The Thespian
In the history of television, many fathers have become icons of virtue and family values. Though far from realistic, these fictional characters have usually been portrayed as loving, supportive, wise and possessed of an endless amount of patience and understanding. Television dads such as Robert Young of Father Knows Best, Robert Reed of The Brady Bunch, Bob Saget of Full House and Garrett Price of Family Reunion have found a permanent home in the hearts of millions of viewers of their respective generations. While the actors who played these fathers did not necessarily have much in common with the characters they portrayed, even the best of men would fail to live up to those paragons of fatherhood created by television writers.
For more than ten years, Garrett Price had been playing the role of Buddy Eastman, a man reunited with his wife and child after returning home from a tour of duty in Vietnam. From the first episode aired, the Eastman family triumphed over nearly every adversity known to man including death, drug abuse, war and racial prejudice. Despite their trials and tribulations, they steadfastly clung to their principles and reaffirmed their love for each other. It was the show's depiction of positive moral values that made the Eastmans the symbol of the wholesome American family, the Waltons of the post-Vietnam era.
Garrett Price, the actor, like Buddy Eastman, the fictional character, was a married man with children, but that was where the similarity ended. Sadly, after playing the perfect husband and father in front of the camera for so long, the actor had unknowingly convinced himself that his own off-screen life was just as full and rich as Buddy Eastman's.
"Hi, sweetheart. I'm home," he called as he entered his twenty-eight-room mansion in Beverly Hills—a far cry from the old Virginia farmhouse where the Eastmans dwelled.
Nadine Price was sitting in a lounge chair beside the pool, reading a fashion magazine and sipping Evian with a twist of lemon.
"What are we doing for dinner tonight?" he asked his wife, after dutifully kissing her on the cheek.
"We've no plans, but if you're hungry, I'm sure Juanita will fix you something to eat."
"What about you?" he asked.
"I've got my dinner right here," she said holding up the glass of water.
"That's not much of a dinner. Why don't we send out for pizza?"
"Do you know how many calories there are in a slice of pizza?"
Even in Hollywood where it was common for women to have liposuction, tummy tucks and personal trainers, Nadine took slimness to a new level: that of near anorexia. Garrett often thought that had she not given up her acting career when they got married (a career that consisted of twenty-three lines of dialogue spread over sixteen episodes of a short-lived soap opera), she would surely have been perfect for a role in Schindler's List. No one could have been more convincing as a prisoner of a Nazi concentration camp than his five-foot-eight, one-hundred-ten-pound wife. Even during her two pregnancies, her weight never exceeded one hundred twenty pounds, which was not surprising considering she lived on little more than prenatal vitamins and skimmed milk for seven months.
"Where are the kids?"
Since his questions were routine, never varying from one night to the next, her response was automatic.
"If they're not in their rooms, then they're out with their friends."
Having grown up in Elwood, Nebraska, young Nadine always longed for a glamorous life in New York or Los Angeles. At first, the big homes, designer clothes and endless parties attended by Hollywood's latest and greatest had dazzled her, but in the years since she had left Elwood with dreams of being an A-list actress, Hollywood became almost as boring as Nebraska. So many of those glamorous movie stars whose names and faces she once held in awe were nothing more than neurotic, shallow, insecure little demigods. No doubt most of Nadine's acerbic views on Tinsel Town were the result of her own less-than-impressive venture into show business.
Garrett went to the kitchen and made himself a sandwich. While he ate it, he looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. It was enormous. All three rooms of his first apartment could easily fit inside it.
What a waste! he thought.
It was not as though they needed such a large kitchen. Nadine, who never cooked and rarely ate, would probably need a map to find it. On the other hand, Carol Eastman, his TV wife, or rather Buddy Eastman's wife, had a kitchen no bigger than his bedroom closet. Yet she managed to cook meals for her family of six and to bake cookies and cakes that put Betty Crocker to shame.
Such is the beauty of television, he wistfully mused.
Garrett finished his sandwich, and suddenly feeling romantic he went in search of Nadine, but she was no longer by the pool. He found her upstairs in her room asleep. He lay on the bed next to her and began kissing her face as his hands caressed her body.
"Not tonight," she moaned and rolled over, turning her back to her husband. "I'm too tired."
"Maybe this will wake you up," he whispered in her ear.
"Don't you understand the word no?" she cried emphatically, pulling away from him.
"Carol would never turn Buddy away," he mumbled to himself.
"You should have married Carol, then."
It was only a sarcastic comment, but it accurately expressed what he had been thinking. Why couldn't he have married a woman like Carol? When they were first wed, Garrett considered the gorgeous Nadine quite a catch. Their love had burned hot in those days, but over the years it cooled considerably. Sullenly, the actor left his wife to the sanctum of her room and crossed the hall to his own bed.
That night proved to be the first of many sleepless ones for America's favorite father. For six long hours, he stared at the ceiling, wondering what had gone wrong in his life. He was at the pinnacle of his career, the highest-paid performer on television, and yet he grew more despondent each day. Garrett worked hard to get where he was. His had not been an overnight success. Working one menial job after another, he put himself through drama school and then spent years playing bit parts in low-budget films and doing commercials and voice-overs to make extra money. His big break came when he landed a modest but pivotal role in a mini-series about gangland Chicago. As had happened with James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson and Al Pacino, playing a gangster catapulted him to stardom. Suddenly, rather than having to pound the pavement knocking on doors to get parts, casting people, directors and producers began coming to him.
Not long after completing the mini-series, Garrett met a young actress named Nadine Lord. Although he had been blessed with the body of an athlete, he was cursed with the face of an old boxer. While this combination made him a believable gangster, it did little to attract members of the opposite sex. When the beautiful, but not very talented actress set her sights on Garrett, he fell like a proverbial ton of bricks. They met in October and were married in December.
Garrett's desire to be near his bride dictated his next career move. Nadine had just landed the soap opera role and would not be able to leave L.A. Garrett, therefore, turned down roles in four major motion pictures that would have required him to film on location far from Southern California. So, when producer Vernon Long offered him the role of Buddy Eastman, he accepted without even consulting his agent. Not only did starring in a TV series provide him with a steady income, but it also enabled him to be home every night with his wife. It was as close to a nine-to-five job as an actor could get.
Shortly after their wedding, Nadine's soap opera was canceled. Unable to find work—except for a few offers to appear in soft-core pornos, which she turned down—she decided then was as good a time as any to have a baby. The following year turned out to be the happiest in Garrett's life. He had a hit television series, won an Emmy and made more money than he ever dreamed possible. More importantly, he had a wife he adored and a baby on the way. Like Midas, everything the actor touched seemed to turn to gold. But in the long run, the golden touch made him no happier than it had King Midas.
His alarm clock went off, jarring him from his reminiscing. He dragged himself out of bed and down to the kitchen where the housekeeper had a hot cup of coffee waiting for him.
"Thanks, Juanita. Is my wife still sleeping?"
"No, señor. She said she is going to the beauty parlor. Then she is going shopping."
"Again?" he asked sarcastically.
"Sí, señor," the housekeeper answered sheepishly.
Juanita, a forty-nine-year-old widow with eight children, had worked for him and Nadine since they moved into the overgrown mausoleum they called home. She was barely over five feet tall and weighed close to two hundred pounds, but she was a warm, loving and generous person. Her late husband had been a migrant farm worker who crossed the border illegally. Garrett doubted the poor immigrant ever had more than ten dollars in his pocket at one time, yet he died a happy man nonetheless. It was ironic that Price, a man who had everything, found himself envying a poor Mexican laborer.
* * *
"Garrett, are you feeling all right?" asked Ivy Chapman, Price's co-star. "You look like someone who's only halfway through rehab at the Betty Ford Center."
Ivy, a talented actress from New York, played his on-screen wife, Carol Eastman. Their years of working together had forged a close bond between the two actors.
"Yeah, Ivy, I feel fine. I've just been having trouble sleeping lately."
"Why didn't you say something sooner? I've got a prescription that could put an active volcano to sleep."
Ivy, like so many wealthy neurotics, had a pill for every ailment known to man, both physical and emotional.
"No thanks. I don't need any medication."
Garrett was one of those rare people in the entertainment industry who did not smoke, pop, drink, snort or mainline any chemical substances. About as close as he got to a narcotic was the caffeine in his coffee.
"I think I'll just go home, take a hot bath and have a glass of warm milk."
Ivy shook her head. Garrett was a nice guy, and she liked him a lot, but he was a square.
That's probably what makes him perfect for such a cornball role as that of Buddy Eastman, she thought.
It was Friday, but unlike every other Friday, Garrett headed directly home after the day's shooting rather than stopping at the gym to work out. He was so tired that all he wanted to do was sleep—if he could. Maybe he should have taken Ivy up on her offer. What harm could one sleeping pill have done?
It was hard to say who was the most surprised by the actor's unexpected arrival at home: Nadine, her lover or Garrett himself. The lover, a young tennis instructor with dreams of being a leading man, had the good sense to leave quickly and quietly, taking time only to gather his discarded clothing. Without saying a word, the wronged husband went to the bar and poured himself a drink. Nadine followed him.
"Now you know," she said as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
Garrett remained silent, staring into his glass and wondering why people found it necessary to drink at such times in life. The alcohol certainly did not help the situation.
"Aren't you going to say anything?" she asked, annoyed at his silence.
"What's there to say?" he replied coolly.
His seemingly casual attitude was infuriating.
"Say something, damn it."
"Okay, let's start with an apology or at least an explanation. I think you owe me one."
"You sanctimonious bastard! I don't owe you anything. I'll sleep with whomever I want. I don't need your permission or your approval. Besides, my conduct is as much your fault as it is mine. Just look at the way I've had to live for the past ten years."
"Yeah, you've had it real hard, haven't you? You've been pampered and overindulged, and now you lead a very comfortable, if somewhat useless, life."
"You forgot boring, sweetheart, but then that pretty much describes our entire marriage, doesn't it?"
"I don't know. It was good in the beginning."
"Maybe for you it was, but for me, it was never any good. I guess it's time for all the dirty laundry to come out."
"Yes, let's be honest with each other for once," Garrett agreed.
"Okay. You want honesty? Here it is. I never loved you. All I ever saw in you was a star on the rise. You were my insurance policy. If my own career didn't pan out, I could count on you to support me."
"You're only saying these things because you're upset. I know you once loved me, just as I loved you, Carol."
"Carol?" Nadine laughed at his slip of the tongue. "Wake up, Garrett! I'm Nadine, not Carol, and you're not Buddy Eastman. This is real life, not the Mr. Rogers world of your TV show."
"You're absolutely right. It's about time I faced up to reality. You know, you're not the only one who has been unhappy. I realize now that I've been quite miserable myself lately."
He put down his glass and walked to the door. Then he turned and looked around.
"It's funny. I never did like this place."
Lastly, Garrett went up to his room to pack a few things; he would have Juanita send him the rest. Nadine remained at the bar, terrified that she was in danger of losing the comfortable life to which she had grown accustomed. Boring though it sometimes was, it sure beat the hell out of working for a living.
* * *
Garrett rented a modest apartment near the studio. It wasn't much, but at least it was clean. The day after he left Nadine, he told his lawyer to begin divorce proceedings. While he would always see to the needs of his children, he wanted his wife to get as little as possible in the settlement. Hell, she had been living off him for years; enough was enough.
Less than a month after his divorce became final, the actor suffered a far greater loss when his friend and co-star, Ivy Chapman, died in a car crash. She and her fourth husband had been to a party where, as usual, they had too much to drink. On the way home, Ivy drove her new Ferrari F430 Spider into a telephone pole at one hundred and twenty miles an hour, nearly severing the quarter-of-a-million-dollar car in half.
Vernon Long, the show's producer, was waiting for Garrett in his dressing room when he arrived at the studio the following day.
"You and Ivy made a great team," Vern added sadly after he told his star the tragic news.
"The show just won't be the same without her," Garrett admitted.
"There isn't going to be a show anymore. The writers are working on the final script right now. We'll have a big send-off for Carol Eastman, use old footage and show the series' highlights. They've promised me we can begin filming the last episode in a week or so."
"Why cancel the show? The ratings are as high as they ever were. If you don't want to replace Ivy with another actress, then let Buddy go on as a widower, a single parent having to raise his kids by himself. Maybe Buddy can even remarry in another season or two."
Vern shook his head.
"I talked to the network brass. They won't renew the show now that Ivy's gone."
"There are other networks, and don't forget the cable stations. Family Reunion would be perfect for Disney or the Family Channel."
"Sorry, Garrett, the show is history. We had a great run, but now it's time to move on to other projects."
That's easy for you to say, the Emmy-winning actor thought bitterly.
Vernon had three other shows in production and was developing pilots for two more. But what did he, Garrett Price, have?
The grieving actor walked over to the sound stage and opened the door to the Family Reunion set. The studio was silent; the spotlights were off. No one was due to report back to the set until it was time to film the final episode. Garrett walked through the rooms of the Eastman house, rooms that were actually three partial walls built around the furniture and props carefully selected by the set designers and surrounded by spotlights, microphones and cameras. There was the kitchen where the Eastmans gathered at every meal. Next to it was the living room where they spent their evenings together as a family, the children's bedroom with bunk beds and a crib for the youngest Eastman who was still in diapers and, finally, the master bedroom, a grand name for such a small and humble space. It was so unlike the one Garrett had once shared with Nadine. There was no private bath, no his and hers dressing rooms and walk-in closets, no gas-burning fireplace to add ambiance, no French doors leading out to a private balcony, no state-of-the-art entertainment system discreetly hidden inside a French provincial cabinet and no expensive artwork adorning the walls. The Eastman bedroom had only the old brass bed, a dresser and a night table.
As he walked through the empty sound stage, the actor felt an unbearable sense of loneliness and loss. How odd that he had felt only relief when he walked out of his own multimillion-dollar residence.
A door opened somewhere on the set, and he heard the sound of approaching footsteps.
"Hello, Garrett, or is it Buddy?"
The voice was soft, melodic and feminine.
When he looked up, Garrett was impressed with what he saw: red hair graying at the temples and blue eyes, an unusual but decidedly attractive combination. Nadine had been a blonde—although not a natural one—with brown eyes over which she wore blue contacts. But hair color was not the only difference between his ex-wife and the woman who stood before him. This woman possessed a figure that made Garrett's mouth water, one of softness and curves, the body of a woman in all its glory. Nadine had starved herself for years to maintain the shape of a twelve-year-old child, never realizing how much more seductive she might have been had she gained a few pounds in the right places.
The redhead smiled, pleased at Garrett's obvious interest in her charms.
"Well? Which is it?"
"I'm sorry. I wasn't paying attention. What do you want to know, Miss...?"
"My name is Faith, and I wanted to know who you are: Garrett Price or Buddy Eastman?"
"I'm Garrett Price. Buddy is the name of the character I play on TV."
"Are you sure?" she asked, her smile widening.
"I ought to know who I am," he laughed.
"Ah, but do you? Many actors are quite a bit like people suffering from multiple personality disorder. They're one person this minute, then another person the next. The problem is that they often live two half-lives and never enjoy a full life as one personality."
"Are you a psychiatrist sent over by the producer to help me adjust to the show's cancellation?"
"Don't you recognize me? I thought maybe you did by the way you were ogling me a minute ago."
"Have we met before?" he asked, sure that he would not have forgotten her if they had.
"Many times and in many different places," she answered mysteriously.
"No. I think I would have remembered you."
"You will. It'll all come back to you eventually."
She came close to him, so close he could smell the scent of her hair and see deep down into those blue eyes.
Who is she? he wondered, feeling a vague stirring of familiarity.
She leaned forward and kissed him, and when she did, he experienced a joy he had never before known. He pulled her close to him, wanting to prolong the kiss as much as possible.
Images, sounds and smells flooded his senses. The kiss unlocked a door, or rather several doors, to memories long forgotten, memories of ancient Rome, medieval England and Colonial America. The lives he lived long ago flashed before his eyes. He had been a soldier, a thief, a doctor and a teacher. Most of those lives he had shared with this woman, known to him by many names: Aphrina, Cassinia, Elizabeth, Prudence.
"You remember now, don't you?" she asked, still clinging to him tightly.
"Yes. I couldn't find you this time. Where were you?"
"I haven't returned to the land of the living since 1949."
"Why not?"
"I think my soul is finally ready for eternity."
"You're still too young for that. Don't you want to experience a few more centuries before you choose? Once you make the commitment, you can't change your mind."
She took a few steps away from him. The smile left her face, to be replaced by a look of sadness.
"We have lived so many lives, seen the world evolve from primitive cavemen learning to walk erect on two feet to men who stride on the surface of the moon, a time when man communicated with grunts and simple gestures to the present where he can reach out across the world with computers. Yet for all the great advancements that have been made in science and technology, the evolution of the human race itself has made little progress since man first crawled out of the sea. How many wars have been fought? How many times have we suffered physical pain, hunger, thirst and fear? I myself have felt hatred, greed and a desire to kill in some of my past lives. I even stood by a guillotine and cheered as heads fell."
"But no one actually dies, darling. We're all free to come back and try again if we so choose."
"Back to more of the same misery. My last life was the worst of all. It seemed as though the entire world had gone mad. There was fighting on nearly every continent and every ocean—even in the air. Millions of people died in battle, in camps and in bombing raids."
"That was over sixty years ago. Those former enemies are now business associates."
"The U.S. made peace with Germany and Japan and then made war on Korea and Vietnam, now it's the Middle East. Men never run out of excuses to slaughter one another."
Her tears were flowing freely, and he kissed them away.
"I've lost you to so many wars," the redhead continued. "In the last few lives alone, you were killed at Gettysburg, Flanders and Pearl Harbor. I don't want to be a widow anymore."
"What will you do if you cross over now? What life have you chosen for the rest of eternity?"
"I want a quiet, simple existence; nothing fancy. Perhaps in an old farmhouse in rural Virginia—much like this one, but not a movie set."
"Yes," Garrett quickly responded to her unspoken suggestion. "That would be a perfect place to finally settle in."
"Now, will you answer my question: are you Garrett Price or are you Buddy Eastman?"
"With you as my Carol, I'll be more than happy to be Buddy Eastman for the rest of eternity."
It was magic, but not that created by Hollywood. The sets had become actual rooms, having miraculously grown complete walls and ceilings. Outside the windows, the Blue Ridge Mountains could be seen in the early evening light. This was not the painted scenery of a sound stage, nor was it actually the state of Virginia. Garrett and Faith—now Buddy and Carol—were in another time, another place, another dimension—one far removed from the world of man, one where death, pain, sadness, hunger and hatred were only dim memories of their past lives.
* * *
In Hollywood, across the country and around the world, people went about their daily business, unaware of the lives they had lived before and the ones that awaited them in the future. They were completely ignorant of what they really were: young souls going through a learning process that would prepare them for their eternity. They were conscious only of their current lives and their immediate needs and desires.
The security guard at Regency Studios, who in his former lives had fought at the side of Julius Caesar and sailed to the New World with Columbus, made his nightly rounds, listening to the Angels vs. Yankees game on his Walkman. It was late. Shooting was over for the day, and the actors, directors, cameramen and crews had long since gone home. Listening to the final inning, the guard checked each set, shining his flashlight into the dark corners.
What a shame about Ivy Chapman, he thought as he opened the door to the Family Reunion set.
Not only had she been a fine-looking woman, but she had also been a down-to-earth one as well. He shined his flashlight into the Eastman kitchen, living room and bedroom. Then he spotted something on the brass bed, put his free hand to the butt of his gun and went over to investigate.
"Oh, it's you, Mr. Price. What are you doing here this late? Mr. Price?"
With a smile on his face, the actor looked peaceful, too peaceful. The guard walked closer. The actor wasn't resting peacefully, he realized. Garrett Price was dead.
* * *
There never was a final episode of Family Reunion. Instead, the network ran a two-hour special, paying tribute to the lives and careers of Ivy Chapman and Garrett Price. When the show ended, the producer, director, writers and supporting cast said their private farewells to Ivy and Garrett, and the world bade a more public goodbye to Carol and Buddy Eastman.
Salem once starred on Broadway as Mr. Mistoffelees in—what else?—Cats.
