Learning How to Fly

Finally, My Life’s Purpose?

Alan had now become an executive producer of a Universal show called Quincy, M.E. and I was mainly focused on Erika and making the house look great. My parents came down and my father put in floor-to-ceiling windows in the master bedroom and French doors leading out to the pool, while my mother and I painted and wallpapered. I was extremely grateful to my parents for working so hard to make improvements on our house and wanted to tell my father how much I appreciated all his hard work. But trying to talk to him was, as always, awkward. He never wanted to have any kind of intimate conversation with me and unspoken resentments on both sides lingered on and made it impossible for me to have a close relationship with him.

I had a fence put around the pool to keep Erika from accidently falling in. But she was also getting baby swimming lessons from the best teacher we could find to make sure she’d always be safe around pools. All the construction and painting my father, mother and I were doing didn’t hinder my continuous efforts to get acting work and worry about money. I had read the feature script, Count to Five, which Alan had written, thought it was very commercial, and was determined it should be produced. I gave it to my agent and he tried to find possible producers, which he did. But Alan thought he could get a better deal elsewhere and the movie was never made.

My spiritual life at this point was still on hold. You’d think that with all the chaos I was going through I would have finally figured out I needed  some direction. Like a lot of people, I would pray for help when things were bad, then as soon as things got back on track I would go back to putting the blinders on, pretending all was well, making bad decisions based on how I wanted my life to be and how others perceived it. Erika had filled the empty hole in my heart and Alan would bring his son and daughter home to play with their new little sister. I was still wary of their mother and worried that she would follow through on her threats, but Erika loved her brother and sister and they needed to spend time together.

I was convinced that there was a purpose for me being on this planet. Not only had my life been saved twice, instinctively I knew I wanted to help animals in some way. I had always thought that someday I would become rich and famous and lend my name and donate lots of money to an animal cause. As for the present, the demands of getting in the trenches and being an actual activist was something I didn’t have time for, considering that I was a wife, mother, actress and mistress of many cats. That’s what I told myself – how convenient.

One day, reading one of many animal magazines I constantly perused, I saw an article about a man who lived in Vancouver, B.C. and had founded an organization called The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Paul Watson had co-founded Greenpeace but had broken off with them when he became dissatisfied with the direction they were going. He had risked his life to protect a whale by piloting the tiny Zodiac he was in between the whale and a whaling ship. The article also described how he had been arrested while attempting to protect the lives of baby seals who are still being slaughtered and skinned alive on a yearly basis in Newfoundland. Reading the article, I immediately grasped that Paul was dedicated, sincere, intelligent and didn’t get paid one penny. I shared Paul’s story with Alan and insisted that we must try to get a television movie made about this man. The next day he went to the executives at CBS and pitched his story about Paul and the Sea Shepherd. They agreed it would make a great movie and told Alan to have Paul flown down for a meeting. This we did,  and when Paul arrived, after talking to him for a few minutes, it became obvious that he was the genuine article.

Paul and Alan had their meeting at CBS, but meanwhile, another producer, Tony Bill, had heard of Paul as well and asked to meet with him. Paul was offered a lot of money from Tony for the rights to Paul’s story for a feature and, with our blessing, he accepted. It enabled Paul, along with donations from Cleveland Amory, to buy a new ship to replace one that had been destroyed. I was disappointed that we wouldn’t be the ones who would get to tell his story but at least now the world would see it via a major motion picture. As it turned out, Tony Bill never did film Paul’s story but Paul made other connections in Hollywood, including director, Dick Donner, who eventually led him to many more high profile show business supporters, and fame, via The Whale Wars on television.

It was because of Paul I first learned of the baby seal slaughter in Newfoundland. Bridget Bardot and other celebrities and animal welfare groups had been fighting this barbaric “tradition” for many years but I knew nothing about it until I read the article about Paul. The sheer horror of the baby seals being clubbed and skinned alive appalled me and I was inspired to begin writing letters to Canadian officials and getting petitions signed to help in the efforts to end the slaughter. I decided that I would sign over all my acting residuals to the Sea Shepherd from then on and did that for years. I may not have been rich and famous but I had now become an activist. Having spent a lot of time in Canada on vacations with my parents and then, years later, working there, I found Canadians to be kind, compassionate people, and it is shocking and amazing that they still have not been able to convince their government to stop the seal slaughter.

One late afternoon, Kitty was crying to go outside but I was not about to let him out because it was too late and soon the coyotes would come down from the hills. But Kitty kept crying and Alan pressured me to  allow him to go out for a few minutes and, against my better instincts, I did. A few minutes later I went outside and called him but he didn’t come. I walked up and down the street calling his name but there was no answer. Alan, not at all worried, said, “Come inside. He’ll show up before dark.” But he didn’t come home and I went outside again with a terrible feeling of dread, searching for Kitty for hours. I finally gave up and hoped against hope that he was trapped in someone’s garage, which had happened to Gilbert when I couldn’t find him. I couldn’t sleep a wink all night and got up at dawn and knocked on the door of my neighbor who lived across the street and asked if he would open his garage because Kitty was probably trapped inside. My neighbor hesitated as he spoke to me with downcast eyes and told me he had seen Kitty last night being attacked and killed by coyotes. My neighbor had yelled and run as close to them as he dared but it had all happened so fast he couldn’t stop them. My heart stopped and I stumbled backwards and felt like I was going to collapse. My beautiful, cross-eyed, talkative, loving Siamese cat was gone. I was overcome with guilt. I should have stayed outside all night if necessary and not left him to the mercy of coyotes. Being ripped apart by coyotes is a painful, terrifying death and I had let it happen to my best friend who had been with me through every happy and miserable moment of my life in L.A. Even though I had lost many animals through the years, the pain I felt over Kitty was especially agonizing. Only people who feel as connected to animals as my friends and I do can understand how devastating it is when an animal you are so very close to dies a terrible death. Alan tried to comfort me but I was inconsolable. It shouldn’t have happened. It was my fault. And the loss was profound. As I sat and gazed out over the Valley, wishing I had never listened to Alan but knowing I shared the blame, my other cats, Maude, Gilbert, Hughes, Millie, Sully, Scooter and Tillie jumped on my bed and lay down beside me. Animals always seem to know when you need them. Years before, Siegfried had taken pictures of Kitty when we lived on Moorpark and he had enlarged and framed one. I still put it up in my bedroom every place I live, his eyes so crossed you’d think  it was a wonder he could see anything at all. And he probably never saw those coyotes coming.

Not long after, my little yellow striped Scooter became sick. At first I didn’t think anything of it; figured it was just indigestion. When he became weaker and very listless I took him in to the veterinarian but it was too late. The vet told me his system was failing and that Scooter was in a great deal of pain. The kind thing to do would be to put him to sleep so he wouldn’t suffer. I loved this little cat whose twisted hind feet hopped and skipped as he moved along in his own funny way and I couldn’t bear the thought of letting him go. But I knew I had to. I held Scooter as his sweet, gentle soul left this earth and went to heaven. Even as I cried again over another bitter loss, I was grateful that Alan had brought him home and that Scooter had had a good life with us even though it was for much too short a time.

My agent called with an audition for a feature! It turned out the director was Paul Krasny, which was definitely in my favor, but the producers wanted “names.” Paul got his way and I was cast. Then I was off to Miami to film an independent feature called Joe Panther. I always loved working with actors I had seen in black-and-white movies when I snuck over to Lorna and Nancy’s house to watch TV, and on this set I got to meet another veteran, Ricardo Montalban. Needless to say, he was as handsome and charming as he had been in the MGM movies he made in his heyday. Our good friend, Alan Feinstein, also was working in the movie but we had no scenes together. I played Brian Keith’s daughter and had a nice scene with him and A Martinez in the hospital. Brian, like a lot of the old timers, could really put it away all night and somehow appear on the set in the morning ready to go.