learn to string together thosemoments like a strand of pearls that I can remove from the box and admire when I need to remind myself why this love is worth fighting for. I have to open that box some days more than others. After we return to London from North Africa, Farrah and I attend a fashion show, and the following morning, as I’m reading the paper over coffee, I come across an article that stops me cold. Here’s an excerpt: “The 39-year-old former Charlie’s Angel hopes the £10 million mini-series
Poor Little Rich Girl
will make her a TV star again. Ryan, whose career is in the doldrums and who looks after their two-year-old son Redmond while Farrah is filming, earned his keep this trip.” Farrah is unfazed by the article and unsympathetic to my distress. Mean-spirited press doesn’t affect her the way it does me. Not yet.
The article sets me off. It magnifies something I’m already dealing with privately: feeling emasculated. That night I’m supposed to join Farrah and some friends for dinner, but all I can think about is getting the hell out of London. So I do what any red-blooded male would in the same situation. I pick a fight with my woman, hoping I can piss her off just enough that she’ll insist I leave. Instead I find this on the dresser:
DARLING RYAN ,
I am terribly sorry that you’re depressed but I feel you are reacting to many things and the article just compounds them. We are so strong together, things likethis shouldn’t touch us at this point in our love affair. Your not wanting to come tonight has greatly affected me. You are the life of any party and most certainly always of mine. Tony’s dinner at Tramp’s is at 10:00, and the theater isn’t over until 10:30, so why don’t you go ahead and enjoy yourself without me until I arrive. I seem to be the one depressing you and you’ll have more fun and I’m sure be greatly appreciated. Just be happy and know that I love you more than ever, so does Redmond. I thought we were the happiest family ever. Am I wrong? Please don’t leave me.
FOREVER ,
FARRAH
After reading the note, I stay. Wouldn’t you?
B y midsummer we’re back in LA. Griffin is in trouble again, this time for leading cops on a sixty-five-mile-per-hour car chase through Beverly Hills. He’s also remanded to jail for violating the terms of his probation on the Gian-Carlo Coppola case, not having completed the court-mandated community service hours. And my daughter informs me via post that she isn’t ready to see or talk to me yet (I wasn’t aware that we weren’t speaking; this was news to me) but will continue to send photos of my grandchild. Two months later, on September 23, 1987, she gives birth to another son, Sean McEnroe. I never knew she was pregnant.The presence of her absence haunts me. With material like this, perhaps instead of being an actor, I should have become a playwright. Eugene O’Neill, stand clear.
Thank God I finally get a job to distract me from this long day’s journey into despair. In
Chances Are
, a quirky romantic comedy about past lives, I play the new husband of Cybill Shepherd, whose dead husband, reincarnated by Robert Downey, Jr., falls in love with his own daughter, or something like that. Geez, I can’t get away from this stuff. Anyhow, it’s a cute movie. Robert is a warm and engaging fellow and I take an immediate liking to him. I witness his affinity for partying during production, and today I have reams of respect for him for having been able to turn his life around. If only my son Griffin could have done the same.
Looking back, I think it was during the filming of that picture that I began to recognize how much Farrah had changed me. We were staying on Antelo Road, and we were disagreeing about something, I don’t remember what. I retreated to the beach house in a huff. That evening I went out with Robert and his friends. Drugs and girls were everywhere. It was anything goes. I couldn’t wait to get back to Farrah. I
Poor Little Rich Girl
will make her a TV star again. Ryan, whose career is in the doldrums and who looks after their two-year-old son Redmond while Farrah is filming, earned his keep this trip.” Farrah is unfazed by the article and unsympathetic to my distress. Mean-spirited press doesn’t affect her the way it does me. Not yet.
The article sets me off. It magnifies something I’m already dealing with privately: feeling emasculated. That night I’m supposed to join Farrah and some friends for dinner, but all I can think about is getting the hell out of London. So I do what any red-blooded male would in the same situation. I pick a fight with my woman, hoping I can piss her off just enough that she’ll insist I leave. Instead I find this on the dresser:
DARLING RYAN ,
I am terribly sorry that you’re depressed but I feel you are reacting to many things and the article just compounds them. We are so strong together, things likethis shouldn’t touch us at this point in our love affair. Your not wanting to come tonight has greatly affected me. You are the life of any party and most certainly always of mine. Tony’s dinner at Tramp’s is at 10:00, and the theater isn’t over until 10:30, so why don’t you go ahead and enjoy yourself without me until I arrive. I seem to be the one depressing you and you’ll have more fun and I’m sure be greatly appreciated. Just be happy and know that I love you more than ever, so does Redmond. I thought we were the happiest family ever. Am I wrong? Please don’t leave me.
FOREVER ,
FARRAH
After reading the note, I stay. Wouldn’t you?
B y midsummer we’re back in LA. Griffin is in trouble again, this time for leading cops on a sixty-five-mile-per-hour car chase through Beverly Hills. He’s also remanded to jail for violating the terms of his probation on the Gian-Carlo Coppola case, not having completed the court-mandated community service hours. And my daughter informs me via post that she isn’t ready to see or talk to me yet (I wasn’t aware that we weren’t speaking; this was news to me) but will continue to send photos of my grandchild. Two months later, on September 23, 1987, she gives birth to another son, Sean McEnroe. I never knew she was pregnant.The presence of her absence haunts me. With material like this, perhaps instead of being an actor, I should have become a playwright. Eugene O’Neill, stand clear.
Thank God I finally get a job to distract me from this long day’s journey into despair. In
Chances Are
, a quirky romantic comedy about past lives, I play the new husband of Cybill Shepherd, whose dead husband, reincarnated by Robert Downey, Jr., falls in love with his own daughter, or something like that. Geez, I can’t get away from this stuff. Anyhow, it’s a cute movie. Robert is a warm and engaging fellow and I take an immediate liking to him. I witness his affinity for partying during production, and today I have reams of respect for him for having been able to turn his life around. If only my son Griffin could have done the same.
Looking back, I think it was during the filming of that picture that I began to recognize how much Farrah had changed me. We were staying on Antelo Road, and we were disagreeing about something, I don’t remember what. I retreated to the beach house in a huff. That evening I went out with Robert and his friends. Drugs and girls were everywhere. It was anything goes. I couldn’t wait to get back to Farrah. I
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