I remember sitting in the second row of the Shenandoah movie theater. I always sat close to the screen, as if I might one day be able to step right into the story. It was during the war, I was 9 years old, my father had died earlier that year, and someone had taken me to the movies to see Bette Davis in “The Little Foxes.”

I remember this scene vividly. Herbert Marshall was playing Bette’s husband, and he was having a heart attack. He was trying to make it up the stairs, and he was begging her to give him his medicine. She was at the top of the steps looking down, and she refused. He kept crawling up the stairs, and she kept refusing. I can remember that I stopped eating my popcorn and thought “Why doesn’t she give him his medicine and save him?” I felt really upset. It’s a great movie, and I’ve seen it a hundred times since. Spoiler alert. Herbert doesn’t make it.

When I grew up and worked in films and television as an actor, I had long movie set conversations with actors, some of them stars, about those who had had real-life heart attacks. I can’t to this day mention the real names because, as one older star told me, if you have a heart attack while working on a film, it would be better if it killed you because nobody will want to hire you again.

Robin Williams beat the system with his heart attack, as did Martin Sheen who had one while filming “Apocalypse Now” in the Philippines. That’s a true story.

One of those actors who told me a story was the late Peter Graves. I can mention his name now because he’s dead.

There were three of us talking on the set of “The President’s Plane is Missing,” a made-for-television movie. I played a reporter, and Graves, the great Buddy Ebsen, whom you remember from “The Beverly Hillbillies,” and the wonderful film and Broadway star Arthur Kennedy drew me into their circle, where I heard the greatest Hollywood gossip.

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There were stories of heart attack survivors who kept it covered up for years, because it would have ruined their careers. Hollywood was like that then. Peter told of one of the greatest stars who survived a heart attack and went on for years. Sadly, Peter died of a heart attack himself, at 83.

Having grown up in the second row of movie houses all over America, I can remember dozens of films in which the hero, or the bad guy, died of a heart attack. It’s always dramatic. He clutches his heart. His face goes white. He grimaces and drops to the floor. It’s almost always like that.

The truth is that in real life, it’s not always like that. This is a true story. Four weeks ago, emerging from a splendid annual doctor’s checkup, I walked happily out into the 100 degree heat, 67 percent humidity morning, got into my car and had a heart attack.

It wasn’t like Herbert’s or Martin’s. I thought it was an acid reflux attack, bad gas from dinner the night before. It wasn’t like in the movies. There was no elephant on my chest, no radiating pain down my arm. I ignored it. It got worse that night, but the doctor was gone for the weekend. The next day it subsided somewhat.

Monday I checked in at the doctor’s. I had never in my life had acid reflux, but if it was going to start, I wanted to get a prescription for it. My very smart doctor gave me an EKG. I had had a heart attack. Not like in the movies. I had one like mine. Each heart attack is different. Mine could be described as minor, but no heart attack is minor. They’re all serious, as serious as my cardiologist. He’s a very serious guy who wears black suits and rarely smiles. He doesn’t make jokes like l do. This is a serious man who reaches out into personal darkness and pulls people like me back from the edge.

Unlike in the movies, she, who monitors my entire existence, is always at the top of the stairs offering me my pills.

Spoiler alert: I made it.

J.P. Devine is a Waterville writer.


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