A First Taste of Europe with Bob

SAN FRANCISCO 1961— I arrived alone at the San Francisco Airport on one of the very first jet-propelled passenger planes on New Year’s Day, 1960, after a huge farewell party in Chicago. It snowed in San Francisco that day, which it hadn’t done in one hundred years. I couldn’t believe it. Sunny California was supposed to be a given. Rick LaCroix, who I had been living with in Chicago for five years, joined me a day later because he had to stay behind for the movers. I had met Rick at Kitty Sheon’s, a small bar located under the el station at Grand Avenue in Chicago and moved in with him on my twenty-first birthday in 1957, shortly after a false move with Byron to a too-fancy Lakeshore Drive apartment I couldn’t afford. I moved into Rick’s small apartment at 257 Hampton Court before we moved to 55 Surf Street where we stayed for a couple of years. In San Francisco, Rick found an apartment at 180 Beaver Street out near the Castro, which was just a mundane Irish working man’s neighborhood in those days. The apartment was new and had a view of San Francisco Bay. An auspicious start fueled by a huge raise in pay. The next day I bought a brand new white 1961 Volkswagen convertible for $1,200.00 and was treated—to my horror—to a lesson in hill driving by the car salesman. Rick loved to travel and loved fine arts. Our life together was filled with parties, the beach, opera, ballet, travel, art galleries, and Broadway shows that we religiously flew to New York to see. All this travel, art, and theatre helped me tremendously with my art direction. It was a true liberal arts education of the most practical and enriching kind. I could put my observations to instant use in my ads and commercials. This not only brought the world of art to life for me, but it gave me a big edge—and a tremendous advantage over the ambitious competitors confronting me as I moved up in advertising. My first trip to Europe was on FCB. I had been in San Francisco only a few months when I was called upon to do a Renauld of France sunglass campaign in Paris, and a Beauty on the Beach suntan lotion ad in Cannes on the French Riviera. Need I say that I thought I had died and gone to heaven? I traveled with Bob Leefeldt, an account executive who was married to the heiress to the Portland Cement fortune. He was so grand, a true bon vivant, a fountain of information about the “Good Life.” He took me to the finest restaurants and on side trips to antique shops and even out to Versailles, which he personally showed to me as if he owned it. Bob taught me to work harder to get some of that life.