Climbing the Beanstalk to Hollywood with Bobby Riha

Jack and the Beanstalk co-star BOB RIHA, JR. remembers Gene Kelly, Bill Hanna, Joe Barbera, Sammy Davis Jr., Kurt Russell, Lesley Ann Warren, and his journey from child actor to superstar photographer.

Episode Transcript

(00:26):
Welcome to the Fantastic World of Hannah and Barbera, a
celebration of Bill, Hannah, JoeBarbera and the thousands of
people, past and present who have shared in their
entertainment tradition. And now your host, Greg Airbar.
Thank you, Chris Anthony. Welcome to the fantastic world

(00:46):
of Hannah and Barbara. I don't know where to begin to
describe all of the accomplishments of today's
guest, Bob Reha Junior, also known in his childhood as Bobby
Reha. He had a stellar career as a
child actor in some of the best TV shows, specials and films
that we remember and still enjoytoday.

(01:08):
In his adult life, he has becomeone of the most renowned
international photojournalists, documentarists in the whole
world. As Merv would say, he worked for
big corporation for USA TODAY and Getty Images.
His photographs. You've probably seen and didn't
realize a lot of celebrity photos.
We're going to hear a lot of cool stories, but first I just

(01:30):
want to welcome Mr. Bob Rehab Junior.
And here I am. It really is so cool.
I cannot tell you this is so cool because a lot of us grew up
with the things that you did. But those things continue
because we have the blessing of the streaming services and the
DVDs and the Blu rays and beforethat, VHS Jack and the Beanstalk

(01:51):
was one of the very first thingson VHS and I ran out.
It was expensive then, but I hadto have it.
So many of the things that you've done touched an awful lot
of lives. I want to go into detail about
all of your accomplishments as aphotojournalist, but I want to
start at the beginning because you were one of the most visible
child actors of the 60s and early 70s, and I don't want to

(02:14):
talk about what kind of kid you were, where you came from, and
all that cool stuff. Thank you.
Well, my history started in New York.
I was born in New York. My dad worked for the
government, U.S. Navy, worked in the Todd
Shipyard, have two sisters, had two sisters and it was my older
sister that actually took dancing lessons in the city.
And there's a gentleman named Charles Lowe, Charlie Lowe,

(02:35):
Uncle Charlie and he taught kids, adults how to dance and
mostly tap dance. Well, my sister is involved in
it. I actually ended up learning how
to tap dance in the side room because I had to go with my mom,
with my sister and and during that stage was like the initial
stage of the say my career, if you want, if you want to call it
that. Going through Charles Lowe

(02:57):
again, I was a young kid. I was probably 5 at the time
ish. I did some modeling in New York
I remember and I have clips thatmy mom had saved.
There's clips of me with like Red Skelton and FAO Schwarz.
It was some multi picture layout, you know, really
typical, let's say Vogue type shot by high end photographers
ads. So I was in front of the camera

(03:18):
in those days. The dancing came into play.
Then I ended up on the Soupy sales show.
You know, we're talking about like in 65, basically Soupy
sales. I'd like to introduce young
Bobby Ria and I think I sang, you know, give me a top hat,
give me a cane, you know, that type of song, a young kid,
crackly voice and all that stuff.

(03:38):
You know, blonde hair and blue eyes.
That was the first part. And then when I was also in New
York, I did the Hey Landlord show, which was like in 66 and I
was looking at just before I went on to imdb.com.
And I don't endorse them or nothing, but I use that.
And I looked at my name and it'slike, wow, there is a lot of
stuff there. There's a few things they didn't

(03:59):
have. So after I did the Soupy Cell
show, then Sammy Davis Junior was going to have his first
special on TV called The Wonderful World of Children.
And then the show goes on and there was a dancing scene with
Sammy Davis. And during the dancing scene, I
stepped on his feet and he just added that to the filming.
And Fast forward over the years,I ran into Sammy several times

(04:21):
over these years. And I'm so honored to know him
or to be in part of my life. But I would see him like every
10 years or on a studio set thathe was filming something else to
be able to say that. Yeah, I was a friend of his.
You know, I play Keno in his dressing room in Vegas while my
mom and the adults went out and had a drink.
And my mom doesn't drink, by theway.
I won like 126 bucks. And he comes back in the

(04:42):
dressing room and I look what I won.
And he let me keep it. Basically.
I, he had the Keno girl coming back every game.
And yeah, just let him play and put it on my tab.
But after Sammy where I danced with him.
Then my dad got transferred out to California and I still live
in Long Beach, CA. And it was during that time
period that I believe they were casting for Jack and the

(05:05):
Beanstalk. At least the words that are in
my brain is when they went back east to look, they said, oh, no,
the kid you want just moved to California, which was me
anyways, I think. I think the role was between me
and Donny Osmond. You can't.
That's it's what is in my brain.Whether it's true or not I have
no idea. But anyways, I got Jack and the

(05:25):
Beanstalk. Hey, what's the matter?
I forgot I was unhappy about my poor old COW.
Oh that's right, you're taking her to market to sell her.
I mean SELLL her. How'd you know that?
Well, it's my business and know a little bit about everything

(05:46):
and a great deal about nothing. We went through rehearsals, we
did the filming, kept up a relationship with Hannah and
Barbera and some of the people involved.
King Kelly, which I later met him in.
It was USA Today's 5th anniversary in the paper started
in 82. This was like an 87.
I met Kelly at the Culver Studios where Gannett had rented

(06:09):
out for their 5th anniversary party.
Went there early and talked withhim and he was as genuine then
as he was. You know that I remember as a
kid working with him once Beanstalk came out, TV special
and all that. Then it just seemed like all the
shows in the 60s. I was fortunate enough to be
part of Quincy Brady Bunch High Chaparral Bonanza a couple

(06:31):
times. I got to work with Marianne Don
Wells throughout the whole episode.
It was called The Burning Sky and I knew her as Marianne.
I watched Gilligan's Island likeeverybody else as a kid working
with them a few times. I knew who they were like
Lassie. I knew Lassie because I would
used to watch last. I did an episode in Florida,
Rudd Weatherwax, who was the trainer of Lassie.

(06:55):
He was great. I met him and he trained me how
to walk and work around the animals because 1 scene is I had
a puppy dog and I got hit by a car.
So I'm had to hold this puppy that was unconscious.
There's a vet on site. You know, I had to make sure the
neck was positioned and the tongue was the right way and Red
Weather Axe was there. The dog that I had, her name was
Hey Hey, in real life they had several Lassies over the year.

(07:18):
And I said, well, why did you call her?
Hey, hey, he goes well because she never listens to me and I
always have to go hey, hey, you know, crazy memories.
It was shot at the Kennedy SpaceCenter and it had a face theme
around it. Oh, what a time to be in at
Kennedy Space Center. It was like a year or so away
from the moon landing. Yeah, I mean, I think it was in
68. And to this day, I'm into space
stuff. Got the photograph, Buzz Aldrin

(07:40):
one time for the paper. And I actually brought my Life
magazine that I had as a kid saved, and he signed it for me.
Over the years, when I went fromin front of the camera to
behind, when I got behind the camera, there was a few personal
heroes that I would meet and then I would actually ask for an
autograph, which in the media world, you usually don't.
Frank Robinson, the Baltimore Orioles, he was a baseball

(08:00):
player. He was like VP of baseball OPS
in the paper. USA was doing a story on him and
did all these portraits and really nice shots and he was
great to work with. I'm wrapping up my gear and
getting ready to leave and I went into my camera bag and I
pulled out a baseball. He goes, I asked him, I said,
would you please sign this? He goes to the rider.
He goes, you know the rules, themedia, you're not supposed to
ask for autographs. And I looked at him.
I said, well, you know what? You're one of my childhood

(08:22):
heroes. I asked him to make an exception
and he did. Got to meet Jerry Koosman and
Willie Mays. I have baseballs and bats.
I also got to meet Barbara, Barbara Eden.
And I actually have a photo someplace.
I've got a shot of me and Barbara Eden in her genie
bottle. Oh, cool.
And she's in her genie clothes and I know I have it.
It's in like something in something.

(08:43):
So many great stories, you know.What time I was in Las Vegas
working, Connie Stevens had a show at the Flamingo Hotel in
Vegas and one of the boys that was in the show got really sick.
And we, my mom, we get the phonecall.
Hey, we need you to fill in because I knew how to dance and
sing and was a quick learner andall that stuff.

(09:04):
But anyways, I go to Vegas and I, I did to dad learned what I
had to do singing with Connie Stevens.
And it was great. It worked out, it was funny.
It worked for a few weeks. Well, during that time period,
the World championship New York Mets were in Vegas, part of a
celebrity appearance. So I end up meeting the New York
Mets. Wow.

(09:25):
As a child I went to public school.
So this is just like a normal day in my life life.
I didn't know anything better. We had teachers on set.
You know when you're underage, you have a certified teacher and
each minor has to put in like 3 hours of schooling and then you
have to do your filming on top of that.
So it was kind of like an automatic autopilot deal.
My dad worked for the government.

(09:46):
My mom drove me to LA daily withfilming and stuff.
You started very young, you know, You had the blonde hair,
blue eyes, adorable. So you had what it took, but it
doesn't sound like you were pushed.
It was kind of fun, wasn't it? Well, yeah, I lived a normal
life. I got in a few fights in
elementary school with actually the guys are part of my, you
know, online group to this day. Of course I lost, but I went to

(10:09):
public school when I was 11/12/13.
I played Little League baseball during that time.
I remember I did the Debbie Reynolds show and it was a
series that Debbie had for like one season and then it got cut.
Well, on her show we rehearsed for four days and then we did a
live audience 3 camera film on Friday.
And I remember my contract like that on the rehearsal days that

(10:31):
I had to leave by 3:00 because Iwould have Little League
baseball at 4:00 like a game or something.
And my agent who was awesome, Mary Grady, yes, her son was Don
Grady on My Three Sons and her daughter Lonnie was on 8 is
Enough. There was a time period where I
went to another agent, Dorothy De Otis, and then went back to
Mary. Mary passed a few years ago but

(10:52):
got to see Mary a few years before that.
She gave me a little book with various sayings from throughout
the world by leaders. And when I saw her, what, four
years ago, five years ago, and Ihadn't seen her in decades at
that point and why I brought herback the book and she inscribed
it. Like, hope this helps you
through your life's journey right now as we speak.

(11:13):
I'm 66, but I gave it back to her.
I said, this is yours now. It's done me well or something
along those lines. And there's certain people that
you want to say something to before you don't have a chance
to. And again, she was such a huge
influence. She literally took care of me
and my career. She let me be normal as my mom
did. I mean, again, I public schools

(11:35):
and played Little League baseball and football.
I like football because I could really get out my aggressions.
And I'm not big of a person. I'm not that big.
And I think it was mostly for survival.
And then my agent told me years before, she says, you know, when
you get older, there'll be a time when you're just tired of
this. And she goes, that's OK, just
let me know. And I remember, I think it was
like in my junior year in high school, I was playing football

(11:57):
and sports. And I just told her I go, I
can't combine high school and football practice stuff with
acting and that was it. And then played football the
last preseason game, tore my cartilage in my knee, had
surgery. And I've always had cameras
around. My dad had a Super 8 movie
camera that I used. Me too.
And and then it literally went from that to family friend was

(12:20):
going to college, needed money, so I ended up with a Nikon
camera and like 2 lenses and a complete dark room for like 4-5
hundred bucks. And I think it's on August the
2nd, 1972 is when I shot my first roll of film on Nikon.
I can factually say that becauseI have a look at my file cabinet
and there's a box in there with my early negatives.

(12:41):
You know, the shots of your friends at parties in high
school, which I could probably make a few $1,000,000 off of
just everything. And then the photography career
just took off for me. It was proving myself in another
field. Then that part of my life is
where it's been, gosh, since I've been what, 14?
You know what I mean? And I shot pictures early, but

(13:01):
the acting thing was looking back on it.
Yeah, it's kind of cool. Beyond cool.
It's like, again, it was such a normal thing you mentioned
doing, you know, like the familyband movie that I did with
Disney. Yeah, Kurt Russell was there.
He stood proudly when he heard his fatal sentence read, and
then with glory in his voice, young Nathan Hale said.

(13:23):
My only regret is that I have but one life to give for my
country. I used to go because the filming
was over a period of like week, if not like a couple months or
something. It was like your Disney
production or like at the Paramount Ranch, you know with
the rolling hills and all that stuff.
Well on some weekends I would gohome with Kurt and stay at his
house with his parents and they lived in like Thousand Oaks.

(13:46):
And Kurt's father, Bing Russell,he played the sheriff on
Bonanza. So I knew him just being
associated in Bonanza. I don't know if I think 1
episode he was there. Anyways, Kurt was 60, 15, I was
10 years old. We got into a shaving cream
fight one morning and there is shaving cream in the hallway.
You know, Kurt covered me and I got it back and it was just like

(14:08):
two kids just being stupid and having fun.
And we woke up his father. What the Hell's going on here?
And he clean this mess up. Fast forward over the years on
and off, I've seen Kurt one other time, like on a studio
set, me as a child actor. But then in my role as a
photojournalist, USA TODAY, I was covering the Oscars, as I

(14:28):
did regularly for the paper. After the stars are on stage,
they go to like a Deadline photoroom, and there's maybe about 10
of us in there. And that's all your main wire
services in your main newspapers, small contingent of
media. Then from there you go to the
general photo room where there'slike 70 photographers and
everyone's like yelling and screaming and all that stuff.
Well, where I was at in the Deadline room, my go Kurt, I

(14:49):
called them out and he looks over at me and he gets Goldie's
attention. He gets off of the page, comes
up to me, gives me bear hugs andgoes, oh, how you doing?
How's your mom doing? And my fellow photographers are
looking at me like what's going on here because a lot of them
did not know Bobby Ria is cooked, same as Bob Ria Junior.
It's not like I walked around saying, Oh yeah, I climbed the

(15:09):
Beanstalk. I kept it private.
It took my editors at USA TODAY,I think it was year three
working with them. I ended up working, working with
them freelance, a contract photographer for like 31 1/2
years. And I think it was year three
that my photo editor calls me upbecause hey, I just did an IMDb.
You didn't tell me that. And I told him I go, what am I
going to tell you? I climbed a Beanstalk with Gene

(15:31):
Kelly. You know what I'm going to do?
I'm going to climb this. Let's go.
I mean, I'm trying to be a photojournalist in that sense.
So I tried keeping it differently, but with Kurt and
Goldie. Goldie first met Kurt on the set
of the Family Band. She had like a bit part, like
one line. She was the giggly girl in the
crack. Exactly.

(15:51):
Yeah. And there was something there at
the time. And Kurt's sister, I think her
name was Jamie, on a couple times with Kurt and his dad, the
family going out to the racetrack just to watch her do
her racing. The memories of just little
tidbits. I remember I was 10 years old
during the family band. His words rang out across the
land and we recall with pride a silver slip named Paul Revere

(16:15):
who took that midnight ride the.British are coming.
The British are coming. The British.
Are coming Dave had their birthday cake for me that they
brought out Lesley Ann Warren surprised me and everybody at
the time Leslie was dating John Peters, who.
Was John Peters did her hair? Here's a little bit of trivia.
I don't know if you knew, but actually I found this out
through a friend. She had these weird tendrils,

(16:36):
you know, on her temples, easilypointy things.
I said they always seem kind of anachronistic for the era.
It turns out John Peters gave her this sort of Twiggy do, and
they all kind of went in the tizzy, you know, because of hair
and makeup. But like, it didn't fit.
So they did their best to conceal it, but the tendrils
still show. So that's the John Peters Touch
and Family Band. Yeah, well, I, John Peters, was

(16:58):
a guy that was always around Leslie Ann Warren, you know?
Yeah, It's her boyfriend again. I'm 10 years old at the time.
Well, he gave me a slot car. This is when slot car racing was
the thing. Slot car with a controller.
And I used to ride my bicycle tothe neighborhood slot car track.
I still have the slot car to this day.
I mean, just things that to me it is, but it isn't so much of

(17:20):
what's out on VHS and DVD and let's say the film history, but
it's the little hidden memories that people went out of their
way at least to make me feel comfortable and happy and not
spoiled. There's a big difference between
that Hanna and Barbera. After we did the Beanstalk, they
had a building in like, right off a Hollywood freeway.

(17:42):
And again, we lived in Long Beach.
So driving to Los Angeles, yes, there was traffic in those days.
Nothing like today. But if I was up in LA, you know,
at my agents nearby with my mom,we could stop in at Hanna
Barbera. And right when you walked in to
the right, there was a doorway. And I think the woman's name was
Maxine. Oh, yeah, hold on a second.
And right behind her desk was 2 offices.

(18:03):
And on the left I believe was Hannah's and Joe Barbera's night
and day difference as far as design goes.
Bill Hannah's was open in light colors and stuff.
And I remember Joe Barbera's, ithad like black desk and then it
was like that type of a look. I would go in there and Maxi
know Bobby's here to say hi and they would stop what they're

(18:25):
doing. Give me, you know, 5 seconds of
their time. Then he would walk me over to
Hannah's office or vice versa. And that was like after the
fact, you know, they. It's cool to hear you say vice
versa since. Yeah, yeah.
A tiny bit of faith and a large amount of hope, or vice versa,

(18:46):
can swiftly disperse our most calamitous situation.
A large amount of hope and a tiny bit of faith, or vice
versa, can swiftly reverse our most unfortunate complication to

(19:06):
a doubting Thomas. Life's without promise.
Now don't you think that's? Jack and the Beanstalk was up
for Demi in 67 for children's program, and it was up against
Charlie Brown in that category. I guess there's like a lot of
heavy hitters. You know you were on Jack and
the Beanstalk was on Sunday night in place of the Wonderful
World of Disney, which. No way.

(19:29):
But yeah, it was a bit of a triumph for Hanna Barbera
because that was a powerhouse lineup on Sunday, Sunday night
for families. You know, you had Lassie and all
that. And one of the reasons the
Jetsons only lasted the season is it was very hard to compete,
especially with the high budget of the Jetsons against Disney.
And five years later, you at thetime slot for that week.
And it was a huge success and pave the way for the Huckleberry

(19:52):
Finn show that also combined live action and animation.
The historical aspect of it, talking about cartoons in
general, in those days they would hand paint each individual
cell. That and then the blue screen,
my Lord, just thinking about it gives me headaches.
What's the artist needed again? I'm a kid, but the artist needed

(20:15):
is to have a plain palette and just have two people live on the
film. So when you have outside of the
opening scene, you know, with the cow, I don't really tell
people the cows long gone, but I'm still here.
You know, outside of that opening scene, most of
everything else was done inside a huge sound studio and

(20:36):
everything was painted bright blue.
Nowadays they would use, let's say, a green screen for the
exact same purpose. Well, this was like, not green,
but blue. And I remembered my eyes, it was
so bright in there. And like even on some of the
filming, you can see me like squinting because for me, my
eyes were sensitive to begin with.
Can't you turn the lights down lower so I don't have to squirt?

(20:57):
No, because it has to be done this way.
So they work with me. They talk to me as an adult, but
I'm still a kid. They approached me, respected
me, I guess, and mutually Gene Kelly.
When we were rehearsing, we had,I believe roughly, I'm guessing
a month and a half to maybe three months at the longest.
But we had rehearsals inside a church near Hollywood and Vine,

(21:17):
OK, And we actually stayed up. My mom and I stayed up in
Hollywood, rented an apartment at the Montecito Hotel right
down the street, and our next door neighbor was Yafakoto.
OK, yeah. Fit.
I have an 8 by 10 signed to me to the rotten kid, Bobby or
something like that. And he was like the greatest.
But we had rehearsals for Jack for probably 3 months.

(21:40):
I had been dancing, if you want to call it that.
I learned tap dance with CharlieLowe in New York.
But then Kelly got me doing ballet and doing stretching and.
But it'll help you out. And so he was real responsive to
that. You know, Kelly, he was such a
perfectionist, at least describing him, working with
him. Yeah.
I look at some of the YouTube clips they have on, you know,

(22:00):
the opening scene and stuff, andI'm dancing with it.
And yeah, I'm trying to keep up with them.
But 9 out of 10 type things thatI was and he was also modifying
what he was doing to keep up with me.
So when we got to that stage in rehearsal, we knew where the
other person was, even if our like, our eyes were closed.
You know, there seems that we'rejumping and then we jump on like
a Lily pad and then we go flyingin the air and then we land back

(22:22):
down and we're like in a wired harness.
Kelly did not like that at all. He did not like heights.
He didn't like being in a harness where you have two wires
on your hip points keeping you there.
Me on the other hand, No Fear. I remember one time during lunch
break I went and got my paper plate and they hooked me up and
they raised me about 2530 feet in the air and I had lunch

(22:44):
holding my paper plate one time.I had No Fear of the height.
Part they had you do a solo number, stiffen up upper lip and
you danced with a chorus line ofmice.
Hanna Barbera was working with amuch more limited budget than
MGM had, and yet they still reached as high as they could,
and that is a pretty impressive number.

(23:05):
If you look at that scene where my eye is looking is actually a
little taller above the mice. And when we filmed it, they
basically because of all the direction between, you know,
Hanna Barbera, Kelly and then the onside people artist.
I mean, they would have a place for me to look.
So in that scene, I'm in this bright blue sound stage and

(23:26):
then, OK, here's your ex in the middle.
Do it. I'm dancing by myself, but this
is all the rehearsal and look this way or do that.
At the end we come down the Beanstalk and then, you know,
we're going to chop down the Beanstalk.
All right, Well, I remember whenI first got there and then, you
know, the Beanstalk base was, let's say, a big fiberglass
thing with these wooden pegs sticking out that we could grab

(23:47):
and climb up of. And it probably went up, like 40
feet or so. But I remember walking on the
set the first time when we're going to do that scene and I go
and grab the axe and they go, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.
She's going to, Mr. Keller is going to use the axe.
You can use this. And they gave me like, the
handsaw, you know, with the smaller blade.
But literally that I went up to the axe 1st and, like, raised it

(24:09):
up. I go, yeah, this would be great.
Those are the things that kind of make me smile.
I remember the last day of filming on that bright blue
sound stage, he wheeled out a blue metallic twin bicycle with
a silver banana seed. Wow.
And he gave that to me as a gift.
The banana seed bicycle. We all wanted that.

(24:30):
That was Gene Kelly. That was the person he was
dealing with, a cow and a kid. It wasn't an Academy Award,
which was like only a dream in that sense.
Down the road. He knew what I wanted.
He knew what I would appreciate and he gave me that.
What I've noticed is that over the years when I have caught
Gene Kelly clip or like a movie,you know, flipping channels,

(24:51):
whatever, that a lot of the dance steps that he used in
those earlier movies, he incorporated a lot of those
steps and maneuvers and he was sharp, razor sharp.
For me, I get a rush watching the old clip of Singing in the
Rain. His whole personality, his
wholesomeness, his realness. You know when I screwed up and

(25:11):
missed my mark? When I was supposed to pop up
and Jack the Beanstalk, When there's the love scene with him
and the harp and then he dances with her.
And then at the end, then all ofa sudden the mice pops up
because Jeremy, Jeremy, the giants coming.
Well, originally that was me, but I missed my cue and then I
got upset and I started crying and then I couldn't get the
redness out of my eyes, so they filmed it anyways.

(25:33):
But then they replaced me with amouse, same as my singing.
I did my singing, you know, liveand all that.
And then some places along the line, someone said, I remember
it, it conflicted too much with Kelly.
So then I guess they hired Bealsto come in and yeah, I never
knew of him other than my singing was replaced by someone

(25:54):
else when I was younger and thatwas the end of the story.
I had a stand in and he was likeone of the original munchkins
with the Wizard of Oz. I think his name was Frank.
And when I would do several shows over the years, Felix.
Felix is another one that I. Work with Felix.
Yeah, yeah. Well, Frank and Felix, they were

(26:16):
like my height, so they would always be like my standing.
And it wasn't like, I, I want Felix to come here.
I mean, it wasn't the companies.They wouldn't have standings for
all the actors and so forth. And he was one of those for
later years to find out obviously what role he played in
Hollywood's history, The Wizard of Oz at the time, he was just a
guy that was like super cool, nice to me, friendly.

(26:40):
Then I find out later who they were.
And that's kind of where a lot of like with the family band,
you know, with Walter Brennan, there is a lot of scenes with
him. I always, I loved watching him
on the old black and white Westerns and stuff when he was
like young, young, I didn't knowwho he was.
Same with Buddy Epson, who was agood dancer to be doing it in
his own right. I remember Janet Blair and

(27:02):
Leslie Ann Warren. It was the dancing scene just
before John Davidson first meetsthem in the barn.
OK. That's 10 feet off the ground,
yeah. 10 feet off the ground. Yeah, there was, from what was
spoken, that there was like a contest between Leslie Ann
Warren and Janet on who could make their kick the tallest, the
highest, because they were both phenomenal actresses but also

(27:25):
dancers. And I'm not going to make the
call on that. For me, it was going from one

(28:00):
thing to another. I did like 3 movies.
One of them was called Countdown.
Yes, and James Caan, Joanna Moore, Robert Duvall, Ted
Knight, Mike Murphy. And that was a space theme movie
and. It was one of the early ones
because during the Apollo project there was, of course, I
dream of Genie. He was an astronaut.

(28:21):
This was focusing on the personal lives of the astronauts
and their families. It's pretty common sense then to
have movies like The Right Stuffand Things.
Yeah, again, this was 6768 before man landed on the moon.
This is the control room for therocket that will take a man to
the moon. Scenes like this will make the
biggest news of our time. The countdown has started.

(28:45):
Can't tell her she's going to hold together.
Hang. On fire.
The main reason why I got countdown, from what I was told,
is because I could throw a baseball at fast straight and
catch a baseball because there'sa scene with James Caan of me

(29:07):
playing catch with him. And they needed it to be a
certain way. And that was one of the reasons.
You know, I remember we filmed one day outside at TRW with the
Military Aerospace Place here inthe South Bay in LA.
The ball was in the scene. Hey, to me, how you doing today
or whatever? He said, Yeah, I could say I
work with that. You're George Kennedy and Robert

(29:27):
Mitzen, the good guys and the bad guys.
Didn't realize all these other heavy hitters like David
Carradine was in that movie too,because later years I ended up
photographing Carradine on a story for USA TODAY after doing
some outside shots with his KungFu outfit, you know, strobe lit
and all that. Then his fiance at the time
comes in with with a couple shotglasses.

(29:49):
It was like A3330 afternoon shoot.
Well around 738 o'clock at night.
I remember that David was on thepiano, his fiance was playing
the bongos and I was playing hisKung Fu flute and we were kind
of tipsy and I couldn't get the assignment completed because he
had to have a take. No, we're not going to do it.

(30:10):
Enjoy yourself. I'll do it in a couple days.
So I thought I'd go, David, I have to like tell this to my
editor, Alex. I called, you know, Alex the
next day and said my shoot isn'ttotally finished with Carradine.
And she asked what it took placeand I told her.
And it was like, oh, my. But not unexpected, let's say.
And true to his word, like the day later, I ended up going back

(30:30):
there and finishing the assignment.
That was cool. I mean, photographing Robert
Mitchum, you know who I work with in the good guys, the bad
guys want for the paper. He was really cool.
How you doing? I asked him and he goes worse.
So he had that same dry sense ofhumor.
World weary is always the way he's seen.
I almost forgot I wanted to ask you about Did Tony Benedict

(30:53):
approach you to do the voice of Chinook for?
Yeah, Chinook for Santa Three Bears during Jack and the
Beanstalk? Because that was not Hanna
Barbera, but a lot of the peoplewho worked there worked on.
It you know, it was close to that time period, OK, mainly
because at the beginning of Santa and the Three Bears and at
and there's a little blithead kid in front of the fireplace

(31:15):
with Annette and Hal Smith is reading the book to us like
grandpa was reading the story tohis grandkids.
So I was live at the beginning and live at the end.
Gene Vanderpyle, who was the voice of Wilmore Flintstone and
Hal Smith and Annette. Farrah, I don't know much about
Annette Farrah. She's an actress and did a lot
of work and stuff. Every year it was on TV, like

(31:38):
numerous times, every Christmas,you know, in LA, at other cities
and. Let's public domain now, because
it got tossed around because it's funny.
Every time you see a print, you see a different company attached
to it. And then there's the Pirates
world versions that were made inFlorida, credited to Barry
Mahon, which who really had nothing to do with the
animation, but it was originallycalled Yellowstone Cubs.

(32:00):
It was going to be Barbera passed on it.
Tony had done it on his own and I don't think he ever came out
of that with it. It's kind of sad because it's a
wonderful film. There's a wonderful soundtrack
album, there's only fuzzy, crummy prints of it, yet
millions of people grew up with it, and it has a kind of a
following of its own. You who?
Mom, wake up. Hey, mom, wake up.

(32:21):
Huh. What is it?
Avalanche? A forest fire?
What? Can we have a Christmas tree
mom? A what?
You know a Christmas tree like Mr. Ranger has.
Listen children, I hate to be angry, but you should have been
asleep weeks ago. But mom, just one teaching

(32:42):
little Christmas tree. I'm sorry, it's almost a month
past your bedtime already. Oh, all right.
But you must promise to remain in The Cave for the rest of the
winter. We promise, Mom.
We do. We do.

(33:04):
Today we're going to have a tree.
Hurray. We found the beauty just on the
slope, Mom. I'm going, I'm going.
I've got a feeling it's going tobe a long winter.
Hey, it's totally cool. I mean, I've all the characters
I played. I can say that I played a, you
know, a little bear. His intentions, I'm sure we're
good. But someplace along the lines

(33:25):
Screen Actors Guild, these distributors, whoever, whoever
to point the finger at, they didn't do their job.
It's also that somebody like Tony Benedict, who is so
creative, there has to be a balance.
That's why you had Roy Disney. For Walt Disney, you had Bill
and Joe. You know, they had different
talents. You need somebody who has an
economic and a business sense, and Tony just had to make a

(33:46):
great film. And to me, he's he is just a
name that I've had all my life. You know, I know the
relationship of his name with Santa, the three bears a little
bit of Gray area and stuff like that.
But you know, it's like everything else.
Looking back, there was a reasonfor it.
And don't ask me why. When roles came up, a lot of
times I was fortunate that I didn't even have to interview.
They knew who I was. Hey, we want him to do this.

(34:09):
Is he available type of a thing.I look at my dad, OK, My dad,
naval architect, work for the inmy Hollywood dad.
I had James Caan with Countdown.I had Tom Bosley years before
Happy Days even came out. Tom was my dad on the Debbie
Reynolds Show. The Yankee puzzler is so they

(34:32):
want to go climb up Beanstalk. I mean well.
He he was going to be your father because at the end he
goes, not now, son. That's well, that's right.
That's right. George Kennedy, he was my father
and the good guys and the bad guys.
But a lot of these Hollywood fathers were in their career by
fourfold from where I was just literally starting and then
boom, they just turned out to bea supersonic actor across the

(34:56):
board. And then on the few occasions
that I've run into them as a photographer, if it happens,
happens. But I never promoted myself as
IE Bobby Ria when I became serious about my photography.
And a lot of that I owe to all the cinema photographers that I
worked with because every show that I did, whether it would be
a wide shot or A2 shot or a close up, they would always have

(35:20):
me sit behind the camera with mystandard in place and show me
what they were seeing. I didn't know it at the time.
To them it was just to help me out and it did.
I'm looking through the IMDb list.
I'm the pumpkin boy from Bewitched.
Yeah, well, yeah, the Halloween episode.
Hostile sweetness. Sweetness.

(35:41):
And I want to go out and play. This is a stupid costume.
Oh no, it isn't sweetness. It's adorable.
Oh, I wish I had the nerve to take you over to Missus Stevens
and ask her if it looks real. How?
A Gino. Is she a witch or something?
You see, Tommy has my intuition.I hope not.

(36:02):
Why? Because one crazy person in the
family is enough. I don't want to be a Jack O
Lantern, I want to be a monster.For that you don't need a
costume. Felix is in that he's the
character in the green charactersuit, one of the Halloween
character. Like I'm almost certain that
Felix was one of those in the Bewitched episode.

(36:24):
Gomer Pyle. I remember when my mom and I
were on the studio lot, we're walking up to the stage door,
7/30, 8:00 in the morning, and here's all those gospel music
blasting out of a dressing room.And as we're walking in the
stage, the dressing room doors open and the guy walks out and
he goes, oh, this music is for people that couldn't get to
church yesterday. Nicest guy, Bonanza.

(36:46):
And this I'd like to share with the public because, you know, we
all grew up on Bonanza and you had all the the Cartwright
brothers. Well, the one episode that I was
in called The Burning Sky with Don Wells and Michael Murphy,
Victor French, there is a scene when I'm with Victor French and
he whipped me with a belt and it's like, oh, stop that down.
Then there was a scene afterwards.
It was like a close up, but it was a really emotional scene for

(37:09):
me that I had to like cry, you know, tears in the eyes and and
a lot of actors you just put your mind in that area and then
you let your heart do the speaking.
And then for me it was a naturalthing.
OK. The sound stage is like really
quiet and bumo always like stoodway in the back.
I mean, way in the back. And so we're doing one take and

(37:31):
then we're going to do another take.
Well, as the camera is rolling, all of a sudden I hear a woman
go. I mean like yelled at a scream
and everybody, the director cut,cut.
And he turns around and all the crew people turn around and Dan
Blocker is near rolling on the ground.
What he did is he snuck up behind my mom and pissed her,

(37:51):
and my mom reacted like any person would do.
She yelled out and yelled. And that was Bonanza.
That was the family. That was the community that they
created amongst themselves. Dan Blocker was just like a
hoot. I mean, what people saw was like
the real deal. And there's a lot of things that

(38:12):
I don't remember, but there's these little things that I do
remember that to me is worth theEmmy or the Oscar.
Remember, I'm the Unseen talent where Jack and the Beanstalk
when the Emmy best children's program, I wasn't invited to the
Emmys. Kelly went there.
And when he went on stage, part of what he said was I'd like to
thank all the unseen talents, meaning, yeah, all these artists

(38:36):
that did this phenomenal artworkcreation of the special
historically, and he gave due credit to them and Hannah and
Barbera, but he never thanked me.
My name wasn't mentioned. So that's why I say jokingly,
yeah, I'm part of the unseen talent.
Well, you talk about character Hanna and Barbera went and got
an 8 by 10 photo of an Emmy and wrote on it to Bobby, a real

(39:00):
Emmy winner. And they both signed it and they
basically sent it to me and I still have it to this day.
You know, me being able to pop it and say hi to them.
One of the art directors is a gentleman named Alex Louvy.
Alex Louvy. Yeah.
Alex Louvy, one of their major director producers.
Yeah. He was a buddy friend of me, my

(39:20):
mom and everybody. I remember he was he was part of
the family that Hey, anytime you're in the neighborhood, drop
by like I mentioned. Hey, if I drop by, I can see
Alex, I can see Hannah and Barbera type thing.
Well, when I would go there, a lot of times they were page
Alex. He would come out.
Oh my gosh, how you doing? And then he goes, well, hold on
a second. He goes, I can't take you back
there, but we have some special guests here.

(39:41):
Maybe they'll sign a picture foryou.
He gave me these animated cells in like a little cardboard
frame. He said I have like adamant they
would be autographed. So it was like to Bobby from
Adam Ant or he gave my older sister one.
I said you can find this for my sister Judy, and he would go to
Judy from Fred, Fred Flintstone and my sister, you know, we have

(40:02):
these animation cells. To me, a person's legacy is.
When you say their name after they're long gone, you know,
it's kind of like, you know, it's a wonderful life.
You know, when the bell rings, an Angel gets its wings.
I've always believed that would be thinking about friends from
past years and just thinking about them, that they get a
check mark near the name. I grew up with my older sister

(40:24):
taking dance lessons in New York.
My older sister is Judy. My younger sister is Jill.
Jill was just like a baby baby. Then the acting thing was like
an automatic thing. I mean, I was fortunate that
during there's a certain time periods, I was working a lot.
What you didn't ask me, and I'llanswer for you is what role did
I want and not get? And hands down, it was playing a

(40:49):
role in John Wayne's movie The Cowboys.
During my acting years, there was like Nick Bovee.
There is me, Darby Hinton, you know, from Daniel Boone, Buddy
Foster. He did work with Butch Patrick
on Family Band because he was inthe classroom with you being
annoying. Yeah, he was in the classroom
thing now with Jodie Foster and her brother Buddy Foster, when
Jodie was a child, like 5:00-ish.

(41:11):
Well, when Buddy was my age during the acting years, they
lived in the like a condo in Newport Beach on the Newport
Beach Peninsula, right across from the tennis courts.
And our family, who was one boy and two girls in Jodie's family,
it was 2 girls and a boy and we were all the same age.
And I have memories going up in the San Bernardino Mountains and
there were some ski resorts up there.

(41:32):
And at the time it was called Rebel Ridge.
And I remember as a kid going toRebel Ridge skiing.
And, you know, we're all having lunch at the picnic table.
And here's Jody and Betty. And and, you know, one of his
sisters is Connie, I believe. I've never photographed Jody
like on one-on-one type of a thing.
I obviously had seen her at the award shows.
But it's just like, you know, quick, quick, quick.
And then you go to the next person.

(41:53):
He was never a topic of conversation with her.
But yeah, we were all kids. Nicholas Bovie.
He's the one that had the round glasses in the Cowboys.
He was one of the boys and he wore those like John Denver
style circular glasses. And what I recall is that the
role was either for him or me, and he got it.

(42:14):
And I was like really pissed. You know, rejection for all
actors is a way of life. It's a fact of the business.
Rejection on a child actor can be horrific.
You know, in my case, never everforce they respected me that I
didn't want to go out of town. I had my buddies to be with type

(42:34):
of a thing and that. You were, I mean, yeah, when you
Jack and the Beanstalk you were like 8, weren't you?
8 or 9 or. Well, let's see, I was born in
58, so that was 68. So when I did family band, I was
10. So I I think I was probably 7:00
or 8:00. I definitely wasn't over 10
because I did that before I did the family Band movie.

(42:56):
Do you know if you got Family Band and several of these
others? Because Jack and the Beanstalk
was so high profile and so successful.
Because you know, Leslie Anne Warren, one of the reasons she
was cast and happiest millionaire as Walt Disney was
watching Rodgers and HammersteinCinderella.
Well, when you mentioned Walt Disney, during the time period
of family band give or take month, I had a contract.

(43:18):
I was at one time under contractwith Walt Disney Studios as Kurt
Russell was. And I remember there were other
shows or other roles the kids were in that Disney was putting
out and I wasn't either offered the role or I wasn't given the
opportunity to audition for the role.
This is more than let's say one,but I remember that my agent, we

(43:39):
broke the contract. We, I remember my agent says the
heck with it, if you're not going to use presume type of a
thing, then, you know, I wouldn't call it a claim to
fame. Like my age.
We broke our contract with Walt Disney Studios.
And the reason was because they were using kids similar to me.
Again, There was a group of like1/2 a dozen other child actors
that we would always see each other on interviews.

(43:59):
And when we say these interviews, it was like a close
thing. There was only 5 or 6 of us for
a role. It wasn't like you had two or
three hundred people lined up around the sidewalk as it is
sometimes today. Yeah.
And it's so different. And yeah, I believe you're right
in your assumption that after doing Beanstalk that it did lead
to other roles. Now, my first movie role, I can

(44:21):
say I was in Hang Em High with Clint Eastwood.
Oh, that was my first movie role.
And you know what? It was during the hanging scene.
And if you blink your eye or sneeze, you're going to miss it
because there's a kid that says,hold me up, daddy, hold me up.
And then the dad goes and picks the kid up and put the kid on
his shoulders. This is just before the raw kind

(44:42):
of get hung. OK, That was my first like movie
role. If the studios go cheap on me,
they're not going to have my audio.
So I lose like $0.50 residual check or whatever the heck it
is. But it's the truth.
Sometimes they'll dub my voice that they don't have to pay me
when I say hold me up, daddy, hold me up.
Other times they just show the kid being lift up on the

(45:03):
shoulders. Just things like that.
Being young and then going to a studio, they give you a script.
I can memorize things amazingly.Should I do that today?
Hell no. I mean, they would give you
pages of stuff or what they're going to be filming the
following day. And you know, I just had, as a
lot of child actors had that ability to retain that

(45:24):
information and not to do it QTQT or whatever.
Like to be something else that you're not.
Just be yourself. It was more than the dancing
because the dancing was an element or IE the singing as bad
as it was or however you want toqualify it, it was the acting
part that there was something there that fulfilled casting

(45:45):
directors. I mean I'm looking at the IMDb
here. They have like 22 things listed
as an actor, one archive footage, 2 as myself.
This is crazy. Under myself they have the Art
Linkletter show from 1968. I just went to IMDb and it
surprised me the Pat Boone show.Now I remember Pat Boone show

(46:06):
was before Art Linkletter and the interview with Mr. White
Shoes himself and he did actually have White shoes on.
That's a confirmed the interviewwas him and I playing catch on
the set, but he's like 25 feet away.
So Bobby, how'd you like this show?
And then I would boom, toss the ball to him and then I would
reply and then and that's kind of cool at least because I was

(46:29):
involved. I'd like sports Art Linklater
show. I honestly couldn't tell you
what I said, but what I rememberfrom Art Linklater show is that
they offered me either a check for my performance or a 13 inch
GE color TV set. Tell me what I took.

(46:49):
I know what you took. Tell me kid would take the TV
hell. Yes.
See, I was 10 years old. That's like the normalcy that my
parents instilled, that the values are just growing up with
two sisters. We would have our arguments.
And yeah, when I got out of line, I would pay the wrath.
I mean, either from my sisters or my parents, but they also

(47:11):
gave us the freedom to experience stuff and to make our
own mistakes. And then mostly to learn from
the Hollywood thing. My mom drove me to my interviews
and the filming. My agent was the captain and I
was real fortunate to have Mary Grady as my agent because she
took care of me. Maybe it was when I was doing
the Lassie episode in Florida, but I remember there was one

(47:32):
time, and this is really crazy, one time during the last, I was
back east, but I had to fly W for something.
My agent met me at the airport and then stayed at her house and
then like put me back on the plane the next day type of a
thing. But I remember on the flight
that there was this really really really pretty blonde
haired woman in first class. I went to her and asked if I

(47:54):
could please have her autograph and I was 8-9 years old.
She says well sure. And all I had was this paperback
book. So I handed her the book and
opened up like the plane blank page of the book.
But before she signed it, she turned it over to the front to
read the title. And the title was the Willie
Mays story. And then she turned it back and

(48:16):
she signed it to Bobby Ria with something else.
Grace Kelly. OK, so I swear, you know, this
thing disappeared like over 50 years ago.
Or who has that Backpage that's signed to Bobby Ria from Grace
Kelly. And you met both of them.
Oh, yeah. But I, I, I remember that some,

(48:36):
like in my childhood, I rememberMary Grady and my mom, there was
some role that I had to learn, you know, to ride a horse.
I like went to a horse stable along the river channel and
Rebel Ridge, I think it was called, or River Ridge or
something. They gave me a horse named Buck,
and the horse bucked me off the horse and, you know, I just got
back up on it. No prima Donna here.
That's because for the Westerns,and it might have been the time

(48:58):
during, like, the cowboy interview type of a thing.
Oh, yeah. Do I know how to ice skate?
Hell yes. My agent takes me to a skating
rink and puts me on ice skates. To this day, I can't ice skate
or roller skate. When Happy Days was coming out,
I had pictures of me taking like, in a letterman's jacket
type of a thing to be interviewed, to put my name in
the hat type of a thing. It was kind of like during the
Happy Days years that I was getting older enough and then I

(49:22):
think the last thing I did was an episode of Quincy with Jack
Klugman. Basically, Quincy drives up to
the in and out type burger place, places his menu, and he
drives up to the window to pick up his food.
And I'm the clerk waiting on him.
And as I'm talking to him, I look at behind him and here's a
body in his because he was in his corners, man.
It was like a real brief small scene with Jack Klugman right

(49:44):
after that. That was like I was ready to get
out of it. Like in my junior year in high
school, played football in my junior year, my knee picked up a
camera. And when I was still young
enough that I wasn't driving yet, but I was coming back from
Los Angeles with my mom alongside the freeway.
They had like the Coast Guard. It was like a big riverbed, the

(50:05):
Los Angeles River, and it's a big flood control to divert
water. When it lands in LA, it channels
all the water from LA and puts it out to the ocean.
Well, we're coming back from LA and I see this helicopter flying
over and I go, wow, I wonder what's going on.
I go mom pull over and she got off the freeway and I actually
had my Nikon camera and I photographed LA County

(50:26):
firefighter jumping in the riverand pulling out a 10 year old
boy who was drowning and they carried him up the side of the
riverbed and then they get him on the flat surface.
Then they started CPR again. I wasn't even driving yet and
I'm guessing maybe 14 ish and then I took pictures of it.
We had a friend at NBC i.e. fromJack and the Beanstalk.

(50:47):
He actually worked in the news department.
His name was Phil and I called still up I go, hey, I've got
these pictures, what do I do? Long story short is NBC News
used my photos on their newscastand then I gave a couple
pictures to the Los Angeles Times and then my hometown
newspaper. It was actually 2 papers, The
Independent and the Post Telegram.

(51:08):
And I made like front page of the Independent and then the
Post Telegram use it in the afternoon edition.
And then I ended up getting like, gosh, what, 250 bucks from
NBC and I think I got $50 from the Times and that was it.
It gave me an adrenaline rush when the news event was
happening before my eyes, you know, your hands start to jiggle

(51:28):
or your knee starts to bounce upand you got to stop it.
And then you just got to make the picture.
You got to focus. This is manual lenses now you
got to concentrate acting gave me a rush just because, hey,
this is pretty cool. You know, Brady Bunch, I mean
all these people, but it wasn't like a starstruck type of a
thing. It was just like a normal thing.
What gave me a rush similar to that a challenge was the

(51:51):
photography. You know, when I started doing
the USA TODAY stuff again, I'm anews in a sport photographer now
they have me doing these celebrity portraits and it's
like what time I get this assignment.
And the writer was Tom Green, one of our greatest
entertainment writers. And Tom was very, very soft
spoken and then mellow. And so I remember meeting him at

(52:13):
this hotel and I go up to him and hey, Tom, how you doing?
All great. I go, who the hell is this?
Who's this young child star? Never heard of him.
Tom says Bob, he's going to be abig star.
He's going to be like a mega star.
You just wait. OK, so this kid comes out and
he's like maybe my age, maybe a year or two younger, but we're
like the same age. And I'm taking pictures of them
and stuff, OK. And he was like totally cool.

(52:36):
It was Tom Cruise. This is when the movie Risky
Business was just going to come out.
And we had an interview with himwhen the movie was to come out.
And this is my Hollywood attitude.
Oh, yeah, He was attacked. He's really good.
Oh, yeah. I think I remember him kind of.
I was respectfully jaded again. I was the kid with blonde hair

(52:57):
that used to climb up, be stock,you know.
But they like my work. They took notice of my work.
They took notice of what happened with DeLorean.
The rest is his. Why is Bob Rea Junior when I was
starting out and the press target.
I would like to run a picture ofmine.
My dad's coworkers at the shipyard that hey Bob, good
picture here. You got another good picture
because it would have Bobby Ria or then they realize, hey, you

(53:20):
kids got another shot and then Itold my dad it was like no, I'm
the junior and I didn't want to use Bobby anymore.
And then that's why on everything is Bob Ria junior.
You know when I finally graduated what's cause got my
photojournalism degree from Cal State University Long Beach.
It says Bob Ria Junior, but I goby Bob.

(53:40):
And I didn't want to use Bob Ria, but especially because Bob
Ria, it was such a small byline.Then the technology started
going and one year I was assigned to like the Oscars with
other staffers at the Shrine Auditorium.
And there's a gentleman named Chuck Westfall who was like the
guru boss of Canon cameras. And Chuck Westfall comes out

(54:03):
with he's never seen before digital cameras.
And USA TODAY is going to use these digital cameras live at
the award show basically so we can smoke the competition
because they are still processing film is what you had
to do in those days. So Chuck being Nikon shooter, he
hands me the camera. This is like the day before and

(54:24):
he's talking about it like, likeit's a brand new baby boy or
girl and all these features. And I looked at him.
I go, Chuck, how do you turn it on?
And I wasn't kidding. So it was like being English and
learning Russian, you know, I walked out on the arrivals and
other photographers and what theheck is this?
And it's like, oh, something cannons letting us use that type
of thing. There's a picture of Jodie

(54:45):
Foster and the paper ran it inside really big.
And you could literally count and see the threads on her
dress. It was so sharp.
The digital era had arrived. I had to learn Photoshop, how to
transmit pictures. I had to learn what a modem was,
every thing. And then that kind of brings it
up to like the modern era where we are.
And for me, that is the rush that replaced the Beanstalk and

(55:09):
the Hollywood years. And it was challenging for me
going in as a rookie, wet behindthe ears to events where you
have these seasons professionals.
And I see the names of the photographers from like the LA
Times and like Time magazine and.
So you're still, you're doing the celebrity portraits and now
and still putting your archive together and are you doing a lot
of freelance stuff? We can talk about.

(55:31):
Well, yeah. I mean, when I was working for
the paper, you know, I left the paper roughly six years ago now.
But when I was working for the paper during those 30 years, I
was doing corporate public relation work.
And basically I would go to an event or something that a client
would hire me, and then I would make the photo available for the
news media. And it's like the same photo
goes to Associated Press, Reuters, Getty Agency, France

(55:55):
Press and then Getty Images or Liaison, whoever it was.
I sort of see a pattern. Is that it all seemed to be
going towards that even in your childhood, because you learned a
sense of discipline from your family, but also from a lot of
these people who took you under their wing.
And you learned how to be a costar, not always the lead.
And you also learned, and I've known a lot of photographers

(56:17):
because I worked at Disney, where we had a huge department
of great photographers and I've seen them in action.
And a great photographer has to sometimes step up and run
things. They also have to step back and
be invisible sometimes. But you have to kind of know
instinctively how to do that, how to move in and out of that.

(56:37):
And all of that seems to have led up to why you've been the
success that you are. Thank you.
Well, I hope you try to make sense out of your life.
On the personal level, my cheerleaders have always been my
mom and dad and my sisters. And on a personal note, the day
after Christmas in 85, my younger sister died in an auto

(56:58):
wreck and she was rushing to getto work and ran a red light and
she had a Volkswagen van which didn't have seatbelts and the
damn thing rolled over as she turned and it whacked her in the
head and killed her. You know, the day before I
bought her the old school stereorack.
You have the turntable on top, you double cassette players in

(57:21):
the middle stereo your mixture. Well, we were listening to a
station in Compton and it was this really good.
Not rap music because it wasn't even that the time, but it's
this really upbeat music and, and just having a good time and
dancing that the family was there.
And, and after she died and thiswas in 85, the paper was two

(57:42):
years old. They, they gave me time to say
get my act together. We're talking about, you know,
like a month or two. They felt it, you know, everyone
felt it but my sister Jill, bothmy sisters, but my younger
sister in the sense I was closerto her just because she was my

(58:03):
kid sister. And finally, about a month or so
later, I get a call from the money section.
Robin, my photo editor, she goes, hey, Ria, how you doing?
Because you feel like going out and some breathing, some ocean
air and so, well, what's up? She goes, well, I need some
pictures of the Port of Long Beach in Los Angeles.
We just need some pictures. Can you do it?

(58:23):
And I said, yes, these people knew me.
They gave me my time. But basically, she said, Ria,
you need to get back in the saddle and moving from that time
forward. I mean, this is, you know,
brings tears into my eyes. But this is like the respect
that people should have is as any photographer does, they need

(58:46):
people in their corner, in theirsupport corner.
And over the years, you know, both my parents are gone, my
older sister still around and having my inner core group that
I could confide in a lot, they were no longer around.
And then that's when I talked. David Kennerly and Rhonda is
archivist. She was on the phone with me for
three hours. She told me that amongst maybe a

(59:07):
dozen photographers that have anarchive of content that I own,
not a newspaper or a magazine owns, kind of like Kennerly owns
all of his stuff from his Vietnam War Pulitzer Prize
winning images to being President Ford's White House
photographer. And he just was at the
convention, you know, working for Politico.

(59:29):
And the way she told me was not to put me on that plateau, that
Mount Everest, but it was to say, Bob, do it because your
archives are more important. And you know what?
That's what Getty told me. Also on the new side, you need
to do your archive today. To me, that's going to help my
kids, my wife. And that's kind of where my

(59:51):
philosophy is, out of respect tomy friends who aren't here and
to my family and for generations.
But you didn't live in the past and your best days weren't
behind you, which I think is notnecessarily what happened to a
lot of your peers during that time.
Well, yeah. And look at during the cocaine

(01:00:12):
years, I mean, I always played sports, Yeah.
We would get together in the in the baseball dugouts on Friday
nights and, you know, have like the worst, you know, screw top
wines that are out there. OK.
When my younger sister died was during the say the cocaine
period in Hollywood. I just had to do like the right
thing, and drugs wasn't the answer.

(01:00:34):
When the light bulb lit with thephotography, that was powerful
stuff. It was just something about the
medium of the news media. I want to tell everybody that a
lot of what you've described, a lot of the events that you've
covered, actually just the tip of the iceberg really because
you've got thousands, but a lot of them on your website and that

(01:00:56):
is RIHA Rehab photo.com. Readaphoto.com.
It's a who's who. I mean, people from Tony Bennett
to Michael Jackson, Debbie Reynold, Paul Newman, the and
coverage of famous events, sports events, political events,
show business events. In a way, you really did hit

(01:01:17):
that Beanstalk. Get up there.
Thank you. Well, my whole life is, you
know, as a kid growing up in front of the camera in
Hollywood. No matter whether they were
world leaders or famous people or they were ordinary people,
you connected with people and that's what's made lasting
impressions on you. Well, it has.
It's kind of like being a witness to history, the acting

(01:01:39):
stuff. I want people to go to my
website, youknowriaphoto.com. There's an array of pictures.
And then you get a call out of left field from the book
publisher saying we really need this picture, like soon, but we
can't get it. And then I find my image, I
e-mail it to them, they thank me, they send me a book after
it's done. And it was a success.
That situation I just described was the Springsteen, the Bahama

(01:02:02):
book called Renegades. Mrs. Springsteen loved a picture
that I had shot that she saw on Getty of them together singing
on a stage during a concert at the microphone.
Now think of the billions of pictures that are out there and
we're in their book on the middle of each page, they would
have like a quotation of the person that they're talking
about on that one page. They took out the quotation and

(01:02:25):
stuck in my photo and it's a small photo in the middle of the
page. That's extraordinary that it's,
again, I'm the kid that climbed the Beanstalk, you know?
You say you've been fortunate, but we've also been fortunate
because you've always delivered no matter what your age was and
always appreciated, You know, what you've done and we've
appreciated what you've done. You know it's boundless when you

(01:02:48):
look at the body of work as a child.
Those are that was a golden age.And then the thousands of
incredible photos. Now to this day I still get fan
mail and I look at it, I have items right in front of me.
Another thing is I have my hat that I wore still.
I have my script. I have the virgin vinyl LP's for

(01:03:13):
Woggle Bird. It's been nice.
All the songs. It's the size of the LP.
This is when we went into Capitol Records or wherever we
did the recordings, no label perSE.
And when you play it, I think itgoes beep, beep, beep, and then
the music start. So they would use this as like
the soundtrack that we would useduring the filming, the

(01:03:33):
playback. So I still have the gold coins
since you want to know everything.
The gold coins at the end where you hear all the metal, you
know, twinkle, twinkle. You know, the gold coins are
falling on me and Kelly. And, well, the gold coins were
pieces of balsa wood that they cut out and they painted gold.
And in the ceiling of the sound stage where all the lights are

(01:03:56):
hanging from, they had two guys there with like two boxes full
of the balsa wood gold coins. But when they first did it, I
mean, it came down so hard and like, this slammed in my face
that they had to redo that. But I still have all of that
stuff. For me, it's a reminder of where
my life journey started and thenwhere it'll be is going to be

(01:04:20):
within Getty Archives forever. I have two young adult children.
Kayla is my daughter and my son Kelsey.
That's why going back to when wefirst talked about, right now in
my life, I'm trying to do thingsthat I can control that will
have an impact. And what I'm doing for my
archives is going to help my kids, my wife too.

(01:04:42):
But you know, when my kids are older and hopefully they'll have
kids and grandkids and, hey, if I'm still around, great.
If not, this will be around forever.
The Hollywood part, the entertainment part.
I am proud of what I did. Privilege now as an adult,
knowing what I did and the amount of stuff and how
everything worked out. But the biggest achievement is

(01:05:04):
obviously having a family, having kids, having my photo
career. You know, I am very appreciative
to have people write me a fan letter from the other side of
the world and say, yeah, when I was a kid, this and that.
And now I have the DVD and my kids.
And that's the part that hits myheart the heaviest.
It's kind of like seeing my picture in a newsstand at the

(01:05:26):
Vatican. Certain things will make that
impact and sticks like glue to me, to my.
Heart and the story goes on. You brought to the world your
talent and your childhood, but then your incredible talent
behind the camera. My urge everybody to go to rehab
photo RIHAPH oto.com to marvel at just a sampling of the photos

(01:05:51):
of an extraordinary career. And I thank you again so much
for being so generous with your time and with your story.
And I really want to thank you. And I also want to thank
everybody for listening. I want to thank you for all the
nice comments and all of those nice things.
And I hope that you'll join us next time.
But until then, bye bye. We hope you enjoyed the

(01:06:14):
fantastic world of Hannah and Barbera with Greg Airborne.
Please join us again and Many thanks for listening.