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.