Let it never be said that a soundtrack can't lead a person to love and family. It might be a circuitous route and one not anticipated in the least, but my search for a specific album resulted in such life-changing events for a close friend. As an added bonus, this friend and I also have the unique "honor" of stating that we met through a classified ad... in a soundtrack magazine... in the 90's.
It was Fall 1993 to be exact and I had recently switched colleges. I wrapped up my sophomore year at Guilford and inaugurated my junior year at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I packed up my dad's 1983 green Ford LTD, on loan for the semester, and moved myself into a complete arena of "newness" - town, school, people and dorm. Of course, my burgeoning CD collection accompanied me and the music of one composer, Jerry Goldsmith, was quickly taking the lead in sheer number of albums.
Much of his work I knew only by reputation, as it was either impossible to find on disc or simply never released on its own at all. THE CASSANDRA CROSSING was just such an example of a highly-regarded score by Goldsmith, heralded by fans with more vast collections and deeper pockets than me. The movie was a 1976 European production, in the mold of other "disaster" genre flicks of the decade, focusing on a deadly outbreak on a runaway passenger train and starring Richard Harris and Sophia Loren (plus Martin Sheen and O.J. Simpson!). Apparently it featured a gripping, dynamic score by Goldsmith, available only on a hard-to-find CD. Imagine my excitement when I found it listed in the classifieds section of the magazine Film Score Monthly. The power of Goldsmith compelled me to respond, though I'd never actually answered a classified ad before. It felt like a blind date.
I dialed up the number in the ad, which was a New Jersey area code, and a friendly, chatty guy named Todd picked up. I asked about his copy of THE CASSANDRA CROSSING, if it was still for sale. Unfortunately, Todd informed me that the CD had already been claimed. Once I stifled my disappointment, I took the opportunity to simply start talking film music with another ardent fan, seeing as how it was a rare occurrence. We also were both big STAR TREK fans as well, just in case the conversation wasn't nerdy enough. Back in the day this type of connection might only happen through fan-operated publications and newsletters. With the internet today, fan interactions occur without picking up a phone or even stepping outside.
Todd and I began a habit of talking about once a month, trading cassette compilations and then planned a meetup in his territory some months later. Yeah, I know, it sounds like the start of some smoldering long-distance romance. It can't be helped, but don't get your hopes up, only a really great friendship was the result. My eventual trip to his town became my first experience flying alone and my first visit to New Jersey, where Todd was a history teacher and also ran the drama department. He seemed the kind of teacher that students could call their favorite, or at least I would've said so had I been one of his students. He was the dynamic, engaging type of teacher who, in true DEAD POET'S SOCIETY fashion, might even inspire a student to "Carpe Diem" and stand on their desk to boldly state "Oh, Captain, My Captain!".
For me, it was a significant friendship since it didn't begin in or revolve around school. All my friendships up until then originated with peers in class or school theater productions, including college. This involved someone not only a few years older who was a working adult, but also required effort to maintain through phone calls and travel. School friendships, while no less important, can be maintained simply by showing up for class or knocking on neighbor's doors in your dorm, but my friendship with Todd was more akin to those between normal grown-ups. It was the best glimpse of life beyond syllabi and blackboards, exams and assigned readings and days framed by seasonal semesters. The friendship pointed towards what I most looked forward to - a sweet bachelor pad and a CD collection that eclipsed mine.
Subsequent trips to New Jersey included venturing into New York City for soundtrack shopping at the famed and now lamented Footlight Records, a film composer panel where Todd and I wound up cracking jokes only movie music fans would find funny and even a fantastic concert with Jerry Goldsmith himself conducting selections from his scores. Of course for that latter event, we waited eagerly outside the stage door, hoping to catch Goldsmith maybe smoking a cigarette, but the old genuis was wily and elusive that day.
Once I graduated college, Todd started making trips down south to my neighborhood in Chapel Hill. It was during one of these excursions that he was introduced to my roommate at the time, a girl named Devon. She and I met through our mutual friend Mark while we were all enrolled at UNC. A few years following graduation Devon and I wound up rooming together in a 3-bedroom duplex. On one particular weekend, Todd flew down to hang out with me, Devon, Mark and his wife Presley as we happily floated between movies, restaurants and hiking. It turned out, though, that Todd was having an even better time than we thought as he found himself crushing on Devon pretty hard. They stayed up late talking as the rest of us headed off to bed.
After that weekend, the frequency of Todd's travels to Chapel Hill increased. In fact, while I soon moved away to Chicago in '98, the two of them continued their long-distance relationship and he eventually relocated to Chapel Hill. Expressed in TV terms, when I departed my role got recast. Todd then became the new soundtrack/Sci-Fi geek in that circle of friends. As a "Bewitched" analogy, he was the Dick Sargent to my Dick York.
I did finally hunt down my own copy of THE CASSANDRA CROSSING album, probably a decade or so later. Later, another edition was released including all the music from the movie, so I grabbed that as well. It absolutely met my expectations and soon emerged as a favorite among all the Goldsmith scores in my collection, never failing to be a great listen. The movie itself I caught late one night on the TCM channel and it proved to be loopy, over-the-top and fun all together, with a downbeat ending I didn't predict. But hey, it was the 70's, why should I have been surprised? The director, George Pan Cosmatos, would eventually direct the Sylvester Stallone classics RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II (1985) and COBRA (1986), so at least his career wasn't limited to unknown Euro disaster thrillers.
At a certain point, this becomes less my story and more Todd's, but it would be remiss of me not to mention that he and Devon married and started a family, once they moved back north. Two bright kids were produced, a boy named Jackson and a girl, Caroline. I never asked, but I wonder if Todd and Devon ever considered "Cassandra" when naming their daughter. Sounds poetic, right? On second thought, who wants their daughter to go through life explaining that their name originated with an obscure 70's movie and a classified ad for the soundtrack album. Still, sometimes the best friendships begin under the oddest circumstances, when we're crossing paths without roadmaps.
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