あらすじ
John Lawrence Smirch, the Luckie Rookie, was born in Austria to a hard working family that migrated to the United States in the late 19th Century. They settled in Raton, New Mexico and at eighteen years old John enlisted in the U.S. Army and back to Europe he went to fight for America in World War 1. He learned how to play baseball in France and was honorably discharged in Wyoming.John began playing semi-pro baseball in the (copper) Mine Leagues circuit in the Midwest and made a ten-year paid baseball career in the minor leagues as a catcher. He played with some of the best as the Roaring Twenties played out around him. In 1929 John Smirch, looking for work, moved to Hollywood, California just as movies transformed from Silents to Talkies. The nation had just entered the Great Depression, but the industry behind the Silver Screen was booming. The Lucky Rookie began a post-sports career as a sound man for Paramount Pictures, just as synchronized sound was first added to the Flickers. His newly developed trade skills within the Studios were in demand from the start.John worked thirty-plus years in exotic locations on iconic films with storied actors, producers, directors, and crew enjoying Hollywood high-life just as that style of luxury was picking up speed.
