BusTalk

[Mr. Linsky]

This is another in a series of essays that first appeared at BTN that I would like to reprise here for your enjoyment;

MY FINAL ‘OLD LOOK’ RUN

From what I’ve told you all, you may be under the impression that the last GM ‘old look’ that I drove was for Green Bus Lines back in 1961. Well, this isn’t exactly the truth! Actually, the last time I found myself behind the wheel of one of those ‘venerable’ old coaches was thirty three (33) years later in 1994!

Before I go into the details though, I think you’re going to need a little more background.

After selling a company that I ran in New York for over twenty five years (unrelated to transportation) I became involved in the business of brokering antique vehicles for motion pictures and television. The timing was perfect because ‘period’ films were the rage and we found no difficulty in mating our merchandise to the many available scripts.
Among my favorites was Penny Marshal’s ‘A League of Their Own’, a true story about a female baseball team (circa early forties) that traveled the country in a used Greyhound ‘Silversides’ (3700 series).

Interestingly, we had to locate two decent examples (one to lease for exterior scenes and the other to buy to be cut up for use on the set in Evansville, Indiana – it was sliced into three sections and fitted with dollies for portability.

For Oliver Stone’s ‘JFK’ we managed to come up with several 4104’s and 4106’s for location scenes in Washington, DC., and in ‘Bugsy’ starring Warren Beatty we supplied a number of transit and suburban coaches (circa 1947) to Union Station in Los Angeles (courtesy of the 'Cantos' collection).

Now we get to Universal Studios in 1994 for the production of ‘The Shadow’ starring Alec Baldwin (not exactly ‘Academy Award’ material, but I only supplied the bus!).

The bus in this case was a 1958 TDH4801 (102”) built specially for Los Angeles Metropolitan Coach Lines as #5184 (the 4800 series was slightly shorter than the 5100’s due to California law that prohibited forty footers at the time).

The coach was delivered to the studio the night before shooting so we would be all ready on the set at 7:00AM the next day (I had promised the transportation coordinator that the bus would be on the set at the appointed time – and I was a stickler when it came to time!).
Unfortunately, the driver was a bit flaky and didn’t show up as scheduled – enter stage right, Mr. Linsky!
(or, Mr. Linsky to the rescue if you like!).

It was like old times but it was also over thirty years later and the bus was longer and wider than anything I ever drove (it was no nice short thin 4507!)
It was the last turn heading toward the set where I had a slight mishap in misjudging the distance to a stanchion sitting right at a curb. The damage to the rear doors was minor and the studio carpenters fixed me right up and the day was saved!

If you should happen to see a copy of the film the scene was shot with the bus standing at an ‘island’ type stop with Manhattan superimposed in the background (I still have the art department sign that was placed over the destination sign and lettered ‘FT. WASHINGTON AVENUE’).

That’s the story of ‘My Final Old Look Run’ which, coincidentally, may be my final story altogether because I’m running out of material!

Mr. Linsky
"The Green Hornet"
also Hollywood Star!