Every generation has a “Where Were You When…?” moment, but it’s impossible to name a bigger event for a global remembrance than the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Growing up outside Philadelphia, New York City was a frequent destination for me. School trips, Broadway matinees and occasional jobs as a child actor. As soon as I graduated high school, I hightailed it to there to continue my education and fully pursue my acting aspirations. I stayed there happily until late 1990 when my career dictated a move to the West Coast. I left begrudgingly…hating to give up the glories of Gotham. “Hollywood…wow!” I can still hear my mentor, Mary Stuart, trying to enthuse over the telephone. New Yorkers are rarely impressed with Los Angeles…a city as vastly different as their two climates. LA is a “factory” town where TV & film are produced and promoted, but the real arts & entertainment spring out of Manhattan, which is why the stars prefer to live and play there.
But Hollywood has always been kind to me. And on 9-11-01, I had just canceled a planned week in NYC to accept a guest-starring role on the drama series ANY DAY NOW and was on location with Annie Potts and scores of cast & crew in a cemetery in Glendale, CA. When we got the news of the attacks, we all crowded into my trailer–which had the only working television. We took turns watching in horror as events unfolded, still trying to complete a day’s shooting in spite of the distraction and anxiety for our loved ones back East. All flights were grounded and highways closed…there was nowhere we could go, so the decision had been made to forge ahead with the production schedule. “The Show Must Go On,” I guess.
But by the time we wrapped and found exit routes out of Glendale, it was very clear that the world had changed. For the next several days, the show DIDN’T go on. No one went to work. We were glued to our TVs…bonding with friends, families and neighbors…praying for each other. It didn’t matter what state or what country you were in…EVERYBODY was united. Everyone was a New Yorker.
I liked President Obama’s call to service for all of us as we approach the ten year anniversary…a way to recapture that sense of unity and simultaneously honor the memories & sacrifice of those who died on or as a result of that day’s events. Since becoming “bicoastal” two years ago, I have reclaimed my allegiance to the Big Apple. I’m proud of my “New York-ness” and the qualities it represents: resilience, courage and community-service. So I’m going to be spending 9-11 there: with my family, my neighbors, my lifelong friends and several “newly acquired” friends, too. Visitors from all over the world, including many of my International colleagues, will also be there and I look forward to a solemn celebration of our collective, democratic spirit.
With a nod to one of TV’s great programs, GUIDING LIGHT, these words may be even more meaningful than when they were written over a half-century ago:
There is a destiny that makes us brothers,
No one goes his way alone.
All that we send into the lives of others,
Comes back into our own.