Christopher's wife Elen graciously honored me with a wonderful and candid interview! I am completely delighted. It's so intriguing, learning about Christopher from someone who knew him so long and so well, and the almost fairy tale-ish story of how they met really warms my often-cynical heart.
One thing that doesn't warm my heart at all, however, is how unreliable technology was during the middle portion of this interview, something I was afraid would happen if I tried to conduct the interview by phone instead of through email. Thank goodness I immediately wrote down copious amounts of notes.
Lucky Ladybug - How did you meet Christopher?
EC – I met Christopher back in New York when I was very, very young, just out of high school. I was working with a lady named Chele Graham, and in fact, we had become room mates. Years before, she had been a dancer on Broadway with Bob Fosse, and had appeared in “Pajama Game” with Christopher. They fell in love and married, toured with the show, and then split up when they both realized they were too young for married life. Though they were divorced, they had remained the best of friends.
After some time, Christopher had re-married to a lovely lady named Loretta, and they moved to Australia, where he was directing films for Australia’s ABC there. On one particular occasion, he had to make a trip to New York.
So one day, Chele said her ex-husband Christopher was in town, and that we all should meet up for dinner somewhere.
I was impressed with his light-hearted humor and his wit, but, I didn’t really get a chance to know him then.
Within a few years I moved to Los Angeles, and Chele was living in San Diego but coming up to LA frequently for work. On one of her visits she said, “Hey, Christopher has moved back to the States with his wife and little boy, and they’re here in LA, so we should go and see him.” We visited Christopher and Loretta at their new apartment in Park La Brea, and I remember his beautiful son as a tiny child in arms at the time.
Within a year or so, that marriage too had broken up, and Christopher was looking for an apartment. Chele was now LA and took a bungalow next to mine in a courtyard on Beachwood Drive. We named the place “Rancho Beyondo.” Christopher visited frequently, and decided to look for a home in that lovely neighborhood. He found a nice guesthouse just a few blocks away; so now we were all neighbors. There were lots of dinner parties and barbecues, and he joined our circle of crazy friends.
Christopher, being English, gardened recreationally. He transformed the wild hillside behind his house into a tropical paradise, with terraces and ginger plants and flowers everywhere. It became THE place to meet for tea.
I was dating a nice fella named Jay at the time, who lived in Laurel Canyon. That winter we’d had ferocious rainstorms, the kind Los Angeles is known for. The house next to Jay’s slid down the hill in a mudslide, and Jay decided he wanted out of there. Christopher said, “Hey, my neighbor is looking for a new room mate.” And so Jay took the place next door to his. Jay and Christopher became best buddies. Within a couple of years, Christopher met his Cherie and they married, and I married Jay who moved to my bungalow. But Jay and Christopher had become life-long friends.
Over the years, Christopher and I wrote many things together, trying to get projects off the ground. During those years I worked on many documentary films as an editor, and we always needed good voice-over actors. I suggested he would be right for one particular film, and the producers liked his way of reading so they gave him the part. I believe this was his first venture into the voice-over field, where later he became a master artist.
I also worked with him when he launched a production of Cyrano at the Ford Theater. I worked in the production before the opening, and I worked as a costume dresser during the run of the play.
Perhaps the work he was proudest of were his years at The Exceptional Children’s Foundation. He began there as a volunteer, teaching developmentally disabled kids how to do landscaping. He ended up contracting jobs for them with major corporations, and working as a community laison for their Foundation and writing grant proposals. It was his hope to make a documentary film about this important work, and I wrote proposals with him to try to get that film off the ground. Although it never did get produced, this established our relationship as writing partners.
Years passed, Jay and I went our separate ways, and Christopher and Cherie parted too. It seemed only natural that Christopher and I would somehow end up together. And so, we did.
I was living with some friends in a house up in the hills. We didn’t have city recycling at that point, but I was already an avid environmentalist. I saved my cans and bottles and every now and then I’d call Christopher and say, time to take them in. He’d come up the hill with his beat up pick-up truck and off we’d go. We’d drive to Burbank to the recycling center, turn them in for $14.50 or so, then go around the corner to Berrigans for margueritas. Later he would sing “T’was on a pile of debris that I found her…”
Lucky Ladybug - What was he like?
EC - He was the warmest and sweetest human being you would ever hope to meet. He loved to laugh, he loved his creature comforts, and he loved his garden. He kept his world orderly and beautiful. It was amazing how he would get an idea and make it manifest immediately. One day I returned home from work and there was a granite walkway to our door that wasn’t there in the morning! He’d done it himself. The whole thing had happened in the space of a day, on a whim, set in concrete. It’s still there. Incredible.
He liked to build furniture and make wooden decks and all kinds of things around the house, while waiting for the phone to ring with an audition or call-back. He possessed a superhuman amount of drive and energy.
We only had 2 arguments in 10 years, because we just agreed about most things, or we would come to agree out of logic and good sense.
And the ease with which he could speak to people was endearing to me. He was affable. Kind. He never wanted to be a super important star, with adulating fans pressing him for autographs. He hated that. He ultimately left on-camera acting because it called attention to him when he was out in the real world with his family. He told me once, he was in a restaurant and somebody walked up to his table saying, “Hey. You, you’re SOMEBODY, aren’t ya?” and he just hated that.