Husband Survives to See His Film

Hollywood loved the twisted tale of the Totos, that fun couple whose murderous marriage came to light in 1983.

Boy meets girl; boy marries girl. Husband fools around; wife tries to kill him. Wife does time; husband takes her back.

“I Love You to Death,” the film based on the Totos’ tale, opens this week; a nonfiction book subtitled “The True Story” will be in bookstores soon; and Fran and Tony Toto, in their 25th year of marriage, are making the rounds of talk shows to be asked how can they still be together after no fewer than five botched attempts on Tony’s life.

A trip-wire at the top of the porch steps failed to trip him as he stepped out. A boy waiting in the bushes with a baseball bat ran off. A wire rigged to the gasoline tank of Tony’s car failed to spark an explosion. A gunshot to the head failed to kill him. A gunshot to the chest missed his heart. Sleeping pills merely slowed his metabolism and helped him survive.

The movie couple, Kevin Kline and Tracey Ullman, play the story for laughs, a black comedy with a happy ending.

The story “was amazing to me,” said director Lawrence Kasdan, whose movies include “Body Heat” and “The Big Chill.” “It made me laugh, and the way it ended touched me. The guy was so full of life that you couldn’t kill him, and their love was so strong that you couldn’t kill that.”

The truth is remarkably similar to the script, but with some crucial differences--for instance, in real life there was no mother-in-law instigator.

The happy ending is true. Last week, Fran Toto, 46, sat in her living room, bouncing her second grandson on her lap, watching a TV show about the movie and giggling at William Hurt and Keanu Reeves playing drug-addled amateur hit men.

“The way we can laugh about it now is so that we don’t get crazy,” she explained. The reality, she said, was “very scary.”

In the same house in 1983, Fran was talking to real-life amateur hit men about how to get rid of Tony’s body. He had just been shot in the heart--or so they thought until he walked into the room.

“What’s going on?” Tony asked the startled conspirators.

That’s what the cops wanted to know, too. Two days later police, tipped off about the strange goings-on at the house, went inside, hustled Tony off to the hospital and arrested Fran.

She pleaded guilty to solicitation to commit murder and reckless endangerment and served four years in prison. Anthony Bruno, a young man who worked at the Totos’ pizza shop, pleaded guilty and went to prison, as did cousins Ronald and Donald Barlips.

Tony spent 12 days in the hospital, then bailed out his wife. He had lived to forgive.

“I was the bad guy. I made a mistake,” said Tony, 44, who said his adultery was astonishingly frequent. “I did not deserve to get shot, of course.

“It was not my time to go. God gave me another chance to live. After 12 days, I walk--miraculous, I walk. Nothing wrong with me, thank God. Now what do I do now? Walk away from my family and say forget about it? No, no, no, no. If I could bring my family back together, I’m gonna try. And now we’re happy.”

For her part, Fran said, “I don’t even really think I really deep down wanted to kill him. It was something that just happened.”

“The moral is to be faithful,” said Tony, who still carries a .25-caliber slug in his skull. “Don’t cheat on your spouse, be honest with each other, and learn to communicate with each other.”

“I think we’ll save a lot of marriages.”