Stars Toast Pal With a Lot of Memories

“I don’t care if you are Batman ... park that thing on the street.” --Inscription on 80th-birthday card for Howard Washington.

It’s a touchy job, deciding who gets to park in the lot and who’s left out on the street, but according to the folklore at Warner Bros. Records, 80-year-old Howard Washington has rarely let a rock star’s VIP status get in the way.

Washington is famous for telling the best of them to park on the street, whether they’re Prince or Madonna or anybody else who doesn’t have an assigned parking slot--or who arrives when all the other spaces in the too-small lot are already taken.

Not too surprisingly, everyone respectfully obeys the man who holds the key to their parking futures. Parking access is a highly regarded perk, a status symbol on most show-biz lots. Plus, Washington possesses a commanding voice (at 50 yards) and subtle but certain, you’d-be-a-fool-to-mess-with-me presence.

He also has a garden on the lot where he grows eggplant, cantaloupe, tomatoes, artichokes, string beans, peppers, petunias and marigolds, right there in beautiful downtown Burbank where space is at a premium.

‘Philosophy Corner’

Washington’s garden patch is just outside his air-conditioned, stereo-wired guard shack, also known as “the philosophy corner” to employees such as Adam Somers, senior vice president of creative services. “You can come in in the morning and hang out with Howard and he talks about money, women, divorce, the company--the long view of things,” Somers said.

The senior vice president, who is white, didn’t hesitate to jokingly tell the crowd at the birthday party for Washington, who is black, that “all the stories that I’m Howard’s illegitimate son are true.” And he pointed out that Washington has handled far more than parking-related duties for the organization.

One time, Somers recalled, he needed to get a bulldozer for an advertising photo session and he needed it within half an hour. Knowing that the usual bureaucratic channels of the company would delay the shoot, perhaps for days, Somers turned to Washington. “Howard called me back and said, ‘You think you can come up with a six-pack of beer and six cassettes?’ ” said Somers, adding that the bulldozer appeared within half an hour.

David Lee Roth, rock’s Spandex king, was on hand to emcee the Friday-afternoon festivities and told the gathering of Warner Bros. Records employees and friends that Washington “denied me access (to the lot) my first time . . . he still denies my manager . . . access.”

Roth, who was dressed conservatively in a black vest, white cotton shirt and black-and-white checked pants and wore his usually wild mane in a simple ponytail, joked that Warner Bros. visitors are all nobodies until they’ve passed through Washington. “It’s not that he has that much clout,” he explained. “It’s just that there’s no other way to get in here.”

Fondness for Washington

Asked later why he agreed to serve as emcee, Roth expressed true fondness for Washington and remembered that the honoree “was my first contact with the big corporate empire of the music business. Howard’s your first barometric reading when you get here.”

Roth told of one particular visit, arriving at the lot after 2 1/2 days in the desert where he developed “Just a Gigolo.” The song became one of his biggest records as a solo artist after leaving the group Van Halen.

“I drove in here, I hadn’t changed clothes for 2 1/2 days and told Howard my idea for the song. He was the first person to hear it and he said, ‘It’ll be a hit,’ ” Roth recalled.

Singers Randy Crawford and John Fogerty also were at the birthday party, which had been originally billed as a listening party for Roth, so Washington wouldn’t suspect the hoopla was for him.

Like Roth, Fogerty, the former lead singer of Creedence Clearwater Revival who signed with Warner Bros. when he became a solo artist, remembered that he repeatedly had to park on the street when he was visiting the record company at the time his “Centerfield” album was in the works. “He (Washington) didn’t want to let on that he knew I was a big star,” Fogerty remembered.

Artists Know Him

Or perhaps he just didn’t know. Said Bob Merlis, head of the Warner Bros. public relations: “Most of the Warner artists know him even though he doesn’t know who they are.”

Indeed, it seemed most everyone at the party not only knew Washington but at one time or other had to park on the street. Many employees were still consigned to the street. Thus, they presented Washington with his own framed, platinum record, titled “Howard Washington On the Lot.” Among the cuts: “You Can’t Park Here,” “Park on the Street,” “The Lot Is Full,” “They Didn’t Tell Me You Were Coming,” and the long version of “I Don’t Care Who You Are.” Though he didn’t say much from the stage except thank you, Washington sat down later and explained that his attitude toward stars and other big wigs is plainly egalitarian: “I treat them just like everybody else. I’ve been around stars. They’re human like everybody else.”

Born July 15, 1909, in Norco, La., Washington said he was an only child who ran away from home at age 16 to come to Los Angeles. He began working at Warner Bros.’ film studio in 1929, he added, providing a concession service of shoe shines and car washes.

Friend of Warner Family

“I had people working for me,” he remembered, noting that he became friends with members of the Warner family and was one of about 40 people invited to the funeral of co-founder Jack Warner.

Asked if he encountered discrimination because of his color working either for the film studio or the record company, which he joined exclusively when the two firms’ offices were separated, Washington replied: “Sure, there was discrimination, but I was treated as an equal. I know there was discrimination. I’ve seen it many times. But I’ve always been treated very nicely. . . . I was probably discriminated against, but in very subtle ways.”

In his years with Warner Bros., Washington has greeted stars from Joan Crawford to Bette Davis to Ronald Reagan, “when he was married to Jane Wyman.” And he’s tried a bit of everything. He worked briefly in the prop department. Served in the Navy in World War II. And had a small speaking part as a waiter in the 1951 Hitchcock film “Strangers on a Train.”

In the ‘50s, Washington also went to real estate school and began buying and selling real estate, while still working at Warner Bros.

Owns Buildings

He now owns several buildings around town, including a 12-unit apartment complex on Slauson Avenue, though he still rents his own home in the West Adams district. Currently single, he has been married five times (“instead of shacking up, it was better in those days to get married”) and has two sons, one deceased.

A warm, gregarious man who looks more as though he’s in his 50s or early 60s than his 80s, Washington attributed his good health and vitality to familiar precepts: “I do most everything--in moderation. I believe in God. I live by the Commandments. I try to treat my fellow man right. And if I don’t get along with you, I move on. I try to think right. You can live practically as long as you can move around if you think right.

“And I keep myself having fun all the time. I work because I enjoy my job.”

Washington also has a good time off the job, as his girlfriend, Eunice Glover testified after the party. “I’ve known Howard for 30 years, intimately for the last four years,” she said. “He’s a very thoughtful person.”

But, after all these years tending cars on the parking lot, he still doesn’t know much about them. “You’d think after a quarter of a century or so working on a parking lot, he’d know something about cars,” declared Merlis. “His answer to everything is, ‘Have you got jumper cables?’ ”