In 1978, I was cast in three shows in a row at the St. Peterburg Little Theater: Camelot, You Can't Take It with You, and Rain.
Cast as Sadie Thompson, the lead in Rain, Rhonda Rhoades was beautiful, and an excellent actress. I fell in love with Rhonda and she for me, and at first, I didn't realize the depth of her drinking.
After Rain closed, we g0t married on January 1st, at midnight, so we'd make the papers. We did.
“Former WSUN Radio 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.”
So, the evening before Lauren Bacall was due to arrive for filming, Rhonda and I sat in a screening room with two dozen of Altman’s friends watching a film, A Perfect Couple, which starred Paul Dooley.
Glenda Jackson, Carol Burnett, and Dooley were on the other side of the room.
By this time, I had realized that Rhonda was an alcoholic. At the screening, marijuana had been passed around, and Rhonda already had gotten drunk at dinner.
After a while, Rhonda loudly made some negative comments about the film, and Altman whispered to a guy who came over and said, “Bob thinks you should take her home.”
As those in the room watched, I got her out of there as quickly as I could.
We walked into the humid night and crossed the 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. When I reached the car, she’d opened the door and was in the driver’s seat. I was standing outside the driver’s side door.
“I'm driving myself,” she said. She threw the door open; I suppose so she could slam it shut. The door hit me square in the stomach. I tumbled backward, my head hit something hard, and the moon went out.
I spent the next two weeks in the hospital with a skull fracture sustained when my head hit the red warning bar in the lot.
A few weeks later I divorced Rhonda Crews.
And I never got to meet Lauren Bacall.
