At any rate, I was thinking something as I hovered over Skinner’s shoulder in “Tooms,” and John Bartley lit the clouds of smoke around my face with a relish that did much to cement the character in the viewer’s mind. Not only that, I actually spoke. One line: “Yes I do.” Three or four episodes later in the season finale the final shot echoed the final shot of the pilot, as I walked down this mysterious corridor, put something mysterious in a drawer, and then walked out. Well, in truth, the shot didn’t just mirror the shot from the pilot, it was the shot from the pilot. At least the walking part; they couldn’t afford to hire a crane a second time so the scene was patched together. But it looks great and set up many questions for season 2.
Meantime, what was happening in the life of William B. Davis? Not much. I was fired by my agent and my marriage broke up.
Breakups
Let’s start with the agent. When I first moved to Vancouver in 1985 to take over the Vancouver Playhouse Acting School, I signed up with Bruce Ward of the Act Four agency. I was primarily an acting teacher at the time, although I had a flurry of success as an actor in 1987, including the previously mentioned series Airwolf, and other projects in the years following. One day in 1993 I was sitting in the office of my new school reading my mail and there was a letter from my agent. The letter informed me that they were reorganizing the agency and they didn’t think they could do anything for me. In other words, I was fired. I was shocked. I had stood by Bruce Ward through many changes in the agency; I had stayed with him when his assistant poached many of his clients and took them to another agency; I had been loyal and professional. And he sends me what was essentially a form letter. Nothing personal, no invitation for coffee, just moving on. Well, what can I say? He sent the letter after I had done the pilot for The X-Files. Sometimes people make bad decisions.
I was to discover that starting an acting school was as challenging as starting a theatre company, something I had done once, vowed to never do again, did a second time, and swore that would be the last time. It may be that starting a business in any field is going to be demanding and overwhelm other aspects of one’s life. At any rate, months went by before I took any steps to find a new agent. As you can see, my acting career was not high on my agenda. Finally, I contacted Richard Lucas, an agent in Vancouver whom I had long admired, and asked him if he would like to take me on. He respected my position in the professional community, but didn’t really know what my prospects might be as an actor. Neither of us thought to notice that I had done the pilot for The X-Files and that might suggest some financial success down the road. Richard contacted local casting agents to get their take on me. They were all really positive, they really liked me, but as for roles? Well, only small ones. Still, Richard undertook to change their minds on that and the rest, as they say, is history.
Life on the home front was even more challenging. By this time Francine and I had been together for nearly sixteen years, Melinda was starting high school, and Rebecca was becoming increasingly serious about dancing for which she had a clear talent. We lived in a lovely house in Deep Cove, a beautiful community overlooking the water, but too far from downtown to fit well with the demands on my working life. Francine, although a stay-at-home mother, always found the demands on her life as overwhelming as I found the demands on mine. Who knows, maybe if I had been prepared to completely give up my other love our marriage would have survived. But I confess, I did continue to ski. Not as much as I would have liked, nor as much as my friends, but I did keep skiing despite the conflicts.
It’s hard to say what finally triggered the breakup, but two events stand out for me. Goodness knows what stands out for Francine. For the longest time Francine had pushed for us to go on a family cruise with her parents and sisters. I confess to always having been a little reluctant to spend valuable holiday time where no skiing was available, but eventually I agreed. At first the plan was to find a cruise leaving from Vancouver, a major hub for tourist cruises and convenient for us. But no, if we did that, Francine’s family would have to stay or at least visit our house — and it was a mess; Francine had no time to tidy it and she couldn’t let her family see the home in that state.
No, we had to do a Caribbean cruise leaving from Florida, as far away from Vancouver as you can get and still be in North America — never mind that it was summer and the heat in the Caribbean would be stifling. Adding to the challenge, for some reason we had to fly to Florida from Seattle, a three-hour drive from Vancouver; we would spend the night in a hotel near the airport and fly out early in the morning. When I hurried home after my evening class to collect the family and drive to Seattle, they had not begun to pack. It would be another two hours before we began the three-hour drive. Not to belabour the story, but by the time we finally set out on our holiday I was exhausted and, I confess, not a good companion. And while I love being on the water, I dislike shopping in general and shopping for souvenirs in particular. And shopping seemed to be a main feature of the holiday. Francine’s sisters spent a whole day shopping at one of the ports, returning with only one T-shirt but having had a wonderful day. I spent the same day reading a book in the bar of the ship, but that decision was not popular.
A few weeks later as we are winding up our annual visit to Saint’s Rest in Muskoka, I notice that Francine is packing up all the things we usually leave in the cottage for the next summer. Has a decision been made that we will never return? Finally, as we are going through the gate at the edge of the property, prompted by what I’m not sure, I blurt out that we don’t seem to have anything in common anymore. Francine’s response? “Would it help if you skied less?” How much less is less? While to me it seemed as if I had almost given up the sport completely, to Francine it must have seemed that I was constantly neglecting her and the family for the sake of some idle pastime.
As things continued to deteriorate I sought out a marriage counsellor, though to be honest, I am not sure whether by this time I was really trying to restore the relationship or whether I wanted to justify leaving it. At any rate, the first meeting with the counsellor did a pretty good job of clarifying my desire to leave. I was astonished by the venom and resentment heaped on me by Francine at that session. Shell-shocked, I was. I have never been good at being falsely accused — even if there might be a kernel of truth in the accusations.
One day as a boy in idyllic Muskoka I asked my father if I could take out the boat. It was a windy day and we had agreed before he retired for a nap that it was too windy to hazard taking the boat out of our wind-exposed boathouse. But after a time it seemed to me that the wind had died down somewhat, so I knocked on my father’s bedroom door and said the wind had let up, could I take the boat out now? He replied, somewhat sleepily, “I guess so.” And so eagerly I headed down to the boathouse, untied the boat, and started out. Well, the wind was still pretty strong and I soon decided this was a mistake and with some difficulty managed to get the boat back into the boathouse. My father was standing on the dock in a fury that I had never seen before. In a blazing temper he accused me of deliberately disobeying him. He would not hear my protestations that I had understood him to agree to my taking out the boat. To this day I thought he had said, “I guess so.” I imagine he said, “I guess not,” but I did not hear that unfamiliar expression. I heard, “I guess so.” He never relented and my relationship with him suffered for years.
For months, years likely, resentments had accrued on both sides of the marriage, but I was astonished at the degree they had for Francine. Truth to tell, dialogue between us had stopped once the children were old enough to understand us. Francine was never apart from the children, even to the extent of sharing a “family bed” with them, a bed it was thought I should share as well. As I have said, I have never been good at sharing a bed with one person, never mind three. We often talked before we had children and when Melinda was an infant, but once there was a child in the house old enough to understand us, communication stopped. Demand breastfeeding even precluded the occas
ional babysitter. By the time we sat down with a marriage counsellor we were worlds apart.
Francine had invested heavily in being a wife and mother, and perhaps if I had been less selfish I would have stayed with it, regardless. But I like freedom and autonomy. I love my children and hated to break up the family home, but finally I decided to put my own life first. The results were harsh: a hugely unpleasant divorce, no resolution of child custody, and partial estrangement from my children for many years.
For some time, contact with my children was limited to the occasional lunch, always with a definite time limit. And they only had to spend time with Dad; they didn’t have to talk to him. Often they brought their homework. But one day they didn’t get up to leave at the allotted time; they started to ask me questions, and a dialogue began that has, thankfully, continued to this day. We get on very well now, though separated geographically. I’m proud of them both: Melinda, a cardiologist, and Rebecca, for whom higher education was a profit centre — she had so many scholarships — who ran a dance company in Philadelphia for years and is now moving into international relations.
The Cigarette Smoking Man
Meantime, X-Files was cranking up its second season. While I did not share front billing with Mitch, my credit at the end had been upgraded from featuring to costarring. Of course you still had to pause your VCR — yes, VCR — if you wanted to actually read the credit. And in the first episode, “Little Green Men,” I had another line, this time to Mulder, “Your time is over.” I was still hanging around Skinner’s office, smoking, and it was still no clearer who I might be. My ranking was further puzzling when Skinner, who appears to be speaking to Mulder, says, “Get out of here,” and it turns out he is speaking to me. And I do. I leave, though taking my sweet time about it and lighting another cigarette before going. Perhaps even if I was a big cheese, Skinner had the right to order me out of his office. Needless to say, no one explained any of this to the mere actor. But John Bartley’s lighting continued to draw attention to me and the mysterious smoking.
John got really carried away lighting my next appearance in the fourth episode of season 2, “Sleepless.” In the final scene of the episode, my only scene, I am seated at the head of a long table, flanked by two flunkies, interrogating a new character in the series, Alex Krycek, played by Nicholas Lea. My face is so surrounded in smoke and shadow that my identity is barely revealed until the final shot as I butt yet another cigarette into a smouldering ashtray. It now seemed that Krycek was actually working for me to undermine Mulder. But who am I? We have yet to find out.
I had never met Nick Lea prior to shooting this scene. Did I intimidate him? Who knows? But he could hardly remember a line. We had to do many takes before we finally got the scene, directed by Rob Bowman. Who is this guy, I thought. I can see that he is good-looking, but don’t you have to have some skills to be hired as a lead actor on a series? Well, when I finally saw the episode it was clear that he has lots of skills. He gives a wonderful performance. Maybe he was so into the character that he was properly terrified of the Smoking Man.
Speaking of smoking, it was ironic that after going through my personal hell to quit smoking I was about to become the most famous smoker on television. When I shot the pilot I was given the choice of smoking real tobacco cigarettes or herbal ones. Confident that I had beaten smoking and wishing to be a real actor I opted to smoke real cigarettes. And so I did for the pilot episode. And then again for my next episode. But when I found myself sitting at home anxiously hoping I would get another call for that X-Files show, I knew the risk was too great. From then on I smoked the foul-smelling herbal cigarettes.
I pity the cast and crew when I was on set. You could smell the cigarettes as soon as you came anywhere near the action. Herbal cigarettes are dreadful. While they smell a little like marijuana, the only good thing that can be said for them is that they are not addictive. No, to be honest, a second good thing is that they make a better prop than a real cigarette. They burn more reliably and consistently. But after every day of shooting I stank of the stuff and had to hit the shower as soon as possible. It wasn’t until the third or fourth season that I realized that I was punishing myself unnecessarily. I was doing a low budget feature in Montreal in which I had to smoke a cigar. The ingenious props person on the set had invented a clever rig that would light the cigar mechanically. So for each shot he would cut the cigar to the appropriate length — that was always an issue, making sure the cigarette was the right length to match the related shots — he would then hand me the lit cigar before the shot. Not till then did I realize that what was really overwhelming my clothes and hair, to say nothing of my lungs, was lighting the cigarettes before each take. Subsequently I demanded in my contract that the cigarette would always be mechanically lit by the props department. After that I could almost live with myself for a few hours after a day of shooting.
For all I hated the herbal cigarette, I still loved the act of smoking. Maybe it brought back all the arrogance of my youth, all those feelings that I was a special young man. After all, one did start smoking at age fourteen in order to be more grown-up. That was in the days when almost all grown-ups smoked. Fans of the show will remember that as CSM I often held the cigarette between my thumb and forefinger, a characteristic that became a trademark of the character. Where did that come from? Years later I was sorting through some old family photographs and I came across a snapshot of my father holding a cigarette in exactly that way.
Meanwhile, my private life took a distinct turn for the better. True, the divorce was festering along, but I was now out of it and while I suppose I should have been scarred and desolate, I was enjoying being free and autonomous, being able to “come and go as I pleased.” Francine’s lawyer had attacked me with that phrase, confronting me with my wish to come and go as I pleased with the same relish as if she were accusing me of wanting to rape all the children in my daughter’s Grade 4 class. Yes, I have to admit it: I like to come and go as I please. Send me to hell.
I remember sitting in class one day — I don’t know what I was supposed to be attending to — but I found myself thinking, if I were to arrange a marriage for me who would it be with? If I could stand outside myself and choose the right partner for me, who would it be? It took a nanosecond to decide it would be Barbara Ellison who happened to be in the class at the time. So one day, after my usual hesitation and shyness, I asked Barbara if she would like to go for a drink later. She seemed remarkably enthused about the idea. Well, we drank and we talked when suddenly she blurted out that she was in love with me and had been for some time. Well, this dating thing turned out to be easier than I thought and our relationship began — and thrived for eighteen years.
The divorce and the separation from Francine were draining my financial resources. I had sold the large condo in Whistler that was no longer being used by the family. Francine and the children had stopped coming to Whistler some years earlier — dance classes on Saturdays you understand. I bought a tiny one-bedroom condo on Whistler Creekside so I could ski, a season pass, rented a basement apartment in Barbara’s house, and happily began my new life. At the time I had no idea that X-Files would play any significant role in that new life.
Virtual Reality
Two things would have to happen if X-Files were to become important to me. First of all, the series would have to be successful, and second, my role would have to grow. Neither of these possibilities were assured at this time or, it could be argued, even likely. It is sometimes said that if The X-Files were launched now it would never have survived. These days shows need to succeed instantly or they are summarily dropped. X-Files did not succeed instantly; it trucked along with modest numbers on the Fox Network, which at the time was still in the shadow of the Big Three (CBS, NBC, ABC). Fox could tolerate a relatively small show with a cult audience and, indeed, it was that cult audience that drove the show forward and sustained it for two or three years before it became mainstream. In the early years it had a backw
ater time slot, Fridays at 9 p.m. Ironically the time slot worked in its favour as the show became popular with families watching it together. It also became popular with internet geeks who liked to get together to watch the show. And Friday night at nine was a good time for these young adults. The internet, which was just beginning to come into general use at the time, was a unique handmaid to the series. It was through the internet that the cult fans communicated, spread their enthusiasm, indulged in fan fiction, and generally bonded to the show and to each other.
But it may be the internet made an even greater contribution. Gradually, no, to be truthful, suddenly in the early nineties, large numbers of people started reading pixels instead of print. Should this make a difference? I know the Canadian thinker Marshall McLuhan has fallen out of favour, but his famous dictum, “the medium is the message,” still resonates. McLuhan argued convincingly, to me at least, that the medium of information affects how we think about the world, regardless of the content of the medium. So the printing press ushered in the modern world, the separation in perception of the person from their environment, the ability to manipulate the environment technologically, and the development of the scientific method, among other things. It did this, not by the content that was printed, but by the very fact of absorbing content by means of print, a “hot” medium that is complete in itself, the perception of which does not need to be enhanced or filled in by the perceiver. We all know that reading handwriting is another matter altogether, sometimes a guessing game at best. McLuhan argued that with the advent of television and the need for the viewer to literally connect the dots that were flashing across the screen in order to “see” an image, the viewer became an active participant in the process of perception where s/he had been passive in absorbing print. Remarkable changes in world views can be correlated to this period, though causation is more difficult to infer. But it might be argued that the relativism of postmodernism, or the view that your truth is your own, or even that students should run the schools, might all have been influenced by this change in the manner of perception. McLuhan was no longer with us when pixels on a screen began to replace the scanning dots of television, but perhaps further effects were emerging.
Where There's Smoke...: Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man, a Memoir Page 25