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Wilbur Hanson was a gifted and thoroughly dedicated teacher. He took his students on field trips and<br />
gave them more time than he gave his own sons. The Harvard School was an upscale dump site for the<br />
sons of the Hollywood elite. Darryl E Zanuck's son matriculated there. Old Man Zanuck got a hard-on<br />
for Wilbur Hanson. He didn't want no fucking CO teaching at his kid's school. He applied the big<br />
squeeze and had Wilbur Hanson bounced from Harvard.<br />
Wilbur Hanson caught a Red-scare bullet but dodged another one. He got certified to teach in the L.A.<br />
city school system. He was not excluded on the basis of his expressed pacifism or his documented CO<br />
status. The family moved out to the San Fernando Valley. Wilbur Hanson began teaching at a school in<br />
Reseda.<br />
Wilbur and Beverly June Hanson encouraged their sons to read. Beverly June loved movies and dragged<br />
Curtis and his brother to bargain matinees all over the Valley. He had seen dozens of film noir flicks<br />
before he knew the term "film noir." He watched Dragnet, M Squad, The Lineup, Racket Squad, and<br />
Mike Hammer every week. School bored him. His real curriculum was films, novels, and TV shows. His<br />
major course of study was narrative. His minor course of study was crime.<br />
He wrote a story called "The Man Who Wanted Money" and read it to his fifth-grade class. His teacher<br />
found the story and Curtis's general crime fixation disturbing and ratted him off to his parents.<br />
Curtis had a dual-world thing going. He had his family/school world and his film/book/TV-show world.<br />
He figured he'd grow up, become a screenwriter and director, and pull off a two-world merger.<br />
He developed a dual-L.A. thing. It grew out of a dual thing with his dad and his uncle Jack.<br />
Wilbur Hanson was a morally committed schoolteacher with $1.98 in the bank. Jack Hanson was a<br />
morally desiccated rag merchant who sucked up to movie stars and showbiz players.<br />
Dad had a shack in the Valley. Uncle Jack had a big pad in Beverly Hills. Dad spent most of his time<br />
with schoolkids. Uncle Jack hobnobbed with Hollywood swingers. Dad took kids on uplifting field trips.<br />
Uncle Jack owned Jax--the grooviest, sexiest, most altogether bonaroo boutique on Rodeo Drive.<br />
Curtis spent weekdays in the Valley and weekends in Beverly Hills. Uncle Jack loved having him around<br />
as a companion for his son. Curtis's two worlds were regulated by his school duties and divided by the<br />
Hollywood Hills. Uncle Jack gave him access to a world within his world. It was the fast-lane world of<br />
aggressive people out to get all they could and flick the cost. That worldwithin-a-world dovetailed with<br />
Curtis Hanson's crime fixation. Uncle Jack's movie-biz fixation dovetailed with Curtis's ambition to grow<br />
up and become a filmmaker.<br />
Jack Hanson was noir personified. He was a movie-biz toady straight out of The Big Knife. He hoarded<br />
money and paid his people the minimum wage. He was arguably the cheapest cocksucker who ever<br />
walked the face of the earth. He opened up the Daisy in the mid-'6os. It was the first members-only<br />
dance club in Beverly Hills. Jack sold memberships to showbiz hipsters and employed it as his vehicle to<br />
suck his way further into the in crowd.<br />
Curtis watched. Curtis took mental notes. Curtis finished school and got a chump job with Cinema<br />
magazine. He drove copy to the typesetters and film to the photo lab. The magazine started to go<br />
belly-up. Curtis convinced Uncle Jack to take over the operating costs and let him do all the work.<br />
He did it. He wrote the critical pieces and feature interviews and took the photographs. He took some<br />
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