The Teenage Drug Addict Jack Lord Saved From Suicide

PHOTOPLAY, April 1970

Twice the girl began to rise from the chair, and twice she forced herself back against the dear, familiar blue and white linen print that covered it. She was thin, almost shapeless. At fourteen she retained the figure of a child, showing only faint promise of the woman she would become. Deliberately, she faced the television screen hoping it would distract her from her terrible craving. But desire overcame will. The teenager went down the hall, entered her room and rushed to the dressing table. With frantic movements she thrust her hand into an amber apothecary jar labeled "bath powder." Swaddled in the silky substance was the box her fingers were seeking. Pills.

As the girl pulled it out, tears welled in her eyes and ran down her cheeks. She was so ashamed of what she was dong, doubly ashamed as she looked at the apothecary jar, because it reminded her of how much her parents loved her. She’d deliberately chosen it as a hiding place for her drug supply in the pitiful hope that it would somehow strengthen her resistance. The jar had been a gift from her mother. "I brought you something," her mother had said handing her the package, "because, while I was shopping today, I suddenly thought how lucky your father and I are. You’re such a sweet girl, a nice girl."

Yes, the young girl told herself, tears streaming, she had been nice and sweet then—a year ago—but, oh, how she’d changed! The pot, the pills, the destructive road she’d taken had already led her past the point of no return. And now her situation was worse tan ever, because she could no longer afford the drugs her body craved. Babysitting couldn’t possibly pay her expenses any more, and, besides, she didn’t feel well enough these days to watch the neighbors’ children.

Her Frightening Decision

She had nothing of value left to sell except herself, and now it seem it might come to that. Tomorrow maybe but not today. Today she had to have money for pills. She had to have pills to live. To live! Suddenly as escape presented itself to her. How silly that she’d never thought of this before; she didn’t have to stay alive at all. Death would be a blessing not only to herself but to her parents. If she died, they’d grieve for awhile, but, if he future was as she foresaw it, they would grieve indefinitely. She made a decision. Her mother and father were out for the evening. She decided that before their return, she’d be dead. She knew where her father kept his gun and ammunition. But shooting herself would be messy. She decided to think about it, perhaps find a less messy way out. Her one consolation was that if she couldn’t find a better means there was always the gun.

Back in the den, she once more sank into the blue and white chair to stare at the television screen where big, bright waves were breaking, "Hawaii Five-0."

She heard Jack Lord speak. Then James MacArthur. They were talking about a dead girl, a girl about her age who apparently had been taking drugs.

Without realizing it, the young viewer became caught up in the drama. As the hour progressed, the actors futilely tried to track down the drug source. They questioned teenage users.

No member of their viewing audience was more engrossed in their efforts that night than the solitary, 14-year-odl girl who was gradually regaining the will to live. Just before the show ended, the script gave Lord and MacArthur their break when a schoolgirl told them everything. She even incriminated her own friends, because, she said, she wanted to save other youngsters from the drug trap.

Ah-h-h. The girl who’d been watching the show expelled a sigh of relief.

She’d promised herself that she’d take drastic action before her parents came home, and now she was going to do it. But she wasn’t going to shoot herself. Instead, she picked up the telephone and asked the operator, "Would you get me the police, please?"

A few weeks later in Hawaii, Jack Lord opened a fan letter which mad him cry.

"Dear Mr. Lord," the neatly written script began. "I want you to know that you saved my life." The young girl told her story and concluded with: "I called the police and told them everything, included the names of pushers. The people I named are in jail now, and when they get out, my life won’t be worth a nickel. But it wasn’t worth a nickel anyway, so I think I did the right thing.

"And for the time being at least I’m happy. My parents know the truth, and they and my doctor are helping me. But you helped me first of all."

Jack answered the letter immediately assuring the girl that he, too, thought she’d done the right thing and urged her to write again, soon.

To a sensitive man, the letter from the teenager meant more then his star status, the success of his series or any acclaim.

Jack, who stands a hard-muscled six-foot, two, looks like what he use to be--a tough, New England sailor. But he has the heart and mind of a dreamer, a poet.

His college career rather epitomized the man, for he was the first student in the history of New York University to attend the school on a football scholarship while majoring in fine arts. His sensitivity exceeds his brawn. He’s a talented artist whose wood cuts are included in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and whose other works have been exhibited by the Corcoran gallery in Washington, D. C. among others.

His sojourn on the islands (location for his television series) began as a professional venture but has turned into such a love affair that Jack has written a book, "Jack Lord’s Hawaii," and is illustrating it with his own photographs.

"There’s a sweetness here, a gentleness you don’t get anywhere else. In Hawaii, you don’t even hear horns blow. Books and paintings are love letters to the world," Jack continues. His book is a love letter to the sweet and golden people of a sweet and golden clime.

As far back as his high school days, the diverse facets of his personality were pulling him this way and that. At fifteen, he wangled a seaman’s papers and roamed the world on a freighter, yet he was already painting so well that while he was in high school he won the St. Gaudens Plaque, awarded annually to one outstanding artist attending school.

During his sophomore year in college, he earned his private pilot’s license and organized an art school, all the while playing such a great game of ball that sports writers called him "one of the best tackles ever turned out at NYU."

Highly physical, highly spiritual, Jack was already a complex and fascinating man. When Lord decided to become an actor, he got a job as a Cadillac salesman ten blocks north of the theatrical district in New York City.

However, all the time he was selling Cadillacs by day, Jack was studying drama by night with Sandy Meisner. Three years of study brought him his first professional acting job, a part in "Man Against Crime" starring Ralph Bellamy. But his initial impression as an actor was made when, in 954, he played Kim Stenley’s leading man on Broadway in "The Traveling Lady" and won The Theater World Award for his performance.

Hectic World

If Jack’s professional life has been busy, it’s busy not to the point of being hectic. His private life is an idyll because of his storybook marriage to the former Marie de Narde. They met when Jack saw a charming house and decided to find out if it was for sale. The owner was Marie and Jack discovered that she, rather than her house, was what he really wanted. As it all worked out, he got the girl (she’s Mrs. Jack Lord now) and every day since has been in Heaven.

"She understands me," Jack says, "and that’s a rare quality. A maid who worked for us for a time said, ‘You is one.’ And that’s what we are. We are one. We love each other. I don’t know how you can tell when you are in love except that your heart says, ‘Yes.’"

Marie seldom visits the set. Nevertheless, her life revolves around her husband.

"Her business is me," he smiles.

Jack, reared a Catholic in an Irish-Catholic household, doesn’t air his religious views, but his general, moral philosophy is compassionate and "square." In this respect, Steve McGarrett, the character he plays in "Hawaii Five0," is much like the off stage Lord.

"McGarrett is a stranger and complex man," Jack thinks, "a guy who cares, really cares about people.

Jack, the sensitive artist, the idealist, the dreamer, gets more from acting than money or fame or even the pleasure of doing interesting work. He likes to fee that he’s helping somebody in some way.

So perhaps the high point of his entire career came with the receipt of the letter:

"Dear Mr. Lord. I want you to know that you saved my life."

Once Jack said, "If this show goes three years, I’ll be able to do whatever I want to do." But re-reading his fan mail, he may decided that he’s already done it.