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When Rick finally arrived in Hollywood John called again and suggested he bring Rick around to my apartment and let him to watch a VHS tape I happened to have for one of Martin’s films that Rick had longed to see but which never played on Canadian TV. The film in question turned out to be my own personal favorite, HOUSE OF HORRORS! I could not help but notice how different John was behaving about this boy, and what sacrifices he was willing to endure to please him. I never thought I would show such a film to John Abbott, who could have cared less about sitting down to watch a Universal horror film, especially when he was not even in it.

The next day John arrived at my front door with Rick, who was indeed very handsome and wholesome… a decent guy after all. I had the film all set up so, after a few moments of chat, we sat down to watch the hulking Rondo Hatton take up his domestic relationship with the mad sculptor Martin Kosleck. Rick was a total fan watching this film, as he had seen stills from it all his life and now he was actually getting to see it for real. John was tolerant throughout most of the film, but still could not resist ragging on Virginia Grey who was playing the love interest. ‘That woman left her brains in the make-up chair.” It was so obvious that John had no patience for glamour girls of any kind at any time, even in a film. After the film, Rick asked if he could make a long distance call to let his girlfriend in Canada know that he had finally seen HOUSE OF HORRORS and was at the moment in a real cool apartment in Beverly Hills that had framed posters of Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes in the hall. On top of everything else the guy was straight! However this really was not the point at all, as John was not a predatory gay man. His feelings were not unlike that of Thomas Mann’s character in DEATH IN VENICE: John was responding to this boy in the only way he could, as a mentor and guide through Hollywood and its golden past. This was about as Classically Greek as it gets in Lotus land.

I had hoped seeing Martin in that film would jog some memories with John of their work on the Holmes film, which was shot in the same period of time. John remembered Martin of course, but as I already suspected did not socialize outside of shooting the film itself.

However, John did talk about working on a Nina Foch werewolf film over at Columbia called CRY OF THE WEREWOLF. “I am the first character you see in the film and there was an actress in that film named Blanche Yurka who played Nina’s gypsy servant and the studio felt we had real chemistry together! So believe it or not Columbia wanted to pair us in a series of horror films calling us THE GRUESOME TWOSOME. Blanche and I did some publicity for the werewolf film and then all the interest seem to just fade away and no more “Gruesome twosome.” He laughed about the fact the studio had no budget for a werewolf so they used German Shepherds. In the film’s opening credits the dogs had peanut butter placed on the roofs of their mouths so they would appear to howl on cue.

I tried to bring Martin up in the conversation again by mentioning that both actors had worked on the highly regarded TV series THRILLER, with Boris Karloff as the host. John loved doing his “little bit” in one episode in which he kept the head of the Medusa on tap to “gorganize” evildoers. “That one was directed by a woman – Ida Lupino. She knew her business and it was a pleasure to work with her”. He was unaware that Kosleck had done one as well. Martin’s episode was one of the best, called WAXWORKS, from a short story by Robert Bloch. Both these men had such presence when they performed, it was a shame that they never got to act in something together, or so I thought at the time.

As we began to plan this special evening for John’s visitor from Canada, I decided to ask our mutual friend Tony to take me over to meet with Martin Kosleck, something I had wanted to do in any case…

The next afternoon Tony and I drove into West Hollywood to have drinks with the talented Martin Kosleck The first thing I was told as we got closer to the house itself was that in the last few years Martin had suffered a stoke and his left arm was slightly paralyzed, so I was not to be surprised if his mood might change during the course of our visit. When we arrived Martin was seated in his favorite chair in the living room of the little house he shared with his long time companion, Christopher Drake. Chris was an actor at one time as well (they both appeared in the exploitation horror film, THE FLESH EATERS, with Martin playing yet another Nazi). This was not the first actor that Martin had chosen to share his home with; in fact, back in the 1940’s he had lived with one of the young actors from PURSUIT TO ALGEIRS, a not so talented blond named Leslie Vincent.

Martin was in a very receptive mood when we arrived, as he seemed to have polished off half a jumbo-sized jug of vin rose wine with a label that read ‘Mother Ciber.’, I seem to remember seeing this vintage over at the local Trader Joe’s, not the best by any means, but as Martin would later testify, it gets you there regardless of its quality. It was a bit alarming to watch him grab the glass handle of this huge jug with his one good hand and keep his glass filled. I suppose part of the logic in having the bottle by your side is not to ever feel the need to ask someone to fix your drink. Our Martin was nothing if not thoughtful.

Tony brought me over in front of Martin for a proper introduction and he quickly took Tony’s hand in his one good one exclaiming “Oh Tony you look so tall and handsome today doesn’t he?” Of course I said yes and then introduced myself. Martin then went into this somewhat prepared speech about movie interviewers especially for my benefit. “You see, David, I was taken advantage of by a deceitful young man who called me up one day asking if he could interview me, so I said fine and before you knew it he had come to my house with a tape recorder, did the interview, and then asked if he could borrow some of my posters and photographs from my horror films from the old days at Universal. Well I never heard from him again and my posters were never returned. As you may realize, those pieces were worth quite a bit of money. I am only allowing this visit now because we love Tony, don’t we Chris?”

By then Chris had tactfully disappeared into the back bedroom so I seized the moment to assure Martin that I was only there to meet one of my favorite actors and had no evil plans up my sleeve to do him any mischief. Once we all had a drink in our hands, Tony and I took our seats in front of the great man and I began to try and break the ice. It did not take too long for Martin to warm up to me as I passed his tests of knowing something about actors and the business. I hesitated to tell him about my time as an agent for fear of another depressing anecdote.

I had brought a couple of stills from HOUSE OF HORRORS for him to sign and once he realized that I probably had more movie memorabilia of my own then he ever did,
Martin began to feel more relaxed, allowing the fascinating raconteur side of his personality to come forth, regaling us with tales about his life in the spotlight. Since he had lived a very full life by anyone’s standards, I don’t think he really cared much about how he appeared to other people, much less what they might think of him, thus making him all the more candid about his personal life.

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