Family Memories

I met my half-sister Jeanne when I was ten years old.  Before that I did not know she existed.  My father's first marriage and the two children it produced were kept secret from me and my sister, Tracey, until the day in 1966 when my brother Jim rode his Triumph motorcycle out to California from the East Coast, walked into my father's office, and said, "So, where you been?"

A couple of days later my 24-year-old sister Jeanne blew into my life like a fresh breeze through a stale corridor.  

Like all of us Weddles, she was an incredible story teller, capable of transforming any event -- no matter how mundane or traumatic or sad -- into an outrageous slapstick comedy that would have you falling out of your chair with laughter.

When I knew she was coming over to visit I percolated with excitement for days.  Jeanne's coming!  Oh man, it's going to be so great!

She loved to laugh and had a passion for the absurd.  Thus she was the perfect audience for the silent comedies I was buying from Blackhawk Films with my paper route money.  Jeanne got every gag in a Buster Keaton or Laurel and Hardy movie and guffawed over the subtlest gestures or details.

So it was only natural when I began making my own silent comedies -- first with my parents' Sears Super Eight Camera, then with a Yashica Super 800 -- that I would cast Jeanne in the movies.  If she had lived in the 1920s I'm convinced she would have been a great comedienne, a rival to Mabel Normand.  She mugged hilariously, threw her whole body into absurd contortions, and was a hit with audiences every time.

Jeanne's theater of the absurd traveled with her wherever she went.  When my brother Jim and Jeanne and my father all went to Vegas in 1971 to see a stage production of Cabaretstarring our actress friend, the great Jane Johnston, Jeanne, Jim and my father went bar hopping.

The evening got crazier and crazier, until finally Jeanne led the group into the Palomino Club, which was the premiere strip joint in Vegas in those days.  She introduced herself to the manager as Diamond Lil, a headliner on the East Coast Burlesque Circuit.  My father then assumed the persona of her manager and proceeded to negotiate for Diamond Lil to headline at the Palomino.

Nothing ever came of it, of course, and the group moved on to other adventures.  That kind of thing happened with Jeanne all the time.

I became an avid sky diver in my early 20s.  When Jeanne found out I was doing this, she said, "I want to come watch!"  Which is how she ended up in a Cessna prop plane that had no door on its right side.  We ascended to 13,000 feet then each of the parachutists dove out of the open side of the plane.  The pilot forgot Jeanne -- an observer -- was still in the compartment and went into a steep spiraling dive to get back to the airstrip to pick up the next group of sky divers.  By the time he landed, Jeanne looked like a Warner Brothers cartoon character desperately gripping the sides of the compartment, her eyes the size of golf balls.  

Instead of complaining to management about the incident, Jeanne quickly wove it into another hilarious tale that she told over and over again, to great effect.

Then there was the time she was employed at a company in Orange County.  One day her boss, Mr. Gibbons, said he would be working at home and asked Jeanne to bring him some important files from the office.  Jeanne arrived at his house to find the front door open.  She stuck her head into the foyer, and called out, "Mr. Gibbons?"  No answer.  But the stereo was playing easy listening music so she ventured into the house, calling out, "Mr. Gibbons?  Mr. Gibbons?"  

She found him sprawled out on the living room couch, stark naked, feigning that he had fallen asleep.  Jeanne left at once.  When she saw Mr. Gibbons on Monday morning she acted as if nothing had happened and he -- massively uncomfortable -- did the same.

Jeanne did not contact HR because there was no such thing in those days.  She did not cry and go to therapy to process her trauma.  Because there was no trauma.  It was just too juicy an anecdote!  Jeanne quickly transformed it with each telling into a hilarious slapstick romp, always pausing to note that "poor Gibbie" had the tiniest little peepee.  Many times over the years that followed my sister Tracey and I would beg Jeanne to tell "The Mr. Gibbons story" and she always rose to the occasion, adding new comic embellishments each time.

When I wrote Battlestar Galactica, one of the characters, Gaius Baltar, became the leader of a religious sex cult.  I named one of the his primary disciples Jeanne.  When she saw the episode, Jeanne cackled with glee.

In 2015 I wrote an episode of The Strain that recreated the day my brother walked into our father's office to ask, "So, where you been?"  My whole family came to a screening of the episode, including Jeanne.  I sat behind her as it was shown. I had thrown the name of my father's best friend, Ken Shaw, into the scene and when the father character said it, Jeanne laughed and murmured softly, "Ken Shaw."  That's what I miss so keenly -- Jeanne's ability to pick up on the subtlest of personal references in my work.

We didn't know it at the time but that screening was the last time all of the members of our family would be together.  Not long after that Jeanne was stricken by a massive stroke that left her bed ridden and blind.  I visited her a number of times and on the last occasion said, "Jeanne, tell me the Mr. Gibbons story again."  She laughed softly, "Oh poor, Gibbie," she murmured "he had a such a tiny little peepee."