Thursday, April 20, 2023

The Quinn's and the Schechner's

 Photos of Martha Quinn

https://www.google.com/search?q=martha+quinn+photos&rlz=1C1SQJL_enUS788US788&sxsrf=APwXEdeLRX7nfXA-d9WPXfB9txs8S_82eQ:1681939128379&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjXiZ_C77b-AhVJl2oFHUZMBqsQ0pQJegQIBxAC&biw=1067&bih=488&dpr=1.5

Photos of Jane Bryant Quinn
https://www.google.com/search?q=jane+bryant+quinn+photos&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjjttLD77b-AhV6JN4AHR5lBh8Q2-cCegQIABAA&oq=jane+bryant+quinn+photos&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzoGCAAQBxAeOggIABAIEAcQHlCCB1jAGGDNGmgAcAB4AIABowGIAfYLkgEEMy4xMJgBAKABAaoBC2d3cy13aXotaW1nwAEB&sclient=img&ei=u1pAZKPtEvrI-LYPnsqZ-AE&bih=488&biw=1067&rlz=1C1SQJL_enUS788US788

Jane Bryant Quinn @ Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Bryant_Quinn

Martha Quinn is Jane Bryant Quinn's step-daughter

JANE BRYANT AND MARTHA QUINN: Two women who have made it in a business where mother-and-daughter families are as rare as white peacocks, Christian Science Moniter (1986)
https://www.csmonitor.com/1986/0619/zquin-f.html

I met the Schechners through MTV VJ Martha Quinn's half-brother, Justin. My second husband Tim and Justin had been roommates on Milvia Street in Berkeley, in the same neighborhood where the beat poets had lived such as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsburg. It was also within walking distance of Wavy Gravy's communal home. I stayed at my husband Tim's flat on Milvia St. for a few weeks one summer and I saw Wavy Gravy watering plants in his yard as I was walking down the street one day.

Allen Ginsberg lived in a cottage behind 1624 Milvia Street for a time (he wrote parts of Howl there; also, see his poem “A Strange New Cottage in Berkeley”), and Jack Kerouac stayed at 1943 Berkeley Way.”

https://www.berkeleyside.org/2012/07/17/a-roadmap-to-berkeleys-literary-scene

That same summer, Justin and his girlfriend went to Italy and asked Tim and I if we could housesit for a couple of weeks at their flat on the top floor of a house in North Berkeley. When they returned they said that Justin's girlfriend's best friend had an uncle who needed a housesitter and asked if we were interested in the job.

We went for an interview with a woman named Danice. Year's later I learned that she was one of the radio hosts at the legendary free-form radio station, KSAN back in the 1970s. She thought we would be a great fit but said that we should meet her husband first just to make sure.

I remember meeting her husband, Bill on the deck in their backyard. I remember thinking that he looked familiar but I couldn't quite place him. I still remember he and Danice looking at Tim and I and looking at each other like they were looking for something. Whatever it was we passed the test and then sometime later I realized what it was. Tim and I were '90s hippies and I had a "Kill Your Television" bumper sticker on my car, which I had bought from a street vendor on Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley so we hadn't watched television for a few years. I don't know how long it took, it wasn't 'til after we left, but at some point I realized that the reason Bill looked familiar was because I had grown up watching him on TV, first as a news anchor for the local TV station KPIX and then as the co-host of a national TV show, NBC Overnight. He had also met his wife, Danice as one of the broadcasters at KSAN in the '70s. So they were just checking to make sure we weren't some kind of star-struck lunatics, which I wasn't anyway because a number of years before I was acting in Hollywood productions being filmed in the Bay Area so I had already developed a rule for myself that I would never approach a celebrity and ask for their autograph or anything like that on set. That ethic actually paid off because there were many times that I saw extras on the set going up to the stars and the A-list actors and try to interact with them and it was cringey to watch. But there were a couple of times, because I was off sitting on my own, minding my own business, that actors like Mike Meyers came up and talked to me.

That was the beginning of my twelve year career housesitting for the Schechners. Since we housesat there at least three times per year, often for at least two weeks at a time, I estimated that I spent at least a solid year or more living in that house at 2905 Regent St. in Berkeley. 

Bill still had the sign for NBC Overnight in his office

William Schechner obituary (best overview)
https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/livingston-nj/william-schechner-11215493

San Francisco Chronicle obituary for Bill
https://web.archive.org/web/20230405165117/https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/bill-schechner-kpix-reporter-17869399.php

NBC News Overnight
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBC_News_Overnight

Memories of “NBC News Overnight”, a cult-classic news show from 1982
https://adamabrams.com/memories-of-nbc-news-overnight-a-cult-classic-news-show-from-1982/

Bill and Danice's daughter was the west coast editor for Elle magazine and then married the manager at the House of Blues in L.A.

Marriage announcement, New York Times

West Hollywood’s House of Blues isn’t going anywhere -- for now

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