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She learned about death when she was five, acting when she was six and stardom at seventeen. This is a story of loss and pain and joy
The time was late last January, a few weeks before Zina Bethune’s actual birthday. The place: the still photography room at studio publicity. The occasion: a party, a make-believe little birthday party, a strange little party.
Oh, there was a cake all right — real and pink and pretty. There were candles. There was a guest of honor, the birthday girl herself — Zina (who plays Gail Lucas on TV’s “The Nurses”). But there were no other guests present; no one except the photographer who was about to record this little scene, and he was hardly a guest.
“Okay, Zina,” said the photographer, after he set up the scene, “ — I want you to smile, now.”
Zina did as she was told, she smiled prettily.
“Okay, Honey, now get ready to blow out the candles — blow ’em nice and hard.”
She took a very deep breath.
“Okay — ” the photographer started once more but then there was a popping noise from somewhere, loud and sharp, and the photographer shook his head and said, “I figured that light was about to go. Relax for a few minutes, Honey, while I get another bulb for this shot.”
And Zina let out the breath she’d been storing.
And she laughed a little as she watched two of the candles, teased by the breath, blow out.
And then, to pass the time, she counted the candles — “eighteen, correct!” She stared down at the candles, wondered (Continued on page 82)