Patricia Arquette’s Dad & Me from Ben Bryant’s Hollywood Memoir
- Posted on 10th February 2015
- in celebrity books, celebrity stories online, celebrity story, Entertainment, entertainment books, Hollywood books, Hollywood memoirs
- by Ben
In my Hollywood Memoir, Three Stages, I wrote about two of my closest Hollywood High pals, Bob Camp and Mike Arquette. This morning Elizabeth and I watched Jon Stewart interview Patricia on The Daily Show and her warmth and genuine quality reminded me of Mike.
Here’s a brief excerpt from the book:
“Cobb [Bob Collins], Bob Camp and his best pal Mike Arquette rounded out the quartet that began hanging out together that summer. [1952] Camp dubbed me “Bouncin’ Ben the Bible toting fullback from Bristol”. Mike’s dad was Cliff Arquette, better known to the public by his comedic persona, “Charlie Weaver”.
Cliff as Charlie Weaver
“We spent a lot of time at Cliff and Mike’s house. (This pic is on their front porch.) Cliff was a great guy and he had us all laughing most of the time. The four of us liked to sing Barber Shop Quartet songs. One Saturday night Cliff dressed us in red suspenders, bow ties and straw hats and we went to Hollywood Boulevard, stood on a corner and serenaded the passersby. Several people tried to give us money but we weren’t prepared for that. We were just having fun. In retrospect…
“Bob (Camp) and Mike were pretty wild guys for the ‘50s. They drank a lot of vodka and even smoked pot. This (pot smoking) was very unusual among white kids in those days. I often wondered why they liked to pal around with me, I was such a Christian. We’d be at a party and they’d point out a particularly fetching girl and ask me if I would like to fuck her. I’d answer, “Yes, if I was married to her.” They’d roar with laughter. But the four of us were inseparable for the last two years of high school. Ironically, twelve or thirteen years later when I saw them both after I’d moved to New York, I was the foul-mouthed, dope smoking “sinner’” and Bob and Mike were religious fanatics. Life is full of turnarounds and surprises.”
Young Mike
Older “Lewis”
Bob Camp, still looks like the high school kid
About their religious “fanaticism”: They had become members of (what I considered) a cult called Subud*. Bob had changed his name to Hamid Hamilton Camp and Mike had become known as Lewis Arquette. (I didn’t know until recently that Lewis was his actual middle name.) Anyhow these former wild men neither drank alcohol in any form nor smoked marijuana. They didn’t swear and, in my judgement at the time, didn’t seem to have retained their robust, irreverent senses of humor even though they were then part of an improvisational comedy troupe. I, on the other hand, had morphed from the former “Bible toting fullback” into a profane, agnostic womanizer.
About a year later Mike/Lewis was back in town and he asked if I could get him some dope. As the famous American philosopher Leon Spinks once said, “Life a funny thang.”
* Subud is an international spiritual movement that began in Indonesia in the 1920s, founded by Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwidjojo. Click the link if you want more info.
Tags: Bob Collins, Cliff Arquette, Hamid Hamilton Camp, Hollywood High School, Jon Stewart, Lewis Arquette, Patricia Arquette
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