The 1950s ushered in the television era. Griffin was “discovered” and seen regularly on “The Arthur Murray Show” and “The Jack Paar Show.” He was offered his own television program in 1958 called “Play Your Hunch.” This success led to another Griffin-hosted program he produced in 1963 called “Word for Word.”
It was during this period that Griffin conceived “Jeopardy!” [1964] the most popular game show in TV history.
In 1962 he was a substitute host for Jack Paar on NBC’s “The Tonight Show.” Griffin was a hit with the late night crowd leading to the creation of “The Merv Griffin Show.”
Griffin’s style differed from Jack Parr, Steve Allen and Johnny Carson. Just like the home viewer, he was in awe of the celebrities he interviewed. He disarmed his guests and had them revealing personal, gossipy things rather than promoting their latest movie or record album.
People genuinely felt affection for Griffin, considering him part of their family, and Griffin seemed particularly human when, for example, he shared his weight problem with the audience.
Blonde movie star Doris Day saw Merv Griffin in Las Vegas, and, impressed, arranged a screen test for him at Warner Bros. Merv got a contract and co-starred with Kathryn Grayson in the 1953 film, “So This Is Love.”
Although Griffin’s career as a movie star was short-lived, San Mateans were proud when the film opened at the Baywood Theater. Griffin remembers that “There was a big party at the Villa Chartier. Everybody was having a wonderful time reminiscing about the old days at San Mateo High School.”
Griffin, who had been on an exhausting publicity tour of the United States with co-star Grayson, told me that he was so tired he eventually slipped out the back door of the Villa and went to sleep.
Three years later the nationally known big band leader Freddy Martin came north from the famous Coconut Grove in Los Angeles to play at the St. Francis in San Francisco. Martin was urged to listen to Merv Griffin’s radio show–and he liked what he heard–proposing that the younger singer join the band for a U.S. tour.
Money wasn’t the key factor in tempting Griffin to leave his cushy job at KFRC; it was the opportunity to record with Freddy Martin’s band on the RCA label.
Griffin never forgot what it was like to travel as a band singer on the road.
“I left in June 1948 on a bus tour of the U.S., with the first stop–Eureka,” Griffin recalled, with a smile in his voice. “It was 74 one-nighters, with one day off in Fargo.”
Two years later, the Martin band and Griffin climbed to No. 1 on the Hit Parade with his novelty recording of “I’ve Got A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts,” which sold three million copies. Griffin stayed with the band until the early 1950s, when he struck out on his own with a hot nightclub act in Vegas.
[In 1999 I was doing a story on Merv Griffin and through his agent had made “the connection.” Mr. Griffin was to call me at home– and, just between you and me, when you’re interviewing on the phone, you don’t have the advantage of seeing the person, you don’t know what you’re going to get. The voice could be cold, impatient, condescending. In my case, when the time came, when the phone rang, I was pleasantly surprised by Merv’s voice on the other end, just the nicest guy in the world.]
After beginning as a big band crooner San Mateo’s own Merv Griffin became an early star of late-night television’s talk shows and one of the most successful entertainment entrepreneurs.
Seven years ago Griffin told me, in a telephone interview from his home at La Quinta near Palm Desert: “I have a warm spot in my heart for San Mateo.”
He was born at Mills Hospital in 1925, resided on Humboldt Street and El Dorado Streets in San Mateo, attended San Mateo High School and San Mateo Junior College. He was not the only Griffin who gained notoriety: his father was California’s youngest tennis champion in 1918–and an uncle won honors in tennis doubles.
But it was music that excited Griffin and when he was still a kid he played the organ at St. Matthew’s Catholic Church.
There weren’t many bumps or detours on Griffin’s road to success. He entered talent contests, wrote songs and eventually landed his own radio show on San Francisco’s KFRC in 1945.
Frank Latta, a historian and self-published author, who said he had interviewed 17,000 pioneers and collected 800 tons of memorabilia, including books, photos and other stuff, purchased the 725-acre Gazos Ranch, south of Pescadero in the 1950s. It was a beautiful ranch, formerly owned by the locally famous Steele family, the land stretching from the Pacific eastward toward the mountains.
Frank and wife Jean intended to retire there. They were in their 60s, and to make their dream possible, the Lattas intended to turn the ranch into a historical museum, adding a few touches of the more commercially-oriented Knotts Berry Farm in southern California.
In the late 1950s, after going through the official county procedures, Latta thought he was on his way, and even made a public announcement saying so—but then was stopped cold in his tracks.
Last week I walked into the spacious Quent Cordair Gallery in Burlingame and had a great time enjoying the paintings and posters, all of them fine examples of “romantic realism”–influenced by the brilliant Ayn Rand, the “Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged” best-selling philosopher-author, the strong-willed, writer who in her work lifted man and woman to the skies of their abilities–her powerful characters becoming the builders of beautiful, strong bridges, of amazing architecture, never afraid, never daunted. And also becoming models for current day society.
Every painting, every sculpture and poster exemplify Ayn Rand’s philosophy–people at their very best.
Of local historical interest, there was a small painting of Pigeon Point Lighthouse and a lovely morning scene at Kings Mountain. There were many pieces I would love to own, but I was excited to learn that Quent Cordair has reproduction right to the 1915 poster, the “13th Labor of Hercules,” by San Francisco artist Perham Wilhelm Nahl.
“Adding to the ever expanding future of the South Coastside, Frank F. Latta’s plans for an expansive history museum at Pescadero have cleared a major hurdle. They have been approved by the county planning commission.
“The plans for the tourist attraction would rival that of say Knott’s Berry Farm in Southern California, according to Latta.
“Latta, a retired school teacher, author, history expert and collector is developing a vast recreation area on the old Steele ranch south of Pescadero near Gazos Creek. It will have many of the features of Knotts, according to Latta, ‘but without the commercial atmosphere’.
“The development of the 740-acre area will be a family project, Latta declared, with he, his wife, and their four children all working together on it.
“It would include: A 80-acre picnic and camping area stretching for a mile along the coast between Ano Nuevo Island and the famous Pigeon Point.
“Eleven miles of roads and trails for riding, driving and hiking.
“A realistic pioneer California village and Indian village.
“Deluxe accommodations for fishermen and tourists.
“The Latta collection of early California objects is one of the most complete in the state, among them dozens of transportation pieces, including a stage coach, surreys and five old cars, one electric.
“Latta, who has been collecting the items for 35 years, has been transporting them here from Bakersfield during the past year.
“The only thing holding up actual construction of the project is the realignment of the Ocean Shore Highway that will run through the ranch. Latta expects to have this clearance within a few weeks with the assistance of Supervisor A.S. Hatch, highway director. Latta will be required to build an underpass from the ranch to the ocean frontage.
“The property where the project will go is the old Steele Gulch ranch where a number of old buildings, constructed in 1865 are still standing. Latta says they will be restored in early California style to be developed as a pioneer village with livery stable, blacksmith shop, harness shop and a country store.
“Trails and roads will be developed from the sea to a mountain area where the early California transportation methods will be used, complete with horses.
“The history museum will be open on a limited basis to the general public within a matter of weeks.
“Long range plans, Latta declared, call for an airplane landing strip, to run parallel to the Coast highway.”
The rescue ships carried the injured, stunned and stricken survivors back to San Francisco where they were created at the emergency hospital.
Rumor had it that attorneys for the San Juan and the S.C.T. Dodd scurried among the shocked survivors, urging them to keep quiet and avoid reporterâs questions. Clearly the attorneys were less interested in the passengerâs welfare than the liability of the ship owners.
Despite painful abdominal and spinal injuries, Theodore Granstedt could not be dissuaded from talking, charging cowardice on the part of the San Juanâs crew.
âWhen the crash came, the entire crew deserted their posts and saved themselves. They made no effort to launch a boat or save a soul,â? Granstedt said before nurses on the scene convinced him that he was seriously injured and needed to calm down and rest.
Theodore Granstedt had survived what the San Mateo Times called âthe worst maritime tragedy the Pacific Coast had experienced in more than a quarter century.â?
The Times noted that 72 peopleâmost of them passengers, many women and childrenâmet watery deaths as the Standard Oil tanker S.C.T. Dodd rammed the San Juan 12 miles off the San Mateo County coast.
The following day Sheriff James J. McGrath and his deputies patrolled the coastline. Hundreds of curious county residents lined the shore as Coast Guard cutters continued a futile search for more bodies.
As the facts were gathered, the tragic story emerged.
According to survivors on deck at the time, the San Juan was sheared almost in half by thee heavy stern of the tanker Dodd and sank beneath the sea before most of the passengers in their staterooms, and the crewmembers in their bunks, had an opportunity to realize the vessel had been mortally struck.
There were indications that a terrific hole had been torn in the side of the San Juan by the impact and she started sinking at once. When the swirling waters reached the engine room, there was a hissing of steam and then the boilers explodedâshattering the ship from stem to stern.
Most of those fortunate survivors were on the deck or in the saloon at the time of the disaster. Those below in their berths or bunks were doomed.
âIt was not a matter of four or five minutes before the ship sank,â? Charles J. Tulee, the San Juanâs First Mate said. âIt was a matter of only a few seconds.â?
The second mate backed up Tuleeâs version, adding that the vessel sank as he attempted to help some women and children into one of the lifeboats. That lifeboat was the only one that might have been launchedâbut it was shattered in the boiler explosion, hurling the women into the air, injuring many seriously. Only a few survived.
Until the results of an official investigation there was the usual finger pointing. The owners of the San Juan blamed the tanker Todd, listing the heavy blanket of fog that covered the Pacific at the time as a contributing factor.
Just as insistent was the Doddâs Captain Bluemchen, who reported that in spite of the fog, the San Juanâs lights were visible, and that she suddenly changed her course, cutting across the Doddâs pathway.
As Captain Asplund had perished in the disaster, the authorities would never know his version of the events.
Some critics opined that the San Juan was too old to go to sea, but others commented that the steamerâs hull had been inspected by officials and pronounced seaworthy.
Captain Frank Turner, a federal steamship inspector, added that the Titantic was a new ship but she sank almost immediately upon receiving a blow comparable to the one suffered by the San Juan.
The bickering and accusations continued until the official inquiry, including a trial, was completed.
According to reports, the U.S. Steamboat Inspection Service Board found the San Juan inshore of the Dodd, tried to cross the oil tankerâs bow, was rammed and sank within a few minutes on August 29, 1929.
In other words, responsibility for the San Juan disaster was placed squarely on the shoulders of Captain Asplund. This decision did little to mitigate the suffering and loss of life.
The sinking of the San Juan remains one of the worst maritime tragedies that ever occurred off the San Mateo County coastline.
( The 13th Labor of Hercules by Perham Wilhelm Nahl, the poster that celebrated the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, held in San Francisco)
