Martin Sheen and the Triple Crown Trainer

Mention the Triple Crown to me and my mind goes back to Martin Sheen and the memorable evening we endured some years ago with a feisty thoroughbred horse trainer.  Although the robust, rough-hewn horseman never has taken home the coveted trophy, he was no stranger to the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont, where he experienced the rare thrill of being a contender for the most elusive prize in sports.

Martin Sheen loved horse racing.  For him it wasn't just the excitement of watching magnificent equine competitors display their power and skill; he was fascinated by the people of the backstretch, whose lives were totally intertwined with the race horses they mentioned.  When he heard about a trainer who had a story to tell, Martin wanted to tell it.  He discussed a possible biographical screenplay with writer, producer, director, and mentor Garry Marshall.  Garry suggested I work with Martin on the project.

In all humility, I felt I was perfect for the job.  At that time, I knew nothing about racing, nothing about Santa Anita or Hollywood Park, and didn't want to learn.  But, as an animal lover, I figured I'd get along really well with the horses.

Arrangements were made for Martin to drive me to the track where we would meet producer and racing fan Fred Roos, who would spearhead negotiations with the trainer for a movie about his life.

On our trip to the track Martin talked about his family, including the brother who trained horses in Florida.  I learned that their mother was Irish, their father, Spanish.  It may have been this diversity in his background which instilled in him a genuine compassion for others, especially those who suffer.  He impressed me as exceptionally intelligent and sensitive, qualities which helped to make him the great actor he was.

Martin also told me how much he admired Tony Randall and used him in his acting endeavors.  Mia Farrow once told him he reminded her of someone in the scene they had just done together.

"Tony Randall?" he asked.  "That's the one!" she responded.

Martin was also a fan of the late James Dean and the living singer, Bob Dylan.  Years later he encountered an associate of the music legend who offered to introduce him.

"I couldn't," he said.  "I mean, it was Bob Dylan!"

How odd but endearing, I thought, that this successful, respected actor, whom many considered a genius at his craft, felt too humble to be in the presence of his idol.

When we arrived at the track, Fred Roos, Martin, and I met briefly for pep talks and last-second strategizing before proceeding to the restaurant where we hoped to entice the successful trainer into putting his life in our hands--figuratively speaking, of course.

"That's a working man's hand," he told Martin as Fred made the introductions and a round of hand-shaking ensued.

The trainer had no idea he was meeting a gifted, accomplished actor.  In his eyes, Martin was a tough working man.  He liked that.  So did Martin.  There was an instant bond.  We had sprung from the starting gate like sure winners.

We sat down to the dinner that was not to be.  Fred Roos affirmed his and Martin's devotion to racing.  He expressed their appreciation for the trainer's contributions to the sport.  I silently sipped my glass of water.

Martin explained his desire to immortalize the trainer on film.  Although he and I had no track record with writing blockbuster movies, he suggested an analogy:  If we were untried yearlings who demonstrated the passion and potential to be champions, the trainer would take a chance on us, wouldn't he?  Very clever, I thought.  So did the trainer.  Smiles everywhere.  We all glowed with confidence and camaraderie.  The finish line was within reach.  Right there.  Just steps away.  Inside my head, crowds roared approval.

The trainer was relaxed now--and talking.  There were outstanding horses in his barn; the possibilities were exhilarating.  But the workers...If only he had decent workers!  Ones who spoke English.  And did their jobs.  The trainer's day had not gone well.  Ours was heading in the same direction.

The rant against his Mexican workers continued.  Martin's Spanish blood was seething, but he remained responsibly nonviolent.  His restraint was remarkable.  Fred Roos sat motionless.  It felt like a living nightmare.

Suddenly, it was over.  Martin, Fred, and I were walking out, shaken and disappointed.  The words used to facilitate our hasty exit are long forgotten, or were lost at the time when neurotransmitters shut down in dismay.  But, there was no shouting, no fisticuffs.  We left physically intact.

"I heard you met a bigot," Garry said the next day.  "I'm sorry."  I wasn't.  It was a learning experience.

Joseph Cosey: The Man Who Was Edgar Allan Poe

A recurring character in our "Forrest Sisters Mysteries" books is Izzy Wright, who utilizes his love for the past into the unconventional career of forging historical documents. We found our inspiration for this character in one of the most talented and prolific forgers in American history.

The period of the 1920s-1950s was a Golden Age for Edgar Allan Poe-related "discoveries." During these years, many previously unknown letters and documents of the legendary poet surfaced for the first time. Unfortunately, a great deal of credit for these additions to Poe lore can be given to Martin Coneely.

Coneely, who was born in 1887, is best known by his favorite alias of "Joseph Cosey." Little is known of his early life. He ran away from home at an early age, and henceforth led a solitary, nomadic life, supporting himself through a series of petty crimes. He apparently had no friends or family ties. Despite his shady and hardscrabble background, he was a highly intelligent man with an instinctive love for books and history--19th century Americana in particular. In other circumstances, he would have become a genuine scholar, but as it happened, his fate was instead not to merely study history, but to make it. Literally.

In the 1920s, he paid what proved to be a life-changing visit to the Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress. His motives in requesting to see signatures and documents belonging to such greats as Jefferson and Washington were entirely innocent--he merely wished to gratify his passion for Americana. However, once he was able to actually see and touch these priceless relics of the past, he felt he could not let them all go. Settling his desire upon a pay warrant signed by Benjamin Franklin in 1786, he slipped the paper into his pocket, and, in those more trusting times, left the library unnoticed.

A year or so later, he was living in a tenement in New York City, drunk, alone, and flat broke. Desperate for money, he steeled himself to sell his one prized possession--his stolen Franklin document. Upon taking it to a book dealer, however, he was stunned and indignant when the man scornfully rejected it as a forgery. In his disgust, Cosey resolved to teach this impertinent fool a lesson. He, himself, would create a real forgery and sell it to him! He haunted the local public libraries, studying facsimiles of the handwriting of historical figures. He found that Abraham Lincoln's signature came easiest to him, and after some months of practice, whipped out a handsome "Yrs. Truly, A. Lincoln" on a scrap of paper. The same dealer who dismissed his authentic Franklin bought the bogus Cosey for ten dollars.

It was an epiphany. Cosey, after a lifetime of aimless and unproductive wanderings, felt he had finally found his mission in life. He threw all his previously dissipated energies into his new calling. He became to manuscript forging what Tiffany's is to diamonds. G. William Bergquest, an expert on literary hoaxes, called him "the greatest forger of his kind in this century." The renowned book and autograph dealer Charles Hamilton went even further, describing Cosey as "the most skilled and versatile forger of all time." During his long and prolific career, he forged many items of Americana, particularly ones imitating the handwriting of Lincoln and George Washington.

Alas for Poe scholarship, Cosey also had a personal devotion to the author of "The Raven," which he expressed in his own singular manner. He also, for whatever reason, had a predilection for Poe's literary contemporary Nathaniel Parker Willis. He is known to have created more than one letter from Poe to Willis, and enjoyed adding forged notations by Willis to his "Poe manuscripts." Physically, they were impeccable pieces of work, but Cosey occasionally made several factual errors in the text. The errors were relatively minor--there are far worse in many Poe biographies--but they were enough to discredit the documents. Otherwise, the letters may well have been permanently accepted as genuine. In fact, Hamilton stated that all of the extant Poe/Willis correspondence has to be suspected as being Cosey's handiwork. (All this makes one wonder about a manuscript copy of Poe's poem "For Annie" which sold at auction not long ago for a cool $830,000, even though very limited information was given about the document's provenance. Among the distinguishing features of this artifact were notations added by none other than N.P. Willis.)

Cosey was considerably more ambitious than the typical forger. Not content with reproducing signatures or brief snippets of already-published texts, he did serious preliminary research on his subjects, enabling him to convincingly channel the literary style of Poe and his other favorite targets, churning out with unnerving speed and agility lengthy, interesting letters, artifacts such as account books and legal papers, and long samples of documents (including manuscripts of "The Poetic Principle," "The Raven," and "The Fall of the House of Usher.") His instinctive skill for replicating handwritings was coupled with the savvy to use genuinely antiquated paper and writing implements, including a distinctive brown ink specific to the 18th and early 19th centuries. He even became adept at forging letters of verification to accompany his creations. All this combined to make him a formidable menace to the world of manuscript collecting.

A Cosey forgery of a document supposedly signed by Abraham Lincoln.

Cosey was also clever enough to take advantage of an odd quirk in the penal codes of New York (and a number of other states.) According to the law, merely forging any "archaeological object" was not in itself illegal. The crime occurred only when the owner of the "object" deliberately presented it for sale it as a genuine artifact. Cosey would merely diffidently present his documents to dealers or private collectors as objects of unknown value that he had "inherited," or "been given," or simply "found," and left it up to the prospective buyer to decide whether it was of any worth. Ironically, his seeming casualness about the documents served to enhance their plausibility. And if the forgery was detected, all he had to do was innocently state that he had never claimed the manuscripts were anything other than old pieces of paper.

Another thing that made Cosey notable was that, like many other great figures of his unusual profession, he saw himself as no mere criminal, but as an artist, a craftsman. He took great pride in his output, which he invested with a care that arose not merely from a desire to avoid exposure, but from a love of the work itself. He was, in the words of one of his parole officers, "a likable, ingratiating fraud." To paraphrase one of his favorite subjects, for him forgery was not a purpose, but a passion.

What is more, he convinced himself that he was actually doing a public service. After all, relatively few of even the most ardent Poe devotees have the money or opportunity to possess a letter or other document in his writing. Thanks to Joseph Cosey, many more of them would get that chance! He once told a story about going to a bookstore with a "Poe letter" he had created. "The owner was out," he said, "but his secretary told me she was a student of Poe and would be thrilled to see something in his handwriting. I finally sold it to her for three dollars, but only because I was broke. Well my conscience bothered me about it for weeks, and the first time I had three dollars I went back to the shop to tell her it was a counterfeit, and buy it back from her. But when I heard her talk about how much pleasure that letter had given her, I didn't have the heart to disillusion her. So I walked out and let her keep it and believe in it."

It would be nice to know where that letter is now. And how often it has been quoted as source material in Poe biographies.

For all his natural gift for chicanery, Cosey did sometimes turn out product sufficiently flawed to be exposed by the experts. He often ignored the fact that a person's handwriting inevitably changes with age. A Cosey "Benjamin Franklin," for example, would have the same signature in old age that he had in his prime. He would occasionally cut corners by chemically treating modern paper to give it the appearance of age. Such mistakes led to his arrest in 1937, after he sold an "Abraham Lincoln" letter. It was dated "December 2, 1846." but, with uncharacteristic sloppiness Cosey wrote it on paper bearing a discernible 1860 watermark. (By this time, Cosey was not only an alcoholic, but a heroin addict, which undoubtedly affected his talents.) His victim was content to chalk it up to the hazards of the business, but after he heard Cosey was attempting to sell a similar letter to another dealer, the police were summoned. The detectives who brought him in for questioning immediately saw from the marks on his arms that he was a drug user, and evidently promised him a much-needed "fix" if he confessed. He did, and was convicted of petty larceny. He was paroled after less than a year, and he inevitably immediately went back to his life's work. He is believed to have kept up his cheerfully felonious ways right until his death, which is generally thought to have taken place around 1950, when he simply dropped out of sight. Some sources, however, believe he was still producing "artifacts" for some years afterward. His end, appropriately enough for a Poe impersonator, is a mystery.

Thankfully, many documents have been exposed as his handiwork. Such is his reputation, that many of them have fetched high prices at auction as "Genuine Cosey Forgeries." A side industry even emerged of--seriously--forged "Cosey forgeries." The New York Public Library did him the dubious, if unmistakable, honor of setting up a permanent collection of his "Greatest Hits." (One of the founding items in this file was an assortment of notes Poe supposedly wrote in relation to the printing of "Tamerlane.") However, it is acknowledged that there are many, many more "Coseys" in circulation that have gone undetected.

  The prominent autograph and manuscript dealer Charles Hamilton made a particular study of Cosey's career. "Long ago," he wrote, "I concluded that there must be far more forgeries of Poe by Cosey than there are original Poe letters." Considering how many leading items of Poeana--items which largely have a sketchy or nonexistent history--first appeared during Cosey's prolific heyday, Hamilton's words should be memorized by any student of Poe's life. And it must be remembered that Joseph Cosey was hardly the first Poe forger, nor the last.

Caveat emptor. And then some.

Sunshine and Shadow...and Harry Nilsson

Her name was Leslie, but few of her many admirers knew it.  They called her "Sunnie," because sunshine is what defined her.  She was warm, bright, beautiful, and luminous with life-giving energy.

Sunnie attracted attention without trying.  When she was a dancer in Las Vegas and attracted the attention of a promising young musician, the two of them joined forces and moved to Los Angeles to pursue his career.  One of Randy's fondest recollections was playing guitar for Ray Charles and being told he played like he was black.

He was good enough to impress singer/songwriter Harry Nilsson, whose success had earned him an opportunity with RCA to produce records for others.  Randy was one of the first artists to make an album under Harry's auspices.

Sunnie and I became friends, and it was through her that I met Harry, who was one of the most interesting, charismatic people I've ever met.  Tall, blonde, and slender, Harry wasn't conventionally handsome, but his sweetness, his shy, wistful smile, contrasted with wit and intellectual combativeness were fascinating to everyone who crossed his path.

He had a disarming sense of humor.  "I'll pick you up at Paramount," he told me once.  "We'll have lunch at the Brown Derby, and it'll be almost like we're in show business."  His friend Mickey Dolenz, formerly of the Monkees, joined us at the iconic old celebrity restaurant.  It was almost like we were in show business.

Harry's biggest hit, "Without You," featured the line, "You always smile but in your eyes the sorrow shows."  The song was written by Pete Ham and Tom Evans of Badfinger, but it described Harry perfectly.  He was surrounded by an aura of impenetrable sadness, which, tragically, he tried to suppress with drugs.  He always carried loose pills in his pockets.  On one occasion he made a mistake by popping a pill from the wrong pocket.  "I didn't mean to do that," he said with a sheepish grin.  Luckily, it seemed to make no difference, and he was able to drive without incident.  Harry wasn't so lucky the time he and John Lennon famously got themselves thrown out of Los Angeles' Troubadour club, for causing a disturbance during the Smothers Brothers' act.  Perhaps they both chose the wrong pockets that night.

The Troubadour was also where Sunnie introduced me to John Stewart, formerly of the Kingston Trio.  Her husband was in Las Vegas for a week and she didn't want to be alone.  I agreed to stay with her for a day or two.

We went to the Troubadour, where Stewart, whom she had known prior to her marriage, was headlining.  She clearly regretted my presence when John accepted an invitation to meet at her apartment after the show.

That evening, Sunnie sat fuming in her living room as John, who was still painfully emotional about Robert Kennedy's assassination, concentrated on questioning me about my time at UC Berkeley.  The liberal enclave fascinated him, and elevated me in his estimation.  He was writing a screenplay about the Civil War, and asked me to read it when it was finished.

Sadly, I never met Stewart again.  Years later, when my niece and I worked on our script about Ulysses S. Grant's wife Julia, I thought about my brief encounter with this intensely thoughtful musician who preferred substantive conversation to the prospect of a romantic evening with my beautiful--and extremely willing--friend.

Not surprisingly, Sunnie's marriage suffered badly, and ended in divorce.  Subsequent relationships didn't work out for her, leaving her with wounded pride and battered self-esteem.  She needed reassurance that she was still worthy of attention.

When I spoke about Sunnie's despair, my friend Joe, a writer on the game show "Match Game," offered to arrange for her to audition as a contestant.

The moment she laid eyes on Joe at the studio, she shrieked that she remembered him.  As a kid, he went to her dad's summer camp in Florida.  She saw that as the good omen for her future that she so desperately needed.  Her energy exploded.  She was exuberant, charming, and even played the game well.

After about a week after her audition, Sunnie called me, depressed that "Match Game" hadn't contacted her.  She decided to give up her life in Los Angeles and start over in Florida.

When I told Joe about this, he was stunned.  Something had gone wrong.  He said Sunnie's audition was spectacular, and the producers were eager to have her as a contestant.  He couldn't imagine why she hadn't heard from them, but he supposed some wires had been crossed somewhere.

Sunnie never heard this good news.  She had disappeared, and I couldn't find out where.  I never heard from her again.

Leslie had grown up wanting to be an actress.  She made it.  "Sunnie" was the role of a lifetime, and she played it to the hilt, convincing most everyone that her joie de vivre was real.  Maybe, like Greta Garbo, she got tired of "making faces."  Happy faces.  Maybe in Florida she was able to become Leslie again.

I just hope she found more happiness as herself.

Photo of the Day

A sooty tern chick waiting for his parents to feed him.  Life Magazine, 1950.

Oh, for God's sake, someone feed that baby already.  This is enough to make me want to cry.

Photo of the Day

Fifi, mascot of early aviator John Moisant.  (She's wearing mourning for her owner, who died in a crash.)

The Not-So-Royal Baby

Good for William and Kate.  The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have done their duty by providing the increasingly superfluous British monarchy with an "heir and a spare."

They had been married only a short time when the baby watch began.  Nothing happened.  Before long, die-hard romantics in Britain began the subtle chant, "Why is she there if she can't get an heir?"  The pressure was on.  The future king of England--even though it's not "England" anymore, thanks to the European Union--has a job to do, and it wasn't getting done.

For those of us who remember our history, it brought to mind previous monarchs, ones who weren't irrelevant and actually ruled.  Their responsibilities in the baby-making business were crucial for the family to maintain an unbroken succession to the throne.

Mary Queen of Scots found herself facing a big hurdle when she married a man with advanced syphilis.  This poor woman had no luck with husbands.  As a girl, she was married off to Francis, the Valois heir to the French throne, but he was sickly and died in his teens.

Mary returned to Scotland to personally rule the kingdom she had inherited as a baby, and immersed herself in Europe's complex power struggle.  She was next in line to succeed Elizabeth I of England.  Her biggest rival for the throne was a cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley.  He had an advantage over her, being male, English, and favored by England's Catholics.  Marrying him solidified her position and made Elizabeth more likely to name Mary as her successor.

Marrying him was the right thing to do.  Or so it seemed at the time.

It didn't take long to recognize the advanced syphilis which plagued Darnley.  Nobody's perfect, of course, but the disease was a death sentence in the 16th century.  The intimate contact necessary to produce an heir would likely kill the Queen.

What to do?

Mary was raised in the French court, a hotbed of sexual, political, and religious intrigue.  As a precocious child, she learned a trick or two from the ambitious players in the royal reality show which nurtured her.  Catherine de Medici, the famed purveyor of diabolical mischief, had her own problems with conceiving an heir.  She solved her husband's indifference by excluding him from the process.  Catherine knew her witchcraft and used it prodigiously.

Mary took note and acquired a ringer of her own.  Years later, when the wife of James II tried the same trick, members of the court had grown wary; they demanded the right to witness these royal births as a safeguard against the chicanery of non-productive parents who might "magically" introduce an outsider--a foundling or product of a surrogate--into the royal bloodlines.

Mary's "son"--whom she despised even before he betrayed her--went on to become King James I of England.  His lack of a pedigree might be awkward for the family which traces its lineage back to Mary, except for the fact that monarchy no longer represents divine intercession in earthly affairs.  It is now nothing more than an attractive distraction and an extravagant tourist trap.

We tell the full story of Mary's escapades in the e-book "Mary Queen of Scots and the Magician-King," available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Photo of the Day

A fond look back to the good old days, when every McDonald's franchise was a portal to Hell.



A Little-Known Hollywood Legend

There is a Hollywood legend whose impact on show business history is undiminished by time--or the inconvenience of death.  This was a character unlike any other, in appearance, in personality, and in the quality of his conversation.  It was my great good fortune to meet him while he was "still dead."

I am referring to the incomparable, the unforgettable, Abby Greshler.

Wait a minute.  Abby?  A legend?  Abby?--the frail, elfin specter whose shriveled, transparent skin brought to mind a poorly embalmed Yoda?  Who could call that a legend?

Only those who ever encountered him.

Abbe was the agent who represented Tony Randall, Jack Klugman, and other successful celebrities.  Whenever his name was mentioned in knowledgeable, jovial show business circles, the joke was, "Abby?  Is he still dead?"  And, yes, he looked that bad.

Those who loved him, however, and depended on him to keep them employed, made the obligatory comments about his rather ghastly looks and demeanor, but what they truly relished was quoting his famous bon mots, those spontaneous lines that flowed effortlessly from his lips, as if gag writers toiled inside his bald head.

Tony Randall imitated Abby's muddled, "It's six of one, a dozen of the other"--the agent's way of saying there was no quantitative difference between two choices.

"What you need is a disease," he told Tony once.  "The trouble is, all the good ones are gone."  Eventually Abby arranged for Tony to act as a spokesperson in the fight against Myasthenia Gravis.  Tony felt hypocritical, and somewhat guilty, I think, when Ann-Margret's husband, Roger Smith, who had the disease, called him in a panic.  Tony didn't know what to do and complained to Abby about being in an untenable position.  "You don't need to know anything," Abby told him, "to talk about it."

I had seen Abby around Paramount before, but was not formally introduced to him until Tony's last night at the "Sonny and Cher Show."  Abbe and I sat together in the audience when Tony left us to do his skit.

"What funny lines did you write?" was the first thing Abby said to me.  "Tell me some of 'em, I'll tell you what I think."

"What did he think?--that I was auditioning as a comic?  If I had been, maybe I could've come up with some hilarious response to put him in his place.  Instead, I sat in stiff silence until the show--all of which I've forgotten, thanks to Abby--was over, and Tony came to rescue me.

On the way out, he stopped to say good night and introduce me to Sonny and Cher.  They were still in full makeup and wearing their usual colorful, glittering costumes.  Cher's exotic beauty was breathtaking and Sonny was adorably cute, but an aura of alienation permeated their dressing room.  It came as no surprise when their marriage ended.  Their faces and body language reflected an emotional distance which separated them even as they worked so closely and successfully together.

Meeting these two sad superstars--and the dear but deadly Abby--left me feeling less than uplifted.  Tony, always a little uncomfortable with genuine emotion, attributed all sorrow to the perils of show business.  He gave me his orange and black script to cheer me up.

It didn't, but somehow, it does now.  Aren't memories funny?

Photo of the Day

It's a little-known fact that at every full moon, Queen Victoria turned into a cat.

Fear and Loathing in Fernwood

At "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman," my boss often encouraged me to spend more time on the set with the actors.  I resisted.  Getting a show on the air five days a week was not an endeavor for the uncommitted.  The exertion created overwhelming stress and often led to physical and emotional exhaustion.  It was not always handled gracefully.

I never witnessed a Louise Lasser Tantrum--and felt blessed for it--but hearing from those who experienced her uncontrollable rage was enough to unnerve me.  I remember too well the trembling young courier who hid in my office after she verbally brutalized him for an inconsequential misstep.  There were tears in his eyes as he described running away from her because the fear and humiliation were too much for him; he said he had never seen anyone so angry in his life.

It seemed to me that Louise had two principle methods of stress-relief:  She either blew up--making life miserable for others--or she retreated into an alternate universe where others didn't exist.

One day when I was on the set I saw her in what appeared to be deep meditation.  She was sitting at Mary Hartman's kitchen table, seemingly unaware of her surroundings or the director who was about to call for action.  The show was behind schedule and over budget, so he and the producers wanted to film every scene in one take.  One take only.

This wasn't going to happen.

Louise's head wobbled slightly.  As her eyes opened, she looked around, bewildered and disoriented.

I sensed disaster and raced back to the producers' office where Brad and Eugenie were watching the scene on their TV monitors.

"She looks terrible!" I shouted, as if they couldn't see for themselves.  They seemed concerned, but not nearly as much as I was.  I needed to convince them that Louise was in no shape to do that scene.  Maybe there was time to call the set and delay taping until she came to her senses.  Otherwise they'd never get this scene in one take.

But no, it was too late.  The director called for action--and that's exactly what he got.  Louise miraculously came to life.  Right before our eyes, she transformed herself into Mary Hartman.  The scene was perfect--and in one take.

That was the day I learned never to underestimate Louise.