Hanson has provocative L.A. roots. He’s second-generation L.A. stock. His birth certificate is stamped “Reno, Nevada.” His father, Wilbur, was working on a government road crew there when Curtis was born.
Wilbur Hanson was a conscientious objector. He refused to fight in World War II and served out his draft commitment with a pick and shovel. The Hanson family moved back to L.A. in ’46. Curtis and his older brother banged around a big, run-down house at Fifth and Hobart. His mother rented out their spare rooms. His father taught at the Harvard Military School and chauffeured rich kids to school for extra money.
Wilbur Hanson was a gifted and thoroughly dedicated teacher. He took his students on field trips and gave them more time than he gave his own sons. The Harvard School was an upscale dump site for the sons of the Hollywood elite. Darryl E Zanuck’s son matriculated there. Old Man Zanuck got a hard-on for Wilbur Hanson. He didn’t want no fucking CO teaching at his kid’s school. He applied the big squeeze and had Wilbur Hanson bounced from Harvard.
Wilbur Hanson caught a Red-scare bullet but dodged another one. He got certified to teach in the L.A. city school system. He was not excluded on the basis of his expressed pacifism or his documented CO status. The family moved out to the San Fernando Valley. Wilbur Hanson began teaching at a school in Reseda.
Wilbur and Beverly June Hanson encouraged their sons to read. Beverly June loved movies and dragged Curtis and his brother to bargain matinees all over the Valley. He had seen dozens of film noir flicks before he knew the term “film noir.” He watched Dragnet, M Squad, The Lineup, Racket Squad, and Mike Hammer every week. School bored him. His real curriculum was films, novels, and TV shows. His major course of study was narrative. His minor course of study was crime.
He wrote a story called “The Man Who Wanted Money” and read it to his fifth-grade class. His teacher found the story and Curtis’s general crime fixation disturbing and ratted him off to his parents.
Curtis had a dual-world thing going. He had his family/school world and his film/book/TV-show world. He figured he’d grow up, become a screenwriter and director, and pull off a two-world merger.
He developed a dual-L.A. thing. It grew out of a dual thing with his dad and his uncle Jack.
Wilbur Hanson was a morally committed schoolteacher with $1.98 in the bank. Jack Hanson was a morally desiccated rag merchant who sucked up to movie stars and showbiz players.
Dad had a shack in the Valley. Uncle Jack had a big pad in Beverly Hills. Dad spent most of his time with schoolkids. Uncle Jack hobnobbed with Hollywood swingers. Dad took kids on uplifting field trips. Uncle Jack owned Jax–the grooviest, sexiest, most altogether bonaroo boutique on Rodeo Drive.
Curtis spent weekdays in the Valley and weekends in Beverly Hills. Uncle Jack loved having him around as a companion for his son. Curtis’s two worlds were regulated by his school duties and divided by the Hollywood Hills. Uncle Jack gave him access to a world within his world. It was the fast-lane world of aggressive people out to get all they could and flick the cost. That worldwithin-a-world dovetailed with Curtis Hanson’s crime fixation. Uncle Jack’s movie-biz fixation dovetailed with Curtis’s ambition to grow up and become a filmmaker.
Jack Hanson was noir personified. He was a movie-biz toady straight out of The Big Knife. He hoarded money and paid his people the minimum wage. He was arguably the cheapest cocksucker who ever walked the face of the earth. He opened up the Daisy in the mid-‘6os. It was the first members-only dance club in Beverly Hills. Jack sold memberships to showbiz hipsters and employed it as his vehicle to suck his way further into the in crowd.
Curtis watched. Curtis took mental notes. Curtis finished school and got a chump job with Cinema magazine. He drove copy to the typesetters and film to the photo lab. The magazine started to go belly-up. Curtis convinced Uncle Jack to take over the operating costs and let him do all the work.