The Nearsighted Actress.
I watched the man as he left the funeral parlor. Even if I hadn’t known approximately how old he was his stooped walk revealed his age. He was Patrick Hill, and the wake he was just leaving had been for Sandi Porter, an actress who had shunned the limelight for many years. Patrick had been with Sandi since she had been discovered by the studios, first as a driver, then as a confidant, and maybe even as her lover since she and her husband split a good 40 or so years ago.
I knew Patrick was an honorable man, and I rather doubted that he would be willing to do a tell all expose about Sandi. I did know quite a bit about her, but if only he would talk it would make any further research I was doing much simpler. I had to convince him that I wanted to write a book about Sandi that showed one of the great unknown bit part players of the last 60 years in a kinder light than a lot of other authors would.
I didn’t know a lot about Sandi. I did know that she was born in 1932 in Downey California as Evelyn Zimmerman. Her father was killed in the war, and her mom was left to raise Sandi on her own. In 1944, when Sandi was 12 the agent that Mabel Zimmerman contacted to see if there was a chance that Evelyn could be used in a movie that was being filmed in Los Angeles that needed a lot of extra’s suggested that Evelyn should change her name to Sandi and they chose Porter as a nice sounding last name that would go with Sandi. Sandi got a bit part, and she did so well the director wanted to use her in his next film. By the age of 13 Sandi was under contract to one of the major studios. When she was 13 she had a fairly major part in a movie that caused everyone to notice her as an up and coming actress.
I am pretty sure that it was around this time that Sandi began to develop her myopia. I have interviewed a number of stagehands and old time movie people who told me that by the age of 16 Sandi couldn’t see a thing without her strong glasses on. But of course one couldn’t wear a pair of thick glasses in a movie could they? So there were all sorts of things that were done to help Sandi get around without her glasses on. I have seen a couple of the old westerns that she was in at the time, and it gives me a bit of a laugh in one of them when she points to the hills in the distance and tells the star that “there, over there, I see an Indian.” I was pretty sure that Sandi was lucky if she could see her hand in front of her face at this time.
In late 1950 Hitch was casting actors and actresses for a film called Strangers On A Train. I am pretty sure that Hitch had a bit of a bend for ladies who wore glasses. I have never read the book, so I don’t know if Patricia Highsmith had Marion wearing strong glasses in the book, but I do know that when Hitch saw Sandi on the movie set wearing her glasses as she walked from set to set he wanted her to be Marion in the worst way. But Sandi was a little too young, so Hitch ended up casing another lady. Still, he got Sandi to either sell or give him her old glasses and in the film Laura Elliot was wearing Sandi’s old strong minus glasses. That was another laugh and a half because Laura didn’t need glasses and couldn’t see a thing while she was wearing Sandi’s. I know that Hitch had Sandi’s glasses duplicated a few times so that there was more than one pair, and I also know that Laura wore plano glasses in some of the scenes where she was far enough away that no one could tell.
I also had heard that Sandi was considered for the part in How to Marry A Millionaire that Marilyn Monroe got in 1953. I was told that there were 2 reasons that she didn’t get the part. The main reason again was that she was a little too young, and the second reason was that her glasses looked so terribly thick that no one would have believed that she could ever be able to get around without them. But, as I sit back and think of it from the perspective of an optically obsessed man, I sure would have loved to have seen Sandi playing this role wearing her real glasses. By this time Sandi was 21 and her eyes were so bad that she was wearing myodisc lenses in her glasses. Of course, in 2013 myodiscs are used for anything over -20D or up, however back in 1953 myodiscs were used from anywhere around -14 or -15D, so that doesn’t mean all that much.
I also knew that both Sandi’s mother and her grandmother Ruth were also extremely nearsighted. Both of the ladies wore myodisc lenses in their glasses and I suppose they had done so for most of their lives. Obviously this was where Sandi got her extreme myopia from. I had seen some old pictures of them, and they were both nice looking ladies who wore strong glasses.
Patrick Hill had been 18 when he was hired to be Sandi’s driver by the studios. At the time he was only 4 years older than she was and Patrick ended up being with Sandi for the rest of her life. One of the things I wanted to talk with Patrick about was Sandi’s myopia. I was curious about just when it first was noticed and when she got her first pair of glasses. If she had glasses when he first started driving her it meant that she was already nearsighted enough to need them by the time she was 14. And of course the reports of her wearing thick glasses by the age of 16 could have been highly exaggerated. Some people look at a pair of glasses and they think that all glasses are thick. But if Sandi was already past the prescription in the old glasses of hers that Laura Elliot wore that meant that she was already around -12D when she was 18 so I suspect that she was already a little myopic when she was age 12. In recent years they have proved that myopia increases faster when the person doesn’t wear their glasses, so with her family history of high myopia and her not wearing her glasses it is possible that Sandi had a fairly rapid progression.
By 1954 Sandi’s eyesight without glasses was so non existent that the studio had her fitted with contact lenses. A California optician, Kevin Tuohy had invented the forerunner of the first contact lens. The first lens he introduced resembled the modern gas permeable (GP) contact lenses of today. These all-plastic lenses were called “corneal” contact lenses because they were smaller in diameter than previous contact lenses and covered only the clear front surface of the eye (the cornea). These early hard lenses were made of a non-porous plastic material called polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA). Though PMMA hard lenses were not gas-permeable, they were fitted so they could move with each blink, so oxygen-carrying tears could be “pumped” under the lens to keep the cornea healthy. It would be of great interest to me to get hold of Dr. Tuohy’s records because there were a lot of movie actors who needed his contact lens correction back then. But he committed suicide in 1968 and I am pretty sure his records have all been destroyed
I have always wondered why Dr. Tuohy committed suicide. Did he suddenly realize that his invention of easily wearable contact lenses had destroyed the ability of all of us optically obsessed folks to see beautiful ladies wearing glasses? Then when he realized that he had deprived the world from seeing beautiful ladies wearing glasses was it possible that he found he could no longer live with that?
The brochures of these original contact lenses read that properly fitted, corneal PMMA contact lenses could be worn for 16 hours or longer. Advances in lens manufacturing techniques and fitting expertise among eye doctors led to the mass appeal of these hard plastic contact lenses in the 1950s and 1960s. But at first they were very expensive so it was people with money that were the initial guinea pigs. Sandi Porter took to contact lens wear quite readily, and she went on to play many parts in movies over the next few years wearing contacts all the time.
Even though her severe short sight was legendary Sandi Porter never played in any role that showed her wearing glasses. Apparently, even though she was 60 years old in 1992 she was asked to play the part that Deborah Winger played in A Dangerous Woman, which was released in 1993. They wanted her to wear her own glasses and she turned them down flat. I suppose that with good Hollywood makeup Sandi could easily have looked like she was in her mid 30’s. She had also, the previous year, turned down the role that was eventually played by the elderly African American lady in My Cousin Vinny. In that movie she would have been placed on the stand wearing her glasses, so that Joe Pesci wouldn’t have had to say anything more than I see you wear pretty thick glasses and ask her how her eyesight was. Then he would have taken the tape measure and gone back in the courtroom so he could hold up 2 fingers. Fred Gwynne would have said “Let the records show he is holding up 2 fingers.” And then Joe would have had to do it all over again, finally having the lady admit that “I guess I need to get thicker glasses.” Sandi would have been just perfect for the role wearing her real glasses because to me the lady who did play the part didn’t have nearly thick enough glasses in the first place.
Sandi and Mick Preston, a really good looking actor that she costarred with in a couple of movies were married when Sandi was 26. By the time she was 30 Sandi was pregnant, and by the time she was 34 she and Mick had 2 beautiful kids. The oldest was a girl that they called Caitlyn and the younger one was a boy they named Justin. But the time Caitlyn was 5 years old she was wearing fairly strong looking glasses, which disappeared from her face by the time she was 12. But I have seen a few pictures recently of her when she was visiting her mom in the hospital and she was wearing glasses. She had quite strong lenses in her glasses and I suspect that they were somewhere in the low -20D range. Her brother Justin wears glasses that also look to also have a substantial prescription but he has never bothered with contacts and seems to have accepted the fact that he needs to wear glasses.
Mick and Sandi split around the time Sandi turned 40. Mick had another actress sitting in the wings and Sandi didn’t feel like sharing Mick. I don’t really blame her either. Sandi had still been doing parts in a few movies and I suppose she got a pretty good settlement in the divorce from Mick. Sandi got custody of the 2 kids and she did cut back on her roles to be a mother to them. She probably didn’t have to work anymore, but she did continue with her movie career. She was still working in movies up until the time she was at least 75, and I suspect that if she had been offered a part within the last year before her heart attack she would have taken it.
All of the research I had done on the life and times of the late Sandi Porter had shown me that she was one of the good ones in Hollywood. There were no scandals to be found in her life. She was revered by the people she worked with, and it seemed that she had done a pretty good job of raising her children. I certainly wished I could have known Sandy Porter when I was a younger man because she sounds just like the type of woman I have always dreamed of. But I am 20 years younger than Sandi was so I wouldn’t have stood a chance with her.
The actual funeral was the following day and I was coming back again to see if I could catch Patrick Hill alone. I did suspect that after Mick moved out there was a pretty good possibility that Patrick might have taken over in the bedroom department as well. He was still a pretty good looking man and I knew him to be extremely discreet so I didn’t have much hope that Patrick would tell me much of any substance.
At the funeral the following day there wasn’t a seat to be had. Sandi had been 81 when she died suddenly from a heart attack and usually when someone is over 80 the number of friends left that can come to your funeral is significantly less than if you died young. But Sandi was such a popular lady that the place was jamb packed. As everyone went out to the gravesite I managed to walk part of the way with Patrick.
“I am trying to write a really nice piece about Sandi’s life Patrick. Would you consider helping me out with it?” I asked.
“Well young fellow, you were always pretty decent about what you wrote about Sandi in the past, so might be I will consider it. Give me a call in a couple of days.” Patrick said.
“Where will you be then?” I asked.
“I’m going to be staying on in the big house. I think you have the number.” Patrick replied.
“Yes, I do, I will call you Friday afternoon.” I responded.
After the casket was lowered into the ground and the mourners were all leaving I walked over and introduced myself to Caitlyn and Justin. They knew my byline and they both thanked me for the nice words I had said in my articles about their family. I mentioned that I was going to contact Patrick to speak with him about Sandi and I asked if it might be possible for me to interview them as well. They seemed a little hesitant until I spoke up and said that before anything went into print they would have to chance to veto it and they both then gave their consent.
I don’t know why I had been so fixated on Sandi Porter for most of my life. Part of my fixation was likely due to the rumors of her strong glasses because I had also been obsessed with women who needed high degrees of minus correction for over 45 years. I had never found myself what I considered the perfect woman and I just figured I would go to my grave searching for her.
A week after the funeral Patrick and I had our interview. Since he had been with Sandi since she was 14 years old. I asked him numerous questions about Sandi’s life and the only thing he seemed reluctant to talk with me about was her eyesight. Finally he decided that since she was dead it no longer mattered if people knew. Sandi was already fairly nearsighted when he first met her. She had glasses that were probably around -4 or -5D by then. She only wore then around home, but she did have a pair of prescription sunglasses that she wore out in public. I wondered why I had never seen any pictures of her wearing them, but Patrick told me that she never let anyone take a picture of her when she was wearing them, and if one of the many photographers who followed her around did get a picture of her in sunglasses it was always at such a great distance that it would have been impossible to tell that there was a prescription in them. Patrick then told me about the struggles that Sandi had with her constantly worsening eyesight. Apparently the glasses that Laura Elliot wore were the ones that Sandi wore when she was around 16. That meant that by age 16 Sandi was already around a -12D myope and it made it even more laughable to me that she was saying “there, over there, I see an Indian,” when she had 12 diopters or more of uncorrected myopia. Patrick told me that by the time Sandi was 18 her glasses were already myodiscs, although the prescription in them was only around -15D. He told me of having to take Sandi by the arm and guide her almost everywhere she went. And all the actors who played in any of the movies she was in were very kind to Sandi and helped her out immensely. By the time Sandi was 21 her glasses were right in the neighborhood of -20D and the directors were no longer considering Sandi for parts in any new movies. By 1954 the studio that held Sandi’s contact spent some money and got Sandi fitted with the new hard contacts that had just hit the market. Once Sandi had gone though the initial period of adjustment she became a confirmed contact lens wearer and no one except Patrick, her husband and her children had ever seen Sandi wearing her glasses. Sandi was even careful enough that she didn’t even let the housekeepers see her wearing her glasses.
I also interviewed Sandi’s 2 children, but they did not have anything to add to what Patrick had told me. I wrote the story and as I had agreed I took them the story before it was published for their approval. I did write an excellent story and it was very flattering towards Sandi. Her daughter asked me if I had been a fan of Sandi’s and I replied that I had been a big fan and in fact had a terrible crush on her for many years. I was shocked when Caitlyn asked me if I would like something of her mothers to remember her by. I thought about it for a second and I asked if I could have an old pair of Sandi’s glasses. Surprisingly enough Caitlyn agreed to my request and she went off to fetch a gorgeous pair of 1970 Doir drop temple myodiscs.
By the time Sandi passed on her prescription had been stable at -25D since she was in her mid 20’s. I could only wish that I had been an older man, and I could have fallen in love with Sandi Porter. No, I need to rephrase that. I had been in love with Sandi Porter since I was a young boy and I first found out how nearsighted she was. What I need to say is that I wish I had been an older man and I could have made Sandi Porter fall in love with me.
Specs4ever.
Feb 2014