Nothing General About It

by Maurice Benard

  “How can I go to a knife fight with a toothpick?” I asked Jill over and over. “Sonny’s always wrong; Jason’s always the saint, saving the day. The whole town hates Sonny.” I continued with a litany of examples. “Sonny was not a nice guy with Emily. Sonny shot his wife in the head, and the Quartermaines are against him. Michael got shot; it’s Sonny’s fault, because his enemies were after him. Even Luke, who’s pretty much cool with whatever Sonny does, eventually was against Sonny. The list goes on.”

  Finally I asked if, just once, Sonny could be the hero. It wasn’t that the character was unpopular, really; despite everything he did, he was wildly popular in the ratings. But I had to work my ass off constantly to be the charming mobster no matter what Sonny did. It was exhausting.

  I used to always joke on set really loud so they’d hear it in the booth: “Everybody hates me. Who else hates me today?”

  On days like that, Donna would cheer me up and try to get me not to take it so seriously.

  Luckily, to balance out all that hate energy for my character all day at work, I had a lot of love at home and the year 2000 marked a milestone for me and my wife. It was our ten-year wedding anniversary and we had so much to be grateful for, including two healthy children. But in spite of all that, I knew Paula was sad because her wedding and engagement rings had been stolen one day that year. She was not only sentimental about the rings, but it brought back memories of her backyard wedding, reminding her that she never got to have her fairy tale day or wear the beautiful custom-made Cinderella dress still hanging in a zippered bag at the back of the closet.

  And that’s when I hatched a brilliant plan—I was going to throw Paula a surprise wedding. What could be better than that?

  In the course of my planning, Paula, who usually made all the arrangements so our world ran smoothly, had seen a receipt for plane tickets for my parents to come visit, so she knew something was up, but figured it was birthday-related. She waited with anticipation, never letting on that she knew her in-laws were coming.

  Since our ten-year anniversary had just come and gone, I figured I was in the clear as far as surprising her. She did finally ask me about the tickets, so I quickly came up with a crazy story explaining that for her birthday I was taking her to our friend Ricky Martin’s island because he was going to let us stay there for a getaway and I knew she wouldn’t leave town without the kids, as she never left them alone overnight with anyone. I told her the island was large and my parents would stay with the kids on one side, while we stayed on the other. Paula thought it was plausible because she knew Ricky was a friend I’d met when he was playing Miguel Morez on General Hospital. He was by then at the height of success as a musician, so of course it seemed possible that he could own an island.

  Paula was so touched that I had put together this surprise getaway she bought the entire lie. I told her I wanted to spend the night alone with her before leaving for the island, and took her to a hotel where we spent a romantic evening away, while my parents watched the kids. It was a rare occurrence for us to have an entire night to ourselves, a real luxury, since small kids were always running around and Paula always had a full plate of plans for them.

  The next morning, I rolled out of the hotel bed and dropped to one knee.

  Paula looked at me, asking, “What are you doing?”

  “Marry me.” I smiled, showing her a beautiful new diamond ring and matching band.

  Paula admired the sparkling diamonds and put the rings on her finger, thrilled. Now it made sense to her. The rings were the surprise and my parents had flown in to celebrate our anniversary, she rationalized. “Honey, they’re beautiful, thank you,” she said, smiling.

  “I’m serious, marry me,” I said again. “You never got to have your Cinderella wedding, so let’s do it.”

  “Yes, of course, baby, okay, let’s plan it.” She kissed me, playing along. “When would you like to?”

  “Already done.” I beamed. “We’re getting married today.”

  “You’re always such a joker.” Paula laughed, but my face was not joking and the color drained from hers. “Today?” she continued in disbelief, before blurting out, “But I don’t have a dress!”

  “Also handled.” I smiled proudly and presented Paula with a garment bag. She smiled politely, afraid to open it.

  “Honey, you picked out a dress for me?”

  “Better than that,” I said, and with a flourish I unzipped the bag. Inside was the Cinderella ball-gown-style dress that had been in the closet for years, and when she saw it Paula burst into tears.

  “Those are happy tears, right?” I asked, not understanding.

  She could only shake her head no.

  “But this is the dress you never got to wear,” I said, puzzled.

  It took her a moment to answer. Forget that it was a decade ago and styles were different, she had also had two children since then. But there was more.

  “Honey, it was never finished!” she wailed, showing me the seams, which were held together with pins.

  Paula frantically dialed her friend Julie, and they started calling around trying to find someone, anyone, who could help. It was too late to get another wedding gown, so they had to find a seamstress at the last minute who could do the next best thing: sew Paula into the gown on the spot.

  I’m a guy; I figured, Whew, problem solved! I told her I had to leave to take care of the remaining details. This didn’t exactly soothe Paula’s misgivings—left to my own devices, what else had I done? I assured Paula a limo was on the way and left her half sewn, half pinned into her gown, waiting in the hotel lobby with a cell phone.

  Paula felt like she waited an eternity. Then she waited some more. Julie called her, asking where she was, and Paula answered that she was still standing in the hotel lobby with every stranger there staring at her in her wedding dress. Clearly the limo I had “taken care of” never showed, and although Julie was helping with the rest of the wedding arrangements she got in her car and sped back to the hotel to pick up Paula. When she arrived, Paula stuffed herself and her dress as best she could into the small minivan, the reams of fabric enveloping them both, and at my request, Julie blindfolded Paula so she wouldn’t know where she was going. Sitting in the van smothered in tulle, blindfolded, sweating, her hair and makeup hastily done herself, was not quite the fantasy wedding Paula had always dreamed about.

  When the van finally stopped, Julie helped unstuff Paula from the vehicle and removed the blindfold. There, spread before Paula, in the back expanse of our Hollywood Hills home, was a truly storybook setting: against the beautiful blue sky, large arches framed the horizon, an explosion of various flowers—one of her favorite things—cascaded and spilled over everything.

  Her relationship with her mother continued to be painful, and none of her family was there, but so many other people who adored Paula had been able to make it. There was my family, and our close friends, including Manny, Carol, and the rest of my General Hospital family. You could feel all the love in the room. Cailey, who was six years old, and Cassidy, who was two, appeared like two little angels in beautiful chiffon dresses, floating along with baskets of rose petals to scatter down the aisle.

  I remember vividly that before Paula arrived the clouds were angry and black and threatening a torrent. But then Paula stepped out, with my father taking her arm, poised to walk her down the aisle for a second time, and the clouds parted. Suddenly four fighter planes came out of nowhere as her favorite Andrea Bocelli song played over the outside speakers. Guests assumed I had hired the jets for the ceremony and I just let that ride. Everyone was beaming as they stood watching her and she smiled back at them as she passed, walking toward me, stunning even in a dress from another decade—like a true fairy princess.

  The entire setting and party were designed by Tolan Clark Florence, who is now married to chef Tyler Florence but at the time was the girlfriend of my General Hospital then–cast mate Billy Warlock who played A. J. Quartermaine, the real father
of Sonny’s son, Michael, and an archnemesis. I could have never pulled it off without her help and am forever grateful. Fitting for our nontraditional love story and wedding, I had my friend Jim Warren, a freelance photographer, take natural photos in the moment.

  It wasn’t exactly what Paula had planned all those years ago, but it was still a perfect day. We renewed our vows under a crystal-blue sky, celebrating a love story that had started during a troublesome period in both our lives, a love story that remained strong after all we had been through together. She told me later that the gesture meant more to her than anything.

  With the wedding, and really everything else I did, my goal was to show Paula that our family was the number-one most important thing to me. Much like Sonny, I would do anything to protect my kids. Unlike Sonny, dangerous people weren’t after my wife and family . . . yet.

  Unfortunately, not long after our second wedding ceremony was when my fame began to negatively affect my children. It was more than excitable fans, and started to feel genuinely scary, when I began getting a lot of phone calls at work from a woman claiming to be Paula. Then one day an African American woman showed up at the Prospect Studios saying her name was Paula Benard. When the guards turned her away, I thought that was the end of it.

  But then letters starting coming to our North Knoll house, and the woman wrote that she was coming from Cleveland to get her kids, implying that she thought our kids were hers. We didn’t know how she had gotten our address and it wasn’t until we noticed charges on Paula’s credit cards for computers my wife had not purchased that we realized this woman had stolen Paula’s credit card information and identity.

  Worried about the vulnerability of the kids, we had security cameras installed everywhere along with a very high gate, with a keypad to enter and exit. We also spent a lot of money buying a German shepherd from Germany to police the house, but it turned out Glory was afraid of her own shadow. Paula was so terrified she even bought a gun.

  We found out where my wife’s impersonator was when we got a hospital bill in Paula’s name, but even then the police still wouldn’t do anything. Paula couldn’t believe there was no recourse, she wouldn’t accept that we had to live in fear every moment, or wonder if our kids were going to be accosted, so she kept pursuing a solution. Finally a detective Paula kept calling agreed to go to the hospital and talk to this woman.

  When he arrived, she seemed perfectly normal. General Hospital was playing on the television and she was watching. And then she pointed at the TV where one of my scenes was playing. “That’s my husband,” she said.

  When the detective asked, “What’s your name?” she answered, “Paula Benard,” without a hint of hesitation. He immediately called us and told us we had a real problem, explaining that getting a restraining order wasn’t just hard, it was highly unlikely.

  Paula wasn’t deterred, and we hired a lawyer, filed the papers, and went to court. The detective was so concerned about the woman that he testified for us and told the court about his visit to the hospital and the woman’s total delusion.

  As we waited nervously for the outcome, our lawyer was surprised when the ruling favored us and we were granted a restraining order. Our lawyer told us if it hadn’t been for that detective, it would probably have gone the other way. The woman was kept in an institution for over a decade that we were aware of, and sent me letters for years before we lost track of her.

  The sad fact is, the woman suffered from mental illness and, like so many others, had fallen through the cracks in the system. She wanted to represent herself at the trial but wasn’t allowed to because she was declared incompetent. I’m grateful every single day I had Paula in my corner to make sure that never happened to me. But clearly more work needs to be done in the community and laws need to change to help those who don’t have a support system or can’t help themselves.

  While my focus was still on my family, this experience shook me to my core, and made me consider what I could do with my personal story, and my fame, to create a difference.

  I knew I needed to be one of those voices for awareness and change.

  Chapter Eleven

  Beautiful Boy

  As I learned after my stint in the mental institution, depression and bipolar disease are caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. More than twelve million people in the United States and sixty million worldwide battle these disorders, and there is no cure. It is a lifelong commitment to manage the symptoms with the proper medication. It isn’t just being “blue”—believe me, if you could just exercise and get the endorphins up, everyone who was afflicted would do it.

  Diagnosing disorders can take a while, and accepting the diagnosis can take even longer. Pinpointing what combination of medication will help and the correct dosage is a crapshoot and can be frustrating.

  If I’d only had this knowledge when I was young, maybe I wouldn’t have had several breakdowns. I wanted others to know there were answers, and I wanted to push back against the stigma that prevents people from admitting they need help.

  Until that point, I had hidden my illness from public view. I had been made to feel ashamed of it and was warned early on in the business not to expect people to understand. I was fearful that I wouldn’t work if I disclosed my condition, so I had kept the secret. But after all these years, I was tired of that burden, and the recent scare my family had been dealt made it feel obvious I needed to act. I didn’t want to continue silently carrying around the reality of who I was, and I didn’t think others suffering from the disease should have to, either.

  Even though it was scary, in 2000 I decided to do an interview in an obscure soap magazine that is no longer in print, discussing my condition. The response was overwhelming, and among the many thousands of people who sent letters about their own experiences, one in particular really impacted me. A kid wrote me a letter telling me his brother had shot himself in the head and he was finally able to deal with his brother’s suicide after I talked about bipolar and where the depths of depression can take you. So many times family members and friends feel as if they have failed if they can’t save you, and although their support is very important, the disease and the toll it takes are no one’s fault.

  Because of that letter, and the huge response to the article, I knew it was time to do more, so I decided to start working with mental health organizations and became the spokesman for the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA; formerly the National Depressive and Manic-Depressive Association). DBSA is the leading peer-directed national nonprofit organization providing support groups for people with depression or bipolar disorder as well as their friends and family, answering thousands of calls per month while distributing twenty-thousand educational materials free of charge. Their combined websites receive over twenty-one million hits and their online and face-to-face support groups have helped their members’ hospitalization episodes decrease by almost half. Their programs prove that the power of people banding together is truly undeniable.

  That year, I was chosen to give the closing address at the annual conference in Boston. I had talked to individuals one-on-one, but this was the first time I was stepping before an audience to tell my story. I had been in front of hundreds of fans, but this was different—this time there were five hundred psychiatrists in row after row, waiting to hear what I had to say. I was not disappearing inside a character; it was just me, emotionally naked in front of all those strangers, and it was a little terrifying, and at the same time amazing, to relate my story that day.

  At the podium a clock in front of me was set for thirty minutes and that clock was a huge pressure—I felt like it was glaring at me, daring me to defy it. What if I couldn’t speak eloquently or long enough in front of these smart, important people? Somehow I managed, and once I finished telling my story I heard applause, and it kept going for a while with a standing ovation that was humbling. Although it had been difficult it was one of the most fulfilling experiences I have ever had.

  An
other amazing mental health nonprofit I got involved with was the National Alliance on Mental Illness. NAMI is the largest organization in the nation dedicated to improving quality of life for those who suffer from mental illness. In 2001, I received the Lionel Aldridge Award for courage, leadership, and service to others with mental illness from NAMI, an award named after Lionel Aldridge, who was a former defensive end for the Green Bay Packers and won three world championships, including two Super Bowls but struggled for years with schizophrenia and homelessness.

  Carrie Fisher, who dealt with mental health issues and was an advocate like me, was also there, and Sally Field and Samuel Jackson were acknowledged that night for playing characters with mental illness. The ceremony was very special because it was the first big public event where I was honored for speaking out about my bipolar, and the work with NAMI has continued for twenty-plus years, helping bring awareness in any way they ask, from special events to speaking engagements and national campaigns including #CureStigma and #WhyCare.

  Although the mental health work and my career took up the majority of my time, I was lucky to have the support of family and friends as I got more involved in activism. I was still in touch with my friend Manny, although it had been years since I talked to my old friend from home, Jeff.

  So it came as a big surprise one day in January 2002 when Manny called—to talk about Jeff. He said he was living with Jeff, and that we should talk. God bless Manny, always the peacemaker.

  I agreed. It had been so long and it was such a stupid fight.

  Jeff got on the phone. As soon as he said, “Hey, man,” it was like no time had passed, like we had never stopped talking. We stayed on the phone for an hour, laughing, and making fun of Manny, just like old times. When I got off the phone, I was happy we had reconnected.