Saving the Babes in Babylon

Don Crutchfield is seated in an office surrounded by boxing pictures, talking about himself.

It is something he does well, for even though he has the stocky build of a street fighter, it is accompanied by the smooth, persuasive delivery of a press agent.

He is telling me he is private investigator to the stars and rattles off the names of celebrities like items on a grocery list: Sinatra, Brando, Lewis, Garland, Bronson, Rickles, pickles, bread, milk, salami. . . .

He tells me he has been a private eye in this town for three decades, going back to Hollywood’s Golden Era, and knows secrets about the headliners that would knock my socks off.

Some of these secrets, he tells me, are contained in a book he is trying to sell called “Babes in Babylon,” about the kids of celebrities.

I sigh and think to myself, what am I doing here? What the world does not need is another book on Hollywood, and I am tired of being hustled by every ego roaring down the freeway.

My mind wanders as Crutchfield talks. We are in a downstairs corner of his home where he keeps his office. In another room, three of his 30 employees work at their desks.

I gaze at the autographed pictures of Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield and George Foreman on the paneled wall of the small inner office. Crutchfield boxed once, which is why he has the pictures. At 50, he still looks as though he could hold his own.

*

I am looking around when I suddenly catch the phrase, “I loved that boy like he was my own.”

“What boy?” I ask, startled by the sudden softness in his voice.

“Christian Brando,” he says. “He was the first celebrity kid I handled. He was my little boy for six months. I took his hand and was with him everywhere.”

I study the guy. I figure he is not doing a number on me. The emotion he is expressing is real, coming from the heart, and the heart doesn’t lie.

He tells me how he was hired during the wild and acrimonious divorce of Marlon Brando and Anna Kashfi. Christian was 6 then. Crutchfield said it was his job to protect the boy from being grabbed by Kashfi and taken out of the country.

“There was a lot of love between us,” Crutchfield says, going through old papers to find stories about himself. “I helped him with his homework and taught him manners.”

Kashfi eventually won custody of the boy and took him to Mexico. Twenty-six years later he would kill his sister’s boyfriend after a violent argument and be sent to state prison. He is currently serving a 10-year sentence.

“It’s heartbreaking to see what happens to these kids,” Crutchfield says. “I can divorce myself from ‘cases,’ but not from them. I’d have given my life for Christian. Now he’s just walking dead.”

It happens, he says. The children of celebrities find themselves second to their parents’ careers. They crave the love that’s never there, and are unable to achieve the starry heights of their mothers or fathers.

“When he was a little kid, Christian always looked a little like a wounded deer,” Crutchfield says. “There was a lot of hurt in his eyes. I saw that same look when he was in court for murder.”

*

That isn’t to say all celebrities place their careers before family. Crutchfield was hired once to keep Jason Bronson away from drugs. He was 17, the adopted son of Charles Bronson and the late Jill Ireland.

“He was a sweet kid and they loved him a lot,” he says. “I tapped his phone, cut off his drug associations and even interfered in his love life. He was having an affair with a rock star’s wife. The rock star had gang connections. Jason could have gotten his legs broken, or worse.”

Crutchfield’s efforts seemed to be paying off. Jason stayed off drugs, and a year later called the private eye to thank him.

“It was a high I’d never had,” Crutchfield says. “I had saved the life of a really nice young guy. I told that success story at parties. I really thought I’d made a difference.”

He pauses, the big man with the street fighter’s build, and shakes his head. “Then I hear he’s OD’d. I felt like hell.”

The children of celebrities bear special burdens, and it is the rare one who emerges whole, who doesn’t write a “Mommy Dearest” book or OD or end up in state prison.

Crutchfield puts aside the papers he is going through, the clippings on himself. “I will always think of Christian as a little kid and Jason as the boy next door,” he says. “I have dreams about them.”

Maybe there is a book there, after all, about pain and remorse and a love of lost children . . . just maybe.