Hi folks. We're going back to 1982 again. I wrote about Francis Ford Coppola's "One from the Heart" a few months ago, and I want to revisit the screening I attended with Lillian on Valentine's Day '82, because I have new information. Over the years, I've occasionally thought about that movie, not just for it's incredible art direction and the fact that it broke Zoetrope Studios, but because (despite the critics), I thought it was a very good romantic film, with a beautiful, hopeful ending, and also because in memory, I associated a melancholy feeling with seeing it that day, with Lilly, at what I long thought was a theater in North Hollywood or maybe at Laemmle Universal. For the record, my strongest memory-image from the film was of Frederick Forrest singing "You Are My Sunshine" to Terri Garr.
Last year, I found the dvd of "One from the Heart" at the library, re-watched it for the first time in over forty years and wrote a blog about it, as noted. And because I now had this latent sense of an incomplete memory about our movie date on February 14, 1982, and because the screening occurred just two weeks after the Zilch Robbery (involving my band members), and also our gig at Kennedy High School, I knew I needed to meditate on the whole scenario. I did so, and lo and behold, I learned (with some additional Googling) that Lilly and I in fact saw "One from the Heart" not in North Hollywood but at Grauman's Chinese Theater, and that - indeed - it was a premier screening, for which tickets had to be specially ordered. My meditation revealed that at least one of the film's stars was there: Terri Garr. And maybe Frederick Forrest, too, but certainly other cast and crew members, including perhaps an assistant director, and there were speeches made about the making of the film, and dedications. One speaker mentioned the significance of its release on Valentine's Day, which he related to the power of love.
And then I remembered this: there were two interlopers who tried to crash the party. Terry and Dennis. I hate to even mention them, but they are unfortunately part of this story. They may or may not have had tickets to the movie, but they caused a scene, directed at Lilly and me, and I believe they were escorted out of the theater after disrupting the proceedings. Whoever was speaking on the stage at that time remarked on the interruption, and when the movie was over, Lilly and I were offered an escort to my car (or our separate cars). I'm not sure if we drove there together or met at the theater, but I believe Lys was there and she acted as an intermediary.
Anyhow, I remembered that Terry Meissner, who had an outsized sense of his importance in the world, said that Terri Garr had "smiled at him" in the theater. He talked about that for days afterward, and it not only proves that he and Dennis were at the screening, but it also showed Terry's delusional narcissism. He later had similar fantasies about Mary Steenburgen, whom Dennis met in Florida during the filming of "Cross Creek". Dennis later interacted with Malcolm McDowell, Mary's husband. Terry (who was close to Dennis at the time) was obsessed with Mary Steenburgen for a while, and talked about her as if he knew her, using a crude reference for her last name.
The important takeaway for "One from the Heart" is that it was a special screening at Grauman's Chinese, and that film crew and actors spoke beforehand (emphasizing the Valentine's Day motif), and also that, when the speeches were interrupted by a commotion in the audience (the dispute between the ushers and Dennis and Terry), the person onstage NOTED THIS INTERRUPTION. Whomever was speaking pointed out the two individuals who tried to crash the party, and it was a serious enough incident that Lillian and I were offered an escort out of the theater and to our car or cars when the movie was over. True Story!
I've been doing pinpoint memory recovery for early 1982, and have also recollected an incident at my house (9032) involving the same two individuals, and an Easter Basket that Lilly brought me on April 11 of that year. It was Easter Sunday. Long story short, these guys stole my Easter Basket, which may seem like just a stupid prank, but it was more than that, because Dennis, in particular, was on a rampage after being outed by Dave Small for the Zilch Robbery on February 1. Terry was in cahoots with him at the time. 1982 (my first full calendar year as Lilly's boyfriend) was marred with many violent incidents involving Dennis, which were subsequently blocked from my memory. One was the terrifying overnight "kidnap" in his white pickup truck that I mentioned in a recent blog.
I want to also tell you about Malia's birthday party, which occurred at her house in March '82 (and at which something extremely scary happened), but that may have to wait for another blog because I need to talk about Pearl's Broken Hip, an event that took place on January 1, 2010, close to 28 years after the Zilch Robbery, and the Kennedy High concert, and the screening of "One from the Heart". Pearl's hip was broken nearly three decades later, and yet at least one of the same players was involved.
Can you guess which one? I thought you could.
A complete run-down of that event will have to wait, but for now I want to talk about the aftermath - what occurred after Pearl was injured and was taken away in an ambulance, when the situation was being covered up.
As you guys know, it was covered up. The participants had to adhere to a Storyline. I'm sure the EMT who attended to Pearl was told to keep quiet. In my memory, "official people" appeared at the house, among others, but what stands out is the car I was put in.
I was placed inside a car that was going to leave the scene of this incident. The location of this car was in a driveway on Pearl's street. I'll abstain from giving the exact location.
The aftermath was hectic, to say the least. Several people wanted to ride in this car, so many that straws were drawn (so to speak). One of the people chosen was put in the back seat with me. His name was Ed. The kicker is that Ed may have been at the Kennedy High School concert, 28 years earlier, in January/February 1982. It turned out, unknown to me before then, that Ed was a friend of mine.
But while the riders were being selected, a young woman wanted in. Her appearance is clear in my conscious memory. She had a "sponsor", a lady who was vouching for her, who claimed she knew me from a "past association". I call her Katie. She was not chosen by the others to be one of the passengers in our car, but they agreed to give her five minutes to talk to me in the back seat. She said she had once met or known me, and she showed me some scars on her back or her neck. I've since remembered her from a 1982 incident at a house party on Aldea Street in Northridge. I call her "All American Katie" because I believe this terrible incident at her house happened on the Fourth of July and because, in my memory, she was sitting at a piano in her living room, wearing an American flag halter. Strangely, (and astoundingly), I also associate her with a little girl I knew from my childhood in Reseda, named Katie McCormick.
Mustangs are also associated with Katie, and with other memories, and by Mustangs, I mean both the car and the mascot for Andasol Avenue Elementary School in Northridge.
In the January 2010 "getaway" car (which was not a Mustang), I remember her showing me the scars on her back, then asking if she could give me a hug. I said okay, then she got out of the car because her alloted time was up, and the rest of us, including Ed, drove away.
If I had to guess all the people in that car, I'd say Ann, me and Ed, and maybe Lillian, Lys and Helen.
We drove around and stopped at a Denny's or other all-night restaurant.
The rest of the night is vague, and though the story doesn't end there, that's all I have time for today.
Thanks for reading, tons of love.
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