Barbara and I were seated toward the back of the big jet overseas passenger plane when it landed at L.A. International airport in 1996. When the plane stopped rolling, I noticed a man reaching in the overhead bin to fetch his carry-on luggage. He was dressed in old Levis, a loose fitting short sleeved aloha shirt, old shoes, and he needed a shave. He was traveling with his pretty wife and their three young children. I was surprised to recognize the man who was seated in the cheap seats. He was a movie star.
Nobody seemed to notice the actor as he deplaned and walked to the baggage room. The actor and his brother followed in the footsteps of their father. They became actors. I have enjoyed seeing many of the movies they played in. I felt friendly toward this man I had never met, so I introduced myself and shook hands with him.
We had to wait half an hour for our luggage to arrive. The actor was calm. I watched him check for his name on luggage that looked familiar but was not his. Finally, he loaded his baggage on a cart and stood in line at the room exit. Again he was quiet, and waited his turn to have his luggage tickets checked. He pushed the cart outside where he and his family were picked up by a limousine. I have heard that some actors are impatient. But this actor and his wife bent over backward not to ask for special treatment famous people often demand. Seeing and meeting the actor reminded me of a story about him.
In 1988 an elderly woman said to me, “My beautiful blond teenage daughter lived with me near Hollywood. She often baby-sat three little boys of a well known television and movie star. The children were full of energy, so my daughter let them go in the back yard to play. The boys loved to play naked. When they stripped off their clothes, my girl could see no harm in it, so she went in the house. After a while one of the boys came in the house crying. His scrotum was bleeding from a wooden splinter. The splinter came from the swing seat.”
The pretty young lady hugged the child to sooth him. Then she phoned her mother, and waited while her mom gathered cotton swabs. She brought tweezers and purple antiseptic called gentian violate. She drove to to the house where she removed the splinter with tweezers. The bleeding stopped when she used the gentian violate soaked cotton to bathe the wound. The child stopped crying and looked down at his stained testes. He looked down and he liked it. He asked the older woman to paint more until she had completely covered his privates. He was pleased, and he ran outside to show his brothers.
Two of the brothers grew up to be fine actors like their dad, Lloyd Bridges. When the old lady came to the end of her story she said, “I painted Bo Bridges’ privates purple.”