My open letter to Ed Harris

Dear Ed Harris, my name is Alexandra.

I’ve wanted to write this for three decades. Strangely, I’ve thought about you regularly since I was six years old.

You must remember the moment you first knew you could perform. I do. I was maybe four, sitting on tired living room carpet beneath my beautiful father. I held up a thin white paper bag, folded shut gingerly by my tiny fingers.

“It’s Babar!” I roared. The paper bag was Babar. A trunk and crown pre-cut by my preschool teacher made it so. But I’d assembled it all on my own, and to my amusement it really did resemble my favorite storybook character.

“See?” I cried.

But my daddy’s eyes were glued to Katy Segal’s leopard leggings on our television. Without turning he mumbled, “Show mommy the elephant.”

I deflated, turned to my mother, barely holding up my creation for her. My teeth clenched. She’s already seen the elephant.

Parched, I turned back to daddy, in need of his eyes, the ones that matched mine. He rarely spent time in our apartment; he didn’t sleep under our roof anymore. My crushing loss. But on this day, I had him, my limbs in a state of urgency, with little confidence he’d stay long. Look what I made with my bare hands! I made Babar, and you made me! Look!

I then launched into what can only be described as a spot-on elephant impression. Not captivating enough though. I wish I could’ve registered that the Married with Children punchlines weren’t compelling him to react either. But a neglected four year old trusts she is the defect.

Nights he was gone I’d close my eyes, trying to picture daddy unsuccessfully, his facial features slipping through my sandy hands. Al Bundy would appear in his place sometimes. I would blend their images, both balding, slumped with a miserable lower lip. My immature brain morphing two cranky white fathers, one fact and one fiction, into one Mr. Potato Dad.

But on this pivotal night, a real celebrity sighting, my biological father, was in my three-dimensional living room. Tonight I didn’t have to close my eyes and piece him together; his flesh spoke for itself, facing just enough away from me. Daddy. Would. Not. Turn. I needed an earthquake. My survival at stake, I entered a state of delusion. I gasped, embodying a grown woman in shock. I held up my paper masterpiece and shrieked, “Look at Babar! LOOK! Somebody KILLED him!”

By the grace of God— or my manipulation, I’m not sure— my dad finally whipped his head away from the screen, toward me, a flash of curiosity in his dirty blonde brows. And it was absolutely delicious. Do you understand? Can you relate? Finding my dad’s puppet strings was, still, the best thing I’ve ever tasted.

This is the day I knew, wholeheartedly and rightly, I’d one day be on television. Being behind a screen would afford me more undivided attention. And daddy could see me there, whether or not he was home.

A year or two later, in my first grade classroom, a circle of kids sat around me as I held their attention, pretending I knew everything there was to know about an overflowing tub of colorful magnets. Casting director Mali Finn, a friend of my principal, saw me mesmerizing classmates and decided on the spot that I should read for the lead of her new film. So I did.

Weeks later, I learned that I’d booked the audition. I asked myself what booked meant, not grasping that I’d just been invited to play on an entirely new planet. It’s a separate world, wouldn’t you agree?

Our studio lot greeted me with eager to please grown ups. The crew marveled at my politeness and sweetness, only feeding my “please” and “thank you’s.” Golf carts zipped by and I hoped for a joyride. The first AD, seemingly fluent in children, asked, “Wanna drive it?” I didn’t know a kid could drive, in any sense of the word. This place was sunnier than my dreams.

It was a big budget production starring celebs like Sally Field and Kiefer Sutherland among others— all heavy hitters I’d never heard of. To me they were everyday, unrecognizable adults, but somehow were treated like gods by anyone who so much as passed by. Impossible for a child not to notice. I wanted to harness this invisible superpower. “Stars” could command attention, good attention, love maybe?

“Alexandra, you’re about to meet Sally Field, she’s playing your mother. Sally Field!”

Sally was on her knees in front of the camera between takes, talking to John, our director. Sally’s hair punctuated each of her sentences with a bounce. And the crew, in a circle around her, hung on Sally’s every word, every hand gesture. I didn’t know so many adults could be so hypnotized by one person, one who wasn’t even reciprocating their eye contact. She and John spoke professionally, and at least a dozen grownups stood entranced by her existence, like she was instructing them on how to use an overflowing tub of colorful magnets or something. I took note.

Later, in a glam trailer, a makeup artist snapped polaroid continuity photos of me, my baby blonde hair half up, half down. The makeup artist was walkie-talkied before asking me,

“Alexandra, are you ready to meet your dad?”

My dad? She’d snatched my undivided attention. And in that instant, a crew member guided you to your makeup chair. Your blue eyes striking and familiar. If I were to direct this moment, we’d start by panning up your boring dad trousers, marching up the trailer’s steps. A Van Morrison ballad would play as the camera pulled back to reveal your stature and inviting face. You would then saunter in, slightly slow motion. I’d punch in on three romantic close ups: your honest receding hairline, your wholesome piercing-free earlobes, and the hands of a goddamn provider, wearing a gold band that said you stayed. The camera would swirl around you as you claimed your throne of a makeup chair, your seven hairs swaying in a gust of glittery wind.

My dad? My dad.

Accessing my memories now is like playing a game of telephone with a dozen six-year old versions of me. I’m sure my little mind was busy projecting hopes onto your chiseled face, but the way I still remember it, you were the kindest to me of anyone on that set.

You were by far the most genuine, the warmest, a bowl of summer cherries. You’d hold me and call me a “fairy princess.” Okay, to be fair, you were in character when you said that; you were being paid to hold me and call me a fairy princess. But also, fuck everybody! You loved me! Like I was your flesh and blood! I know it! Forget that you’re a brilliant four-time Oscar nominated actor. Forget that I had you—a handsome thespian– look me deep in my thirsty eyes like I was your world, cradling the most tender part of me hiding just under the surface of my plush cheeks. Day after day, John Schlesinger would bark, “Action!” scratching my itch for another take. I’d call, “Daddy! Daddy!” throwing my arms around your steady frame. I did such a good little job in that movie. Probably because I wasn’t acting.

Crew members fed the fantasy; “You two have the same eyes! Ed could be your real dad.” Could he? You smelled clean, like responsibility. You were reliably on time, well dressed, friendly, admired. Could he be?? You crouched low, and listened when I spoke. I believed I was the apple of your eye— a literally believable performance. Could he really be??? You knew to wrap your arms around my character when delivering bad news. Male touch and comfort previously foreign. Could he really be??? After months of playing your baby, I had to come out and ask you. I had to. The stakes were too high.

“Ed, will you be my real dad?”

God, I wish I could remember your answer. But your response didn’t survive my scorched field of long-term memories. I wish I had a recording of the whole thing. Did I ask you confidently or bat my impossibly long lashes? Does Paramount Pictures have this exchange somewhere in a dusty blooper reel storage unit? All I can remember is that your reply was gentle, gentle, gentle. The way I needed my new dad to be.

Sometime later, you casually mentioned you had a daughter about my age, and I thought, I am your daughter about my age. I didn’t want to know there was someone else. Ed Harris, you were the one that got away. After months of make-believing I was yours, I’d see your face on my TV, in my empty living room, wishing you could see me too. My television, acting as a torturous, one-way FaceTime, I slowly pieced together I’d need fame to stay fresh in your memory. And for a time, it seemed attainable; my next job, I was cast to play Matthew McConaughey’s daughter in a movie that also starred Samuel L. Jackson, Sandra Bullock, and Donald Sutherland— a bunch of Ed-less nobodies if you’d asked me.

You gifted me a silver heart locket necklace on our last day of filming. You also gave me your phone number at some point, which I only know because for years I kept a palm sized address book for kids, and on a yellow page, under “H” was my precious, determined handwriting: Ed Harris, followed by seven lonely numbers. I don’t remember if I ever called. I do remember always wanting to.

I wonder what you deduced or knew about my dad and his unwrangleable addiction. I wonder if I came off as sweet or clingy. I must not have made you too uncomfortable; you invited me to your daughter’s birthday party after filming, at a venue filled with costumes and gowns where I could keep playing pretend. That was the last time I saw you in the flesh; I waved goodbye behind a glass door as you held and kissed your true fairy princess.

I wore that empty locket to school, carrying an idea. A vision. That things could be different. I had briefly experienced a contrasting daughterhood. I literally wore her clothes. Tugged at your pajamas in our home with three walls. I lived her. I held onto that necklace, and the ache of comparing you to someone who vanished again and again.

That locket contains a photo of my adoring husband now. He’s an outstanding father to our toddler. I chose someone reliable. I found my way. Are you proud? I’m a writer, also working in the Addiction and Recovery space, evidently still hungry to connect with my lovesome, incalculable dad who was taken by an overdose. I buried him three weeks ago.

I see a flash of his charm in my clients often. And I’m balmed by the opportunity to help the ones who want it. They are daring to face their pain, and face me. Many are adults who never had their sweet little needs met. Together we speak up for their inner children without villainizing their families. We voice what they never said. Grieve what they never had. And it makes a difference. They begin recovering. I can’t tell you how much I admire them and their courage. They are my movie stars now.

My desire to connect with the dad he wasn’t still lingers and nags. Hence this letter— reaching across decades to stage a tantrum for a man who was just doing his job. I know now that I can’t grieve him fully without first grieving you. You— the illusion of a present, protective, adoring dad I felt, but could not have. A “what if” that I wouldn’t let die while daddy still lived. Finally grasping that his towering limbs were puppeted by suffering, and not by my little expressive hands.

Thank you for embodying the potential. Bless you, Ed Harris, for allowing my deepest pain to become tangible enough that even a kid could conceptualize the loss. I can kick and scream in a path you paved. I can let both men rest.

Ed Harris, if you’ve read this far, thank you for knowing how that child actor felt and what you’ve always meant to her. I’m not asking that you respond to, or even digest this long letter. But I was compelled to voice what wasn’t scripted. I promised her I would.

Ever grateful that our paths crossed,

Alexandra Kyle