A Wedding That Was Worth ‘Living’ For
‘When I first met you, I thought you were cute,” Tracy Okuma wrote in a love letter to filmmaker Steve Esteb. “But I didn’t think you would stay. No one stays.”
Esteb, 37, remembers that spring day in 1992 when he strode numbly through the door of the Victorian-style home near Alameda Park in Santa Barbara to produce “Living With . . . ,” a documentary about the residents of Heath House, a hospice for homeless and low-income AIDS patients.
For the record:
12:00 a.m. June 11, 1995 FOR THE RECORD
Los Angeles Times Sunday June 11, 1995 Home Edition Calendar Page 91 Calendar Desk 1 inches; 29 words Type of Material: Correction
AIDS documentary--Incorrect information was provided to The Times about screenings of “Living With . . . ,” a documentary on the residents of an AIDS hospice (Film Clips, May 28). No screenings are scheduled.
FOR THE RECORD
Los Angeles Times Sunday June 18, 1995 Home Edition Calendar Page 91 Calendar Desk 3 inches; 73 words Type of Material: Correction
AIDS documentary--A quote was wrongly attributed to Maureen Perry in a May 28 Film Clip about the film “Living With. . . .” Perry was quoted as describing a trip she made to Washington in which she scattered her husband’s ashes on the White House lawn. No such incident took place; the quote was taken from a screenplay by Steven Esteb, who created “Living With. . . .” In addition, a marriage ceremony involving Esteb and AIDS patient Tracy Okuma described in the article was a symbolic exchange of vows and not legally binding.
“My overwhelming reaction was abject fear,” Esteb says. “I had no idea what I would see in that house of death.”
What surprised him was a group of people in advanced stages of AIDS cracking jokes and bellowing in laughter. Among them was Okuma, a young woman defaced by both AIDS and a troubled past.
“She told me her birth parents sexually abused her and abandoned her in a shed when she was 4 years old,” Esteb recalls. “She bounced around in foster care for nine years until a family finally adopted her.”
However, according to Esteb, her outlook on life had already been impaired. By age 15, Okuma decided to forfeit the solace of her Houston, Texas, home for the perilous alleys of Hollywood. A heroin-filled syringe and men willing to pay for pleasure became her bedmates. AIDS lurked in the shadows.
Esteb says it was Okuma’s story that encouraged him to peer beyond her lesion-masked face and tenuous frame and focus on her newfangled lust for life. He gave to this disease-ravaged woman what no other man could.
“Tracy just wanted to be loved. She wanted to be kissed on the lips. She wanted to die a married woman,” Esteb says.
After five months of watching Okuma tug hopelessly at life, Esteb indulged her. As the minister pronounced the couple husband and wife, the bride fainted. Esteb picked up her skeletal frame and carried her out of the room. Mrs. Esteb died two weeks later at age 30.
It was then that Esteb says he became more determined than ever to finish the project. He begged his family and friends for funding. He emptied his own pockets. His crew worked for free. Hearing his cry, foundations, businesses and Hollywood actors responded. Eastman Kodak made donations, as did Norman Lear, Michael Douglas, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Herbie Hancock. By the film’s completion, Esteb had raised well over $100,000.
Though his new wife did not get the chance to see the one-hour film, her saga and the endearing stories of the other Heath House residents are opening new doors for impoverished AIDS patients in need of a home.
“Steve’s work is helping to establish hospices like ours in Montana, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Ohio,” says Debbie McQuade, Heath House manager.
Maureen Perry, the coordinator of the Santa Barbara County Women’s Interagency HIV Study, applauds Esteb’s efforts. “Anything that puts faces on statistics helps,” she says.
Esteb also became close friends with Perry when her husband died at Heath House in 1992.
“I wanted to make a political statement and Steve was game,” Perry adds. “So the two of us joined hundreds of others in Washington to contribute to the AIDS quilt. We were almost arrested when we sprinkled my husband’s ashes on the White House lawn.”
Perry details her story in “Living With. . . .” Like a journal, the documentary chronicles moment-to-moment life at Heath House. Through a succession of vignettes, viewers learn what it is like to live with AIDS and create a vigil for those who are dying from it.
“My adventure in Washington was exciting. But the highlight of my life was watching Tracy on her wedding day become a young girl again with hopes and dreams,” Esteb says as he stares at the gold wedding band he once slid with ease on his bride’s finger. He wears it today on his pinkie like a medal of honor.
“Before our wedding day, she was just this person dying of AIDS. All of a sudden, she had a future, although not a long one,” Esteb says.
Esteb, who earned a master’s degree in film production from Boston University, has penned a screenplay, titled “Kissed on the Lips.” Based on the documentary, the feature film will be produced beginning in late summer by Boomtown Pictures, says Kevin Moreton, who produced “Menace II Society” and is president of Boomtown.
“People are responding with enthusiasm to the concept,” Moreton says. “We’ve shown the script to some buyers and are now in the process of attaching high-profile actors to it.”
Since its doors opened nearly four years ago, more than 50 residents have died at Heath House. Esteb hopes his wife’s death will not be in vain.
“Tracy was funny, honest, beautiful, brazen and totally unpredictable,” Esteb recalls. “As I held her in my arms before she died, I promised I would make her famous.”
* “Living With . . . “ will screen today and each Sunday in June at 4 p.m. in the Charlie Chaplin Room of Raleigh Studios, 650 N. Bronson Ave., Hollywood. A $5 donation is requested; partial proceeds will benefit AIDS research and care.