102-year-old WWII veteran looks back on his journey from the military to working in Hollywood

HEMET, Calif. (KABC) -- Meet Rusty Strait, a WWII veteran, now an author living in Hemet - and he sure has many stories to tell!

"When I was 17, my mother wouldn't sign for me to go into the military, so I forged her name and went on my own into the Navy," he said.

When he left the military in the 1950s, he worked a number of jobs and later ended up in Hollywood looking for work.

One person interviewing him for a job warned him that he yelled a lot, but he ended up getting the job.

"I get to work on Monday morning, and lo and behold, sure as my name is Ray Strait, who walks in, JaYne Mansfield," he said. Turns out, the person interviewing him was Mansfield's business manager.

That chance job interview led him to eventually become Mansfield's publicist for 10 years.

"She said Ray, my name is Jayne Mansfield and I'm a movie star, how would like to help me with my fan mail on weekends, one day, and then for 10 years I was her right arm," he said.

That's what got him into writing. Now 38 books later, his most recent novel is called "Bughouse Blues," a coming-of-age story about a gay teenager growing up in the 1930s.

"Being gay in those days was a death threat practically, because nobody wanted you," he said.

His friend John Bush has known Strait for 40 years and says he's lived a long life but now needs help. He says Social Security just isn't enough for him and he's hoping a GoFundMe fundraiser will help.

"Hopefully this book will turn out to be a best seller, and he doesn't need the GoFundMe page, but that isn't the way his life is right now," Bush said.

Because even at 102 years old,he says he has a long way to go.

"I'm a healthy soul. I'm just physically...I've got problems that old people get, but I refuse to be old. Old is for old people, not me. I'll never be old," Strait said.