“Why dancers?”
“They’ve always been so healthy, most that I’ve known. Julie Newmar and I used to date off and on for years. She’s a health-food addict, too; makes the most exotic salads.” Diet is a fetish with him. “Foods in a natural state” are the mainstay. He recently showed signs of interest in a girl, Sherry Nelson, who is a jockey’s widow but addicted only to live horseflesh—they play the ponies at the track together.
Besides an agent, he also had a pile of debts when “Ben Casey” came his way. So Greschler booked him, for extra money, into things like the Dinah Shore TV show, which demanded rehearsing at night after the day’s stint on “Casey.” For those appearances he sings in a surprisingly good baritone voice. He once did some ballads and rock ’n’ roll for Capitol Records. “Five years ago one called ‘Lollipop’ got up to number three on the hit list, but we’ll forget that,” Vince said in my office. “I’m afraid the image wouldn’t hold up under it.”
The “image” is an invention of himself and Abby Greschler. It’s straight Madison Avenue talk, but it’s the immemorial style among Hollywood agents to convince the public that every star is superhuman. Casey is supposed to be what Vince has described as a “godlike kind of man,” a mixture of Gable, Brando, and Albert Schweitzer. Just to liven the picture up, Vince has got to be a maverick in his clothes, like the red T shirt, the black shirt and slacks he sported for Dinah Shore.
Greschler has a three-year plan for his protégé which calls for the two of them to form one or more corporations to produce movies with Vince as their star. At the end of the period Dr. Ben will supposedly finish up a millionaire. “If you have to make pictures, what would you like to do?” I asked him.
“Anything but a doctor. I doubt if I’ll ever play one again. I’m so identified with it. I’m only going to do it for three seasons.”
“You’ll do it for five, they’ll offer you so much money.”
“As I sit in this office, I will make a vow. I will say: ‘I’m sorry, I pass. My health is more important.’”
“Ben Casey” has one bit of pleasure he can count on. “I stay up and watch my own TV show. I have to have some reward for all this work.”
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