Up Till Now: The Autobiography

demonstration that changed my life. An obviously severely handicapped child was sitting on a horse; a handler was leading the horse around the ring as spotters walked on either side of this child. This was the first time I had ever seen riding therapy. This was my introduction to a program called Ahead with Horses.
    As I learned, when a physically or emotionally handicapped child sits astride a horse something magical transpires. Kids who can’t walk get motion. Kids who can’t talk garble something to the horse. Kids who have difficulty relating to the world somehow communicate with these horses. I saw children who literally could not hold up their heads lead horses through intricate exercises. Watching these children interact with horses will move people beyond tears. You seethese children who have been afflicted with terrible handicaps just blossom, you see them smile and laugh.
    I’d found my charity. So since 1990 the Hollywood Charity Horse Show has raised funds to support Ahead with Horses. A few years later we began adding other charities, among them Camp Max Straus, a summer camp especially for inner-city kids with physical, emotional, behavioral, or social interaction problems that would make it almost impossible for them to attend traditional camps.
    The Wells Fargo—they have become the primary sponsor— Hollywood Charity Horse Show usually takes place in late April. In addition to a silent auction, top-notch entertainment, and an arena show, we serve a wonderful dinner. Tickets are expensive, in 2007 they were $250, but every dollar—not almost every dollar— every single dollar goes directly to our charities.
    So if you’d like to make a difference in a child’s life, please visit www.Horseshow.org for details. Now let us return to Angie Dickinson’s naked body.
    The set had been almost completely cleared. I pulled back the covers of the bed and slid into it. “Wait a second,” Angie said loudly. “You know what, Roger, I think we need the makeup people.”
    Roger yelled, “Get George back in here. Tell him he can stay.” “And the lighting director. We definitely need him.” “Fred, come on back in too.” “And the grips, maybe they should stay here too. Oh, and you know what? Sound, we’ve got to have the sound men here, don’t we?”
    I propped myself up on my elbow. Eventually she named just about everyone on the entire crew—you can stay, let him stay, you’d better stay. The only person she didn’t name was a craft services guy—someone who served lunch—and he wandered off the set but snuck back on later.
    Finally we shot the scene. It wasn’t nearly as... hard as I had feared. Everything was so technical. Move your nose jusssst a little to the left, please, that’s good. Now put your arm down. Now just move back and forth, wait wait wait, your arm’s in the wrong place. Makeup! Please touch up Angie’s eye shadow, thank you.
    By the mid-1960s I was no longer even being offered parts that were going to make me a star. Gloria and I were living in a comfortable home—with the requisite pool—in Sherman Oaks with our three girls, Leslie, Melanie, and Lisbeth. Truthfully, I was struggling. It seemed like the more I worked the further behind I got. My parents would come down from Montreal to see their grandchildren and I can vividly remember my father sitting by the pool and asking me, “So? How are you doing?”
    I told him the truth. “It’s tough, Dad. I got the mortgage, I got all the things the girls need...”
    “Can I help you?” he asked.
    I probably smiled at that offer. “Dad,” I told him, “you don’t have enough money to help me.”
    I really didn’t know what I was going to do. I felt trapped: I was doing what I had dreamed of doing, working as an actor. I’d appeared on Broadway and in important movies and on every respected television show. I’d worked with the best producers and writers and directors. I’d gotten many superb reviews and even won awards—but I wasn’t earning enough money to support my family. Had I been single, with few responsibilities, I would have been fine. So I began to wonder if this was the time to find another career.
    If there was something else I could have done, this was the time I would have done it. What I could not possibly know then was I was ending one chapter of my life, but another vitally important chapter was about to begin. That was chapter five.

FIVE

    After the pilot for the Alexander the Great