CITY FOCUS: Reconnecting through art

A local resident received a very special birthday present this year.

Bob Henry, vice president of the Festival of Arts/Pageant of the Masters board of directors, portrayed a clerk in Norman Rockwell’s “The Marriage License” at the Pageant’s July 28 show.

“The director wanted to cast him from the very beginning,” said Sharbie Higuchi, Pageant director of marketing and public relations. “He was unable to commit to the whole summer, but he did do a special appearance the day after his birthday.”

The experience was especially meaningful for Henry, an Emmy and Peabody award-winning producer and director, as he had previously collaborated with Rockwell on a television show depicting his works some 30 years ago. He got the idea from Laguna’s own pageant.

A co-worker first told Henry about the Pageant in the mid-1950s.

“I was directing a show, and he came in and said, ‘Boy, did I see a fabulous show last night,’” Henry said. “He told me that it’s not fair to try to explain it, and that I had to see it to believe it. I went down to Laguna that weekend in my Chevrolet.”

“When I saw the show, I totally agreed with him; now I tell other people, ‘You really have to see it to believe it.’”

“Every time they did a Rockwell, a little titter would run through the audience — no big belly laughs, but enough to say, ‘We like this.’ I’m very sensitive to even a snicker; when I hear a snicker, I see a gold sign.”

Henry, 87, has produced and directed shows featuring Nat King Cole, Andy Williams and the Carpenters, in addition to the popular Flip Wilson show. But his first love is comedy.

“I don’t think there’s a doctor I’ve encountered who doesn’t agree with me that laughter helps people with illnesses recover,” he said.

After the Flip Wilson show, “I tried to think of another one-shot idea,” he said. After witnessing the audience’s reaction to the Rockwell tableaux at the Pageant year after year, he knew he had a hit on his hands.

“So I picked up the phone and said, ‘Could I have the number for Norman Rockwell?’ The operator connected me, and he answered the phone. He sounded just like a Norman Rockwell should. I told him that my notion was to do Rockwell paintings on television and have his pictures come to life. He had seen the Pageant, so he knew what I was talking about. Only in this case, my notion was to write a different sketch about each of Rockwell’s characters.”

Henry assembled a first-rate cast to perform in the one-hour show. Jonathan Winters served as host, and Tom Smothers (of the Smothers Brothers) and Michelle Lee played all the parts. Some sketches were serious, and others dealt with light-hearted topics.

“When the show aired that night, people were calling me until one in the morning,” Henry said. “I said, ‘My God, this has never happened to me before.’ At 8 a.m., I get a phone call from the show’s (advertising) agency, J. Walter Thompson. They asked, ‘Bob, do you think that they have TV tape recorders at the White House?’ And I said, ‘I have to be honest with you; I don’t know why you’re asking.’ They said, ‘We think this is a program that every American should see.’”

Henry paused. “I love this country. I’m not a blind patriot or anything like that, but I think it’s a pretty darn good country.”

Henry is originally from New England, and then moved to Los Angeles. He’s spent the past 20 years or so in Laguna.

“I love Laguna,” he said; “For me, it fit like a glove. “When I first visited, it was the closest thing to seaside towns and villages in Cape Cod and the coast of Maine.

“I used to just rent a place; then I eventually bought into it.”

Today, Henry is involved with the Garden Club and is active in support of the proposed new senior center facility.

Henry’s primary draw to the town was always the Pageant, though.

“After that first encounter, I became a regular. A lady named Sally who worked in promotions heard I was in TV and invited me down as a guest,” Henry said.

“So I came every year. Then she said, ‘Since you like it so much, why don’t you become a member of the Board of Directors?’ I said, ‘Oh, wow, that’s a big reach.’”

Now a longtime board member, Henry recalls the “crazy combination of circumstances” that led up to his becoming president of the board, then vice president.

“It’s been a fabulous lesson in life; all of life’s a lesson,” he said.

“A number have tried, but to my knowledge, no one has ever come up with anything like the Pageant, and it’s because of the unique situation that some people from 70 years ago wanted to promote the artists and their works in a little town called Laguna.

“It’s a labor of love,” Henry said.