A Creepy Home Companion

I used to work in an office with two actors. The male actor did mostly commercial work. He was in a nationally televised ad for a financial services firm where he posed as a young, good-looking day trader sitting in front of a computer.

The female actor had a number of small roles in TV dramas and did comedy sketches for Conan and Letterman. Years later, she went on to have a small but recurring role on 'The Sopranos'.

I didn't know the male actor well. I met him one time in a meeting, but it was only later that I learned that he did acting on the side. The woman, I knew better, because she and I worked on a project together over the course of a year or so. As we worked together, she shared details about her acting work.

Garrison Keillor's 'Prairie Home Companion' was a popular radio program at the time. Most of the shows were produced in Minneapolis, but every year, he took his show on the road and performed two shows live at the New York City Center theater. The year that I was working with my actor colleague, Keillor hired her to perform in these live New York shows. It was a delight to hear her performing on the radio; she was amazingly talented.

It was a thrill for her, as well, and she felt that it could lead to more work with Keillor and to more exposure for other projects. The show's producers gave her excellent feedback, as did Keillor himself. My colleague is quite tall for a woman, and the six-foot four-inch star remarked that he liked the fact that it was easy to make eye contact with her while performing. The only negative from the whole two-week experience came when one of Keillor's friends hit on her after one of the shows. She told him that she wasn't interested in going out with him.

After those two shows, she never worked with Keillor or PHC again. The call never came despite the glowing feedback that she had received.

Perhaps this was due to the reality of show business, a business where many, many eager, talented, hard-working people compete for every role that comes along. But something about the situation never felt right to me. I always wondered whether my friend had paid a professional price for turning down the advances of that creepy friend. 

I felt bad for thinking this. I figured that these were probably unfounded suspicions, an emotional reaction to my colleague's disappointment. Keillor was a highly-regarded performer, respected by both the critics and the public. He had an extensive, devoted fan base and a glowing reputation as a performer, author, and story-teller. He's widely regarded as a comedic genius, and his show was consistently successful for decades. Why would he jeopardize his reputation by letting a creepy associate hit on the female talent that he hired to work on his shows?

Given that allegations of sexual misconduct have been leveled against the Prairie Home Companion star this week, suddenly those long-standing, gut level suspicions don't seem so far-fetched. We'll never know the real truth, of course, but it makes you wonder.