The Pimpmobile

An ill-advised effort to watch a movie named 'Love Ranch' this evening reminded me of a good tale. Supposedly based on the story of Reno's fabled Mustang Ranch brothel and its founders, the film was about as bad as I thought it would be, although the presence of Helen Mirren and Joe Pesci did give me cause to give it a shot. A short shot, as it turns out.

One of the early scenes has them riding around Reno in a gaudy custom sled typical of the 70's and 80's, and that's what brought this story to mind.  I actually met Joe Conforte, the owner of the real Mustang Ranch, once, and I met him over a very similar if not identical automobile.

Early one evening at Modern Classic Motors I glanced out the side window and saw a monstrosity of a car parked under the service portico. Curiosity drove me outside to have a good look, try to find out what it was. Walking around, taking in all the gaudy details, gave me no clue to its make, but the term that immediately came to mind was 'pimpmobile'. I had no idea at that point just how prophetic that thought would be.

After a few moments movement inside caught my eye. Down the stairs from the executive offices and out the side door came a short, stout mafia type, complete with cigar, slicked hair, fancy suit and arrogant attitude.  "You like that car?" he asked.  Now, several responses came to mind, along the lines of 'I wouldn't be caught dead in it' and the aforementioned 'pimpmobile'.  However, since he'd come down from an obvious private meeting with someone in upper management, and since I hadn't a clue who he was, my younger, nimbler mind opted for a safer answer.  Along the lines of 'I was just trying to figure out what it is'.

"It's something you don't have and never will have," he responded.  Then he began to tell me all about it.  I remember few of those details -- built in Florida, I believe, on a Lincoln Continental chassis with a custom body and interior. My older and less nimble mind tells me it might have been a Titan, but.... never trust an old and stodgy memory on such details.  After suitably impressing me (not!) with his swagger and pimpmobile, he hopped in and drove away.

I walked back inside the showroom and spoke to another employee.  Something along the lines of 'who the hell was that pompous ass?'.  "You didn't know?" said the employee.  "That was Joe Conforte!"   And then I said something along the lines of 'ahhh -- it was a pimpmobile'.

I don't know if the rest of that movie had any basis in reality, but the mythical owner played by Joe Pesci was definitely driving a custom pimpmobile very similar to the one driven by Mr. Conforte.  The producers got that part right.

Robert Mondavi

It’s no secret that Robert Mondavi was larger than life and the Napa Valley’s greatest booster. His remarkable foresight, drive and ambition unquestionably made significant contributions to the fame and growth of this small winegrowing region of Northern California. His life was legendary, filled with more than a little scandal and gossip, envy and troubles along with great success.

I first met him around 1972, give or take a year. His winery was new – the first new winery to be built in Napa since Prohibition, and the subject of much talk. I worked in San Francisco for Honig, Cooper & Harrington, the largest ad agency in the City at the time, with major clients such as The Clorox Company and Levi-Strauss. I was a lowly secretary in the media department, but I happened to be dating one of the account managers at Clorox and thus became the only non-executive to attend a famed annual event. Each year after the media planning was completed for the coming year, the agency hosted the Clorox execs for a bash. In the year in question, they piled us all on a big tour bus and drove us to the fledgling Robert Mondavi Winery for dinner.

When we arrived, we were met personally by Robert, who greeted us with his characteristic warmth, poured us some wine, chatted a bit then took us on a personally-guided tour of the new facility. There was no action in the winery on a Saturday evening, but we followed catwalks and saw all there was to see, with Robert filling us in on all the details. Back in the dinner area music played, hors d’oeuvres were served and much Robert Mondavi wine was tasted. The big surprise came when we sat down for dinner. I have no memory of what food was served, other than that it was very good, but I remember some of the wines.

At some point during hors d’oeuvres we were served some Hans Kornell Champagne. As we tasted and enjoyed, Hans Kornell himself talked to us about his cellars and his wines. At the table, a different wine was served with each course, and while I don’t remember them specifically, at least 2 or 3 were Mondavi wines, including a wonderful cabernet, and as each was poured Robert spoke to us about that wine. I know there was at least one other winery and winemaker involved, and I’m sorry I don’t remember who it was. The dinner closed with some Christian Brothers Brandy, presented by none other than Brother Timothy himself. Thus was my introduction to the Napa Valley from the inside.

In 1979 I moved to the Valley and during the course of my seven years in the wine industry I encountered Robert often. He and his wife, Margrit, were always the soul of gracious kindness and courtesy and when they spoke to you, they were speaking to you, focused on you alone. We met at parties, at various Napa Wine Auction events, tastings, a private dinner-in-the vineyards hosted by the Mondavi Winery honoring a visiting Spanish winegrower, and a very special evening with a select guest list honoring the handsome young heir apparent of the Biondi-Santi winery in Italy. You may never have heard of this small company, but in any given year their best wines will hit the market at a higher price than say, Romanee-Conti or Chateau Lafite Rothschild. Their Brunello Riserva is cherished, and without doubt the best red wine I have ever tasted. But, that’s a story for a different day.

During the years between my first visit in 1972 and the time I moved away from Napa in 1986, Robert’s winery grew by leaps and bounds, became a virtual beehive of activity, a world-wide center of wine and food and hospitality. It bore little resemblance to the quiet, empty place where we spent that magical evening, although of course the iconic mission-style front stayed the same.

The last time I saw Robert was several years ago when I was visiting the Valley. I drove north out of Napa into the valley and just as I left the edge of town I spotted a familiar bow-legged figure walking along the side of the road, thumbing a ride. It took a moment for my brain to process what I saw, then I pulled over immediately, but not soon enough. Another car had stopped right behind me, closer. He was in his 80’s at the time, and I’ll never know why this giant of the local wine industry was hitching a ride along Highway 29, but I’m sure there would have been a good story to hear if I’d just been a few seconds faster. When he died last year I shed a tear or two, then went out and bought a bottle of his best Cabernet and drank a silent toast to honor this extraordinary man known around the world as Robert Mondavi. We called him Bob.

Uncle Bill

One of the finest parts of my time selling Ferrari at Modern Classic Motors in Reno was Bill Harrah, better known to those of us who loved him as “Uncle Bill”. Make no mistake, I didn’t ‘know’ him in any sense of the word – in fact, I don’t believe he ever spoke a word to me – but he was in the showroom almost daily. I got to know him mostly through observation and tales told by his bodyguards and the person who’d probably known him longest, the Ferrari manager Vern Keil. My only personal encounter with the great man was a near collision, as I rounded a corner in the showroom one day and ran smack into him. I, of course, apologized profusely. He simply walked away. Vern and others who knew the man told me he was not unfriendly, he was merely painfully shy. Hard to believe, but true.

I heard so many wonderful stories, but there are only a few that I really remember and those are the subject of this story. The first comes from personal observation. When I moved to Reno to work at MCM, workers were racing 24/7 to finish the new showroom in time for a scheduled opening party. It was quite an affair – rather formal (I wore a long black slip dress and sexy Bruno Magli 1940s style open-toed pumps) and elegant. Hordes of local dignitaries were invited, the showroom was beautiful and filled with a shining example of every make we would be selling (Rolls-Royce, Ferrari, Aston Martin, BMW, Peugeot, Fiat & Lancia) except Ferrari. Even though we were distributors of Ferrari west of the Mississippi, the new 308 GTB models were scarce and we didn’t have one to put on display. Mr. Harrah had a bright red 308 as his personal car and since it was on the premises, he ordered that it be brought into the showroom. And nobody said ‘no’ to Bill Harrah.

One of the features of the new showroom was an office for Mr. Harrah that was accessed from a private garage. He could stay in that office, which I never entered, or he could enter the showroom from a door he controlled. Another feature of the showroom was its design. Because BMW insisted upon its ‘own’ showroom, the layout consisted of two round pods connected by a low-ceilinged bridge. BMW had one pod, the lower-priced cars had another pod, and the bridge area was meant to hold a Rolls and a Ferrari. The Ferrari was moved from Harrah’s private garage into the empty spot on the showroom and all was well – until the fire alarm went off, blasting loud and clear throughout the showroom and shop. To make matters worse, nobody knew how to turn it off – after all, the showroom was barely finished in time and I guess this issue hadn’t come up. We had to wait until the fire department arrived to quiet the noise. What had set it off? Heat from that mid-engine Ferrari wafting upwards through the horizontal louvers over the engine to the sensors on that low-ceiling. It wasn’t a mistake we made again.

Another from personal observation played out over the next couple of months. Harrah was known as a stickler for neatness and cleanliness and insisted that the giant service shop be cleaned from stem to stern every Friday evening. The mechanics cleaned their own areas, tools were always put away, then a team came in to do the floors. Made of polished concrete, the floors were washed and waxed every week with huge, powerful machines. Despite a sealant and every other trick the cleaners could come up with, grease stains still showed and this drove Harrah up the wall. Yes, he did check it, every week. Finally, he shut the entire service department down for a week and had the floor covered with glazed Italian terra cotta tiles. Yes, a dropped tool could chip one, but the offending tile could be and would be removed and replaced. The tiles worked – an expensive solution, but he didn’t care. Money was never an object for Bill Harrah. The floors were still washed and waxed every Friday night, but there were no more grease stains.

Harrah always traveled with a bodyguard. When he was alone, the guard rode in the car with him, but when he was with his wife or others, the bodyguards had a little 246 Dino chase car. During his visits to the showroom the on-duty bodyguard would generally come out into the showroom and visit with us and we got to know them rather well. They weren’t goons at all – they were nice men who looked like anybody else, but I would not have wanted to get in their way.

The story of the chase car is fairly well known. When the 246 Dino was first released, Harrah ordered one for himself and one for the bodyguards to use as a chase car. Over time, it became apparent that the chase car was faster than Harrah’s car. A lesser man might have insisted that they switch, but Harrah didn’t. He kept the slower car and made a game of trying to outrun the faster one until his Dino was traded off for something else. When he died I was living in Beverly Hills, and I flew back up to Reno to commiserate with some friends who cared about him. Harrah’s personal cars were cared for at the old MCM, a tiny converted garage in downtown Reno. We visited that garage during my visit, and there the famous chase car sat, for sale. I would have mortgaged my soul to buy that car, I think, but my soul wasn’t worth that much and neither was anything else I owned.

One final story – and I wish I could remember more of these. In between his many marriages Harrah was quite a ladies man. When courting a young woman he would always give her the car of her choice. Most of the time, that was easy to do. On one occasion, however, the woman requested a car that was no longer in production – I don’t remember what it was, but it was some big, flashy Detroit model from the previous year or two, and she wanted it with specific accessories in a specific color. Harrah set his auto managers to work trying to find the car in time for some specific occasion – perhaps her birthday. Finally, they located a decent car with all the right toys somewhere in southern Nevada or California, but it was the wrong color. Harrah ordered the car brought to the Harrah’s Auto Collection, which had one of the best auto body restoration shops in the world. Working around the clock, that team stripped and repainted the car the desired color and Harrah was able to present it to his lady love on time.

He was quite a man, well-respected and well-loved in Reno. He lived his life to suit himself, and while the casinos produced his fortune and fame, his first love was always his cars. The auto collection was the finest in the world, and I’m grateful I got to spend time there, see all those cars, before the collection was sold off after his death. I’m also grateful I got to know the man, if only from the outside.

An Embarrassing Moment

I’ve had my share of embarrassing moments. When one has a tendency to live life on the edge, jump in head-first without thinking, a faux pas or two is inevitable.

There was the time when I was 17 and my senior class took a trip to Vienna, Austria. I attended a school for army dependents in Baumholder, Germany so this wasn’t much of a stretch. One night a group of us were sitting late in the lobby of the Prince Eugene Hotel awaiting a few of our more daring classmates who’d gone out on the town. Mind you, this was a formal place, ornate and quiet and staffed with good haughty men. The front doors were locked and when we saw our classmates outside I jumped up and headed to the door to let them in. Impulse. One of the formally-attired men came up, looked down at me with his most disapproving sneer, and said “You are the doorman?” Oops. That was pretty embarrassing, but I think it’s safe to say that the most embarrassing moment came in the spring of 1976.

I often say that 1976 was a big year for me, and it was. I had a mad, passionate relationship with the assistant conductor of the San Francisco Symphony; I went on my first backpacking trip – 10 wonderful days in the backcountry of Yosemite and Kings Canyon; I spent almost three incredible months temping as vacation replacement for the catering manager at the 5-star Clift Hotel; I moved to Reno and became a Ferrari salesperson and I jumped head first into the California presidential primary campaign for Jimmy Carter. Quite a year.

When I called to volunteer for the Carter Campaign they offered me my choice of two paid positions: office manager, or executive assistant to the campaign chairmen for California and the western states. Not surprisingly, I chose the latter. I always like to be right in the middle of where things are happening. The job was unspecified. We made it up as we went along and dealt with crises that arose. Among other duties I handled the money, fielded phone calls nobody else wanted to deal with and whatever else came along at any given time. I can safely say there was never a dull moment. Eventually, the two campaign managers and I closeted ourselves in a large corner office with three desks and a closed door, simply so we could escape the mayhem of the rest of the place.

Because of our enforced isolation, I rarely went into the bullpen area where the volunteers and office staff hung out, and I couldn’t even tell you which office handled the press or other necessary functions. I recognized faces, perhaps knew some names, but rarely did my path cross that of most others on a daily basis. We all had our jobs to do and little time for pleasantries. I always knew what was going on, who was traveling through town on what date, but I had no hand in setting any of it up and the dignitaries rarely visited the campaign office. They flew in for a speech or fundraiser and flew out.

One of our full-time volunteers was an extraordinary African-American woman, a graduate of Bryn Mawr married to the first African-American to receive dual degrees in law and medicine. Both of them were beautiful human beings. She always knew more about what was going on in the rest of the office than I did, because she answered phones, worked with the volunteers, happily accepted whatever menial chore might be asked of her. We became fast friends, always stopping to chat at some point of our long, crazy days. I think her name was Betty and I hope she’ll forgive me if my memory 33 years later is faulty. Other than Betty and the office manager, I really didn’t know any of the others very well and the volunteers came and went. I offer all this as an excuse.

One of the dignitaries who came through was Andrew Young, the prominent civil rights leader, activist and humanitarian who’d marched with Martin Luther King, been mayor of Atlanta and would later go on to even greater things. I knew he was coming, and because of Betty I knew that he would be staying overnight at her home. She told me that even in that day and age African-Americans often preferred to avoid hotels when possible. I filed all this information away and forgot about it, as I did with all the other dignitaries.

My usual tendency was to arrive at the office early and retire directly to my office, usually with one of the campaign managers. Rarely was anyone else around at that hour but since campaign headquarters were in Atlanta, our west coast hours left us way behind the beginning of every day. On the morning in question I followed routine, but found myself in need of staples, or some other mundane bit of office supply, so I wandered down the dark hallway and into the dark bullpen area in search. Nobody else was there and the lights hadn’t been turned on and I didn’t bother because the big, old double-hung windows gave enough ambient light that I could see what I needed to see. Normally, I’d have asked the office manager for supplies so I didn’t know where they were and had to poke and pry into cabinets, totally focused and needing to get back into my office. At some point I was vaguely aware that another person was in the shadows of the room, but in my focused frenzy and because I was used to strangers milling about, I didn’t pay any attention to them. Until I heard a voice behind me say, “Hi, I’m Andy Young”.

This got my attention. I spun around, looked up to a smiling face and a hand reaching out in friendship. All manner of thoughts raced through my mind, not the least of which was utter chagrin at having ignored his presence in the room. I was also a little star-struck and I believe some groveling was involved as we shook hands. He was kind and gracious and beautiful and we shared a few moments of private conversation there in that dark room.

My most embarrassing moment? No doubt. But at the same time one of the most incredibly special moments I ever experienced. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.