Everybody who's anybody
knows Doc Savage

When Tiny Tim or Michael Caine or the Jefferson Airplane comes
to town, the first person they ask for is Doc

"LIZ TAYLOR? Why I haven't seen Liz in years. Last time was one morning a while back and she didn't have any makeup on. But believe me, she doesn't need it."
   Is that Walter Winchell reminiscing? Sheilah Graham? Mary Pickford?
   Hardly. It's Doc Savage, a Chicagoan who looks like Dick Butkus, but probably knows more about the private nuances of celebrities than many Hollywood columnists and stars.
   Savage is a chauffeur for Emery Union Club Livery, a local chauffeuring service with a fleet of limousines.
   So when somebody like Tiny Tim is in town and wants to go someplace, he just doesn't call a cab. No sir, he calls for somebody like Doc Savage and hires him, not for an hour, but for maybe a week straight-24 hours a day. He becomes not only the celebrity's driver, but his guide, manservant, cook, counselor, and companion.
   "Celebrities," Doc explained, "want a driver they can trust, somebody who doesn't go blabbering off about this and that and the crazy things they do. Some of them have pretty wild tastes, you know. So when they get a driver they trust, they spread the word around.
   "They talk to others and they say, 'When you get to Chicago ask for Doc.'"
   Plenty do. People like Phyllis Diller, Michael Caine, Tiny Tim, Liberace, Otto Preminger, The Jefferson Airplane, and on and on and on.
   At 280 pounds and 5 feet 11 inches tall, you wouldn't think he was the type to hit it off with the Beautiful People. But the outgoing, cigar-chomping Savage is the square peg that fits the round hole.
   Eccentric long-locked pop singing groups? Savage is tuned in despite his 36 years. Groups like the Jefferson Airplane, the Cream, Moby Grape, The Grateful Dead, and Spanky and Our Gang have piled into Doc's "limo" like they were going to a Sunday picnic outing.
   "If you talk to them, there's a lot to keep you interested. Of course, I know where their minds are, and they don't consider me Establishment," he said.
   It's not always Happy Times, tho. Savage groaned as he recalled getting the Beatles out of Comiskey park after a performance there 4 years ago.
   "Never again will I drive for them," he moaned. "My car was almost ruined because of the fans."
   "I drove Phyllis Diller to St. Louis when she got her divorce from Fang. Boy, she sure likes a lot of mustard with her hamburger."
   And Tiny Tim. "He's not mad at anyone. I spent a week with this guy. He started out calling me Mr. Savage. I said 'Doc will do,' so he ended up calling me Mr. Doc. He's a beautiful guy, really. He'd do anything you ask. We'd be walking along, and they'd swarm around him for autographs. I'd tell him, 'Keep walking, Tiny' but he stayed and signed, signed, signed.
   "And he won't eat in front of anyone. He locks himself in his room. You know the stories about him showering constantly? Well, they're true."
   If Tiny Tim is no put-on, Liberace is "a lot of man," Savage said.
   "He's got a handshake like a lumberjack," said Doc, a lumberjacking-looking guy himself.

September 28, 1969
Source: Excerpt By Vic Pilolla Chicago today magazine
Reproduced according to "Fair Use"