In my mind’s eye, I could see my father, in the old yellow robe, on a ladder painting the weathered garage door.  My mother’s mind in mine, her excitement raised in goosebumps on my skin.  A featured actress… a summer rehearsing one show in the day, performing a second at night.  Anticipation pounded in our nineteen-year-old hearts in unison and just why was that handyman on the ladder staring so hard at her as she swung her Barbizon perfect legs out of her parents’ car and into the beginning of the rest of her life?

That day was my beginning, too, not as a featured actress, not even close to finding my husband, but my first day in Boothbay Harbor, the town I would call my summer home in years to come.  I suppose I needed to relive their romance, to find the true magic that spun around the three of us kids at the dinner table as Dad recounted the playhouse days he and Mom had courted, when he had acted as leading man to her leading lady, really kissing his lovely ingénue with all the passion an actor could give.  Years sweetly remembered as the best years of their lives before television and film gave them their fate.”

When my parents came to see me on stage that summer in my first leading role, they fell in love with Boothbay Harbor all over again.  Renting at first, then purchasing a cottage on Southport Island, they gave their children and grandchildren many happy summers.  Twenty-two years have gone by and both my parents have passed on, as has the Boothbay Playhouse, leaving its rich legacy. 

-Excerpt from the Foreword to Any Way I Can; 50 Years in Show Business by John Gay and Jennifer Gay Summers, BearManor Media, 2009

Together they starred in many plays that summer and the next, and married on May 7, 1949.  But Ozzie, my mother’s father, and his friends had some reservations: 

“In the men’s room at the reception, one of Ozzie’s friends actually came up alongside me at the urinal and asked, ‘How do you intend to support Barbara?’  It really floored me.  Together, Bobbie and I had saved a few hundred dollars.  I don’t remember what I muttered in response, but I thought the question on this night, on this occasion, at this place, was insensitive.  The truth is all of her family’s friends were concerned that Bobbie was marrying an actor.  The poor girl.  God, what a terrible thing to have happened.”

After cutting their honeymoon short for my mother’s appearance on a television show, John and Bobbie continued to audition and cross their fingers.  It wasn’t long before their dreams came true: 

“Harvey Marlowe, the man who saw our audition in New York, called to say WOR, Channel 9, had signed us to do a domestic comedy in the fall.  They wanted a fifteen minute show, five nights a week.  ‘Who will write them?’ I asked.

‘You will.’

Fifteen minutes?  Five nights a week?  All we had was the ten minute audition sketch.  Impossible.  And I’m not really a writer.  I called Harvey Marlowe immediately.

‘We’re thrilled with the offer.’”

After a few years on television with many scripts under his belt, Dad started getting writing jobs, which replaced acting as a means of support.  Eventually, a lucrative Hollywood offer brought my parents out to California.  Dad wrote the film, “Run Silent, Run Deep,” and his career turned into solid gold.  Mom left acting to have me, then my brother, Larry, and then my sister, Liz.  But as soon as we were all off to college, she went back to the stage, performing at the Nine O’Clock Players children’s theater in Hollywood. 

Through it all, Mom and Dad held on to each other as soulmates.  They believed their stars were meant to collide.  On their anniversary, I step out into the clear, dark night and feel their love for each other illuminate the sky.

“Safely submerged, we set out to sea in maneuvers that had to match mock encounters with other Navy craft in which dummy torpedoes would be used.  By lunchtime, Wise and I were still bushed from lack of sleep and asked the captain if we could just sack out for twenty minutes.  He was glad to oblige and let us use his own quarters with double tiered bunks. 

I had only just closed my eyes when the sub gave an alarming shudder, a groan, another shudder, and started to sway back and forth.  ‘Uh-oooga!  Uh-oooga!’ came on the loudspeaker.  And then utter silence.  No engine sound.

Wise and I sprang to our feet.  Two crew members entered the captain’s quarters and the air-tight hatches were sealed behind them immediately.  Silence.  They stood on guard, still silent, hands behind their backs, at attention. 

‘What’s going on?’

No answer.  No response.  The silence was both deafening and alarming.  They stood there like statues.  And they remained that way for what seemed like an hour.  Then a voice came over on a loud speaker.  ‘Secure from collision drill!  Secure from collision drill!’

A grinning captain greeted us when the hatches were opened.  It was obvious that he enjoyed his little stunt enormously, taking Hollywood for a ride.  The first shudder was all ahead full to all reverse.  Second shudder was firing off a dummy torpedo.  How did it feel?  We offered weak smiles.  ‘Oh, yes.  Terrific stunt.  Great.’”