"He and Mrs. Zanuck got out and walked the rest of the way to the theater, and the tow truck, which we had there for the first time, towed away his Rolls-Royce while everyone stuck in the snarled traffic whistled and applauded."
Metzler said that he engaged in a friendly war with Joan Crawford for many years over the free Coca-Cola that was given out as a promotion to everyone at the Oscars. As a member of the board of Pepsico, she always cajoled him to switch to her brand. Whenever he told her he couldn't dump Coke for Pepsi, she'd uninvite him to her post-Oscar champagne party.
But it was also Crawford who taught him a timeless lesson in being a star. In 1962, Crawford had to rush out toward the end of the Oscar ceremony to catch a plane to New York. Metzler was charged with escorting her out the back to her chauffeured car.
"And from out of nowhere, kids 12, 13 years old came running up to her wanting autographs," he said. "She was flattered and looked genuinely pleased, so I figured she wanted to autograph these things for them and I stopped. She said, 'Keep on moving, Bob. You never stop. You just walk and you smile and you sign and you open the door to your car and you get in and you blow a kiss to everyone and away you go.' And that was the last I saw of her."
LIVELY GATHERING
The annual symposium of foreign film nominees was one of the liveliest ever. F7.
