My Only Hope

With Len (far right) and others at Irv's Burgers

One year ago today, I had just landed at LAX and turned on my phone to find a text telling me that my good friend Len Davies was gone. I had visited Len in the hospital before leaving town and hoped to get back to LA in time to see him again. I knew he'd taken a turn for the worse but thought there would be more time. But I was too late.

I was stunned by the news, Len was the epitome of optimism, positivity, and the power of hope, and now all of that seemed to disappear with two simple words: "He passed." How is that possible, that someone so filled with life and spirit and energy can just be taken away from us so utterly and cruelly? That's what I've been wondering this past year. I've often thought of Len as my Obi-Wan, my "only hope" in the struggle against the dark side -- though I think Len would prefer to be thought of as Yoda. But he represented a beacon of possibility in a world of disappointment and frustration and discouragement. He was always there with a happy thought, a bit of hopeful news, a cheerful "dear boy" to brighten my day and lift me from the doldrums into his world of limitless potential. 

And then he wasn't. 

I first met Len at Irv's Burgers in West Hollywood following a referral from my friend Richard Hench, who knew Len from their having worked on a movie together. Len had an idea for a TV show called Emergency LA that would follow paramedics, cops, and ER staff through a series of interconnected storylines. I liked the idea right from the start and I liked Len, too. I agreed to write the pilot episode based on Len's outline, thus beginning a partnership, friendship and collaboration that continued for nearly ten years, and in some ways continues to this day. 

Working with Len was one of the most enjoyable creative endeavors I have known. I'd write a scene, based on his outline and send it to him for review and he would lavish me with praise for 'realizing his vision' but also come up with suggestions and ideas to solve plot issues and improve the story. He never balked at my suggestions but took them in and ran with them like a true master of improv, employing the principle of 'yes, and...' to build upon what I'd written and take it to the next level. Our phone calls could go on for hours and I'd end up with a notepad full of new ideas and a head full of new scenarios. I've never met anyone who could 'break' a story like he could. There were no dead ends, just more pathways to explore and more treasures to discover. 

As is often the case, our journey with Emergency LA had its ups and downs, a few more downs than ups, actually. Now and then we'd get some news that this or that production company/network/distributor/financer was interested, only to have things fall apart or go up in smoke -- such is show biz. But through it all, Len kept the energy going. We continued to work on scripts, visit locations, check out office/studio space. At one point Len got involved in a plan to buy an old studio, refurbish it and use it to shoot the show ourselves. It was an ambitious plan and very exciting to think about -- and it may have worked if we'd had more time. But time was not on our side. 

Meanwhile, I was going through some personal upheaval that required me to fly back and forth to the east coast several times a year, and true to form, Len was there for me. He let me keep my car in his garage for weeks at a time when I was away and came to pick me up at the airport when I came home. I was unemployed and had no way to repay him, but he brushed that aside saying, "You're family." And that was how it felt with Len, like family. We were in this thing together and win or lose, we had each other. 

Now it's been a year since he's been gone and the silence has been almost unbearable. No more lengthy phone calls discussing everything from casting choices to space exploration to Beatles trivia. No more making plans for the new studio or renting the Batmobile or playing music together. No more boundless enthusiasm to buck me up when everything seemed a lot less than hopeful. He left a big hole in the world that isn't easy to fill. 

But he left something else, too: his family. As part of Len's extended family I've had the great pleasure to get to know his son Toms, who despite dealing with a staggering series of ordeals on top of the loss of his dad, has shown an astounding capacity for resilience and perseverance that inspires me over and over again. I've also met other extended family members who cared about Len as much as I did and our connection to Len has formed a bond that continues in his absence. Len's generosity and love touched so many people and those of us who were lucky enough to know him feel like we were part of something that transcended simple friendship. He may not be with us anymore but as his final gift, he brought us together. 

And that's a pretty nice gift.

I guess Len wasn't my only hope after all, because, having come to know Toms and the other members of our extended family, I now know that there is always hope and there is always plenty of love to go around and that like Obi-Wan, Len is out there somewhere watching over me. 

And sometimes, I can still hear him saying, "Cheers, dear boy."

The Last Time I Saw Richard

 

Richard Hench 1955-2022

I first met Richard at a screenwriter’s group called Deadline Junkies. Richard was one of several talented and generous actors who showed up every week to do cold readings of screenplays submitted by the writers. I cast Richard as the patriarch of a wealthy Connecticut family, who owns a rare bird that my main character accidentally lets out of its cage and then very nearly crushes with a squash racquet while trying to shoo it back inside. Richard was excellent in the part, providing the needed arrogant gravitas as well as the requisite white-male-privilege-y overtones. But in real life, he was nothing like that character. He was a keenly sensitive artist with a deep inner life of his own, which he was able to draw upon to breathe life into a bunch of silly words on a page.

I didn't really get to know Richard well in the Deadline Junkies because I ended up leaving soon after he joined. But a little while later, when a friend of his named Len was looking for a writer for a new television project he was working on, Richard set up a meeting. Len had envisioned Richard as one of the main characters in his one-hour TV drama, a motorcycle-riding, combat-veteran-turned-chief-surgeon in a busy downtown Los Angeles hospital. I did my best to do justice to Dr. Pierce Thatcher while writing the two-hour pilot script.

About a year later, I ran into Richard at a Fourth of July cookout at Len’s place. Richard told me he had read the pilot script I’d written and was very impressed with the results. His approval meant the world to me. I began consulting Richard from time to time for insights into his character and motorcycles, and life in general. Richard had a lot of insights.

A few years later, when I was down on my luck and living on credit cards, Richard came up with a project for the two of us to work on. It was a script about the many years he had spent in the movie business – and the best part was, he wanted to pay me to write it. Richard had a history of supporting fellow artists, not just financially but with his time, his talent, his vast knowledge of movie-making, and on more than one occasion, his own home. By giving me the gift of hiring me to write a screenplay for him, Richard made my longtime dream of becoming a professional screenwriter a reality.

Our idea was to tell the story of his life through a series of films-within-the-film, depicting the various stages of his career via some of the dozens of movies and TV shows he’d worked on. Over the course of many phone calls, lunch meetings and in-depth story sessions, we came up with a number of sequences highlighting the major turning points in his life in and out of the movies – each one to be filmed in the style of the particular film-within the film representing that era. The different sequences would be stitched together with a present-day story about Richard desperately trying to get to a friend's house in the middle of the night, for an emergency cash loan, but his Harley suffers a blowout on the 405 and he nearly careens into a Peterbilt truck, just like the one in the movie Duel. He coasts to an all-night gas station off the freeway where, in the wake of his near-death experience, he looks back on his years in Hollywood, while waiting for a flatbed tow truck to rescue his Harley.

While most of our brainstorming sessions were fun and creative, there were also a few times we butted heads. There was one scene in particular that Richard wanted me to change. It was based on an experience he’d had with another actor on one of his many location shoots. In the scene, a famous TV actress, who is playing one of the leads in the film-within-the film, swallows a bunch of sleeping pills and Richard is called upon to revive her. He manages to do so using his boundless ingenuity coupled with his natural empathy, and afterwards the TV actress tries to seduce him. I had written it with a fairly comic tone, similar to the rest of the script, but Richard felt that my take was too broad and not appropriate for the subject. We went around and around as I tried to understand where he wanted to take the scene. At one point he referred to my ‘frat-boy’ style of humor and that felt like a slap in the face.

We continued our discussion from the restaurant out into the street, and eventually to my apartment, where Richard got down on the floor and started acting out the scene. He was curled up in the fetal position, like the actress had been, kind of whimpering as he voiced her thoughts. It was pretty intense. I sat on the floor next to him and took notes as he walked me through the scene. I could see that he wasn’t just playing the scene, he was reliving it. He needed me to understand that the place she was in was real and not just a manufactured moment in a script. He needed me to feel what she was feeling. 

“I think I get it now,” I said.

“It’s the heart of the movie,” said Richard, his eyes welling up with tears.

“Yeah,” I nodded. ”It is.”

“The heart of the movie.”

The last time I saw Richard, we had french toast at Joey’s Cafe in West Hollywood. French toast had become kind of a tradition between us during our story meetings. After breakfast, we walked up the hill to DeLongpre Avenue, one of my favorite blocks in the neighborhood, with its wide front lawns and many flowering trees. There was a pretty young woman walking her little doggy in the lush grassy space in front of her building. Naturally, Richard started up a conversation with her. She told us the dog had cancer and she was running out of options. She wanted to keep up the treatments but she knew it wasn’t really going to make any difference. Richard knelt on the grass and played with the dog, showering him with every ounce of his attention and love. The little guy was in heaven. We wished her good luck and walked back to my place.

In the parking lot across from my apartment, Richard got onto the Harley and started it up. He rang the bicycle bell he’d attached to the right handlebar and grinned that devilish movie-star grin. It was a perfect moment: the childlike chime of the bell ringing out above the badass rumble of the Harley captured Richard’s spirit to a T. He popped into gear and rode out of the lot, swinging onto Havenhurst Drive and waving goodbye as he thundered out of sight.

Richard and I had plans to meet my cousin in the Valley for an al fresco French toast brunch date, but we never got the chance. Len called me one afternoon with the mind-numbing news that Richard had taken his own life the night before. We didn’t have any more information than that, but we were, in Len’s words, gutted. 

Since then I’ve met with Richard’s friends, neighbors and his sister and learned a little bit more about what happened, but none of it can explain to me why he is gone. On one hand, it really seemed like Richard was doing well and looking forward to new projects and opportunities. On the other hand, there was always something just below the surface, maybe the same thing that made him such a sensitive and honest actor, but that always seemed to be pulling him in the other direction. Or maybe it just seems that way now. I don’t think I will ever know what really happened, but I do know that I miss him and that French toast will never taste quite the same. 

As Hamlet said, “I shall not look upon his like again.”

The Christmas Miracle

I didn't want to share this until I knew the ending, and as of today, I do. Three days before I left town for 'Xmas In CT' my car was stolen. Kind of a bummer, even though it was an old car and I never used it much -- in fact, since I started working from home, the only reason I drove it was to keep the battery charged. But it was my getaway car -- I liked knowing that if I needed/wanted to escape the confines of West Hollywood, I could. Run an errand, visit a friend -- it was always there for me. Except, the other day, when I went out for a quick trip to the barber shop...

It. Wasn't.

Weirdly, there was another car approximately the same year and model -- 20 year old Honda CRV -- parked in about the same spot on my street. I even walked up to it thinking it was mine, except it was the wrong color and the window was open and the motor was running. Seemed odd.

I searched up and down the block several times before facing the hard truth: somebody took my car! I called the West Hollywood Sheriff and a young deputy arrived to take my stolen vehicle report. He told me he had circled the block a few times, just to make sure I hadn't merely forgotten where I'd parked. He said that happens a lot. He, too, saw the other CRV and ran the plates. Apparently, it had been stolen the day before, about 20 miles away. 

"Some coincidence, huh?" he said.
I was doubtful. "That ain't no coincidence."

An older deputy arrived and told us that whoever stole the first car probably dumped it before stealing mine. Then, his partner comes along and picks up that one while mine gets driven over to the next 20-year-old CRV -- lather, rinse, repeat. Last year they were doing the same thing with Hyundais, this year CRVs.

Just my luck.

We finished filling out the report and I asked if there was any chance they would find my car. The young deputy shook his head. "Not really."

I flew to Connecticut a few days later and told everyone the story -- by this point I had accepted the situation. I really don't need the car, so no great loss, right? Why let it ruin the holidays?
But then, the next day, I got a call from a deputy at the Compton Sheriff's Station -- he said they'd found my car!

It was a bona fide, according-to-Hoyle Christmas Miracle!

Only...

The car had been towed to an impound lot in Compton and I needed to go claim it. In person. In Compton. And pay the towing fee, plus the storage costs -- forty bucks a day and mounting. By the time I got back to California it would be a hefty sum. Surely there was another way to retrieve my car. But what?

My brilliant nephew, age 10, suggested that I Google it.

Clever lad.

Turns out you can send an authorized 'agent' to pick up your car for you, with an original signed and notarized form. So, after some more Googling, a slew of phone calls, some cutting and pasting, a quick trip to the town library (free notary service!) and a last minute dash to FedEx, the form was on its way to my cousin in the San Fernando Valley -- a mere 40 miles from Compton.

But, this was, as you know, a holiday weekend. And both the Compton Sheriff's Station and the impound lot were operating on holiday hours. My cousin had a less-than-two-hour window this morning to make it all work: Uber to the Sheriff's Station to get the vehicle release form, another Uber to the impound lot to pick up the car then drive it back to his house. Everything started off well, and my cousin was doing me the biggest solid of all time. He got the release form with minimum hassle, then a short trip over to the impound lot -- he got there early, so he had to wait outside the gate for an hour. Alone. On a back alley in Compton. Finally, he got inside with all the proper paperwork, paid the fees and charges, and they released the car to him, no problemo.

But...

It wouldn't start.

I was crushed. Now what? Tow the car all the way out to the west valley? Seriously? I called the guy in the main office and he said they could try giving it a jump start. I said I thought that might be a good idea.

Fortunately, that solved the problem and within minutes my cousin was in my car on the freeway, heading for home.

Victory!

So, now my CRV is sitting safely in my cousin's driveway in the west valley, with no more storage charges. A triple Christmas miracle, at least. And I have my getaway car again!
Such a major relief.

I think I might just sell it.