One evening, we sat in a screening room with two dozen of Altman’s friends watching a film, A Perfect Couple, which starred Paul Dooley. Glenda Jackson and Dooley were on the other side of the room. I sat with my wife of just 40 days, hairstylist, and amateur actress, Rhonda Crews. Rhonda and I married at the Sand Dollar Hotel in Clearwater, where my mom, Dee, was the hostess. It happened at one minute past midnight in 1979 because we wanted to make the papers. And we did.
“Former WSUN Public Affairs Director, Lary Crews, married stylist, Rhonda Rhoades, just after midnight in a Clearwater ceremony. Lary starts preproduction work on January 8 on the Robert Altman film, Health, which will be shot at the Don CeSar Resort Hotel in St. Petersburg Beach.”
Rhonda was an alcoholic, her mother adored me, and hoped I could get Rhonda off the bottle. At the screening, marijuana was being passed around, and both Rhonda and I took a few hits. Sadly, Rhonda also drank too much at dinner. So far, I wasn’t having any luck getting her off the booze. Sensing what was coming, I tried to head it off at the pass.
“Don't tell me to shut up!” she slurred.
“I didn’t.” I said, “Just tone it down a bit.”
She was making negative comments about the film, and Altman whispered to someone. The guy came over and said, “Bob thinks you should take her home.”
Rhonda said, “Gunna throw me out just cuz I don't like your fucking movie?”
As the room watched, I got her out of there as quickly as I could.
“Jesus,” she said, as the elevator door closed. “Just who is that Tom Dooley guy, anyhow?”
“Paul Dooley.” I corrected her.
“Who in the Hell is he?”
“He’s Altman's friend. They made the movie A Wedding together.”
She began singing, “Hang down your head, Paul Dooley.” I had to laugh.
We walked out onto the dark, humid street that separated the hotel from the parking lot. “C'mon, baby, let’s get you home,” I said.
Our car was parked in the first row of the lot, and she trotted across the street, digging in her purse. By the time I reached the car, she’d opened the door and was in the driver’s seat.
“Honey," I said, “let me drive. Come on, slide over, and let’s go home.”
“No way,” she said. “You made me leave the damned party.”
I was standing outside the door.
“I'm driving myself,” she said.
She threw the door open; I suppose so she could slam it shut, and the door hit me square in the stomach. I tumbled backward and, my head hit something hard, and the moon went out.
In a hospital bed at Palms of Pasadena Hospital, I woke from what I was told was a two-day-long coma on my mom’s 54th birthday.
All I could recall from the night of the accident was darkness and being lifted by two guys onto a cold, metal table.
My best friend, Dottye Williams sat by my bed. “About time you woke up, Crews,” she said.
My voice was surprisingly raspy. “How long have you been here?”
“Since yesterday.”
“Wow. When am I getting out?”
“Not sure,” she said. “You have a skull fracture just behind your left ear. Your head struck that red caution bar at the top of the parking space. That needs to be mended. They want to run a few tests to make sure there’s no brain damage.”
Addled on painkilling meds, I realized that quitting my career at WSUN Radio, to take the job with the movie was bad decision-making. Of course, going to Malta with the Altman crew ended up being completely out of the question. Altman had to replace me due to the accident. I will always wonder what might have happened if I’d become part of the crew. It still makes me sad. "I’m jobless,” I said, “and maybe brain damaged.”
“Beats being dead,” Dottye said.
The next day, Rhonda and her mother showed up. Rhonda wore no makeup, an effort at looking remorseful, I suppose. She apologized but said, “You were stoned, too.” Trying to put some culpability on me. After five minutes, they left.
Later in the day, my mother came by. She blasted Rhonda for being an alcoholic and said we ought to sue her. However, I was surprised when Mom told me that Nationwide Insurance was paying for my hospitalization under the terms of my auto insurance. I mean, I was hit by a car, but still. “You must divorce that woman before she hurts you again,” Mom said.
“I suppose so," I said. "What a mess.”
My two-week stay in the hospital ended. I called my mother, packed all my stuff in my car in the pouring rain, and drove to mom’s three-bedroom condo in Clearwater.
Lying in my room at mom's condominium, I watched the 5th Annual People’s Choice Awards Show on TV. Carol Burnett won Favorite All-Around Female Entertainer. Pleased by the results for my new friend, I got up the strength and called Rhonda and asked for a divorce.
“Hey, man, your accident was not my fault." She accused me of running to my mommy.
I agreed that I did, but I still wanted a divorce. She called me a dumb ass and hung up.
A few weeks later we were divorced.
Health was Altman’s last film for 20th Century Fox, which delayed its official release for two years. It got festival showings and was broadcast on U.S. television stations over the years, including The Movie Channel and Fox Movie Channel, but was never issued on home video because of music copyright issues.
On June 12, 1982, President Ronald Reagan screened the film at Camp David during stormy weather. In his diaries that day, he called Health "the world's worst movie."
