“Ted and Sylvia Berkeley”
Edited from interviews of Wendy, Debbie, Randall Sr., and Randall Jr. Berkeley by Pablo Capra
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| Sylvia and Ted, with Wendy and Bonnie, at Topanga Beach, circa 1946 |
“Teddy” was born Randall Edward Berkeley in Winnipeg, Canada in 1912. He may have been given his nickname because his older brother Mowbray "Bunny" Berkeley (1911-2004) already had one.
Their mother Aimee Berkeley had come from England with her son Harry (b.1903) and daughter Illorin, from her first marriage to Captain Harry McMullen Pearson. A Boer Wars veteran, Pearson had who had hoped that the climate would help his malaria. Pearson died in 1908, and Aimee married Mowbray Berkeley Sr., an oil tycoon. Their children were Bunny, Ted, and Betty.
They lived well, in a big house that later became a hospital. Then, during WWI, Canada took back its private oil fields, leaving the family destitute. Mowbray Berkeley Sr. went to New York to try to re-establish his business.
Aimee moved the family to La Brea and Franklin in Los Angeles on New Year’s Day 1918 to improve her respiratory problem, and to seek opportunities in film. Mowbray rejoined her, and they worked as movie extras for three years before separating. Then Aimee moved to Sierra Madre and worked as the live-in maid of a film family, the Weidlers. Her son Ted made deliveries for bootleggers on his Indian motorcycle. He was a daredevil and enjoyed racing.
Ted grew up to be a skinny 6'2". He wore tennis shoes without socks, and laced pants like a sailor. He tried to get a job building the Golden Gate Bridge, but ended up working in a bar in San Francisco instead. He had all the typical sailor tattoos: a ship, a sparrow, a star, a spider.
Alfred and Margaret Weidler had come from Hamburg, Germany with four children in 1923. Alfred was an architect, who later built models for 20th Century Fox. Margaret was an opera singer, who became an oil painter. Their children were child actors, and their sixth child, Virginia Weidler, was especially successful.
Ted Berkeley played trumpet and piano to support himself during the 1930s. He formed a band with the three teenage Weidler brothers called The Pep Brothers. He was completely self-taught. He could do anything he wanted to because he believed in himself. He didn’t know how to read music, but he composed songs like "Malibu" and "Don't Start Making Those Eyes at Guys."
After Ted left the band, it was renamed The Wilder Brothers. Walter played saxophone, George played clarinet, and Ted played piano and trumpet. The third brother, Warner, later won an award for the theme for Love Story with Ali MacGraw. George was briefly married to Doris Day, and played in the bands of Les Brown and Stan Kenton. The three brothers ran a top recording studio in Westwood.
Sylvia Weidler, born in 1919, was the first child. She danced in movies until she married Ted in 1938. Ted didn’t allow her to have a job outside the house. She later taught tap and ballet dancing classes from home, and became a sought-after Hollywood seamstress. She could make anything from leather jackets to bikinis. The Weidlers were very religious, and Sylvia remained a Christian Scientist.
Ted always played piano and sang while Sylvia was cooking dinner. She was an excellent tap dancer, and they’d tap together in the kitchen to "Side by Side." Their first daughter Bonnie played ukulele, and became a singer at the New Frontier Casino in Reno. She also learned painting from Margaret Weidler. Creativity was essential in their family.
Ted’s first priority was to support his family. He would do any job to bring a paycheck home on Friday. He worked as a stevedore in San Pedro, a miner in Nevada, and, later for side income, as a gas station attendant near the Malibu Pier.
He and Bunny also pursued jobs in film. Bunny became a successful set decorator. (Bunny’s son Ronnie became Elizabeth Taylor’s and Richard Burton’s make-up artist, and lived just north of the Topanga Creek Lagoon.) Ted started in film as a security guard and laborer. He rose to become a greenman, in charge of the plants on set. He tried out for the role of the Lone Ranger, but was a shy actor. He finally found success as a property master, and worked on many Westerns. Unions were a big deal to Ted, and he would picket to stop non-Union workers from crossing the line in the later 1940s.
Ted wanted to fight in WWII, but couldn't because he wasn't a citizen. He was embarrassed when people would say, “Why aren’t you in the service?” It motivated him to get his citizenship, but he was too old for the draft when he did.
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| Ted surfing at Topanga Beach. |
Ted had been a swimmer in high school. He always wore a red swim trunks that made him look like a lifeguard. He loved the beach, and got into surfing. He made balsa boards with redwood stringers in the Franklin's yard. He carved them with a butcher knife and sanded them by hand. No electric tools. He donated one board to The Adamson House, but they drilled holes in it and hung it outdoors, so the family took it back. He carved model boats out of balsa wood too.
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| Ted with Primo Carnera at Topanga Beach, circa 1946 |
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| Circa 1946. Top: Ted and Sylvia Berkeley, unknown. Bottom: Primo Carnera, Bob and Kay McLaughlin, unknown, Mowbray and Dorothy Berkeley. |
Ted had premonitions. Once, he felt he needed to leave work in the middle of the day, although he was unsure why. He began raking the dried seaweed in front of the house to keep the beach tidy when his daughter Wendy called for help. She had been caught in a rip tide and was about to go under. No one but Ted was around to save her.
Ted’s daughters looked forward to Fridays because he would buy them a candy bar from Potter's Store, at the Topanga intersection, when he got paid. They remember him crying only once, when their Irish setter Moose was hit by a truck on PCH.
Around 1948, the family moved to State Beach briefly, then to Las Flores Beach, where they lived until around 1961. Daughters Debbie, Bambi, and son Randall were born there, bringing the total number of children to five.
The family ultimately moved to Malibu Park, where Ted enjoyed the local horse shows that his daughters rode in at the Trancas arena. He became an amateur writer, and wrote a column in The Malibu Times, as well as two or three unpublished novels. One novel, Eve and the Joshua Tree, was about a plane crash he’d witnessed.
When his children moved out, he turned a spare bedroom into a Western saloon. He built a second Western saloon in his backyard, using cow skulls, driftwood, and prop beer kegs. His house was full of movie props like antique furniture, candy-glass bottles, rubber chickens, and gumball machines. He kept his hair dyed black and greased over, and was muscular from weightlifting. He drank and smoked two packs a day.
After retirement, he volunteered for the Motion Picture Home by delivering the mail to the residents, many of whom were his friends.
Ted died in his sleep at age 85 or 86, sometime between 1997-1999. He and Sylvia were married for 57 years.
