Preface: I wrote this piece around eight years ago; I’m shocked to see how much of it has proven to be true and getting truer every day.
The Curious Case of Leo Benvenuti
by Leo Benvenuti
I think to myself, “Don’t force me to do the math. I hate that.” This has been happening a lot to me lately. I meet up with people I’ve known for a long time and they somehow mention their age. I do the math and think, “Wait, that means, when I first met you, you were just 15 years old. Could that be?” I run the numbers in my head again and they don’t jibe. Sure, I know, people lie about their age, especially when they get to be in the 40 to 60 year old age range and especially in this youth obsessed world of show business. I get it. I see the benefits. As an actor, unless you’ve made it, you’re pretty much over at 35 and same as a writer, if you’re not established by 40 you’re out. Who am I to blame these fibbers for trying to squeeze a few extra years out of this business?
I’m 49 years old but I’m beginning to think this reinventing of one’s self is not a bad idea. That’s why, starting tomorrow, I am 19. So what if the numbers don’t fit, so what if they think, “That means I met you when you were negative 12.” I wouldn’t even care if people said “Leo looks like shit for 19,” behind my back. Who knows? Some idiot might actually believe it. But for the others, the psychology would be that people would know I’m lying but feel sorry for me because of my need to lie. A small lie might be corrected, but, it being such a big lie, they’d play along, out of pity. It’s a win-win situation. I’ll take sympathy over ageism any time. People might say, “That Leo is a liar.” “Yes”, I think to myself, “a 19 year old liar.” Let’s face it, the younger you are, the longer you can generate money for “the powers that be” out there. The studios and/or networks don’t care if you’re an artist. They only care if you bring in money. As it stands, there’s a regime change in the studios and networks every 3 to 5 years. That’s great for the liars. With each new regime, I will become viewed anew as one of the “young breed of hotshot writers.” Whatever it takes for them not to shut off my electricity, I say. I’m now 19.
I don’t care if people wonder how I’ve accomplished as much as I have in such a short lifetime. How was I able to work comedy clubs in the 80’s? I wasn’t born until 1990. My mother was born in 1933. That means she was 57 when she had me. Yep. She sure was. My dad died in 1998; how do the numbers work with that? I don’t know, they just do. I have a wife of 27 years and two children, ages 21 and 19. Yes, I’m the same age as my youngest child. How could that possibly be? I don’t know; piss off. BUT if it gets me another 20 years in show business, who am I to argue?
I ran this past my family. My wife seemed really, really on board... somewhat keen on the idea of being married to a younger man. The kids hated the idea. My son, the 19 year old, wondered if it meant that we had to “hang” together or if I’d show up to his parties. I tried to reassure him I wouldn’t. Still, he thought it would be much cooler if I just pretended to have a mental collapse and institutionalize myself. He continued, “I could tell my friends that you thought you could time-travel. That would so freak everybody out.” He obviously doesn’t get what I’m after here. My daughter was a little more sympathetic. She referenced some facts from her Psych class, but also deactivated her Facebook account.
Hey, you might think poorly of me, that I’m desperate, that this whole thing is immature but, hey, what do you expect? I’m just a teenager.
(I run to my room, lock the door and through tears I write some pretty dark lyrics.)
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