Teddy's Family, Now in its Sixth Season!

By Steven D. Bennett

Gus Rogers believes he has hit the bottom of his newspaper career; he has been asked to write a story about Teddy, the like-named child star of the hit show, Teddy's Family. As he reluctantly enters the fake world of Hollywood, he is surprised to discover Teddy much more mature and intelligent than a boy his age should be. He finds himself enjoying the assignment, especially when he meets Teddy's guardian, his young and beautiful Aunt, who inspires Gus in other ways. But as Gus digs deeper, he uncovers a darker side of Teddy, one seemingly succumbing to the pressure of television stardom. The boy has come to believe that there are two Teddy's; the young child star who, because of the pressure of expectations, cannot age, and the one he truly is, a man wanting to be set free to live a normal life. One of them, Teddy tells Gus, must die for the other to live. Gus is helpless as he watches that very thing take place.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steven D. Bennett
• Release date: Apr 26, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458061478

Steven D. Bennett

I was born in Boston and grew up in Connecticut and San Diego, which gave me a good background in both history and tanning. I have four children and six grand-children, remarkable in that I am only 35. The fact that I have been married for almost 36 years is the result of an in-utero wedding and honeymoon.I have published many short stories, poems, songs, and recently wrote and directed a musical melodrama that was performed in the San Diego area. With six books under my belt (THE PATH OF DAYS, TRACE THE DEAD EYE, HUMOR OF THE GOSPELS, HUMOR OF THE GOSPELS Daily Study, THRONE and THE CHUCK-IT LIST) I am looking for a bigger belt to stuff the seventh, which hopefully will be completed in time for the Christmas season. It is about a writer who finds to his horror that a mistake he made on page 47 completely invalidates the plot, forcing him to thus track down and kill anyone who has bought the book lest they spread the truth about his miniscule talent. It is titled DON'T READ THIS! and looks to be a best-seller, unless people take the title literally. Fortunately, nothing I write can be taken literally. It is also fortunate I did not stay with the working title: DON'T BUY THIS! Personally, I don't buy a word of it.I also have a blog, I Wandered Off the Tour: A Journey In Self-Publishing, which contains my thoughts and experiences through the tormenting process of creation.Other than writing, I like listening to the same dozen albums and re-runs of the same dozen TV shows I've heard and seen hundreds of times, to the endless delight of my wife.

Book preview

Teddy's Family,

Now In Its Sixth Season!

by

Steven D. Bennett

****

Smashwords Edition

****

Copyright © 2011 by Steven D. Bennett

****

"Make-up!

"A little darker under the eyes. We have to make him look older, at least twenty. You know the premise; he's on the boat and staring at the girls in the bikinis and hits his head on the mast and falls overboard and dreams what he will look like as he gets older. Twenties to forties to sixties to eighties and then back to the original. But we've gotta get this going: we need to be on the set in fifteen minutes and the whole sequence--sans boat--is getting shot today.

Teddy, want to go over your lines? You fine, kid? Okay, okay, you're looking good, everybody's looking good. How are you doing? Who is this guy?

Gus extended his hand wearily. Gus Rogers, Daily Post.

Rogers, Rogers. Don't seem to know you. Have we met before? Whaddya doing here? Somebody get security!

I'm here to interview Teddy for a segment in our Sunday Entertainment section.

"Oh, good! Publicity, that's what we need. You know that they say: any publicity's good, just spell my name right; Beniamino Ascari Lee. That’s spelt L-E-E.

All right, people, let's get moving, we've got a show to do...

Gus exhaled as the man moved off.

Teddy looked sideways at Gus from his stool in front of a well-lit mirror as a make-up girl worked years into his face. Rogers. Gus Rogers.

Gus turned to the boy, the star, who looked like any other ten-year-old with heavy rouge. He tried to force a smile, couldn't. Hi, Teddy.

Aren't you a sportswriter?

Once upon a time, Gus said, surprised. "Who told