Intervention

When I was a teenager I spent many hours at the picture show, also the library. I spent many an hour at the record store listening to records (in Switzerland they had listening kiosks and you could play an entire record from start to finish without buying it. I spent many an hour at the bookstore, reading books while seated on the floor, back propped against the shelves. I was a loner and I was lonely, and I daydreamed constantly. The books and the movies became the friends I did not have in school.

I went to every movie. I saw some classics (I sat by myself, screaming with laughter when Violet Newstead stole the body) and I saw some films that were, shall we say, a little lower on the recommendation list, like the European cinematic releases of TV movies like EVITA PERON, starring Faye Dunaway, and BATTLESTAR GALLACTICA, starring Jane Seymour.

One of the made-for-television movies that I saw was a fantasy thing with swords and shields and swarthy hero with muscles and a beautiful heroine in a loinskin bikini. I forgot, long ago, what the movie was called. I forgot what it was about. I forgot almost everything about the movie except that my teenage swashbuckling fascination led me to love it, even though I had an inkling that it was a fairly dreadful movie. I know there was magic and swordplay and pretty people in a fantasy land. And I remembered that the beautiful woman was named Estra.

That. Is. It.

The only reason I have had any recollection of the film, all these decades, is the name Estra. At the time I thought it was so exotic and different, beautiful and enticing, like the actress and character from the movie.

During my teenage years, I had no concept that I could, possibly, have a man as my love. I believed I would grow up, meet a girl, get married and have children. And I knew, when that happened, what I would name these children: Beauregard (I was a big fan of the novel Auntie Mame) and Estra.

I told this to Me Mother.

“No, Stevie, you aren’t going to name her children Beauregard and Estra.”

“Why not, Mama? I like those names.”

“Stephen…” explained My Mam. “I graduated in a class of over a thousand people in Hollywood. I listened to every name that was called out as the students walked across the stage. I heard some of the most terrible names you’ve ever heard in your life, and for each terrible name, I thought “That poor person.” I promise you, I am not going to let you do that to your children and my grandchildren. When the time comes, I gurantee you, you won’t be giving your children those horrible names.”

Now… here’s the thing… I have remembered that story for four decades. But not five minutes ago, having been unable to remember the name of the movie for the last forty years, while sitting at my desk, I said, right out loud: “Her name is Belinda Bauer.” I went to IMDB and typed in Belinda Bauer, and there it was… The Archer and The Sorceress. I don’t know how or why I remembered that name tonight but it’s nice to have the full picture in my head, once more.