Thieves End a Sound Man’s Hopes for Work in L. A.

It’s bad enough when the Grinch steals Christmas. But Sunday night, someone stole Richard Van Dyke’s truck, clothes and whole livelihood.

On Saturday night, Van Dyke, a 36-year-old sound mixer, arrived in North Hollywood from Wilmington, N.C., carrying every bit of professional sound equipment he owned in the back of his Chevrolet Suburban.

It was raining at his mother’s house on Dilling Street, so he didn’t bother to unload his truck. The next morning, he awoke at 7, walked into the kitchen, looked out the window and discovered his truck was gone. “I knew immediately what it meant,” said Van Dyke, who ran on fear all day Monday. “They didn’t just grab my car, they took my life.”

Gone along with Van Dyke’s truck were two high-end tape recorders, mixing panels, microphones, boom poles and 20 walkie-talkies--in short, everything he needed to hire himself out as a feature film sound man.

On top of that, all of his clothes, a motorcycle in a U-Haul trailer and Van Dyke’s address book of professional contacts were lost.

But it was the theft of the equipment that Van Dyke said left him stunned, numbed and totally floored. “I didn’t even want to get out of bed this morning,” he said. “And the more I thought about it, the worse it got.”

Van Dyke, the sound man for the TV series “Moonlighting,” the first season of “China Beach” and 15 feature films, grew up in Los Angeles, but moved his family to North Carolina two years ago to take advantage of a flourishing film community there. He said he also regarded North Carolina as a wonderful place to raise a family.

When things got slow in December, Van Dyke said, he packed his clothes and all his sound equipment in his truck and, leaving his wife and 19-month-old daughter behind, took off for Los Angeles where he planned to stay until business picked up at home. “It took me eight days to drive out here,” he said. “I passed on being with my family over Christmas and New Year’s to earn a little money.”

Now, he said, he has no money to get back to North Carolina and his trip west has turned into a nightmare. “I can’t buy new equipment without getting work. And I can’t work without new equipment. It’s a huge Catch-22.”

Van Dyke’s sound equipment, which he said is worth $70,000, was insured. Unfortunately, Van Dyke said, a clause in the policy specifically excludes equipment left in an unattended vehicle.

His father, an insurance man who wrote the policy, feels terrible, but that’s just the way they write those policies, Van Dyke said. He said he immediately contacted North Hollywood detectives, who were sympathetic about his loss but also realistic: “They told me I can kiss it goodby.”

The empty U-Haul trailer was found Tuesday in South-Central Los Angeles. Van Dyke said detectives told him the truck probably will show up in a week, stripped and empty.

Van Dyke said he doesn’t care about the truck, his clothes or the motorcycle. And he can even bear the loss of a Rolex watch that the director of “Casablanca” gave his grandfather, silent film actor Truman Van Dyke. But, he said, without his sound equipment he has no credibility with film companies. They’d consider him a novice.

The thieves, Van Dyke said, must have believed they’d hit the jackpot when they saw the parked truck and U-Haul trailer. “They probably thought there were stereos and TVs inside. Instead, they stole my business.”

But ironically, Van Dyke said, the thieves can’t even sell his sound equipment. The only place that deals in such high-end movie sound technology is Audio Services Corp. of North Hollywood. That company’s president, Richard Topham, already has a list of the serial numbers on file. So if they try to sell the equipment to him, Topham said he will call the police.

“I just want it back,” Van Dyke said. “I’ll pay a couple thousand dollars reward. They can leave it on the street in front of my house.”

If he could, Van Dyke would tell the thieves:

“Look, you can’t resell it. Bring it back to me.”