If you think teachers can’t change lives, read the story of Bob Schaefer.
Until taking a USC writing class, he thought he wanted to be an engineer. Then one day his English teacher read Bob’s essay to the class and told him: “You might want to think about this engineering path. You seem to have a skill for writing.”
Bob channeled that skill into script writing and spent more than 30 years producing scripts for “The Lone Ranger,” “Lassie,” “The Beverly Hillbillies” and other popular TV shows.
He was 80 when he died Dec. 14 at home in Laguna Woods.
Born in Salt Lake City, Bob was an infant when his family moved to Hollywood. After taking college classes and spending two years as a Navy Seabee building airplane runways in the Philippines, he returned home and married his wife, Jane, whom he’d met when they were 12.
When he asked for Jane’s hand in marriage, her father wanted to know how he planned to support her. “I’m going to be a TV writer,” Bob said.
“A TV writer?” her father asked. “What are you talking about, Bob?”
TV was so new then, few people even owned them.
Bob and Jane married in 1947, and Bob, his head brimming with script ideas, enrolled in the old Maren Elwood Professional Writing School, where he met his future writing partner, Eric Freiwald.
Bob’s uncle was a producer for Gene Autry. Eric’s uncle was a writer/director at 20th Century Fox, so that gave them just the boost they needed. In 1950 they sold their first script, “Raiders at Tomahawk Creek,” to “The Gene Autry Show” for $100.
They were on their way, and went on to write scripts for “Annie Oakley,” “The Ranger Rider,” “Buffalo Bill Jr.,” “The Lone Ranger,” “Hopalong Cassidy,” “The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickock,” “Maverick” and finally, “Lassie,” for which they created stories and dialogue for 10 years, until it went off the air.
In their office in Hollywood, they faced each other at a large table, their manual typewriters clackety-clacking energetically. It was, says Eric, almost like a marriage – lots of laughter and give and take.
Once, they recorded the clacking of their typewriters and when they wanted to slip away for a drink, turned on the tape so others on their floor would think they were hard at work. Then they slipped out the window and slid down the low, sloping roof to the sidewalk.
When they needed ideas for a Western, they walked the then deserted streets of Knott’s Berry Farm’s Old West town for inspiration.
When they were hatching a new plot for that intuitive collie, Lassie, (originally played for the TV version by a male, by the way, and carefully groomed to disguise that fact), they scoped out possible scenes all over the country, including Cape Kennedy, Fla., and a Strategic Air Command underground system in Omaha, Neb.
Bob and Eric were best friends, as were their wives and children. Both families lived first in Costa Mesa (in homes bought new for $7,000), then in Newport Beach.
Outgoing, handsome and witty, Bob had a host of friends dating to high school and loved to entertain. Although proud of his work, he didn’t boast or crow about it.
A gifted storyteller, he would tell tales that would at first appear to be just jokes. But once you had time to reflect on them, you’d realize there was a splash of his own wisdom in each one.
Over the years, he developed a passion for golf and belonged to the old Newport Beach Country Club. Even his golf cart brought him joy, and he would use any excuse to perambulate about in it.
Contact the writer: Interviewed for this story: sons, Scott, Rick; writing partner, Eric Freiwald 714-796-6082 or rhinch@ocregister.com
