In The News - May 2001

[ Up ] [ Board Members ] [ Annual Report ]

The Magazine of Santa Clarita, May 2001

Article: Robert Conrad - The Wild, Wild Guest

by Elodie Ackerman - Editor

Many people know him as the unforgettable James West in The Wild, Wild West or Major Gregory “Pappy” Boyington in The Black Sheep Squadron, but people around here know him as actor Robert Conrad. Conrad, who lived in Santa Clarita for a short time while filming The Black Sheep Squadron, was guest speaker at the Betty Ferguson Foundation’s Woman of Honor dinner on April 27.

“I lived in a trailer off of Highway 126,” he said. “They filmed The Black Sheep Squadron right there at Indian Dunes. Sometimes I’d fly in to work from Van Nuys Airport,” he says, “just to show them I was the real thing.” Conrad has a star in Newhall on the Western Walk of Fame.

He is an enthusiastic supporter of the Betty Ferguson Foundation’s Youth with a Voice program. With this program, youths earn credits through volunteering that enable them to take advantage of the Foundation’s mentoring programs in photography, pre- and post-production (film and music/sound), set decoration, costume design, dance, “domestic engineering,” and practical financial education.

“You see, that’s the fundamental difference about this program,” urges Conrad. “The kids have to earn it. It’s not just handed to them. That’s a major deterrent of delinquent behavior.” He goes on, “This gives them a choice, a creative outlet.”
The child of a teenaged single mother, Conrad experienced a rough-and-tumble childhood on Chicago’s south side, where he not only joined, but was the leader of a gang called the Basement Boys. While his mother worked to support and feed the small family, Conrad’s choices quickly got him into trouble.

“We had no TV. There was no place to go. I was pretty much left to my own devices,” mused Conrad, who recalls his youth with equanimity and humor. “You know that old song ‘Bad, Bad Leroy Brown’? Well, he wasn’t that tough,” he chuckled.

Conrad and his friends thought nothing of stealing a car and taking it joyriding. “Today they call that grand theft auto,” he added. Because of his exploits, he once had his leg broken in three places. When the police told his mother that Robert was in the hospital, she asked if he’d been in a fight. “Well, tell him I’ll pick him up in the morning,” she said, demonstrating her own form of tough love.

Because of her strength and perseverance in the face of such harsh conditions, Conrad learned respect and admiration for women that has carried him through life. When he quips, “I never met a woman I didn’t like,” he means it in the true sense.

Conrad was invited to speak by local businesswoman and friend Shauna Hoffman. “When I called and invited him to speak, he asked his wife, Lavelda, ‘Do we have plans that weekend?’ Then I heard him say, ‘Oh, well. We can cancel that.’”

Cancel what?

“Oh, the Bushes invited us to Houston for the weekend, but I’d rather do this.”
“But, but…you can’t…”

“Hey, I knew him before he was president; I’ll still know him after. This is important.”
For the man with the wild, wild childhood, helping kids make the right choices is important, indeed.