Gray Hair

In Nina J. Easton's Off-Centerpiece in Film Clips ("Agents Take Notes: There'll Be a Quiz After the Movie," Calendar, July 28), she writes that a recent USC film graduate "estimates that in the last couple of weeks he has talked to 65 agents at 11 companies." Are these the same agents who seldom return their client's telephone calls? Are they the same people who regard any writer or director over the age of 30 as untouchables?

Denise Arant, read your bylaws and CC&R's. There isn't a subject (problem) you mentioned that is not covered by those rules and regulations. At Greentree Gardens in Montclair, the board of directors incorporated fines of $25 plus for all infractions of the rules (loud music at any time, loose & barking dogs, improper parking, wild children, etc.). I had to answer this article because scenarios of that type are misleading and give townhome and condo associations an undeserved bad reputation and depressed value.

Being on the board of directors of a homeowners association is a whole lot like the old joke about being tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail . . . if it wasn't for the honor I would have just as soon walked. However, like another very old joke, it's a filthy, rotten, dirty job, but somebody's got to do it. After two years, one as treasurer, one as president, I have compiled a list of the problem people encountered by a board member.

It's hard to believe that Andy Van Rassel was born in 1918, or that Bill Kramer was entering the first grade when America was hurled into the Great Depression. They're senior citizens now, retired, their professional lives behind them, but if you look beyond the wrinkles and mats of gray-flecked hair, you'll see something else. Look in their eyes and you see the competitive spirit of a teen-ager; look at their legs and you see the well-toned muscles of an athlete.

For 15 years, Vince Boyle was on the other side, the side that hired and fired, the side that came up with all sorts of creative excuses for handling the unpleasantries of corporate personnel policy. As vice president for human resources, Boyle was in on the power meetings. He knew the mind set well. "It's not what's written down," he says. "It's what's said in the boardroom that counts. . . . It's a feeling, a psychological feeling." So when the time came, nobody spelled it out.

Concern was mounting Tuesday about the welfare of a mentally retarded Los Angeles resident, as authorities began the second week of their search for the missing elderly man. James Robinson, 70, has been missing since Christmas Eve, when he attended services at the Pico-Arlington Christian Church on the 3400 block of West Pico Boulevard. Robinson is described as white, 5 feet, 6 inches tall and 180 pounds, with gray hair combed straight back and cut to just below his ears.

Does she or doesn't she? That was the question whispered to women from hair color ads a decade or so ago (only her hairdresser knew for sure). But with Barbara Bush soon to be the first silver-haired First Lady since Bess Truman, the question has become, "Why doesn't she?" Why do some women stay gray while so many of their sisters dye, dye away? For state Sen. Marian Bergeson, the answer is simple: "You base your priorities on what you're doing. Dyeing your hair is very time-consuming.

It was quite a picture. In the foreground on Heliotrope Avenue in Hollywood stood theater designer Robert Zentis wearing shiny black patent leather shoes, white pants and an even whiter cotton top, his balding head highlighted by an explosion of curly gray hair. In the background, the Heliotrope Theatre facade was a painted fantasia of rainbows, floating bubbles, candy-colored ocean vistas and psychedelic skyscapes. Zentis held a mock-up of the facade in his hand.