- Show business and the world at large lost a treasure
recently when one of the greatest men most people have never heard of died.
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- That man was Robert Sabaroff, writer, producer, musician,
husband, friend. Possessor of a mind awesomely analytical yet spiritually
profound.
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- Bob was far from a household name. His biggest successes
came in the '60s, when he wrote the feature film, "The Split,"
as well as several of the most highly regarded episodes of the original
"Star Trek."
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- He also wrote a ton of other TV shows and produced one
called "Then Came Bronson," which was critically acclaimed but
lasted barely one season. Like Bob himself, Bronson was an iconoclastic
piece of work. No guns. No crimes. No trials. No surgery. Just a guy on
a motorcycle, driving across the country and meeting people trying to deal
with the same problems all of us struggle with everyday.
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- Of course the show was doomed.
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- For me, it was as a human being that Bob Sabaroff really
shone. Bob was a bastion of integrity. A man with values not often found
in show business - or, for that matter, in the world at large.
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- Values centered around four short words:
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- "Do the right thing."
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- My friendship with Bob taught me that I could be myself,
crazy as I may be, and find acceptance.
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- It taught me that I could be open and honest even if
I vehemently disagreed with people, and still find acceptance, even respect.
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- And it taught me that I could be intelligent and knowledgeable
and not hide it, and - that's right - still find acceptance and respect,
and maybe even admiration as well.
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- Because that's how Bob lived. And not only was he accepted
and respected and admired, he was greatly loved.
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- The space in which these words are appearing exists because
of my friendship with Bob Sabaroff. The writing I call "Live! >From
Paradise!" began as a daily series of e-mails I sent to him in which
I talked about my life.
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- I would tell him where I'd just been, what I'd done,
who I'd talked to, and who had talked to me. And then the next day I would
read his reply, and if something got his curiosity going I'd expand on
it and share the new version with him as well, eager to read his reaction
and learn what I could from it.
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- Those reactions were so deep, so moving and so encouraging
that I took the next logical step (logical, that is, for someone who's
been a writer all his life) and sent the e-mails to Betty Barker Smith,
publisher of The Baxter Bulletin in Mountain Home, Arkansas, along with
a note that said, in essence:
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- "Make room for this! Please! Make room!"
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- Which the effervescent Ms. Smith very kindly did.
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- The local paper appearance turned into a blog, and then
found its way onto various other interweb sites, resulting in hundreds
of thousands of readers of the words appearing right here. Readers who
so often do me the honor of sending me their e-mail reactions in return.
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- Reactions I read eagerly, and from which I learn much
more than I can explain
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- Just as I learned from Bob.
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- His responses, however, have been missing for several
months, since he was diagnosed with the leukemia that killed him long before
those of us he left behind were ready. Ever the ethicist, Bob never told
anyone outside his immediate family just how serious his condition was,
or that he was undergoing radical chemotherapy. He never told us how high
a toll the illness and its treatment were taking.
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- "It would've been wrong to tell you," he said
to me just a couple of days before he died in L.A. "It would've caused
way too much pain."
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- Not long after that conversation, I awoke filled with
fear. The weight of the world lay on my chest. Then, suddenly, it lifted.
I felt only peace.
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- "Bob? That you?" I called out to the darkness.
"Come visit. Join the rest of the spirits here on The Mountain. Make
yourself at home."
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- The next morning, I learned that Bob had died at the
same moment I awoke.
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- If you got my message, My Brother, and you're here, watching
and listening, then please take this one to heart as well:
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- "Thank you for giving me so much of yourself. And
giving me so much of myself, too.
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- "Above all, thanks for letting me love you."
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- Copyright C 2007 by Larry Brody. All rights reserved.
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- Author Larry Brody's weekly column, LIVE! FROM PARADISE!
appears on his website, www.larrybrody.com. He has written thousands of
hours of network television, and is the author of "Television Writing
from the Inside Out" and "Turning Points in Television."
Brody is Creative Director of The Cloud Creek Institute for the Arts, the
world's first in-residence media colony. More about his activities can
be seen on www.tvwriter.com and www.cloudcreek.org. He welcomes your comments
and feedback at <mailto:LarryBrody@cloudcreek.org>LarryBrody@cloudcreek.org.
Brody, his wife and their dogs, cats, horses and chickens live in Marion
County, Arkansas. The other residents of the mythical town of Paradise
reside in his imagination.
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