country, but they were relics of the past in
the age of the Beatles and actors who looked and talked more like construction workers than matinee idols.
First they had gone bankrupt, then in 1974 they had divorced. Jeffrey had enjoyed a brief Indian summer hosting an afternoon
game show on television, but Lauren (“Larry”) was already in and out of clinics with a drinking problem that she seemed unable
to master, and probably didn’t want to. She had died in 1978.
Jeffrey, despite his brief popularity on television, had fared little better. By the mid-seventies he was terminally out of
work, and in 1984, six years after his ex-wife’s death, he had gassed himself in the tiny apartment he was renting in south
London.
Then Larry heard the words he had been waiting for, wondering if he was going to react. There had been a son. Laurence Jeffrey
Hart. Larry.
He sat there listening to the junior partner speak of him as an abstraction, a name to which no face or physical reality was
attached. He heard how he’d been born in 1960, a late child who must have seemed like the crowning happiness in the lives
of his, at that time, still famous and successful parents.
Jeffrey had seen photographs of his early childhood, though he remembered little of it. His parents had weathered Elvis and
rock and roll by that time, which had instilled in them a false and very unfortunate confidence about the future; after all,
there had still been an audience throughout the fifties for what they had to offer, so why wouldn’t there always be one? They
had lived to regret the money squandered on fashionable living, the rented house in Mayfair, the nanny and the cook, the Rolls-Royce
and uniformed chauffeur. It had been a hard lesson, all the harder because too late.
The first surroundings of which the young Larry was really aware were a series of theatrical “digs” that his parents lived
in while touring old West End hits around the provinces. It was not a glamorous life, and his mother’s drinking habit was
beginning to make itself felt. She was still a lively and often flirtatious drunk, but the hangovers were getting worse.
Eventually Larry was sent away to school, paid for out of a trust left by grandparents. Holidays were a nightmare, shuttling
between two desperately unhappy and now self-destructive parents. Perhaps out of a lack of imagination, at least that was
how he felt about it, he became an actor and got a little work for a few years, mainly in fringe theater. Then, as he heard
the junior partner solemnly announcing, young Larry Hart had dropped out of sight. That was almost twenty years ago. The firm’s
associates in London had called Equity as well as his former agents, but nobody had any clue as to his whereabouts, or even
whether he was alive or dead.
The junior partner closed the file he had been reading from and pushed it across his desk to the man he took to be his client.
Did Mr. Daly wish, he asked, to pursue further the search for Laurence Jeffrey Hart?
Larry took a deep breath. How tempting it was to tell them that the man they were discussing was sitting with them at that
moment, but he had gone too far by now to be honest. There would be accusations of deception, all kinds of complications.
Besides, his main concern was to find out why this man they took him for, George Daly, was so interested in him and his parents.
“I’d like to think about it,” he said. “Over the weekend. I’ll get back to you on Monday.”
With that they had shaken hands and he had stood up to leave. There was nothing to pay, Nadia Shelley informed him. Everything
so far was covered by the retainer he’d paid on hiring them; he would find an itemized accounting in the folder.
He would also find, he knew because he had glimpsed it, the address and phone number of the client, George Daly. That was
his prize.
And that was what had brought us, Larry Hart and myself, to our Saturday
the age of the Beatles and actors who looked and talked more like construction workers than matinee idols.
First they had gone bankrupt, then in 1974 they had divorced. Jeffrey had enjoyed a brief Indian summer hosting an afternoon
game show on television, but Lauren (“Larry”) was already in and out of clinics with a drinking problem that she seemed unable
to master, and probably didn’t want to. She had died in 1978.
Jeffrey, despite his brief popularity on television, had fared little better. By the mid-seventies he was terminally out of
work, and in 1984, six years after his ex-wife’s death, he had gassed himself in the tiny apartment he was renting in south
London.
Then Larry heard the words he had been waiting for, wondering if he was going to react. There had been a son. Laurence Jeffrey
Hart. Larry.
He sat there listening to the junior partner speak of him as an abstraction, a name to which no face or physical reality was
attached. He heard how he’d been born in 1960, a late child who must have seemed like the crowning happiness in the lives
of his, at that time, still famous and successful parents.
Jeffrey had seen photographs of his early childhood, though he remembered little of it. His parents had weathered Elvis and
rock and roll by that time, which had instilled in them a false and very unfortunate confidence about the future; after all,
there had still been an audience throughout the fifties for what they had to offer, so why wouldn’t there always be one? They
had lived to regret the money squandered on fashionable living, the rented house in Mayfair, the nanny and the cook, the Rolls-Royce
and uniformed chauffeur. It had been a hard lesson, all the harder because too late.
The first surroundings of which the young Larry was really aware were a series of theatrical “digs” that his parents lived
in while touring old West End hits around the provinces. It was not a glamorous life, and his mother’s drinking habit was
beginning to make itself felt. She was still a lively and often flirtatious drunk, but the hangovers were getting worse.
Eventually Larry was sent away to school, paid for out of a trust left by grandparents. Holidays were a nightmare, shuttling
between two desperately unhappy and now self-destructive parents. Perhaps out of a lack of imagination, at least that was
how he felt about it, he became an actor and got a little work for a few years, mainly in fringe theater. Then, as he heard
the junior partner solemnly announcing, young Larry Hart had dropped out of sight. That was almost twenty years ago. The firm’s
associates in London had called Equity as well as his former agents, but nobody had any clue as to his whereabouts, or even
whether he was alive or dead.
The junior partner closed the file he had been reading from and pushed it across his desk to the man he took to be his client.
Did Mr. Daly wish, he asked, to pursue further the search for Laurence Jeffrey Hart?
Larry took a deep breath. How tempting it was to tell them that the man they were discussing was sitting with them at that
moment, but he had gone too far by now to be honest. There would be accusations of deception, all kinds of complications.
Besides, his main concern was to find out why this man they took him for, George Daly, was so interested in him and his parents.
“I’d like to think about it,” he said. “Over the weekend. I’ll get back to you on Monday.”
With that they had shaken hands and he had stood up to leave. There was nothing to pay, Nadia Shelley informed him. Everything
so far was covered by the retainer he’d paid on hiring them; he would find an itemized accounting in the folder.
He would also find, he knew because he had glimpsed it, the address and phone number of the client, George Daly. That was
his prize.
And that was what had brought us, Larry Hart and myself, to our Saturday
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