Learning How to Fly

Kevin, Kojak and Near Death

Max’s manager introduced me to Vince Conte who was one of the best photographers in L.A. and Vince took my first Hollywood headshots. He also became a very good friend. Beautiful actresses were always coming and going in and out of his house but it took me awhile to realize that some of them weren’t exactly actresses. Vince was friends with a many famous actors and Las Vegas performers. Somehow a lot of Vince’s actresses ended up with these celebrities; sometimes short term, sometimes longer. As for me, Vince always told me that if anyone ever tried to come on to me, I was to report it to him and he would put a stop to it. Vince had a houseboy named Tiger, a young man in his early twenties with brown stringy hair down to his shoulders. One day he came to me and asked, “Why are you hanging around Vince and coming to the house all the time, Britt? Why do you want to be a part of this?” I told him I didn’t understand what he was talking about; Vince was my photographer and my friend. It took awhile for me to figure out who and what Vince really was.

Vince arranged for me to be invited to a party in Bel Air with one of the other actresses (a real one) who hung out at his house. When we arrived, the hostess was apologizing for the inadequacy of her big mansion. She insisted that they were just renting and would buy something much better soon. To me, owning that house would have been a dream come true. We met the other guests: Mama Cass, Cheryl Tiegs, Daryl Zanuck and his wife Linda Harrison, and many others. When we sat down to dinner,  they started passing around a sugar bowl and putting what I assumed was sugar on a small spoon and holding it up to their noses to sniff. I wondered what the heck these people were doing! Weird! I decided rich and famous people had some strange habits. I let the sugar bowl pass me by.