 |
The World of Shiva Rodriguez |
|
|
|||
I've dedicated a lot of my work and success to my father...
If there is any truth to the theory that parents can be blamed for how their children turn out, then I would have to blame my father, C. Andrew Yoh Jr.
Andy had an odd sense of dry wit and humor that he instilled in me at an early age. His idea of reading bedtime stories to me involved the works of Edward Gorey. I joke that I learned my ABCs from the Gashlycrumb Tinies. He did a lot of theatre and was happy to show me how special effects were done in front of a live audience. Dressing up our mansion in Carlisle for big Halloween parties was a time of year I most looked forward to. He and my mother installed a playroom in the stone-walled basement and stocked it with costumes, puppets, makeup, art supplies, and everything a child could want to unleash an imagination. He made damned sure that I knew I could be anything I wanted to be.
While Andy wasn't particularly fond of the bloody horror genre, he still encouraged me to follow my dreams. I think back and chuckle about the looks people would give him at the video store when he would rent dozens of gory movies with his pre-teen daughter smiling by his side. One summer he bought a video camera and we made a family project of making a goofy horror movie, where ghosts were exorcised from a home using 1980s workout videos and gummy bears wrecked havoc on a pool party.
When I grew into adulthood, Andy continued to support me in all my adventures. During his last summer in 1998 he came down to Orlando to visit me for my birthday. I took him behind-the-scenes of "Terror on Church Street", an Orlando attraction that I worked for, and watched as he studied the graveyard set and recognized it as having been based on a cemetery in Spain.
That afternoon he met Duckie, whom I had just started dating a year earlier. We had a laugh when Dad told me "You are allowed to marry this one!" (Later that week my brother called me and asked me who I hired to play my boyfriend that so impressed our father.)
Duckie and I were about to produce our first stage play and we had hoped for Andy to come down to Florida to direct it. I spent much of that week with Dad, and we spoke of how he longed to spend his days mentoring young actors and getting back into the theatre he loved so much. He spent my birthday surrounded by young actors and recounting such stories, and I hoped that he would continue to be an inspiration for us all over the years.
Sadly, a week later Andy died suddenly from a heart condition.
Duckie and I dedicated our first show to him, and we did get married a few years later. Andy remains in our hearts and is often spoken about when recounting memories or snippets of his advice when the going gets rough during productions. I've featured his paintings on the set of one of our films and find myself adding a little "tip of the hat" to him in every script I write, be it a character mannerism or a favorite saying. In that way, he's still with us even now.