who is racing another car down Sunset in the lane next to him, doesn’t see Dad or his Jag until the very last second. By then it is too late. Meanwhile, the other car races right past us, never stops, never waits to see what happened.
Thanks to his swift reaction, my father avoids being sandwiched between the Jag and MG and emerges unscathed.
“Are you okay, amigo?”
I nod as Dad slowly rises to his feet and walks over to assess the damage.
“Yeah,” I tell him as I start to stand up.
Dad’s eyes nearly pop out of their sockets at what he sees. He throws his hands in the air as his voice goes up an octave like Desi Arnaz moaning, “Ay ay ay!”
Now buried inside the trunk of his expensive Jag is the MG, its back end sticking out where Dad’s imported sedan once ended. Worst of all, the driver and his passenger are unconscious. Dad quickly says to me, “You wait here,” and takes the flares from the curb lane to the middle of the street to divert oncoming traffic around the crash site so he can pull the drivers out of the wreckage.
“What happened?” the driver asks groggily.
“I was going to ask you the very same thing,” Dad says. “Didn’t you see my flares in the street?”
The man shakes his head and as Dad moves him, he winces in pain. He looks as if he hit his head on the dash and suffered a concussion.
“You okay?” Dad asks.
“No,” the man says. “I feel as if I just went up against a three-thousand-pound gorilla and the gorilla won.”
Just then, the passenger awakens. Blurry-eyed, he looks over at the driver as Dad finishes pulling him out. “What happened?”
The driver says, “That’s what the man here is asking us.”
The passenger’s eyes get as big as saucers as he screams, “Oh my God, my MG!”
“Your MG?” Dad asks.
The driver says, “He owns the car and let me drive it.”
“Amigo,” Dad says with a laugh, “you just totaled my brand-new Jaguar Mark X and you are worried about your piece-of-shit MG?”
Under different circumstances, my father would have taken on both of them at once. Instead, he holds back as a police squad car pulls up behind them. An officer gets out and asks, “What happened here?”
My father smiles. “Ask them. That’s what I’ve been trying to find out.”
Within minutes, an ambulance is on the scene, and shortly after that two tow trucks come to haul off my father’s Jaguar and the piece-of-shit MG that now really is, well, shit. The story has a happy ending. With his insurance settlement, Dad buys himself a new Jaguar XKE convertible but after that avoids that blind curve on Sunset Boulevard and is wary of MGs anytime he sees one on the road.
Every life has its changes, of course. Unfortunately, my changes are often extreme. After Mom divorces my father, the men come in and out of her life as though through a revolving door. We move around so often I change schools five times in eight years; it seems I am constantly leaving old friends and trying to make new. It is all very unsettling for a six-year-old who is seeking nothing more than normalcy in his life. As crazy as it seems at the time, it will prove good preparation for my career as an actor. And I believe it is why I become so reserved in my emotions, always ready to enjoy my life but without revealing much. But that’s later; this is happening to a six-year-old child.
In December 1963, Mom separates from Christian, and in October 1964, she ends her unhappy four-year marriage to him. Mom claims he “showed no interest whatsoever in home or family life.” As she says, “It was impossible to have a normal life with him.” In the divorce, which is an ugly affair, the judge awards Mom the Pacific Palisades home where I grow up, plus $25,000 in $500 monthly payments and a percentage of his oil stock holdings.
During and after my mom’s divorce, my friendships mean everything to me. My friends are my refuge, my solace from the tumult in my life. Most are regular kids in the neighborhood, including my first girl crush: Laurie Hayden, the daughter of well-known actress Eva Marie Saint and producer-director Jeffrey Hayden (who later directs me in a couple of Falcon Crest episodes). The couple also have a son, Darrell.
Laurie and I become friends due to the blossoming friendship between Emmy and the Haydens’ black nanny, Bea. Emmy takes me to play with Laurie at the Hayden house while she and Bea gossip in the kitchen. Laurie, who is my age, seven, has the brightest red hair and the sweetest smile. I quickly develop a crush on her. We play in the pool out back, and I find her irresistible.
One day Bea brings Laurie with her to our place to play in the backyard tree house Dad helped me build. Laurie is a little scared as we climb up to the tree house. It is Laurie’s first time, and so I help her up and then climb up after her. We sit next to each other and we play with my Hot Wheels and G.I. Joes. Suddenly I look at her. I feel this strong impulse to do something.
“What?” Laurie says.
Impulsively, I ask, “Can I kiss you?”
“Maybe,” Laurie says coyly.
“When?”
“Not now.”
“Well,” I persist, “when?”
“I don’t know.”
Climbing down from the tree house, I wait for Laurie at the bottom, extend my hand to help her, and still hope to kiss her. I follow her around the backyard like a love-struck puppy. We meet at the swing set. She gets on a swing. I get on a swing. Now we are both swinging. Laurie stops after a while and gets off. She runs over and lies down on the grass under the huge maple tree. I run over and lie down next her. It is late in the afternoon. We have this epic view of the sky above. The sun is golden. Leaves sway on the branches as a cool ocean breeze ripples through them. Our heads are close together. Laurie suddenly looks over at me and says, “I guess it’s okay for you to kiss me now.”
I kiss Laurie on the lips. The kiss happens so fast and lasts only seconds. Immediately I feel tingly all over and think I am in love. I have no idea what love is, of course. I just know that kissing her feels right. The feeling is short-lived. We never kiss again but remain the best of friends after that.
In 1965, Dad and Esther finally move to a place of their own. They buy a tear-down at 11011 Anzio Road in Bel Air, damaged during the famous Bel Air fire of 1964. They purchase it for cash, and Bill Pereira, an architect friend of Dad’s, then redesigns and rebuilds it. The finished property includes an Olympic-size pool out back, since both Dad and Esther (naturally) love to swim. Yet anytime I visit the house I feel like a guest. I never for a moment feel like part of the family. Esther, Dad, and her children from her previous marriage are “family” and I am just their houseguest.
Afternoons after Dad picks me up from school, he and Esther usually swim. It is all new to me, as I never remember them swimming at Lola’s place. And I certainly don’t remember the way they swim: completely nude. The first time I experience it, Dad says to me, “Go into the house and don’t peek.”
“Oh, okay,” I respond.
As a seven-year-old kid, I know this is weird. On one level I understand, yet, on another, I know this is not something every kid should experience. Not until I grow up to become a parent do I realize how weird it really is.
I do as Dad tells me. I run back inside the house, grab a snack in the kitchen, and watch a little television while they swim naked in the pool. Curiosity finally gets the best of me. Like any kid, I do exactly the opposite of what I was told. I peek to see if they really are naked. After all, Dad said, “Don’t peek,” not “If you peek, you’re in trouble.”
I walk over to the living room window facing the pool, pull the curtain off to the side, and peer out. I cannot believe my eyes. Sure as shit, Dad and Esther are swimming in the buff. They are swimming laps as