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Overview
While the headlines screamed “Hollywood Heartthrob Marries Girl Next Door,” the public relationship of Jack Harrington and Grace Winslowe never revealed the private struggles that threatened to pull them apart–and when celebrity biographer Jada Eastman starts digging, she discovers that there’s more to this couple than anyone could guess.
Their relationship began like a scene from one of Jack’s movies. Leaving behind a dead-end relationship and the bitter Chicago winter, Grace had moved to Southern California to start a new life. Meanwhile, Jack had established himself as an up-and-comer with considerable acting talent, and a private heartache. When a fateful accident pulled the two of them together, they couldn’t avoid their initial attraction or the vast differences in their values and lifestyles.
Now, against the backdrop of Beverly Hills and the 24/7 nature of the entertainment world, Jada grapples with her own beliefs as she encounters the spiritual chasm of this famous couple. Can Grace and Jack face the consequences of their own personal histories–and can the biographer avoid being affected? As the three of them examine the couple’s bittersweet story, it becomes clear that everyday decisions can carry lifetime consequences when individual worlds collide.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780307551535 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The Crown Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 06/15/2011 |
| Sold by: | Random House |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 384 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Worlds Collide
By Alison Strobel
Random House
Alison StrobelAll right reserved.
ISBN: 1578567939
Chapter One
Prologue
I've always been a firm believer that celebrities are just like the rest of us. I've had my fair share of star encounters, and for the most part I was never that impressed. But even I have my weaknesses, and Jack Harrington has always been one of them.
He first became popular when I was in high school. When I practiced my interviewing skills in the mirror as I dressed for school, Jack Harrington was always my subject. "Mr. Harrington," I would say in my best no-nonsense reporter voice, which I'd been cultivating through my position on our school's newspaper, "your new project is quite a departure from your previous work. Tell us what seduced you into taking such a controversial role." I always imagined myself pinning him with my penetrating stare, silently daring him to bare his soul. I admit there was some melodrama in my imaginings; I had always been a love-story junky and hopeless romantic. Of course my fantasy would always end with Jack falling for me, Jada Eastman, the astute and charming reporter who had finally enticed him to explore his deeper, emotional side. Such excitement was hard to find on assignments for the Central High Herald.
I found myself in California after college, working as a fact checker for the entertainment department of the LA Times. I kept my writing skills honed by joining a writer's guild downtown,where I met a biographer who took me under her wing. She hired me to help her on her current project: the biography of a prominent director. This experience was invaluable, and it started my interest in writing life histories. She mentored me for the next three years before I finally got my big break: the opportunity to write an "instant book" on a Hollywood scandal.
It seemed like a smarmy thing to do at the time-two actors' lives were already ruined forever by the revelation of their secret affair and manipulation of various high-up producers and directors-but I'd learned over the past couple years that, to eventually get what you want, you had to temporarily take what you could get. I earned brownie points with the publishing company, though, when I broadened the book's coverage through a creative use of my old fact-finding contacts, and not long after the project was completed, I received a call for another book.
Sheer luck seemed to catapult me into the paths of some pretty famous people, and by the time I was thirty, I had written three biographies and assisted two celebrities in writing their memoirs. But these experiences shed light on sides of human nature I didn't really want to see. It was my job to get them to dump their stories, and I soon discovered the path to fame is paved with a lot of pain, both suffered and inflicted, and a lot of decadent and twisted living. Secrets kept hidden for decades would surface unexpectedly in the middle of an interview, as if the teller could no longer contain them. It was often obvious the story wasn't being told to be part of the biography, but just to ease the weight of the person's conscience. It was my job to sort the tellable from what was best kept hidden, to know what to reveal and what to return to the vault of memory. But all the information remained in my head, and I could never look at those people, or others like them, in the same way again. Disappointment in discovering the tarnish on the stars of Hollywood left me with a marked disdain for celebrity and fame, and though I continued to accept work from them, I developed a resentment toward them that slowly ate away at me and left me jaded.
It was in the depths of this cynicism that I received the call from Jack Harrington's assistant asking me if I would consider helping him and his wife tell their story.
Now, you have to understand that even though I had come to pretty much despise celebrities, Jack still held a special place in my heart. The tragedy of his girlfriend's death, the storybook quality of his marriage-they saved him from the disapproval I harbored toward his colleagues. Plus there were rumors floating around about an illness, as well as some spiritual fanaticism, which made me all the more curious about him. Not that rumors carried much weight with me. I'd heard too many and seen how few were true. But still, they fueled my interest. And of course, some schoolgirl crushes just refuse to go away. I accepted the invitation to meet with the Harringtons and discuss the project.
I didn't know much, just the same stuff everyone else did: his start in television, his girlfriend's death, his social activism, the truly Hollywood-like events that led to his marriage, and his absence from the public eye for nearly five years. But I'd also heard stories recently that linked him and his wife with what sounded to me like some religious cult. I hoped my childhood crush wouldn't turn out to be a wild-eyed groupie of some self-proclaimed prophet of the God of who-knows-what. I was tired of interviewing people who gave me even more reason to hope Hollywood would someday meet a catastrophic end.
When I first met Jack and Grace at their home in Pasadena, Jack had only just begun to show signs of the illness I'd heard rumors about. His wife, Grace, whom I'd tried not to loathe before even meeting her (how was he going to fall for me if she was there?), exuded a warmth and authenticity that, I had to admit, drew me in at once; I understood immediately how one of Hollywood's brightest stars could have so easily turned his back on the pretense and shallowness of so many industry women to marry a "commoner."
Their daughter, Bree, just a few weeks past her seventh birthday, had her father's extroverted charm and intense blue eyes, along with her mother's kindness and even-keeled personality. Her kindergarten art hung everywhere in the house, having been given the treatment usually reserved for original Picassos. Within a few minutes of my arrival I was pulled along on a tour of her work by the young artist herself.
I'd been there over an hour before Jack, Grace, and I finally sat down to talk about the book. I steeled myself for in-your-face zealousness, televangelist fervor and sheen, but instead I found myself drawn to this down-to-earth couple who neither took lightly nor exploited the influence they had. So far they were what I'd hoped they would be, yet I had a hard time believing they wouldn't eventually turn out to be die-hard religious nuts. I wondered how long they could keep up their facade of normality during our conversation. Despite my hopes, I was convinced this type of kindness and guilelessness would never last; they would probably try to lull me into a false sense of security so they could suck me into their cult. I found myself warming to the thought of exposing them through my hard-nosed research and reporting. The schoolgirl crush was finally fading. My interest was piqued.
I'm the kind of person who can't resist a challenge, and to me their charm and easy conversation were the throwing down of the gauntlet. I accepted the job then and there, signing on to write the story of a couple whose romance and lifestyle were already the stuff of legend in their corner of the world. I broke out the minirecorder and, over the next six months, became like a fourth member of the Harrington family. We'd sit together in the living room, on the deck, or in the kitchen-wherever they felt like being at that moment-and I would listen to their stories.
More fascinating, though, was the way they listened to each other's side of the story, as if they'd never heard it before. Watching them together became an education in intimacy: their undivided attention to each other, their respect for each other's version of events, her unobtrusive actions to make him more comfortable as the illness wore him down over the following months, and his tender gestures of unabashed love for her and Bree. I worked hard to keep myself from falling in love with these people, but it didn't take long to realize it was impossible.
I didn't know it at the time, and I don't always like to admit it now, but this job eventually changed me-my views, my beliefs, my life.
Grace
There is one particular morning that seems like a good place to start my side of the story. I was awakened by keys being fumbled into the lock on the front door of my apartment. Still half asleep, I rolled to face the nightstand, where the clock glowed some way-too-early time. The front door creaked as it was finally opened, and I jumped when it slammed a second later. The drunken shuffle of Dylan's feet through the living room was all the warning I needed; in a heartbeat I had the shower running and the bathroom door locked safely behind me. I watched the second hand on my Seiko make its rotational trip-once, twice, three times, four times, five-before I finally opened the door to find Dylan sprawled on the bed-shoes, clothes, and all-passed out cold.
Dylan was my boyfriend at the time. We'd been friends in college and settled in the same area after graduation, which is when we really hooked up. After a few months of serious dating he moved in with me, not because our relationship was so deep, but because rent was killing me and I was lonely without a roommate. Our relationship progressed down a weird road where we were comfortable together but not really in love: a relationship of convenience. There were occasional times of mushy affection, and they were nice while they lasted, but even so they seemed a bit contrived, like we needed to indulge in them now and then to make it seem as though our relationship was really going somewhere.
But lately things had been off-kilter with him. He was distant, preoccupied. Where we had once shared the responsibility of keeping our place presentable, now he was shirking his roommate duties and leaving me with all the grunt work. The biggest change, though, was in his sudden attraction to alcohol. He had never been a big drinker, but he went from having one or two beers a week to having enough to render him disgustingly drunk on a frequent basis, and then coming home sometime around dawn. I didn't appreciate sharing a bed with someone who smelled as though he'd gone swimming in Guinness, and I appreciated even less his drunken advances; thankfully, I was usually awake in time to hide out in the bathroom until he had passed out on the bed.
On this particular morning, I arrived at work about an hour after awaking to Dylan's stumbling entrance, bearing my usual breakfast from the café down the street. On my desk was a small stack of invoices left from the day before-data entry was one of the many dull facets of my job-but I ignored them as I ate, polishing off my donuts and tea with ritualistic devotion.
Dana, my cubicle-mate, showed up around nine with more donuts. She was younger than me, only twenty-two, and just out of college with an oh-so-marketable degree in Italian Renaissance Music. She was working here while she figured out what to do with her life-like the rest of us. "Happy Monday, my friend!" she sang. "And how was your weekend with Dylan, the king of charm?"
I laughed around a mouthful of donut. "Oh, just grand. Cleaned the castle-by myself, you know, since these days the king himself barely stoops to tie his own shoe, much less pick up his own trash." Dana laughed. "Leftovers for dinner-twice-and the big, comfy bed all to myself since he didn't come home until past five a.m. both nights."
Dana's face fell as the fun left the conversation. I hated to bring it down, but I didn't want to lie, either. The whole thing was really ticking me off, and Dana was the only one to talk to. "Oh, Grace. Where was he?"
I shrugged and rolled my eyes as I polished off the dregs of my tea. "Beats me. I didn't ask. I'm getting sick of his excuses. He was drunk as a sailor this morning, and I couldn't bear the thought of him breathing beer down my throat, so I got in the shower before he even made it to the bedroom." I didn't bother mentioning how rough he had been Saturday morning; I didn't want Dana to think it was worse than it was. I knew perfectly well this relationship was heading downhill; I didn't need anyone quoting battered-women statistics to talk me into ending it. I just needed some time to figure out what to do with myself.
The day passed as it usually did: work interspersed with the occasional game of Free Cell, vending-machine lunch, idle chat with Dana, and switching off my computer at four. "I wish I had the energy to get here as early as you do," Dana pouted. "I was ready to go home an hour ago, and I still have an hour left."
"Aw, poor baby, you have my sympathy," I cooed. Dana swatted at me and chuckled as I stepped out of the cube. "See you bright and early tomorrow."
I walked out to my car, realizing the last thing I wanted to do was to go home. I didn't particularly want to see Dylan, because he had been unpredictable the last few weeks, and I did not deal well with unpredictability. So I drove instead to the Barnes & Noble down the street.
I bought a mint hot chocolate and settled at a table in the café with a Newsweek. As a rule, I never watched the news on TV or read the newspaper; it always depressed me, and I knew anything really important would make its way to me eventually through conversation or rioting mobs. But every now and then I would check in on the world, and the safe, cozy environment of the bookstore café seemed a good place to do it.
I sipped my cocoa, reading every article except the ones on politics, which never interested me under any circumstances. Toward the back was an article on national housing trends. I scanned statistics on popu-lation flux and other dull subjects until reaching one which stated that more people moved to California last year than to any other state in the union. I had never been to California, but the article made me wish I had. It was in the seventies in Southern California right now, and here I was drinking hot chocolate and scraping frost off of my windshield in the mornings before work. Unfortunately, it sounded like the cost of living was way more expensive than I would have ever guessed; I wondered briefly what a job like mine was worth out there.
After finishing the magazine, I returned it to the rack and wandered the aisles of the store. I loved reading, but I hadn't been doing much of it lately. A display in the center of the main aisle held a number of books that looked good, and I made a note of some of the titles for later.
My stomach rumbled audibly; apparently it was time for dinner. I made my way back to my car, pulling my coat tighter against the bitter wind. I hated winter.
Continues...
Excerpted from Worlds Collide by Alison Strobel Excerpted by permission.
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