Free Luck or Something Like It by Kenny Rogers Page A

Doyle Three could have found no better venue for getting our name out in front of other entertainers, jazz lovers, and musicians from all over the country. People like George Carlin, Buddy Greco, Lorne Greene, and Liza Minnelli came to listen to us.
    One of my favorites was Tony Bennett, who came by every time he was in town. There were times when Bobby would get sloshed, then go onstage. Tony would say, “Bobby, can I come up and sing a song?” and Bobby would say, “In a minute, Tony.” I’m surprised Tony stayed our friend, but he did.
    Lorne Greene, a huge star on the long-running network TV series Bonanza, used to stop in the Showbiz every time he was in Houston. Over a period of time, I got to know him on what I thought was a personal level. Maybe I wouldn’t have classified him as a close friend, but certainly an acquaintance. Every time he left the Showbiz, on his way out of Houston, Lorne told me to give him a call “the next time you come out to L.A.” He gave me his phone number several times, just to make sure I could reach him. Boy, it was great to have such a fan. As it turned out, I did get out to L.A. with the group and I did use that phone number to call my fan and friend Lorne.
    “Hello, Lorne? This is Kenny Rogers from Houston. You said to call you when I got to Los Angeles.”
    “Who did you say this is?”
    “Kenny Rogers, from Houston. The Bobby Doyle Three—we played at the Showbiz.”
    “How did you get this number?”
    “You gave it to me. Remember? It was when you came to one of our shows over at the Showbiz. You told me to call.”
    “I would never have given out my private home number,” he said frostily.
    Oops, I thought. “Sorry,” I said, and hung up.
    Not long after that I saw him on an airplane as I was walking through first class to get to coach. I decided to give it another try after the plane had taken off. A lot had happened between the time he’d come to hear us play at the Showbiz and the time I’d called him in L.A. This was at the very beginning of the 1960s, and Bonanza was on its way to becoming a number one TV series. Maybe if he actually saw me, he would remember all the times we sat together at the Showbiz and talked about music.
    I made my way up to first class, and smiled at him. “Hi,” I said. “It’s Kenny Rogers.”
    “So?” Lorne looked up at me over a pair of little half-glasses. Then he went back to reading his newspaper. I nodded, smiled, and quickly went back to coach, embarrassed that I had given it a second try.
    But not everyone forgot me from the Bobby Doyle days. Liza Minnelli and I first met there and then later on, as my career blossomed, we’d bump into each other at one event after another. Along the way we became social friends, and when I was in L.A. in the mid-1980s, she invited me to a party at her home in Beverly Hills.
    I showed up at this flashy Hollywood affair and immediately felt like a fish out of water. These were Broadway people, people who knew everything about Liza’s famous mother, the great Judy Garland, and her equally famous father, Vincente Minnelli, the Academy Award–winning director of classic film musicals like Meet Me in St. Louis and An American in Paris . I knew a little about Liza’s mother and father but otherwise was a country singer in a Broadway world. They were all very nice, of course, especially Liza.
    At one point I noticed a frail little man sitting alone in the corner. He was all alone but didn’t seem to mind it. As I started to go introduce myself, a group of partiers came in, immediately surrounding him and treating him like the pope. This was Hollywood royalty, no doubt about it.
    Liza came by, grabbed my arm, and said, “Have you met Vincente?” She walked me over to meet her legendary dad, explaining on the way that he was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s. Like everyone, I said hello and extended my hand. He shook it, chuckled, and instantly disconnected from me, as he had with