By SUSAN MONAHAN Special to the Palisadian-Post At 6:05 p.m. the ballroom at the Fairmont Hotel was still empty’and chilly. Blue and silver balloons floated above the tables. The reunion committee expected 250, plus walk-ins’the highest attendance this group had seen. Clinks cut the silence as bartenders stocked up on glasses. ”Two collages flanked the entrance. The first was a standard high school reunion bit, with black-and-white snapshots of the seniors’ last football game, and boys with their Chevys in the parking lot. But the other evidenced why the Palisades High Class of 1965 is extraordinary: the nation’s press has kept an eye on this group for 40 years. ””Yes, I remember Time magazine coming,” said Padre Clayton (who went by Greg in high school), the first alumnus to arrive. ”During their senior year, Time devoted a cover story to the newly built high school’s group of affluent students, writing about their social and scholastic habits as 500 models of “Today’s Teenagers.” The article deemed them graduates “on the fringe of a golden era.” ”Beyond the social order at Palisades High was a world in flux. These teens experienced the Cuban Missile Crisis during their first month in high school; then came the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The number of men drafted into the Vietnam War climbed as the students marched through graduation. ”Ten years later, the Time article left questions in the minds of two Palisades High ’65 alumni: David Wallace (later Wallechinsky) and Michael Medved. From a late-night reminiscing session came the shared idea to write a book about whether or not their classmates, Time’s “leaders of tomorrow,” really “changed the world.” Medved, voted Most Intellectual by his class, and Wallechinsky, son of famous author Irving Wallace, tracked down and interviewed nearly 50 classmates. The compilation book “What Really Happened to the Class of ’65?” was published in 1976. Its chapters had titles like “The Cheerleader” and “The Joiner,” and contrasted the students’ high school images with their candid accounts of moral and sexual experimentation and how they discovered’or avoided’adult responsibilities. Almost all interviewees claimed drugs influenced their lives. ”The press and public were again intrigued. Were these classmates still prototypes of the era? The Daily Californian reviewed the book as “gossip, melodrama and cultural history.” It became a national best-seller. The Los Angeles Times covered the class’s 20-year reunion to follow up. But the classmates’ opinions on the book were as varied as the directions their lives had taken. On this night 30 years later, many of them have watched children of their own graduate into adulthood. What conclusions have they drawn now? The Quarterback’s Record ””You still look just like Paul Newman,” a classmate said as she shuffled out of the ballroom past Mark Holmes. In the book’s first chapter, “The Quarterback,” Medved and Wallechinsky cite other classmates’ memories about the attractive young man, whom they voted Most Likely to Succeed. The authors continue: ””For 10 years we heard nothing of Mark Holmes until we ran into him in the men’s room following a ‘Cosmic Mass Celebration”he was organizing the annual ‘Conference of Grace’ for the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness.” ”These days Mark has moved back to Los Angeles after spending time in Panama, where he continued to practice the Asian medicine he’d spoken of in the book. Holmes ran a medical practice in Beverly Hills, has been married, and is now engaged again. Saying he did not want to be negative about the situation, Holmes pointed out he didn’t feel accurately portrayed in the book. ””I was the first chapter. Then there I was in the New York Times, and they misrepresented the religion.” He has a strong presence and conveys opinions largely with his eyes. “It wasn’t the story of the class. You can’t generalize about a group of people, as being from Palisades, or being that age. We all have our own biological individuality. It’s like the dinner they’re serving. Everyone in the room can eat the same thing, but we’re all going to react differently to it.” ”Wallechinsky arrived at the reunion, dressed in an eggshell-colored suit jacket. He flew in from France, but makes his home in Los Angeles. A published author many times since “What Really Happened…,” he hasn’t heard many complaints from the interviewees recently. ””It’s people you know. I haven’t written a bad word about someone I know since. I didn’t like that part of it. I’ve heard what Mark thinks and I’m sorry he feels that way. All the interviews were transcribed from tapes, of course. But I still don’t agree with the religious movement he was involved in.” The Beauty ””Suzanne!” A woman called her name over the noise of the registration table and soon a small group of women circled the champagne blond, sun-tanned and gracious Suzanne Thomas. ”Wallechinsky and Medved entitled her chapter “The Beauty.” They wrote about the girl voted Most Natural: ””We got Suzanne’s number from her parents, but hesitated for several days before making the call. There was no logical basis for our nervousness, but old-time insecurities die hard. In high school, a call to Suzanne Thomas would have been unthinkable; she was too desirable, too mature, too far above us in the rigid social hierarchy.” ”From the interview she gave at the time of the book, she was waitressing in Marina del Rey and enjoying free time at the beach. This surprised her classmate Harvey Bookstein, who was quoted in the book saying he assumed she would be married and a mother. Thomas’s quote in the book explains her indecision: ””In high school, everything was more organized. I knew what I was doing and where I was going. Now it’s kind of helter-skelter. I don’t really like the way things are going’I think people are a little too free.” ”At the reunion Thomas smiled warmly at her classmates and seemed comfortable to talk in groups of just two or three, stationing herself outside the perimeter of the ballroom floor. She spoke in a soft but optimistic voice. ” “I live in San Diego now, and I do landscape design,” she said, adding that she didn’t have children. After reading her personal feelings in the book about hoping to find a Prince Charming and wanting a family, it’s almost too severe to pose the typical reunion inquisition, Well, why aren’t you married? ””I don’t know if she ever was married. She’s pretty quiet about that stuff,” classmate Jeff Stolper said, whose chapter in the book was titled “The Surfer.” “She still looks beautiful,” Stolper said of the woman dressed in a nautical-blue jacket and skirt. ”Wallechinsky said people developed an instant bond to those profiled in the book: “The comment I usually get on the book is people saying, ‘My class (in whatever state) had the same cast of characters.’ Which is what we were trying to accomplish, but had no idea how successful we would be.” ” However, some feel that Medved and Wallechinsky’s book was not the right sampling. ””I wasn’t interviewed for the book. My life was very normal,” said William Kaplan, a classmate who now has a dental practice in the Palisades. ””They basically got their friends involved,” Mark Mathews, a classmate whose band used to play at Sports Night dances at Palisades High. “We would have made an interesting story’the Vietnam War eventually broke up our band.” ”Wallechinsky explained his and Medved’s selection method: “We tried to get a cross-section of the class; to identify ‘classic’ types.” ”Tom Betts, the reunion committee member credited with the giant Internet outreach for this 40-year event, cited Google.com as his tool. “This is a special group of people,” he said. “We have a Nobel Prize winner, Richard Gelinas. It’s a very diverse class politically. That book mentioned only one guy affected by Vietnam, but I’ve found over 30 classmates involved in the military, like myself.” ”Gelinas was a member of a research team awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1993, recognizing their discovery of split genes. He currently works at the University of Washington’s Department of Pathology. ””This is my first Pali reunion.” he said. “The committee used modern technology to locate us, and old-fashioned emotional persuasion to get us here.” ”Gelinas was not interviewed for the book. “I was too busy studying to be noticed.” But Medved and Wallechinsky did donate a chapter to one bookworm. He was “The Idealist.” Who Didn’t Show? ”Conversation about classmates who weren’t at the 40-year reunion erupted as the DJ lured couples onto the dance floor to the beat of Otis Redding. ””Did you hear about Kelso?”‘ a classmate asked Wallechinsky. ””Tom found out from Google,” Wallechinsky replied. He said Kelso was the reunion no-show who surprised him most. ”Jamie Kelso’s chapter, “The Idealist,” began with Kelso’s declaration: ””I think probably a lot of people remember my lecture on Sartre in Advanced Placement English. Inside my own head, I was in a crisis. Existentialism is, of course, a fraud. Jean-Paul Sartre is an imbecile. I’m quite aware of that now. When I got up in front of the class I was so torn up inside that I couldn’t see.” ”During an Internet search, Betts came across several articles naming Kelso as a member of the National Alliance under former Klu Klux Klan leader David Duke. ”When Kelso was interviewed for the book, he was a member of The Church of Scientology and living south of Kansas City. ””He was always a joiner,” said Betts. “We were friends. But I’ve lost touch with him now. In fact, he’s the reason I called Michael [Medved]. Michael said he was up-in-the-air about coming tonight.” ”Medved did not attend. He lives with his wife and three children in Seattle, where he hosts a conservative talk radio show. “I had the invitation on my desk and couldn’t decide. Eventually the date came and went, so I guess that was the answer,” said Medved, who also skipped the 20- and 30-year reunions. “Saturday at 6 p.m. is the heart of the Sabbath. It just didn’t seem like the right thing to do, and I didn’t want to spend the weekend away from home and my kids.” ”Medved published the book “Right Turns” this year, which he considers a kind follow-up to “What Really Happened to the Class of ’65?” “One of the things that’s very striking is the political prominence of this particular graduating year’Bill and Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush were the high school classes of ’64 and ’65.” Medved attended college at Yale with these same leaders. ”Did Medved find the answer to Time magazine’s expectations of his classmates? “It wasn’t that expectations changed. But [teens] went from general expectations of success to having no idea of the right thing to do. In the ’60s there was a strong prejudice against careerism. We were self-indulgent and self-destructive.” Couples’Did Any Last? ”The book dedicates one chapter each to Anita Champion, who declared her goal was to be “a good wife and mother,” and Ron Conti, entitled “Big Bad Ron.” ”The pair married a few years after college. Ron worked for Douglas Aircraft after high school, then began to attend Santa Monica City College and began “bumming around” with an older, rowdy group. He is further quoted in the book as saying: ””All I remember about Anita [in high school] is her hair piled up on her head and sticking straight up in the air, with about three cans of hairspray to keep it up there.” ”Anita’s memories were recorded in the book as follows: ””I was going out with a guy fairly seriously for awhile, but he got drafted into Vietnam’then I got together with Ron. He was very gentle and he always smelled good.” ”Chris Wolfenden Woods, a classmate and reunion committee member, said the Contis would not be attending. They are no longer together. After coming across so many classmates on their second marriage, were there any sweethearts from the class of ’65 who made it to the 40-year reunion together? ””The Doerners are still married,” said Woods, referring to actor Karl Malden’s daughter Mila and Tom Doerner. “But they didn’t get together until college.” ”Stolper has a Palisades love story that culminated in late July. He married Janice Hayes, a Palisades Elementary classmate who moved to Palo Alto. They hadn’t seen each other in 46 years, but preparations for this reunion brought them in touch again. In his 1975 book interview, Stolper was working as a speech therapist back at Palisades High’where the surfer had nearly been expelled for not cutting his hair. Now his hair is short and combed smoothly to frame his head.” ”Woods, who wasn’t interviewed for the book, called many of the stories in it rebellious. “I didn’t go through my rebellion until about 40, after my divorce. I was 22 when I got married,” she said. “Someone told me I was a ‘goody-two-shoes’ in high school. I think I’ve changed a lot. My parents were wondering when I would settle down and marry again. But I was getting to travel often with my new job. You look at this group tonight, all the different things we’ve done, and you realize it’s never too late to create your dreams.” Retiring the Image ”Possibly the most sensational chapter in Medved and Wallechinsky’s book was “The Bad Girl” about Lisa Menzies: ””In school I was always getting into trouble. I’d smoke in the bathroom. I’d ditch class’I actually counted how many men I went to bed with, and then I stopped counting.” ”The chapter catches up on her 10-year story of experimentation with drugs, travels with different men, the birth of two children, and the loss of her baby’s father to lung cancer. ”Classmate Lany Tyler moved into a house in Venice near Menzies and offered this comment for the book: “We didn’t see each other often, but I remember being struck by the amount of pain she seems to have lived through in the years since high school.” ””I was happy to see [the book] out there,” Lisa Menzies Corletts said at the reunion, with a direct and assured tone. “I think it says a lot about the human outlook on personal development, if only to be able to expose others to our stories.” ”Medved said, “The subjects in the book were the most surprised it became a best-seller. But a few, like Lisa Menzies, really reveled in the attention. She went on a few talk shows.” ”Corletts now has three children and three grandchildren, and recently retired from a career in special education. What does exposing Corletts’ story do for future high school students? ””Some people don’t progress; some are just frozen in time,” Medved said. “But to look at our generation, we hope that from the leaps and bounds we made, in transgressing our differences, future generations will be able to build from how far we’ve come.” ”Medved describes 1965 as “when the bottom fell out. After we graduated, dress codes disappeared. Drugs, other than beer, were totally unknown to us at Palisades. We were the last class of the optimistic and functional period.” ”Holmes said the conditions the class of ’65 graduated in were not as tough as those currently. “Back then it wasn’t as frenetic. Now there’s more of a breakdown’of family, of young people unsure what it means to be American. I am appreciative of the opportunity we got to live in a place like the Palisades.” One Successful Night ””This is my first reunion,” Kevin Goff said over his salmon dinner, admitting he hadn’t kept up with classmates. He sat talking with Holmes. “I feel like now we’re all moving up a notch in life. Now it’s time to tie loose ends.” ”Holmes agreed. “My mother just passed away, and my father died some time ago. I no longer have those roots in L.A. That’s why it’s nice to come back to something like this.” ”Betts hopes that this reunion in particular will reconnect classmates. The Web site (www.palihiclassof65.com) is an instant conduit to catch up on what peers are doing. ”The turnout was about 275, even after a last minute change-of-venue from the Sofitel Hotel to the Fairmont. “It’s nice here, closer to the beach, and our roots,” said Woods, who sent one of her three children to Palisades High.”The school changed a lot. If you look around the room, almost all of these people are Caucasian. The district began to bus kids in from all over L.A. So then unfortunately, many families left the school system because of that.” ”Medved did not send any of his children to public school when he still lived in Los Angeles. “I was very involved in religion when I lived (near Venice).” His oldest daughter recently graduated from a private Jewish high school. “Shana is a stronger and sensible girl, much more committed than I was at that age. She’s very religious-minded,” he said. ”Although Medved considers the current high school graduating classes “more competitive,” he pointed out, “our standards are still the ones to beat. Look at our music’The Rolling Stones are still selling out stadiums. And politicians, we’ll sway many elections to come. Our generation still has the power.” (Susan Monahan is a freelance writer who lives in Brentwood. She has written for the Beverly Hills Weekly and several Kansas City business publications, as she’s a transplant from the Midwest. This summer she has been learning to surf.)
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