June 16, 2013

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  The Coke Brothers*

   

  The worst of times was over

  It was the best of times – The Spring of 1949

  And thanks to the GI Bill, he enrolled in a 7-to-10 PM evening life class

  At the Art Students League on West 57^th Street in Manhattan

  He had a day job down the street at a small advertising boutique

  In a building across from Carnegie Hall that housed theatrical press agents

  It was run by a gregarious fellow named Cliff Strohl and his brother Lee

  And specialized in promoting upcoming Broadway shows

   

  Because he would get to class early as he worked only a short distance away

  The League’s director asked him if he wanted a job

  Cleaning up the big room after the day class had finished

  Scheduling the models and timing the poses and 5-minute breaks…

  (10-second warm-up gestures for an hour, then an hour of four 15-minute contours

  And finally a full hour of resuming the same seated pose each night for the week)

  The instructor Robert Johnson was a WW1 veteran, a great anatomist and draftsman

  Who would come in Friday evenings to critique the students’ weekly efforts

   

  Trevor and Gerald Johns were jockeys who plied their trade at English tracks after the war

  Until Trevor who was older than his brother by a few minutes

  Was badly hurt in a terrible pile-up at Ascot and Gerald had to take care of him for months

  He was advised they emigrate to America so his brother could be helped

  With more advanced care by doctors at one of the large hospitals in New York

  They withdrew their considerable savings from a London Bank

  And sailed from Liverpool on Cunard’s refitted Queen Mary used as a wartime troop-ship

  Arriving in New York in July of 1947

   

  Trevor’s injuries were severe and he was constantly medicated with morphine to ease his pain

  He became addicted early on and never recovered from the need of the narcotic

  Gerald also succumbed to the drug but controlled his habit so he could minister to his brother

  They found a flat in the Village a short distance from St Vincent’s Hospital

  As they were raised Catholic and thought this would also help Trevor’s recovery

  When his brother was hospitalized, Gerald found employment

  As an actor in off-Broadway productions at the Phoenix and other smaller venues

  In and around lower Manhattan’s humble play-houses

   

  During one of his stints as a walk-on at the Phoenix in one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known epics

  With Robert Ryan, Hollywood’s favorite heavy as the victorious Roman general Coriolanus

  Gerald met Charlton Heston, a friend of John Emery who played Aufidius

  Heston told him his wife and he used to work as artists’ models at the League

  He thought Gerald because of his unusual stature would fit in very well as a model

  For the sketch and painting classes they both posed for a few years before

  The next day Gerald went up to 57^th Street with his social security card and the following year

  A reasonably-recovered Trevor alternated with his brother on the posing platform

   

   

  *My grand-daughter came up with the title for my painting and it is promised to her… Trevor and Gerald can be seen

    at my Xanga photo blog (Click on it for a larger view)… The picture is based on sketches made in the early 1950’s…

   

   

   

   

   

   

  • 3:20 pm
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