert Tanenbaum>> Our city is not for sale. That is to say, I understand from the entrepreneurial point of view that they want to maximize their profits. Everybody understands and respects that. At the same time, I think the Hilton should respect the residents of Beverly Hills.

Sam Louie>> City officials could make a final decision on the project within a year. In the meantime, Trader Vic's may have to get ready to say aloha to more than half a century of serving up their famous and original Mai Tai cocktails. I'm Sam Louie for Life and Times.

Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times".

Val Zavala>> We're here at Los Angeles City Hall in the Fire Department and you can see the Los Angeles Fire Department's history right on its walls. Every chief since 1876 has been white until today. Los Angeles now has its first African American fire chief.

Douglas Barry takes the reins of the Los Angeles Fire Department at a tumultuous time. Former chief, William Bamattre, was forced to resign in the wake of a controversial lawsuit brought by a black firefighter, Tennie Pierce. Pierce claimed he was fed dog food by fellow firefighters as part of a racist hazing incident. He was awarded $2.7 million dollars, but it was later rescinded.

The lawsuit continues, but in the meantime, Los Angeles's mayor named the thirty-one year veteran, Douglas Barry, as Interim Chief. I sat down with the chief to get his thoughts on correcting problems in the department. Do you believe that the Tennie Pierce case was an insolated incident, one incident, or really was it part of a larger culture of bias in the Los Angeles Fire Department?

Douglas Barry>> Well, let me say that it's not a widespread incident of things like this going on throughout the fire department, no. Has there been somewhat of an initiation culture? Yes, with many probationary firefighters, and there has been a certain amount of, you know, hazing that has gone on. But usually it's in good fun and usually it's not widespread. Now obviously, it is the type of behavior that's not acceptable. It cannot continue. That's part of my focus and challenge.

Val Zavala>> So would you agree with the word culture? Is it a fair characterization?

Douglas Barry>> Again, I've been on the fire department, this fire department, for nearly thirty-two years. I've worked many, many assignments, both field and in our administrative offices. Does hazing occur? Yes, it does. Does horseplay occur? Yes, it does. Is it a prevalent thing where people are being mistreated and abused? I would say that it's not a prevalent thing throughout the department.

I've seen major changes from the time I first came on the fire department, but there are things we need to do to correct them. I'm not saying it does not exist. It does exist and there are things that I need to do to make sure it doesn't continue.

Val Zavala>> Now from the outside view, they say, well, these hazing incidents occur. It seems like, gee, just put up a memo or write a regulation saying "No hazing." It's not that simple?

Douglas Barry>> Well, there are a couple of things. Number one, we have a hundred three fire stations, so it's not like you have all your workers or members in one location. You're trying to oversee and monitor a hundred three different work locations, not to mention our administrative offices. It's very, very difficult. Also, like I said, a part of this has been initiation things that have been going on throughout the history of the fire department. Again, changing cultures takes time.

Val Zavala>> One of the fire commissioners, Genethia Hayes, said that you had said that you were a victim of hazing. What was the circumstance?

Douglas Barry>> During the time I was a probationary firefighter, I was exposed to a certain amount of hazing. Most of it was very mild and subtle and it wasn't just me. I was at a fire station where there were two probationary firefighters, myself and another member. We both underwent, you know, a certain amount of hazing. You know, at that time, they would bucket you with water and things like that where you would be working and they'd pour water on you, things like that. Very mild type of things.

Val Zavala>> Now the number of women and minorities in the Los Angeles Fire Department have increased considerably, significantly, since you've been in the department. Shouldn't that solve the problem?

Douglas Barry>> I came on in 1975 and the fire department was under a consent decree for hiring minorities at that time. We've made some great progress in that area. Our workforce is very diverse. I go out to fire stations even now and we have a very diverse workforce and that kind of adds to the challenge.

We have people from different backgrounds, different religions, different genders basically living together as opposed to a nine to five technical situation. It creates greater challenges than in the normal workplace. There have been challenges, but again, there's always room for improvement. Like I said, the area that I'm going to be focusing on most importantly is going to be improvement in the hiring of women. We can do a lot better in that area.

Val Zavala>> City Controller, Laura Chick, did an audit of the Los Angeles Fire Department and found that women and minorities felt that it was unprofessional, often a hostile, environment. How do you change that?

Douglas Barry>> We want to educate our people to make them understand the value of having a respectful and professional environment. I think that's very important. You know, it's very easy to focus on the disciplinary aspects of it. I think it's more important that we try to keep our people from being involved in this aspect. So we're trying to educate them and train them on proper behavior.

We want to train the officers on how to recognize situations early before their members get involved in things that are going to be unseemly. We are having a complaint tracking system where we can track and monitor complaints that happen and disciplinary procedures. You know, some of the things that have been brought up in the media has been the fact that we have members that have created certain actions and created certain environments that we didn't have any or sufficient records, so we have a tracking system.

Then the last part of that, should we do all these things and a member does not adhere to the policies and procedures, we've revamped our disciplinary system and guidelines so they'll be more consistent. I see these things and all of us working together to accomplish this.

Val Zavala>> One of the changes that Los Angeles City is considering is to make each department financially responsible for the losses that they incur. Do you think that's a good idea?

Douglas Barry>> Well, I think there should be some level of accountability for a department, but because of lawsuits, because of the unpredictability of the amounts of lawsuits, it would be very difficult for a department to anticipate that. Should they not anticipate it well and a certain amount is taken out of their budget, it would be very difficult for them to provide the service to the city that's necessary.

It has to be kept in mind that we provide service to the city. If those budgets are cut to the point where they're significant, it would basically hurt the service to the city and I don't think that's what they want to do.

Val Zavala>> Now you've been appointed as acting Interim Chief. Why don't you want the job permanently?

Douglas Barry>> Well, I made some personal commitments and I was not seeking the position. Therefore, I made some personal commitments that I want to carry through on. I've enjoyed the fire department. It's been an outstanding career for me, but again, I want to honor the commitments that I've made.

Val Zavala>> Chief Barry, you've got a big job. Best of luck to you.

Douglas Barry>> Thank you very much.

Val Zavala>> So do you have any suggestions for the new fire chief? You can post them on our Blog. Just go to kcet.org and click on the Life and Times Blog.

Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address:

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You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.

Val Zavala>> We know her as the seductive actress with the bedroom eyes. Marlene Dietrich captivated audiences in classics like "Witness for the Prosecution" and "Touch of Evil", but there is a side to this German actress that is lesser known and it emerged during World War II. Vicki Curry talked with her grandson who put his grandmother's story in a new book.

Vicki Curry>> David Riva, when you decided to put together a book about your grandmother, Marlene Dietrich, why did you decide to focus on her activities during World War II?

David Riva>> Well, you know, for a long time, I've always been really sensitive to what makes someone tick. Marlene has always been one of those people that is an enigmatic figure. She's one of those people that people think about dresses and they think about love affairs and those were part of who she was.

But I think the largest part of who she was really was her immigrant status, the fact that she had to leave her hometown that she loved very much. She left Germany before Hitler really came to power and then found herself in a position where she couldn't go back.

Then she spent most of her life after that, up until the war ended, really trying to fight what that evil had done to her homeland. So a big part of her personality was her whole duality of citizenship and her whole feeling about being an immigrant and what that made her feel like.

Vicki Curry>> I was surprised to learn about how much she had done during World War II to support the American troops. But that must have been quite a conflict for her because essentially she was fighting her home country. How did she feel about that?

David Riva>> Well, yeah, absolutely. She was fighting her home town and she was raising money to buy bombs which were being dropped on her neighborhood and, incidentally, her mother and sister who were still living there. She didn't actually speak to her mother for a couple of years before the war all the way to the end because she couldn't reach her. They couldn't actually get through. So it was a very difficult situation for both of them because she really did live her mother and her sister and her family and where she came from.

Vicki Curry>> Her opposition to Hitler actually went back quite a way, starting in the mid-1930s. Is that right?

David Riva>> Yeah. Actually, the early 1930s is when they actually knew that there was a problem. You have to remember that Berlin in the 1920s, after the first World War, was a melting pot. A huge influence on that was the Yiddish theater which was a Jewish culture that made all that Cabaret and all that stuff really come to life.

So she was a big part of that cultural heritage of Berlin from the very beginning and that's what makes, you know, this kind of thing happening to her hometown so ominous for them. She did a lot of things like helping �migr�s come through Paris. She paid for a lot of them to make it to America. She vouched for a lot of people. She paid inordinate amounts of money to the what we call now the underground �migr� railroad so that they could be brought out of Germany.

She did a lot of things that she needed to do, including joining the U.S.O. and all the work she did for the military. It was the way she could contribute. Becoming an American citizen, for her, was the most painful thing that she could do and, at the same time, the best thing she could do for the war effort.

Vicki Curry>> So once the war actually broke out, she then got involved in an organized way. What were some of her activities during the war itself?

David Riva>> Well, what's interesting, she was dating -- actually, she was having a torrid love affair with Jean Gabin at the time. Jean Gabin was a French �migr� who had gotten out of France before and then he decided to join the free French forces and go back and fight for France. This made her very jealous because she also wanted to fight for the freedom of Europe, but couldn't because she was a woman.

She was wracking her brain thinking, well, I'm a woman. I can't shoot people, but I can do something. So she applied to the U.S.O. at that time. The U.S.O. was just sort of getting started and trying to figure out how they were going to do this. A lot of the things that she suggested, they took as part of their program.

She suggested why don't I go to the camps and see the boys and do a routine on a stage or whatever else? They said, okay, let's do that. So she got her friend, Orson Welles, and they hyped up this magic act where she gets sawed in half (laughter). So she did that and she also did the Hollywood Canteen. She served cake and coffee and danced with the soldiers before they were shipped out. She did that, but that wasn't enough.

Eventually, she finally got her orders to go to the European theater of war and that's where she ended up in Italy and then in Germany and then eventually all over the European theater. So she was on the road in various different pieces about two and a half years to three years of tours, which is a long time. The longest usually was around three to four months for most people.

Vicki Curry>> And she did over five hundred shows. Is that right?

David Riva>> Well, we don't really know. I mean, we know that the official number was somewhere around four hundred eighty-seven or something like that. But everybody in the book that talks about it knows that, every time she did a show in one little place that was supposed to be secure and safe, she would jump in a jeep with a driver and then go to the front lines and, if there were three guys there and a gun in placement, she'd do a show for them. So she did shows all the time whenever she had a chance. She actually slept in her beaded gown so she could go and do things whenever she needed to go. So she was always precariously close to where the action was.

In two occasions, there was a problem. The first occasion was, she was lost with her jeep driver and they didn't know where they were. They were driving and they were literally within seven hundred yards of the line one way or the other, so they didn't know which side they were on.

Then another time, she was actually performing about a mile from where the Battle of the Bulge took place and she jumped in her jeep and had to get back and just literally made it just across the line in time. There's a lot of stuff that she did, but she didn't tell anybody and nobody knew about it. She was already a member of the O.S.S. by this time, which was the organization that later became the CIA.

Vicki Curry>> Well, tell me a little bit about that. What was she doing in the O.S.S.?

David Riva>> Basically, what she did was take songs like "Surrey with a Fringe on Top" and many of her favorite songs like "Falling in Love Again" and some of her more famous ones and changing the lyrics so that they sounded a little bit more melancholy. Then they would actually fit these recordings up and they would beam them surreptitiously into Germany and into the camps where the soldiers were. They would be hearing Marlene Dietrich sing about, you know, "your house is burning, why are you not home?" and these things. It really made a huge effect on the war.

But, I mean, she did win the Medal of Freedom at the end of the day for all of her wartime activities, which was the highest civilian honor at the time awarded by the Congress. But again, that's one of those facts that people don't know about her and she never touted it.

Vicki Curry>> On a personal note, as her grandson, what are your recollections of her?

David Riva>> Well, you know, I was lucky enough to have an extremely long-lived family. I mean, she lived until ninety-one years old. She died in 1992. I'm forty-five now, so I had plenty of time with her. My personal recollections of her were always as Marlene not so much as a performer because, to be very honest, in my generation certainly, her singing certainly wasn't all that appealing and her acting was, you know, a couple of movies I thought were really good, like "Foreign Affair" and a couple of other things. But, you know, you don't really appreciate her acting as, you know, who the woman is.

So when Kramer made her say that line with Spencer Tracy in "Judgment at Nuremburg" that says, you know, "We did not know. How can you think that we would be like that? How could you think we're monsters?" You know, this was a very difficult thing for a woman who had spent, you know, twenty-some years of her life fighting against Nazi Germany to now have to then represent the placation of the entire German population.

[Film Clip]

David Riva>> The point of the movie is to show up that she's obviously not telling the truth or she's fooling herself. So in order for the line to make sense, she's got to say it because people think of her as the quintessential German actress. But, you know, you don't really appreciate her acting until you realize that this -- you know, you really believe it when she says it, but until you know that she really doesn't believe this personally, you don't really think she's acting at all.

One of the things that's great about the book and the response we've gotten is that people think that the book is a wonderful companion to her body of work. Now you understand so much more of what she was doing on that screen and that really is a great benefit. That's what's the fun part of the book. It's the inside story about what makes her tick.

Vicki Curry>> David Riva, editor of the book, "A Woman at War: Marlene Dietrich Remembered", thank you so for taking the time to speak with us.

David Riva>> It's my pleasure. Thank you very much.

Val Zavala>> David Riva will be signing his book tomorrow night at Book Soup at seven p.m. For details, you can go to their website at booksoup.com.

Val Zavala>> Cesar Millan, the famous dog whisperer, was recently honored at Los Angeles City Hall for all he's done for dogs and dog owners and that reminded us that we met Cesar seven years ago before his television show and books made him a star. We thought this would be an appropriate occasion to look at a short excerpt from that story from 1999.

Cesar Millan>> Well, I do practice something totally natural, which is the power of the fact that there's a way to connect dogs to humans in a much natural way, which is within the pack and a human is in front of them. That's what makes the front end. The other thing is, I don't use speech while I practice this connection.

What we do is, we have the tendency to talk verbally to them and to approach them. So by us behaving this way, we are talking to the ears and to the eyes. Dogs always like to smell before they see or hear things, so what we do is wrong. I allow them to come to me and smell me completely and, once I see their behavior from the tail wagging or from ears, feeling good about myself, and then I can touch or talk.

With the water, we begin by giving them a bath and then one at a time because, this way, they appreciate water where it came from. If I just pour water in there, it comes from the bucket. It doesn't come from me. This water comes from me.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> Cesar Millan was born in Mexico. He says that his early years on his grandfather's ranch watching wild dogs inspired him to become a dog trainer. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Sponsored in part by:


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