A Valentine from Nobody: Los Angeles, 1973

Death, Fame, & Losing It the First Time

The first fella I ever kissed, ever had sex with, died during Valentine's week a few years ago. His fans were heartbroken. I read about it in the paper—in his later years, Richard Hatch had become famous.

I hadn’t thought about him in decades, but you know . . . Mortality. When he died, I was 59. He was 71.

Richard was an actor who, when I knew him at twenty-seven, thought he was entirely washed up.

“Call the mortuary,” he’d say.

I was his next door neighbor in 1973— he lived in the basement of a German family’s home, whose child I tutored. I had just moved to LA from Canada to live with my dad.

I did not know Richard—always Rich-ERD, never “Richie“ or “Dick—for very long at all. A springtime, almost a summer. We were both on the cusp of something else. The last time I saw Richard, we had sex in a blur and he jumped up, soaking sweaty wet, saying, “Maybe this time!”

He raced off to a TV audition. I was off to an anti-LAPD demonstration.

And that was that. Sometimes sex right before something important can add an extra spark.

Richard died of pancreatic cancer, his obit said. That jarred me. Just like my first longtime partner, Honey Lee. Oddly, same age difference— they were both 13 years older than I. Honey Lee relished her age. She liked being grey-haired, not an “baby” — the presumption of authority.

Richard, on the other hand, fell to pieces the first time he found a white hair on his head. He squeezed fresh carrot juice every day for “vitality.” Oh, what a mess it was, orange pulp everywhere.

That's how I met him: I cleaned his apartment with my girlfriend, Joelle. We were the hardest working teens in the canyon: car-washing, pot-cleaning, babysitting, tutoring (she did the algebra, I did English), pool cleaning, windows. We were determined to make a bundle, and if there were adventures along the way, all the better. Every day seemed like a surprise, and Joelle knew how to raise the ante.

Below is the page from my teenage diary the day I "lost my virginity." You can't see the faded felt pen, but it says, "March 2, high as a kite."