Chapter 11: The Royal Palm

Wednesday December 21
Mom and Dad were up very early to talk to me before I went off to do my interviews today. I had to get up at this ungodly hour because of LA traffic. Mom was making breakfast, and it smelled wonderful.

“What are you making?”

“Bacon and stuffed French toast.”

Not exactly on my diet, but I wasn’t about to turn it down. Dad handed me a coffee.

“I talked with Ms. Dixon yesterday. She updated me on several fronts. I’ll start with your civil suit,” he said as Mom put bacon in front of us.

You could tell we were related because we both took a moment to wolf down a couple of pieces before he continued.

“Zander’s lawyers want all the video from Zak’s house. Ms. Dixon said Jason told her it’s a play to get leverage. They think that you won’t want to turn it over because of everything else that’s on it. They’re making noise that they’ll subpoena the full tape for discovery. The implied threat is that Zak was taping people having sex without their knowledge, and that’s against the law,” Dad shared.

Frick! I didn’t want to get Zak in the middle of all this. Fritz had signs everywhere that stated that we had video surveillance; it was clearly displayed. Even then, I worried sometimes that people might not realize they were being videoed. Hell, the women that tried to entrap me by editing their video hadn’t figured it out. That was an issue we would need to look into at some point, especially when I went to college.

“Obviously, we can’t give it to them,” I said.

“Ms. Dixon has been in touch with Zak and explained his potential exposure. His lawyer has demanded that we hand over all the tapes we took from his house; they claim it’s his property,” Dad said.

“I get a bad feeling about doing that. If we knowingly hand Zak the videos back, and they destroy them ... well ... I don’t want to be the guy involved in a cover-up.”

“Good,” Mom said as she put stuffed French toast in front of Dad and me.

We called a mutual timeout so we could feast on what Mom had made. She’d stuffed the French toast with cream cheese, cinnamon, walnuts, and maple syrup, which gave it just a touch of sweetness. While I savored my breakfast, it gave me a moment to think.

“Is there some kind of lawyer maneuver that can be made to protect Zak?” I asked.

“Like what?” Dad asked.

“I don’t know. You hear about everyone getting deals if they testify. What if Zak’s lawyers made some sort of deal with Zander’s people for access to the video? Something along the lines of them not being able to use any of the other stuff if it doesn’t pertain to the case and that they won’t go to the cops on him based on what they see,” I suggested.

“I don’t even know if that would work in a civil case. Your granddad always told me that you only tell your lawyer what they need to know,” Dad said.

“Unlike your parents. You have to tell them everything,” Mom added.

Even Dad rolled his eyes. I nodded so that we didn’t get off track.

“So, it looks like Zander’s lawyers know what they’re doing. Jason never said this would be easy,” I said.

“Ms. Dixon didn’t seem too worried. She told me one option is to give them a copy of the tape for the full time Zander and the girls were in the room and leave everything else off that copy. That would force Zander’s people to file a motion with the court to compel production of the rest of the tape. At that point, Zak’s lawyers can intervene and oppose it, and that would turn it into a battle between Zander’s and Zak’s lawyers, with us getting out of the way.

“From what Ms. Dixon said, the beauty of it is the judge would almost have to view the entire video by himself—she called it in camera—to decide what’s relevant and what’s not. That way, even if he suppresses it all, he’ll still have seen it. She also said the judge most likely would let only the relevant portion into evidence. A second way the judge might handle it would be to allow the relevant part into evidence and let Zander’s people use the rest only if it’s under seal. That would mean it would not be available to the public or the press. Either way, by having the court decide, we’re clean and protected legally from both Zander’s and Zak’s people.

“Anyway, she recommends that option, and she said they’d let Zak’s lawyers know what’s going on, but not until right after we turn over the portion that’s relevant to Zander’s lawyers.

“Finally, Ms. Dixon said Zander’s lawyers are just trying to do everything they can to slow us down. But with this approach, they’ll realize that isn’t going to happen. They know that if this goes to court, he will lose, and this will drive it home to them. She said to tell you to trust them on this,” Dad said.

“Easy for her to say,” Mom observed.

Mom did have a point. If it weren’t for Ms. Dixon watching everything, I would have been nervous. At least now I wasn’t dealing with either Cal or the idiot from the ‘attorney to the stars.’ He’d played Candy Crush on his cell phone the whole time he was supposed to be representing me during my police interview.

“Anything else on that front?” I asked.

“No,” Dad assured me. “The next topic is the NCAA. Ms. Dixon talked to Maddie Addison about Stewart Chadwick and his threats. She says that until he actually does something, it’s all just words. You haven’t been damaged, though technically, his threats are illegal. She said that if he does something, you have him. Her only concern is that you videoed him without his consent. He specifically asked that we not do that.”

“What you can prove in a court of law and what you can show the world are two different things,” Mom said.

That was basically what we’d done to Zander: convicted him in the court of public opinion before the law could get to him. So far, it looked like even though we’d exposed what he’d done, the legal system had taken a pass on actually doing anything meaningful to him.

“I understand that,” I said. “I’m just worried that he’ll cause us trouble down the road. Can the FBI do anything about him?”

“Maddie said you don’t want to share the last video of Stewart with the FBI, and we don’t want to put in writing that we even asked that question. We provided them with evidence of what the shoe companies are doing, along with agents and financial advisors. The NCAA may also be a subject of their investigation, but we don’t have any way of knowing that, and the FBI hasn’t said anything to that effect to us. She said you want to step back from that mess and count everything you’ve done to cooperate with them to this point as a win,” Dad said.

“What does Mr. Morris say about it?” I asked.

Dad smiled.

“He was appalled by Chadwick’s actions. You have to remember that Mr. Morris worked for the NCAA for a number of years. He said that your comment about them being a group of decent people was spot on. They will defend their member institutions to the hilt, but they don’t go out of their way to make threats to athletes to get them to do their bidding.”

“As long as I don’t try to break their antitrust exemptions, I’m okay?” I asked.

“That probably would cause them to have some significant heartburn, and then all bets would be off,” Dad agreed. “Mr. Morris wants to take the tape to people higher up the food chain. He said he’s certain they have no idea that Stewart is doing anything like this.”

“What does Ms. Dixon say?” I asked.

“She said to sit on it. She doesn’t see an upside of turning Stewart in to the NCAA unless he follows through on his threats.”

I was starting to feel anxious. I was very much a ‘tackle a problem head-on and be proactive’ kind of guy. This waiting and trusting people was really getting on my nerves.

“What else?” I asked.

“Aaron signed papers promising not to sue you or Cassidy. In exchange, you are leaving him on his medical insurance until he recovers. You also agree not to file a civil suit against him,” Mom said.

“What about the criminal side?” I asked.

“He’s going down,” Mom said.

“Aaron agreed to plead guilty to child endangerment. With that on his record, he’ll never be able to work with children again,” Dad said.

“Can I still kick his ass?” I asked.

“No!” my parents said in unison.

“One last thing,” Dad said. “Caryn wants to do a year-end wrap-up when you come home for New Year’s. I told her you’d do it.”

“Super!” I said, faking excitement.

I’d avoided business talk for almost a month. My druthers would be to have my dad deal with it. I was sure my mom would if I asked. The only problem was she might go a little nuts on me. She would probably think I had to buy more real estate or something. Mom would justify it by saying we would save on taxes or some other nonsense.

“Well, hello, stranger. Long time no see,” I said as I spotted Kimberly and Phyllis Fillmore.

Kimberly had played Ceci in The Royal Palm. She’d quit after the crocodile incident. I was sure a big part of it was that Laurent had slept with her and then sent her to sleep with me. That had been an ugly incident. Phyllis was Kimberly’s mom.

Kimberly got a big smile on her face and rushed over to hug me.

“I missed you too,” I said a little awkwardly.

I noticed both Lexi and Manaia were intently watching this little drama. Thankfully, neither of them knew our history.

“How have you been?” I asked as I extracted myself from her grip.

Kimberly flushed when she realized she’d wrapped me in a death grip in front of people she didn’t know.

“I can’t seem to land any roles after ... you know,” she finally said.

Walking out on a production probably would make people hesitant to hire you. Combine that with the fact that for every role, there was a slew of actors fighting for it. I’d been lucky. There were a lot of actors who had more experience and were probably much better than I was, but I’d been in the right place at the right time. Now, with commercial success behind me, studios and producers sought me out.

Kimberly wasn’t yet at that level in her career. I was a little surprised the studio would even have her promote the movie after she quit. They must be worried the Laurent stuff might get out and were playing nice. Believe me, that wasn’t their usual approach.

“What is your publicist, agent, and manager doing?” I asked.

“I got her this,” Phyllis said.

The light bulb came on: her mom managed her career. While I knew that my mom would do whatever she could to help, I wouldn’t want her to manage my career. She already thought she ran every other aspect of my life. I couldn’t even pick out what classes I took in school without her approval.

I motioned my PA over.

“Lexi, get Phyllis’s information and set up a meeting with Kent,” I said and then turned to Phyllis. “My people do a great job and have a ton of contacts. They can help with Kimberly’s image and get her in front of the people she needs to see to get jobs. I know she can act, so it’s just a matter of getting her the right opportunity. And I have a movie being made right now; I’ll see if they could use someone for a small role to get the ball rolling.”

Phyllis couldn’t decide whether to be pissed or relieved. I understood how she felt, not wanting to let someone down. She finally swallowed her pride and gave Lexi her information. Kent Crain was my senior manager at Dawson Management. He could hook her up with both Ari and Frank. Heck, he could also help her manage her money through Mass Investments. I’d heard several horror stories about parents mismanaging a young actor’s finances. With the team working for her, she would have a fighting chance of keeping her career in acting going.

Kimberly tackled me again.

“Thank you,” she mumbled against my chest.

“This means you have to say nice things about me in the interviews,” I teased.

“Absolutely,” she assured me as we were called in for makeup.

They’d booked us on the Early Morning Show, which aired from 4:30 to 7 each weekday morning. I was glad we had scored the 6:45 a.m. time slot. The studio wanted us on this early because many of the people in LA were up to watch the weather and traffic before beginning their morning commute. We’d drawn Lezlie Sanchez, the morning host who handled most of the fluff pieces, as our interviewer.

“I want to welcome David A. Dawson and Kimberly Fillmore. You’re in The Royal Palm, which will be in movie theaters this weekend, and you play a young Sir Richard Jackson,” she said and looked at her notes. “And you play Ceci.”

“It was a lot of responsibility to play someone so famous,” I said. “The good news was that the movie didn’t exactly follow Sir Richard Jackson’s story leading up to what is now called the Cuban Missile Crisis; some artistic license was taken. The film downplayed his real-life contribution to uncovering that the Russians had missile teams in Cuba. So, I didn’t embarrass myself too much.”

“David’s being modest. He was fantastic in this movie. I was lucky to be working with him. He even saved my life,” Kimberly said.

“Really?” Lezlie asked with a skeptical look.

“I think we have the clip,” Kimberly said, and they played the scene where we first saw the crocodiles.

It was fascinating to see Lezlie’s reaction as she watched the crocodiles enter the water behind us. I was reminded of how loudly Kimberly could scream when she spotted them in the film. I chuckled as she tried to climb up me to get away, and shook my head as I watched myself sprint out of the marsh. Lezlie about jumped out of her seat when they showed the crocodile jump out of the water to snatch Cassidy’s hat.

“Wow!” was all Lezlie said.

“I admit there wasn’t much acting on my part when I saw we had company in the water with us,” Kimberly admitted.

“The girl can scream,” I offered.

“I can’t wait to see it. The Royal Palm is in theaters this Friday. Don’t miss it.”

And we were done. I got up, we walked off set, and we found Phyllis on the phone. She looked up when she saw us, smiled, and gave Kimberly a thumbs-up. When Phyllis hung up, she was excited.

“The studio wants you to go to the next interview with David,” she announced.

“Wait, was this going to be the only one you did?” I asked.

“Yes,” Kimberly admitted.

My phone chirped to let me know I had a text from my publicist.

‘Good Job’

I was impressed he was up this early. Then I remembered that Lily did most of my tweets. I wondered if it was really Frank or just one of his underlings.

Kimberly tagged along for the morning interviews. At noon, we parted ways and promised to keep in touch. I would see her again at the premiere. In the afternoon, my first stop was at TMZ. There I found Stewart Thatcher, who played the MI6 agent in The Royal Palm and who had been selected to play James Bond in our upcoming movie Devil May Care.

“I hear you’ve been causing trouble,” Stewart said as he gave me a bro hug.

He was talking about the dustup I’d caused with the singer who’d performed the title song for the movie. The phrase ‘voice of an angel, disposition of a witch’ came to mind.

“I wasn’t thinking,” I admitted.

“I’m sure it wasn’t as uncomfortable as when I was questioned about Laurent accidentally shooting himself.”

Stewart was right. I would rather deal with a politically charged pop star than talk about that. Yes, I’d come to hate the guy, but it still bothered me to know he’d died in front of me. I just shook my head in sympathy.

“Guess what?” Stewart asked, suddenly brightening. “I get to interview you.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“TMZ thought it would be interesting to have me interview you instead of their usual format. What do you think?”

“I think it’s a bad idea. You know way too much about me,” I worried.

“Ah ... it’ll be fun,” Stewart announced.

TMZ set us up in two director’s chairs facing each other in front of their logo. Stewart had large index cards with his questions written on them. He shuffled through them.

“I wrote these last night when I got back to the hotel. Reading them today, I can tell I had maybe one too many cocktails,” he said and then looked up at me. “I say we go with it and have a bit of fun.”

“Sure, why not?” I said hesitantly, and Stewart smiled to see me squirm.

“So, the movie is called The Royal Palm, and you play the royal.”

“Uh, not really. You did see it, right?” I asked with a grin.

“Oh, yeah, I did, uhm,” he said, playing it like he really hadn’t.

“We shot it last summer. Remember going to Cuba and drinking too much rum? I understand someone your age forgetting what they had for breakfast. So, maybe not,” I said.

“Good one,” Stewart said with an evil smile and a glint in his eyes.

“Ruh-roh, I’m in trouble now!” I said as I fake-squirmed in my seat.

Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to provoke him.

“Many actors enjoy performing their own stunts,” Stewart said, getting into the role of interviewer.

“Yeah.”

“Do you do your own acting?”

He had a huge grin on his face. My first thought was to call him a dick.

“Only when there’s singing or sex involved,” I said with a straight face.

“I know firsthand you’re terrible at both.”

I just raised my eyebrows, and it took a moment before he realized the double meaning.

“A-HA! I guess it all comes out,” I teased. “I hear you Brits are into that kind of thing.”

“It’s where the real craft comes in when you have to work with someone like you who couldn’t get a scene right if he had to. I think we have a clip of that,” Stewart said, throwing me under the bus to divert the focus from him.

They showed a series of clips of me doing a scene over and over again, and the comments Laurent Vance made. Looking back, it was funny. You could see me get more frustrated each time we shot it. The funny part was that each one seemed almost identical.

“How did you even get the role?” Stewart asked, acting confused.

After that series of takes, I could see why he would be perplexed.

“For some reason, I couldn’t get a role to save my life, if I’m being honest. They say that many times, you are simply at the right place at the right time. I was at a Hollywood party and saw a studio exec with someone who wasn’t his wife and snapped a couple of quick pics. The next day, I had the role.”

I tried to combine my best innocent smile with puppy-dog eyes as I shrugged helplessly, but Stewart spoiled the effect when he erupted in laughter. It took him a couple of minutes to pull himself together.

“That explains a lot,” he chortled. “What made you want to do The Royal Palm?”

“At first, I thought I’d be working with you while you were still playing an alien, which is how we normally interact,” I said teasingly while also plugging Star Academy.

Stewart tried to look nonplussed, but he couldn’t contain the grin.

“Either that or something to do with magic,” Stewart offered.

I’d have to thank him later for plugging The Secret Circle.

“Yeah, I can’t forget that. I guess they tricked me into doing a period piece.”

“A film based in the early ‘60s isn’t really a period piece,” Stewart said to correct me.

“Oh, that’s right. You’re old.”

He was pretty accurate with throwing his index cards.

“They warned me never to work with animals or children.”

I gave him my best angelic smile.

“The Royal Palm is out in theaters this Friday. Come see the kid and me in a great film,” Stewart concluded.

“And we’re out,” the director said. “Great job.”

The rest of the day, I did interviews with different castmates. It was good to see Heath Rooter, the veteran character actor who played a CIA agent in the movie. He and Stewart had become my best friends on the set. The two of them had drawn the coveted Tonight Show appearance. I’d gotten Kitty Ellis, and we were doing a new show called Backstage.

It was a late-night entertainment show that was similar to Inside the Actors Studio in that it was centered more on the craft of acting. As such, the studio audience was made up of actors, directors, producers, and others in the industry. The majority were learning their craft.

The show was shot at the Geffen Playhouse on the UCLA campus. It held 512 people, and Frank told me it was sold out for tonight. The studio had held several pre-screenings of our movie for influential people and critics. Tonight, they planned to have one before the taping of our show. The only qualifier the studio put on it was that they couldn’t give away any of the good stuff like me being shot and killed in the movie. They wanted it to be a surprise to the broadcast audience when they went to theaters.

Kitty and I sat in the front row with the host, Kent Bloodworth, to watch the movie. I noticed that they’d made some changes from the version of the film that was shown to my football team in St. Louis. Kitty shared that based on focus groups, they’d tweaked it. At the end of the picture, I was surprised when the audience stood and clapped. I think they had an appreciation of how much work making a movie was.

They took a quick break while putting a table with three chairs around it on stage. Kitty and I were warned that this was a ‘live’ show. Then, before it began, Mr. Bloodworth reminded the audience as well. What could go wrong with being ‘live,’ I wondered.

As they played the intro, I noticed that Kitty had started to look nervous. As a director, she was used to being on the other side of the camera. I reached over, squeezed her hand, and smiled at her. She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. It was lucky that Mr. Bloodworth went into a monologue about who we were and that he and the audience had just screened The Royal Palm.

“This movie is better than I had been told, and I was informed it was probably the sleeper everyone would end up seeing. The only film that might give it a run for its money for all the awards this year is La La Land. I would also say that both Kitty Ellis and David A. Dawson may be taking home some hardware for their efforts.”

He then focused on Kitty and how she’d gotten her start. I hadn’t realized that she’d been in the business for fifteen years before she’d gotten the chance to direct The Royal Palm and followed that up by doing Love Letters. It just highlighted how hard it was to break into this business because I thought she was one of the better directors I’d worked with.

It was now my turn.

“How did you get your start in acting?”

“I was a high school athlete and went on a recruiting trip where I met an actress who was involved in the Star Academy movie. She thought I had the look and confidence to play her son. I was invited to a casting call in Chicago for the role,” I answered.

“How did that go?”

“They were very nice and let us dress up in costumes for our scene. I got bored waiting, so I went and lifted weights while everyone else got their turn. I was put last because I was a late addition.”

“We have a clip of that audition. Let’s take a look,” Mr. Bloodworth said.

There was a big screen behind us on which they could display pictures or video. I turned and watched myself. It seemed like forever ago that I’d done that audition. I remembered pulling out all my modeling tricks to look sexy as I stalked Bree Steno. The scene called for me to seduce her. When it ended, there were some whoops from the females in the audience, and Kitty had raised eyebrows. I don’t think she realized I could do ‘sexy.’

“You didn’t actually get the part, did you?” he asked.

“No, Ben Cowley was picked to play Roman. I was given the role of Stryker.”