Learning How to Fly

Alena and I settled comfortably into the new home Rosemaria had found for her in the Valley and I waited for the acting jobs to come rolling in. They didn’t. So like all young girls, I focused on dating the various guys who came my way. One of them was Jesse Vint, who had starred in Max Baer’s movie Mason County Line with his brother Alan. One night, Alena and I and some others were swimming in Jesse’s pool and it became obvious that Alena and Jesse hit it off. That was fine with me. I had already met someone who interested me more.

When Max’s movie, The McCullochs, was about to go into production, I worked in his office, mostly retyping the same script. One day Max’s new production manager, Alan Godfrey, walked through the door. He was several years older than me, had salt-and-pepper hair and a congenial, outgoing personality and we hit it off right away.

Everybody on the production staff started hanging out after work and in no time at all, Alan and I became good friends and I eventually found out about our near-misses on The Strawberry Statement and Then Came Bronson. My green MG had broken down in just about every intersection in L.A. It was hard to find a street where I hadn’t been stranded because of that poor old car. Every time I called Alan, he would come rescue me, help me get the car towed and drive me to where I needed to go.