Cheryl and I did not have an open relationship. And I was not shopping around for anyone else. So only grudgingly did I agree to go through the motions. Cheryl pretended not to find this showbiz work obligation to be demeaning and offensive. The costume department at The Smith Family helped me pick out a smart double-breasted blazer and a pair of chalk-stripe pants. I went on the show and asked questions that someone else had written for me. The girl I picked turned out to be a lovely young woman with long blond hair named Nola.
When it came time to enjoy my date of a lifetime with this comely lass who I didn’t know, Cheryl drove me to the Port of Long Beach, where the boat to Catalina was launching. She was relieved when Nola showed up with a boyfriend in tow, seeing her off just as Cheryl was doing for me. The ABC cameras were assembled to capture this dewy new romance, but reader, it was a sham!
More than that, it was . . . sickening. Literally. Within minutes of leaving the harbor, the choppy seas had sent all of us—Nola, me, and the other couple—to the railing. There was no respite from the nausea. Whether we went belowdecks to the cabins or stepped outside for fresh air, we all puked our guts out.
Upon arriving at Catalina, we changed into evening dress for a luxurious dinner. While the cameras rolled, I held the chair for Nola, and we both sat down to perfectly prepared slices of roast beef served on fine bone china. We could not have been less hungry and made only gestural acknowledgments of the food on our plates. Which was just as well, because the captain of our boat announced that, on account of the high waves and the demand for moorings, we would not be spending the night, as planned, on the island. Instead, we were sailing back to Long Beach, right away.
Nola and I reboarded the boat as the cameras clicked and whirred. That was the last I saw of her until the wee hours of the morning, when we both disembarked, unsteady, exhausted, and green to the gills. I had called Cheryl ahead of time and asked her to pick me up. There she stood, waiting by her dad’s Chrysler station wagon with a smirk on her face. I recounted to her the hardships that I had been through with this pretty, miniskirted girl in the name of network publicity.
“Awww,” she said, her voice thick with sarcasm. “That’s really too bad!”
* * *
CLINT
I also did The Dating Game twice, in this same period. They did a few “adorable” peewee editions in prime time, with child actors of my vintage and bigger prizes at stake. Like Ron, I was not picked the first time I appeared, losing out on a trip to Hawaii. I developed a little piss stain on my trousers at the moment we went out onstage and never recovered from that setback. I was already self-conscious about my physical appearance, the way kids are as they enter puberty. When I sized up the competition, I was relieved that the bachelorette made her pick blindly. The dudes in the other two chairs were taller and prettier than me.
Miracle of miracles, the second time I went on the show, I got picked! The chooser was Eileen Baral, a flaxen-haired little beauty who was on ABC’s Nanny and the Professor. I was nervous as hell. One of Eileen’s questions was “Name a vegetable that you are like.” I don’t know where this answer came from, but I blurted out, “I’m like a tomato because I’m so juicy!” It brought the house down and won me a chaperoned trip to Alaska with Eileen.
Mom accompanied me and Eileen’s dad accompanied her. Unlike Ron, I did not have a girlfriend and would not have minded going on a genuine date, whatever that meant for an eleven-year-old. But right out of the box, I discovered that Eileen was way out of my league. It turns out that, despite her diminutive stature, she was four years my senior and four times more mature than any girl in my school. She absolutely slaughtered me in games of checkers, chess, and Scrabble. We did enjoy some pleasant sightseeing in Nome and the Native village of Kotzebue. And it was cool that it stayed light for twenty hours a day. But no romance with the beautiful Miss Baral sparked.
* * *
Hank Fonda was a taciturn man. Between scenes, he spent his time on the Smith Family set crocheting, mostly floral patterns. Lots of throw pillows in the Fonda household, I guess. Fonda remembered my father warmly from the Mister Roberts tour and took a shine to me, giving me acting tips that he had picked up in the course of his four-decades-long film career. One was about pausing for dramatic effect. He caught me doing this before I began one of my lines and advised me not to do so again. “If you take the pause before your lines, they’ll cut it out, because they always want to tighten the film up in the editing,” he said. “Start with a couple of words, then do the pause, and then finish your line. That way, they can’t ruin your performance.”