My psychiatrist saw me every day, it seemed. She did nothing but listened and offered no comments. She was very nervous and opened her cabinet beside her chair many times during each visit, first to look at her teeth in a full grimace. Then she would put that mirror away and start rubbing her eyes (she did lots of that) but would never look at me. It was like I wasn’t there. Then she would open the cabinet again and study the 10 or 12 bottles of medicine and take a pill from one. Back to checking her eyes with the mirror to see if there were any loose eye lashes. Then she would think of someone to call, mostly home about her baby, and she would actually excuse herself. After I talked on for 45 minutes, it was time to go. I always cried, which should have told her something was wrong. I was in Group therapy, with no one who had what I had, so I didn’t really receive any help with my problems. It was always someone else’s problems we dealt with.
I worked in an office after I went back to work, instead of working on the machines. Then I learned to interact with others. Several years went by and one day I came into the office I was working in, where a friend was reading the newspaper. I sat down in my chair, which was next to her chair, and began to work. All of a sudden she started laughing at what she saw on one page and threw the paper down in front of me. The shock was instant and I gasped at the picture of Palm and another girl in a full page ad for “Scarlet Love” playing at Northpark I Theater. The office was in an uproar after that, as they knew about my ex-husband making a picture, but never expected it to be shown. Then curiosity set in. Did he cut me out of it? What is it like now? So we decided that some of us would go see it.
According to the newspaper interview of Palmer, he talked people into putting up money for distributing the film in theaters. It showed at Northpark I—the best theater in town, for three weeks. That was March of 1980.
Palm went by PL Rockey in the ad in the paper in Dallas. The girl who was walking with him was taller than him, blonde, and was a model from the Kim Dawson Agency. She wore a tam like I did in the movie, but not like I wore it, at a saucy angle. I have the interviews from the newspapers. He even made a record of his own compositions and sang the songs in the movie—“Scarlet Love”.
When we got to the theater, we were early, so one friend, Buzz, and I sat in a restaurant waiting for the other friend, AJ, to arrive. We could see the theater entrance from the window of the restaurant. When we saw AJ, we got up and started walking toward the theater where AJ went in. When we were about 100 feet from the door, Palm came out in a hurry, like he’d seen a ghost. He turned and looked at us and increased his walking speed to a run. AJ was laughing when we came in and told us he shook hands with Palmer and told him his ex-wife was coming to see the film. Palm denied ever having been married. We were the only ones in the theater and talked out loud, laughing during the whole showing. Some people left after it started and got their money back.
Palm hadn’t cut me out of the film. His film became really disjointed when I divorced him, as he had to substitute my part, which was the lead female role in the film.
The film began with about 10 girls in bikinis holding hands in a circle and walking first one way and then another. It was really bad with extra crazy scenes in it. He had done all the work of mixing the sound and picture together. Palmer had the sound man record all sorts of sounds to add to scenes in his film, so he wouldn’t have to rent the sounds in a studio.
He ruined the film with the loud music, trying to appeal to the young crowd. His singing made the picture unbearable to listen to. His songs were very depressing with no emotion. The way he put the film together made no sense. The original script that I read was good. It was supposed to be a thriller, with gore in it.
Palm left town soon afterwards. He went to LA. I found that out from the Post Office. He had a P.O. Box in L.A. until 1998, even though he died in 1996. The reason I believe the P.O. Box was still open in his name after his death was because, I believe a woman lived with him and probably got mail in that box until 1998, when she moved on. On one background check she was at the same address as he was until 1998.