Nothing General About It

by Maurice Benard

  While I was working, Paula temped doing secretarial work before getting a job at the World Trade Center preschool, which she enjoyed because she loved being around children and hoped more than anything to have her own someday. She still wasn’t in contact with her mother, but not long after we moved to Jersey City, Paula’s brother, John, also came to stay with us. John was a wild, troubled teen who would disappear for days—and even though Paula had no idea knew where he was, she didn’t get angry and was always patient with him. Paula still had a sort of survivor’s guilt for escaping her childhood situation while her brother and sister had stayed and endured physical abuse, so Paula has spent the rest of her life making it up to him.

  While Paula was taking care of John, I started getting mobbed on the streets making my way to and from work, because in those days, when I got there before our seven a.m. start time, fans were already gathered outside the studio, waiting for the actors to show up. I had to wade through a sea of people shouting my name and requesting photos and autographs, and when we finished at seven p.m. I faced another group of fans who wanted the same thing. Although at first it seemed odd for total strangers to act like they knew me, I realized they were why I was working and I always stopped and tried to talk to everybody and sign headshots.

  One of my most memorable encounters with a fan was when a friend from acting class wanted me to come to lunch one day to meet none other than Luther Vandross, who, as it turns out, was a huge All My Children and Nico fan, and I thought it was wild that my hero had become my fan. I walked into the restaurant and he flashed that giant magic smile like he’d known me forever, thrilled to hear that I had seen him sing in San Francisco before he was famous and knew he’d hit it big, and for years, whenever I was in New York, it was always fun to run into him.

  Shortly after I started on the show, fans nominated me for the Soap Opera Digest Outstanding Male Newcomer Award and the same loyal Soap Opera Digest fans would go on to nominate me multiple times over the years for various categories, including Hottest Soap Couple, shared with Vanessa Marcil; Favorite Couple, shared with Sarah Brown; and they would bestow to me the Outstanding Lead Actor Award twice and Favorite Actor Award as well. Since Nico was so popular, the producers began adding more story lines for my character.

  More story lines meant more girls, so I had a lot of screen tests making out with young actresses, which upset Paula, and the jealousy that had always been a danger zone in our relationship kicked into high gear. Looking back, I don’t blame Paula, because of my past behavior; of course she felt insecure with all the actresses because of all the actresses from class I had gone out with while she was living with me in Martinez. I didn’t help the situation when women were throwing themselves at me on the street or when I traveled alone for press or when someone asked if I was married and I answered no, failing to clarify that I was living with someone in a relationship that had been going on for years. Again, that is on me. I still had that macho wiring and was clueless. I thought because we weren’t married yet, I still had some wild oats to sow, and I felt Paula should understand that.

  During that time, Paula read every script and counted every scene I was slated to perform with a female actress. It got so bad she even counted the number of kisses, and we argued over that constantly. I had a hard time understanding her insecurity, partly because I couldn’t come to terms with my role in it. The other part, which was important, was that the whole time I truly believed she was my angel. After all, Paula is gorgeous inside and out, the most amazing woman I know. She has a huge heart and the smarts to match, but back then she didn’t see how I see her, and sometimes even now doesn’t realize when total strangers think she’s a knockout. Whenever we went to parties, men were always flirting with her. One of them was Jack Nicholson, who couldn’t stop staring at her when we met at an event at Paramount.

  One image that is forever seared into my brain is from a vacation in Puerto Rico while we were at the El Conquistador’s private beach. Paula was swimming in the ocean and when she emerged, with wet hair and shimmering drops of water cascading down her body and over the red two-piece bikini she was wearing, I swear it was like the waters parting and the Bond Girl appearing. I could hardly breathe. I was filming her with one of those bulky video cameras in vogue at the time and as she moved toward me and the camera, skin glistening, lips forming a smile, I realized all the people on the beach had stopped to stare at her. But her mother did a real number on her self-image, and when I showed Paula the footage, she hated it and never wore a two-piece bathing suit again.

  It would take a while for Paula to become confident and for me to give her more of a reason to feel that way, but before that, the jealousy kept rearing its head and we argued time and again.

  Soon after that first year in New York I felt cornered in my life. I knew I needed room to breathe and decided to go back home to Martinez without Paula to get some space. While I was there of course I hung out with Jeff and Manny, and one night we went to a club in the city. Although Jeff got drunk, as usual, he insisted on driving us home, so Manny sat in the front and I got in the backseat and Jeff rolled down all the windows. It was ten degrees outside and I was freezing and kept asking him to roll the windows up, but Jeff just laughed as the wind whipped through the car and my teeth chattered. During the forty-five-minute drive to my parents’ house, no matter how much I begged Jeff he wouldn’t roll up the windows, and when we finally got to my parents’ place I was furious, maybe a little manic, too, so when I stepped out of the car, I exploded.

  “Fuck you, Jeff!” I screamed.

  “Fuck you, Maurice!” he retorted.

  “We’re done!” I said, and just like that we stopped talking, and as time went by, I think we were both too proud, or stubborn, or stupid to apologize and step up and repair the relationship.

  Although the argument with Jeff put a damper on the trip, Manny had a date and told me she had a friend, so we agreed that when he brought them over, if I mentioned that the “concert” was great, I would go out with them. If not, I’d pass. When Manny and his date showed up, the gorgeous girl with them walked in and smiled and I immediately looked at Manny and told him the “concert” was amazing. We all went to the club, and one thing, of course, led to another, I took the girl home, and I was convinced I was into her when I left for New York.

  I didn’t tell Paula about her, but I continued to talk to her on the phone and did plan to see her when she came to visit me in New York. What I did tell Paula was that I needed two days alone and I was going to stay in my dressing room at All My Children, which led to a huge argument. When the girl showed up, we went out on the town, but it quickly became a total nightmare and whatever I thought I had wanted from her on my break in San Francisco wasn’t working at all back in my real world. I managed to get out of seeing her the rest of her stay in the city and later found out she wasted no time and hooked up with one of my actor friends from All My Children, but I guess I deserved that as well as the fallout with Paula that followed my stag weekend.

  Paula didn’t know about the girl, but she knew something was wrong and I wasn’t treating her well, and she was right. At the time, I had no excuse, because I wasn’t having a breakdown and I was on my meds—I was just behaving like a selfish, macho guy. Paula truly thought it was over between us once and for all, so she followed the philosophy she had always clung to and left me a voice mail telling me she was willing to set me free because she loved me. That set-it-free quote seemed dumb to me at the time. If you love something set it free and if it is yours it will come back to you—I had no idea what that even meant.

  That night I had a terrible dream and in it I was accepting an Academy Award and thanking Paula, but she couldn’t hear me because she was in a coffin, which scared me and startled me awake. I was so bereft and shaken at the thought of Paula being gone forever I had to make up for everything and get her back, so I bought a beautiful pair of really expensive earrings as a token of my remorse and took them to he
r at the apartment. I admitted to her I was an idiot and didn’t want to lose her, relating the dream and how much it upset me, and hoped I hadn’t screwed our relationship up for good. Paula listened and knew I was sincere, so she accepted my gift and apology, now having even more faith in her philosophy than ever before because she had set me free and I had returned.

  After I resolved things with Paula, life was finally good, and she wasn’t my only cheerleader anymore, because now that I was on TV, my parents thought I had chosen the perfect profession, and although they already watched All My Children every single day, now they tuned in with pride. I had proven to them, to my brother, to Jimmy, and to everyone from my hometown that I could be a star, but a restlessness gnawed at me and I wasn’t content with the soap opera my father was so pleased employed me. It wasn’t enough. Something was driving me, more than my need to succeed, more than my competitive streak from childhood, more than my fear that I couldn’t make it in movies if I stayed in New York. That same ethereal manic anxiety that pushed me to go running like a devil, past exhaustion, was chasing me again.

  So I ran, this time from my contract, and told the producers I had decided to leave All My Children when it expired. They were shocked, and because they didn’t want to kill Nico, they asked me to extend my stay an extra three months so they could craft an exit story, leaving an open door for me to return at any time. I agreed to be there long enough to do the character justice, so after going on the run with Tad and Dixie, played by the wonderful Cady McClain, my character and Cecily, portrayed by Rosa Nevin, who had hated each other, fell in love, and Nico proposed. After their romantic wedding in Hawaii they decided not to return to Pine Valley and I was free to leave New York. In real life, Cady went on to marry Jon Lindstrom, who has kicked ass as Dr. Kevin Collins on General Hospital, and been a good friend, for years.

  Although the fans were sad when I left the show, I felt like it was a new beginning—for my career, for my life, and for my relationship with Paula. She had been there for me and through everything with me and I finally got it—I knew that I didn’t need to search for love anymore because it was right in front of me. I didn’t need to sow my oats anymore because I was ready to commit to the one person who understood me, the one person who had always believed in me, and loved me unconditionally, no matter how dark my life had gotten at times, and no matter how much I’d screwed up.

  I never fell in love with the city like so many people do, so it wasn’t hard to say goodbye to my life there when we packed up our apartment in Jersey City and left the East Coast. Once we were back in Martinez, my parents and I threw a party for Paula’s twenty-first birthday in a venue near San Francisco where a fellow actor friend, Angelo Pagán, now married to Leah Remini, was our musical entertainment for the evening. As he finished a song and the band finished playing, I took the microphone and, just as I had when I was a kid, pulled the crowd in, this time with a passionate speech about Paula, my beautiful angel, who meant everything to me. Not one to like attention, Paula was embarrassed at first, but when I finished my soliloquy by presenting an engagement ring to her in front of family and friends, she forgot about being shy. After all the time she had stood by me through my manic episodes, all she had gone through being secondary to my career, and waiting for me when it was difficult to wait . . . after always living with the uncertainty that I might find distraction or love in another woman, Paula was overjoyed for me to finally commit to her and ask her to commit to me.

  It was like a switch flipped inside me the day I asked her to marry me. I never wanted another woman again and I never cheated like the macho generations in my family.

  Paula likes to correct my version of the story and remembers it the same way except for one small detail—Paula says I never actually popped the question, I just announced that we were getting married. That’s the beauty of our relationship—it works in so many ways when it’s not supposed to.

  Chapter Seven

  Welcome to the Jungle

  Our adventure in New York was over, and in 1990 Paula and I were back on the West Coast, but this time we were living in the mecca of movies: Hollywood. We rented a house in West Los Angeles with a yard for the dogs. While I auditioned for films, Paula planned the storybook wedding she had always wanted. Hollywood was a mecca to me because it was the center of the film universe, but for Paula it was special for another reason: Disneyland. For the girl who had a dark and violent childhood, who had seen too many things too soon, it was where she could finally claim that childhood joy and bliss. For her it really was the happiest place on earth.

  So it is not surprising that the theme for our nuptials was inspired by the Magic Kingdom and featured a puffy Cinderella gown and glass slippers. My mom helped Paula plan the big event, including handcrafting tiny pillows with glass slippers sewn to them as party favors for the special occasion, but in the midst of all the planning, I was cast in a TV movie, so the storybook wedding, much like our very first date, was not meant to be—not for a while anyway.

  We canceled the huge celebration, Paula preserved the dress in a box in the closet, and on August 11, 1990, Paula and I exchanged vows in my parents’ backyard in Martinez. Paula didn’t want to jinx the full-on dream wedding she knew would happen someday, so instead of white she wore a sexy black minidress and I wore a suit. We did, however, include two traditions that were very sentimental for us, involving my father as well as her nieces.

  Paula hadn’t spoken to her mother since she had left home, but she did talk to her sister, Stephanie, who still lived in the flophouse and now had another child, Angie. Paula drove to get Angie and her other niece, Vanessa, and brought them back, clothing them in cute little dresses and as I stood there in the garden watching them scatter petals as my father walked Paula “down the aisle” toward me, I knew it was a moment I would always remember, the moment my life really started.

  Paula wanted to save the rest of the special wedding details—including the Cinderella dress and photos memorializing the day—for a later date. None of Paula’s other relatives were at the wedding, but Manny and the rest of our friends were there to toast us with my family. Although it wasn’t the wedding Paula had dreamed about since she was little, she was happy about this new beginning—we were finally married.

  After we said our vows I started shooting Her Wicked Ways in the role of Steve, and once I finished that, I started auditioning for numerous shows. Paula wanted to have children and I did, too, someday, but for now I was focused on other things, mostly my career. I have to admit, deep down I was also afraid of having kids and what that would do to our relationship. So we talked about it and decided to wait. Paula soon found a way to scratch that strong maternal itch by getting involved with HOLA (Heart of Los Angeles), an amazing organization that gives underserved kids an equal chance to succeed through after-school academics, arts, athletics, and wellness programs. Every weekend we mentored teens, playing football or basketball, depending on the time of year. Paula was right there on the field, literally down in the dirt, and that’s another thing I adore about her. She loves sports, whether it’s watching, playing, or talking about them. She’s more passionate about sports than anyone I know, and not only is that fun but it’s incredibly sexy.

  We already had a lot of animals to shower attention on, but one day, about six months after moving to Los Angeles, I was shopping at Century City Mall, the sprawling outdoor venue between Beverly Hills and Santa Monica I loved because it had—and still has—so many cool stores and restaurants and a multiplex theater where you could spend the whole day. Back then there were still pet stores in malls, and I could never walk past one without going in to see what kind of animals were there or pick several up to play with them.

  This particular day, I was killing time before going to a movie and went into the pet store like I always did, and the first thing I saw were English bulldog puppies who were vocal and squirming around seeking attention. As I walked over, I locked eyes with the biggest, ugliest, cu
test one in the pack, and as I looked at him and he looked at me there was an instant connection. I couldn’t walk out of that store without him, so I brought the puppy home and named him Corleone, after the character Michael Corleone in The Godfather. Corleone was wild as a puppy and happy all the time. It definitely wouldn’t be the last time I surprised Paula with another pet.

  I had signed with APA in New York for representation but when I moved to L.A., I signed with Triad. I continued to audition and finally did a guest role on the ABC sitcom Stat. But things were tight, so in order to save money, we downsized and moved across the street from the house we were occupying to an apartment. And then a role came up that initially I did not want to do, a TV movie about the life of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball: Lucy & Desi: Before the Laughter. I learned about it from my agent at Triad, when he floated the idea of me auditioning for the role of Desi during dinner with me and my dad, who happened to be in town visiting.

  “Forget it,” I said bluntly.

  My dad, never one to hold his tongue, chimed in, “He’d be perfect!”

  It took the entire dinner, but my father and my agent worked on me until they finally talked me into agreeing to audition. I wasn’t too nervous because I didn’t care about the part, and the audition went well, or so I thought. It would have been fine if they told me I didn’t get it, which was a first for me, to feel unencumbered by nerves and pressure. After months went by with no word, I figured that was that; I had lost the part.

  However, one day my agent called with news that the producers wanted me back for another audition, so I went back in. Only this time the nerves kicked in and I knew it didn’t go well. I had no doubt I would lose the part. Had I messed up on purpose? Or did I really want the part now and psyched myself out? The more I second-guessed myself, the harder it was to wait for the outcome, and I was surprised when, after several more months, my agent told me the producers wanted to see me again.