The Saga of Jimmy Stark Pt 1

Merri Caldwell, the Hollywood Today! reporter, was sitting across from Sandra Wright the actress who had played Jimmy Stark's mother on Family Muse. They were in a living room of what looked like a mansion. In the background was a huge window with sunlight diffusing through the curtains, both sitting in highly polished expensive looking wood chairs, perhaps cherry or mahogany. Merri and Sandra were across from each other in the classic interviewer/interviewee pose. Sandra still looked attractive in her mid to late fifties.
"Good to see you again." Merri said.
"Good to see you, Merri."
"What was it like working with Jimmy Stark?"
"Well, I only worked with Jimmy for the run of the series, he was eight when it started and thirteen when it ended. He was very bright and had a great instinct for acting for such a young person." Sandra Wright spoke in the clipped tones, and formal enunciation regarded as a sign of erudition and breeding by the elocution coaches of the old studio system.
"What kind of instinct?" Merri asked.
"Even when he was young he just knew how to act, how to make a scene work."
"He did?"
"He was a very observant young man. I sometimes watched him watching everybody else. If he saw an emotion he could replicate it again and again, and I don't mean he was merely imitating people. I don't know how he did it, but there was more depth to it than that."
"How did the success of the show affect you?"
"Me? Well," she paused dramatically for the effect, "I got more money...eventually." She forced a laugh, "it really changed more for Jimmy, than me. The producers really didn't foresee how Jimmy would click with the public, but when they did, they worked that poor boy to a frazzle."
"There have been rumors you dated Jimmy while the show was on the air."
"That's really a popular myth. First, he was very young when the show aired. Secondly, his mother was always there during filming. I did date Jimmy about five years after the show ended, when he was eighteen and I was in my late thirties."
"How did it go?"
"We discovered our relationship was more of a mother-child relationship than either of us was willing to admit."
"Do you know what Jimmy's doing these days?" Merri asked.
"I heard he was living on the streets, but there's a lot of rumors that surround Jimmy. I've read he's a cop, he was killed in the Navy, that he became a Buddhist monk. I guess anything is possible with Jimmy."

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Chapter 31: Caitlin