Crystal Zevon
The Writing of Crystal Zevon
March 10, 2007
Stumpy and Mickey Cohen
Most people who know anything about Warren know that his father, William Zevon, was known as Stumpy. I’m not sure how much people know about his life… a gambler, a mobster, a rough and tumble little guy (5′4″ at most)… but also a proud father. Anyway, here are a few stories that didn’t make it into the book (the editors thought readers wouldn’t be that interested in Warren’s family history…) Another argument I lost. So… for those who ARE interested, this first quote is from Warren’s cousin, Dr. Sanford Zevon, who was considerably older than Warren and someone Warren and Stumpy always looked up to. Stumpy used to tell me, “If you’re ever in trouble, just call on the doctor, Sandy. He’s a big shot heart doctor, you know. He’ll help you out anytime you call. He’s a Zevon.” He was right.
This incident took place when Sandy was a boy, long before Warren was born.
SANDY ZEVON: There was one incident I remember where Willie visited us in Brooklyn when I was probably 12 or 13. He brought with him one of his good friends, the very famous Jewish gangster, Mickey Cohen. This I remember. It was just the two of them, and there was my mother and father, my sister and I. Cohen had a hankering for some ice cream. This was on a Sunday, so I knew of a little candy store around the corner. The guy who owned it was a miserable son-of-a-bitch. Very nasty to the kids in the neighborhood. “Don’t loiter. Don’t hang around.” So, we walked around the corner and he was just closing. Mickey Cohen said, “We want some ice cream,” and the owner of the candy store waved us off. Mickey Cohen wraps on the door again and says he wants ice cream. The owner says, “Can’t do it.” He says “I want a whole tub of ice cream.” So, he let us in and Mickey bought an entire tub. You know what a tub is? It’s like five gallons of ice cream. We walked home with that tub to my house and we all had ice cream. I don’t know what happened with the rest of it, but that was a very memorable occasion…
This next quote is actually from Mickey Cohen’s autobiography:
MICKEY COHEN: “…Then we went and got married in some marriage chapel. I’ll never forget this. I had come with Tuffy, who was my dog at the time. Now we gotta stand there to get married. So I got Stumpy Zevon as my best man. Now I look down at this preacher guy’s feet, and I says to Stumpy, “Take a hinge at this guy’s feet.” So Stumpy looked down, and I guess the preacher guy got blown up because I like made fun of him, and he said, “The dog can’t be in here while I put the ceremony on.” I said, “Let’s get outt of here, we ain’t gonna have no marriage”… Anyway, he finally said Tuffy could stay. So we did too. We got married.”
Another story from Sandy:
SANDY ZEVON: It was probably around 1956… before I got married, a friend and I went out West to check out an internship… I remember Willie, on a trip we made to Vegas. We were looking for them, Willie and Hymie. They were supposed to be staying at The Stardust, and someone at The Stardust said they were probably at a club in downtown Vegas at a card game. They’d been gone for days in this game. Believe it or not, we found the card game. The two of them were sitting behind piles of chips, obviously making a lot of money. Willie had his teeth out on the table, and he showed us his bank book which contained something like a million and a half dollars. As you probably know, he made it and he lost it, many times over.
* Filed by Crystal at 8:03 pm under Book, Book interview
2 Responses to “Stumpy and Mickey Cohen”
1.
Vicki007
March 10th, 2007 | 8:52 pm
It’s hard to imagine how the editors could claim that WZ’s family history is insignificant to the complete story. His family’s dysfunction was the foundation of his genius, for crying out loud!
Anyway, I deeply appreciate that you’ve shared this historical perspective with us. Thanks, Crystal!
2.
lzevon
March 14th, 2007 | 10:29 pm
I’m sorry to hear the editors didn’t feel readers would be interested in family history but now you have a great forum to share what was not published.
I enjoyed reading my father’s (Sandy) account of Stumpy, the ice cream story was told to us several times growing up. You are also right on about his always being there, he always is when I call :)
Glad I found the blog Crystal. Looking forward to reading more ‘outtakes’ and learning what you’re up to! You have a lot of irons in the fire but always have time for family.
Leave a reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Links
* Home
* RSS
Archives
* August 2009
* February 2008
* January 2008
* December 2007
* November 2007
* October 2007
* September 2007
* August 2007
* July 2007
* June 2007
* May 2007
* April 2007
* March 2007
* February 2007
* February 2006
Categories
* Book (44)
* Book interview (12)
* Jackson Browne Concert (7)
* LACE (4)
* Photos (7)
* technical (2)
* Uncategorized (49)
*
Pages
o BLOG
o Contact Crystal
o PHOTOS
*
Blogroll
o Barre Opera House
o Froggy Bottom Guitars
o The Other Page
o Jordan Zevon
o Warren Zevon's My Space Page
o Burlington Book Festival
o Rock Bottom Remainders
o Crystal Zevon's Facebook page
o Crystal Zevon's Redroom Author page
o Warren Zevon
o West Coast Live
o HarperCollins
o L.A.C.E.
Using the Gentle Calm theme designed by Phu Ly. WordPress took 1.114 seconds to generate this XHTML page.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I met Warren in Fresno, California. He was 3 years younger than me but a good friend of a friend. I only met Stumpy two times. In Fresno and LA. True story. Warren graduated from high school in Fresno and his Pop bought him an XKE as a graduation present. two weeks and Warren wrecks it. Stumyp came from LA in his Rolls. Rented a trailer hitch and towed the XKE back to La, Stumpy was short and would put a couple of phone books on the seats so he could see over the top of the steering wheel. I swear Stumpy was a dead ringer for Joe Pesci. We never called him Stumpy to his face. it was always Mr. Zevon.
ReplyDelete