I'm Not Dead... Yet! (30 page)
I was prescribed pills. I went to a couple of sessions that were called cardio rehab, but that was just learning how to stretch and keep moving. Every inquiry I made through my cardiologist was returned with a well-rehearsed sentence or two about
time
. ‘Time heals all wounds.’ I felt like time was my enemy, and I didn’t want more rest or to learn how to stretch. They screwed with my heart—I only had ‘so much’ time. I went back to the only way I knew how to deal with problems of the mind and body: exercise. And exercise at my pace. My first goal was to prove to myself that I was better than ever, which could not be accomplished without old-fashioned hard work. Hard work. At least I understood what that meant. You get what you give. So I (foolishly) gave a lot.
I went back to the gym immediately, forgoing protocol and creating my own cardio rehab.
I pushed myself hard, training for a 10K race to be run exactly eight weeks to the day after my open-heart surgery.
Every time I’d hit a painful moment in the gym I’d visualize the outcome—and the ‘future images’ kept me pushing past the pain, putting the operation behind me as if it never existed.
The race was held at midnight on New Years Eve, running off-road and sometimes crossing streams on a nature path. Karla wasn’t worried because my best friend and teammate since grade school, Randy Gunter, was going to run and he’d hold the flashlight for us. In the past he had never beaten me in any race. Now I was running 8-minute miles, not 6-minute miles, and he not only could keep up, at about the 5K mark, he decided to ‘put me away.’ I had no problem with that—except he took the damn flashlight with him. I spent the last 3.1 miles running in the dark. Karla was upset with him, but I love Randy. He is like the brother you can’t ever get pissed at—this was his chance to beat me, and he did. Fair and square. (I crushed him in the next race. Fair and square.)
Accomplishing my goal through physical exercise was my only tangible way to show family, doctors, my agent and anyone paying attention I was physically capable of continuing at my former pace. Would it have been worse if I came home from the hospital and sat on the couch doing nothing? Yes. I believe you must get up and move. But really—what kind of idiot was I? A big one, constantly thinking I knew best. I didn’t. I could’ve killed myself in the gym. And if not killed myself, I could’ve done serious damage to my chest.
Now, after four open-heart surgeries, I have come to an understanding that we must consult the experts and set realistic goals for ourselves after surgery. Unfortunately, back in the 80s, I didn’t have anyone willing to discuss or consult with me about anything. But today, doctors and surgeons understand that what we do after the surgery is just as important as life before the surgery. My self-designed cardio rehab was insane. I was thinking with my testosterone, not my head.
The upside?
I was in tremendous shape. Rick called, happy to relay some good news: I was offered the lead in an ABC TV movie
California Girls
. Charles Rosin’s fanciful script was solid, and I still adore Rick Wallace, who directed, but I took the part because there were scenes where I would have my shirt off in the sun, and my chest exposed. This was a test; make-up would have to be applied over my still tender and scabby scar. But I knew the the right make-up to use, and as it turned out, the make-up artist agreed: mellow-yellow.
I took the challenge to prove to myself I could still carry a film, albeit a TV movie (with a harder schedule than a feature film because it’s shot in less time). I had my doubts. Did I have the stamina? And what would I look like with my shirt off when the film came back from the lab?
It almost worked, but if you look closely, you can see the ‘zipper’ going from my sternum vertically down to inches above my belly-button. (In my mind my scar was the still the size of the Mississippi River.) Most importantly: I passed the physical with flying colors. With my new bovine valve in place courtesy of Dr. Laks and his team at UCLA, I was
insured
.
Less than a month later we were out of town working on a small project in Rhode Island. I awoke having tremendous chest pain with every breath, every heart beat. I
never
felt this before. I scared Karla when I said ‘yes’ to her suggestion we get to an emergency room. Normally, I’d just shrug it off. But I knew something was wrong.
I told the E.R. doctor that Karla was having chest pains. It was hysterical (even in pain) watching Karla try to convince the doctor I was the one in severe pain. (She’s such a good sport! And I’m an ass. But making jokes or messing with the scenario seemed to calm everyone down.)
The doctor immediately put nitroglycerin under my tongue. Now Karla and I were both scared—nitroglycerin? That standard TV-doctor Rx made me think I was no longer just someone born with a bad valve that was fixed. Was I having a heart attack? Actually, nitroglycerin: was I going to blow up?! I could see the headlines in
Variety:
“Benson Goes Boffo Boom!”
They put me on a heart monitor, did blood tests, and called L.A. to track down my cardiologist. I had no swelling in my ankles (a warning sign of many heart related conditions) and my heart function and sinus rhythm were normal.
The pain was caused by my first in a long series of bouts with
pericarditis,
an inflammation of the heart sac. My cardiologist explained when the heart sac is cut during surgery, cells released into the blood stream appear foreign to the body’s immune system and the response can cause the inflammation.
They prescribed a high dose of Prednisone for three days. After the first day’s dose the pain was gone, but by the end of three days I was
nuts
. It works differently with different patients but the doctor told me there was a chance this drug would make me feel indestructible; elated; dismayed; gracious; hateful; benevolent; homicidal—oh, all at the same time. Prednisone is a very powerful drug (a steroid, which they no longer prescribe for this) and it did what it was supposed to do, it took down the swelling around my heart. I was thankful… and an incredible asshole.
Television series producers
Paul Witt and Tony Thomas, liked my character in
California Girls
so much they asked me to play that same kind of guy as a young detective in their new untitled TV series. If I was willing to sign on they had a six-episode commitment from CBS. This was a difficult decision for me. It had just become acceptable for a film actor to do a television movie now and again, but a TV series was the ‘elephant burial ground’ for a film star’s career. From a career standpoint, I was desperate. Desperate and looking for a magical cure. Witt-Thomas promised me the moon to star in their ‘dramedy,’ saying I would be involved in every major decision. I did not know what my ‘heart’ future would hold, and here was a chance to be a
working
actor again, get my Screen Actors Guild health insurance, and bring in a steady income for my family. The answer had to be: ‘Yes.’
That was the last decision where I had a say. Once they had me—they owned me. When the powers that be decided to call it
Tough Cookies
,
I knew I was in trouble. Instead of writing in the adorably feisty Elizabeth Pena as my potential love interest, they hired an actress who looked ten years my senior as my girlfriend. It’s not that she wasn’t talented, it just looked silly. The show was a mid-season replacement; it stunk, I got trashed in the reviews, and it was cancelled after six episodes.
One memory I will never get out of my loop of indelible images: Adam Arkin (who I would later direct in a series with my dear friend Joely Fisher), the warm and wonderful Lainie Kazan, and the entire cast and crew were huddled around a TV on January 28, 1986 watching in tears when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. It’s a day I’ll never forget.
Over the course of my career I had gone from ‘the darling of the press’ to a punching bag for journalists and reviewers. Even my name ending in a ‘y’ was fodder for their derision: ‘Robby? When is he going to become Robert? How can you take an actor called Robby seriously?’ (Too bad for Jimmy Stewart, Mickey Rooney, Danny Kaye, Johnny Carson, Jimmy Carter, Johnny Depp...) I worked my ass off for fifteen years at that point making a name for myself. I wasn’t going to change my name to appease anyone. But I thought about it. I thought about anything that would somehow take the stigma of open-heart surgery away from a young actor.
Although I was an ‘I don’t read reviews’ paladin in public, in private I would memorize the hurtful words and, for some bizarre reason, throw out the good reviews. I understood that ‘soft’ and ‘edgy’ are merely jargon-stamps that a superficial industry uses to make multimillion-dollar decisions. I realized I couldn’t change my identity the way an actor can change roles; I came to the conclusion that it’s best to show warts and all. Any deviation from self-awareness for reasons of vanity, ego or pride will eventually expose the very substance I’d like to conceal. In other words, I’d be a hypocrite.