After the rally, Burt and Norma Lancaster hosted a reception in Beverly Hills, for which California governor Edmund G. Brown had sent out the invitations. A brassy Hollywood lawyer got down to business by announcing that it took $1,000 in hard cash to run the SCLC movement each day. Paul Newman wrote the first $1,000 check, singer Polly Bergen the second, actor Tony Franciosa the third. Actors John Forsythe and Lloyd Bridges contributed, as did the wife of basketball star Elgin Baylor. Marlon Brando mumbled a warning against “what-we-have-doneism” and bought a week of the movement for $5,000.
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