DOUBLE IN PARADISE

There has been talk in the Gless/Rosenzweig household of a move from our island paradise to Hollywood… not the show biz town of California fame but the one just twenty miles to the north of Miami here in my adopted State of Florida.

There are multiple motivators for such a drastic move: Florida law mandates a most serious and invasive inspection of all condominium structures on their 40^th anniversary. Our home on Fisher Island is well into that mandated fourth decade. Scaffolding, drilling for signs of rebar rust, noise, and dirt are all byproducts of such an inspection, along with heavy assessments to cover the cost of what could take much more than a year to complete.

Adding to the noise and loss of privacy are the newly mandated seawalls that need to be constructed… directly in front of my living room view. Insurance rates in the State of Florida have surely not helped, and then there is the very real fact that this paradise of mine… always a haven for the haves and the have mores… is not the best of all possible economic models. Added to all this is the problem of our island being inundated by a plethora of billionaire tech tycoons to the point of Fisher Island becoming overly publicized as the most expensive zip code in the United States of America.

I know, I know: high class problems.

Over the past 25 years, here on my warm island, I have been vaguely aware of these facts and possibilities but have inevitably placed them on a backburner. I just had not minded it much, mostly because I did not believe I was going to live long enough for it to matter.

Simply put, when at age 58, I made the decision to drop out of Hollywood (the reel [sic] one, not the one in Florida) I had anticipated a maximum lifespan of no more than an additional quarter of a century. I felt I had enough stashed away to see that through. That quarter of a century came and went two years ago. Turns out I may well be facing the prospect of too much life at the end of the money.

Who could I upbraid for this major miscalculation? Not my business managers. I had ended any association with professional financial management in the previous century… there was no blaming them. A name from my past wafted into my consciousness. It was all the fault of George Kirgo.

More than the one-time President of the Writers Guild of America… more, even than an uncle to my Cagney & Lacey star, Tyne Daly, George Kirgo was a top-notch writer who once wrote a screenplay for me that became a movie for television starring Peter Strauss, Richard Kiley, and Barbara Hershey. The film was based on a movie made in the 1940s called Angel on My Shoulder. Our version had the same title but suffered some for not starring the original cast of Paul Muni, Claude Rains, and Anne Baxter.

In 1981, when our remake was finally screened, Writer Kirgo sent me a present. Apparently, he was grateful for the gig and not displeased with the result. The gift was a framed photograph of me in a somewhat formal pose. An odd gift, I thought, but a closer look at the photo had me even more puzzled. Not only did I not remember sitting for this photo session, I did not recognize the suit or the tie I was wearing. An even closer examination revealed that the photo was not of me at all, but of the internationally famed post-impressionist artist, Henri Matisse.

Since Angel on My Shoulder was a fantasy yarn about a doppelganger---an apparition, or double of a living person---the appropriateness of the gift was now abundantly clear. Aptness aside, I found that I was fascinated by the photo of this man who, decades before I was even born, had been my then-age of fortysomething when this portrait was taken.

The way Matisse sat, his expression, the tilt of his head, his right-hand placed on his left forearm. It was so…so… me. As I stared at the Matisse image, I thought, “… if I have his eyes, his nose, his hairline, his cheek bones, and his chin… could I not also have his lungs, his heart, and liver?” What, I wondered, had caused his death.

A quick search informed me that this internationally acclaimed artist had died, just after turning 84 years of age, of a gastro-intestinal disorder, in the company of his much younger Russian mistress.

“Works for me,” I said aloud to no one in particular.

That was then. I was but 43 years of age. It was my Dorian Gray moment… a bargain with the deity… or the devil. Another forty years on the planet and dying at the ripe old age of 83, of a malady with which I had some familiarity, had all the elements of a worthwhile “plan.” Sadly, it is one of the reasons that today, more than two years past that date with which (in 1981) I had made my peace, I must now face certain truths: I am in relatively good health, there is no end in sight, and (God help me) no real financial plan to go on indefinitely. My entire show business stash had been allocated on a divisible-by-40 number. And it is all because of my doppelganger, Henri Matisse, and that cursed gift from George Kirgo. What if, heaven forfend, I should live into my 90s?

This brings me back to the option of Hollywood… No, I am not going back to work. I remind the reader of the tiny community, a ferry ride plus a half-hour drive to the north. A friend has offered a fabulous…truly fabulous apartment, right on the ocean of this beach town just south of the port at Fort Lauderdale---a short hop to the Lauderdale airport.

It is a bit pricey as a long-term rental, but a fraction of what the monthly cost of living is here on Fisher Island. Plus, there would be all that money in the bank from the sale of our home in paradise. A new adventure to begin in my 86^th year? Why not? Ms. Gless and I talked about the possibility of such a move.

“Any room you’re in,” she says. She has always been a standup/supportive partner.

I thought about the adage of moving old people and how that is often as fatal as is the transplantation of a delicate flower. I thought about how every day, in every way… no matter the ache, or pain, or sense of chemical imbalance… how a look around my home, a glance at the views from my porch, my golf cart, the beach club, or just about anywhere on this two-mile round Eden, brings a smile to my face… often through tears of gratitude.

Am I going to give this up for some ninety-five-year-old guy I have yet to meet… and may never live long enough to be?

What, one might ask, would Henri Matisse do… or Oscar Wilde?

Me? I am staying put… right here in paradise.

 

Barney Rosenzweig