UCLA Journal of Radiation Oncology APRIL 2023 - Flipbook - Page 33
UCLA RADIATION ONCOLOGY JOURNAL
FIRST COUSIN
ONCE REMOVED
by Matthew J. Farrell, MD
When I was a kid, long before I wanted to be a
doctor or had even heard of oncology, I dreamed of
becoming an actor. I grew up in Sacramento—not
exactly the beating heart of the film industry—but
my mother's mother lived in Santa Monica and we
would stay with her for a month every summer. My
father would unashamedly sneak me into movie
premieres in famous theaters, and he bought us
season passes to Universal Studios Hollywood.
Despite having a serious job—as a psychologist in the
emergency department—he was a kid at heart. Los
Angeles was our promised land, and our shepherd
was my father's cousin John, my first cousin once
removed, who lived in West Hollywood and was a
living, breathing actor.
Bohemian Copyright Care Felix
John wasn't famous, not yet. He was in his late 20s,
just starting out, doing mostly background work
and some commercials while working as a waiter
at the original Cheesecake Factory in Beverly Hills.
All the staff loved him there, so much so that they
would give us free pieces of cheesecake just for
being related to him. John was generous, outgoing,
expressive, and talented. Success seemed just
around the corner.
One challenge for him was his voice. He had a thick
Bronx accent, which would have been perfect if
he had been auditioning for Raging Bull but which
otherwise narrowed his prospects. He hired a
voice coach to help him erase his accent. But that
didn't mean he was trying to erase his New York
roots. He was proud of his upbringing and family,
coming from a long line of police officers, burly
men with strong jaws and thick arms and outdoor
voices who seemed to be the very genesis of their
own stereotype. And as his Bronx accent faded, he
was teaching it to me. He said he would take me to
a baseball game at Yankee Stadium one day, and he
imitated the beer hawkers who walked up and down
the aisles, calling out to the crowd, “Get your beer
here,” but pronounced, “Getcha bee-ah hee-ah!”
John was the first person I distinctly remember
being in perfect shape. He was a sight to behold—
muscular and solid, yet graceful and light on his
feet. In addition to being an actor, he was training
as a dancer. Coming from generational athletic
ineptitude myself, I was enthralled. He taught
me how to moonwalk and do bicep curls. I would
walk up to my mother and flex my tiny muscles,
imagining a day when I would be as strong as John.
One summer, John was much thinner—his face
hollowed out, his previously bulky arms as lean as
my own. What I only vaguely understood at the time
was that he was gay, and he now had AIDS. This
was the mid-1990s, and highly active antiretroviral
therapy was on the horizon but just out of reach.
His treatments failing him, he became desperate
for a cure. He did twice daily coffee enemas, choked
down repulsive herbal concoctions, and visited New
Age visionary healers. For a long time, he remained
optimistic. He was in constant contact with his
agent, seeking out auditions even as his strength
waned. He wasn't only a waiter at The Cheesecake
Factory and he wasn't dying of AIDS; he was an
actor who was going to be healthy again soon.
Occasionally he would call my dad, buoyant with
hope, “The virus is gone. I'm cured.”
Of course, he wasn't. My father never tried to talk
John out of pursuing alternative therapies, though
he considered doing so many times. The frantic
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