Thursday, May 14, 2020

CHARLES "CHUCK" BURNES - 2-14-31 - 4-29-20


Posted by Chic Silber at 5/14/2020 10:35:00 AM

3 comments:

Chic Silber said...


This image might have been flipped

(but not by me) as all other show

his hat on the other side

I can easily fix it if that's so

14 May, 2020 10:57
Roger Smith said...

You're right. His hat was perched always on his right side.

Chuck and Bambi departed from Ringling after 7 seasons to explore horizons in California. They had fortunate connections. Chuck got on at Disneyland's Jungle Boat Cruise, and Bambi tended bar at the Playboy Club. This bar was so titled before Hef's lawyers bought up that name and paid businesses to cease and desist. This Playboy was around the curve from the famous Bronson Gate, at Paramount Studios, down at the end of Marathon Street, as it came to Melrose Avenue. Bambi got the current Paramount stars in for lunch, and told of BONANZA'S Dan "Hoss" Blocker knocking back 6 beers over 4 sandwiches. Her favorite was the gentlemanly Vincent Price, who invited her to visit his working set.

This bar is long gone, as is Marathon Steet. The iconic studio gate is still there, but is now set far back in a reconfigured Paramount lot.

Chuck and Bambi lived in an apartment on Vista Del Mar, in the shadow of the Capitol Records Building. I visited them there in '63. On that parking lot, in 1946, the first hit was carried out by the West Coast division of Murder, Inc. The victim was "Big Greenie" Greenberg, and the shooter was no less than Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, the "founder" of Las Vegas.


14 May, 2020 13:11
Chic Silber said...


I just spoke with Kenny who

says that Chuck had the best

whiteface makeup he ever saw

& that it read like a million

dollars from any distance

Indeed he wore his hat over

the right side of his head

(this has now been flipped)

14 May, 2020 13:12

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