She really did grow up in show business. Her dad went to Hollywood High and played football with James Bumgarner (James Garner). There’s a picture of them together with the rest of the foot ball players. Her dad was so short that Jim and another guy had to hold him up to match their heights in the line.
Her dad also played golf regularly with Lee Marvin and one of his best friends, Charles Knight, won academy awards for sound on several films. Her mom went to high school in Culver City. The MGM lot was just down the street where her uncle worked as a chef for the stars. Her cousin was Jane Darnell for whom she was named.
Her grandparents had been in the music business. They were both contract musicians for MGM back in the days when they actually used a live orchestra on set. Her granny played the organ and the piano, and her grandad played the clarinet.
They were hesitant about a child going into the business. They had seen how a young Judy Garland had been misused by older powerful men on set. Her granny was especially dismayed at witnessing Miss Garland being bounced on the knee of an older executive when she wasn’t even completely filled out yet. “I didn’t like the look in his eyes,” she said.
Kristie Jane began singing Ragg Mopp to Kukla, Fran, and Ollie when she was about three years old and if she didn’t know the words, she just scatted. The whole family was amused. She was their strawberry blond, big blue-eyed darling.
She continued to put on shows at every possible family event holding her aunts, uncles, and grandparents hostage as her audience while she dressed up in her aunt’s formal gowns and put on productions of all the current musical favorites. Her aunt played the piano and Kristie directed the younger cousins as back up to her starring role.
One Christmas when she was in about fifth grade, she did a grand version of “June Is Busting Out All Over.” Everyone laughed when her wicked Aunt Levina, Wicked Witch of the West, remarked, “It looks like Kristie Jane is bustin’ out all over to me.”
Every time she lifted her arms for the chorus, her young breasts popped out of the strapless gown she was wearing. She was too titillated to be humiliated, and she had just discovered another way to get attention… her breasts!
(First published 6/14/12)
