The Enduring Voice

You listen to a man for 40 years and you figure you know him pretty well.

If you have been even a casual Laker fan over the last four decades, you “know” play-by-play announcer Chick Hearn. Perhaps your grandparents listened to him. Your parents did. You and your kids do. And--who knows?--soon your grandkids might.

He has been part of the family for a long time.

You know about the game being “in the refrigerator,” the mustard being “off the hot dog,” the defender being “faked into the popcorn machine.”

You marvel that a man who has celebrated his 80th birthday--and a few more he does not readily admit to--continues a consecutive-games streak that recently surpassed 3,200.

You wonder at the reserves of strength he must draw on to keep going in a young man’s game, to not only survive the grueling pace of an NBA season--the 6 a.m. wake-up calls, the icy winter roads, the next arena in the next city, the bad press box food--but to sound articulate and enthusiastic through it all.

You figure it must be the love of a game he has known as player, referee and announcer for nearly three-quarters of a century that drives him.

There is certainly that, but there is more. There’s another part of the story that is seldom told, another Chick Hearn you don’t really know. That’s because he doesn’t normally talk about his family to anyone but Marge, his wife of 62 years.

Chick and Marge have experienced the joy of being loving parents, grandparents and now great-grandparents. But they have also experienced the continuing grief of having lost both of their children.

Gary Hearn was 29 when he died of a drug overdose June 1, 1972.

Samantha Hearn was 43 when she died of pneumonia 10 years ago today, a complication stemming from anorexia.

Work has been Hearn’s salvation through the dark moments, a way to keep his mind occupied and the void at least partially filled. With Marge, granddaughter Shannon Hearn-Newman, her husband, Louie Newman, and their 5-year-old daughter, Kayla, the Lakers have become Chick’s extended family.

“I think working has saved his life,” Marge said. “It’s the best thing for him.”

No argument from Chick.

“I had originally turned down the ‘Bowling for Dollars’ show [years ago],” he said. “But, after Gary died, I called back and asked if I could do it. If I didn’t work, I would just sit around and think and go crazy. Work and prayer has gotten me through.

“You never expect your children to die before you. For us, it was a double loss. . . . At the time, we thought we were doing everything we could for them. We never knew it would end in death for both of them. God knows, we tried everything.”

Said Marge, “There isn’t a day that goes by that something doesn’t pop up to remind me of them, a song they liked, something they did. I talk about them to keep them alive that way. [Chick] can hardly mention their names.”

Chick has turned down opportunities to do his autobiography because it was too painful to talk about the children. But after all these years, Marge and Chick considered it time the world knew who those children really were, knew that there was more to Chick than a microphone and a basketball, knew that he had children with identities and qualities of their own.

He and Marge recently sat down in their trophy-filled, hilltop home in Encino, with the San Fernando Valley as a backdrop, and talked about a time when theirs was a happy family of four. The words came easier for Marge than for Chick, but the feelings flowed from both.

“I wanted this story done to see that they are not forgotten,” Marge said. “We want people to remember them as the good people they were.”

Beginnings

The love story began in homeroom at East Aurora High in Aurora, Ill., 70 years ago. She was Marge Jeffers. He was Francis Hearn. Seated alphabetically, she was behind him.

And, since falling for the tall, good-looking, wisecracking Irishman, Marge has remained behind him all the way, through the years when he was a multisport star at East Aurora, an AAU basketball player, a pharmaceutical salesman and, finally, a sportscaster, first in Aurora, then in Peoria and finally in Los Angeles.

To the rest of the world, he became Chick after bragging to his AAU teammates that a shoe company had promised to send him a free sample.

When he walked into the locker room one day and found a shoe box in his stall, he triumphantly stuck his hand in without looking.

While his teammates broke up, Chick pulled out a dead--and seriously rotting--chicken.

Francis Hearn became Chicken Hearn, then Chick Hearn.

To Marge, he still is Fran.

Gary

Chick was facing two big events in 1942, the birth of his first child and his induction into the Army--in wartime.

His wife of four years had a due date that was very close to Chick’s reporting date.

Determined to be a good father from the start, Chick got permission to remain a civilian until the baby was born. Then, after Gary’s arrival, Chick went off to the South Pacific and didn’t see his son again for 3 1/2 months.

When Chick returned for good, a close bond formed between father and son, their common interest in sports helping no little bit.

When Gary was 14, Chick was asked to interview for a radio job in L.A. He wasn’t sure it was what he wanted. Samantha had come along in 1947 and the Hearns were living a comfortable life in Peoria where Chick had become a broadcasting success.

Besides, he didn’t have a good suit for the interview.

Still, he had a nothing to lose, so Chick and Gary took a train to Chicago, where Chick got a decent outfit.

Then it was on to L.A., where Chick got the job. Soon, he was getting opportunity after opportunity in Los Angeles, from USC football to sports anchor on Channel 4 to major golf tournaments to, at the end of the Lakers’ first season in L.A., the team’s play-by-play job.

Life as the son of a sportscasting superstar was pretty good and Gary thoroughly enjoyed it. He soon became known as the consummate prankster.

He once put a live alligator in his parents’ pool, painted their Cadillac green with the words “Green Hornet,” deliberately poured too much laundry soap into a washing machine, causing it to overflow with bubbles.

“He was 6-5, handsome and witty,” Marge said. “When he walked into a room, he took over.”

Gary grew up, married and had a daughter, Shannon. But settling on a career took more time. He tried construction work, tending bar, even keeping stats for his father on Laker broadcasts. He had some bit acting parts and was beginning to pursue a serious acting career.

Chick still cherishes the memory of the 1971-72 Lakers clinching their first title in Los Angeles by beating the New York Knicks at the Forum.

“Gary was sitting with Marge,” Chick said. “When the final buzzer went off, he shot up out of his seat, raced up to where I was broadcasting, leaned up and squeezed my hand.”

It was Marge who learned her son had a drug problem.

“Not long before his death, he told me, ‘I’m in trouble,’ ” Marge said. “At first, we didn’t know what to do. But we got him into a state hospital for treatment.”

All seemed fine on a bright, sunny June day in 1972. With the Laker season over, Chick and his family were enjoying a perfect day around the pool. Father and son swam together.

Late in the day, Gary said he was going out for cigarettes.

“We never saw him again,” Chick said.

The police found Gary the next day dead in the back seat of a car parked on a North Hollywood street, needle marks on his arm.

“We were never able to say goodbye,” Marge said.

Chick added, “We feel he ran into some of his old buddies and they made him an offer he didn’t want to refuse. Afterward, we think they got scared.”

Marge said, “I’m positive he wanted to come back. We kept hoping to hear from one of his friends who would call and tell us what had happened. But nobody ever did.”

Chick said, “We would still, to this day, like for somebody to call us.”

Samantha

“Talented” is the word most used to describe Samantha Hearn.

She competed in swimming, basketball, volleyball and baseball in high school. She wrote poetry, designed clothes and, as a teenage model, was “Miss San Fernando Valley.”

“I think the anxiety over her weight began in her modeling days,” Marge said. “But I also think she never got over Gary’s death. They were very close.”

Samantha became a big sister to the daughter Gary had left behind.

“I could talk to Samantha about anything,” said Shannon, now 36 and living with her husband and daughter in Orange County. “I miss her as much as I miss my father. I was too young to really get to know him, but Samantha and I became really close.

“She could do anything artistic. I remember how meticulous she was in just wrapping a gift. She would take hours and hours to do it. By the time she was done, you could have sold just the wrapping at Bloomingdale’s.”

Samantha also went on to become coordinator for the “Bowling for Dollars” show hosted by her father.

“She was so giving, so neat,” Shannon said. “I remember she used to take dinners down to the people on skid row.”

Marge recalled her as “a true humanitarian [who] helped everybody but herself.

“We tried everything to help, but when that thing [anorexia] gets ahold of you, it’s tough.”

When Samantha refused to go to a self-help meeting in Pasadena, Chick and Marge went anyway, hoping they might learn more about the disease that had such a horrific grip on their daughter.

When Samantha contracted the pneumonia that ultimately ended her life, she was scheduled to go to the hospital on a Saturday.

But she asked if she could postpone her hospitalization for a few hours because it was one of her favorite Saturdays of the year, the first Saturday in May, Kentucky Derby day.

Samantha had long since begun a Hearn family tradition. She would mark down numbers, representing post positions, and have everyone draw one. Each person there would then have the horse in the corresponding post position to root for.

Samantha got her final Derby drawing in. And to this day, Chick and Marge cannot watch the Derby without remembering Samantha’s slips of paper.

Samantha’s condition reached the critical stage that spring just as the Lakers were about to be eliminated from the playoffs by the Phoenix Suns.

“I shouldn’t go tonight,” Chick told Marge as game time approached at the Forum.

“You may as well,” Marge told him. “There’s nothing you can do at the hospital.”

So Chick was in his customary perch at the Forum on May 15, 1990, as the Suns ended the Laker season with a 106-103 victory.

Samantha died nine days later.

Shannon

“Because I was growing up without a dad, my grandfather stepped in,” said Shannon, who lived with her grandparents for several years. “He’s been a been a great granddad. Both my grandparents have been a huge part of my life. In a way, they’ve been like my parents. I don’t know what I would do without them.”

Shannon remembers the aluminum-can drives at school. Chick would ask the crew sweeping up the Forum to put the used cans in special bags.

“I remember my poor grandfather dragging those cans to his car after the game,” Shannon said.

Shannon is proud to have provided her grandparents additional joy with Kayla.

“Not many people get to know their great-granddaughter,” she said.

When Kayla hears her great-grandfather on the radio, or sees him on television, she doesn’t think it’s unusual.

“Nor did I,” Shannon said. “When I was growing up, I would look at the TV and say, ‘Oh, there’s Grandpa.’ ”

The Hearns

“We’ve always been a tight-knit family,” Marge said. “When Gary and Samantha were growing up, there was never one thing in their lives that we were not there for. Whether it was swimming or volleyball or whatever, we were there with them every second of their lives.”

But, said Chick, there are always doubts.

“We had to wonder [later], ‘Where did we go wrong?’ ” he said. “ ‘Did we make a mistake?’

“We moved out of our house after Gary died. We had to get away, but you can never get away from grief.”

Spring is a bittersweet season for the Hearns. It has been the time the Lakers have known their greatest glory. The team has won six NBA titles with Chick behind the microphone. But spring is also when Gary and Samantha died.

“For a long time, I couldn’t bear to go to weddings and see other young girls getting married,” Marge said. “But that goes away, even if the grief never does. You have to go on.”

That still isn’t easy.

“I had a lowered feeling about basketball for a while,” Chick said. “For a long time, as I was sitting in my seat at the Forum, I kept thinking Gary was going to run up there and say, ‘Hi Dad.’ ”