My Path To Laguna Beach
By Robin Williams
Guarded in the 1950s
Let me see. You want a story of being born someplace else? Let's try this on for size. My mother and father met each other at the Pomona International Club. Both of them were drawn toward countries and peoples and languages. They were married in 1935 and he went off to Moscow to study cinematography at the Institute of Cinema Research under Sergei Isenstein, the great Russian director.
She went to Japan and found a ferry to Vladivostok. From there she took the Siberian railway to Moscow. I was conceived in Moscow which means I was eating Borscht before y'all.
She went on to Nazi Germany and had a close shave with the Nazis. They came looking for her when it was discovered she was a visiting American with cable privileges. She was sending articles home to the LA Times. The concierge of her hotel told her to leave the country immediately. He placed flowers in the window when the coast was clear. (Nazis could arrest foreigners on the sidewalk but not on private property at that time). The concierge just waited until the Nazi agents were not in the lobby.
Finally the flowers were there and she walked to the train station and took a train to Paris and on to Calais and across the channel to Dover. The British would not let her enter the country because she was coming from Nazi Germany. She showed them a letter from the British newspapers offering her a job as a writer. They let her in and she got the job. I was born nine months later in 1936.
She knew the war was coming so she got on a transatlantic ocean liner and sailed for New York and a train to Los Angeles. We lived with her mother in the Historic West Adams district of Los Angeles and then she moved to Laguna Beach where she started LAGUNA REALTY and ran the business for 50 years. Now I am a driver/guide for Los Angeles. I was only living in Los Angeles for eight years but I seemed to absorb a lot.
She moved to Laguna Beach in 1943 so I guess it is almost as if I were born here. I grew up at Wood's Cove and then Cress Street and climbed on every rock and every cliff and dove into every pool from high rocks. That is why I was able to run pell mell from Woods to Moss whenever I got the call when lifeguarding. I walked the hills of Laguna and gained strength for walking, climbing and swimming among the swirls of rough water in the coves. But, if your throw me into 58 degree water and let me swim for a mile, I will probably cancel Christmas. Skinny kids in cold water, run out of steam fairly quickly.
Loved your story and want to thank you for writing it. You are much more of a water person than many of us who have lived here 70 years. Many of us just utilized the water during our youth and then took off for everywhere else.
But, I sure did utilize the water of the Mediterranean Sea when I operated my YACHT CRUISE. I took students on the yacht and gave them the Roman Empire on a silver platter. Then I dragged adults to Italy, including Tuscany, Greek Islands and Turkey in Fiat vans that I rented over there. Living in Laguna gave me all the ammunition for running tours in Europe for 50 years. The French Riviera is so similar to Laguna Beach it ain't funny.
Bob Kellogg gave me excellent training on the Sea Scout boat for operating my own yacht cruise in the Med. Jim Boka and I were both on the Sea Scout boat when a huge Liberty ship almost rammed us in the middle of the night in the Catalina Channel. Jim Boka and I were lifeguards at the Beachcomber's Club at Capo Beach.
Jim went into the US Navy Seabees and spent quality time in the Marshall Islands and I went to the Mediterranean Sea. When Jim returned to Laguna Beach he was already trained in big trucks and he got a job on the Laguna Streetsweeper and was showing off his skills immediately.
It is ironic that the Beachcomber's Club was built by Edward Laurence Doheny where Jim Boka and I worked when we were 16 years old. Now, I am leading tours to his mansions in Los Angeles and telling the tour members his full life story including the fact that he was the first to discover oil in Los Angeles in 1892 and soon after became the richest person on the planet.
Edward Doheny gave Doheny State Beach to the state of California in exchange for naming it after his son, Ned. That is where we all learned to surf because the waves are similar to Waikiki. Much more conducive to learning surfing than Laguna Beach where they break too fast for slow thinkers. Ha ha.
It is also ironic that Jerry Johnson just happened to bump into Edward Doheny's grandson up-country from Santa Barbara and was invited to go fishing in his pond where he caught a fish every time he cast in his line. Jerry Johnson met a real Doheny! This proves that the world is very small. All of us have somehow touched upon the Doheny family.
They made all three SPIDERMAN movies at Greystone Mansion. Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills was built for Ned Doheny and Number 8 Chester Place is where they all lived alongside the oilman Harry F. SINCLAIR. His daughter, Virginia Sinclair, almost went with me to the Mediterranean Sea on my chartered yacht. All of those mansions in Chester Place are now called Mount St. Mary's College for Women next door to USC. Edward's wife, Estelle, lived at Number 8 Chester Place until three years after we graduated from LBHS.
Laguna has it all. It is everything. I used our city as a launching pad for great escapades throughout the world. And so did Jim Boka and Jerry Johnson.
