Standing on His Own Two Feet--No Matter How Difficult

There is a brutally dark, deafening scene near the conclusion of daytime soap hunk Mitch Longley’s autobiographical one-man show, “Courting Darkness,” in which the actor stripped away his gregarious, often comical, survival-instinct facade to bravely confront demons that have haunted him since the early-morning hours of March 13, 1983.

That was the night, at approximately 2:30 a.m., when a 17-year-old Longley, driving home from a bar where he’d been drinking beer, fell asleep at the wheel of his mother’s small, two-door Capri. He crashed into a stone wall on the property of someone who worked at the Connecticut high school where Longley had been voted the friendliest, best-looking student with the nicest smile.

But that near-fatal moment of impact crushed his face beyond recognition. His spinal cord was injured beyond repair.

Seventeen years later, having lived half his life without any physical sensation below the waist, Longley rendered his audience stone silent as he reenacted his spiritual journey in front of a packed theater in Los Angeles earlier this spring. It was a silence broken only by the eerie cry of an ambulance siren on the streets outside. Longley paused, allowing the haunting sound to take center stage. When Longley spoke again, it was an improvisational, barely audible whisper to himself. “Go save someone,” he said.

Longley’s impulse to break the third wall and address the external reality of an anonymous person whose life was in peril was the truest, perhaps most poignant moment of the evening. And so appropriate for an actor who recites a prayer every time he hears an ambulance and has never given a damn about society’s rules and expectations.

Take, for example, Longley’s surprising decision to voluntarily abandon his role as “Port Charles’ ” Dr. Matt Harmon--one of only two regular roles on all of television for actors with disabilities (the other being Josh Evans, a “little person” who stars on the NBC soap “Passions”). Not only is Longley’s role a fairly high-paying gig, but he has no other acting work lined up and says that’s because there isn’t any for actors with paraplegia.

“There’s not one character with a disability of any significance that I have seen anywhere--daytime, prime-time or film,” says the 34-year-old Longley, who uses a wheelchair in life and on the soap.

A scary proposition. But not for Longley, who’d been itching to escape from what he terms the “limiting” confines of daytime television as soon as he completed his three-year contract with ABC. “What attracted me to the world of acting was the opportunity to play different roles,” he explains. “And that’s virtually impossible with daytime television.”

If ever a man were up for the daunting challenge he’s created for himself, it’s Longley, who has long thrived in the face of adversity. His first obstacle to pursuing an acting career was his severely disfigured face, which had to be reconstructed. The remarkable results were noticed by casting directors for the now-defunct New York soap “Another World” who spotted Mitch in a popular 1991 print ad for Polo by Ralph Lauren and cast him as an attorney.

On his way to Los Angeles in 1993, Longley, a descendant of Native American tribes, traveled through Navajo nations for three months, living out of an old Buick Regal that had been an 18th birthday gift from his hometown.

Then, in 1997, came national recognition as an original player on ABC’s new soap “Port Charles,” a spinoff of the network’s popular “General Hospital.” But despite the moderate fame afforded by the perpetually second-to-lowest-rated soap and the impressive six-figure salary he was now earning, Longley never copped a star attitude. A private man who generally shuns the media, Longley has never owned a suit and still lives in a one room, rent-controlled, ‘50s-style bungalow in Santa Monica.

“I moved in there when I couldn’t afford anything more than $500 a month, and never left,” he says matter-of-factly.

Had Hoped for More for His TV Character

Of his three-year residency on “Port Charles,” Longley describes his experience as both satisfying and frustrating.

“There could have been so much more,” he says of his character. “Why it never materialized is beyond me. Disability is a reality that makes many people uneasy--in talking about it, in thinking about it, in looking at it, in accepting it. It’s wrapped in a cloak of fear, misunderstanding and anxiety. But, if anything, I’m going to applaud daytime for having the courage to address some of these issues.”

Barbara Bloom, ABC’s director of daytime programming, characterized Longley’s contribution to “Port Charles” as significant and denies that fear of offending viewers ever played a part in his lack of story line. “Nobody deliberately chose to shy away from anything because of Mitch’s disability,” Bloom says. “We always tried to embrace it and incorporate it and make it part of the character. But mainly we cast Mitch because he’s a talented actor with a lot of heart who brought a great deal of depth and complexity to the show.”

Longley says one of the highlights of the role was being paired romantically with actress Debbi Morgan, who left the soap in 1998 to concentrate on films, most notably last year’s “The Hurricane,” in which she appeared as Denzel Washington’s wife. It was Morgan with whom Longley shared his first on-screen sex scenes (shot from the waist up). And it was also to Morgan that he confided one of the most difficult moments of his entire soap run--concealing from the cast and crew an unanticipated bowel movement while taping a restaurant scene.

“It was the biggest fear I had as an actor, and somehow I managed to excuse myself, clean myself up, and I got back in my suit and back on set and no one [except Morgan] knew what happened,” he confides. “After that, I was like, ‘Bring it on, man.’ ”

Longley and his character check out of “Port Charles” at the end of April, but not before giving his fans a gift of hope for Dr. Matt Harmon’s future--as well as his own and all the futures of men and women living with spinal-cord injuries.

In a story line that kicks off today and continues until Longley’s departure on April 27, the actor will introduce his television audience to the Parastep-I, a revolutionary microcomputer-controlled, neuromuscular electrical stimulation system that enables individuals with paraplegia (and in rarer instances, quadriplegia) to stand and walk short distances.

Actor Can Walk With Aid of Innovative Device

Longley, who’s walked the length of three football fields with the device and has significantly increased muscle mass in his thighs, hopes the story line will raise awareness for Sigmedics Inc., the company behind the Parastep-I that is facing financial hardship because some insurance companies won’t pay for the equipment, which runs close to $13,000. (An exception was Longley’s insurance through his union, which did reimburse the actor for his personal Parastep.)

The opportunity to educate viewers about a medical breakthrough that has so richly contributed to his personal well-being proved to be a highly satisfying conclusion to his stint in daytime.

“After we shot the scenes where I walked, I drove away with the windows down, heading west. . . .” he reflects, displaying a hint of uncharacteristic nostalgia. “I felt that day substantiated the three years of work. Here were people I’d worked with for three years, and now they’re seeing me walk. Visually, it’s kind of stunning and dramatic and a little unreal.”

The day after he taped his final scene, Longley wheeled into his neighborhood Super Cuts to have his thick head of hair sheared off. He says the new look, which closely resembles the short style he sported when “Port Charles” began, is symbolic of his new start.

Although he’s leaving “Port Charles” in a high-profile blaze of glory and expects to continue supporting a nonprofit organization he founded to aid underprivileged Native Americans with physical disabilities, don’t expect to see Longley become a spokesman for disabled actors. He feels he’s not qualified to speak for anyone but himself.

As Longley sees it, he’s done his part by pushing the Parastep story forward on “Port Charles,” and will now focus on his personal career ambitions.

“I’ve decided that, possibly, much of my work as an actor is going to come out of my own creation, my own writing,” he says. “I’ve decided to stop pointing the finger and being critical of a lack of opportunity and look at it now as my responsibility.”

“Port Charles” can be seen weekdays at 11 a.m. on ABC.