so many feels. Each time I read about Michael it tears at my heart. I was a high school junior when I first saw Ordinary People. I was also surprised that Robert Redford directed it. It was the first time I saw Mary Tyler Moore in a dramatic role and she kicked my ass. And Timothy Hutton? 16 year old Bob was smitten and he broke my heart. Not only was Judd HIrsch my therapist, too, Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting also was my therapist. I know why you didn't approach Judd Hirsch (I was too nervous to approach Jennifer Anniston when she sat in front of me at The Glass Menagerie), but I do hope you write him and let him know. I have sent charming letters to actors, as well as authors, and invariably hear back. There is a song in the "camp hymnal" at church set to the tune of the Canon in D. Every time we sang it, I was transported back to the Gateway Theater, and Ordinary People. Thank you so much for writing this. I so wish I could have known Michael. xoxo
Thank you dear Bob xo I will find a way to send it Judd Hirsch. Isn't it amazing how music transports us right back to time and place? Love love love xo PS I wish you had known Michael too.
Thank you for this, Kerry. I remember that wonderful portrait! I just wanted to share that Ordinary People was far and away my mother's favorite movie. The fact that it moved her profoundly made me realize how deeply she felt about her complicated relationship with her mother. I loved my grandmother - she even inspired one of my books. But I know that even though my mom talked to her over the phone every single day (except for their annual big blowup where they didn't talk for a week or two) she had deep issues. We never pulled away from the curb after visiting without my mom venting to my understanding father, about whatever had gone on.
Grandma moved in with my parents in old age (she lived to be 92) and my mother took excellent care of her. I'll never really know deep down why Ordinary People affected her so deeply - to her very core - but she was grateful for it. Thank you for sharing your stories of Vicki, NIcki and especially Michael.
By the way, Judd would no doubt have been happy to hear from you.
Thank you so much, Betty - I love hearing about your mom and your grandmother and their relationship - it's always so tenuous i families. And thank you for saying that about Judd - maybe I'll try to send it his way. Love you, Betty xo
This makes my heart ache, for all that's lost and all the ways you've kept the late ones you love alive. I lost a fiance to cancer when I was 20 and he was 26,, in June, and no one let me out of their sight all summer. (I went to my parents' 25th reunion with them at that weird hotel across from West Town!) Then, boom, school started, and I was working 20 hours at Children's Palace and 10 at Hoskins and going to school FT, and no one around me simply ever mentioned it again in my world, although his mom and stepdad came from Brentwood and took me to lunch at Ruby Tuesday's once.
Thank you dear Tracy - I'm so sorry about your boyfriend - I know the geography you speak of so well, the landscape and your heart too. Sending so much love xo Did you ever write about him? Ah, Ruby Tuesday's too and your mom and stepdad - so much.
thank you dear Kerry for the nudge to re-post this-
this transports me back to a specific time and place… I have a (very different) connection to Ordinary People. The very first almost-famous person I knew, Scot Doebler (I had to look up his last name) was in my freshman english class at the U of M. Somehow we were in there with a whole bunch of unscholarly “student athletes” and a sparse handful of young women, and we talked and laughed and our TA Jenny Something hated us.
Scot told me he had just filmed the movie Ordinary People, playing the older brother, but the film hadn’t been released yet; and I wasn’t always sure it was true - working with Robert Redford! - except he was so golden and shiny it certainly seemed like he could end up a famous actor.
Jenny the TA hated everything I wrote for class and I could hardly believe the way she slashed her pen across my pages, and as someone who came out of high school with slim confidence but at least “could write,” it was traumatizing. Finally someone told me I could test out of the requirement for freshman english but needed her to sign a form, and that took a lot of courage to ask one day after class. She scoffed at me and said, “you’ll never test out.” I easily passed the test but that meant giving up laughing with Scot, whom I never ran into again.
And the movie came out and his part completely cut, except for a photo glimpsed on a shelf in the family home and maybe a flashback, but his name was in the credits so I knew it was true and that he was An Actor.
It was years before I realized how the homely and overworked TA had her reasons for resenting us, the way we laughed and his big star smile and maybe even the carefree phrasing of my writing - I used too many big words for her liking - and yes, we should have been more respectful but gawd the student athletes were the worst.
and now I look up Scot and see that youth and beauty in his obituary photo, he has died, too soon:
I love learning about Scot Doebler and your freshman experience with the grouchy TA who was clearly miserable and everything about the vulnerability of freshman year and all it holds and what we don't know. Thank you, dear Jen. xo
so many feels. Each time I read about Michael it tears at my heart. I was a high school junior when I first saw Ordinary People. I was also surprised that Robert Redford directed it. It was the first time I saw Mary Tyler Moore in a dramatic role and she kicked my ass. And Timothy Hutton? 16 year old Bob was smitten and he broke my heart. Not only was Judd HIrsch my therapist, too, Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting also was my therapist. I know why you didn't approach Judd Hirsch (I was too nervous to approach Jennifer Anniston when she sat in front of me at The Glass Menagerie), but I do hope you write him and let him know. I have sent charming letters to actors, as well as authors, and invariably hear back. There is a song in the "camp hymnal" at church set to the tune of the Canon in D. Every time we sang it, I was transported back to the Gateway Theater, and Ordinary People. Thank you so much for writing this. I so wish I could have known Michael. xoxo
Thank you dear Bob xo I will find a way to send it Judd Hirsch. Isn't it amazing how music transports us right back to time and place? Love love love xo PS I wish you had known Michael too.
Thank you for this, Kerry. I remember that wonderful portrait! I just wanted to share that Ordinary People was far and away my mother's favorite movie. The fact that it moved her profoundly made me realize how deeply she felt about her complicated relationship with her mother. I loved my grandmother - she even inspired one of my books. But I know that even though my mom talked to her over the phone every single day (except for their annual big blowup where they didn't talk for a week or two) she had deep issues. We never pulled away from the curb after visiting without my mom venting to my understanding father, about whatever had gone on.
Grandma moved in with my parents in old age (she lived to be 92) and my mother took excellent care of her. I'll never really know deep down why Ordinary People affected her so deeply - to her very core - but she was grateful for it. Thank you for sharing your stories of Vicki, NIcki and especially Michael.
By the way, Judd would no doubt have been happy to hear from you.
Thank you so much, Betty - I love hearing about your mom and your grandmother and their relationship - it's always so tenuous i families. And thank you for saying that about Judd - maybe I'll try to send it his way. Love you, Betty xo
This makes my heart ache, for all that's lost and all the ways you've kept the late ones you love alive. I lost a fiance to cancer when I was 20 and he was 26,, in June, and no one let me out of their sight all summer. (I went to my parents' 25th reunion with them at that weird hotel across from West Town!) Then, boom, school started, and I was working 20 hours at Children's Palace and 10 at Hoskins and going to school FT, and no one around me simply ever mentioned it again in my world, although his mom and stepdad came from Brentwood and took me to lunch at Ruby Tuesday's once.
Thank you dear Tracy - I'm so sorry about your boyfriend - I know the geography you speak of so well, the landscape and your heart too. Sending so much love xo Did you ever write about him? Ah, Ruby Tuesday's too and your mom and stepdad - so much.
I never have!
I hope you do one day xo
thank you dear Kerry for the nudge to re-post this-
this transports me back to a specific time and place… I have a (very different) connection to Ordinary People. The very first almost-famous person I knew, Scot Doebler (I had to look up his last name) was in my freshman english class at the U of M. Somehow we were in there with a whole bunch of unscholarly “student athletes” and a sparse handful of young women, and we talked and laughed and our TA Jenny Something hated us.
Scot told me he had just filmed the movie Ordinary People, playing the older brother, but the film hadn’t been released yet; and I wasn’t always sure it was true - working with Robert Redford! - except he was so golden and shiny it certainly seemed like he could end up a famous actor.
Jenny the TA hated everything I wrote for class and I could hardly believe the way she slashed her pen across my pages, and as someone who came out of high school with slim confidence but at least “could write,” it was traumatizing. Finally someone told me I could test out of the requirement for freshman english but needed her to sign a form, and that took a lot of courage to ask one day after class. She scoffed at me and said, “you’ll never test out.” I easily passed the test but that meant giving up laughing with Scot, whom I never ran into again.
And the movie came out and his part completely cut, except for a photo glimpsed on a shelf in the family home and maybe a flashback, but his name was in the credits so I knew it was true and that he was An Actor.
It was years before I realized how the homely and overworked TA had her reasons for resenting us, the way we laughed and his big star smile and maybe even the carefree phrasing of my writing - I used too many big words for her liking - and yes, we should have been more respectful but gawd the student athletes were the worst.
and now I look up Scot and see that youth and beauty in his obituary photo, he has died, too soon:
https://m.startribune.com/obituaries/detail/13853141/
I love learning about Scot Doebler and your freshman experience with the grouchy TA who was clearly miserable and everything about the vulnerability of freshman year and all it holds and what we don't know. Thank you, dear Jen. xo