Larry Watson, automotive painter/customizer and actor; Between 1967 and 1985, Larry was seen in 141 different TV shows
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content.
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Larry Watson
From Kustomrama
http://www.kustomrama.com/index.php?title=Larry_Watson
Larry Watson (July 21, 1939 - July 20, 2010) was a legendary custom
painter and pinstriper. In 1955, at the age of 16 Larry began his
pinstriping career. His inspiration came from watching Von Dutch
striping , while sitting on his bicycle outside of Barris Kustoms in
Lynwood. One day his friend Gary McNaught came by the house and asked if
he would come along down to Barris Kustoms and watch Von Dutch stripe a
car. Von Dutch had moved his operation uptown working out of "The Crazy
Arab's" Competition Body Shop at 7201 West Beverly Boulevard in Los
Angeles, so instead it was Dean Jeffries doing his first striping for
George Barris. The car he pinstriped was Johnny Zupan's 1949 Mercury.
Larry stepped over the rope at Barris and asked Jeff where he had bought
his brushes. Jeff answered "What do you want to do. Put me out of
business?" At the time it was only Von Dutch and Dean Jeffries who
applied what they called Modern Striping. Larry answered that he just
wanted to stripe his own car, but Jeff still wouldn't tell him. Larry
went to an art store and bought some brushes, and he went to Jackson
Paint Store and bought some copper paint. He spent the next two days
striping his 1950 Chevrolet, the Grapevine. Once completed he drove his
newly pinstriped Chevy over to the Bellflower Clock Drive-In where
everybody wanted to know how the hell he could afford a Von Dutch
artwork on his car. He told them he had done it himself. Nobody believed
him, they even thought he had had Von Dutch sign Larry's name on the
striping. Harvey Budoff called the bluff, and pulled into Larry's
driveway with his car one day after school. Larry finally found out
where Von Dutch bought his brushes and paint. It was in a little store
down on Compton Boulevard, west of Long Beach Boulevard in Compton.
Harvey Budoff's 1950 Ford was the first car Larry pinstriped for a
customer. After visiting the store he bought some German brushes and
white 1-shot. He spent the whole day pinstriping the car. He put an
eyeball on a spoon with blood dripping out of the spoon in the back of
the glove box. Larry didn't tell Harvey about the artwork, but his
girlfriend eventually found it. After that Larry was the hit of the
drive-ins, and every time he got home from school there would be three
or four cars sitting in the driveway ready to be striped. Amongst the
most notable cars being pinstriped in Larry's driveway is Duane Steck's
1954 Chevrolet - The Moonglow.
Larry applied his first flame paint job on Buzzy's Ford. Von Dutch was
doing crab-claw-style flames, so that's what Larry also did. Walking
back and forth to get the flames symmetrical, the paint job took 6
hours. After Buzzy cruised the Clock with his newly painted Ford, other
people also wanted Larry to lay flames on their cars. After painting a
brand new 1956 Oldsmobile he laid in bed thinking about what he could do
in order to make the job go faster, he was tired of the 6 hours work it
took. Laying in his bed he hit upon the idea of using with tissue paper
and a bright red china marker. That was it, after that it took only 2
hours. In 1956 Larry painted his first Metallic paint job, and his first
scallop job. The first car he scalloped was Bob Schremp's 1954
Chevrolet. Bob had Branson Auto Body in Artesia paint his car. During
the job they put a run underneath the trunk and one on the hood, so he
turned to Larry and asked if he could cover the runs up. [1]
Upon graduating from school in September 1957, Larry opened his first
shop Watson's House of Style in north Long Beach, California on Artesia
Boulevard. Larry decided that he wanted to start a new trend;
customizing with paint. In order to promote his new trend, Larry bought
a brand new 1958 Ford Thunderbird that he took to Barris Kustoms for som
mild modifications. Bill Hines and Bill DeCarr that worked at Barris
Kustoms nosed and decked the car, shaved the handles and rounded the
corners. After that Larry painted the car with six coats of pearl over a
fine metallic silver base. Larry didn't tint the pearl with transparent
mixing black toner that eliminated the cloudiness, and he thought the
car turned out too bright. Larry thought the bright look made the car
look way too large, so in order to fix it up, Larry taped the panel
lines of the bird with 1-3/4 inch tape and shot candy apple burgundy
over it. With this paint job many thinks that Larry invented the Panel
Paint Job. The Thunderbird was the first car featuring a silver pearl
and candy burgundy paint job, but before he painted panels on his own
car he had already paneled Zeno Stephens' 1955 Mercury. Zeno wanted
something different, no scallops or flames, so Larry body paneled it.
Larry painted the car in Titian Red and striped it in gold. After
painting the car Larry never saw it again, not in a magazine, or at a
car show, nowhere.
One day George Barris called Larry and asked if he could do some
paneling on the Rod & Custom Dream Truck. He was just starting to paint
Candies, and he'd shot this Candy Lime over silver. There were a few
mistakes, so he called Larry and asked if he could cover them up with
scallops in Candy Burgundy over silver metallic. In 1958, not long after
painting the Rod & Custom Dream Truck George called Larry again, and
asked if he could take over the paint department while he, Dean Jeffries
and Bill Carr were going back east on a 2 month tour. When George called
they were building a pizza parlor in front of Larry's shop, so he said
ok. When Dean Jeffries returned from his trip back east, Dean and Larry
were kicking ass together, knocking out three or four scallop and flame
jobs a day, and pinstriping their asses off in between. After about 4
months he relocated back to hie own shop in Bellflower.
In 1960 Larry applied his first Metalflake job on Ron Aguirre's
Corvette, the X-Sonic. The X-Sonic did also feature Watsons first fade
paint job. As Aguirre kept modifying the car, Watson painted it six
times. Between 1960 and 1966 Larry got tired of all the masking and
striping, and he started doing mostly straight candies with Metalflake
or Pearl tops, or Pearl bottoms with matching Candy tops. In 1963 or
1964 Larry did his first Coweb paint design on a 1963 Pontiac. Larry
developed the Coweb paint look by spraying Acrylic Lacquer without using
thinner in it. Larry was kicking ass working anything from 12 to 20
hours a day, 7 days a week. He had 5 or 6 helpers. At the peak in April
1966 Larry had 54 cars in the center arena of a car show sponsored by
the Tridents Car Club held at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. At the same
show he also had over two dozen motorcycles upstairs. At that point he
figured that he couldn't get any further, and he decided to sell the
shop and get out of the business.[1]
In 1966 Larry sold his shop, that was then located on Lakewood Boulevard
in Paramount. After selling his shop he moved to Mexico to pursue an
acting career with his wife. While Larry was away, two other "Watson"
custom paint shops sprung up, one in Downey, and one in Burbank. When
Larry returned to California in late 1966 he opened up a new shop on
Artesia in Lakewood. Larry determined that he had to get his name back
on the show circuit. Watson left the custom car scene in favor for a
blossoming Tv and movie acting career. He painted ND striped numerous
luxury or sports cars for actors, actresses, directors, producers, or
casting directors to gain entree. Between 1967 and 1985 Larry ended up
in 141 different shows, such as MacGyver, Columbo, and Mission Impossible.
In the late 1970s Larry Watson worked on a movie he wanted to produce
called "The Paint Booth". Working for the movie he visited car shows
handing out flyers on cars he wanted to use in the movie. For the movie
Larry was looking for racers, hot rods, customs, and stocks 1956 or
older. The backside of the flyer shows a print of Larry's business card.
On that card he promotes his business as "Watson's Custom Auto
Painting", Since 1955. His shop is located a 5576 Melrose in Hollywood.
On a later business card he has changed name to "Theatrical Auto Body",
Complete Auto Painting Since 1969. The shop is still located at 5576
Melrose Avenue in Hollywood.
Larry retired in Apple Valley, California, and spent much time creating
his private museum loaded with pictures and artifacts from his custom
car and TV days. Larry Watson died July 20, 2010 after struggling with
brain cancer for a while.
Caption for photos on webpage:
Larry Watson's 1950 Chevrolet - The Grapevine
Larry Watson's 1958 Ford Thunderbird
Larry Watson's 1959 Cadillac
Flyer for Larry's movie project The Spray Booth.
The backside of the flyer.
A business card for Larry Watson's Theatrical Auto Body
--
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Scallops, fades, kandies, panels, Larry Watson was master of them all.
Inspired by Von Dutch, but largely self-taught, Watson began pinstriping
cars when he was just 16, starting with his own 1950 Chevrolet, the
Grapevine. By the time he graduated high school in 1957, he had enough
business to warrant opening up his own shop, where he pioneered the use
of wild paint schemes on customs. Working out of Los Angeles, not far
from the Barris Brothers, Ed Roth and Dean Jeffries, Watson was able to
apply paint to many notable customs, including Duane Steck’s Moonglow,
Ron Aguirre’s X-Sonic and several of Ed Roth’s bubbletopped show cars.
Though he sold his shop and went to work in TV and movies
<http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0914766/> from the late 1960s through the
mid-1980s, he returned to painting customs in the 1980s and had been
active in the hot rod and custom scene since then.
Watson died of brain cancer yesterday morning. A memorial service for
Watson is reportedly scheduled for Saturday, July 31, at Westminster
Memorial Park in Midway City, California. In the video below, Larry
Watson tells the Mad Fabricators Society about his entry into
pinstriping and his first customer.
Larry Watson Tells A great Story.. R.I.P.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBdOvrZCmCo
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Larry Watson
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0914766/