The biggest drama in my life in the autumn of 1977 was adjusting to a small town in Wales where I had settled in for a year of study abroad. Between the sturdy exotic lure of the Welsh boys and the freely poured lager and limes in the many pubs, I was transfixed. Unfortunately, I missed all the real drama playing out in the UK that year, at least until Netflix's recommendation of Tabloid turned up this week.
This two-year-old documentary, made by the venerated filmmaker Errol Morris, is riveting...even for those who were not yet born or otherwise engaged during that chilly autumn 40 years ago. Turns out I may have been one of the few residents of the UK at that time who wasn't paying attention to American temptress Joyce McKinney. The story involves a Mormon, a comely blonde American and sex, lots of it. How could my 20-year-old self have missed that?
Beyond that, there are all kinds of allegations involving kidnapping and S&M or a marriage proposal and a cult, depending upon who is telling the story. You should watch the documentary and decide for yourself. What is beyond dispute is that the gorgeous blonde is now a woman of a certain age who retains the masses of hair and overdone eye shadow even into her sixties. She flirts with the filmmaker and is - in her own interpretation - still defined by her beauty pageant crowns and a few months in 1977 when she was the Talk of the Town, even while imprisoned.
The saddest part of this morality tale is that the main character appears to have taken a vow of celibacy after the incident with the Mormon and allegedly was still stalking him years later. He was, to her, the great love of her life. And she spent the next thirty-some years pining for him. According to the information I was able to glean, she never married or had children. She lived a life of quiet desperation without evidence of a career or a permanent home or close friends, apparently living off the largesse of her elderly parents.
I am struck by this because she is only a few years older than I am and who among us doesn't occasionally pine for a lost love or a seminal experience in our lives? Aging affords us the opportunity to place our varied experiences into the context of a long life. But what if we stall at one particular place and are unable to move forward? Do we stay eternally young or just...stuck? And what happens when a former beauty queen/kidnaper finds her blonde hair turning gray and her shapely curves turning to cellulite?
Watch Tabloid to find out how the truth of our lives sometimes matters less than the perception. It is not just fascinating film making but also a cautionary tale that urges each of us to keep moving forward, to ensure that our legacy is re-examined and rebuilt on a daily basis all the days of our life.