Verdugo Views: Glendale High alum’s father helped sculpt L.A.

Tennis great Gene Mako, who began his career on the courts of Glendale High, brought home many awards and trophies.

But, perhaps his relationship with his father, Bartholomew, a multitalented artist, eventually became more important to Mako than any of his tennis accomplishments.

Their father-son relationship spanned 63 years and “was nourished by the wide range of interests they shared, not just sports, but music and art,” Gene Mako wrote in the preface of a book about his father.

“My father was not a publicity seeker or self-promoter, he remained largely an unknown artist in the United States. Among a select group of architects, builders and developers, his ability was well known and in great demand,” he wrote. “It was impossible to drive five miles anywhere in Los Angeles without passing some of his work.”

Bartholomew Mako had assembled a significant body of work by 1923, when he brought his family to Southern California.

Within a year, he had a commission from the Automobile Club of Southern California for drawings depicting local landmarks. He also designed a “Hungarian Castle” in Los Feliz and then embarked on a statue of Abraham Lincoln for Lincoln High School.

The artist worked on the sculpture in the backyard of his Glendale home, and it was fired at Gladding-McBean before delivery to Lincoln Heights.

He sculpted a Memorial Gateway, just inside the Exposition Boulevard entry to the rose garden, for the 1932 Olympic games at Memorial Coliseum.

In 1940, he created a large eagle sculpture for Burbank City Hall, and also painted a “Justice” mural, which hung in the courtroom until the 1950s.

For nearly five decades, from the early 1920s through the 1960s, he worked at Forest Lawn, Glendale, sculpting artwork for various buildings, including the mausoleum. He also painted scenes for the metal directional signs within the park.

Gene Mako’s days on the tennis circuit were over by the late 1940s, and he began constructing tennis courts. He also became an art dealer and perhaps because of this, his appreciation for his father grew.

The elder Mako died in 1970, and several years later, his son began assembling a book about him. It began as a somewhat casual endeavor, but became an almost insurmountable project, he wrote in the preface of the two-volume art set “Bartholomew Mako, a Hungarian Master.”

It must have been around this time that Gene Mako began telling his friends about his father’s work.

According to one of his longtime friends, Reggie Perry, “He never mentioned that his father was a well-known artist. It wasn’t until later that he casually mentioned that his father had done some work at Forest Lawn,” she wrote in a recent email.

Another friend Jim Pagliuso, who had known Gene Mako his entire life, said that in his later years, Gene Mako started talking about his father and began seeking out his works. “Gene would say, ’my father could do anything.’ He raved about him,” Pagliuso recalled during a recent conversation.

After the coffee-table book was published in 2006, Gene Mako gave copies to his friends.

“We were amazed at the extent of his father’s work,” Perry wrote.

Gene Mako died in 2013 at age 97. His obituaries noted his long list of athletic accomplishments: among them, playing on the winning U.S. Davis Cup team in 1937 and winning the U.S. Open men’s doubles team with partner, Don Budge, in 1936 and 38.

Pagliuso visited Gene Mako at Cedars Sinai Medical Center the day he died and was also was at his funeral at Holy Cross Cemetery.

“ He became a very close part of our family,” he said.

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To the Readers:

Here’s more on Gene Mako and his wife, Laura, an interior designer, from Jim Pagliuso.

“They had a 50th-anniversary dinner party at their house on Camden, very close to the Beverly Hills Hotel. When my wife and I arrived at the front door, Bob Hope opened the door. In attendance were Jack Kramer; Henry Mancini and his wife; Nancy Sinatra (Frank Sinatra’s first wife), and many other famous people,” he said. “There was a combo which went from table to table in the patio during dinner, and, when arriving at Henry Mancini’s table, played only Henry Mancini songs.”

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KATHERINE YAMADA can be reached at katherineyamada@gmail.com or by mail at Verdugo Views, c/o News-Press, 202 W. First St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. Please include your name, address and phone number.