“Years ago, I was a waiter at the Sand Castle Restaurant out here in Malibu. And at our Christmas party, they brought in a psychic and her name was Judy Heavenly. And she was in all these tattered white clothes, flowing around, and I started to leave, and the psychic grabbed me by the arm and goes, ‘You didn’t talk to me tonight.’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s because you’re busy and I’m drunk [laughs].’ And she said, ‘I see that you’re an actor.’ And I said, ‘No, actually, I’m a waiter and that’s why I’m here at the Christmas party.’ And she said, ‘No, you’re an actor and you’re going to be in a play the first of the year, and I see it spinning off into a movie and you’ll be working as an actor for the rest of your life. And I kind of laughed because I’d never done a play in my life and didn’t have any ambition to. Then she said, ‘So you live on the water.’ And I said, ‘Anybody here could have told you I have an apartment on the beach.’ She said, ‘No … you want to live on the water.’ I said, ‘Actually, yeah, I just put a down payment on a 36-foot Catalina Cruiser, a Frank Butler design, a No. Nine haul, and I’ve got it down in San Pedro and the guy’s gonna bring it up and put it in a slip here by the Cheesecake Factory in Marina del Rey.’ She said, ‘It’s never gonna happen.’ And then she looked at my hand and said, ‘There’s a girl in your life,’ and then looks up at this girl I was with and said, ‘Not you, honey’ [laughs]. It was really cold! She said, ‘But it’s a girl in your past, the love of your life, and you will be hearing from her within three months’ time.’ I was like, ‘Alright, I don’t think so.’So I got a call first thing in the morning from a guy named Ted Schmidt, who is a producer. He said, ‘Okay, do you play softball for a team called Ann Wright Commercial Agency?’ I said, ‘That’s right, they signed me on as a ringer because I used to play with the Yankees.’ He said, ‘You played with the Hollywood All-Stars last year.’ And I said, ‘That’s a fact.’ And he said, ‘You appeared in all the background shots, and physically, you are just perfect for this role we’re doing at The Cast Theater. Would you come in and read for it?’ And I got the role, and one thing led to another and I got the front page of the [newspaper’s] “Calendar” section because I was writing a screenplay that Rob Lowe had taken into his agency. They called me in as a writer and said, ‘Wait a minute, you’re the guy on the front page of the “Calendar” section today. Will you go on an audition for SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS?’ And I went on the audition that night and got cast, and that turned into the movie and the series and there we are.The boat was brought up from San Pedro, they took it to the Marina del Rey by the Cheesecake Factory, and as they’re lowering it in the water, the belt buckles on the strapping snapped, the boat hit the keel on the landing, snapped the keel, and sunk in the basin. That was two. And then I got the call from Victoria [who is now his wife] out of the blue. And I was like, ‘Oh, my God, who is this Judy Heavenly?’ So about eight years later, I found her card, believe it or not. I called her up and she answered and said, ‘Where are you?’ I said, ‘Well, you’re the psychic, you tell me’ [laughs]. She said, ‘I must see you right away.’ I said, ‘Oh, come on, you say that to all the guys.’ So she said, ‘I have an opening at 2 o’clock, here’s my address.’ And she hangs up. So Victoria and I go there. And she started with something very interesting: ‘The people in your life in a working capacity will no longer be in your life in six months’ time.’ And my contract was up in six months and this was years and years ago and I didn’t want to re-sign. Then she said we were going to have another child, a boy, and he was going to be very special: ‘I’m not saying disabled, but not what you expect your male child to be.’ Then she started talking about some spiritual stuff about an ashram. She said, ‘You’ve been to the ashram and spiritually enlightened.’ I said, ‘No, I went with a fellow restaurant worker because she had heard about some out-of-body experiences I had had [laughs]. I went because that’s what I was trying to achieve, and instead of bringing a banana or a flower I brought a baseball and he actually took it out of my hand and people started falling around my feet chanting. It was really hilarious! These [ashram] guys sit on pedestals and they look like they’re pregnant; they’ve got these big abdomens. But he sat there and his eyes kind of rolled up in his head and to accept the offering, he kind of whips his hand around and rocks back and forth. But he stopped all that, opened his eyes, reached out and took my baseball. Baseball — the universal language! So Judy talked about the ashram and said there were people she wanted me to meet on a certain night: ‘You must come, you must be inclusive in to this.’ And I think there was some networking involved. I didn’t go and I immediately called up [Executive Producer] Ken Corday here at DAYS OF OUR LIVES and said, ‘I need to re-sign that contract immediately.’ Everything that she said, I went the opposite way. I still have her card, but I’ve never contacted her. But those first three were like, ‘Oh. My. God.’ Those were life-changing things. To actually start working like I was working was really paramount, but secondly, if I had gotten that boat, who’s to say that when Victoria called me and there was a chance to have her back in my life … You start living on a boat and being the kind of free spirit that I was, basically without an anchor, I know that Victoria could never have lived like that. So I think that was a sign that said, ‘The boat’s out and Victoria’s in.’ She was right on the money.”
