Susan Calhoun Moss

I worked at Doyle Dane Bernbach as a TV Producer with Roy Grace on and off for 15 years.  This was back in 1968 and I was 25 years old when I started.  I probably spent more time with Roy Grace and copywriter, John Noble, than I have spent time with some members of my own family.  I worked with Roy on the accounts of Alka Seltzer, Volkswagen, Mobil and American Tourister.  I produced at least 100 commercials with Roy.

It’s funny about age… It is hard for me to realize that Roy was only 6 years older than I am.  He seemed so much older on our first meeting.  I think that he might have been born looking older… but then, he never changed… he never looked older than the moment that I met him.  When I began working with Roy, he seemed like God.  He had a great sense of confidence.

It was the late 60’s and everyone was trying to find their place, to be the best… to win the awards, the egos were enormous and I jumped in… knowing very little.  It was another lifetime, and exciting and wonderful time for advertising at its height.

Roy was very comfortable in the world of advertising… he understood it, and he knew that he was good.  He was grounded in how he worked and what he wanted done.  The times that I saw him most edgy were when they had to come up with a new campaign… Often he and John Noble or writer, Evan Stark, would test the spots out on me… If I didn’t react well… they would just dismiss me… but I always got called back. 

Roy was an artist and he would draw the most wonderful storyboards.  I saw them as tiny Picassos.  Roy was most happy when he would sit in his office and color in those frames with these wonderful little drawings… he always said that this was his favorite part of the whole process… ‘coloring in.’

Roy saw the next weeks and months ahead as just a matter of all the production problems in getting these… colored in frames… on film. Always the original storyboard that was approved by the client turned out to be the final commercial presented… no changes…  It was the way Roy worked.  One of the examples of this was a time we were in California on a Mobil Oil shoot.

We were to fry and egg on top of the Mobil One Can… as it say on the blazing desert (the idea demonstrating that Mobil Oil tolerates extreme heat).  Roy wanted a wide angle shot making the Mobil Oil Can heroic, surrounded by the cracking hot dry desert.  There was a Bunsen burner inside the can.

We chose the location and set up the shot… but John and Roy had to go back to New York and so I was left to fry the egg… well, the next day, the winds came up and there was no way that egg was going to stay on the can… it kept flying off.  The production company tried umbrellas and tents to protect the egg from the gales, but because of the way the shot was set up, you could see the shadows from the rigs… I called and explained all this to Roy… and asked if we could shift the camera angle a bit… there was this silence… and then… ‘Susan, just get the shot as boarded’… and he hung up.  So, I did.

Roy was very tough on his own work and on others.  There were a few people whose work Roy really admired… as I remember… the work of… Bob Gage, Helmut Krone and Marsha Grace.

Roy was the grown up among us… John Noble, Evan Stark and me.  Looking back, I don’t know how he ever put up with us.  We drove him insane in so many ways.  The thing was that Roy was always there.  He was never sick, he was never away, and he was seldom late.  He was just there.  John, Evan and I disappeared a lot.  John would be out looking for clothes.  Evan had a list from home of things he was to do, and I would want to meet a friend on some corner, or going to have my legs waxed.

I remember going to lunch with Roy and Evan and John, and Roy nudging me to try and maneuver Evan to the inside seat of the restaurant booth so that Evan wouldn’t leave and be gone for the day… but Evan always escaped.  This drove Roy nuts…  We’d spend hours at Stonecutters, The Mix Place, and in casting.  Days, weeks… and Roy was always there while one of us would simply vanish.  We made him crazy… 

Heaven only knows what we talked about, between the throwing of the darts… the picking on each other, the jokes.  But the topics usually included sex, money and Jews… and death.  In all of this, the work bonded us.  The ideas, the campaigns were all so very good.  Even though it was seldom spoken, there was a great deal of affection, caring and respect among us, including the account group, the client and the production people.  Joe Sirola was our voice of choice.  The director, Howard Zieff, was like family… and the editing service with Dick Stone, Stonecutters, was home.

I learned a tremendous amount working with Roy.  A lot about the advertising business, but really what I took away was something that I’ve been able to use in my life.  I watched Roy do it with his work… and his life.  The ability to have an idea or intention, to keep it simple, to believe in it and commit to it, to focus and to follow through.  That’s a major gift to give someone… that kind of mentoring. 

As human beings, we are… of course… our genetics… but, we then become what we make of our experiences.  These are the building blocks of who we are now… Included in our experiences… most importantly, are the people that we have connected to… related to.  The past is never passed.  It becomes a part of us.  One of the joys of having lasting friendships is meeting that friend and reminiscing about shared times… the good, the struggles, the laughter, the learning… It brings those moments back… to embrace them… to perhaps readjust our thinking… to smile…

When I would meet Roy for lunch in the last few years… he would always get around to asking me… ‘Susan, were those years as good as I remember… the work, the friendships, the craziness?’… and I answered every time, ‘Yes, Roy… those years were good… they were really, really good.’

–Susan Calhoun Moss
Executive TV Producer  
Doyle Dane Bernbach 1968 to 1984
from Roy’s Memorial Service in March 2003