MY FIRST BIG CRUSH

FIRST BIG CRUSH, ELLEN GEER AND ME

When I was fourteen, I played my third role at The Players in a very Fifties' play, A Roomful of Roses.  (I'm the teenager on the sofa.)  This experience was a totally happy one for me and I made friends I was to keep for many, many years.  The leading role was played by Ellen Geer, whose father Will was to become a household name several years later playing Grandpa on The Waltons.  (Your feet are cold!)  Ellen was a beautiful blonde who was already an accomplished actress at sixteen.  I was to watch her career unfold in films and on television and she is still acting today.  But when I met Ellen her long career was in the future and she was that talented girl I went to high school with.  Why she spent her senior year in Sarasota, I was never to know, but she made an indelible impression on all who met her.  The handsome young man in the far left of the picture played my older brother, but my feelings for him were far from sisterly.  I adored him and he  thought I was a nice kid.  Bill was charming, witty and good-looking, but he only had eyes for Ellen. I understood this, but this knowledge did not dampen my ardor.  I followed him around in a daze of unrequited teenage passion, staring at him with my big brown puppy eyes and hoping he would throw me a bone, which he occasionally did.  After all, he was used to this kind of thing.  He was so sophisticated!  So worldly (more than I knew.)  So very, very funny!  Every high school boy paled in comparison to this Greek god, not that any of them had noticed me.  Every night on stage Bill and I got laughs.  We were encircled in a warm bubble of audience approval which was quite intoxicating.  

"Weren't those kids who played the brother and sister cute?  And funny too!"
"Yes, they were darling!  But what about that girl who played the lead--she was fantastic."

Suddenly, it was closing night.  The fun was over.  The bubble had burst.  My heart was broken.  Bill was leaving for New York to become an actor!  Ellen was oddly unmoved by this tragedy.  

"Will you miss him?" I asked.  Ellen looked at me intently, but I couldn't read her expression.

"Oh, he'll be back soon; he's not that talented," she said.  I was stunned; this had not occurred to me.  "Look, I know you like him, but don't......Bill's not really....."  She looked into my face where no light was dawning.   "Don't get your heart broken."  And she walked quickly down the hall.