Bowling for $

If you grew up in Los Angeles somewhere around the middle of the last century you may have watched a television show named Bowling For Dollars. I can't remember what station aired it but I am sure it was one of the local ones – 5, 9, 11 or 13. I also can't remember how many years that it was on, but I would be surprised if it was more than 2 or 3. There may have been more than one person who served as the emcee but I do remember Chick Hearn doing many of the shows that I watched. The basic bit was selecting post cards from viewers during each show to appear the following week as contestants. As a contestant, you would have a chance to throw a total of 3 balls down the alley with the top prize being a paltry amount ($100?) for 3 straight strikes (known as a turkey). This was a long time ago and the details are a little vague – I don't recall if they had automatic pin setters at the time or if the pins were replaced by hand. Chick would invite up each contestant and go through a few pleasantries before turning them loose to try their luck. It was very similar to the format they follow today on the lottery show where people are called up to spin a wheel.

In addition to the 3 john public contestants they would also have a Hollywood personality plug their latest deed, bowl, and donate any winnings to charity. The Hollywood people that
showed up covered a wide range, Mickey Rooney once as I remember, but mostly bottom feeders as you can imagine. The night that really stands out to me in retrospect was when Greta Garbo showed up. Chick Hearn went through his paces as though there was nothing out of the ordinary. During the pre-bowling chit-chat,  it was revealed that Greta initiated the idea of appearing on the show as it was her favorite television program. Her interest in the show was due to her having grown up in the borscht belt where the Swedes, Poles and Slavs were dead serious about bowling. In fact, she was somewhat of a teenage phenom, won several competitions and was a rabid fan of professional bowler Don Carter. 

I was about 7 years old at the time and had no idea who the hell she was. Both my parents were spellbound and this caused me to take note although I had no idea how surreal this all was at the time. Miss Garbo had to be in her mid-50s and wore a plain dress that went down to her ankles. She looked skinny to me and I had trouble understanding her because of her accent. She was a southpaw and threw a mean back-up ball. She used a 4 step approach with a brisk vertical hop right before she started her backswing. Despite looking frail, the ball would end up directly overhead on her backswing, then she would drop down low on one bent knee and whip it through on her delivery like a shot. The best part was the end of her follow through where she stood motionless for several seconds on one foot with an arm on one side and a leg on the other, both extended perpendicular to the alley – like a hood ornament on a Duesenberg.

This turned out to be one of those experiences you have where it isn't until many years later that you fully appreciate the significance. I have asked friends who also grew up in Los Angeles around that time if they remembered Bowling For Dollars. A few did remember the program but no one that I have asked as of yet remembers seeing the show with Greta Garbo. I think the people I have asked were similar in age to me at the time and therefore such a spectacle went unnoticed as the name Greta Garbo meant nothing to them as well.

In the early 1950s, life in Los Angeles was very innocent and uncomplicated - if you were a kid you could get away with a lot largely due to the fact that that most everybody did what they were told and everyone was expected to toe the line. There were probably 10 million fewer people, 5 million fewer cars and 35 million fewer dogs. If anybody back then had said people would someday be picking up their dog's shit and taking it back home with them, they would have been institutionalized. There weren't any lines at the movies or anywhere else; there wasn't any traffic. If you wanted to go to Huntington Beach or any of the west LA beaches for the day, you had to take surface streets all the way and never thought twice about it cause it took less time then than it does now. When you got to the Beach there were places to park free of charge.. The Pasadena freeway was the only freeway.  The Eagle Rock neighborhood streets were so quiet my dog would sometimes lie in the street in front of the house on Norwalk Avenue.