Well, dear readers, I think I’ll speak of something I’ve never really spoken of before – not here, not anywhere, maybe only to a couple of people over the last thirty to thirty-five years. And, of course, had the Kritzer books continued, I would have spoken of it there. I’m speaking of the death of my parents. Those who’ve read the Kritzer books know that I had an uneasy relationship with both my parents, but especially with my mother. I was not close with them and after I left home that gap only widened. The road to my mother’s death began in, I believe, late 1965 or early 1966 when my father disappeared. Literally. Disappeared. He left a note for my mother saying he was in trouble both financially and with some, shall we say, seedy people he’d either been in business with or borrowed money from. He told her to sell the house, and I gather gave her some other information she needed to deal with other issues – my mother was not forthcoming with the details. I can only imagine what my father was going through at the time, and I can only imagine that my mother was making it worse for him. In any case, she called me one day and told me he was gone and that no one had any idea where he was. She was, needless to say, a very unhappy woman. A lot of that had to do with what she perceived as other people’s perceptions – she was always about that. What other people thought was of supreme importance to her. She became even angrier and bitterer than she usually was. She wanted me to move back in the house with her – I wouldn’t. She sold the house and moved into an apartment on Robertson and Burton Way. It must have been horrible for her. I visited every so often, but mostly I’d see her at my Aunt Lily’s or my cousin Dodo and Marvin’s house. Over the next few years she could follow my father’s trajectory around the country because for some reason she was getting the credit card receipts. He was never in one place for very long. She got angrier, but was resigned that that was what life had in store for her.
My father ultimately was befriended by a couple in Columbus, Ohio. They took him in, got him back on his feet, got him work, and slowly but surely he began to have a life again. At some point after I got married in 1968, he wrote my mother, and wrote me (I hope I’m remembering this correctly). He wanted to come back – he wanted to at least visit. It was very difficult for my mother and if you knew my mother you’d know why. But, she finally said okay. He came back and we all had a very awkward visit, but he loved meeting my wife and he loved meeting my daughter, who was barely one, if I’m recalling this timeline correctly. I know he and my mother had many tortured conversations and I’m sure she made sure he knew how horrible it had been for her. He moved back to LA. I know this is horrible, but I honestly cannot remember if they lived together or if he took a separate apartment. I know I wasn’t visiting them or seeing them a lot. I’d just begun my professional acting career, and I know my mother got a wonderful kick out of telling her friends every time I was on television. Maybe they were living together because at some point around 1972 she got sick. Very sick. She was diagnosed with the then not very well known Hodgkin’s Disease or, to put it plainer, cancer. I think it was those difficult five years while my father was away that did it to her – there was no history of cancer in our family, before or since. She had to have chemotherapy, which, as those who’ve been through it know, is not pretty and not fun. She was in her late 60s at the time and grew frail. The chemo worked for a little while, but in late 1973 she got worse, and then worse, and in 1974 we all knew it was over for her. She went into the hospital. I visited once, and what I saw and heard was so disturbing that I refused to return. She was a living mass of vitriol, vomiting up her anger at what my father had done, even though she’d supposedly forgiven him. The last time I sat with her, she gripped my hand and went on a tirade about him and it was horrible to witness. My brother was there, too, and he, too, couldn’t believe what was coming out of her. Of course, it was the cancer and years of frustration, and I knew that, but I could not be around it. She died a few days later. I sometimes think that maybe I should have been around more, but then I think that it would have been bad for both of us. I certainly feel no guilt about it, and I certainly did not cry – there was just too much history that I could never forget.
At the funeral, my father broke down in huge, wracking sobs – I wanted to ask him why, but I knew it was guilt. The way in which he’d been treated since returning was not so wonderful, but again, I think it was years of stuff pouring out. There was an open casket, which I refused to go anywhere near. It was, in fact, the first funeral I’d ever attended.
My father completely turned his life around, became a CPA (working with my Uncle Saul – his brother), did the accounts of some very notable people including Arthur O’Connell and Nina Foch, and he was very proud of my acting career, and when I bought my second house in 1977, he loved coming there and sitting in the yard. He was, at the time, seventy-five. He’d met a woman in his building and they’d begun a sort-of relationship, and apparently a rather randy one. He said to me one day, “Everything still works!” Soon thereafter, he had a series of strokes. He went to the hospital. And, even though my relationship with him was not much better than with my mother, I visited him there almost every day for his entire stay. I know it meant a lot to him – no one else really came, other than the odd short visit. We’d talk, my daughter sometimes came with me, and he loved having the company. He was an avid reader, and I gave him lots of books to read, mysteries all. He was released from the hospital and went back home to his apartment. We had breakfast quite often on Sundays at the Hamburger Hamlet in Beverly Hills, and we had dinners occasionally at his favorite jernts, where they knew him well and adored him.
One morning at one of the Hamlet breakfasts, my father was taking a bite of food and I saw his eyes go milky and he couldn’t get the food in his mouth – he’d had another minor stroke right in front of my eyes. But he rebounded. He had an exercise ball that he’d squeeze, and he eventually regained the full use of his arm, which had been slightly paralyzed from the first series of strokes. A few months later my brother and I got the call that my father had had a heart attack and died in his apartment. His heart had grown weak because of the strokes, we were told. He’d already made all the arrangements for his funeral, so my brother and I handled all those details. He’d also instructed my brother that in the event he died, my brother was to immediately go to every bank and close out the accounts and get into several safe deposit boxes before the news spread. This we did within hours, and it was almost comical, this going from bank to bank and my brother (who was a co-signer on all the accounts) coming out with pocketfuls of cash, and even more cash from the safety deposit boxes. In fact, my father would have loved the humor of it.
I made the decision to have a closed casket and certain members of the family were really angry with me about it – but I didn’t want some painted version of my father being viewed – I preferred for people to remember him as he was – the real him. As he wanted us to, my brother and I split all that cash, and it was a considerable amount of money, especially back then. The first thing I did, because I knew he would have wanted me to, was buy a grand piano – he loved music, loved hearing my songs, and I just know that it would have given him as much pleasure as it gave me.
I was just thirty years old. I never could have imagined that I would have lost both parents by the time I was thirty. I have, over the years, had recurring dreams that they’re still alive and somehow living in our first house. Writing the Kritzer books was very cathartic for me on any number of levels, especially as regards my mother. Again, certain members of the family who read them said, “They’re cute, but that’s not what your mother was like.” I smile and say, “It’s just a book – fiction.” But I was there and they weren’t. But that’s all past history, and I have a good sense of humor about it all – and my guess is that they’d both appreciate that, and my guess is that my father especially would have liked the Kritzer books. My mother? Not so much.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I’ve got a bunch o’ stuff to do and a very long day ahead of me.
Yesterday was quite a weird day. I just felt weird the entire day. Weird is what I felt. I got up just a little too late to do the long jog, so instead I packed up about fifteen new orders, and got them shipped, then had to take a long drive to have a work session with David Wechter. It was about four hours of working, and we got a lot of stuff done. I managed to get back on the freeway just before the big traffic, so I got home in thirty-five minutes. I picked up a few packages at the mail place, and grabbed a Subway spicy Eyetalian sandwich for dinner. I then came home and had some telephonic calls, answered a lot of e-mails, printed out more orders and stuff like that. I then sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture entitled Brainstorm. Not the Natalie Wood Brainstorm (which I also have on the to be watched pile), but the 1960s Brainstorm starring Jeffrey Hunter, Anne Francis, and Dana Andrews. It’s really quite a bad movie, but it has enjoyable moments. It’s directed in TV style (although in scope) by William Conrad, pre-Cannon. The score by George Duning is nice, and I always enjoy the three stars. But it just goes on and on and is very predictable at every turn. This is another Warner Archive DVD-R and the anamorphic scope transfer if fine.
Today, I have a breakfast meeting in West Hollywood with a performer who is thinking about having me put together an act for him. Then, I meet Cason Murphy at two for a conversation, then I’ll catch up on other things, then I’ll be going to my designer’s with material for another Kritzerland project, but, most importantly, to go over the details for a complete redesign and overhaul for the Kritzerland site, which I really loathe. I’m very excited to know that we’ll have a much prettier and easier site.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do the long jog (although they say it might rain), have a meeting, have another meeting, do errands and whatnot, and then have another meeting. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I try to have a day that is not weird in any way, shape, or form.