West Hollywood, September 1985I've been in California for only a couple of months, but I'm completely star struck! I've met Michael J. Fox, Scott Valentine, Robin Williams, Dean Paul Martin, Chris Makepeace -- I can't even keep track -- and heard about a lot more.
I'm asking every guy I meet about the celebrities they dated or tricked with. Sylvester Stallone, Scott Baio, Rob Lowe, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ted Danson...I could write a book!
It's the morning after my date with Artie, a chubby older guy with weird rings and gold chains around his neck, reeking of cologne -- not at all my type. I just accepted the date because I thought he would have a lot of celebrity dating stories (he didn't).
While Artie is frying bacon and eggs, his roommate comes out of the bedroom. Naked.
A black guy in his mid-30s, slim, short black hair, round face, bleary-eyed. His thin Kielbasa+ semi-aroused!
I'm not used to seeing naked roommates, especially ones who are cuter than the guy I'm on a date with, and I flash him a cruisy smile. Artie notices and frowns with obvious jealousy.
"Pleased to meet cha," Oliver says. He crosses over to the kitchen and pours himself a cup of coffee, then sits at the table, his knee "accidentally" pressing against mine. "Are you in the business? I'm an agent -- Cloris Leachman is one of my clients. I definitely could get you some work."
Before I can answer, Artie brings over the bacon and eggs on a plate and squeezes in between us, trying to defuse the cruise. "Boomer's studying Renaissance Italian at USC, He can speak five languages. He's not into anything so low-brow as movies."
"Actually, we were just talking about celebrity dating stories," I tell him. "You must have some good stories."
"I'm afraid Oliver doesn't have time to..."
"I got plenty of time, bro." He thinks for a moment. "How about this one: the very first big stars I ever got down my throat. Andy Griffith."
"No way!" I exclaim. Not The countrified hick of No Time for Sergeants! The harbinger of conservative American "just plain folks" values on The Andy Griffith Show, about a small-town Southern sheriff in the days when folk loved Law and Order just as much as Aunt Bee's prize-winning apple pie!
"Please!" Artie exclaims. "He trained to become a Moravian minister, and released an album of Country Gospel songs. No way he's gay!"
"Well, maybe not gay for white boys, but definitely into dark meat."
Hollywood, September 1970
Oliver wanted to be a dancer as long as he could remember. When he was only fifteen, he was dancing on American Bandstand and on The Swinging Times Review at the Palm Theater in Detroit. After high school, he enrolled in the Dayton Dance Academy, but after a year he dropped out and moved to Hollywood, where he crashed with a friend and made the rounds of auditions.
In the summer of 1970, his lithe physique landed him a walk-on role on The Headmaster (1970-1971), with 44-year old Andy Griffith trying to escape country-hick typecasting by playing the headmaster of an elite private school in California. Oliver played a track star who jostled his buddy and said something like "Dig the cool cat."
Just one line in an annoying jive -- did the writers really think that Afro-Americans talked like Sambo? -- and Andy Griffith wasn't even in the scene. But Oliver saw him watching all during the taping, and figured he must be doing something right.
Sure enough, he was immediately cast in the next episode, as Normie in "The Experiment." This time he had a whole conversation with the Headmaster, and a hand-on-shoulder moment that, for some reason, took a dozen takes -- Andy kept flubbing his lines and laughing.The next day Andy called Oliver's agent and asked him to come to his house to discuss "making Normie an ongoing character."
This was rather unusual, but he figured, big stars are eccentric. And he had the chance to play an ongoing character in a show that was sure to run for years! So on Saturday he drove out to the house in Beverly Hills.
The full story, with nude photos and explicit sexual situations, is on Tales of West Hollywood.