Brocco Is His Bond to Racing

He used to call Howard Hughes “Sam.” When they double-dated.

He ranged Hollywood in the glory days. He partied on Errol Flynn’s yacht, gambled at the Clover Club, squired the reigning filmland movie queens to the Sunset Strip’s Mocambo and Ciro’s, was on a first-name (or first-initial) basis with L.B. Mayer and C.B. DeMille.

Cary Grant was best man at his wedding. He rescued Sean Connery from a career as a character actor and turned him into a big, if not the biggest, star on the screen.

Also, how many people do you know whose family had a vegetable named after it? His did.

Albert Romolo Broccoli comes from the Italian horticulturists who crossed the Italian rabe with the cauliflower and came up with the delicacy called, naturally, broccoli. George Bush might not like it, but the rest of the world does. Notwithstanding the famous New Yorker cartoon that has the youngster spitting it out and saying as he grimaces, “I say it’s spinach and I say the hell with it!”

Cubby Broccoli came from that background. He left the family truck farm on Long Island at an early age--a hoe was not Cubby’s idea of a career--and lit out for Hollywood. He became the ultimate man-about-town who knew every head waiter and studio gate guard in the community.

A more popular figure never roamed Tinsel Town. Everybody liked Cubby Broccoli, not the least of whom were the ladies. He and his cousin, Pat de Cicco--he invented the theater concession delicacy, the ice cream bonbon--were the most eligible bachelors in a swinging town.

In an industry whose coat of arms should have been the double cross rampant on a field of broken promises, Cubby’s handshake was worth a 10-page contract.

He went from being an assistant director to talent agent. And, he became an independent producer at a time when the studios ran the town and independent producer usually was code for out of work.

Not in Cubby’s case. He made it work with a barrage of Alan Ladd melodramas such as “Red Beret” and “Black Knight” and adventure sagas such as “Hell Below Zero,” about Antarctica.

“Cubby Broccoli was the only guy in the business who could make his own picture and cut a deal for its distribution,” Darryl Zanuck once told a reporter. “He was that well liked.”

He branched out into international filming and made the cult film “The Trial Of Oscar Wilde,” which would win an Oscar today but could not pass the censors in those benighted days.

He had such a sure instinct for box office that, when his pal, Ned McLean, of the Hope Diamond McLeans--Cubby didn’t know any poor people--told him that the President of the United States, Jack Kennedy, was addicted to Ian Fleming spy novels, Cubby read the books and quickly knew he had the key to the mint.

The James Bond movies are the most successful film series ever released, notwithstanding any Roman numeral Rocky or Godfather, or even the Andy Hardy perennials.

They became blockbusters after Cubby’s wife, Dana, based on audition reels, picked Sean Connery out of the lineup with the advice, “Take that one! He’s gorgeous!”

Since the days of the Hispano-Suiza, Hollywood movie moguls have yearned to win a Kentucky Derby. Louis B. Mayer tried with horses such as Your Host--he ran ninth--and a half-dozen others he bred. Jack Warner hankered for a Derby winner.

Producers, directors, agents, authors, show biz lawyers and songwriters took a shot at it. Even stars did. Jack Klugman’s horse ran third but Telly Savalas’ Telly’s Pop never made it to the gate.

So, Cubby Broccoli is following an old familiar scenario to Churchill Downs, the movie maker who wants to win America’s most prestigious race.

He has a leg up on it. Last month, in the bowl game of horse racing, the Breeders’ Cup, Broccoli’s horse, fittingly named Brocco, ran a blistering mile and a sixteenth, routing the flower of 2-year-old racing in the Juvenile by five lengths.

The charts of movie makers’ horses in Kentucky in the past were not encouraging. Postrace, they would usually read, “Outrun,” or “Gave way in stretch,” or “Tired badly,” “Pulled up,” or “Stopped,” or “Finished early.”

Cubby’s horse’s chart for his second start read “Crushed foes.” Brocco has won all three of his races to date with ease.

Is he a James Bond of the track?

Well, we may find out as early as the eighth race at Hollywood Park today, the Hollywood Futurity.

Cubby Broccoli paid $215,000 for Brocco at the Pomona sales last March, not much considering a James Bond movie is probably playing somewhere in the world every week of the year. And the colt has already won $535,550.

For Broccoli, a Kentucky Derby would be a cream topping to a career in which he has already received an Order of the British Empire knighting from Queen Elizabeth, a ribbon from the French Legion d’Honneur and the film industry’s coveted Thalberg Award at the 1982 Oscars.

Broccoli hopes his luck holds. There are those around the track who wonder if Brocco can go the mile-and-a-quarter distance, but Broccoli notes they said that about James Bond, too.

Besides, if it comes to that, Broccoli can always change the colt’s name to Double-Oh Seven. And the other jocks will be afraid to get within a furlong of him. For fear he will suddenly sprout cannons and knives. Or start to fly in the stretch.