Assignment Earth

David Carradine - French Riviera

In ’89 my college band went on our second trip to the French Riviera in the City of Nice to perform in their version of Mardi Gras, known as Carnivale.   In the week we were there we played many concerts and marched in many parades  – every day.   And most of the time several of each a day, several times a day.   It was a wild experience and that alone is worth it’s own blog entry.   However, every afternoon of that week we marched a 2 to 3 hour long parade called the Festival of Roses parade.  And along that route we marched, lined with hotels, was a room three floors up with an American flag draped over the balcony railing.  Somebody, whoever was in that room, would wave to us everyday.   It was on the third or fourth day a woman called down to us.   We walked over to the hotel and she said she was David Carradine’s wife and he wanted to meet us.   She yelled down, “Hey, cowboys!”  “This is David Carradine’s room.   I’m David Carradine’s wife.  Come on up”

*Now a note on her, as I remember it, she said she’d written the theme song to the TV show The Fall Guy.  At any rate, about 5 or 6 of us went up and as we got to the lobby doors a stringy haired, scratch voiced, hippie looking woman let us in.   She said, “I told David the cowboys (our band uniform is cowboy garb) were here. And he said, $#*! honey, have ’em come on up!”

So we did.  I mean, after an invitation like that…

We got up to his room and he greeted us in a white bathrobe and was drinking something clear the whole time (gin, vodka…I don’t know….I didn’t really know my liquors at the time.).   I remember looking down and seeing his bare ‘ kung fu’ feet.   They were big and I thought “Wow! That’s David Carradine’s kung fu feet.” While we were there he also put in his false ‘kung fu’ teeth in front of us too.   Now here’s the part I regret.   As I said we were in uniform, and it’s stated in the rules of our group that you will never drink or smoke in uniform.   Well, I don’t smoke, and as I said I didn’t even really know gin or vodka back then, but how many times do you get to drink with David Carradine in the luxury suite some movie company is putting him up on the French Riviera?!   I was with others who turned him down.  I was disappointed that the majority spoke for me.

Oh well. He was very cordial to us.   The allure of our western outifits aside, he seemed genuinely interested in who we were and in just talking to some Americans.  We talked Kung Fu, the western movie he did with his brothers “The Long Riders”, the movie he was doing there in France (I think he was playing a jewel theif or something), his dad John Carraddine.  Other things.   In general he was a nice guy.

Some other band members went back to see him later and he sat down with them and played them a song on the guitar.  From my friend’s accounts it was a bluesy number called ” ‘Cause I’m Evil” with that title coming up in the refrain every time.   I don’t know if they were in uniform but they had a drink with him.  As well they should.

One final note.   I’m not in the picture above.   I was taking the shot.   And I can’t find the ones with me and him together right now.  My brother Michael’s on the far right.   That’s close enough isn’t it?  But rather than waste more time looking for those…and before the anniversary of his death (June 3, one year ago) goes too far by…here’s to David Carradine…..in or out of uniform.