Life Can Be Golden

I don’t really like checking my Yahoo e-mail, because the entrance to my Inbox now lists the Top News Stories of the hour, whether I want to be bothered with them or not. Usually, not. Like today. On a deadline to finish writing bios for an important business plan, all I wanted to do was see if the client had sent along some details that were holding me up.

I didn’t want to read that the indomitable Sophia Petrillo of TV’s GOLDEN GIRLS, had died.

THE GOLDEN GIRLS will always be one of my favorite TV comedies. The brainchild of the one and only Brandon Tartikoff, who I believe was a genius on many levels, especially when he said that TV was ignoring the older viewer, the series showed people over 50 having a great time with their lives. They dated, had sex, worked at jobs that didn’t define who they were, laughed, ate cheesecake and ice cream without remorse, fought, made up, got on each others nerves and displayed a life that wasn’t wheelchairs, arthritis pain and doctor’s visits. Most of all, they leaned on each other as only true friends do. Trusted each other. Loved each other.

Estelle’s character Sophia played mother to them all, but in a new way. Full of sass and more outspoken and a triple Sagittarius, Getty was a total delight. Caring without carping about the laundry or emptying the dishwasher, she played 80 like 80 should be. Sans the wigs and makeup, Gerry wasn’t that much older than the three women who played opposite her.

This role of a lifetime came to Estelle later in life. She worked for 40 years in a tough business and finally hit the jackpot. She hung in there. I wonder how many times she was set to throw in the towel if she lost a part. But she didn’t.  It was another reason Getty made those of us over 40 hopeful. Magic and your dreams can happen, no matter what.

In those down times that find yourself on the phone to friends who knew you when you were 18, the idea of THE GOLDEN GIRLS offered us hope. In our lives, men left, people died, jobs were yanked away, money came and went, confidence ebbed, and the question of where life would find us when we were “over the hill” loomed like a New York Life commercial cartoon. The running joke was that we’d all move to Florida, get a house, and live like THE GOLDEN GIRLS. It made us happy. Hopeful.

Estelle Getty made us realize that “over the hill” isn’t. She made us laugh and made us hopeful. What a wonderful epitaph.

Texas Bruce

The Saturday morning e-mail was from a friend I’ve had since kindergarten. It was very simple – one line, “check this out” and a link to a TV station website in our native St. Louis. She sent it from her home outside New Orleans, and I opened it on a spectacularly beautiful dawn in New Mexico.

The headline said “Actor Known As Texas Bruce Passes Away.”

Suddenly I was four years old again, looking at a picture of the first bonafide celebrity that touched my white picket fence life in Webster Groves, Missouri. Texas Bruce was a TV star. Not just any TV star. He was THE TV star for those of us who were growing up alongside this electronic media. We were tubeside to watch Howdy Doody, and Sky King. Mouseketeers and a guy who made women cry when he chose them to be Queen for a Day. The Lone Ranger and Tonto and Annie Oakley and Lucy. It was a black and white world that came through our round TV tube, and it was the more exciting than I could imagine. My Mom had said Texas Bruce was from St. Louis, and that made him MY guy.

On special summer nights, my Dad would load my brother and I into the family station wagon alongside any stray neighborhood kids, and we’d all head to the ice cream stand for something to cool us off. Named Johns, and located near the train station, it was a magnet for other families spending their evening the same way. The place crawled with children and chocolate dips and smiles and a happy buzzy sound of neighbors exchanging greetings with one another. The highlight of some evenings was the arrival and then departure of the shiny silver and red train called The Texas Special. Everybody at Johns would stop and watch. People onboard waved. The train blew a state-of-the-art horn. For whatever reason, it was riveting. Then it was gone, whisking away it’s passengers to an exotic locale called Texas.

One night, as I watched the train disappear to the West, I noticed a very tall, thin man in a cowboy hat standing next to me. Cowboy hats were rare in my neck of the world, so it got my attention. It was when he began talking to the children around him that it hit me. I WAS STANDING NEXT TO TEXAS BRUCE FROM TV.

After a lifetime of using words, I still can’t find ones to describe the jolt of excitement and awe that gripped me at that moment. I can only say it must be akin to being struck by lightening. I couldn’t move. Or talk. Or make any sound whatsoever. The chocolate dip began to run down my hand, and all I did was stare. Transfixed. TEXAS BRUCE WAS REAL AND HE WAS STANDING NEXT TO ME.

My otherworldly moment was broken when my Dad yelled out my name. Still I didn’t move, which made him come get me.

“Hi, Harry. How you doing?” he asked of my idol as he reached down to take me by the hand.

“Great. Great. Getting the kids some ice cream,” said Texas Bruce.

Before I could take in another moment of this once in a lifetime excitement, I was headed home, wondering why my father called Texas Bruce Harry.

A few years later, decked out in my best Brownie outfit, we ventured downtown to actually be on TV with Texas Bruce. Be part of the live audience he called the Wrangler’s Club. It was my first brush with an official working TV show, and my guy Texas Bruce was as exciting then as he was when I met him on a hot summer night near the train station.

Harry Gibbs was the man who made Texas Bruce come alive. He lived in our little town with his children, one of whom was in my class. I even appeared in a play with the son, who had the lead of course, and I admit to being more than the usual nervous knowing Texas Bruce was out in the audience.

I went on to work in TV, to produce and write shows. Along the way I met Presidents, A-list stars, and even Prince Charles. Twice. But nobody ever came close to the power of Texas Bruce standing next to me at the ice cream parlour. I never told him about that moment, even though I was lucky enough to meet him several times along the way.

For an entire generation of children, Harry Gibbs brought smiles, excitement, afternoon cartoons and joy. He will be greatly missed.