Oh Brad, You Never Call, You Never Write

Today’s offering is dedicated to the friends and loved ones of Louise Radler. It is for the people who’ve rolled their eyes at Louise’s mention of a certain name, and for her husband, Ben, who has threatened to burn the chair once occupied by that certain someone’s famous butt.

“I’d let you sit in the chair,” Louise told me when I dropped by the other day. “But it’s being re-caned.”

What a shame.

Understand that Louise Radler is no giddy youngster. She’s a 69-year-old Northridge resident who last year retired after 24 years as a special education assistant at Cleveland High School. Understand, also, that more than a year has passed since you-don’t-yet-know-who (not unless you know Louise Radler) visited her comfortable ranch-style home and became fascinated by her unique furniture and bric-a-brac, especially her dining room table.

She showed me the table. It is a handsome piece.

But Lou--that’s what her friends call her--understands that she may start losing friends if she keeps telling her story. I suspect that’s why she called me. Maybe if she gets her story in the newspaper, she’ll be able to knock it off.

This isn’t a column. It’s an exorcism.

Our tale starts in September 1994. Lou and her sister were seeking a new tenant for the duplex they inherited in the Fairfax District, just off trendy Melrose. A polite young actress called, an American girl of Czech heritage named Jitka. She seemed nice and Lou said OK.

“I’m coming to sign the lease and I’m bringing Mr. You-Know-Who with me.” You-Know-Who was to co-sign the lease.

The name meant nothing to Lou Radler. “I pictured this pot-bellied, cigar-smoking sugar daddy.”

Instead Jitka arrived with “this lanky kid” who reminded Lou of so many Cleveland High graduates. He was a polite, charming young man.

“What do you do?” Lou asked

“I’m an actor,” he said.

Well, Lou knew better than to follow that up. She didn’t want to embarrass the boy by asking, “What have you been in?” because the answer probably wouldn’t be much.

He was sitting in that chair in the breakfast nook when he looked out to the dining room. “Jitka! Look at this table!” He noticed other furnishings and bric-a-brac and asked the hostess, would it be OK if I walk around and look at your things? Go ahead, she said. She and Jitka had business to tend to.

Jitka brought cash. “Oh, I’ll write a check,” the young man said.

And he did so. Lou Radler proudly showed me a photocopy--proof that it really was him.

*

But she never realized who he was until a couple of months later. She was sitting in the beauty parlor, browsing through a copy of People. She turned the page and saw a face she knew very well.

Jitka!

And next to her was that lanky kid with long blond hair.

Lou Radler did a double take. She read the name and blinked. She turned back to People’s cover. There he was again.

“Brad Pitt: The Sexiest Man Alive!”

The sexiest man alive, the star of “A River Runs Through It” and “Interview With the Vampire” and “Legends of the Fall,” had been inside Lou Radler’s home and she didn’t even recognize him. Why, the weekend before Jitka and Brad dropped by, she’d seen “Legends of the Fall.”

This left Lou feeling her age. “I’m still mourning John Garfield,” she said. Still, she excitedly called her sister with the news. “Who’s Brad Pitt?” her sister responded. Then again, many readers are surely now wondering, “Who’s John Garfield?”

A generation gap can be a good thing. When the so-called sexiest man alive was in her home, Lou says, “my heart didn’t thump once.” But when she had a chance to meet Anthony Hopkins at a benefit, she swooned over a man most famous for portraying a psychopath, a butler and now Nixon. “His eyes are incredible,” Lou says. “They’re luminous!”

Still, it was Brad--she always calls him “Brad”--who has inspired this delayed, long-term giddiness. When I dropped by, Lou Radler had a copy of that particular People on her coffee table. She assured me it isn’t always on display. She showed me the picture of Brad and Jitka, as well as a clipping from a supermarket tabloid about all the hearts Brad has allegedly broken.

He and Jitka have reportedly parted ways, but Lou has been loyally following their careers.

Jitka, she says, “now has the commercial for Mrs. Smith’s pie.” I nodded, though it didn’t ring a bell. “She’s a darling, slender girl whose rent check always comes a week late.”

As for Brad, Lou recently dragged Ben to see his latest movie, the crime drama “Seven.”

They walked out in the middle because it was so violent and bloody. But truth is, Lou has been disappointed by Brad in other ways. Months ago, she contacted his agent through Jitka and made a request for an 8-by-10 autographed glossy. But so far, nothing.

She’s hoping he might write something like:

Dear Lou,

I love your table, but it’s over .

Love, Brad

“I’m looking for closure,” she explains. “I truly am.”

If this exorcism doesn’t work, maybe an autographed glossy will. Maybe then Lou will find something else to talk about. Maybe Ben won’t burn the chair. Maybe friends won’t pause and say, “OK, we’ll go out to dinner. But please , no Brad Pitt story.”

And Brad, she says, doesn’t even have to sign it “love.” From Brad, she’ll take “sincerely.”

“From Anthony Hopkins,” she adds, “I’ll take love.”

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.