The 700 Club Comes to Tinseltown

Ben Kinchlow (left) and Pat Robertson (behind desk) on the set of the 700 Club.

Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson is an American televangelist who rose to nationwide prominence in the 1980's based on the popularity of his daily television show, and his Presidential campaign in 1988.  His father was both a United States Representative and then U.S. Senator, so politics ran in the family.  His father strenuously fought desegregation in the 1950's and the Voting and Civil Rights Acts in the 1960's.  I'll let you decide what to make of that.

I only worked for the son, never the old man.  It was the summer of 1985 and Pat Robertson and his merry Christian crew of his 700 Club television show had made their way to Los Angeles: the city he probably thought was a modern day version of Sodom AND Gomorrah.  That is, if what every Sodomite and Gomorrahan had REALLY wanted to do was direct.  Maybe he was fooled by the name Los Angeles: it translates to "the City of the Angels."  Perhaps they were remodeling his home studio in Virginia Beach, VA that week.

July really is the ideal month to visit the San Fernando Valley.  The summer sun and inversion layer have had enough time to build up the perfect combination of triple digit heat and thick smog.  I suspect he decided to broadcast his show from Universal Studios in July because the soundstages and rehearsal halls normally used for the production of television sitcoms were empty in July.  The network shows normally were in production from August through March.  I think Universal made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

I was a page working with the live audiences of those sitcoms at Universal.  His show was going to have a live audience.  I was booked as one of eight pages to work his show that week.

His popular two hour morning show - The 700 Club - a Christian version of the network morning shows, was broadcast live each morning on the East Coast at 9 a.m.  I'll let you think about the ramifications of that for a moment.  9 a.m. on the East Coast meant we were going to be going live from Los Angeles at 6 a.m.  My normal call time was two hours before show time, when audience members would start arriving and lining up, which meant I had to clock in for work at 4 a.m.  Meaning I had to wake up at 2:45 a.m. to be ready to leave my house at 3:15 a.m.  Ugh.

Many people in Hollywood were just getting home at that time of day, not getting up and heading out to work.  By the end of the week, my body would know what it would be like to work on The Today Show.

With maybe four hours sleep, and having showered, shaved and dressed in the dark, I hopped in my car at 3:15 a.m. on that Monday morning and started the thirty mile drive over to Universal.  It was the easiest commute in my life.  Turns out 3:15 a.m. is the perfect time of day to drive on the freeways of Los Angeles.

As I arrived at the studio at 3:45 a.m., there was already a huge mass of people waiting out in the visitors' parking lot.  This was when it first hit me how big Pat Robertson was to his followers.  In addition, this was a rare chance for his viewers on the West Coast to see his show live.  People had flown and driven to Los Angeles for this from all over the Western United States.

I pulled into the employee lot, parked right up front in the closest space I ever had to the office, and hustled out of the car to clock in.  I took a quick look over at the offices of Amblin' Entertainment - Steve Speilberg's production company - and the place was dark.  Speilberg's parking space in front - normally occupied with a dark green Range Rover - was empty.  It didn't appear anyone over there had been burning the midnight oil.

The eight of us working with the audience clocked in and were assigned our positions.  Fortunately, I was stationed inside the studio, avoiding the mass of people in the parking lot.  There wasn't much to do in the studio until five a.m., when we started bringing the audience in for the show.

I stood outside the studio and saw the first tram of people pull up right on time at five a.m.  The people on the tram who would make up the audience were wide awake and abuzz with their excitement to finally see their beloved Pat Robertson and his 700 Club.  They were mostly middle-aged women, overweight and white.  Very, very white.

The first live broadcast went off without a hitch.  Well, or so we first thought.  There was a page assigned to stand on the top of each aisle in the bleachers who were visible when the director cut to the audience - which was quite often on this show.  When we arrived the next morning, our supervisor told us the production company had mentioned that the pages in the audience looked too "ethnic," and that they wanted a less "ethnic" look.  The two pages in question were both Jewish.  A couple of the other pages were Hispanic.  It was quickly decided that I - merely Irish Catholic - was less "ethnic" enough to appear on camera.

The audiences were all nice and well behaved.  The production company hardly had any V.I.P. seating requests for the show, so it was very low maintenance compared to the sitcoms I usually worked.

The other major difference was what they did with the "overflow" audience members.  It was, and is, common practice to overbook audiences for TV tapings.  If the studio holds 250 people, which was about our capacity at those shows at Universal, then they might distribute 400 tickets, figuring that only two-thirds would show up, and they would just turn away anyone who arrived after we had reached our capacity.  The tickets were free and the overbooking policy was explained clearly on the ticket.

The problem with the 700 Club is they did the same ticket distribution - figuring a third of the people asking for tickets wouldn't show up - and then EVERYONE showed up.  This was a special event and their audience was rabid.  Pat Robertson and his company also didn't want to alienate any of his loyal viewers, so the "overflow" audience - those who couldn't get in the actual studio for the broadcast - were escorted into a large rehearsal hall where they were able to watch the live feed of the show on TV monitors.  There were 50 - 100 extra people in the "overflow" rehearsal hall room each show.  I had never seen that happen before.  Immediately after every broadcast finished, Pat Robertson and his sidekick, Ben Kinchlow, came in to the rehearsal hall, escorted by several staffers and pages, and greeted the group.  Pat gave a little "thank you" speech, took some pictures, signed a few autographs and then got everyone in a big circle for a prayer.

And this is where the fun began.  As Pat and his followers assembled their big prayer circle and held each other's hands, the pages didn't want ANYTHING to do with it - we were hired non-denominational guns - not part of the flock.  But everyone started motioning for the pages to join their circle.  Gulp.  NOW the trick became joining the circle while making sure to stay as far away from Pat Robertson as possible.  All of us believed he was a racist homophobe, and the last thing we wanted to do was touch him or be in his orbit.

One morning one of my page friends, who happened to be Jewish - too "ethnic" to appear in the background of the audience - was standing as far back from the prayer circle as possible, trying to make himself disappear into the wall of the rehearsal hall, when some lady noticed him at the last minute, quickly walked over to my friend, grabbed his hand, walked him over to Pat Robertson and put his hand in Pat's.  It took all the self-control the rest of us had not to break out in laughter at the sight of it.  I couldn't look at another page during the prayer circle without breaking.  I finally realized the only option I had was to look straight down at the floor until it was over.  I can still vividly remember the look of disgust on my friend's face.  His "ethnic" face.

The week ended and Mr. Robertson and his group packed up their bibles and suitcases and headed back to Virginia.  On my way home after my first week of working in live television on The 700 Club, I had to admit it wasn't bad.  Going to bed at 8 p.m. and getting up at 2:45 in the morning was brutal, of course, but the commutes back and forth were a breeze, I got a great parking spot every morning, it felt great to leave the lot at noon having finished an eight hour shift, the audience members were all nice and thrilled to be there and the production company couldn't have been more patient and professional.  I didn't hear anyone yell, scream, chew someone out or throw a tantrum the entire week. All regular events on the shows I usually worked.  I could get used to this kind of thing.

Do you think they might be hiring on The Today Show? 

You never forget your first.

The front lot at Universal Studios Hollywood.

You never forget your first time.  I will never forget mine.  It was the summer of 1982.  I had just finished my first year of college in Los Angeles.  I anxiously waited for it my entire life, hoping, praying the day would come.  The moment had arrived.  I didn’t know then how many more there would be in my future.  I would lose count.  But I don’t think anyone ever forgets their first.  I never would.

I exited from the Hollywood Freeway and maneuvered my boxy, orange 1980  Toyota Tercel (don’t laugh – it had a killer sound system, and was very reliable) up Lankershim Boulevard.  My body was alive with a seeming charge of electricity running through every pore in anticipation of the moment that was just around the corner. The harsh Southern California sun bounced brightly off every surface of the car. 

I continued north on Lankershim and looked up at the gleaming black tower of glass and steel, rising off to my right.  All I could think of was the mid-1970’s disaster film Earthquake in Sensurround ™.   I recalled how this building collapsed in that movie as the Big One finally destroyed Los Angeles.  Not even Charlton Heston, Lorne Greene and George Kennedy COMBINED could save everyone in that building.

It was time.  I made the right turn off of Lankershim and slowly inched up to the guard shack.  There was a small, wooden gate blocking the entrance, and an older, thin, gray-haired man in a uniform, holding a clipboard, standing just outside a small guard shack in front of the gate.

“Should have a pass for Cleary.  Vince Cleary.”

The guard glanced down at his clipboard.

“Please be on the list.  Please be on the list,” I thought to myself.

It’s all about THE LIST in Hollywood.  Are you on the list?  Are you supposed to be on the list?  I don’t see you on the list.  Who can put me on the list?  I should be on the list.

A few weeks later I would wind up on the other side of this equation as the holder of THE LIST.  I quickly recognized that sense of desperation.  That brief look of fear in their eyes everyone has between when they inform you they’re on the list and you either find their name, or you don’t. 

And each time you knew you were on the list - you HAD to be on the list – you still held your breath for a moment just in case somebody had screwed up, a phone call wasn’t properly made or somebody along the line was just plain lazy. 

You live in Los Angeles long enough and you will find yourself going someplace where you don’t really care if you’re on the list or not, but at that moment you still automatically do the Hollywood prayer and think to yourself, “I hope I’m on the list.  They said they’d put me on the list.”

“Clearly?  I see a Clearly?”  Close enough.  “Yeah, that’s it.”

The guard continued to stare at his clipboard and contemplate if the name "Cleary" could conceivably be transposed to the name "Clearly."  

The line of cars behind me, waiting to go through this same routine, were starting to back up on to Lankershim Boulevard.  He took his eyes off the clipboard long enough to glance up at the line of cars.  Satisfied, he turned around and quickly grabbed a small piece of white paper from the guard shack and tucked it under the top of his clipboard.  He wrote something on the paper and shoved it under my face.

“Put this in a visible spot on your dash.  Have you been on the lot before?”

“Never.”

Long sigh. “Okay, (he’s now slightly annoyed that he’s forced to converse with a human who has never been on the lot before)…uh…just go straight through and turn left at Stage 37.  You’re going to the old machine shop.  Just outside 37.  Any open spot right there.”

“Great.  Thanks!” 

I’m in. For the first time in my life, I’m driving on a major motion picture studio lot.  Universal Studios!  Phantom of the Opera (the original 1925 silent version with Lon Chaney, not any of the later pretenders), All Quiet on the Western Front, Frankenstein, Shadow of a Doubt, the Abbot and Costello movies, Harvey, Winchester ’73, Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Birds, To Kill a Mockingbird, Psycho, The Sting and hundreds of other films, some lost forever, and many fondly remembered by millions of people, had all been shot on these soundstages.  

Have you ever had a moment in life where you say to yourself, “this is so cool!”? I hope you have.  They don’t come often, so I think you have to savor every one.  Be prepared for those “so cool” moments and absorb as much as possible, so you can treasure the moment forever.  I was having a major “so cool” moment. 

I simultaneously tried to find my destination, contain my excitement, and absorb all the film history around me. I realized that I was now required to find an old building I’d never seen, in a place I’d never been, through a maze of nondescript large, gray buildings that each had a huge, hangar like door on one side, and a small, normal sized door down at the corner, right below a red light, that looks like it had been ripped off the top of an LAPD cruiser.

A few of the large hangar doors on several of the stages were open, allowing me a peek at the hive of activity, hammering, sawing and set building that’s was going on inside.  

I passed a stage where the red revolving light was lit up.  That meant the camera was rolling and NO ONE was to enter that door for ANY reason.  Then the red light suddenly turned off, and the door quickly flung open as crew members ran in and out, preparing for the next shot, or to grab a quick drag off a cigarette between takes.

Every one of the soundstages had a quiet, solid presence (if memory serves correctly, there were over thirty sound stages of various sizes at that time on the Universal lot.  Stage 12, the largest, was right in the front of the lot and was the size of a football field ), but every one was a monument to film history.  Every one of these large, square and rectangular buildings had a quiet story that added up to the history of Hollywood.

As I took all this in, and daydreamed of the sight of Cary Grant or Alfred Hitchcock or Jimmy Stewart walking in and out of one of those sound stages, I realized I also had to navigate narrow passageways without acting like any of this made any impact on me at all. 

People were walking and zigzagging through the lot on bikes and golf carts all around me, as they went about their work.  

Every few seconds another car, many of them exotic foreign sports cars, would buzz by me if there was an opening, or come at me so fast from the other direction that I couldn’t see how they were going to get by me without damaging both our cars.  I had to act like I did this every day.  Be cool.

I found my way to the building where I had my appointment.  I walked out after the interview unaware that this lot would be where I would work for the next four years.  And would be only the first of many film lots that I would drive or walk on in the coming years.   And the thrill I got every time I drove or stepped on to a movie lot never went away.  It never gets old.  But I’ll always remember my first time.