TWO FOR TUESDAY - RE-GIFTOSING

'Ironside'
- "Murder Impromptu" (1971)
Stephie Parker

'Murder, She Wrote'
- "Broadway Malady" (1985)
Lonni Valerian  

Stephanie Parker was a struggling young actress back in 1971 when she was hired to perform with an improvisational group in San Francisco.  There she met and fell in love with another improv actor, Seamus Brennan.  Another actor in the company was Jamie Shannon, a once-famous child star, whose best days had been long behind him.  (He had peaked in the movies between the ages of 6 and 16.)

Unfortunately, the founder of the group, Lennie Blake, was blackmailing Stephie to keep her tied to the troupe.  After he was murdered, Stephie broke into his hotel room in hopes of finding the incriminating evidence against her.  She didn't find it, but Chief Robert T. Ironside and his team did - Lennie had forced her to perform in a porn film.  She agreed to do it only to save her boyfriend Seamus from being fired from the company.

After the murder was solved, the rest of the company moved on to Los Angeles in the hopes of making it big.  But by then, the pressures of the relationship between Seamus and Stephie had become too overwhelming and they split up.  Stephie resolved to focus on her career, driven to succeed at all costs.

Over time, she did gain traction in show business to the point where she became a big musical comedy star in the movies.  By that time, she had shed all traces of her past life so that her connection to Lennie Blake's murder was never discovered by the gossip columnists.  To facilitate that, Stephie Parker ceased to exist.  Instead, "Lonni Valerian" rose from the ashes of her life to become a leading light among Hollywood stars.

In 1985, fading diva Rita Bristol was supposed to open in a Broadway show with her daughter Patti, marking Rita's comeback and Patti's debut.  But during rehearsals, Patti was shot by a supposed mugger and almost died from the wound.  In hopes of saving the show, the director (Marc Faber) called on Lonni Valerian to step into Patti's role.  As rehearsals continued, Faber beefed up Lonni's role, clearly smitten with her and probably already having an affair with her.  (This pegged Faber as a possible suspect in the attempted murder of Patti Bristol.)

Patti eventually recovered and returned to the role and the show opened to great acclaim for both mother and daughter.  (Hopefully it helped soften the sorrow they still faced in their personal lives.)

As for Lonni Valerian, the former Stephie Parker, she returned to Los Angeles and probably phased into a TV career.  I find it doubtful that she would accept a transition into character roles, so she was probably out of the business by the turn of the millennium.

Elaine Giftos played both Stephie Parker and Lonni Valerian.

BCnU!