I've spent most of my life loving 
in one way or another. When I was a boy, it was a distant, complicated sort of love, like the love I had for 
. Actually, it was the love I had for . In my mind, 
and my dad are versions of the same person: loving but brutal, generous but prone to fits of mood, kind but always a little suspicious of kindness. I suspect that I wasn't the only boy in the country who felt this
way although even now I think I had better reason for it.
met at the end of the '60s, when was at the
top of his career, a cultural icon as much as an actor. was a
building contractor who had successfully bid the job of remodeling 's house in Newport Beach. From there, they became business partners
and drinking buddies. built an apartment building for Batjac,
's production company, and he remodeled their warehouse and offices as
well as 's home. He felt enormously privileged.
