Robert DuSold

Back in the 90’s, yes the 1990’s, I was riding the wave of being a rock star… ok a musical theater rock star in the hottest show in the world.

I was in the First National Tour of “Les Mis”.. I had just taken over one of the two leading roles I had been understudying and I was heading to Broadway!

I was making, at the time, a lot of money … at least to me, from the confines of my very working class background.

Now, 30 years later, I realize that I was a blue collar actor and we would all sort of peak, and make a living modestly at best with the big bucks.

Anyway, that’s another story.

I was certainly riding high then…. a leading role in the hottest show in the world in my late 20’s.

Then I was stalked.

Before federal laws addressing stalking, and right around the time a beautiful, young sitcom actress around my age was shot and killed at her doorstep after the bell rang by a crazy fan who got her address from the DMV.

I was stalked relentlessly for a couple of years. Different cities. Wherever I was. Broadway. Boston. Philly. I was stalked no matter how my day went, or what I was going through. My father was dying through some of it. There was no resolution. There was no relief. Just terror, fear, mind fucks, and literally no one understanding what I was going through.

I mean, how could anyone really know what that’s like? I wasn’t famous, but famous lite. I didn’t have the means to really protect myself, but pretty much everyone was interested from a distance.

The police weren’t helpful, and neither was the management. I was asked what I did to attract a crazy person.

It was a very damaging experience, that to this day I still get jittery sometimes when I dive in. My blood pressure rises. I notice now my breathing gets shallow. My heart races. It is at this moment recalling getting letters, telegrams, cards and phone calls from a crazy person who said that I’ll be covered in blood, during a performance, on a sometimes daily, sometimes weekly basis. That really fucks with your head. She broke into my apartment, and also was waiting for me offstage on the deck at the National Theater in DC after the suicide scene.. Christ is that irony?… passing herself off to the doorman as my agent. She followed me everywhere she could.

At the end of her crazy day, she just wanted to become famous by stalking me, and, in her mind, ultimately killing me. That’s really what it boiled down to.

Imagine that.

Anyway, some of my anxiety I’m sure is due to trying to explain myself.. explain what it’s like to be victimized in that way.

Explain being sucked in to a story you don’t want to be a part of. A story that you’re not in control of …that you’re not a part of really.

I read this Medium piece by Amanda Knox this morning and I feel like I found a friend. And it all came back. What I’ve felt for 30 years.

Click please.

https://link.medium.com/vvF3JZEImib

“Does my name belong to me? Does my face? What about my life? My story? Why is my name used to refer to events I had no hand in? I return to these questions because others continue to profit off my name, face, and story without my consent. Most recently, the film Stillwater.”

I have gained a lot of empathy as a result of my experience for people who get their lives upended by fame, exploited by others, and have their story, their life really, stolen by people who want to make a buck and hijack your truth and…

Your past.

Your present.

And your future.

Because other people can. Because they feel they have the right. Because they feel they can tell your story better than you. Because they know you.

But, they fucking don’t.

Cuz they wanna make 💰.

It’s now an epidemic in the Arts … not only in this way but social justice Twitter warriors deciding what your identity is. What your worth is. How to use your humanness. How to tell your story their way.

Because they can.

I told my 30 year old self I would never tell my stalker’s side of the story. Or much of the story at all. I did not want her to achieve her goal by victimizing me. It’s a great story I suppose, but I’m not gonna make her fameish. I’m not gonna give her what she wants.

Amanda Knox is not notorious. She’s a famevictim. She is the engine of everyone profiting off of her story.

Everyone but her.

Each slice of the pie further demeans her. Each article, each book, each Lifetime movie. And now a big Hollywood extravaganza that adds to the pain of a living, breathing, feeling person.

I’m thrilled she’s taking her life back. Her story. Well, at least she’s trying to…. in a David and Goliath battle.

Around the time of my stalking, Stephen Sondheim was writing a musical about assassins. Given my perspective at the time, I honestly felt personally attacked by this legendary composer who I was running in the same circles with.

Why would he glorify people who caused such damage in life? Why would he give them what they wanted?

To be fameish.

Why on earth when some of their victims were still living?

They wanted to be fameish. One of the things I learned from coping with being stalked is this: there is no explaining crazy people. They are wired differently. There’s no commonality to the rest of us. There is no explanation for their behavior. There is no rational thought.

They are just nuts. There’s nothing else to that story.

There’s nothing to learn or sing about.

There are, however, the “characters” who were living at the time. Jodie Foster. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and the loved ones of the victims of crazy people.

The famevictims sucked into a story they weren’t writing.

They’re more important than a musical.

Their life, their story isn’t Sondheim’s to tell, or anyone’s. There’s a moral responsibility, in my opinion, to ask, say a very young actress who was cited as the reason that a fameish person attempted to kill a President, if she wants to be part of his story.

My bet is she didn’t want to be.

My stalking story ends with me hiring a lawyer. There was no other recourse, as the crazy escalated, but to sue my stalker in civil court and file for a permanent restraining order.

I’m here to tell you.. yay!…that is a whole lotta stress added to the trauma of being snared in someone else’s story. Several court appearances facing my stalker. And, the icing on the nutcake is I ran up around 15 grand in lawyer fees(then) to make it go away. Add that to what I’m paying to this day.

Anyway, I won’t be seeing “Stillwater”, and I’m not the kind of thumb warrior to advise people not to see it. I can’t.

“I joke, but of course, I understand that Tom McCarthy and Matt Damon have no moral obligation to consult me when profiting by telling a story that distorts my reputation in negative ways. And I reiterate my offer to interview them on Labyrinths. I bet we could have a fascinating conversation about identity, and public perception, and who should get to exploit a name, face, and story that has entered the public imagination.”

I would love to see that.

Or this maybe:

“Which brings me to my screenplay idea! It’s directly inspired by the life of Matt Damon. He’s an actor, celebrity, etc. Except I’m going to fictionalize everything around it, and the Damon-like character in my film is involved in a murder. He didn’t plunge the knife per se, but he’s definitely at fault somehow. His name is Damien Matthews, and he starred in the Jackson Burne spy films. He works with Tim McClatchy, who’s a Harvey Weinstein type. It’s loosely based on reality. Shouldn’t bother Matt or Tom, right?”

Will it?