June 18th / 20th
"Remembering Dad on Father's Day"
This time last year I was in Hollywood moderating a salute to nine iconic
TV Dads, and interviewing them about the relationships they had with their
own, real life fathers. Participants included Dick Van Dyke, Bill Paxton
(Big Love), Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) Jon Cryer (Two and a Half Men),
Michael Gross (Family Ties), and others. But it was a comment by 7th Heaven's
Stephen Collins that has special meaning to me for Father's Day, 2010.
Collins said of his dad, "he was a principled man, who was never afraid to
speak his mind". That description also fit my dad, James Lephoe Longworth,
Sr., who passed away last Saturday at the age of 90.
Like Van Dyke, my dad grew up during tough economic times, and he laughed
when Dick quipped to me," I was a kid in the Great Depression, and I lost
everything". And, like Van Dyke, my father never lost his sense of humor,
his free spirit, or his knack for getting into devilment. As a student at
Reynolds High school in 1936, Dad once set off cherry bombs in the boys'
bathroom toilets. Thirty six years later when I entered RJR, I discovered that
several of my teachers had also taught Dad, and they were all highly
suspicious of me since I carried his namesake. Guilt by association I suppose.
Or perhaps I was just a victim of familial profiling.
Back in those days, you could graduate Winston-Salem schools in the
eleventh grade, so as soon as my Mom matriculated (she is four years younger than
Dad), she and Dad escaped to South Carolina to be married. That was in
August of 1941, and today, nothing much has changed in the Palmetto State
where, I believe, you can still get married at age 9.
In those days dad was an athlete, an entertainer, and an adventurer. He
was a pilot, a tournament-level tennis player, frequent emcee for variety
stage shows, and could reportedly swim a mile out to sea and back without
getting winded. Later on, he spent most of his adult career as an illustrator,
then supervisor at Western Electric. But he was best known for his
avocations, among them: painting; raising award winning roses; drawing hilarious
(and sometimes dirty) cartoons; and writing provocative letters to the
editor. One of his most famous paintings was of a nude woman holding nothing but
a pallet and brushes. I recall the time when a rather puritanical couple
spotted the nude, and asked who the model was. Dad looked at my Mom and
said, "My wife, Charlotte". He never let truth get in the way of a good story.
Dad was also known as a tireless volunteer, and was particularly proud of
his service to Crisis Control Ministries where he helped countless
thousands of people receive food, shelter, and medicines. Dad even let CCM publish
one of his Old Salem paintings into holiday cards, the sale of which raised
money for the organization.
Earlier I alluded to Dad speaking his mind, and politics gave him a
platform for that. In the late 1940's and throughout the 1950's, he was a leading
figure in Republican party politics, having served as Chairman of the
Forsyth County GOP, and as a North Carolina campaign director for Dwight
Eisenhower in 1952.
Dad was a Republican, but also a fierce supporter of civil rights. A full
decade before the Greensboro Four staged their famous sit-in at
Woolworth's, Dad forced a lunch counter attendant to serve my sister and a little
African American girl standing next to her. As far as I'm concerned, his
portrait deserves to hang in a Civil Rights Museum.
Speaking of which, the only rights Dad ever trampled on were mine. At
age four I once tried to replicate his painting skills by drawing nude
pictures all over the living room wall. I was punished and my art was censored.
I have yet to reconcile the hypocrisy of that action.
As I think about it now, my father would have made a terrific TV Dad
himself. He was funny like Rob Petrie, stern like Ward Cleaver, and folksy wise
like Andy Taylor. And, like Fred Sanford, you never really knew how tall my
dad's tales were.
This will be the first Father's Day I've spent in 56 years without my dad.
Life will never be the same without him. But like all great TV Dads, James
Longworth will live on forever as I re-run memorable moments from his life
in my mind. In fact, I'm tuned in right now.
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