Hello, and welcome to this episode of the Private Investigator Experience Podcast. And I'm your host, Phil Little. If this is your first time with me, I work my cases through the lens of my military, law enforcement, intelligence service, and global security background. And then I just add a touch of that biblical worldview to come up with solutions for our clients. I own West Coast Detectives International, 102 year old global security firm. And I'm going to reminisce some about my beginnings at West Coast Detectives. I'd already shared about some of the early days of my becoming a private eye after I left law enforcement. And I've been asked a lot about, the kind of cases we worked when I took over West Coast. And I'm just going to fill in some blanks on that. I, took over West Coast Detectives and the name at that time was West Coast Detectives and Spatial Police Patrol, which had been the name since 1922. When I was registering the company under my name, the laws had changed to where a private agency couldn't have police in their name, so we had to drop that off and we became West Coast Detectives International. My being able to buy West Coast Detectives was a minor miracle. and probably some favor, and some by chance, several high profile people in the investigative field. One was J. J. Arms, which most probably don't know that name, but if you go back as far as I do, you'll know it. he had been an actor and a long time PI, and he wanted to take over the agency. His story attracted a lot of attention, Due to him as a child, back in 1946, he was played with two railroad torpedoes and they exploded and blew off his hands. He was later fitted with two hooks that could change to where he could hold a gun or a knife. He'd become acquainted with Stanley Cottonstock. who had taken over West Coast Detectives from Jay Brantley in 1922, who had founded the agency. And Mr. Comstock had built West Coast Detectives into a powerhouse with upwards of 2, 000 employees. J. J. Arms was actively pursuing Mr. Comstock to take over West Coast Detectives. He wanted to expand his own brand. I'm not sure fully why Mr. Comstock selected me, but one of his concerns was that whoever took it over would keep it in their family. They wouldn't sell it, and they would uphold the values of integrity, diligence, and professionalism that he had built, this agency into an international powerhouse. Over the years, I had some offers for me to sell the agency, but I stayed true to my commitment to Mr. Comstock, even though he had passed away. With my takeover, I received a drove of case files that went back to the 20s. And in those, there was a large group of the Hollywood A list. And there are many trips to Rosarito Beach, accompanied by West Coast detective bodyguards. Rosarito was a favorite hangout for the movie stars back in that era. And the Rosarito Beach Hotel was a classic. And the beach there was close to the border about 25 miles south, and it was picturesque. As I expanded my operations in Mexico, I had the pleasure of spending time at the Rosarito Beach Hotel, which had been restored to its old glory, and it was a fascinating place to be. In fact, there was a little town, Puerto Nuevo, just south of Rosarito Beach, that supposedly had the best lobster in the world. And I never did have lobster, didn't really like it, but after experiencing it at Puerto Nuevo, lobster became one of my favorites. And we would go down there many times and meet our police friends or officials there in Puerto Nuevo. I had developed relationships in Mexico with police officials across Baja. And this led to them volunteering to meet us at the border with motorcycles and police cars. And after we entered Mexico, they would stay with us all the time we were in Mexico. And we would move around with red light and siren. Those were the days. And there were some exciting times and wild rides down from Tijuana to Rosarito Beach, running up, 75 miles an hour in the limo, trying to keep up with the motorcycles. and back in the day, they had a VIP line at the border coming back from Mexico because there would be long lines. So when we got back, we would go rolling up this VIP line, red light and siren, and then they would stop the traffic at the front of a two to three mile line and let us in. we got some not so nice looks, from that. And then when we would get up to the border, the cousins people would say, who are you guys? And they would say, Oh, we're just Americans trying to get back into the country. And, they would say, Oh yeah. And they would just, flag us through shaking our heads. I'm careful about using clients names. Our work there in Mexico could fill a book with all the things we did over the years and was involved in. And for me to use clients names even back that far, unless they're passed away and, and it's not going to be detrimental to anybody, we're very careful about exposing our clients because we have some, very sensitive cases that we've worked on. Some of the benefits of taking over West Coast Detectives was a list of those old clients. One of my favorites, Soon after I took over West Coast, she called me to come to meet her at her home in Beverly Hills. When I arrived, she greeted me with this trademark kiss on each cheek and invited me in. And the thing I remember most, which was humorous really to think about, was in a conversation about her future needs. She wanted to remind me that having Zsa Zsa Gabor as a client was going to be a big marketing boom for me and bring me new clients. So I should consider work for her just as a marketing expense. In other words, not charging her. I laughed and I said, we need to, think about that. I'll let you know. And later on, when I talked to her, I said, we have to charge something for our work, but I will give you reduced rates. And then she tried to sweet talk me out of the, charge and not do any charging. when she realized that I had to. Get something out of the work for her. She let it go. As the years pass, I made it a point whenever possible to be involved with the protecting team that would be meeting her at the airport. And one of those times we went to the airport gate and she came off of the airplane with her two trademark white poodles, one in each arm. She marched straight up to me. She went right past the bodyguards and said, nice to meet you. and thrust the poodles in my arms and told me, follow me out of the airport. And I did. Yes, ma'am. And we took her to the limo and got on the way home. I have many stories with Zsa Zsa. And those were great memories with that lady. I didn't grow up around Hollywood. And I took my job seriously, so I never had an issue with being starstruck around, Hollywood A list people. But I found as I added protective agents, not, that not every good detective could handle celebrity protection. Thank you. Many were childish, starstruck guys around, celebrities. So we had to select those bodyguards carefully. And that surprised me. many of them were long time detectives and should have known how to be professional in their work. I learned a lot about people building the agency over the years. Then another, great history was up on Mulhollan Drive. Running across the mountains, dividing the San Fernando Valley from Hollywood was, the who's who of Hollywood at that time. In one area, there was a private gated drive off mahoon with an area that had three homes on it. One of them was Marvin Brando, who we did work for, and Jack Nicholson, was a second home, there, and then there was a third one. I don't remember who that was now. Usually when I would get a call from this area and street, it would be the middle of the night and one of them would have problems. One of the memories that went on for quite some time was that an obsessed woman would come over the fence, hide up in a tree close to Jack's house and be looking in the windows. We would get the call. We would come and get her down. The police would come. They would put her on a 72 hour Phy and then, soon she would be out. She would be back again, going up in the tree. Finally, after a long period of time, we got her convinced that she should give up on Jack's tree. And so, I guess she probably moved on to some, one else? And this was before all the danger of stalkers was looked at and after Rebecca Schaefer, being killed. And so the threat management wasn't established at this time. And stalking was an area that wasn't taken that seriously too many times. One of the events there, at that house, was an international event that was developed when Roman Polanski had an involvement with a miner. We were there for weeks after that, managing the press and all the looky loos to keep them off the property. A lot more to this story that will remain unsaid. Another great client, which I think with fond memories, is Aaron Spelling. He was an exceptional person. We started with Aaron in the late 70s and had agents as his home from time to time and I worked with him on the beach house security when he was building it. Aaron, Aaron had many shows at that time and the one I remember the best was Charlie's Angels and being on the set with the girls and all the issues around the show at that time. Aaron was the kind of friend That if he referred a Hollywood client, to me, as time went on he would call me and ask how the work was going with who he referred and if I was getting paid on time. Aaron had been known, if he referred someone to you and they weren't paying you, he would give them a call and give them the message. If you want to keep working around this town, pay so and so what you owe. He was a good friend. That's just who Aaron was. Excuse me. Another event in 1986. When I had a call from a woman who said she was referred to me, I needed my help. She was staying at a corporate housing just down from Universal Studios. And the night before she had won her first Grammy and things were going wild around her. I said, I can help you. An hour later, I was in the lobby of the complex and down the stairs came this attractive, charming woman with her house coat on and rollers in her hair. And I met Anita Baker. As she told me what her concerns were, I laid out a plan of services we would do for her. And I will never forget, she looked at me with big eyes and said, You're going to do all of this for me? I said, Yes ma'am, and it'll start right now. Being with her and watching her career grow over the next many years was a blessing. But most of all, she became our friend and was like family. There are way too many memories to put in one report, so Some more later. I'm grateful to the thousands of clients, who many of them become friends, that have been part of our success. I will share more in the future. Would you help me by liking, sharing, subscribing? Then you know the drill. Hit that notification bell for future posts, so you'll know about them when they come out. Until next time, be safe, may God bless you, your family, and may God bless America.