July 11, 2003

Today I taped a new series that A&E is producing, entitled "Letters." My life story was chosen as the first show and the executive producer told me that it is being referred to as "love letters" from a mother to a daughter.

I arrived at the studio and was shown into a sound proof booth. I read three letters from my mother that I had saved over the years. My favorite was the letter that she wrote to me when I first told her the good news of my pregnancy with my daughter.

I was interviewed in my home by Marc Freden who asked me questions about my life. After we were finished we went up to the roof of my building to photograph the view of Los Angeles, ranging from downtown to the ocean. The day was hot, the air was clear and the vista spectacular.

Then the camera crew and I moved across the street in front of what had been my mother's home many years ago. I still live in my old neighborhood. As I was explaining that this was the house that I was married from the front door opened and out walked the present owner, Chloe Mount. She and her husband, Thom. are in the movie industry. I introduced myself and told her that I once lived in her home. She very graciously allowed the camera to record me coming out of the tall front doors, much like I did the day of my wedding. It was very strange, standing inside the marble foyer again, gazing past the tall white doors, with their large brass knobs, into the living room; with someone else's furniture in it. That living room had recently been photographed for the Home section of the Los Angeles Times newspaper with an accompanying story, naming the architect who designed the house, John Elgin Woolf, and stating that the doors that my mother, Loretta Young, walked through on her TV show were copies of the doors I now was gazing at. A serendipitous ending to a very nostalgic day.

James Bacon, a Hollywood writer and columnist is being interviewed for the show as is Ann Miller. They both were part of Hollywood in the days of my mother and father's heyday and have some interesting stories to tell.

The show will be airing on A & E, Sunday, October 19th. at 10:00 P.M. It's an interesting coincidence that The Loretta Young Show aired on Sunday evenings at 10:00 P.M. Please watch.

Judy Lewis