Verdugo Views: Show biz dads originated Fathers’ Follies

Memories of Verdugo Woodlands’ Fathers’ Follies are strong for Jill Colegrove Benone.

Her father, Jac (pronounced Jake) Colegrove, was on stage with the follies in the mid-’50s. Then, when Benone’s children attended Verdugo Woodlands, she became involved.

Benone said recently that, although she did not attend the school (she went to Lincoln Elementary instead), her younger brother did. Plus, her mother was PTA president there in 1956-57, so her roots are deep.

Many of the men who created the original follies were still active in the mid-’50s when her father joined.

“Recruiting was a serious business. Every new father was visited by at least two men,” she wrote in a recent email. “I recall Joe Sauers and Hal Wright visiting my father.”

Fathers’ Follies actually grew out of the PTA’s annual Fathers’ Night, first held in 1927, when fathers watched their children perform.

In 1948, several fathers who were show business professionals decided to put on a show at Sparr Heights Community Center, according to Benone, who provided a history of the follies that she had written several years ago.

“John Gurash had a ‘little idea’ for a skit. The result was funny, irreverent, topical and a smashing success,” Benone wrote. “The husbands of PTA board members, in thrift shop dresses and mop-top wigs, appeared as their wives in a most disrespectful manner.”

Among them were Joe Sauers (stage name Joe Sawyer), Al Talliaferro, who drew Donald Duck for Walt Disney, writer Larry Clemmons and Alden Waite.

“Clemmons, who listed ‘The Bing Crosby Show’ among his credits, wove old vaudeville skits as well as new material into his scripts, adding a soupcon of local in-jokes and political observations. His co-writer was Alden Waite, an experienced newspaperman. The skits Clemmons and Waite wrote would work today with a little updating,” Benone noted in the history.

Sauers was producer and director then.

“My dad was an actor,” Benone wrote. “This was when each skit was separate — guys built their own sets and prop pieces and rehearsed by themselves.”

The comedic value of dressing as women was appealing, Benone wrote. “Besides, it was a lot of fun, and their wives had no problems creating costumes and building better wigs to fit their oversized men. Follies became a family project.”

The first sets were minimal, just a black curtain backdrop with sketchy sets. When fathers with set building skills enlisted, the shows became more elaborate and polished, according to Benone. “My dad really enjoyed building sets. He had quite a home shop.”

Over the years, fathers who were professional musicians, including Bob Adolphe, Al Larson, Jim Gates and Steve Hill, performed.

The show quickly outgrew the Sparr Heights center and moved to Glendale College, remaining there for more than 50 years.

Both of Benone’s children attended the Woodlands, and like her mother, she was active in the PTA. Plus, she wrote and directed the follies for 20 years. “Even though I was never a student there, I always considered myself an honorary Woodlander.”

In the early years, fathers left the follies when their last child graduated, becoming ‘Ancient Lovelies’ and returning for a final skit the following year.

Then, in later years, Benone reflected, “several, like me, never really left. We used to joke that when our youngest child graduated from college, we could graduate from Fathers’ Follies.”

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Readers Write:

When Robin Pollock read the Verdugo Views, Nov. 20, 2014, about the Little Theater of the Verdugos (which was active in the 1950s) and saw the name, Mrs. Allen Pollock. She wondered if that could be her grandmother.

“I’m trying to find out if the woman is my grandmother, Catherine Pollock, who is referred to as Mrs. Allen Pollock (my grandfather) in your article,” she wrote in an email. “She passed away when I was 4 years old, but I still remember her. She was very active in the community, and I’ve heard stories about all of her activities while I was growing up. Her only child was my father, James Pollock, who has passed away, as has my grandfather. We have none of her scrapbooks or photo albums. So it was a wonderful surprise to see this article.”

To Robin: Back in the 1950s, newspapers used what was then standard practice; married women were identified by their husband’s name, as in Mrs. Allen Pollock. It’s possible that Special Collections at Central Library would have other means of identifying her, through old telephone books, obituaries or club scrapbooks. Good luck!

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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.