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Seven days.

A mere seven days after the city shimmered under a million eyes.

A different kind of spectacle unfolded.

The Eaton fire tore through Pasadena and Altadena, leaving a trail of ash and despair.

Over 9800 structures, homes, lives reduced to dust.

This tragedy didn't even spare the everybody family.

Tonight, we delve into the heart of this human inferno with a veteran Hollywood publicist who will share his personal story and guide us on how to lend a hand to those who have lost everything.

From Los Angeles, this is Kelsey's PBS.

Welcome to everybody with Angela Williamson and innovation, Arts, education and public affairs program.

Everybody, with Angela Williamson is made possible by viewers like you.

Thank you.

And now your host, doctor Angela Williamson.

Harlan Boll is our guest.

Harlan, thank you so much for being here.

Oh, thank you for having me.

Right about now, our audience is wondering, you know, they know they haven't seen you before, but you've been instrumental in bringing some of our guests.

I mean, we had Hank Garrett, who will be in the upcoming season, publicist for the Hollywood Museum, which kicked off our sixth season.

And without you, we wouldn't have gotten that that shoot.

So we consider you part of the family and that you are spending some time with me tonight.

I so appreciate it.

But before we get into why you are here, let's tell our audience how you were able to get us these wonderful guests and these opportunities.

Well, I've been a publicist now, coming on for 40 years.

I, work with the Television Academy.

I seven years with prime time, and then now 12 years with daytime news and dark sports, tech Emmys.

And now the recently created, Children and Family Emmys, which now will be our third year.

So, I've been involved with that for a long time, worked with the Oscars for a little while, the Tony Awards for 18 years.

So, I've been around.

Been around.

But I love that they call you the classic, publicist because basically you have represented some of are the stars that have been in our homes of these classic television shows.

So my question is, how did you get involved with doing that?

Because you didn't come to California to be a publicist?

No.

I came like anyone else to be a performer.

An actor.

Saw myself on camera for the first time, went nope.

Reality check.

Reality check.

And didn't have the voice for it.

And I just went, okay.

Theater.

I was great, very successful.

I did, you know, I did, Huckleberry Finn and Big River and a number of other things.

But, TV and film.

I just segued into working at Paramount and casting.

I worked, for a little while.

Worked on the original Top Gun as assistant, not as the casting director.

And, then I wound up at Capital Records and Arista Records doing PR, junior PR, you know, for Whitney Houston and Brooks and Dunn and again, junior, Marie Osmond and and Metallica.

So.

But these are you're making steps in the direction and.

Making steps.

Yeah.

Steps that wound up and then I became a personal assistant to, a number of people.

Valerie Harper, who was one of my best, best, best who came from that name.

Phenomenal actress.

She became my best, best friend.

And then I wound up with Bob and Dolores Hope.

And so I worked.

This is my 30th year with the Hope family.

I'm still with them, even though Bob's been gone since 2003 and Dolores in 2012.

I still work Linda and their foundation, the Bob and Dolores Hope Foundation, helping veterans and, children.

So I didn't know that because when we think of that foundation, we we know the veterans, right?

But they also help children, they.

Help children's programs, and they help abused women.

So, yeah, she put, Dolores was probably one of the greatest humanitarians.

Bob used to joke.

He said, I don't know what we're supporting.

I leave that to Dolores.

Wow.

I mean, but these were women that dominated the 80s and dominated primetime television.

And I'm sure our audience remembers.

I mean, I remember because we all wanted to look like this.

Yes.

We don't want to be mad at them because they still look fantastic today.

Yeah.

And most of them remembered the, you know, like Betty White.

And they remembered the, you know, the, It's so funny.

I'm afraid of leaving someone out there were the men I still have George Chakiris, who won the Academy Award for West Side Story.

Rip Taylor for many years.

A lot of comedians.

Which is, I think, helped me through a lot of things because they taught me if you don't laugh, if you can't find the humor in something, you're in a lot of trouble.

So it's, I've.

I've had to search sometimes for the humor, but when they announced Bob, Bob, Bob first announcement that he passed away, he was 95 years old.

Someone on the Senate floor said, we'd like to observe a moment of silence for Mr.. A great American, Mister Bob Hope.

And I got all these phone calls and I called Linda and I said, Linda.

And she's now he's sitting here eating vanilla ice cream.

I remember, I remember that that false report.

And then the next day or two days later, he called me and he said, Harlan, it's Bob.

I haven't seen the paper yet, and I don't like surprises.

Am I dead or alive?

You know, you have to joke about the stupidity sometimes.

Yeah.

Well, and really, it's.

You've had to find humor in something that's caused a lot of devastation over the last few weeks.

It's been very difficult to find the humor in this at all.

It's.

Yeah, at all.

Because it's really not there yet.

No.

It's not.

And I'm hoping at some point we can look back and not necessarily find the humor, but find the silver linings, the, you know, something the positive has that you can make come out of it.

If you let yourself fall into the negative.

And sometimes I do, it's hard to pull yourself back out.

And so to bring our audience up to speed, because we had several wildfires, that just devastated Southern California.

But there is one that had probably the most devastation.

We had we had Palisades, but we also had the eating fire.

Yeah.

How does this impact when you're taking out a fire?

Takes out an entire neighborhood?

I mean, places that you go to on a daily basis, how does that impact you as a resident?

Everyone knew each other.

Everyone.

Beautiful homes up our street.

And.

And now to think all but one are gone.

And our house was at the top of the hill and pretty much a museum because people used to call it the celebrity house because they always saw, you know, Liza minnelli or Carol Channing or someone coming in and out of the house.

But you also, too, offered your home to your clients whenever they needed to do interviews.

Well, that was yeah, that was more out of necessity.

They didn't like crews coming to their house.

So my house would become the home of Florence Henderson or the home of, George Karras or Carol Channing or, you know, Jerry Jewell or, you know, the list goes on.

Just most the last one was Stefanie Powers.

She came to the house than they did at home with, photo shoot and a magazine that's out right now, hit yesterday.

Are taking all the photos inside the house in the backyard.

Were taken at my house.

So that came out to open the magazine and see the cover and realize at the grand piano and and the photos outside in the garden are all, all of that.

And the magazine is gone is called aspiring Magazine and it's, story and Stefanie Powers and all the all the photos or everything in there is gone now.

So, that was the last one.

That was a lot.

The news crews used to tease this one for one film out.

One cameraman who was shooting for Oprah, came they were doing the.

Where are they now?

Oprah wasn't there, but they were doing this, a segment.

And he came in and he said, didn't this house used to belong to Florence Henderson and Carol Channing?

And I went, yeah, well, yeah.

Well, because it became not only it was your home.

Angela Lansbury and and Marion Ross and a host of others, you know, they would go, we were here for an interview with Marion Ross.

I go, yeah.

And they go, this isn't her home.

Got no, no, no.

But also to how you describe your neighbors as well.

Yeah.

I mean, so it's not that you you lost something precious with your home, but you, everyone around you is suffering as well.

Yeah.

We're we've kept in touch to the best of our ability.

So many of them got out with just the shirts on their back.

One of my neighbors, hope he doesn't mind my saying his name.

Matthew Liberto.

He played, Albert Ingles in a little House on the Prairie.

He said he made it out with tennis shoes, jeans and a and a hoodie.

We just so many didn't expect it to make it again.

I, I don't know why I panicked ahead of everybody.

But, one of our neighbors is, Cameron Mathison from General Hospital.

Yes.

His house was.

Just had such a beautiful house, and it's gone.

Again, I hope they don't mind my saying that.

And several others, that and we all ever.

We had block parties.

I've seen the kids grow up going from birth to college.

So, you know, I, we we know each other, not just our block, you know, the blocks around us and because we all walked at night, it was one of those neighborhoods where every single night I would walk the neighborhood and up the hill, down the hill, you know, and everyone did it.

You passed all your neighbors walking at night, walking their dogs or just walking, you know, on their own.

So we all knew who everyone was.

And to see everything gone and to think, I'm not going to be talking to them or I'm not going to seeing them.

It's difficult.

And my church was only three blocks away.

But your church is unique because your church has been there for how many years?

Almost 100 years.

And the it's it's survived many fires.

As has my my house would have been 100 years old next year or the end of this year.

And, as old as Jimmy Carter.

It's just, the the building was just devastated.

The congregation, as I know of now, 19 other church members also lost their homes.

We've been gathering at a temporary location, which I think is very important to show support for each other.

The hard part, I think also, there are our next door neighbors.

House survived.

We don't know why.

House right next to ours.

The rest of the block is gone.

That house survived.

And.

And a house up the hill survive.

Well, up the block and over the hill.

They're going to have just as much difficulty because they have so much smoke damage to the house.

They have no power.

They have the water is, is contaminated and we don't know how long it's going to be.

So they can't move back in.

It's not like, oh, our house survived and we're going back in tomorrow there.

It's going to be a long time before they.

And then once they do, it's like a bomb went off in their neighborhood, like their house survived a catastrophic bomb, catastrophic bomb.

And, they're going to live in a war zone once they can move back in, because all the reconstruction of the, you know, building, they're going to have to listen to that all over.

So it's it's it's almost as bad for those whose homes did survive.

I went back to the house when they let me in.

I snuck in a couple times past the barricades.

But I started going through stuff, and I wore my mask because the dust and the ashes and everything else, didn't help a lot, but I was going through my stuff, you know, going through the ashes, trying to find anything that survived.

And someone from the health department stopped by and was going down the block talking to everyone, because I wasn't the only one out there, so I was I'd made it past the barricades, snuck through, and I was going through the the the property, through all the ash, trying to find whatever I could.

The mask worked a little, but going through the ashes with my hands and everything else, someone from the health department was coming from home to home to home, telling people, don't put your hands in there because asbestos and other things were contaminating the property.

You know, these homes were built years ago before that was a problem.

And so, I wound up the the shoes I was wearing were destroyed.

The ash and everything just ate literally through them.

My pants were destroyed.

But I got out of there, and the next day, several of my neighbors connected with me and said that they were feeling sick.

And I felt sick.

Not horribly, not like Covid sick.

Just kind of, breathing.

Yeah.

Had to, you know.

So we did a lot of liquids and tried to get our our breath back.

I'm fine now, but yeah, it's it's, they're going to have to live with that when they go back.

So there's no win here.

There's even those who houses impacted.

Yeah.

And anyone that is in that area.

Right.

So when we come back from our break, I want to talk about two things with you.

First, you had quite an extensive collection that you have gotten and as gifts from clients over the years, we want to talk about that.

And then we want to talk about how we can be the best of humanity and help others, including people who still have them homes, but they really don't have a home, right?

So let's talk about that when we come back.

So stay right there.

Hey, boss.

Okay.

Younger.

You sure said I'm fine.

Oh, so.

So this little.

It was only like me and my parents.

You think you created.

Family of characters?

Yeah.

I to.

Take that.

Into some, Oh, in the bay.

See you in the morning with the first deed to me.

But it wasn't Nani.

And we lost.

These.

And let me make you an unholy, way.

Make my.

Case.

If I could you talk to me?

It's been really, really hard for me.

Welcome back.

That was a powerful first segment, but I think I missed something in that segment.

I'm sure I did.

And but we talked a little bit about it.

I mean, we talked about it.

Did it impact impacted you?

It impacted the celebrities that we see, but it also impacted people just like all of us.

You know, regular nine to fives and was special.

Yeah.

Especially for so many who during Covid, so many including myself, moved our offices into our homes.

So now people are not only losing their homes, but their entire career way of of working.

I again, I don't know why I thought of this.

I grabbed my computer, I grabbed my files and before I ran out the door.

But so many people, their offices were in their homes.

One of my neighbors is a recording artist, and he had a studio in the backyard.

His studio has gone, a many people had were working.

One I was telling you about, Matthew Liberto, his wife, is a teacher, and the school that she teaches at is gone.

So I'm in the neighborhood.

So it didn't just impact where we're living.

It impacted our ability to earn a living.

Again, I was lucky because I was able to pick up pretty much find some place to plug in and start working.

It's an unfamiliar place, and I have this constant feel of displacement because I was used to turning and grabbing postage.

I was used to turning and grabbing stationery.

I was used to grabbing.

Now I'm I have to stop and think, where do I go for this?

Or run out and buy something because the envelopes are no longer in the in, you know, where they used to be or the you know, the whatever I needed is no longer there.

But when you're going through the house with a flashlight, you're literally picking things that your, your, your flashlight is picking.

Up because it's completely dark, completely.

Dark.

And there's smoke in the air.

There's fire ash coming.

There was no it wasn't like you could see there was no moonlight.

It was.

You're working in complete dark.

Fortunately, because my office had been under reconstruction, some of it had already been moved out.

I got the I got the name for Carol Channing.

I got those out of the house.

But you also had advertisements, too.

Oh, yeah.

No, I saved the save those.

Yeah.

I tell this audience about these advertisements because this is so unique.

I think it was one of the first things I grabbed.

Elizabeth Taylor started me on a collection years ago.

She was a it was an ad for Whitman Whitman sampler chocolates.

And on the bottom it said, currently starting in Ivanhoe, which is what the studios used to do, they'd lend their image out to a product as long as it promoted what they were currently appearing in.

And I don't know why this fascinated me.

I just started collecting.

I have over 250 of them and I had them all signed.

Gregory Peck for, Chesterfield Cigarets, which is was popular at the time, and he wrote on it.

I quit smoking three years prior to this, this advertisement or, Bob Hope, several of his, Lauren Bacall, you know, for cigaret for for those with bogie.

You know, those cigars, those little cigars.

Okay.

And, Marsha Hunt, who lived to 104, she she I brought in, a sign that said, Marsha Hunt's favorite lipstick, Tangerine red.

And she wrote across it.

This is news to me.

So it was an important collection, you know, so many stars, so many people I worked with Angela Lansbury, others, Buddy Hackett, the list goes on.

Milton Berle.

I'll sign them, with their little comments on them, because most of them didn't even know they were in it.

Esther Williams was furious because she saw that her kids were in an ad.

She said, had I known that I, you know, usually she said, he may own my ass, but he does not.

All my kids, well, she was not happy about that.

And, Kirk Douglas wouldn't sign his because he said I never gave permission for this.

It was for shirts.

And, he made up for three days.

Later, he sent me, which I have.

They were in there.

He sent me posters from his moves, from his movies, Spartacus and others.

And he signed them.

He said these, I approved so he would send them to me.

There were two posters.

One of which I lost.

But by grace of God, a producer who was working on writer writer of the show had his.

And he said he'd give me his.

I had posters signed for all About Eve with Stockard Channing, Angela Lansbury, Kirk Douglas, John Ritter, Carl Reiner.

It was a brilliant cast.

Jennifer Tilly, Tim Curry, and they had all signed the outside of it, and I'm so glad I grabbed it, but I forgot the Sunset Boulevard with Anjelica Houston, Sir Ben Kingsley, Patrick Wilson, now Noah Wylie, a number of others.

I don't you know how you think.

How did I not think to grab that?

There was a trunk of artwork that I had had put things away while they were working on my office, and I just.

You kick yourself later.

And you got to get in.

Some of my friends, they try and say, forget about it, but he just doesn't work quite that way.

Yeah, because you spent your career representing these people and in their show of appreciation is to give you something that's.

Yeah, becomes part of your family, right?

Yeah.

And there's their gifts from people.

There was a wonderful sculpture that Rosemarie gave me.

She gave me two.

One was in storage, and for some reason, I had just brought it back because it made me smile.

It was a child with balloons running and running across it.

You know, it's a little sculpture, that just made me smile.

So I brought it back to the office because I needed something new to look at and make me.

See Rosemary.

Clooney.

No, that's Rosemary Clooney.

I thank you, thank you.

I knew her as well.

But Rosemary, from the Dick Van Dike show, she.

Thank you, Sally Rogers.

Thank you.

She was she was one of those women who taught me to laugh.

You have got to find the humor in things.

And she was brilliant.

Jim.

She made it.

She from vaudeville to TV to film.

She was the first star of the all talking, first all talking movie ever that ran in theaters.

Rosemary a baby Rosemary, a child wonder.

Okay, first.

One ever to star in a film that ran in theaters.

She was on TV.

Yeah.

In several TV shows, including, of course, the biggest one, Dick Van Dike Show and The Doris Day Show and all of that.

So I had a lot of her stuff, and I think one of the biggest disasters is I had commissioned collages of all my clients, which if you see the photos and you look at the video, you see them behind me and on the walls, from Shirley MacLaine to Liza minnelli to Angela Lansbury to, Chita Rivera to to, Rita moreno, all of them signed to me by the late Mr. Blackwell.

Jerry Herman, all of them signed, to me.

And I didn't get any of those.

No, those were very personal.

They wouldn't have brought a great deal.

But the mats all said, I love you.

I love you, Harlan or Harlan is the greatest or whatever.

But those those were treasures around me, you know, Joanne Worley, Brian Stokes Mitc To think those are all gone because I can't get those back to those people.

Most of those people are gone.

I did salvage, and I'm really proud of that.

Jerry Herman's, Kennedy Center Award.

It was one of the first things I grabbed.

I was there when he received it at the white House, and it brought back so many memories.

My mother calling and saying, you're on TV with Obama.

Tell your mother when you're going to the white House.

You know, it's so, you know, it's, so many memories from that night.

Because Angela performed, Chita reformed, and Carol performed that night in honor of Jerry.

And, we were there with Paul McCartney and Oprah Winfrey were both honored that night.

So there are so many memories of meeting those people and having dinner with them that that Kennedy Center Award just means so much to me because it brings back so many memories.

So I'm glad I salvaged that.

But again, it's so you I, I grabbed four shirts, three pants and three shoes, dress shoes, black tennis shoes and white tennis shoes.

I don't know where my mind was.

I, I, I'm even surprised the shirts I grab because I don't wear them that often.

But, again, you don't know where your mind's going and in the flash, like I will forever regret.

And this leads into something else.

The ashes of my cats.

I had just brought two of them out of storage, so because we'd just lost two, and they're paw prints.

I hate that I forgot those, and unfortunately, we lost our baby in the fire.

Getting him out of the house.

My other half put him in in the the carrier.

But there was a bad latch on the bottom of the carrier, and he broke his way out and ran back into the house.

And with the fire department's already on the corner.

So the police, the ashes falling, burning, ashes falling, the house next door is burning and 45 minutes was spent.

He went in looking for him, in the dark, trying to find it, but he could have hidden in any under.

So under a bed, under a under a sofa.

He could have hidden in what we called the dungeon was our storage room.

He could have hidden anywhere.

So after 45 minutes of hunting, the fire department said, you have to leave now because the fire was leaking, you know.

So he left.

And we've been hunting all the veterinarian places in the hopes that maybe he got out.

I'm losing hope.

Unfortunately, at this point, I have been to several vet hospitals that said they had an orange tabby.

That meet the description clipped here.

Same thing.

Green eyes and same brown mark, you know.

So I've been there.

It's not it has not been him so far.

The Humane Society grabbed over 300, grabbed, collected over 350 cats and dogs and pets that were misplaced because of the fire.

I used to think, how can you not get your pet?

Well, now, having experienced it, I'm going.

Okay, I know how this can happen.

Or sometimes they were outside pets and they didn't.

When the fire came, they went some place to hide.

So you can't find them?

So we put out, you know, we we've done everything we can.

But that's just like losing.

That's losing a member of the family.

It is.

Pasadena Humane Society has been wonderful.

Kept in touch with us when, you know, if it's a I gave the description and I put in a file and they've been great with keeping in touch with people.

There are organizations, the, what used to be the Actors Fund is now the Entertainment Community Fund.

So because so many people in this area were in entertainment, they've been helping out a lot of people, so they can take your donations, please.

You'll be helping so many people in the industry.

We'll make sure to put lower 30 for both.

So and, you know, and there, people, a lot of people are doing go fund me.

I'm not a fan of that because so much of that money doesn't go to them.

But the Pasadena Humane Society and the entertainment, The Entertainment Community Fund, which used to be the Actor's Fund.

Which will go directly.

To.

Yeah, will go directly to people.

And they do everything from collecting phone, collecting clothes, people who lost their computers, like, you know, I could have so easily, people who, you know, just to get their business back up and running so they can earn money and survive.

I know, again, I got lucky because I got some place to go.

So many people are are sleeping in their cars.

So many people are couch hopping from friend to friend, a friend, and, you know, you just it 900, 9008 hundred homes plus, that's just Altadena.

Think of all those misplaced people trying to find someplace to stay.

So many of them never expected to be homeless.

Valerie Harper, as I mentioned to my probably one of my best friends, she said at one time, you could act locally, but think globally because it's easy.

You can start the grant, you know, working on what you can affect here and see it grow from there.

So absolutely correct.

And that's a perfect way to end our conversation.

Thank you so much.

And thank you for joining us on everybody with Angela Williamson.

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Good night and stay well.