I grew up in Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley—the quintessential American suburb, built on the postwar fantasies of men like my father, a GI who'd trained in the California desert to fight Rommel and never forgot the first time he saw orange trees and swimming pools. For $500 down, you could buy a ranch house in one of the Valley's new tract developments and start a family—maybe even live out your dreams of Hollywood stardom. Such was the life that Joseph Jefferson hoped to create when he moved to California to study acting and married a fellow student. But Dad found acting to be a cruel mistress: he wound up spending more time tending bar than in front of the cameras. It was no way to support his wife and two kids, and his marriage was a shambles. So he found another mistress: my mom.
They met at an actors' hangout called the Masquers club, and fell in love while Dad was starring as Jesus in a...