Elvis, Roy Orbison and Stella Stevens among the stars in Red Robinson’s firmament
By John Mackie, Vancouver Sun March 16, 2012
VANCOUVER — Vancouver’s legendary rock ’n’ roll disc jockey Red Robinson turns 75 on March 30.
He’s marking the occasion by doing the unthinkable: getting rid of some of his stuff.
What kind of stuff?
Colour movie stills and lobby cards from Elvis movies like Girls! Girls! Girls!, Tickle Me and It Happened At The World’s Fair. Hit Parader magazines from the 1950s. Rock ‘n’ roll movie posters, programs and songbooks from Bill Haley to Johnny Cash and Fleetwood Mac.
With the help of some friends, he’s digging through 75 boxes of ephemera, which he plans to put up for auction on eBay.
Red isn’t selling everything. He’s got a ton of mementoes on display at the Red Robinson Theatre in Coquitlam, and has some of his most treasured items at home.
But the stuff he’s had in storage for years is going.
“You have to be realistic; my kids don’t want this stuff,” he says with a shrug.
“Why? Because they didn’t experience any of it. That’s not an insult, it’s reality. [And] I’m getting on, I wouldn’t want to leave [my wife] Carole with all this stuff.”
Hence, music fans will soon have a chance to bid on autographed posters for the Marty Robbins movie Ballad of a Gunfighter (from 1963) and Chubby Checker’s epic Twist Around The Clock (1961).
Neither will probably bring in big bucks — two copies of the Ballad of a Gunfighter poster have sold for $15 apiece at Heritage Auctions, a Dallas firm that has movie-poster auctions. Twist Around the Clock posters, meanwhile, have sold for $15 to $50.
But Robinson feels they’ll be better off on somebody else’s wall than in storage.
“As long as the person appreciates it, it’s got a good home,” he says.
Whatever their value, Robinson has some real gems.
A program for the Biggest Rock ‘N’ Roll Show of ‘56, featuring Bill Haley & The Comets, The Platters, Lavern Baker, Big Joe Turner and Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers features large photos of all the performers. As does a Show of Stars program, headlined by Ray Charles.
English rock ‘n’ roll star Billy Fury was never that big on this side of the Atlantic, but in the U.K. he starred in a 1962 movie, Play It Cool.
The movie was in black and white, but Robinson’s poster of the film is in vibrant colour. It depicts Fury rocking out in a white suit against a bright yellow backdrop, ‘neath the come-on line “twisters and swingers clash in musical rumble!”
Roy Orbison was rarely photographed without his trademark dark sunglasses, but he doffed the shades for the poster of The Fastest Guitar Alive, a 1967 movie.
Apparently MGM had visions of making the shy Orbison a movie star, à la Elvis. But the Big O didn’t think too much of his first big film, where he played a cowboy who had an acoustic guitar specially outfitted with a gun atop the neck.
“He said it was embarrassing,” says Robinson, who interviewed Orbison several times. “He said, ‘I knew I couldn’t act.’”
It’s a very curious poster. It’s a western, but being 1967, features psychedelic art nouveau lettering advertising Orbison as a “singin’ shootin’ son of a gun.”
Two years earlier, Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello starred in the ‘60s camp classic, Beach Blanket Bingo. Robinson scooped up the movie’s large poster, which features the seven principal actors skydiving (in bathing suits, naturally).
It’s in perfect condition, save for one problem: somebody’s added some body parts to the men.
“They’ve, um, enhanced the male parts under the bathing suits,” laughs Robinson.
Which doesn’t enhance the value, but does make the poster unique.
One of the most famous images in the 1960s was Richard Avedon’s psychedelic photo of John Lennon, which Look magazine ran on its cover on Jan. 8, 1968. Robinson’s got it, along with a less-famous 1966 Beatles cover from the Saturday Evening Post.
The most valuable stuff will probably be his Elvis movie stills and lobby cards. He has a beautiful card of Elvis and Carolyn Jones embracing on the set of King Creole, and a fab card featuring a bevy of beauties admiring and hugging the King on Tickle Me. It comes with the irresistible come-on line, “It’s fun! It’s girls! It’s song! It’s Color! It’s ELVIS!”
The Girls! Girls! Girls! stills are just killer. Two feature Elvis doing his thing on a boat, the other features the Pelvis charming Stella Stevens, who looks rather charming herself. The colour is incredible, and Elvis and his gal pals are so good-looking they almost don’t look real.
One thing that won’t be for sale is records — Red sold his collection a few years ago. He’s also hanging on to some personal items, such as a pair of “Red Robinson Representative” cards from his days at CKWX. (There were two representatives from each high school in Vancouver; they came on his show in the late ‘50s and rated records.)
While searching through the boxes, he was delighted to come across the original artwork for his Theme For Teens radio show on CJOR. The hand-painted logo dates to 1954, and features a pair of hands in white gloves holding a bunch of 78 rpm records.
“I used it on my carrying cases for my 78s,” he recounts.
“Notice the white gloves. Even though the music was rebellious, you had to show class.”
jmackie@vancouversun.com
Check out photos of Red Robinson's cool collection here.
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