INTERVIEWS WITH THE DAMNED

Nothing is sadder than stories of child stars gone bad. As a veteran writer who's interviewed many former child actors I thought I had seen it all until I hunted up the bunch from Winnie the Pooh --to say I was staggered by what I saw is certainly an understatement. Christopher Robbins' involvement with Scientology, Tigger's struggle with Bipolar Disorder, Pooh's paralysis after a drunk driving accident...My time with these tortured souls took its toll emotionally, eventually leading to the end of my marriage. Finally, however, I found it all to be a deeply spiritual experience, one that allowed me to get in touch withy my own humanity in a way that would not otherwise have been possible.

I'll begin with an individual who was the most difficult to locate, both physically and emotionally. Indeed, even after the many hours I spent with him he is still an enigma.

Driving up the gravel driveway to a trailer home that looked like someone had found a crushed tin can and then tried to straighten it back out, I was overpowered by the force of time and place and maybe experienced a little dissociation. It had taken me so long to find this man, in Moulton, Alabama and now, finally, I was about to see...him. I gripped the steering wheel to anchor myself --was this really the final stop for that sweet little child who played Piglet? Superlatives spun through my brain like dust kicked up from a has been writer's pile of unsold manuscripts. He was the youngest, the boldest, the more talented of his group. And now, perhaps, the most lost.

As I stepped from my vehicle, I heard his voice: "Tammy, you ain't fed the dog yet? I bet you done fed your face, bitch."

And then it hit me. Maybe he wasn't lost. Maybe he had finally found himself here amidst his Deep South roots, becoming like so many in the part of the world, an abusive, IV crank user living off a disability check, although with an occasional royalty payment to make things interesting.

I knocked, and again heard the voice --"Tammy, ain't you gonna get that?" The door opened. "Well, shit I guess I have to do everything around here. You that Williams feller?"

I told him I was.

"Well come on in"

We sat in silence for a moment as I studied him. His huge jowels glistened with grease in the soft light, falling down from two huge, sad, angry pig eyes. Rolls of fat subtley shifted as this four hundred pounder made himself comfortable on his couch. I knew instantly that this was a soul who had known suffering.

"I want to thank you for allow--"

He cut me off. "Hell, you don't have to give no apology for being here. I'm the one who told you to come down."

"Allright"

The jowels moved again "I imagine you want me to talk about all the Winnie the Pooh shit. You know, people act like I never accomplished nothing else in my life other than run around the woods with a bunch of British faggots and appear on television. Well, I done a lot of other things, some of them was bad things, but I also did a lot of things right. Anyway, I decided to sit down with you because I think it's time I did talk about some of that mess. I mean, here I was a just a kid, and my daddy signed for me to go live in England, which is a whole other country outside of Alabama. Of course I made some mistakes. But I wasn't the only one.

I pondered where to go at that point. "There has been a lot of talk about what another member of the cast has termed a 'betrayal' on your part." The question lingered in the air as we sat there. I was little alarmed at the aggressivenes of the question that had just tripped out of my mouth. Was he going to get mad, and throw me out?

I was pleasantly suprised: "Yeah, you mean all that with Chris." Piglet's countenance grew wistful. "Now understand, I was very young at the time. Me and Chris Robbins already had a lot of partying under our belts, you see we would go to London on the weekends and pick up chicks, and yes, sometimes we were a little smashed when we showed up on the set Monday morning. But that's just normal stuff everybody goes through. What most people don't know is that Chris is ADD. That's Attention Deficit Disorder. I know because my son Tyler is on ADD medication. Anyways, the day it all happened we as on this big ass estate hunting pheasants which is what they do over there. They had a bunch of poor people lined up driving the pheasants our way to flush 'em out. Right away I knew it was going down hill because Chris would get excited and point his gun the wrong way. I said "Chris, pay attention, this ain't no make believe pooh bear thang goin' down, this shit is real!" Chris would turn his gun around the right way for awhile, but then he'ld start talking and get excited and do the same thing again. So after about four or five times of that mess I decided to get out of there before I ended up in the bag. I had just turned around to leave when I heard "BOOM, BOOM, BOOM." And not a second later "OH MY GOD, I'M SHOT, GOD PLEASE HELP ME I'M SHOT, OH MY GOD I'M GONNA DIE." And then comes Mr ADD himself running up beggin me not to tell anyone he had been pointing his gun the wrong way when he shot that feller, saying he was too young to go to prison and squalling like a two year old. Well, when the police sat me down I told them the truth. Now if that's betrayal, I guess I'm guilty. And ever since that day Chris has been making up all kinds of tales about me...I could go on and on, but I know the truth."

He lit a cigarette and took a deep drag, his large, smoke inflamed eyes rolling around their fat swollen sockets.

"It's along way from Buckingham to prison, isn't it?"

"No doubt" he responded. "Prison ain't no hundred acre wood, let me tell you."
But I'm done dealing, and ain't done any meth in two years."

"And you're done hitting your wife?"

Piglet finally got ticked off at me. "As long as she acts right! There's three thangs I can't stand: women who bitch too much, po-lice who arrest you for no reason, and judges who sent you to prison because they don't like you."

Figuring I needed to back off a little, I smiled and said "You've registered for the local sheriff's race. I'm sure you have a lot to offer with your background, however don't you think your criminal background will be a problem for your campaign?"

"Most people who run for office around here have done time. It's a tradition."

"What one thing would most surprise people about the making of Winnie the Pooh?

"Tigger! It's not an act. When they cut the camera he's running around yelling 'WOOHOO! WOOHOO!' I really don't see how he got cut a paycheck for being on Winnie the Pooh. Hell, that's like payin' me to smoke reefer and watch Bama games."

I spent almost a month with Piglet. We laughed together, cried together. Once I really got to know him I found Piglet to be a sensitive, intelligent, even philosophical person. It was with great sadness that I drove down that gravel road for the last time, past his sons Tyler, Cody and Dakota riding their four wheelers in the soft autumn air. I thought, he's been through so much. We've been through so much. I knew I would never be the same.


David Williams