My First and Last Hollywood Shindig

by Toller Cranston
McClelland & Stewart
September 1, 2000

Excerpt from the book When Hell Freezes Over, Should I Bring My Skates?

During the turbulent period after the 1976 Innsbruck Olympics, I fantasized about attending a genuine Hollywood shindig. I was still licking my bronze-medal wounds - how great that gold medal would have been, but I would have settled for silver - even though I was busy mounting Toller Cranston's The Ice Show, a production that I hoped would take Canada and then Broadway by storm. Elvis Ogansky, my manager at the time, received a phone call from Elliot Roberts, the manager of the global legend and folk icon Joni Mitchell, a brooding singer and songwriter from the Canadian Prairies who had defected to the more lucrative sprawl of Los Angeles. Among her hits were "Both Sides Now," "Big Yellow Taxi," "Chelsea Morning," and "You Turn Me On (I'm a Radio)."

Joni had taken a shine to me (as a result of the Olympic television coverage, I imagine) and felt that I would be the perfect specimen to adorn her newest album cover. The album was entitled "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter," where I would appear in the Cricket Club. I might have known who Johann Strauss was if he had phoned from the grave, but with anyone in the poprock department I was clueless. I told my panting, exhilarated manager, Elvis Ogansky, that I would be most happy to shoot the photograph with Ms. Mitchell if Ms. Mitchell would kindly come to where I was at the moment. Ms. Mitchell agreed to do so.

You Sing, Don't You?

We shot the cover in Buffalo, in the northwestern corner of New York State. My show was previewing there prior to its gala Toronto opening and subsequent initial Canadian tour. I shoehorned Joni Mitchell into my busy schedule late one afternoon. In perfect Hollywood style, a black limousine longer than a city block arrived at the rather grand hotel where I was staying with the cast of The Ice Show, not far from the now-razed War Memorial Stadium where we performed. Another Ice Show cast member, Canadian ex-boxer queen Barbara Berezowski, was to play a cameo role in the cover shoot as well.

I joined Joni and Barbara in the passenger cabin of the limousine, instantly ruining my image. I opened the door for myself, broadcasting naiveté. I did not know that I was supposed to wait for the driver to open it for me.

To engage Joni in polite conversation, I made a rather gauche remark: "You sing, don't you?" At the time she already had recorded eight best-selling albums, but she took my kindly intended provocation in her stride. As we chatted, I tried to demonstrate how well informed I was. I actually did come up with a half-baked version of the title of one of her songs. I felt that our role would be that much smoother if I could show some evidence of knowing who she was.

We drove to an absolutely frigid hockey rink somewhere in greater Buffalo. Our session was more teeth-chattering than glamorous. I, in my famous peacock costume, the costume that never fell down, was required simply to assume an elegant pose. Barbara Berezowski had been asked to please rent and wear a bridal gown. I do not understand how the photo layout was going to work, nor did I really care. I wanted only to rush back into the heated dressing room and change out of my chilly peacock costume.

Joni Mitchell laced up a pair of black skates. In her long black skirt, black beret, and voluminous, flapping black cashmere cape with dozens of sable tails edging its rim in a thick fringe, she reminded me of a fairy-tale raven.

In time the shoot was fait accompli, thank you very much. As I recall, I received little or no payment, but Joni made the most glamorous and stunning gesture that any Hollywood star could bestow upon someone who craved stardom and glamour. At the moment of her farewell and parting hug hug, kiss kiss, she suggested, "You really must come to Los Angeles, Toller. We should get together. And why don't you just take my limousine for the weekend? Be my guest."

Thus did Joni Mitchell introduce me to the fine art of riding in a limousine. When I arrived in Toronto after my Buffalo preview, I remember swelling with pride and experiencing a sense of celebrity as I careened down the Gardiner Expressway in my chauffeured weekend gift. Let's face it, nobody can be a real celebrity unless he is riding in a limousine. I have many times since come and gone in limousines, but each time I am thus conveyed along the Gardiner Expressway, I think of Joni Mitchell and how she turned me on to the joys of that kind of luxury.

The Wolf Of Bel Air

True to Joni's word, during the New York City run of The Ice Show at the Palace Theatre on Broadway during the spring of 1977, Elva Oglanby received a second phone call from Elliot Roberts. Would Toller like to attend a party at Joni Mitchell's house in Bel Air this weekend? The invitation was kind, and I accepted it - on the condition, of course, that Joni fly Elva and me to California on first-class tickets and put us up in the swankiest hotel in town. All terms were accepted.

A residue of winter still lingered in the New York air. I had recently acquired a wolf coat that virtually dragged on the ground. I deplaned at the Los Angeles International Airport in my trailing wolf as travellers in shorts passed me on the concourse. Palm trees sprouted in profusion beyond the plate-glass windows. I tried not to acknowledge how ridiculous I looked. After all, it might get quite cold in Los Angeles after dark. Anyhow I was a star, and didn't stars wear wolf coats?

I marched past the Bel Air Hotel's swimming pool where bronze women with facelifts sunbathed in bikinis. I inspected my suite, palatial by any standards. The living room was like an enormous summer cottage with Laura Ashley chintz all around and wallpaper that matched the upholstery. Next to the bed - double king size - was a mound of chocolate-covered strawberries. I wasn't sure whether Joni had known that strawberries were my particular trade-mark or whether the hotel had simply made a lucky guess.

The party was to take place the same evening. What I wore is embarrassing to describe. To be discovered in Hollywood, I felt that I needed to stand out. I might be cast in a movie that very night. I donned a white satin Russian shirt with voluminous pleated sleeves and pearl buttons that marched across my shoulders, the same get-up in which I had recently stunned the patrons of a Montreal discotheque. I tucked the shirt into my white shantung knee-length bloomers. Then I neatly tucked the shantung bloomers into my high-heeled, oxblood riding boots. Satin and shantung are a chilly combination, so of course I had to suffocate the ensemble in my furs.

As our limousine swept along Bellagio Road in Bel Air, two people on foot flagged us down and asked our driver whether they had the correct address for Joni Mitchell's party. The woman was a teeny, sparrowlike blonde creature with a full bottom lip. She walked beside a tall, dark-haired man with a rather weak chin but nicely capped teeth. I noted by the cut of his pants that he had absolutely no ass.

The sparrow was Julie Christie, star of Doctor Zhivago, Darling, and Shampoo. I decided that Julie, who had played a sexual siren in Doctor Zhivago, was just too short and slight in the flesh to be taken seriously as a temptress. The assless gentleman was Warren Beatty. Julie's companion and oft times costar. Joni Mitchell's house was in sight, so we pointed it out to the celebrated couple but did not offer them a ride.

Elva and I knocked on Joni's door, and I swished through the entrance in my furs. Whatever I had been expecting of that fancy party which I had been flown from coast to coast, the reality was its absolute antithesis.

The Mitchell dwelling, as I recall, was a large small house. Its most memorable feature was a spacious breakfast area that adjoined the kitchen. The hostess was nowhere to be seen, so I was not greeted with a tremendous "Darling, it is so good to see you!" As a matter of fact, my entrance, as dramatic as I thought it was, was entirely forgettable (if not invisible) from the point of view of the other guests. It dawned upon me after the butler relieved me of my furs that I must look frighteningly overdressed to the casual crowd in jeans, t-shirts, and running shoes. But hey, I was a grand star from New York.

Perhaps it is a great lesson in humanity that, no matter who people are, even if they are movie stars, moguls, or record producers, when they mix with their peers, they seem pathetically human. I started to meet my fellow guests. There was an unwritten hierarchy that depended on one's level of stardom. An A-class star could not initiate a conversation with a B. The B had to speak first - or, in my case, the D. I would have been rather lonely if I hadn't approached the As, Bs, and Cs. They would never have spoken to me first.

A pleasant fellow, Jimmy Webb, broke the alphabet rule and approached me like a friendly spaniel. He had written "Up, Up and Away," "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," "Wichita Lineman," and "MacArthur Park," the latter popularized in the skating world by Jojo Starbuck and Ken Shelley.

Jack Nicholson was in the room, but he did not drop by to have a word with me. Various starlets fluttered past. Bob Dylan buzzed around in sunglasses with minuscule lenses but didn't speak a single word to anyone, as far as I could tell. An invisible fog seemed to accompany his mute movements.

There was a sumptuously appointed buffet: as much as one could eat; as much as one could drink; and probably as much as one could smoke, and I don't mean Marlboros. The main centre of action -- as it invariably seems to be, whether the party guests are kings and queens, movie stars, or the great unwashed -- was the kitchen. That was where the party guests ended up. The hostess still had not been sighted, but reliable reports placed her in her bedroom.

That was where I eventually reintroduced myself to Joni Mitchell. The prevailing atmosphere of her bedroom was dark and shady: Restful forest green dominated the colour scheme. It was a large room with a four-poster bed and a fireplace surrounded by chairs, ottomans, and sofas. An overwhelming scent of cannabis wafted through the air. I was offered some but did not partake.

I went back to the Bel Air Hotel feeling rather deflated. I had not been discovered. My John Barrymore profile had not been admired. There were no Hollywood contracts in my agent's office waiting for my lawyer's scrutiny. The next morning I conspicuously under-dressed. I carried the wolf coat over my arm.

On the way to the airport, Elva's and my limousine passed a billboard promoting the album Hejira. The design was a black-and-white photomontage with Joni in the foreground, flying around on an outdoor pond just like an exotic bat, beret askew, hair blowing in the breeze, with a road in a country landscape superimposed upon her lower torso. I was recognizable but infinitesimal in the background, striking a pose in my peacock costume. Barbara Berezowski, the bride, was little more than a demure upright white ant in the distance. That album cover was a work of great originality and mystifying cleverness, but it had absolutely nothing to do with a freezing hockey rink somewhere in Buffalo, New York.

I entered the first-class cabin of my airplane with my tail between my legs. Then I returned to New York, where at least a few people knew and understood me.