By Carly Mayberry
One man's discovery of a treasure trove of Vietnam War-era memorabilia
has spurred the creation of an online museum commemorating one of the
longest running variety shows in the history of the armed forces.
The man was Ace Lundon, and he has become the curator of
http://www.VietnamJeanLondonShow.com, a 60-page Web site highlighting
in photos and words the days of "The Jean London Show," which
entertained 750,000 Vietnam warriors from 1966-72.
The Camp Pendleton, Calif.-based live production featured Lundon as
master of ceremonies and showcased a parade of comedy skits, musical
performances and pinup girls, a cavalcade that included Yvonne De
Carlo, Rhonda Fleming and Lundon's then-wife, Jean London, at center
stage.
It all started when Lundon got a call in January 2005 from the editor
of the magazine VVA Veteran. He wanted photos and suggested the show's
online immortalization. So Lundon began to create the Web site, first
giving himself a crash course in the new technology.
"I knew nothing about the Internet and had moved like 82,000 times --
once after my garage in West Hollywood was flooded," said Lundon, 69,
who now lives in his native South Dakota. "I didn't think there were
still any photos floating around."
Two weeks later while rummaging through a closet, he discovered about
400 negatives -- many with mold around them -- that had been at the
bottom of a box for 30 years.
After futile trips to a host of photo labs that insisted the negatives
were too old to print, Lundon left 60 of them with a tiny backwoods
shop in South Dakota as a last resort. What he got back were
black-and-white prints depicting such celebrities as Aldo Ray, Ann
B. Davis (Alice from "The Brady Bunch") and original Mousketeer Sherri
Alberoni taking pictures, shaking hands and posing with U.S. troops.
"Holy mackerel! There really is something here," Lundon recalls
thinking.
Initially, Lundon was daunted by the cost and technology involved, but
he also was lucky enough to find a helping hand at every step along
the way.
When he learned that each negative would cost $2.50 to print and
realized that the expense of processing hundreds of frames would be
overwhelming, he ran into Steve Babbitt, director of the photography
department at Black Hills State University. Babbitt and his students
printed the photos for free as part of a school project.
Then Lundon sought out longtime friend Joseph Marino, who worked at
St. Francis Indian School in South Dakota, where Lundon had been
involved in American Indian causes over the years.
Marino, originally from San Diego, offered his expertise with the
Internet as a way to honor his own relatives that were in the war.
With $500 he raised and the help of Babbitt and Marino, Lundon created
a window to the past on the Web.
"Anything worthwhile has always been done by more than one person,"
Lundon said. "If the road doesn't go uphill, I don't know if there's a
road at all."
With its abundance of pictures and Lundon's commentary, the site has
become a tribute to the military men and women who served in the
Vietnam War and to the celebrities who entertained them.
"Those in the industry were called a lot of names during that war, but
when it came to entertaining our troops, the sentiment was 'those are
our boys' and that was that," Lundon said.
Now he is in the process of getting the site inducted into the Library
of Congress archives. It already has been accepted by the Vietnam era
section of the South Dakota State Historical Society. Lundon said his
goal is for all 750,000 veterans who saw the show to find themselves
in the many crowd shots on the site.
"You don't know what those shows meant to us," wrote one 57-year-old
veteran from southern California after visiting the site. "It's what
kept us sane. I always knew there would be a show when I left
Pendleton and when I got back."
For Victoria Meyerink, a trouper on the 1960s CBS variety series "The
Danny Kaye Show," the site amounts to "an easily accessible digital
time capsule" that has brought back many happy memories of bus rides
and performances.
"We'd all load on the bus together somewhere in Hollywood with Ace as
our ringleader," recalled Meyerink, who at the time was pegged the
show's "little sister junior pinup." "Once leaving a show, I remember
a Marine chasing after the bus to give me his jacket. He said, 'You
remind me of my little sister at home, he said, and I want you to have
it."'
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
Copyright 2006 Reuters Limited.
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