Grandma Goes to Hollywood

Willella at age 4. At right is one of the family's greenhouses.

In the late 1950s, my maternal grandmother, Willella McCurdy, was working hard in her flower shop in Texarkana, Arkansas, to support her aging mother and two children. But for one week, Willella became Cinderella as she took her floral-arranging skills to Beverly Hills for a once-in-a-lifetime experience filled with celebrities and fancy balls.

Willella knew flowers. When she was a child, her parents owned a flower shop in downtown Texarkana and grew plants in their own greenhouses.

Unfortunately, Willella also knew tragedy. When she was 7 years old, her father was murdered in his flower shop. Years later, in 1950, her husband, Mac McCurdy, died of heart failure at age 43. Left with no source of income and meager savings, she turned to the one vocation she knew and enrolled in floral design school in Chicago. With the rest of her money, she built a flower shop on the side of her house and opened for business.

Willella in one of the family greenhouses.

Sometime after she was established, a young florist named Harry Finley asked her for help when he scored a big job. "I'm in deep trouble!" he said. "I've booked a wedding and I've never even made a corsage in my life!" Willella showed Harry the art of corsage making, and designed bouquets for the young women in the wedding and baskets of flowers for the church. He never forgot her generosity.

Harry also taught Sunday school, and one member of his class, Fred Gibbons, became his employee and eventually his business partner. Fred explained how they got from Texarkana to California:

"I worked for him at his store, Harry's House of Flowers, while I was going to Texarkana Junior College. Mrs. Gustav Kennedy owned the store and closed it. Harry started selling Edsel cars. I moved to Dallas and started working for a florist named Viggo Larsen. He became ill and was to install the Dallas Garden Show at the fairgrounds. It was being sponsored by Mrs. Marcus of Neiman Marcus. I took over the project. A hundred thousand dollars budget. I called Harry and asked him if he was tired of selling Edsels. Two days later he was in Dallas. Six months later we sold his car and furniture, loaded a U-Haul trailer behind my '56 Chevy convertible, his wife and daughter in the back seat, and headed for California."

Upon arriving in Los Angeles, they drove right up to a flower shop and asked for jobs. When told that the shop wasn't hiring, Harry offered to work for free for a trial period. After that, he told the owner, "if you don't like us you can kick us out. If you like us, you're gonna give us a job."

They got the jobs, and before long they were running their own successful shop in Beverly Hills called Flower Fashions and were gaining a reputation among the celebrity elite for their elaborate floral displays and legendary party-planning skills. Stars such as Bing Crosby and Dean Martin paid them tens of thousands of dollars to decorate their homes for the holidays. Harry and Fred were friendly with the likes of Hedda Hopper, the famous gossip columnist. In time, they became celebrities in their own right, earning feature articles in People Magazine and The New York Times.

But everyone needs an extra hand now and then, as Harry and Fred did when they took on the Black and White Ball, a massive event known as the cotillion ball of Hollywood. To enlist help, Harry placed a call to one of his mentors from back home, Willella McCurdy.

"What are you doing in a couple weeks?" he asked. "Well, Harry, I don't have any idea," she said. "I don't know who's going to die that week." (Old florist joke.) He asked her to come to LA and help with the ball. She protested: "Harry, I can't do that!" He countered: "Yes you can! I'm sending your ticket." Harry won, and soon Willella was on her way to California.

Willella in 1948.

The Black and White Ball took place in a big theater. In keeping with the monochrome theme, there were lots of white flowers strung everywhere and tied to everything. Willella was decorating the balcony one afternoon when she heard a familiar voice testing the sound system. She saw a man with a bald head down on the stage, but didn't know who he was. She saw him later with his toupee, and recognized him as actor Ray Milland.

Harry kept her busy with more than the ball. They went to Bing Crosby's house, where Bing's wife, Kathryn, was planning a birthday party for the famous crooner. Bing wasn't home, but Willella met Kathryn and their young daughter, Mary Frances. About 20 years later, Mary Frances Crosby gained fame in her role as Kristin Shepard on TV's "Dallas." Fans will remember that she's the one who shot J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman).

Superstar dancers Marge and Gower Champion came in the shop one day. Willella, a long-time fan of dance, knew who they were right away. She designed arrangements for other celebrities, too, but their names have been lost to the years.

Gower and Marge Champion in 1957.
Public domain image from Wikipedia.

It was quite a week. After all her hard work and the thrill of meeting celebrities, it was time to leave. Harry offered Willella a job, but she declined and returned to Texarkana and her family. Maybe hoping to bring a little of Harry's good fortune back with her, she changed the name of her shop to Flower Fashions by Willella.

Her week in California was always one of her fondest memories, and was in fact her only vacation. She retired from the floral business in the late '70s, and died in 1988. She is buried in Texarkana, across the street from the flower shop she ran for more than 35 years.

Harry died in 1984. Fred Gibbons, as of December 2016, is still working in Los Angeles. His business, Treefrogs Flowers, specializes in flower arrangements and party planning.

Special thanks to my mom, Suzy Hlavinka, and Fred Gibbons for their help with this article.

More:

• "His Career Blooms in Hollywood," The Paris (Texas) News (1984): https://www.newspapers.com/clip/7805903//
• "Florist Is a Full-Fledged Entrepreneur," New York Times (1973): http://www.nytimes.com/1973/08/05/archives/florist-is-a-fullfledged-entrepreneur-crosby-boys-helped.html
• "The Sweet Smell of Success Is No Cliche at Harry Finley's Beverly Hills Florist Shop," People Magazine, (1979): http://people.com/archive/the-sweet-smell-of-success-is-no-cliche-at-harry-finleys-beverly-hills-florist-shop-vol-11-no-1/