View of Laguna’s stars

Barbara Diamond

Longtime Laguna Beach residents Katy and the late John Weld will be

the subjects of a full-length biographical film to be produced by

Laguna Films.

“John, who passed away in June 2003 at the age of 98, lived a

remarkable life,” said Roger Jones, executive producer of Laguna

Films. “He was a silent screen stuntman in Hollywood’s golden age,

doubling for stars such as John Barrymore, Charlie Chaplin, Tom Mix,

Buck Jones and Laurel and Hardy. A number of his more spectacular

stunts will be recreated in the film.”

“Financing is almost completed for the film,” said Jones, also a

longtime resident of Laguna and author of three books, the first of

which was “The History of Villa Rockledge,” the historical waterfront

property he owns here.

“John and Katy were together for 67 years, and their love story is

prominently featured in the film,” Jones said. “‘Chasing the Moon’

will be a tribute to the remarkable life they shared and the many

lives they touched.”

John Weld had already led an adventurous life by the time he met

his future wife.

In Hollywood during the mid-1920s, he had become good friends with

Clark Gable, then an unknown, fresh from the oil fields.

“They used to run around together in John’s yellow Stutz touring

car, going from one studio to another looking for work -- there was

no central casting in those days,” Jones said.

Weld made one of his most fateful connections at a party in 1926

hosted by Marion Davies. The guest list included Davies’ paramour,

newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst, Chaplin, powerful Hollywood

columnist Louella Parsons and her daughter, Harriet, with whom Weld

became fast friends.

“John and Harriet spent the next few weeks swimming in Chaplin’s

pool, playing tennis at Pickfair [the home of Douglas Fairbanks and

Mary Pickford] and attending film parties,” Jones said.

Weld, who had the looks of a matinee idol and the courtly manners

of a southern gentleman, refused the influential Parson’s offer of an

acting job interview at the MGM studio. He did accept a job as a

reporter for a Hearst newspaper in New York, arranged by Parsons.

After a successful stint there, during which he covered “The Great

Race” and saw Charles Lindbergh for the first time, Weld headed for

Paris -- ex-patriot heaven at the time.

He arrived in Europe on a Belgian freighter two days after

Lindbergh landed the Lone Eagle at Le Bourget Airport and immediately

joined the staff of the Herald Tribune, assigned to cover the

public’s newest favorite.

In Paris, John met and socialized with luminaries in arts and

literature such as James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway,

Alexander Calder, Henry Miller and Pablo Picasso.

“After a brief affair with charming Patricia Warrington, John was

challenged to a duel by the lady’s husband, a wealthy French count,”

Jones said. “Athletic John, who learned fencing as Hollywood stunt

man, surprised the count. Asked where he learned to fence, John

replied, ‘John Barrymore taught me.’”

Five years of Paris were enough for Weld, and he returned to

Hollywood as a screenwriter for Columbia and met the love of his

life.

Then using the stage name of GiGi Parrish, the future Mrs. Weld

was a guest at a party at the North Laguna oceanfront home of famed

pilot and Hollywood stunt pilot “Pancho” Barnes.

Barnes, once known as the fastest woman on earth, competed in the

first Powder Puff Derby and in 1930 beat Amelia Earhart’s

cross-country air-speed record. Barnes was featured in “The Right

Stuff,” as proprietor of the Happy Bottom Riding Club, a place of R &

R for pilots at Edwards Air Base. Her life also was the subject of a

TV biography.

However, it was the delicious GiGi who captured Weld’s attention

at the party. Never mind she was there with her husband, Dillwyn

Parrish, cousin of artist Maxfield Parrish.

The Parishes had been married Oct. 3, 1927, in Claymont, Del. And

had left the same day to travel across the country on single cylinder

Harley Davidson motorcycles.

Their honeymoon over dirt and gravel roads was marred when the

16-year-old bride plunged off a bridge in New Mexico, forcing the

couple to continue the trip to Los Angeles by train.

Family friend and Chaplin cinematographer Gordon Pollack was so

impressed by the young Mrs. Parrish’s beauty that he arranged a

screen test with Samuel Goldwyn. She was given a contract. After

playing a role in “Roman Scandals,” a 1933 film starring comedian

Eddie Cantor and newcomer Lucille Ball, Parish was chosen as the 1934

Western Assn. of Motion Picture Advertiser “Baby Star.”

Parrish subsequently divorced her husband and married Weld. They

moved to Laguna Beach and bought the News Post and a Ford dealership.

Weld wrote a weekly column for the newspaper that always concluded

with “Laguna, I love you.”

A collection of the columns was published in book form, one of the

12 he wrote. A 13th was never published.

Weld’s historical novel, titled “Don’t Cry for Me,” was given the

entire front page of the New York Times Book Review section in March

1940. It was the epic tale of the Donner Party tragedy and has been

compared favorably with the “Book of Exodus,” the “Odyssey,” the

“Aeneid” and the “March of the Ten Thousand,” “Chasing the Moon”

producer Jones said.

Jones’ film will lean heavily on information in Weld’s book, “Fly

Away Home, Memoirs of a Hollywood Stunt Man,” published in 1990.

Much of the filming will take place on Hollywood studio sets, but

several hair-raising adventures will be shot in other locations,

including the scene in which the Welds are trapped on a sinking

freighter in freezing water 20 miles from Yokahama, Japan. Weld

actually did go down with the ship when his lifejacket caught on a

stairway, and he nearly drowned. This dramatic shipwreck sequence

will be recreated on the same Fox Studio set in Mexico where

“Titanic” and “Master and Commander” were filmed.

“With the combination of death-defying stunts and love story, the

film, which will be rated PG-13, is expected to have universal appeal

to moviegoers of all ages,” Jones said.

Filming is scheduled to begin in June for a release in December.