Uncle Bob, My Favorite Vampire

A Tribute by Steve Latshaw



Robert Quarry, the tall, charismatic actor with a velvet voice known for his iconic horror roles as Count Yorga and the Deathmaster, died Friday in Woodland Hills. He was 83.

I knew him, thanks to the generosity of my friend, Fred Olen Ray, who, apart from directing some of Quarry’s memorable films, made Uncle Bob part of his family. Quarry was always a wonderful, delightful, funny presence, whether on set or sitting across the table over drinks and dinner.

An intellectual with an IQ of 168 and a Lifemaster at Bridge, Quarry also found time to author a well-received cookbook. A gourmet chef who studied at the Cordon Blue in Manhattan, his Wonderfully Simple Recipes for Simply Wonderful Food sold over 60,000 copies after its debut in 1988.

He was born in Santa Rosa, California, on November 3, 1925. Brainy enough to have finished high school by the age of fourteen, he was already speeding into the world of theater. By the early forties he was getting steady radio work on series like Dr. Christian. And being a Santa Rosa resident, he made his un-credited screen debut in the classic 1943 thriller Shadow of a Doubt when director Alfred Hitchcock brought his production unit to town for location shooting. A stint in the Army Corps of Engineers followed, with Quarry maintaining his ties to show biz by producing The Hasty Heart with a G.I. cast.

After the war and well into the 1950s, traveling between New York and Hollywood, Quarry maintained his radio and Broadway schedule in between appearances on such TV shows as The Lone Ranger, Philco Television Playhouse, Mike Hammer, and the Hallmark Hall of Fame. He broke into feature films in 1955, appearing opposite Clark Gable and Susan Hayward in Soldier of Fortune. He then played opposite Robert Stack and Robert Ryan in Sam Fuller’s House of Bamboo and had a small but showy role in A Kiss Before Dying, with Robert Wagner. After appearing in two films opposite Paul Newman, W.U.S.A and Winning, Quarry found himself on the threshold of stardom.

Low budget, tongue-in-cheek horror films had caught a wave in the hip seventies. Robert Quarry was hot. His character: Count Yorga, Vampire. His unique take on the implausible—he played the Count with all the menace of Christopher Lee, the charm of Bela Lugosi and with a certain wink and a nod to the audience—made Count Yorga a big hit. It spawned a sequel and put Quarry on his way.



But, after the string of hits ended with Madhouse, Quarry suffered a car accident that damaged his health and career. By the early eighties, work was hard to find until Quarry met a young filmmaker named Fred Olen Ray. Ray had grown up on a healthy diet of Quarry’s kind of horror and was determined to bring him back to star status.

And that he did. After supporting roles in two of Ray’s features (Cyclone and Commando Squad) Quarry returned to star status in Ray’s Sci Fi serial send-up Phantom Empire, opposite Jeffrey Combs and Sybil Danning. The surprise video hit featured Quarry returning in his adventurer costume from Dr. Phibes Rises Again (in which he starred opposite Vincent Price) and parodying himself to the limit in what has become a cult classic. He made the productions enjoyable, preparing gourmet meals for cast and crew. Much work followed, as a younger generation of filmmakers sought out Quarry’s services to lend a dash of class, elegance and humor to their films.

I have some personal memories of him. I consider myself very lucky to have been invited into the circle of director Fred Olen Ray 's extended family of friends. I always called him Mr. Quarry—out of respect. And here's another reason why:

Some years ago, the summer of 1990, I think, I was preparing to come out to California from Florida for a meeting with Fred. Accompanying me was a mutual friend, we’ll call Russ, also from Florida, and a partner on the project we were doing. Russ had been out the year before and had spent time on the Alienator set, hanging around with the drive-in movie actor and actress team Ross and Claire Hagen and also with Robert Quarry. We were all star-struck at Russ’ good fortune. But Russ had a warning. "Don't," he said. "Don't ever call him Uncle Bob!"

I looked at my friend, a little concerned. I could still see fear in his face from some horrific incident that must have happened on that Alienator set. I nodded. "Go on, what happened?"

Russ shook his head. "I called him Uncle Bob. Bad mistake."

Apparently, actress Dawn Wildsmith (Ray's wife at the time) had been the first to call him Uncle. It spread to the immediate family. Mr. Quarry sometimes lived with the Rays and would babysit Chris, one of Ray's sons.

Russ had visited the Rays at home that summer, parking his camper trailer outside the Ray residence (even running a power line off the Ray house—as well as using the showers, food, booze, and whatever was on the shelves). Apparently Russ had heard Uncle Bob this and Uncle Bob that and had assumed it was the preferred way of addressing Quarry.

So while visiting the set of Alienator, Russ noticed Quarry was working that day. It was a meal break. Everyone was exhausted. No one was really in the mood for chats with fans. Nonplussed, Russ grabbed a paper plate and, in true fan-boy style, approached Mr. Quarry, who was standing in the lunch line.

"Hey, Uncle Bob. Sign this for me, will ya?"

Quarry whirled around, took a long, hard look at him and said, "I am not your G-- damned Uncle!"

What my friend couldn't know was this wasn't cruelty: this was Mr. Quarry getting a laugh. And laughs he got. He had that hair trigger temper that was mostly show combined with a brilliant and very quick wit.

My friend, nevertheless, a sometimes overly enthusiastic autograph hound, slunk away.

It seems Quarry was very particular about who called him Uncle Bob. Only family was allowed that privilege. And Fred Olen Ray and his family were in that very select group. As the years went by, folks wore him down with the Uncle Bob thing and he eventually stopped objecting. But I stuck with calling him Mr. Quarry whenever we met. It felt right to me.

My fondest memory was a Christmas night at Fred’s. We’d all gathered for dinner. Mr. Quarry had struggled with heart problems in the last years, and was limited to his two beloved cigarettes per night. So, we were all out on the back porch, in the cold and wet, enduring misty rain, drinking our drinks and smoking our cigars as Uncle Bob puffed away for two hours, telling tall tales and true about Hollywood and his pals Howard Hughes, the Barrymores, Errol Flynn, Susan Hayward and especially catty stories about Vincent Price, his rival as a horror icon.

I came away from that evening with a bad case of bronchitis; but, every single cough was worth it. Here’s the wonderful thing and the key to this delightful man: whatever you called him, he always treated you as if he was your Uncle Bob. And, beyond the delightful films he left for us to enjoy, that is a treasure for the ages.

Steve Latshaw
Hollywood, California

Robert Quarry in his most popular dinner clothes.
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St. Robin of Los Altos Gets Her Halo: As If!

My Dad isn't really cross in this picture he just isn't smiling. "It cracks my face," he says. "Because my face isn't used to it."

I'm finding it more difficult to write about my father and his dementia now that I am seeing him nearly every day. Perhaps I can't step back and get perspective now, or perhaps it is more painful up close--I honestly don't know yet. I just know that now, I keep thinking of other things to write about--other things that are farther away.

Perhaps it is just this: now that I am living less than a mile away from my father and see him almost every day, he continually tells me he doesn't see me enough. I know this is because he doesn't remember that he just saw me yesterday or a few hours ago, and that this is not his fault, but it does tend to make a person feel unappreciated. I took my father for coffee the other morning, just to give him a chance to get out of the house, which he loves. We spent a hour or more together. I bought him several iced cookies, and paid to have his coffee refilled twice.

It was pouring rain and getting him to and from the car with his walker was a challenge. His caregiver and I both got very wet holding the umbrella for him. When we were getting ready to depart, I moved my car at right angles to two empty parking places to make it easier for him to approach and get into the vehicle. There wasn't a good ramp nearby. This must be a serious sin in California because an older couple in a Mini Cooper stopped their car, rolled down their window (in spite of the rain) and yelled at me: "What kind of idiot are you," the man spit out. "Blocking three parking places like that?"

I threw my hands up in the air and looked back at my almost-ninety-year-old handicapped father. "He's old and he can't walk," I said in a voice louder than I had intended. "You might be there someday yourself!" The man and his wife drove away and parked elsewhere.

When we got back to the house, I put Dad on the couch--the world's most uncomfortable couch which "graces" my parent's country kitchen--and I sat across from him in the uncomfortable kitchen chair at the uncomfortable kitchen table and picked up the newspaper. I had been so busy giving care to everyone but me that day, I had missed this one thing I always do because I love to do it. I figured it was time for my father's pre-lunch doze and now I could read up on the events of the world. I figured wrong.

"Robin, I don't see your very much," said my father, sitting over on that ugly and uncomfotable object. "And so when I do see you I don't like to see your nose behind that newspaper."

I looked over the paper at him and smiled. He wasn't being grouchy, really. He just wanted attention. I put the paper down for a minute and after we exchanged a few pleasantries--never an easy task because he's deaf and you have to converse in writing--he put his head back and fell asleep.

I shifted my bottom in the hard wooden chair and picked up the paper again. This St. Robin of Los Altos gig is going to be much tougher than I thought.


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When Was George Washington Really Born? A Mystery for Presidents Day.

George Washington was not exactly born on February 22 as we have all been led to believe. That's because George Washington was born during the time that Great Britain and her colonies used the Julian Calendar, something we no longer use today.

The Julian Calendar was established by Julius Caesar, 46 years BCE, and for more than fifteen centuries it was the standard calendar of the Western world--and of some of the Eastern as well. Caesar established a year that was 364.25 days long, designed to synchronize with a complete cycle of the earth's seasons. But his year was eleven minutes, fourteen seconds too slow.

This didn't mean much for a while. But, by the sixteenth century, the date that marked the New Year (which was then on the first day of spring) was ten days behind the vernal equinox.

So, in 1582, Pope Gregory XII consulted with his scientists and devised a new calendar so accurate that it is still in use today and is called the Gregorian calendar in his honor. To make it work, he created leap years, unless the scheduled leap year was divisible by four. He then decreed that the New Year would henceforth begin January 1 instead of March 25. And to get the calendar caught up with the seasons, he told everybody they were going to have to lose 10 days. Imagine. You and I have lost days we can't remember, but this was endorsed by the Holy Father himself.

October 4, 1582, would have to be followed by October 15, 1582. Since he was the Pope he could order this sort of thing and have it happen, just like that.

Well, almost. By the sixteenth century, the Western world was no longer entirely papist. The Reformation had swept Europe, the Orthodox churches in the East were now following their own calendar, and it took several centuries for the Gregorian calendar to be widely adopted, especially in Protestant countries.

So back to George Washington, you say. Well, his birth date in the eighteenth century was caught up in all this. Britain and her colonies finally adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, when GW was (more or less) 20 years old (more about that in a minute) and by that time they had to add eleven days to make the calendar come out right. September 2, 1752 was followed by September 14, 1752. Are you confused yet?

So George Washington got a new birth date. The original date of his birth, February 11, 1731 (now called Old Style, or O.S.) was changed to February 22, 1732 (now called New Style, or N.S.) The change in the year of his birth came because Washington was born between January (when the New Year now began) and March (when the New Year had begun). I hope you are still following me.

If you think this is a brain teaser, imagine how it was for people who lived through it. A full five years before the switch, a teenage George Washington made a diary entry dated "Fryday, March 11th, 1747/8." It suggests that the upcoming change in the calendar was on his mind, and that he was noting it in advance, perhaps for the sake of accuracy, or as a reminder if he should look back at his writings one day.

He lived through so many remarkable changes in his lifetime, perhaps this change in the calendar is one of the least noted. And yet it remains intriguing.

What happened, do you supposed, to the eleven days everyone in America lost in 1752?

And when Washington died in 1799, was he 68 years old, or really 67?


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Time Travel and Blenheim Apricots

I’ve developed a theory in the last few years about time travel. I don’t know if we’ll ever actually be able to do it in the physical sense: but I believe that in our memories and in our dreams it is always possible.

This is especially relevant as I return to California and to the town where I was born. Here, I have a present in which I’m renewing old friendships, making new ones, writing about events of the day, researching a book, and helping my aging parents.

In this place, I also have a past in which I can travel. Here, my teenage boyfriend and I had our first halting kiss. Here, I rode my bike to my friend Keith’s house after his mother died. Here, my Dad, my sister and I spent Saturdays in the yard, Dad always mowing and raking and hammering and Kimmie and I catching lizards and swinging on the backyard swing. Here my friend Leslie and I took the train to San Francisco for our first solo shopping trip. I loved the dress she bought: a green paisley print with a tiny belted waist. San Francisco Giants games with Dad, high school proms, kindergarten nap time. And it is all steeped in the perfume of Blenheim apricot trees on the summer wind. I can see and hear and catch the scent of all of it still.

At my high school reunion last summer I met a boy--well a man actually, but he seemed a boy to me--whom I’d gone to school with for a dozen years long ago but had never known. We went to dinner one night and he pointed to a building on the Stanford University property as we drove by. “I was born in Palo Alto hospital right there,” he said. “Not the Stanford Medical Center. That big building there used to be the city hospital.” “Yes I know,” I said. “I was born there the same year you were.”

I can see the future here too. But when I travel there my dreams are secret and evaporate if I speak or write of them.

In Florida I lived entirely in the present. I liked it there: don’t get me wrong. But I had come there to work and then I just stayed, a clear example of Newton's First Law at work: an object at rest tends to stay at rest. The time travels I made there were about other lives and took the form of history research and writing. That way I developed a past to travel in, but it was not my own.

Yesterday, my father was having a cranky moment. His weekend caregivers are often strangers to him and their otherness sometimes combines with his disease to make him angry and agitated. He gets discouraged that he needs so much help. His identity was always based on the many impossible things he could do for my mother.

“I’m just no good anymore,” he said as we sat down to lunch. He is deaf now, so we have to write our conversations with him.

“We love you Dad ... Mom and Kim and I, and we need you,” I wrote. “Please smile and be happy. I love you so much, I’m moving here because of you.”

His eyesight and his reading comprehension are very bad these days and he read what I wrote very slowly. Then he looked up.

“I hope that’s not true, because I’m not going to be around very much longer."

I tsked tsked his comment. I don’t want to be without him. But I think people who are old and sick can often see with clarity what those around them do not want to see.

What he can’t know is that I’m here for completely selfish reasons. I’m making memories for the future with him now, every moment. They will give me new, much beloved, material for my time travels to come.


Robin and her father in Shoup Park, Los Altos, California 2004
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