Virginia Rae interview: Sausalito's Gate 5 Theater & beyond

Vee Rae (Virginia Rae Kane) was an actor friend of my mother's at the Gate Playhouse Theatre in Sausalito during the late 1950s- early 1960s. I was young, still in the single digits, so my memory was sparse. But my first blog pieces in 2007 were on Gate 5, Tiki Junction, and also Juanita, which led to this post.

The photo that started it all. My mother, Kellé Reilly (later it was Kellé Green—

her stage name as there was already an actress, Maureen Hurley in SAG), 

Richard Knablin, Skip Rognlien and Vee Rae, Christmas, 1960. 

(Photo by Chris Gracida, courtesy of Richard Knablin.)

Somehow my mom's friend, Richard "Dik" Knablin stumbled across my blog post in 2009, and contacted me which led me to an email from Vee Rae. He sent me a photo of my mother with him and Vee Rae, and the memories came flooding back. Wow!

So this interview is a decade, or more like a lifetime in the making. Also, my drama teacher from College of Marin, James Dunn just passed away, he was also part of the lively and vibrant theatre scene in Marin. Come what come may, time and the hour run through the roughest day.

I was able to glean information on Skip Rognlien and Les Abbot, thanks to Google. I found a few reviews that mention Vee and other actors in the ensemble (Bill Edwards, Jim Holiday, Vickie Frazer, Sharleen Lambert, Diane Santich, John Rose, Jack Brennan and J. W. Cheetham, see newspaper archives at bottom), but nothing in print on my mother who worked so tirelessly behind the scenes with costuming, and she was also in most of the plays as well. I only have a few stills of her.

Guys and Dolls

In the late '50s, and early '60s, live staged television was the new medium. A veteran actor with over a hundred film credits, Lloyd Bridges too was transitioning over to television. Lloyd Bridges' movie career may have been interrupted during the McCarthy trials, but he still very much the local actor about town, having grown up in Petaluma. My mother knew Lloyd from her Sausalito Gate Playhouse days. I'm not sure how it evolved, but she did the costuming for Guys and Dolls, and The Student Prince at the Music Circus Theater in the Round, one hot summer of 1959.

Lloyd Bridges, my mother, Maureen AKA “Kellé” Hurley, The Student Prince.

I don't remember the particulars (I was six), but we all moved to the Central Valley for at few weeks to produce the show. What I do remember was that there was a live televised show with ballet, men arguing, lots of singing, and poodle-skirted girls.

It was Midsummernight's Eve, June, 22, 1959, and according to Christopher McSwain, the Community Affairs Director of the California Musical Theatre, Guys and Dolls ran only one week. (I originally thought it was circa 1960, or 1961, because my memories were so vivid, I though I was much older).

But I do remember that Lloyd Bridges was Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls at Sacramento's Theater in the Round, at the Music Circus. With some 30 television credits under his belt, Lloyd was both an actor (Sky Masterson) and emcee. Of course, my mother wasn't listed anywhere in the credits. (McSwain said she wasn't part of the ensemble, or costume crew, but note that she's sewing the costume for The Student Prince in the photo below. Beside, my aunt Canice also sewed costumes for Guys and Dolls.)

My mother sewing the costume she wore in The Student Prince.

We were (cast and crew) staying at a white stucco ranch style motel. Mornings, while everybody was sleeping in, I'd sneak into the kitchenette and eat Tony the Tiger corn flakes from waxpaper-lined cardboard boxes that you cut along the dotted lines. Two doors opened to frosted cereal sweetness—no bowl needed—which I thought was pretty amazing.

When everybody finally woke up (late) and went to rehearsal, my aunt Canice babysat me—even Lloyd Bridges did a babysitting stint or two—but he was usually in rehearsal. So I often hung out at the theater with my mom or with the Bridges boys.

At the motel, I had no one to play with and I was bored to tears (no such thing as TV in every room). Our room was at the shallow end of the tiny kidney-shaped pool and the Bridges' room was at the deep end. That summer, my world was divided up according to the depth of the pool. I wasn't allowed near the deep end. Lloyd's boys wouldn't play with me in the turquoise pool because I couldn't swim in the deep end.

Jeff was three years older than me. When you're young (six) and days seem like weeks, three years is a half a lifetime. But his brother was a whopping eleven years older and wouldn't have anything to do with me. I remember Lloyd introducing me to his two sons, we were standing near the shallow end of the pool.

I remember Lloyd telling me his oldest son's name was Boy, which I thought was bizarre 'cause he was clearly much older, he was a teenager, practically a man, and Jeff, who was closer to my age, was obviously younger, and therefore should rightfully be called Boy. Lloyd threw back his head and roared with laughter when I explained to him him why I thought that Jeff should be called Boy.

But that summer I was fast discovering that adults often told lies and were unreliable. What? Even my hero, Mike Nichols of Sea Hunt was making up strange stories. Just because I was six going on seven, I wasn't THAT gullible. Hiding my disappointment, I said, Hi Boy, and, of course, he completely ignored me. It wasn't until I saw him in Hotel New Hampshire (1984), that I realized his name was Beau, not boy.

The boys were enshrouded in their own world of water and sun like blond viking godlings with eyes the color of the sky. From the safety of my end of the pool I watched them become airborne as birds against the cerulean sky and plunge into the turquoise depths. Sometimes Jeff resurface at my end of the pool to play with me—I stood there mesmerized—but Boy would always call him back. I can safely say I've been cannon-balled by the Bridges boys. Not that they'd remember making me cry.

I was inconsolable as the boys were the only other kids around and Lloyd must've taken pity on me. One afternoon at the theater, he gathered me up, dandled me on his knee, and said, "I have a daughter about your age, Lucinda." But she was a whole year—and a month—younger than me, I was desperate for a playmate, I asked if I could play with her but he said, no, she was at home in LA.

Lloyd reached into his pocket and pulled out an exquisite crystal star on a silver chain. I was dazzled. He placed a star around my neck. My faith in adults restored, I wondered, did he give his daughter a little crystal star too? And would I get to play with her later?

My mom fitting a costume possibly for Guys and Dolls.

During rehearsal, Lloyd said I could stay and watch the show that night if I was very quiet as they were filming it for live TV. I practiced my own dress rehearsal by sitting in the empty theater, quiet as a mouse as the purple netting curtain descended from the ceiling to create a dreamscape of stardust and a ballet dancer emerged like a swan from the darkness into teal and blue spot light. It was pure magic. I was starstruck.

Wardrobe assistant, Maureen Hurley adjusts the costume of Betty Downey
Sacramento Bee, June 21, 1959 Newspapers 

I remember the ballet dancers, lots of people singing, short-sleeved men with fedoras tussling with each other and banging down their fists on red and white checkered table cloths. Everyone bursting into improbable song. Gaffers silently rising, large cameras the size of ponies. At that age, what I remember was the magic of theater, but the plot was far beyond me. Maybe that's why I dislike musical theater to this day.

Later that year, with the crystal star around my neck, I religiously watched Sea Hunt at neighbors' houses, as we didn't have a TV. Sometimes I'd glimpse the summer boys on TV, sleek as otters. From Lloyd as Mike Nelson, I have an enduring love of the sea and I love to snorkel for hours on end, no matter how rough the sea.

I lost that crystal star, one morning it slipped down behind the back seat of a neighbor's car. She wouldn't pull out the seat. I realized much later, she was probably far too drunk to do it. But I didn't know it then. I cried for the loss of that star, and sometimes I'd find it again in dreams, I'd reach for it to pull it out and it'd slip from my grasp, ephemeral as water.

© 2007 Maureen Hurley

Gate 5, Gate Playhouse, Sausalito

Gate Playhouse Theatre, ca. 1961. (Photo courtesy of Richard Knablin)

During the 1950s and early 1960s, my mother Maureen (Kellé Hurley) Reilly was an actress and costume/ set designer/painter for the Gate Community Playhouse Theater Company, on Bridgeway, catty-corner from the No Name Bar, in downtown Sausalito.

After a show closed, I used to love playing dress-up with the discarded costumes and remnants mouldering in my grandmother's basement. Yards of purple netting from Guys & Dolls at the Music Circus, loud silk print dresses, Victorian capes and witches' rags.

Sometimes I went to the theater or work with my mother when she was staying with us out in Forest Knolls. She never lived with us for long. She'd drive over White's Hill in her big white convertible with the top down and the known world spun past my forehead in the form of cerulean blue sky, green oak canyons and golden hills. I must've been about six or seven.

My mother supported her ephemeral art by working as a waitress in nearly every coffee shop in Sausalito. So I got to know them all from the inside out. The Kettle, The Valhalla, Juanita's.

Juanita was unforgettable with her menagerie (a rooster perched on her shoulder, a spider monkey and an orphan fawn named Cissy) following her around the parking lot as she served customers on Sunday mornings at Gate 5.

I don't remember the infamous Trident (until I was older) because it was on the other side of town by the bronze seal (though for a time, my mother did move into the big shingle house overlooking the water near Sally Stanford's infamous Valhalla). I do remember meeting The Kingston Trio. Perhaps that's why Tommy Smothers and others were hanging out at Gate 5. (It may have technically been Gate 6, but it was always called Gate 5.)

There was the time when my mother was working for Sally Stanford at the Valhalla and who should walk in but Perry Como! Richard Knablin happened to be hanging out at the bar that night, and said (my mother) Kellé looked great standing there in her Valhalla costume, fishnet stockings, tall heels, a merry widow and not much else, as Perry Como walked in and sit at one of her tables. She had the classic tall willowy showgirl figure for it.

Perry left a nice tip. There might have even been an autographed napkin involved as well. I've a vague memory of something like that....

My mother, Kellé Reilly (later it was Kellé Green—her stage name as there was already an actress, Maureen Hurley in SAG), Richard Knablin, Skip Rognlien and Vee Rae, Christmas, 1960. (Photo by Chris Gracida, courtesy of Richard Knablin.)

When a show was running at the Gate, sometimes I went to the theater (I saw Guys and Dolls, Pipedream, The Fantastics, Anything Goes, Annie Get Your Gun, On the Town, Of Thee I Sing, and a children's matinee, Hansel & Gretel—my mom played the evil witch. It was in November of 1960?, because The Gate Players had a tradition of bringing all the birthday kids onstage after the show for a big birthday cake and ice cream party. But it quickly became ice scream.

We were all gathered round the cake singing Happy Birthday to blow the candles out when my mom came out from the wings still in costume and makeup to give me a hug. I knew it was my mom, but the other kids didn't, they saw the witch had come to eat them, so when she hugged me, pandemonium broke out as they all ran off the stage—screaming.

I was the only one left standing so I blew out the candles by myself. I was also the last kid left standing, mortified, glued to the spot, but I had the whole cake to myself as none of the kids would come back on stage even after my mom took her makeup off. I shrugged my shoulders as if to say, it's their loss and went on with the serious business of eating cake.

Les Abbott and the Marquee. Vee Rae photos 1961

Courtesy of Vee Rae photos 1961

But more often than not, I was left on one of the houseboats at Tiki Junction or at Gate Five or Gate Six.

Before the show, I was deposited at Dick and Tommy Smothers' houseboat where there were folks sitting around on chairs and pillows in the living room singing and playing banjos and guitars. With all that adult attention, I was pretty precocious and I'd dance around in circles to the music. In hindsight, it was probably The Kingston Trio and entourage down from The Trident.

My babysitters were the funny men: There was big black Sam the actor, with a fabulous physique who looked like a bald muscleman genie from Aladdin. I asked him if he was Samson but where was his hair, did Delila cut it all off, and was he still strong? He roared with laughter and tossed me up into the air. I'd never seen a black man before wearing a single gold earring so I knew he was exotic and not of this world.

In those days, I was preparing for my first communion, I was busy equating everyone with Biblical characters—trying to reconcile imperfect metaphor with reality. The nuns at the Lagunitas church, St. Cecelia's, told us me that whenever it rained, it was God's tears because we were so bad in church. I said He was peeing on us and let me tell you, I got into deep doo-doo for that remark. I was never was asked again to be Queen of the May, never again to crown the statue of the Virgin Mary.

Unlike his dour brother, Dick, who didn't seem to like kids, Tommy Smothers was kind and funny, if not funny looking with his ears sticking out like teapot handles. I liked Tommy the best. He was a real kid magnet. Whenever I'd spot him, I'd launch myself at him and he'd sing me around the room by the arms and then throw me through his legs and toss me back up into the air until I nearly hit the ceiling and I screamed with laughter. (And I probably immediately fell asleep exhausted).

In the '60s and 70s, I was shocked to later see Tommy's name on billboard at the Purple Onion, or on TV —The Smothers Brothers Show. A few years ago, when I ran into Pat Paulson's daughter and we exchanged stories, she said Pat was living in Sausalito too, but I don't remember him. Weird to think I might have played with her as a child.

Gate Playhouse. Vee Rae photos 1961

I remember seeing Sterling Hayden in a movie—The Ten Commandments—I was in Switzerland as an "exchange" student in 1973—I'd seen very few movies in my lifetime and almost no TV when I was young, so I tended to remember everything in minute details. I asked my mom why he seemed so familiar and she said because I knew him from the Sausalito days. Another veil lifted. I have only one image of Sterling, taller than forever, tossing me up into the air by the elephant fountain. I thought he was a Viking God.

During the '50s and '60s, McCarthyism drove many Hollywood folks north to the Bay Area. In the '80s I remember seeing converted chicken ranch barns in Sebastopol and Cotati made from Hollywood backdrops and movie props. Whatever happened to the Gate Playhouse director, Skip Rognlien, from New York, or to beautiful Greek Athena Martin the actress living in the Alta Mira above the Village Fair, who looked like Jackie O?

Back of the Gate Playhouse. Vee Rae photos 1961

Back of the Gate Playhouse opened abruptly into the bay,
a tiny ledge & nothing more than air. Vee Rae photo 1961

I ran into my mom's sidekick, Sally Lacey, who lived near Sally Stanford's Valhalla, they'd all meet for coffee and sit on the deck with the whiskey-voiced chain smoking Madame, Sally Stanford, and later mayor of Sausalito holding court. I ran into a toothless Sally Lacy—in the looney bin at Napa State Hospital where I was teaching poetry to the inmates. Sally Lacey remembered me, but that was about it. Time had not been kind to her. Was Sally one of Madame Sally's girls from 1144 Pine Street in the City? Or another colorful character from Sausalito's past? Vee Rae said Sally was Marilyn Monroe's stand-in in Hollywood.

And I haven't even mentioned Pat Wall, Piro and Alice, Peter Wolfe and Jean Varda....but that was my second Sausalito incarnation, when I was ten and learned to pilfer at the Trade Fair. Fodder for another blog.

The Ark, 1967

Sally Stanford died in 1982. I heard that Juanita died in a fire, when someone torched her restaurant in Boyes Hot Springs. But rumors of her death are greatly exaggerated. She's alive, and well, living in Sonoma County, (She died in 2011) Sterling died in 1986 in Sausalito.

They cleaned up the waterfront, blew up the ferryboats and a bit of the past along with it. Tommy opened a Volvo car dealership in Santa Rosa, and Pat opened a winery in the Valley of the Moon. My mom died in 1994, Lloyd, in 1998. With them, the rich stories of Sausalito in the 1950s, are irrevocably lost.

The 7 Seas

© 2007 Maureen Hurley