In 1974, Lana told me about her enduring gratitude toward my father. Of course, it didn't hurt that all through her early years, the Reporter regularly covered Lana's career. In 1948, she personally demonstrated that gratitude by asking Wilkerson to be best man at her third wedding (to Bob Topping). Flattered, my father offered his house for the ceremony and the couple delightfully accepted.
She recalled her discovery with gushy tenderness. "Other people over the years have been attributed with saying those lines. But it was your father who said them, which I think is even more enchanting because it was your father who did find me, even though Mervyn LeRoy gave me my chance. God knows where I'd have been if I hadn't been at that time and place where your father saw me."
