Speaker 1: Pushkin Hey, Lost Hills listeners, It's Dana. I wanted to
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Speaker 2: Hi Dana, Helloha from Maui.
Speaker 1: Hi Diane. This is Diane Ustervine. She's lived in Hawaii
Speaker 1: for decades and for years had a business selling vintage
Speaker 1: Hawaiian shirts. Among her customers Jack Nicholson and Sharon Stone,
Speaker 1: but once upon a time, Diane was one of Mickey
Speaker 1: Dora's girlfriends.
Speaker 2: I grew up in Los Angeles, in the Valley Insino
Speaker 2: in West Hollywood.
Speaker 1: Diane was a runaway. She'd left an abusive home and
Speaker 1: found herself in foster care.
Speaker 2: I was raised strict Catholic, so I had that all
Speaker 2: that parochial schooling, and then went wild when I hit
Speaker 2: high school.
Speaker 1: Diane met Mickey in nineteen sixty two. She was seventeen,
Speaker 1: a total babe. She describes herself then as a cross
Speaker 1: between Sondra Die and Pamela Anderson.
Speaker 2: I was runner up in the MISSPKINI contest. Fall in
Speaker 2: the Springs, Blonde, blue eyed, big boobs, you know, the
Speaker 2: typical blonde valley girl, and you know, naive somewhat.
Speaker 1: Diane was at the beach for one reason and one
Speaker 1: reason alone, the reason Mickey Dora hated. I had to
Speaker 1: admit it threw some opportunities his way. Had you seen
Speaker 1: the Gidget movie at that point?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I know. I was impressed with it. I
Speaker 2: was intrigued with it. And that's why we started going
Speaker 2: to Malibu because we heard that's where the cute boys were.
Speaker 1: Diane didn't surf or swim. She camped out on the
Speaker 1: sand watching the guys in the water. There was one
Speaker 1: surfer who stood out. He was a showman.
Speaker 2: We were laying on the beach and everybody was attention
Speaker 2: was to the water and there seemed to be somebody
Speaker 2: performing out there, and of course that was Nky Dora.
Speaker 2: He was pushing all the boys off their boards, jumping
Speaker 2: on their board and riding it in and everybody was
Speaker 2: ooing and eyeing, and all of a sudden, I saw
Speaker 2: this amazing looking man walking out of the water. He
Speaker 2: was gorgeous. What can I say, I mean tall, dark,
Speaker 2: and handsome, every bit of the word. He was agile.
Speaker 2: He was like a dancer on a surfboard. And I
Speaker 2: fell in love the minute he walked out of the water.
Speaker 2: And he walked out through his board next to my towel,
Speaker 2: laid down, looked at me in the eye. While I
Speaker 2: could barely talk. He said to me, do you want
Speaker 2: to go to a party? I said yes, but you'll
Speaker 2: have to pick me up. He says, where do you live?
Speaker 2: I said in the valley. He says, oh, I don't
Speaker 2: go to the valley.
Speaker 1: Still, Mickey could work with this situation. He must have
Speaker 1: sensed right away that Diane was a lot like him,
Speaker 1: a beautiful, untethered orphan, someone who adored him at first sight,
Speaker 1: someone game, someone he could manipulate, someone who would be
Speaker 1: his partner in crime. I'm Dana Goodyear and this is
Speaker 1: Lost Hills, episode six. Fuck the World. At Malibu, Mickey
Speaker 1: was the king and all eyes were on him every
Speaker 1: move he made. But his life away from the beach,
Speaker 1: that was a mystery to everyone, and that's how he
Speaker 1: liked it.
Speaker 2: He didn't want anything to do with anybody.
Speaker 1: With the explosion in Surfing's popularity, the Valley Cowboy, the
Speaker 1: vals invaded Malibu. He thought they were kooks. They ruined
Speaker 1: his wave, contaminated his scene. Here's Diane.
Speaker 2: And that's what used to piss him off at Malibu
Speaker 2: because all these valley kids and kids with no talent
Speaker 2: would interfere in what he was doing. And he hated
Speaker 2: it because he used to have his peace at Malibu,
Speaker 2: you know, and that was taken away and it made
Speaker 2: him angry.
Speaker 1: Mickey didn't pick Diana up for that party he invited
Speaker 1: her to when she first saw him on the beach. No,
Speaker 1: he made her wait two weeks, refusing her and making
Speaker 1: her crazy. Finally, she invited him to dinner at her
Speaker 1: house in the valley, and he agreed.
Speaker 2: We had dinner, which was hysterical because I didn't know
Speaker 2: how to cook. And I took a piece of hamburger meat,
Speaker 2: rolled it up in a ball and put it in
Speaker 2: a pot and rolled it around. He was hysterical with laughter.
Speaker 2: Took me out to dinner. I think, I don't know something,
Speaker 2: some small place and we hung around and necked and
Speaker 2: didn't make love.
Speaker 1: Mickey wanted to see Diane again. He was living with
Speaker 1: his grandmother, Madame de Sanctis, so that wasn't a good
Speaker 1: place for them to hang out, and he wasn't going
Speaker 1: to keep going to the valley. He suggested a parking
Speaker 1: lot of a twenty four hour Burger spot in.
Speaker 2: Hollywood, and we used to meet at Tiny Naylor's parking lot,
Speaker 2: and we used to hang out in his car and
Speaker 2: talk and neck and make plans.
Speaker 1: You know, Mickey was twenty eight, Diane was still a
Speaker 1: teenager and pretty inexperienced.
Speaker 2: And he asked me why I wasn't in school and
Speaker 2: I said, well, I graduated, but they kicked me out
Speaker 2: and I couldn't go to the prom or any of
Speaker 2: the ceremonies. And he said, said why, And I said, well,
Speaker 2: I was bad. I had a friend steal a time
Speaker 2: clock from the school and we hooked it up in
Speaker 2: my locker, and then the kids would pay me a
Speaker 2: couple of bucks to come in and stamp their time
Speaker 2: card to go to class, slate or to cut class.
Speaker 2: And then I got caught because it kept making a
Speaker 2: ticking sound every time anybody would walk by.
Speaker 1: What was Mickey's reaction when you told him that story?
Speaker 2: Are you kidding? He loved it, you know, he saw
Speaker 2: a great future for us.
Speaker 1: Before long, Mickey made a proposal. But they take their
Speaker 1: relationship to the next level.
Speaker 2: One day, he said, you got to move out of
Speaker 2: the valley. He said about everybody in the valley were idiots,
Speaker 2: and he thought I wasn't. So I said, okay. He says, fine,
Speaker 2: the place, but it can't be in the valley. I
Speaker 2: said okay. So I found a place and we moved
Speaker 2: in together.
Speaker 1: With Mickey, everything was mysterious.
Speaker 2: He was famous for changing names.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: We'd always have a you know, pseudo names that we'd
Speaker 2: make up for each other.
Speaker 1: Were What were some of those names?
Speaker 2: Oh, he was Chicky Mafe and Michelo's cyandor he was
Speaker 2: Mickey Mouse. He was many names.
Speaker 1: She decided to change her name too.
Speaker 2: My name was Alice Diane at birth, so I would
Speaker 2: always use the name Diane. But when I got with Mickey,
Speaker 2: I was using Alice. I wanted to be mysterious too.
Speaker 2: You see.
Speaker 1: She found a place in Brentwood and they named it
Speaker 1: after her, Alice's little house.
Speaker 2: It was adorable. It's a little cottage, and I kept
Speaker 2: it very neat. Micky didn't have a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2: His great joy was the fact you could go out
Speaker 2: the back door and there was a garage where he
Speaker 2: could store all the boards, and you know the vintage cars.
Speaker 1: Mickey collected antique cars, a nineteen forty eight Jaguar, a
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty eight Porsche Spider, a nineteen thirty Rolls Royce
Speaker 1: Phantom two. He had expensive taste and somewhere off stage,
Speaker 1: a supposedly aristocratic family. Diane was impressed. He was a
Speaker 1: lot more sophisticated than she was, and it kept her
Speaker 1: from thinking too hard about where the money was coming from.
Speaker 1: For Diane, living with Mickey meant living by his routines,
Speaker 1: and they were very specific.
Speaker 2: He'd wake up in the morning very early. He'd take vitamins,
Speaker 2: jump in the car with me. He picked me up
Speaker 2: a cup of coffee somewhere. We'd go down to either Malet,
Speaker 2: we were at Tressels, some bell place, you know, two
Speaker 2: or three beaches. He'd get out of the car and
Speaker 2: stare at the ocean, and I'd sit in the car
Speaker 2: and drink my coffee, thinking what the fuck is he
Speaker 2: doing and why does he do this every morning? Is
Speaker 2: he nuts? And then I'd go to work because I
Speaker 2: was working in a boutique at the time, and he
Speaker 2: would go in the garage, picked his board and surf
Speaker 2: all that. I'd come home from work, he'd be there.
Speaker 2: We'd lay in bed, listen to stock reports or the
Speaker 2: news or something, make dinner, which was usually steak, potato
Speaker 2: and wine. And I wasn't drinking at that time, but
Speaker 2: he always had good wine, and that was it. It
Speaker 2: was real simple, you know, And probably that's one of
Speaker 2: the reasons why he didn't want me to tell anybody
Speaker 2: how we lived, because it wasn't, you know, as exciting
Speaker 2: as the life that was outside of the house.
Speaker 1: Diane became the keeper of Mickey's secrets.
Speaker 2: And of course I was always warned never ever to
Speaker 2: let anybody know where he lived. So our whole relationship
Speaker 2: was super, super secret, and I loved it because i'd
Speaker 2: go lay on the beach with him and he'd be
Speaker 2: in the water, and of course all his buddies, you
Speaker 2: know it would all come up to me and start
Speaker 2: drilling me about Mickey. You know, they want to know
Speaker 2: where does he live, what does he do, what does
Speaker 2: he eat? And of course I adored the attention and
Speaker 2: wouldn't tell them a thing. And of course Mickey loved
Speaker 2: the fact that I could keep my mouth shut.
Speaker 1: What was behind all that secrecy.
Speaker 2: Probably afraid that somebody was going to come and steal
Speaker 2: stuff that he probably already stole. And other words, a
Speaker 2: thief is always suspicious that someone's going to come and
Speaker 2: steal from them.
Speaker 1: Playing house at Alice's Little House got Diane dreaming of
Speaker 1: a life with Mickey. To a seventeen year old runaway,
Speaker 1: the twenty eight year old seemed so worldly. Maybe he
Speaker 1: could offer her the stability that had eluded her so far.
Speaker 2: I knew I wanted more than you know, living in
Speaker 2: a Mormon foster home. I knew I wanted to be,
Speaker 2: you know, self sufficient. And then I met Mickey and
Speaker 2: fell madly, madly in love and thought, for sure, thought
Speaker 2: for sure I could convince him to give up surfing
Speaker 2: and marry me and have children and work for his
Speaker 2: father and live happily.
Speaker 1: Ever, but Mickey had other plans in mind. What do
Speaker 1: you think Mickey saw on you.
Speaker 2: Innocence? Possibly someone he could manipulate in a way. I
Speaker 2: was a runaway at the time, coming from an abusive family,
Speaker 2: and he kind of took me under his wing, you know,
Speaker 2: somewhat influenced me. He was a big influencer actually, and
Speaker 2: taught me how to protect myself and to fuck the world,
Speaker 2: you know. You know. His big thing to put on
Speaker 2: his board was FTW, which makes me laugh because now
Speaker 2: it means for the win, and in those days FGW
Speaker 2: meant fuck the world, you know, question authority. Those are
Speaker 2: the lessons he kept trying to teach me. You know,
Speaker 2: trust no one.
Speaker 1: Fuck the world. That was Mickey's credo, the rule he
Speaker 1: lived by.
Speaker 2: Hi thought it was perfect life, you know, until I
Speaker 2: realized he was a scoundrel at a road and was
Speaker 2: training me in too, being accountlice.
Speaker 1: By day, Mickey and Diane were living the good life
Speaker 1: in Alice's little house, taking their vitamins and keeping up
Speaker 1: with current events. She'd go to her shop girl job,
Speaker 1: and he'd spend the day in pursuit of his bliss,
Speaker 1: riding waves. It was clean, almost wholesome. Mickey thought the
Speaker 1: best things in life were free empty waves vitamin D.
Speaker 1: But he thought the finest things in life should be
Speaker 1: free too, So at night Mickey and Diane turned into
Speaker 1: Bonnie and Clyde and they hit the town.
Speaker 2: He had a connection at La Scala Restaurant would be
Speaker 2: like Spago today, and his friend would call him with
Speaker 2: the list of all the parties that they were catering
Speaker 2: that weekend in Beverly Hills. I mean parties that I
Speaker 2: would never imagine myself going to. I mean people dripping
Speaker 2: in diamonds, and you know, in those days, even in furs,
Speaker 2: and it was always you know, high end.
Speaker 1: Mickey kept a champagne flute and some Buddley in his car.
Speaker 1: He'd walk into a party backwards, holding his full glass
Speaker 1: as if he fully belonged. He'd also bring a plastic
Speaker 1: bag to fill with extra food.
Speaker 2: And we'd have a list of maybe five or six addresses,
Speaker 2: and then we'd find out from our family what kind
Speaker 2: of food did they say? Hamburgers and hotdogs, it was
Speaker 2: a pool party. If it was you know, caviare and
Speaker 2: salmon crow cats, we were going to wear the beaded dress.
Speaker 1: They'd pull up in one of Mickey's cool cars and
Speaker 1: waltz right in, no questions asked.
Speaker 2: And then we'd go through the shred door like we
Speaker 2: owned the place and schmooze people in the party that
Speaker 2: we didn't know.
Speaker 1: It was a game to them. The subterfuge was thrilling,
Speaker 1: like being in a James Bond movie. Mickey loved James Bond.
Speaker 2: Actually, at parties, it was amazing, where like people would
Speaker 2: always come up to us and start talking. Micky could
Speaker 2: talk to anybody about anything, and we'd get off on it.
Speaker 2: You know, We'd eyeball each other across the room, laughing.
Speaker 2: We were magnets. First I thought there were suspicious of us,
Speaker 2: but then in the end they were just being friendly.
Speaker 1: At every party. Diane worried that get caught, but Mickey
Speaker 1: always felt right at home, rubbing elbows with a listers.
Speaker 2: And we'd circulate. Then we'd talked to people all the time,
Speaker 2: thinking I hope they don't ask who we are. Vicky
Speaker 2: would go and get me a cocktail, you know, and
Speaker 2: we'd walk around the party like we belong. And then
Speaker 2: at a certain point, I'd go in the bedroom where
Speaker 2: everybody put their purses and their codes and you know,
Speaker 2: and lay on the bed and pretend I had a
Speaker 2: headache and slip my finger into some purse. Never take
Speaker 2: the money, only the American Express credit card. And then
Speaker 2: as soon as I had the card, I'd walk out
Speaker 2: the cars. I feel so much better, but I think
Speaker 2: I better go home, And I'd say goodbye to all
Speaker 2: of the people that I've been talking to, and we'd
Speaker 2: leave the party.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they'd go to multiple parties in one night, changing
Speaker 1: outfits along the way.
Speaker 2: We've hit a couple, if not three. Each one was
Speaker 2: different and that's what made it fun. We maybe, you know,
Speaker 2: be dressed a real fancy for one party, and then
Speaker 2: maybe we'd run home and change for another party because
Speaker 2: it was all in the neighborhood. And then on Sunday
Speaker 2: we'd go shopping.
Speaker 1: Here's how it worked back then. When a card was
Speaker 1: lost or stolen, the card number went on a physical
Speaker 1: list which went out to retailers.
Speaker 2: This was, you know, early sixties. There were no computers,
Speaker 2: and they would send out a list weekly of the
Speaker 2: credit cards that were hot.
Speaker 1: And because Diane worked at a shop, she had a
Speaker 1: copy of the hot list. She knew when they could
Speaker 1: freely spend on a stolen card and when they had
Speaker 1: to stop.
Speaker 2: And I'd check, and then I'd call Nicky and say,
Speaker 2: don't use this, don't use that, or it's not on
Speaker 2: the list yet, you know, go buy a TV.
Speaker 1: If they were careful, there was almost no way for
Speaker 1: them to get busted unless Diane got caught red handed
Speaker 1: at a party, which she didn't. Mickey convinced her that
Speaker 1: what they were doing wasn't all that bad in their minds.
Speaker 1: It was basically a victimless crime, and I.
Speaker 2: Never got busted because when we'd take the American Express
Speaker 2: card or whatever card it was, we'd only use it
Speaker 2: for a couple of days and then we cut it up,
Speaker 2: and we knew that the only one that we were
Speaker 2: fucking with is the establishment, and that particular person that
Speaker 2: we had stolen it from, whoever that may be, wasn't
Speaker 2: going to get charged.
Speaker 1: So he didn't want to make victims out of these
Speaker 1: fellow partygoers. He wanted to make a victim out of
Speaker 1: the American Express company.
Speaker 2: Or yes it was, you know, fuck the establishment, but
Speaker 2: don't hurt the people unless somebody crossed him. And if
Speaker 2: you crossed him, he'd put sugar in your gas, stank,
Speaker 2: blow your car up, you know, or do something silly.
Speaker 1: Why was he so anti establishment and fuck the world?
Speaker 2: I think he was just angry and that was his
Speaker 2: outlet because I really didn't pay much attention to it all.
Speaker 2: I just knew the establishment, we're idiots and we were cool,
Speaker 2: you know. Got to remember I was seventeen eighteen. Wasn't
Speaker 2: thinking of those things. I was thinking about what bikini
Speaker 2: was going to wear the next day.
Speaker 1: It was easy money, which Mickey collected with a sneer.
Speaker 1: He had nothing but disdain for his victims, though we'd
Speaker 1: liked their caviar just fine. Hollywood types were an easy
Speaker 1: mark for him. He had already figured that out on
Speaker 1: the beach in Malibu when the Hollywood producers first showed
Speaker 1: up to film the Gidget movie. Micky hated the whole
Speaker 1: Gidget phenomenon, but that did not stop him from working
Speaker 1: as a stunt double for Moondoggie in the original Gidget
Speaker 1: movie in nineteen fifty nine.
Speaker 2: Why don't you go.
Speaker 1: Back to your playmates? Oh I haven't even said you
Speaker 1: for saving my life. Okay, so now you have go
Speaker 1: on back to Mama and run, don't walk.
Speaker 2: He hated it, but he liked the money, you know.
Speaker 2: He hated that they were ruining the beaches, but he
Speaker 2: liked the excitement of being in the movies.
Speaker 1: For the next decade, Mickey worked in the Gidget sequels
Speaker 1: and any other teeny bopper beach movie he could get
Speaker 1: himself hired on. He was a stuntman in Gidget Goes
Speaker 1: Hawaiian in nineteen sixty one. Since for Gidget Jane Tachiki.
Speaker 2: Was opportunity for him, and he always wanted to be
Speaker 2: a movie star. I mean, that's why he was the
Speaker 2: King Malibu.
Speaker 1: He went to Hawaii and served twenty foot Waves with
Speaker 1: Greg Knowle for Ride the Wild Surf In nineteen sixty four.
Speaker 1: He was credited as a beach boy in Beach Blanket Bingo,
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixty five Classics starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funacello.
Speaker 1: That same year, Mickey also appeared in How To Stuff
Speaker 1: a Wild Bikini Wild? It ain't nothing without the stepping.
Speaker 1: How do we stuffing? Easy?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 3: You're just.
Speaker 1: And when Gidget became a TV show, he taught Sally
Speaker 1: Field to surf.
Speaker 4: You see before you meet Gidget for fifteen and a
Speaker 4: half years.
Speaker 1: Mickey may have had strong feelings about the exploitation of
Speaker 1: Malibu and surf culture, but he didn't mind doing a
Speaker 1: little exploiting of his own.
Speaker 2: He was making Boku bucks because he was doing a
Speaker 2: lot of stunt work, and that's what messed us up,
Speaker 2: because he started flirting with either the producer's daughter or
Speaker 2: somebody's daughter that had the power to give him more work.
Speaker 1: But even off the film sets on the beach in Malibu,
Speaker 1: Mickey always seemed to be in character. Here's Diane.
Speaker 2: He was a much genter, quieter or simple person at home,
Speaker 2: and we had a lot of fun and tried to
Speaker 2: have a healthy, wonderful life. And then when he hit Malibu,
Speaker 2: it was a different story. He was on.
Speaker 1: Was his persona a kind of performance art?
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you say it that way, I would think
Speaker 2: that every time he got on a board in Malibu
Speaker 2: it was performance art.
Speaker 1: And maybe also every time he showed up at the
Speaker 1: beach in a leather trench coat.
Speaker 2: Of course, he was always doing something for effect, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean for reaction.
Speaker 1: And he was playing Mickey Dora.
Speaker 2: Exactly, or Chicky Mafin or Big Close sondor you know,
Speaker 2: whatever persona or name he wanted to come up with
Speaker 2: at that time to fit his mood or his protest.
Speaker 1: In the era of the beach blanket bingo type of movies,
Speaker 1: Malibu was basically an open cast and call Mickey made
Speaker 1: sure he was highly visible.
Speaker 2: He got picked to do a surfing double. I guess
Speaker 2: they were producers went on the beach in Malibu and
Speaker 2: picked people to be extras and dancers and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: In these films. He was, you know, a stand in
Speaker 2: surfer for all the big guys in all those movies.
Speaker 2: It was Mickey that was doing the survey. And he
Speaker 2: wanted to be an actor. He would have loved to
Speaker 2: have been an actor, and he probably would have been
Speaker 2: a good one, except he'd always mess up.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by he'd always mess up?
Speaker 2: Oh, he'd pulled some chican again that would piss somebody off,
Speaker 2: and then they'd throw him off the set. There'd be
Speaker 2: a scene of a two spot of people talking and
Speaker 2: Nicky p in the background dancing like a fool, and
Speaker 2: you know, and all the energy went to him. He
Speaker 2: would find a way to steal the spotlight. Should we say?
Speaker 2: He's you know, he's like a child that needed attention
Speaker 2: all the time. And I didn't mind it, you know,
Speaker 2: I was madly in love. He was my mentor, you know,
Speaker 2: my savior. You know. He took care of me, you know,
Speaker 2: and I shaved his back so he could be faster
Speaker 2: than the water.
Speaker 1: Things were not perfect between Diane and Mickey. The power
Speaker 1: differential was enormous. Did he act jealous over you?
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I couldn't talk to other boys. If I went
Speaker 2: somewhere that was party with like his friends, he'd tell
Speaker 2: me to wear my glasses so I wouldn't look so good.
Speaker 1: Uh. They lived together secretly in Alice's little house, but
Speaker 1: Mickey had a whole life outside of Diane. Did he
Speaker 1: have other girlfriends at the same time that you were together.
Speaker 2: I think so. And he was seeing a woman, Cynthia.
Speaker 2: Married women, of.
Speaker 4: Course when you said that he liked to date married
Speaker 4: women because it was a way of kind of you know,
Speaker 4: having a sit.
Speaker 2: It was safe. Yeah, And it was also safe, you know,
Speaker 2: he didn't have much commitment, you know, he didn't have
Speaker 2: to worry about it. And the only I think the
Speaker 2: only married woman that I remember was probably Cynthia, and
Speaker 2: he used to just tell me they used to be
Speaker 2: surfers together.
Speaker 4: You didn't believe that was the extent of it.
Speaker 2: Well, actually I did. For a while. I thought I
Speaker 2: had the perfect romance and that you know, he's going
Speaker 2: to eventually give up surfing and get a job that
Speaker 2: his dad would give him. And he didn't hear it.
Speaker 2: The family business and we'd marry and everything was honky Dory.
Speaker 2: And then when I realized everything was just a scam
Speaker 2: and he had all these girlfriends, I said, pass I
Speaker 2: left him. I was too jealous. I mean, I was
Speaker 2: insanely jealous of him. You remember, he's the first one.
Speaker 1: The breakup was vicious.
Speaker 2: I had my car packed with everything that I owned
Speaker 2: and he came home and he said, what are you doing?
Speaker 2: And I'm leaving and he says, you can't leave. What
Speaker 2: are you talking about? You know? And I said I
Speaker 2: don't want to do this, and I'm out of here.
Speaker 2: And I remember driving away, bawling my eyes out, and
Speaker 2: then him checking with me, I don't know about a
Speaker 2: week later, to make sure I was all right, and
Speaker 2: what are you doing? Where are you living? And I
Speaker 2: wouldn't tell him, you know. And then he was worried
Speaker 2: that I would tell people where he lives. And I
Speaker 2: could care less because I was working on a new
Speaker 2: movie and I thought I was going to be a
Speaker 2: big movie star and went to Rome, and oh, you know,
Speaker 2: my whole life changed after that, needless to say, And yeah,
Speaker 2: thank god.
Speaker 1: Diane left Los Angeles and went to Rome to act
Speaker 1: in Felini's Satiricon and a Bunch of spaghetti Westerns. She
Speaker 1: got married happily, and it was a few years before
Speaker 1: she crossed paths with Mickey Dora again. It seemed like
Speaker 1: he was up to his same old tricks.
Speaker 2: When I came back to America, Mickey had contacted me
Speaker 2: for something. I don't know what he wanted. He wanted
Speaker 2: us to go live with him in New Zealand, you know,
Speaker 2: if you wanted to start a commune or some sort
Speaker 2: of life style there, and we'd all, you know, plant vegetables.
Speaker 1: And did you think he was trying to scam you guys?
Speaker 2: Oh, immediately, you know, immediately when he started in talking
Speaker 2: about New Zealand, I thought, uh huh uh huh, No,
Speaker 2: I didn't buy it.
Speaker 1: Toward the end of their relationship, Mickey started to talk
Speaker 1: about leaving Malibu. He was looking for a new wave,
Speaker 1: a perfect, clean wave with nobody else on it, far
Speaker 1: away from Malibu. But to travel he'd need money.
Speaker 2: He wanted to start taking it a step further and
Speaker 2: try and steal airline tickets so you could travel the
Speaker 2: world search of the perfect wave.
Speaker 1: He had tried to enroll Diane.
Speaker 2: I remember going to the airport. I forget like it
Speaker 2: was Burbank or some little airport, and Micky would say,
Speaker 2: now you talk to the guy for a minute and
Speaker 2: see if you can get him to turn away. And
Speaker 2: I'd say, okay, and I talk to the guy about
Speaker 2: you know, there's this flight going blah blah here blah blah.
Speaker 2: And then Nicky had the sleight of hand when it
Speaker 2: came to stealing, and he would reach over the desk
Speaker 2: and take a stack of airline tickets and this is
Speaker 2: again pre computer. Then he would fill them out and
Speaker 2: sell them to Frint, saying, you want to go to
Speaker 2: New Zealand, I can get you a ticket free. You
Speaker 2: want to go to Paris, let me get you a ticket,
Speaker 2: and he would just fill out the tickets, give them
Speaker 2: to the person. The person would give them honey, a
Speaker 2: few hundred dollars and they would go to Paris. It
Speaker 2: would work. And I thought, this doesn't look good. This
Speaker 2: looks like a lot of trouble if we get god.
Speaker 2: You know, this isn't a beaded dress. It was escalating
Speaker 2: and I didn't want to go there. That's when I
Speaker 2: decided I'm not interested in this game anymore. Looked pretty heavy.
Speaker 1: Mickey was expanding his horizons looking to the world beyond
Speaker 1: Malibu was over, he proclaimed. He wrote, quote the thousands
Speaker 1: of other plebeian fruitflies that composed the alleged surfing sub
Speaker 1: subculture are forcing me to seek greener pastures unquote. Soon
Speaker 1: he promised he'd be going into exile. He made a
Speaker 1: huge show of complaining about the rape of Malibu. But
Speaker 1: this was Mickey's upclose magic, a big distraction because even
Speaker 1: as he burnished his reputation as the loan holdout, the
Speaker 1: last purest, he was busily picking the pocket of whoever
Speaker 1: might be listening next time. On Lost Hills, everyone's rustling.
Speaker 3: Everyone wanted everyone else to be successful. Some people were
Speaker 3: showing movies. Some people were selling Hawaiian shirts, some people
Speaker 3: were selling surfboards, some people were selling dope. Nobody wanted
Speaker 3: to work nine to five. Nobody wanted to wear a
Speaker 3: suit and tie. Everybody wanted to live their own life
Speaker 3: and be cool. And at the same time, nobody wanted
Speaker 3: to be poor. And so you know, the trick was
Speaker 3: how do you do that? And the answer was you
Speaker 3: figure out how to make the surfing industry work for you.
Speaker 1: That's next. In episode seven, Misdirection, Lost Hills is written
Speaker 1: and reported by me Dana Goodyear. It's created by me
Speaker 1: and then Adare and produced by Western Sound and Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1: Subscribe to Pushkin plus US and you can binge the
Speaker 1: entire season right now. Ad great find Pushkin Plus on
Speaker 1: the Lost Hill Show page in Apple Podcasts, or at
Speaker 1: pushkins dot fm slash plus