ABOUT GORDON:

Spurred by a 1993 wildfire that torched his grandfather’s piano, Chip Jacobs became haunted by ancestors he knew precious little about. His search for them led him to quit his job as a zealous, young reporter at the Daily News of Los Angeles to retrace the life of a man he once detested: his Uncle Gordon. Gordon Zahler was a fun-loving prankster who broke his neck at the age of 14 in a terrifying gymnastics fall at a Pasadena, California junior high school. The 1940 accident nearly killed Gordon, rendering him a quadriplegic, while bankrupting the family and crushing what had been a peaceful existence.

After stress from the incident sent Gordon’s father to an early grave, the Zahlers subsisted on welfare provided through the Motion Picture Fund. (Gordon’s father, Lee, was a prolific movie composer.) Tired of accepting handouts, Gordon nurtured the idea of using his father’s old songs and selling them to the movies and the fledgling TV industry. Though paralyzed from the neck down, Gordon’s business flourished, and his mother and he were able to ditch welfare and move to Hollywood, California. General Music Company launched humbly enough, providing soundtracked music to the syndicated Western Wild Bill Hickok and Ed Wood, Jr.’s infamous Plan 9 from Outer Space. Twenty years later, General Music Company was one of the largest, independent post-production shops in Hollywood, swimming in feature films and network hits such as Gentle Ben.

Wheeling the Deal, The Outrageous Legend of Gordon Zahler, Hollywood's Flashiest Quadriplegic is a true Hollywood Story burning with two interwoven tales: Gordon’s rise from his deathbed to fast-talking, Hollywood entrepreneur / idea man who traveled the world, lived hard, married, fantasized about water-skiing and chased his dream only to be betrayed in South Africa. Wheeler Dealer also is Jacobs’ discovery of two brutal family murders that had been concealed for 50 years and his coming to grips with his paralyzed uncle, himself, and his mother, the silent victim to Gordon’s recklessness.

 

“ …. a witty, clear-eyed account of a charming and utterly impossible man whose ferocious willpower transformed his personal nightmare into a lifelong Technicolor hallucination.”  

-A.J. Langguth

“This amazing book is all heart … will leave you crying, laughing and gasping in wonder, often on the same page. Bravo!"

- Denise Hamilton

“FDR's body and Sammy Glick's brain? No, but close - and better. Mon Oncle d'Amerique has nothing on Chip Jacobs' Mon Oncle d'Hollywood …”

- Patt Morrison

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