The Secrets I Learned About My Famous Dad After His Death
My dad told me almost everything to prevent me from finding out one thing
Image from the western movie saloon forum
As I wrote the title of my story, I feel his anger from beyond. He did everything he could to keep me from knowing this, let alone the world.
The world has changed since you left. The shame you carried with you all your life might not have been why you got brain cancer, but I don’t think it helped.
I’m writing this because I’ve recently gained perspective regarding the things you did and why you did them.
His methods were deliberately obtuse.
My father’s strategy for hiding things is best explained by the Playboy’s in his armoire. He left them at perfect eye level for a 9-year-old. Strategically placed. Those served to satisfy my curiosity so I wouldn’t go snooping and find the good dirty magazines he hid in the practice putting green in his closet.
He overshared certain parts of his life to keep me from knowing the truth about others.
He never treated me like a kid. Dad talked to me like I was a golf buddy, not his child. Dad would tell me stories of sex, drugs, and the crazy things he did in the 60s as we listened to heavy metal on the way to the car wash in his Mercedes. He never had a problem swearing in front of me. I went into my first smoke shop with him when I was 7 because he needed screens.
There were lots of stories from his childhood about him doing kids’ stuff. Like setting his bathroom on fire while trying to smoke a cigarette when he was 8 or the time he raced his Lambretta scooter with my uncle on the back against the neighborhood bully’s Cushman moped when he was 13.
In regards to his time in Hollywood as a child actor, he didn’t say much. You couldn’t ask him about it. He’d give me the most basic answer. Said he didn’t remember because he filled his brain memorizing scripts.
Downplaying his fame
When I was a kid, being famous seemed so cool. Everywhere you went people knew who you were and were excited to see you. You’d have lots of money from acting.
He never expressed any positive sentiment regarding his acting credits.
My father, Born Bradly Mora, under his screen name Brad Morrow was a big star and early in life. He was the it kid.
It wasn’t until I wrote a story about him last year that I realized how big he was at the time. Look at what films he was in the first three years in show business:
— Annie Get Your Gun (1950) — Won Academy Award for best score.
— Cause for Alarm (1951) — Costarring role with Loretta Young filmed when he was 7.
— Monkey Business (1953) — Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, Charles Coburn, and Marilyn Monroe. Still an entertaining movie today.
TV shows of the time, you name ’em. I’d be watching some old show on Nickelodeon and here’s my dad. He’d come downstairs and I’d say,
“You were on Lassie!?”
“Yeah.”
“What was that like?”
“Lassie was cool. Timmy was a prick.”
That was all I’d get out of my dad.
Why he walked away
Being a cute kid who looked 5 years younger than he was got him in the door. There’s been a lot of right kid at the right place child actors. What set my father apart from the cattle call kids was he could act.
It wasn’t until I did extra work that I learned about the art of acting. It wasn’t as easy as it looked.
At the age of 5, my father could emote through the screen. By the time the Mickey Mouse Club Spin and Marty snipe hunt episode aired, he brought the pain of being isolated and singled out into the viewer’s living rooms.
My dad could act. He was a natural villain. A bully in most of his teenage roles like when he played the part of antagonist Freddy Doobin in 1956s Toy Tiger.
Yet, he walked away. My dad’s acting credits ended when he was 20. After a 2-year break while he was in the Army.
I know my grandparents took the majority of my father’s money, my grandfather spent his earnings on failed business ventures and who knows what else.
He had made it seem like he walked away when he turned 18. Perhaps the lure of a few quick bucks brought him back. My father was a working actor, though the advantage his youthful looks gave him was wearing out. He could only play a teenager for so long.
“I was done. I was sick of memorizing dialogue. It was all fake. The fans loved the characters I played. People outside the business couldn’t make the distinction.”
“When we were filming it was great because I was away from the other kids. I kicked Lassie in an episode. The kids at school kicked my ass every day for a month because of something my character did that was written in a script.”
“When you’re older everyone wants to be the movie star’s friend. They don’t give a shit about you as a person. You’re like a vacation home. A possession to brag about. Someone who exists for assholes to namedrop.”
“There was no way I was doing open call auditions. It was a job filled with more stress than any kid should have. That’s why I kept you and your sister away from it.”
That was the combination of hundreds of conversations.
Something happened to my dad
It wasn’t until my interview with
that I remembered something odd from my childhood.
My dad stopped hugging me from the age of nine until around fifteen. There was no announcement, it just really seemed to make him uncomfortable. So, I stopped hugging him.
He’d been super affectionate when I was very young, then around the age of nine something started going on in his head. Don’t know what it was.
Then one day years later he was all hugs again. He wanted a hug before I went to bed. Okay, sure. Nite dad.
I mentioned something to my mom about it. She said what I’d been thinking.
Something happened to my dad. He never said anything. But my mother was convinced due to some reasons that I’m not going to say, but it all fit the profile.
He never doubted me, he was trying to protect me
My father and I were close. Maybe too close. I was his confidant. Again, I was smart and he never talked to me like a child. My mom was in charge of discipline and teaching responsibility. My dad was my best friend and I was his.
All of this that I do, creativity, wit, and insanity, comes from him. If he were still alive he’d be writing. It’s what he always wanted to do, but he had a family.
On the other hand, he didn’t think I had it. I remember asking him once when I was young, “Dad, do you think I could be famous?”
“No.” Just no. No explanation. No hesitation. Just no.
It didn’t bother me at the time and I’d forgotten all about it until recently. He worked since he was three. My grandmother and grandfather didn’t work, my dad was their little cash cow. He was little Jake in Annie Get Your Gun when he was five.
I don’t know if he didn’t want it for me, but the way he said no was like, no you don’t have it. — From my interview with Aimee Gramblin.
I got it twisted. He was trying to protect me. My father knew I had it. It scared him.
He was gone before I did my extra work in Hollywood. Maybe he would have told me more of the story if he saw me heading in that direction.
I grew up to be exactly who he wanted me to be. Who buys a 7-year-old a Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comic? The same person who gave a nine-year-old Catcher in the Rye. I forgave him for that when he gave me Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas when I was 11.
There’s no way in his wildest fantasies he could have predicted the result would be his son becoming Hogan Torah, one of the great counter-culture writers of his generation. I guarantee you he’d be loving it.
There’s a lot more to the abuse stuff. The answers are out there but I don’t think I want to know. What I do know is my father felt great shame for something that wasn’t his fault. In writing this I’ve wrestled with what to say and what not to say.
I think there is a pattern of child abuse in Hollywood. It’s horrible that my father was a victim of it and never got a chance to speak out.
My dad never doubted me. He was trying to protect me. I see that now, and I understand.
Love you always, Dad.
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