Stuff That I’ve Noticed #25 An Unexpected Dream

In July of 1967, as my Vespa motored me ever closer to the realization of a long held dream (playing Billy Bigelow in Carousel), I had no idea that another, unknown, dream that would transform my life awaited my arrival in that little theater.

The summer before I had been a member of the resident company at the Mount Gretna Playhouse in central Pennsylvania. Playing leading comedy roles in three plays and three musicals, some local ladies and several New York actresses who came in for one or two shows were my playmates. There was a lake to swim in and since each show ran for twelve performances over two weeks (no matinees) there was plenty of free time. It was a perfect and thoroughly enjoyable fourteen weeks.

Conrad Birdie           Boris (CanCan)         Luther (South Pacific)

The producer/director, Charles Coughlin, was seventy-eight that summer (six years younger that I am now) and was a walking compendium of theatrical knowledge and history. He was an important mentor to me and we became fast friends.

Excerpt from Three Stages: One day late in the (’66) season I was in Charlie’s office for some reason and noticed that among all the posters for plays and musicals he had produced, Carousel was conspicuously absent. When I asked why, he told me that he had never found a guy who could play Billy Bigelow for the money he could pay. Raising my hand, I said, “You’ve found him!” Then and there we agreed that we’d do the show the next summer.

I’d never had a job to which I looked forward with such eager anticipation. Mostly cast in character roles there was only one lead in any musical that I had truly desired and Billy was it. This time I’d get to really sing with all the vocal skill and power I had.

Coming from another job, I arrived at the theater on the third day of rehearsal. Charlie walked me in through the stage and introduced me to the cast who were in the front rows of the house working on group musical numbers.

Another excerpt from Three Stages: Sitting in the front row was a lovely young woman with a Shetland Sheep Dog at her feet. I didn’t know who she was but it was as though there was a pin spotlight on her and all the others in the room faded from view. Her presence hit me like a velvet sledge hammer. It was confusing.

Mind you, I was a reasonably good looking straight man in musical theatre and as such there was an overabundance of female companionship extant in my life to that point. And that point is the point at which they all evaporated from my consciousness.

It turned out that the woman was Betsy Hepburn who was playing “Carrie”, the comedienne of the show. Note: She was Funny and she could Sing! (This was a relief because I could never have been involved with a performer who wasn’t brilliant.)

Betsy Hepburn & Dennis Britten in “Carousel”

And involved I was from that first moment. We were married almost exactly four months after I first laid eyes on her.

Ben & Elizabeth Wedding #1

The entire story of the first chapter in our relationship complete with details is in the aforementioned Three Stages.

All of the above occurred a few months over fifty-two years ago.

A lot of water flowed under both our bridges in those years – most of it smooth and loving – and there were a few rocky rapids along the way but for twenty-eight years we kept the boat afloat.

During the twenty-ninth year our canoe-for-two hit a waterfall. For reasons that are still not completely clear to me Elizabeth (now using her actual name) needed to separate herself from our marriage. She moved out and a couple of years later asked me for a divorce.

What was I to do but say yes? And as of the penultimate year of the millennium we were no longer married. I was devastated. Again, this piece is not the place for the details which are in my third book, Waiting For Elizabeth.

Time often has a healing effect as it did in the case of our relationship. And the events of 9/11 also contributed in that Elizabeth became focused on, as she puts it, “her beloveds” and I was at the top of that list. So early in 2002 we started, for want of a better word, “dating”. I was going to add “again” to that sentence but realized that the first time around we never actually dated. By the time we left Mount Gretna in 1967 after knowing each other three weeks and four days we were simply together. No dating, as such, ever occurred.

Being with Elizabeth again I arose from the depths of despair and found a new joy in living, happier than I’d been for a very long time. At sixty-seven I had a new/old girlfriend. I was getting my life back! And get it back I did because three years after we began “keeping company”, with no pleading or prompting from me, she announced that it was time for her to move back in.

After five years of “living in sin” (as our mothers would have put it) we were married for the second time. This brings me to my titular “unexpected dream”.

It has been said that marrying a good woman has a civilizing effect on a man. Before marrying Betsy Hepburn I had no idea how uncivilized I actually was. At thirty-two I was living like a college boy; bookcase made of boards and bricks, second and third-hand furniture some of which was scrounged from discards found awaiting the trash truck and a refrigerator holding liquids; wine, beer, milk for cereal and coffee.

But aside from my diet and decor, Elizabeth’s refining influence was much more profound. The Spiritual Master, Sai Baba said, “Marriage is like sandpaper rubbing away each others’ egotism.” I don’t think in my case the egotism was entirely rubbed away but having her in my life full time surely did smooth out some of the other bumps and barnacles on my persona. These results were far from immediate but over the years I gradually became a better human because of her influence.

And her Presence: It keeps me … grounded? … happy? Whatever the thing is I do know that every time I look at her I feel better. She remains beautiful and not just to me, hers is both an external and an internal beauty. And we still make each other laugh.

Ben & Elizabeth a Love Story

After fifty-two years how much more of a dream could I want.

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