Here's the first 'installment' of my interview with John Christopher Strong. It
was conducted on October 12th, 2004 at 12:35pm CST.

Perhaps I've taken a bit too long in transcribing and posting this first
segment, but Strong mentions people and places on which I wished to acquire a
bit of information before I related them. Not only did I wish to spell their
names properly (Did Strong say the man's name was 'Jurgen' or 'Dirkin' or
'Durgan'?), but I also desired a bit of historical reference, myself. Not only
did I NOT live in Los Angeles in the 1970's when these events that Strong is
relating take place... but I've never even been to Los Angeles. So I had no
idea what/where 'The Bistro' was that Strong mentioned. Perhaps you'll be 'in
the same boat' with me when you read this? If no one desires the 'NOTES' I've
littered about the transcription, please let me know on or off-list, and if
there's a consensus, I'll modify future installments accordingly. :) And if
I've made any mistakes/misspellings regarding people or places.. I hope you'll
let me know.

Enjoy--

Jim Alexander
probecontrol@...

====================================================

S: Hello?

A: Mr. Strong! Jim Alexander here, sir.

S: Hi, Jim. How are you?

A: Doing well. I hope YOU are, today?

S: I am indeed.

A: Good. Do you have time to talk, sir?

S: Sure. Why not?

A: I've had people e-mailing me questions for you literally from all around the
world, and they're pretty enthusiastic. Let's start right out. Can you give us
an overview of your early Hollywood career, and what led to your involvement in
the PROBE pilot?

S: Um. Let's see. Leslie Stevens and I were partners. We'd done a show called
NAME OF THE GAME... (and) STONEY BURKE and THE OUTER LIMITS. Um, and we'd done
a show called McCLOUD--I don't know if you remember that.

A: I remember every show you're talking about--even STONEY BURKE with Jack Lord.

S: Jack Lord, Warren Oates, Bob Dowdell, Bruce Dern... and uh, we were best
friends... and we developed the 'Four In One' concept called THE WORLD PREMIERE
at NBC/Universal, of which McCLOUD was a part of, if you remember.

A: Correct. McCLOUD pre-dated SEARCH.

S: That's correct. Then, after McCLOUD was on the air, we left Universal, and
we had done a show called... we had (unintelligible) a show called '1999', which
in those days, uh... this was '71... '70. And, uh... it evolved into SEARCH.

A: '1999' evolved into SEARCH. Interesting! How different WAS the concept of
'1999' from what we ultimately know as SEARCH?

S: A lot. A lot. WORLD SECURITIES was an 'overview' of what the world
needed--what WE thought the world needed; we had done a lot of things... we'd
created something called EARTHSIDE MISSILE BASE where we took a missile silo in
Sacremento and turned it into an Ecology Center. We had done a lot of strange
things because we believed in different things. We thought the world needed a
concept of 'security' where people, uh... would literally, uh... it looked like
an Insurance Company... would be a Security Company.

A: A 'front?'

S: Pardon me?

A: Some sort of a 'front?'

S: Yeah. Like a front.

A: Gotcha. So, with WORLD SECURITIES and '1999' the concept kind of developed
into SEARCH.

S: It developed into PROBE.

A: Sure. The pilot film's original title.

S: That was based on the fact that the Probe (agent) would be someone who would
go into a place where nobody else could go.

A: Right. Which leads me into a question I just thought of. Stevens, or
whoever, came up with the concept of P.R.O.B.E.--the first three letters of
which stood for "Programmed Retrieval Operations." It was never revealed what
the letters 'B' and 'E' stood for. Any clue as to what (those letters) may have
meant? (chuckles)

S: (chuckles) I think you're reading more into than we ever had.

A: It's always been one of those 'nagging' questions that fans of the series had
wondered about.

S: We never had it.

A: Well, THERE'S a definitive answer, then! (laughs) So your friendship with
Mr. Stevens--as well as the talent you brought to the project--led you to work
on the pilot film PROBE. Did your responsibilities change from what they were
during the pilot, when it became a series?

S: Uh, no. I was in charge of, uh... reviews of the screenplays, rewriting them
with Leslie... writing ONE of the screenplays called 'In Search of Midas'...
then I directed all the Second Unit, and designed the show.

A: Right. You co-authored 'Midas' with Michael Stein.

S: Mike Stein, yeah. An old buddy of mine. He actually didn't do any of the
writing...

A: (chuckles)

S: ... but, at the time he had cancer, and I thought I'd... share some wealth.

A: Understood. So you said your responsibilities were rather far-reaching with
regards to the PROBE pilot. You had a lot of input, or actually came up with
the design of the Scanners, uh...

S: Everything!

A: Everything!

S: Yeah. I even, uh... in the pilot, Dominic (Frontiere--who scored the show)
was doing a Main Title Sequence with music (hums the first few seconds of the
SEARCH theme song, note-for-note)... you know that tune?

A: Absolutely. Unforgettable.

S: (chuckles) And I designed the Main Title Sequence with the 'diamonds'. I
got, I believe it was Harry Winston...

===============

NOTE: Harry Winston was a jeweler for TV shows and movies for 40 years. More
recently, he supplied the jewels for Peter Hyam's 'The Musketeer' in 2001. His
imdb listing is: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0935588/

================

A: ... or somebody... to get me some big stones. And I shot that with a Questar
1500 millimeter lens, which no one had ever used before in movies, to get that
close to them, to make them absolutely dazzling.

A: I remember those shots. They actually went in and out of focus. Beautiful!

S: That's correct.

A: When the PROBE pilot was retitled SEARCH, and ran in syndication packages,
that particular footage was actually used full-screen, going in and out of
commercials.

S: Right. That's correct.

A: I don't know if they were used in the same fashion during the pilot's
original network airing, but that's the way it appeared in syndication.

S: And what I tried to do... and of course Leslie (Stevens) gave me a full hand
because he was doin' HIS deal, and I did MINE...

A: And what was HIS deal, basically?

S: He would be rewriting most scripts, and I would be rewriting the OTHER ones.

A: Gotcha.

S: We had LOTS of writers, and LOTS of directors, and we had an 'impossible'
show to create because... I shot 'Probe Control' one day a week... and on the
days we bunched the shows together. Okay? That's how I got 'Buzz' (Strong's
nickname for Meredith) to do the show.

A: Understood. Your nickname for Burgess Meredith was 'Buzz'?

S: That's right. He was a wonderful guy.

A: I'd like to hear more about him.

S: Well... you know 'Buzz' was an ecology wonder-boy. He used to hang out with
Barbara Birdfeather...

===============

NOTE: A google search for 'Barbara Birdfeather' indicates the individual that
Meredith spent time with was either a popular L.A. Disc Jockey at the time (see
http://www.laradio.com/whereb.htm) or my guess: an Astrologer/Author of the book
"The Birdfeather Astrological Space Books: Tales of the Universe", published in
1969

===============

A: ... and the (unintelligible) Masters down in Malibu. He was just the most
wonderful man that ever walked!

A: Kind of a "renaissance man"...?

S: He was INDEED A renaissance man. His IQ was up in the 160s', and he was
something very special. Anyway, 'Buzz' was very pragmatic. He said, "Ah! The
show will never get picked up! It's too good! It's got too much quality, blah,
blah, blah." (pauses) Then I'll tell you about the PROBE pilot in a
minute--there's something I remembered that would be of interest to you.

A: Great!

S: Anyway, I told him, "Don't worry. We'll get picked up." So he says, "I'll
bet you a dinner at the best restaurant in town," which at the time was 'The
Bistro' here in Los Angeles.

================

NOTE: In this web column, 'CONNIE MARTINSON TALKS BOOKS' dated 8/30/2000,
Martinson writes: "It was the restaurant people went to when they wanted to feel
important or beautiful. It wasn't always easy to get a reservation but then that
was what made it seem so special. The restaurant was 'The Bistro' on Canon Drive
in Beverly Hills, and the ring master/owner was Kurt Niklas. 'The Bistro' gave
birth to 'The Bistro Gardens' down the road and to 'The Bistro Gardens at
Coldwater'." A link can be found at:
http://www.conniemartinson.com/CMTB/004.html

=================

S: So, for 'Buzz' to spend money was like pinching...

A: (laughs)

S: ... pinching. (chuckles) So anyway, we went to 'The Bistro' with my wife at
the time, and 'Buzz' was there alone... and we were sitting next to Zsa Zsa
Gabor whose... bosom... was ample in those days, and (it) was hanging out of her
dress. And of course it was 'Buzz'... 'Buzz' was an epicurean MASTER! He loved
wine, and was a wine FANATIC! And I told you (in a previous conversation) that
that's how I got him to do the show!

A: Thirteen bottles!

S: Thirteen bottles of Chateau LaFite 1941.

=================

NOTE: Strong related to me briefly during our original phone conversation that
he enticed Meredith to do SEARCH by offering him what Strong says were the last
13 bottles in existence of this exceptionally sought-after and very rare wine.

It is now 32 years after the events of Strong's story, but at 'The Sixth
International Wine, Spirits & Food Festival' at Donald Trump's exclusive
Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach on March 24th, 2004, a single bottle of Chateau
Lafite Rothschild 1941 was auctioned for charity for $2,000. See
http://www.life-edu.org/wineauction.html for details.

=================

S: I had them in my closet, which was the thing that he HATED most--that I could
keep these in my closet and not give them to him. I (eventually) gave them to
him... one-an-episode.

A: The LAST 13 bottles if I remember correctly!

S: The LAST 13 bottles! That is correct. And I paid an ungodly amount for
them, believe me! (pauses) Where was I? ...Because I digressed on that...

A: Talking about dinner... near Zsa Zsa...

S: Yes! So (Meredith) got drunk and he said something about him doing something
in television and (Meredith and Zsa Zsa) got in a fistfight... a foodfight...
right in the middle of 'The Bistro.' Because he was proud of the show (SEARCH)
and was proud of television... and told her to keep her disgusting bosom 'in its
sheath.'

A: (laughs)

S: Anyway... the thing I thought you might like to know about the (PROBE) pilot
was... during the second or third day of shooting, on one of the back lots, Hugh
O'Brian was in the little Mexican village... in the Teaser. And he runs up the
stairs and tears out the ligament in his right knee.

A: In the very opening scene.

S: Right. And we shot... Hugh O'Brian in the fight scenes... in a WHEELCHAIR...
with a body double!

A: Amazing! You'd never know it.

S: Nope!

A: Amazing. So, uh, Mr. Meredith was hired for the (PROBE) pilot in a pretty
standard fashion?

S: Yeah.

A: And then you enticed him to do the series with that aid of the wine...?

S: It was through his agent, Bullets Durgan...

========================

NOTE: I found two references on the web for Bullets Durgan. The first is in a
CNN.com article about Jackie Gleason. Gleason's widow Marilyn mentions Durgan
in passing as a one-time partner and manager of Jackie's. The link is at:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0205/03/lkl.00.html

The other concerns a story that voice artist/actor Gary Owens is relating where
he refers to Durgan as being Frank Sinatra's 'head gofer.' That link's at:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%22bullets+durgan%22&hl=en&lr=&selm=eK2Ba.1185\
11%24823.104290%40news1.east.cox.net&rnum=1

=================

S: ... that I got (Meredith). I ran into Bullets up at Jack Warner's house, and
I got Bullets as Buzz's agent. And then Bullets tried to get $75,000 an episode
(for Meredith), and that's what I had (planned on paying) Burgess for the whole
SERIES!

A: (laughs)

S: Okay?

A: Right.

S: So, uh... Bullets was holding firm, and I kept telling 'Buzz', "It's NOT
going to happen--we don't have (that amount of money)." So, I figured I'd 'hand
him the hook' by telling him that I was going to hire the guy from VOYAGE TO THE
BOTTOM OF THE SEA. What was his name? Dick Basehart.

A: Richard Basehart... right.

S: Right. I said, "Buzz! He LOOKS like you. He's a little more... virile..."

A: (laughs)

S: ... "and it's a SHAME to see all this Chateau LaFite go into Dick Bashart's
palate!"

A: (laughs) That cinched it!

S: Bullets Durgan called me up and said, "You're cuttin' into my INCOME!" I
said, "Look, Bullets... we're gonna shoot Burgess in one clump. He'll work ONE
day a week. He'll get $7,500 an episode! It's like
seven-thousand-five-hundred-thousand (dollars) a DAY! 'Buzz doesn't GET that
(amount of money, normally). And... he's not exclusive! He can go and do
whatever he wants!"

A: Right.

S: So... 'Buzz' took the show... and he was brilliant.

A: He WAS brilliant. He tied everything together--he really did.

S: Yup!

A: And he worked a SINGLE day a week, is that correct?

S: A single day a week. Right.

A: Okay... maybe I misunderstood. I was thinking you mentioned in our previous
conversation that Meredith worked THREE days a week--two days of which you shot
him on the Probe Control set BY HIMSELF, and a single day was spent with the
other actors on the Probe Control set.

S: As a matter of fact, what we DID was, we shot 'BUZZ' a single day...

A: Right.

S: ... and had the other actors of Probe Control... but the times that we shot
'Buzz' we had him for a couple of extra days as well... but to shoot HIM.

A: Right.

S: Like the close-ups. (And the sequences ) where he'd go, (does an absolutely
dead-on impersonation of Meredith's irritated bark) "LOCKWOOD! LOCKWOOD!!!

A: (laughs) Usually at the end of the episode...

S: Exactly. Right.

END OF PART ONE


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