Tag Archives: The Wild One

HOLLISTER, ANYONE?

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If you’re a biker, you know that Hollister is not just an über-hip clothing line for spoiled mall rats. No, Hollister — a small farming community in Southern California southeast of San Jose — is the birthplace of the American Biker, that enduring trope perpetuated by media and entertainment ever since that hot July 4th weekend of 1947, when a ‘riot’ broke out during a motorcycle rally.

For much of postwar America, this guy served as introduction to the two-wheeled menace known as ‘the biker’. Even today, decades after the Yuppie invasion has convinced much of America that most Harley riders are Empty Nesters in full Midlife Crisis mode or well-to-do RUBs (rich urban professionals) with more dollars than sense, the menacing trope of ‘the biker’ endures. We serve as villains in movies and television shows, as objects of perverse sexual attraction in an alarming number of bodice-ripping romance novels, and as bogeymen for law enforcement agencies looking to gin up support for larger budgets and more deadly weaponry. In LIFE magazine, the photograph was credited to Barney Petersen. However, numerous sources have his last name spelled ‘Peterson’, and that’s the spelling I use here.

The scene at Hollister was a familiar one: a small town, eager to bring in tourists who might spend money at local businesses, built a racetrack at Veteran’s Memorial Park, and began hosting motorcycle races and ‘Gypsy Tours’: popular family-friendly gatherings sponsored by the American Motorcycle Association, as it was then known. The events were well-attended and profitable, and in most cases the worst local authorities had to deal with was a few Drunk and Disorderly arrests and some hospitalizations due to injuries suffered in motorcycle crashes on and off the track.

This photo of a ‘straight’ club appeared in the magazine LIFE just three weeks after the infamous Peterson/Davenport photo.

However, the 1947 event, one of the first held since the guns of World War Two fell silent, drew a new breed of rider. These were not the nice Mom-and-Pop ‘straight’ clubs pictured above, that frequently appeared at these events in matching uniforms, riding pristine motorcycles kitted out with numerous factory-approved accessories.

One of the field games played at many a motorcycle rally. The idea was to ride at the lowest possible speed while the passenger tended to the task at hand. If the rider’s foot touched the ground, he and his passenger were disqualified. Note the American Motorcycle Association patch on the rider’s shoulder. Membership in the American Motorcycle Association (now the American Motorcyclist Association) precludes membership in an ‘outlaw’ club.

No, these were rough, hard-bitten young men — most of them combat veterans who had seen the worst the world had to offer in the killing fields of Europe and the South Pacific — and they roared into town en masse aboard stripped-down, hopped-up motorcycles unlike anything those at Hollister had ever seen before.

The lot at Veteran’s Memorial Park, packed with motorcycles — many Harley-Davidson or Indian motorcycles stripped for action — on the July 4th weekend in 1947.

These were rattletrap bombers with front brakes and fenders removed, and rear fenders ‘bobbed’ as short as possible. Chain guards, windshields, engine guards, saddlebags — anything that might increase weight and wind-drag, and slow the machines down — were all shitcanned in favor of better performance, until all that remained was the bare essence of a motorcycle: a massive engine, rigid frame and springer forks, two wheels, a petrol tank and a saddle.

A typical ‘bob job’ Harley-Davidson at Hollister: no windshield, no front fender, back fender cut short and the original taillight – not that large or bright to begin with – replaced by a front fender light even smaller and less visible to following motorists. The hand belongs to the bike’s sleeping owner, rolled up in blankets on the ground beside his Harley, as any good biker would.
A Galloping Goose and a Boozefighter race heads-up on January 18, 1948. The Boozefighter’s sweater has their trademark Triple-X bottle on its front, a logo the club still uses to this day.

These men also came sporting motorcycle club sweaters or jackets with new, more menacing names — Boozefighters, Thirteen Rebels, Galloping Goose (in military argot the ‘goose’ was the upraised middle finger we call ‘the bird’) and more — and they came not to sit docilely in the stands watching as racers on the track went round-y-round, but to ride and race and party themselves, and that is exactly what they did.

13 Rebels MC in an undated photograph, all wearing their club sweaters with the Bad Luck Cat emblem on the front. The back of each sweater bore the legend ’13 Rebels’ in large stitched-on letters.
13 Rebels MC members and friends loading a racing bike kitted with specially-lugged mudder tires. As you can see by their boots and trouser legs, those tires were sorely needed!
Boozefighters MC members in a photograph purportedly taken at Riverside, California, in July, 1948, where a second ‘riot’ allegedly took place. Some researchers have suggested the photo was actually made at Hollister in 1947.
Many motorcycle clubs of the day wore sweaters with the club name emblazoned on them, rather than the paramilitary uniforms of the Mom-and-Pops or the cutoff denim vests of later groups like the Hells Angels.

The Boozefighters MC, led by ‘Wino Willie’ Forkner, described itself as a drinking club with a motorcycle problem, and did their level best to live up to that claim. Other clubs, in turn, tried their best to keep pace.

‘Wino Willie’ Forkner was a combat veteran who had been thrown out of his previous motorcycle club. He founded and led the Boozefighters MC, and passed away at the ripe old age of 78.
♪ ♫ Wine, wine, fruit o’ the vine, when you gonna let me get sober…. ♫ ♪
Club members play two-wheeled games in the middle of Hollister’s Main Street.
‘Little Bobby’ Kelton, a member of the Wing Nutz MC, at play on the streets of Hollister….
….but it wasn’t just the boys. These women are identified as members of the Tracy Gear Jammers, an all-female club that got down with the boys in the streets of Hollister that weekend.
A trio of Tracy Gear Jammers giving Eddie Davenport a run for his money!
The Tracy Gear Jammers may have harbored a penchant for sailors’ blues, although the tall brunette second from far right is very noticeably NOT hugging a sailor! 😏

THE RIOT

The much-ballyhooed ‘riot’ was really nothing more than a lot of rowdy behavior along Hollister’s main drag, including impromptu drag races and riders doing doughnuts in the street, and raucous drinking in the bars. At one point, it’s reported that a rider did pilot his motorcycle into a bar. In the tumult, some furniture and glassware were damaged, and promptly paid for by the offender.

A heavy police presence brought an end to the most outré behavior.

Still, local law enforcement felt overwhelmed, and called for reinforcements from neighboring counties and the California Highway Patrol. The cops geared up, corralled the partying bikers on the main drag, and commandeered a flatbed truck for use as a bandstand. They pressed a dance band into service, and the rest of the night proved playwright William Congreve’s contention* that ‘Music has charms to soothe a savage breast.’

Alleged ‘rioters’ boogie to the sound of a band pressed into service by the cops.
A few of the boys were invited to stay a little longer, but the most serious offenses were traffic violations and ‘indecent exposure’: reportedly the result of a drunk trying to urinate into the radiator of an overheating car. I did some très stupid things while drinking, but whipping it out on the main drag to water down someone’s steaming flivver is beyond even me! 😆

NEWS COVERAGE, MONDAY, JULY 7, 1947

Unlike the San Francisco daily, Hollister’s local newspaper, the Hollister Free Lance, didn’t feel the need to exaggerate the weekend’s events.
The coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle included two photographs by Barney Peterson. For your viewing comfort, I replaced the grainy newsprint photos with clear images of the original pics.

CYCLIST’S HOLIDAY, LIFE, JULY 21, 1947

This innocuous cover photo belied the bombshell waiting within.

However, at around the time the band began to play, photographer Barney Peterson arrived in town. Peterson was a freelancer dispatched by The San Francisco Chronicle. His brief was to bring back pictures of the reported mayhem, but all he found was a street filled with happy dancing bikers and civilians, a parking lot full of motorcycles, and a few riders sacked out for the night on the courthouse lawn. In other words, b-o-o-o-o-ring!

Instead of ‘rioting gangs’, photographer Barney Peterson found riders sacked out beside the front steps of the local courthouse.

Desperate to preserve his commission, Peterson improvised. As eyewitnesses confirm, he found a motorcycle parked at the curb — a stripped-down Harley-Davidson knucklehead with no front fender, and a seaman’s bag tied across the rear fender behind the saddle. Perfect! He carefully arranged a bunch of empty beer bottles on the street around the motorcycle, even cadging some from a nearby café, to symbolize the debauchery he assumed had taken place prior to his arrival. Yeah, that will do! Finally, he recruited a local fellow, a drunk named Eddie Davenport, to climb aboard the artfully staged motorcycle and pose for some photographs. Bingo! The editor’s gonna love it!

The shot heard around the biker world.

A series of images were made, including the most infamous: the ‘Cyclist’s Holiday’ photograph (above) which the magazine LIFE published in their July 21st issue, along with an overheated blurb about the ‘4000 cyclists’ who allegedly ran amok in the peaceful city of Hollister. Barney Peterson’s posed and staged photo of farm boy Eddie Davenport — he of the slack-jawed, glassy-eyed gaze and two-fisted drinking style pictured above — struck terror into the hearts of pearl-clutching newspaper and magazine editors, chiefs of police and other dignitaries across the nation. Other Peterson creations showed Davenport holding a club jacket belonging to a member of the Tulare Raiders Motorcycle Club named Dave. No word on whether that was Dave’s Harley, or whether Dave approved of his jacket being sported by a non-member.

Per the custom of the day, Peterson noted his subject’s name on the film negative.

However, as he’d hoped, Peterson’s editor did love his photo, but they weren’t alone. The photograph hit the wire services, and was immediately picked up by LIFE.

THE REACTION, LIFE, AUGUST 11, 1947

The response to LIFE‘s publication of Peterson’s staged (and libelous) photograph was immediate. Three weeks later, the magazine’s August 11th issue included Letters to the Editors from motorcyclist Charles A. Addams, film star and cyclist Keenan Wynn, and Paul Brokaw, who edited the magazine Motorcyclist at the time.

Letters to the Editors from Charles A. Addams, Keenan Wynn and Paul Brokaw.

All three correspondents complained of the negative coverage.

Mr. Addams wrote that the 4000 riders reportedly in attendance were not members of a single club, as the magazine alleged; that 50% were members of the American Motorcycle Association and the other 50% ‘mere motorcyclists out for a three-day holiday’; and that roughly ‘500 made the event the debacle that it was.’ I checked, and it appears certain Mr. Addams was not the infamous New Yorker cartoonist who created The Addams Family. How cool would that have been? 😏

Actor Keenan Wynn (No. 39) rides like a nutter in the 1957 Catalina Grand Prix.

Keenan Wynn, who later took film star and fledgling desert racer Lee Marvin under his wing, and showed Steve McQueen what dirt bikes were for, wrote ‘I have taken it upon myself to… straighten out what will obviously be an extremely bad impression of motorcyclists.’ He went on to decry the reckless behavior of the wild ones at Hollister, and noted that riding under the influence ‘as our friend in the picture seems to be doing, is one of the fundamental “don’ts” of riding…’ Wynn also felt obliged to cite some examples of ‘safe and sane Hollywood riders,’ like Clark Gable, Randolph Scott, Ward Bond and Andy Devine.

Keenan Wynn (left) with fellow actor and motorcycle aficionado Lee Marvin (right) and Marvin’s Triumph Scrambler, at an unnamed desert race. I do not recognize the other two people.

Motorcyclist Editor Paul Brokaw expressed his shock at the photograph, and was perhaps the first in print to call Barney Peterson out for his chicanery, noting that the picture ‘was very obviously arranged and posed by an enterprising and unscrupulous photographer.’ Brokaw also called out the ‘mercenary-minded barkeepers’ who continued to serve obviously intoxicated customers, and the ‘small percentage’ of riotous motorcyclists, ‘aided by a much larger group of nonmotorcycling hellraisers,’ who actually caused all the fuss.

Brokaw went on to damn LIFE for ‘sear(ing) a pitiful brand on the character of tens of thousands of innocent, clean-cut, respectable, law-abiding young men and women who are the true representatives of an admirable sport.’

LIFE responded to the criticism by including, in the same issue, a lengthy ‘presentation of law-abiding, respectable motorcyclists,’ which included photos of Mom-and-Pop clubs and motorcycling fashion trends.

The first page of LIFE‘s ‘you meet the nicest people on motorcycles’ article.
Field games and uniformed riders. Note the writer’s insistence that ‘womenfolk’ are limited to riding pillion, despite the fact that at least three photos in the article feature women riding their own machines, including the full-page photo opposite the damned headline! Sheesh!
Fashion for the ‘womenfolk’ and the motorcycle!
Instead of ‘Mom-and-Pop’ we have ‘Mom-and-Daughter’ at top, and a sore service station attendant at bottom, with a little daredevilry in the middle.

‘HOLLISTER’, MOTORCYCLIST, AUGUST, 1947

Paul Brokaw’s magazine’s August 1947 number. In the Table of Contents is an article titled ‘Hollister’. I’ve never seen any reference to this article, and have no idea what it might say, but I just purchased a copy on eBay (11-11-2024) and will report back with a scan if anything worthwhile comes to light. Can’t believe I didn’t seek this out sooner!

CYCLISTS’ RAID, Harper’s, January, 1951

The ‘riot’ at Hollister probably would have faded into the mists of time and memory, had it not been for Barney Peterson’s photograph, but the next stage in the evolution of the biker image was even more nefarious. A hack named Frank Rooney took the bare bones of what happened at Hollister and fashioned them into a lengthy, perverse short story titled ‘Cyclists’ Raid‘.

I am convinced the title’s echoing of LIFE‘s ‘Cyclist’s Holiday’ is not a coincidence.

Artwork by David Berger, which accompanied Cyclists’ Raid in the pages of Harper‘s. Here, the bikers arrive, organized and orderly for a while.

In his lurid saga, Rooney portrays the bikers as a paramilitary pack of marauders who chose the small nameless town from a list of possible destinations, and even did reconnaissance in advance of their arrival, going so far as to learn the names of hotel keepers and filling station managers. They ride into town in formation aboard matching motorcycles, and their leader, ‘Gar Simpson’, declares them to be ‘Troop B of the Angeleno Motorcycle Club.’ In casual conversation, Simpson reveals the club’s plan to expand across California (‘We’re forming Troop G now.’) and other states: ‘Nevada — Arizona — Colorado — Wyoming.’

Angeleno Motorcycle Club leader Gar Simpson, or is it? Who can tell? 🤷🏻‍♀️ They’re all dressed alike!

The riders quickly take over the accommodations in town, including the hotel operated by the story’s main character, Joel Bleeker, a widowed former Army officer and combat veteran with a comely seventeen-year-old daughter. The club members proceed to drink, to sing raucous songs, to ride their motorcycles up and down the street (and eventually the sidewalks), but never ever remove the green-lensed riding goggles they all wear, even at night, even inside the dining hall of Bleeker’s inn.

By dint of their uniforms and mask-like goggles, Gar Simpson’s riders were ‘standardized figurines, seeking in each other a willful loss of identity…,’ or some such psychobabble.

This is crucial to Rooney’s telling, because the goggles allow individual riders to remain:

‘standardized figurines, seeking in each other a willful loss of identity, dividing themselves equally among one another until there was only a single mythical figure, unspeakably sterile….‘

….so much so that when the ‘raid’ comes to its inevitably violent climax — a freak motorcycle crash which kill’s Bleeker’s beautiful daughter — Bleeker and his outraged townsfolk have no one to blame but themselves. The nameless, faceless riders are able to mount up and ride out of town, exempt from consequence by reason of their numbers and unremarkable sameness.

The ‘raid’s’ evening concludes its horrific third act as riders terrorize citizens, racing and stunting in the streets, riding on sidewalks and in and out of business establishments. It is this last which brings about the final tragedy: the death of Bleeker’s lovely daughter.

Rooney’s story appeared in Harper’s, a popular magazine that arrived by post in many American homes, issue after issue. It could not help but reinforce the ‘lesson’ of LIFE‘s ‘Cyclist’s Holiday’ pic: ‘Martha, those goddamned bikers are bad news!‘

A complete scan of the story ‘Cyclists’ Raid’, as published, can be read here.

THE WILD ONE, Stanley Kramer, et alia, December 30, 1953

The Wild One starred Mary Murphy and Marlon Brando, and featured Gil Stratton, Jr. and Alvy Moore, as members of Brando’s motorcycle ‘gang’, the Black Rebels Motorcycle Club.

Rooney’s story, dripping with pathos and armchair psychology, caught the eye of filmmaker Stanley Kramer, who used the Hollister stories as inspiration for his 1953 Marlon Brando vehicle, The Wild One, co-starring Lee Marvin, Mary Murphy and, in an uncredited role, character actor Alvy Moore, best known for his portrayal of county agricultural agent Hank Kimball on the 1960s television show Green Acres.

That “Streetcar” Man Has A New Desire!

Kramer interviewed people who actually attended the July 4th gathering at Hollister, and came away with a clear idea of the story he wished to tell.

Stanley Kramer is introduced to Marlon Brando’s sister, actress Jocelyn Brando, on the set of the 1953 film The Wild One.

A script was commissioned. However, it placed at least some of the blame for the events on the townspeople themselves, who invited the bikers in, tolerated the more benign hijinks they engaged in, and profited from sales of alcohol, food and other commodities. Censors rejected the script as ‘pro-Communist’, in that it made money-grubbing merchants the bad guys. We all know that anyone making money is, by definition, a hero, right? 🙄

Even the French got into it.

Kramer caved, and as a result, we ended up with a bowdlerized version of the story Kramer wanted to tell. The true anti-heroes of Hollister — those brave young men just back from a grueling war, eager to recapture the camaraderie of military life, celebrate their survival and blow off years’ worth of steam — were replaced by Marlon Brando, as stiff as his brand-new Levi’s and monogrammed Perfecto leather jacket, portraying ‘Johnny Strabler’ as a mewling teenager riven with Daddy issues, riding a shiny new British bike, mumbling already-dated ‘hep cat’ slang and mooning over Mary Murphy’s more mature waitress.

Marlon Brando’s ‘Johnny Strabler’ whinging on about his mean old man.

Meanwhile, Lee Marvin, an actual combat veteran with a Purple Heart to his credit, and a real-life rider himself, acted the ‘villain’ of the piece. In ‘Chino’, Marvin channeled the essence of ‘Wino Willie’ Forkner. He rode into town astride a road-weary Harley-Davidson Big Twin, clad in military surplus and thrift store garments the way many of the men at Hollister had been, waving a cigar and loudly greeting old friends.

Lee Marvin as ‘Chino’, riding into town with his club, The Beetles, and yes, the British band said they did name themselves after Chino’s club!
Lee Marvin’s ‘Chino’ with that devilish grin, the leader of his pack.

Johnny Strabler was a dilettante, a poseur. Chino was a fuckin’ honest-to-god biker. Johnny’s leather jacket may rightly be considered iconic — it is a fashion staple to this day, even amongst people who wouldn’t go within ten feet of a motorcycle — but so is Lee Marvin’s portrayal of Chino. Talk to bikers you know. How many of ’em wanted to be Johnny Strabler when they grew up? and how many wanted to be Chino? I can tell you my answer!

Chino taunting Johnny for quitting Chino’s club….
….and defending Johnny even after Johnny beats him in a lively street brawl, because that’s the biker way, baby!

HIGHWAY PATROL

There’s another chapter to this story, discovered after I completed my post about Hollister. If you’re interested, there’s a link at the bottom about an episode of the television series Highway Patrol that aired in April of 1956. Check it out!

AND SO….

I geek out about this stuff because I love our history as motorcyclists — all the influences that went into creating our lifestyle and all the ways that lifestyle is portrayed, interpreted and further influenced by attention from media and popular culture. The chain of events that lead from World War Two to Hollister, from Hollister to Harper’s, and from Harper’s to Hollywood, are just part of the fascinating origin story we all share.

As I write this, we are less than two weeks from the premiere of yet another biker movie; an A-list Hollywood production starring well-known actors like Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, Jody Comer, Norman Reedus and Michael Shannon.+ The Bikeriders, loosely based on photo-journalist Danny Lyon’s seminal 1968 book of the same title, promises to be yet another milestone in our unfolding story. I already have my tickets, and can’t wait to see what comes up on the big screen!

* Congreve, William The Mourning Bride, 1697. The original lines read ‘Music has charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.’

+ Just this afternoon, I received my copy of The Vandals: The Photography of the Motion Picture ‘The Bikeriders’. Woo-hoo!

AS PROMISED, HIGHWAY PATROL

HIGHWAY PATROL,  Season 1, Episode 27,  MOTORCYCLE  A,  aired 2 April 1956