"Lady On The Beach" had always been one of my favorite episodes precisely because of Judith. She ran around the whole time in a long, silky-white dress and white scarf pretending to be a ghost trying to haunt Thomas Magnum. I don't know about Thomas but she sure haunted me! With that porcelain skin and those huge blue eyes she was the most beautiful and mesmerizing ghost I'd seen since the days of Dark Shadows.
I'd seen "Lady On The Beach" twice and the opening trailers of Magnum always featured a clip from that episode, so even though I didn't know her name or who she was there was always this glimmer of Judith going on in my head every time I sat down to watch Magnum. I'd also seen another episode of Magnum that Judith guest starred in called "Black Orchid." It was an episode that was less memorable for me but rumored to be one of Selleck's favorites and also the namesake for his Honolulu restaurant. It was also the episode in which Judith and Tom locked lips. Interestingly enough, Judith wasn't the only person I met in Hollywood who claimed to have kissed Tom Selleck, but with Judith the proof was a matter of record on TV rather than just word of mouth.
My ex-wife Teri and I and our year old daughter Aurelia moved to Hollywood in the fall of 1983 and rented an apartment in a brand new complex near the Hollywood Bowl. The leasing agent over-sold the place to us by gushing on about how a famous soap opera actress who was on General Hospital was moving into the penthouse - as if that were reason enough by itself to sign a lease and move in. I guess it worked because we moved in shortly afterwards.
It must have been just a few weeks later that I was coming up to the apartment from the garage and looked over and there in the water hanging over the edge of the pool was Judith. I knew I knew her from somewhere - those eyes! But I couldn't think where. I ran into the apartment and sat down on the edge of the bed with Teri and blurted, "Sweetheart, there's somebody in the pool and I know I know her but I can't think how or where." Teri ran over to the window which looked out onto the pool and peered out through the blinds to see if she could help me.
"I recognize her too," she said in a whisper, "But I can't place her either." So we sat there on the edge of the bed for several minutes trying to figure out where the hell we knew this woman from. Since neither of us had ever seen General Hospital, where Judith was starring as Ginny Blake-Webber, we couldn't draw any parallels there.
And then all of a sudden it hit me...
"It's her," I yelled, "It's her, the girl from Magnum P.I. from that episode with the ghost, the lady in the white dress with the white scarf." Teri's eyes lit up as she remembered too. Too shy to do it myself I asked Teri if she'd go out to the pool and see if she could get a closer look just to be sure. She humoured me and went out to the pool and came back with a big smile on her face. "Yep, that's her alright!" And we hugged each other and threw ourselves on the bed, more than a little excited about who our new neighbor was.
Judith is about my same age although we both still pretend that I don't know what year she was born in. Let's just say for the sake of conversation that it's very close to mine. She's a fellow Scorpio and an actress; an honest to goodness, serious working actress who's never had to wait tables because she's always made money acting. (She has had one decidedly unglamorous, non-acting job but we'll get to that later.) I saw Judith on TV before I ever met her in person on Magnum P.I. in an episode called "Lady on the Beach." I was smitten with Tom Selleck and never missed an episode of his Hawaii based show back in the eighties.
Right from the moment I first saw her on TV Judith fascinated me. I'm not sure what it was but it's a fascination that I hold to this day even though we've been to hell and back a couple of times in our twenty years as friends. I'd love to get into some of the stories about what our hell together was like but I think most of those stories will have to be published posthumously.
But I will share this one with you:
Judith was famous for her parties and there's one that she hosted at her penthouse that we're still laughing about twenty years later. Among Judith's guests that evening were two or three deaf people, a couple of up and coming actors and a host of Hollywood others. I made a brief appearance at the party since Auri was sick and then returned home to help Teri care for her.
The party raged on well into the night as Judith's parties always did and as things got quieter out on the streets and around the complex the stereo from her penthouse got louder and louder. I tried calling her at one point to see if there was any chance that she could turn the stereo down a little but no one answered the phone. I asked Teri if it was my imagination or was the music just getting louder and louder? She reassured me that the music was indeed getting louder by the minute.
I finally walked over to Judith's and knocked on the door but nobody answered. I pounded and pounded but it was obvious no one could her me over the thundering music. So I ran back to our apartment, grabbed one of my cowboy boots and ran back over to Judith's and began pounding on the door with the heel of my boot and shouting, "Would you please turn the music down! My baby's sick and she can't get to sleep with all of this goddamn music blaring!!!"
By this time Judith had heard the pounding and was standing behind the door, afraid to open it. The music suddenly went quiet and Judith opened the door, standing mostly behind it for safety I think, while she pointed sheepishly to the deaf people who were still dancing wildly in front of the now silent speakers. Seems that the louder they turned up the music the more they could feel its vibrations in the floor. Everybody else had left the party, Judith had long since gone to bed and so nobody seemed to mind that the music just got louder and louder. Nobody except me of course. Judith sent a note of apology the next day and she's been telling the story ever since with the most merciless imitation of me shouting and banging on her door with the heel of my cowboy boot.
Through all of our numerous lovers and spouses, and there have been a few, Judith and I have always found safe refuge with each other. Maybe it's because we both know what it's like to live on the edge of insanity from time to time and so we don't get too caught up in the judgments about what happens when you're there.
And maybe it's because when the chaff has been blown away from the wheat and all the star gazers are out of the picture and most of the exes dead, divorced or in jail, you can finally see clearly enough through the haze to realize that there is still that one person standing there who doesn't really give a darn about anything other than the friendship.
Just for the record, Judith has been happily coupled with a gem of a man named James for many years now. He's handsome, secure, spiritually alive and a gifted artist and restaurateur who gives Judith all the room in the world to be Judith. Something no other man has ever been able to do before. Best of all he's perfectly content to let Judith and me continue our wild and wonderful friendship without interference or judgment. And that makes for one hell of a great man in my book.
It was in that first photo session with Judith back in 1983 that the pace and style of my photography work would be set. When Judith stepped in front of my camera for the first time it was pure and simple magic. She knew what to do with herself, how to work with her hands, lengthen her neck and how to play to the camera without staring it down. In a fluidity of movement that allowed me to capture any given moment and guided by her own unspoken fantasies, Judith created a magical setting that evening wherein I was able to shoot frame after frame of flawlessly beautiful images; many of which remain our favorites to this day.
Judith and I have continued over all these years of our friendship to create countless images together that are always beautiful and interesting. It's like old shoe comfort with us. The camera is lifted to my eye, Judith turns on the switch and off we go, never indulging in too much foo-fa or fanfare but just allowing ourselves to get lost in that special place and feeling that by now has become so second nature to us. The only exception to that was a session we did awhile back where I tried to photograph Judith using a digital camera. It was an unmitigated disaster and my first clue that digital wasn't going to work for me when it came to doing the kind of work I do with people.
It all came around full circle one summer when Judith wasn't working because of the actor's strike. She called me and said she was bored and could she come and work with me in my studio there in Hollywood. I told her the only thing I really needed help with was darkroom work, to which she enthusiastically said yes. I told her I couldn't pay her much but that I'd be happy to pay her something. I don't think she had any concept of what something meant to me in terms of dollars & cents. But she soon found out that ten bucks an hour didn't add up nearly as fast as those six figure salaries she'd been used to on television. Judith still tells people today, with a laugh to be sure, of how she earned her first real paycheck for something other than acting, in my darkroom. She also has a penchant for introducing me as the only photographer who has taken her picture in nearly twenty years. Even after having photographed lots of big names in the entertainment business, I still consider being Judith's exclusive photographer one of my biggest honors.
Through choices sometimes small and obvious and other times fitfully complicated, Judith and I have forged a bond that speaks to the genuine love and fascination we have for each other.
Through the years, Judith and I have had to sort out what being friends means to each of us. Even though we've sometimes questioned each other's motives, criticized each other's choices or been judgemental of each other's behavior, we have never questioned the importance of being in each other's lives. With family there's an unspoken, unseen bond that keeps you together. It could be blood, it could be spiritual origins and it could be just a feeling of obligation or habit. But with friends there seems to be a more flexible criteria as to whether or not you'll be in each other's lives. The bond seems to be less something that you're born with and more something that you choose and cultivate.
I had to laugh recently when Judith told me that James jokingly said he didn't mind if we ran off to go scuba diving together as long as we didn't have sex. I guess it seems so obvious to me and Judith that our relationship isn't sexual that we never bother to tell people that it isn't. We just assume they know. Judith and I have both acknowledged (my sexuality aside) that getting horizontal with each other at this point would be way too incestuous - we're too much like brother and sister for that. Even Scorpios have their boundaries believe it or not.
It didn't take long before we'd introduced ourselves to Judith and began to tell her with more than a little enthusiasm about how we'd seen her on Magnum and how much we loved "Lady On The Beach." When Judith asked me what I did, I fearlessly told her I was a photographer, even though at the time I was working in a one hour photo lab and taking pictures for free of anybody who'd sit for me. Hey, I owned a camera and some lights and I had a dream. And for me, that was all the qualifications I needed to be a professional photographer. I'm not sure how it all came about but before I knew it Judith and I had arranged to do a photo session and my career as well as our friendship was off and running.
Year after year we keep coming back to each other because when all is said and done, Judith and I really do love each other. When Teri and I divorced and I was broke, had given up my studio and was on the verge of tossing in the towel, Judith took me in and let me live with her until I could get myself back together. As Judith struggled through one difficult relationship after another I was there to remind her that not all men are jerks and that someday a good one would come along.
With Judith I felt like I had started with the best and worked my way up from there. And I always expected everybody else who stepped in front of my camera to deliver in much the same way she had - with little if any direction from me; confident and sure of the reason why they were there in front of the camera to begin with while relying on their own inner sense of attractiveness to make things work. My quietness behind the camera is sometimes unsettling to many of my clients at first but once they get used to it and realize that they aren't going to be getting any banter from me, they settle into their own quiet spaces and give me what I'm looking for.
When Judith calls on the phone all she has to say is Tom and I know who it is. One small word that I hear hundreds of times on any given day uttered by dozens of people, yet spoken by Judith and I know instantly who it is that's saying it, so completely a part of my consciousness is her voice. This is a friendship that moves along a path not cushioned by the security of family ties, sexual desire or contractual obligation. It's a friendship that makes its way securely along the winding paths of our lives because of all the big and small choices that Judith and I have made over the years to keep walking there together.
When Judith raised her hand, already clutching an earring she'd removed, to shield herself from the stare of the camera and to tell me she was through for the evening, I clicked off the last frame and that simple, spontaneous moment became our signature shot. We call it Paparazzo.
