How Gail Chord Schuler Learned about Loree McBride
When my Star Trek: The Next Generation teleplay made print, September 1993 was the first installment. The same issue in which my first installment made print, I read in the letters of comments section and I believe that’s the first time that I suspected that Brent might have another woman in his life. It was a letter in the letters of comments section, and I used to always love to read the letters of comments section because Brent would often go out to the Star Trek conventions and meet with the fans, and it was interesting to me to find out what he was doing because he never talked to me that much. He just gave me wrong numbers or had his friends call, or . . .He was very creative and witty. Mostly I talked to him, like the way I’m doing right now, or I wrote him letters every day. I liked to read Data Entries, this was one of several fanzines out there about him, because his fans who’d met him at a convention, would talk about what they thought Brent was up to. . . because he didn’t talk to me that much. Anyways, I’d find out that he’d gone to a convention in Houston. I tried to keep up with everything about him. I wanted to know all about him. I’d read in this letters of comments, one of his fans. . .he had gone to a convention in San Antonio. . .and in this letter of comment they mentioned that he was at this San Antonio convention, his mother was there, along with his family. . .I remember very distinctly the letter writer said, “And who’s that cute blonde that was with him?”
The way I reacted to that, was I was thinking, “He’s with some cute blonde woman who’s going with him to conventions? That’s strange. . .” I figured, well, he was still giving me lots of attention. This was in 1993. The only difference was after September 1992, when he gave me the three weeks of silence, he no longer called me on holidays. That had stopped. I remember that. I thought . . .that’s strange. . .when Christmas or Thanksgiving rolled around, he would never call me on a holiday. I’d usually get silence on a holiday. And I thought that was kind of strange. I didn’t know what to make of that, because before September 1992, he always, always called me on holidays. It was like he was saying, “Merry Christmas” or “Happy whatever”, “happy birthday”. In fact, if I remember correctly, on September 15, 1991, I believe he did call me on my birthday. Yeah, he did. So, one thing that changed after September 1992, is he never. . .whenever there was a major holiday, I always got the silent treatment. Because I’m not the kind of woman who makes a big deal about holidays, it didn’t affect me in the least. I noticed that there was a change in policy, though.
I knew there were a lot of stereotypes about Hollywood celebrities, and I could tell that Brent Spiner broke just about every stereotype. So, I was not pleased when I heard about him hanging around this blonde.
I call her a blonde because this was how she was always described. I have nothing against blondes. The impression I got about her, was she made him nervous. And I thought she doesn’t have the effect on him that I do. I knew that I brought him some calmness, some soothing. Because when he talked to me on the phone, even though he may have been a little nervous at first because he opened his heart to me, I never sensed I made him nervous. I sensed I made him feel whole, complete. We inspired each other to et new goals in our lives. And we felt totally at ease with each other.
I felt more comfortable emotionally and in every way with Brent Spiner, this world famous celebrity, than I did the people at the church I went to. He accepted me the way I was. With Brent, he didn’t find anything about me threatening.
We were totally at ease with each other.
If he was totally at ease with me, then why didn’t he talk to me on the phone? I presume that was because I was married. So I understood. I was very patient with him, because he hardly ever spoke to me.
He communicated in unusual ways. I would send him a letter, and he would let me know if he liked what I had to say by the calls he would make the next day. Like if he really liked it. . .the one thing I knew for sure about Brent was he loved hearing from me.
In 1991 and most of 1992, if I even dropped the slightest hint that I might cut back on my correspondence with him, or that maybe I thought he was getting tired of me. . .the next day the phones would ring all day long. He did not want me to think that. He wanted me to know that I was very important to him.
I felt more at ease and comfortable with Brent than I have any human being in my life. I didn’t sense there was anything about me that he didn’t like. Everything I sent him, he was such a positive person– so opposite my family. He was so positive about everything I sent him. He was my biggest cheerleader.
But he was so attentive to me in every other way, so I didn’t make a big deal over this blonde.
Data Entries was the only fanzine I subscribed to. There were several others out there, but I liked Data Entries because I liked Melody Rondeau. I got to know her through correspondence, and though she may have been a Star Trek fan, she was a very generous person and she had high moral standards. She was a Christian. We corresponded and she told me a little bit about herself, and she always conducted herself very professionally. Even though Data Entries may not have been a professional level fanzine, Melody herself, always conducted herself like a professional.
The letter writer who mentioned the blonde claimed she was a college student or something. Brent was at a Star Trek convention in San Antonio, and I remember distinctly this letter writer was curious about this blonde. Every time the letter writers wrote about Brent with this blonde, I noticed they always described him as nervous, like he looked real nervous. One letter writer commented that he kept looking at the blonde woman who was with him, like for some sort of approval or something.
That concerned me.
When I read that this person seemed to make him nervous. . .the letter writers claimed they thought he was nervous because he was at the Star Trek convention. Brent has been a little bit shy with the public. The letter writers would insinuate that it was probably because he was not used to being with his fans.
But I knew him and I knew how comfortable he was with me. I was worried about him. I remember back then I asked myself, “Whoever this blonde woman is, she’s not good for him, because she’s making him nervous”. I didn’t want my hero nervous. This man who had the courage to expose the abuses of the child abuse industry for me, who had the courage to bare his heart to me with his music album Ol’ Yellow Eyes Is Back. How I despised this blonde for dragging my hero through the mud, that she degraded his manliness and greatness and brought him down from the mountaintop that I wanted for him, the mountaintop of manliness that I wanted to give him with my love. I wanted to fuse into him my faith in his manliness and in his greatness, to nurture all that was manly and great in him and somehow I sensed that this blonde could care less about any of the things that I wanted to forge into my lover, to reinforce in him the greatness that I knew he could reach, to make him more of a man, to cause him to climb Mount Everest and do heroic exploits, so that I could be proud of him as a man. I knew he could be a hero for me. Yes, he was my hero, my manly hero, my king David, and I adored my hero. I remember that every time they wrote about him being with this blonde, they would say he kept looking at her when he gave his speech or answered fan questions at these Star Trek conventions.
I thought, “Why would Brent allow a good looking blonde woman to go with him?” She was obviously good looking, because they all said she was cute and everything. . .to go with him to these conventions. “Why would he allow her to go with him, when he’s with his family?”
I was starting to wonder who she was, I got a little curious. But I was concerned about him. I figured that maybe Paramount didn’t like me because they rejected my teleplay, which I thought was kind of strange, because I knew I wrote a good one. And that’s when I first found out about this blonde. I believe it was September of 1993, but I didn’t dwell on it. I wasn’t jealous of her, I was worried about Brent. Because I noticed immediately, looking at him through the eyes of love, that whoever this woman was she was making him nervous.
My first gut feeling about this blonde, was I didn’t know who she was, but–I didn’t like her. It had nothing to do with the fact that she was blonde. Though I noticed everybody described her as the cute blonde. It was the fact that she made him nervous. I said, “I don’t want him to be nervous. I want him to feel like a hero.” I never forgot that three weeks of silence. I somehow thought there’s some sort of a connection between the suffering, and then I remembered after he gave me three weeks of silence, he called me up about a week and a half after my birthday.
I remember very distinctly that I finally resigned myself to the fact that it was over between Brent and myself because he was giving me this silent treatment. So I wrote him a letter and I said, “Brent, it appears you don’t want to contact me anymore. I don’t know why. But I want you to know that I’m going to pray for you every day for a half an hour from my window. I’ve made a covenant with God, and that’s how I will communicate with you. I’m not going to write you a whole bunch anymore, because for some odd reason you seem to want to end our communication. I don’t know why. But I want you to know I’m going to pray. I’ll keep writing, but I may not write as much, but I will pray for you every day.”
I finally had peace. I went to God in prayer, and asked Him what I should do. That was the only way that I could go to bed at night. . .I cried my eyes out. I was so upset. I was crying all day. I was depressed. Because he was everything to me. I loved him so much, I ruined my gums to write that teleplay. I finally found peace with God. I thought well I know how I can love him now. I said, “I can love him by praying for him every day”. So I made a covenant with God and with Brent and I said, “I know you’re not going to contact me anymore, but I won’t forget you. I’m going to love you by praying for you a half hour every day for the rest of my life.”
The next day he called. He didn’t talk to me. He rarely talked to me, usually in 1990 or 1991, he only talked to me five times a year. It was always brief and he never stayed on the phone long.
But after that, he called and it looked like things were back to normal, so I was happy, I said, “Oh good. He’s back!”
But–things weren’t back to normal. I started figuring it out. . .later.
About November 1992. . .I watched Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes religiously. I always wanted to see the new ones that came out because I could sort of gauge how Brent was doing. I was concerned about Brent when there was a certain episode that came on called “A Fistful of Datas”. I could usually tell by looking at an episode how Brent was doing when he made the episode. I noticed that in “A Fistful of Datas”, I saw an expression on his face where he looked like he was going through hell, like he was going through emotional torment. “A Fistful of Datas” aired in November 1992.
When I read Data Entries, I found out that usually, ‘cause Melody kept up with what was going on at Star Trek, she would contact some of the producers or. . .she had her connections, so she knew a lot of the inside goings-on at Star Trek. She mentioned in one of her commentaries about how it usually took about two months for a television show to air after it was in production. So I presumed because “A Fistful of Datas” aired in November that it was made during the time when Brent gave me three weeks of silence. I recall very distinctly that I saw a tremendous amount of emotional pain. . . on his face, in that episode. And I thought, “Oh my God, whatever the reason was. . .” I realized that something terrible had happened to Brent when he gave me that three weeks of silence. I was always curious what it was.
I didn’t know. He never told me. But I knew whatever it was, it was very difficult for him to give me three weeks of silence in September 1992. I could tell by looking at him in the episode “A Fistful of Datas”. I knew that whatever the reason was, it wasn’t because he didn’t love me. It was something else. And whatever he went through in September of 1992, so that he didn’t call me on my birthday or anything, it must have been catastrophic to him. ‘Cause he looked catastrophic in “A Fistful of Datas” (may need to view this video at this site and away from my website to see it all).
I could tell he went through something terrible. So I got a little concerned about him. I began to suspect there was something fishy going on at Paramount studios. The reason for that is because I watched the Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes religiously, because that was about the only way I could gauge how he was doing emotionally.
So I knew about this blonde, but I didn’t dwell on her too much. I was consumed with writing my great monument for Brent, my novel Silver Skies.
In 1996, when we moved to Houston, our family couldn’t find a church we liked in the Houston area, so we had church at home and I listened to videos of my favorite preacher and Texe Marrs for church. I played all these videos to Brent on my blank phone for him.
I had established a routine in my Webster apartment where, when I first arose from my bed in the morning, I’d read the Bible, then go outside and get the newspaper. I had a subscription to the Houston Chronicle because I wanted to be up to date on all that happened in the world to assist me as I researched for my novel, and I wanted to hear what the other side had to say, so that my novel would present a balanced picture of world events. I also had subscriptions to conservative publications like Texe Marrs’s Flashpoint and to a Bible believing bulletin. Many of the newspaper quotes in Silver Skies were culled from the Houston Chronicle.
The night before I read the Houston Chronicle article (that made me realize Brent had a girlfriend), for some reason I had recalled what I had read in Data Entries about this “cute blonde” that all his fans (who came to see him at Star Trek Conventions) wrote about.
For some reason I went to my bedroom closet, shut the door for privacy, and spoke to him on the wiretapped phone. I felt I got better reception of Brent’s “noises” here in this closet. I tried to press him to let me know if he did indeed have a girlfriend.
The evening of June 25, 1996 I asked him, “Who’s this cute blonde that I read about in Data Entries? Do you have a girlfriend?”
I listened for the typical noises that Brent put on my wiretapped phone, there was no change in the noises.
“Look, I deserve to know if you have a girlfriend, because I risk my marriage to communicate with you.” I paused, and for some reason, decided to press this matter.
Nothing changed on the phone, so I couldn’t tell what he tried to say, if he tried to say anything at all.
“I’m going to ask you if you have a girlfriend, if the answer is no, then make your noises louder, if the answer is yes, then be silent.”
Nothing changed on the phone, and I sensed he tried to evade the question, but did sense he was on the other end . . .listening. This made me suspicious that perhaps he did have a girlfriend.
“Look, if you have a girlfriend, I deserve to know. Why won’t you answer this question? I can tell you’re hiding something from me. You do have a girlfriend, don’t you? Again, let’s change the requirements for the noises, if you have a girlfriend, then make your noises louder; and if you don’t have a girlfriend, then be silent.”
Again, nothing significant changed on the phone. “I think you have a girlfriend. Because if you didn’t, you’d jump at this opportunity to let me know that you don’t have a girlfriend. And you aren’t saying anything.” All of a sudden, I got this strange suspicion that this “cute blonde” I’d read about in Data Entries was his girlfriend. I fumed at this possibility that he could allow her to intrude into our sanctuary and to appear with him in public, as if his feelings for me were a big game and I was not important enough for him to protect and cherish. I felt as if he was ashamed of his feelings for me, and felt him a coward to have a girlfriend, when he listened to me for hours and hours every day on the phone. “How dare you have a girlfriend, when I have no job and depend totally on my husband for support and you know that I’ve risked everything to maintain my communication with you! You do have a girlfriend, don’t you! How dare you. How dare you, when I would have died to keep you in my life, because my husband would kill me over you. How dare you!!! You won’t make it clear to me that you don’t have a girlfriend, so I think you have one. Well, if this is the case, you can forget it. I’ll dump you like a hot turkey. I won’t tolerate this garbage from you. Why do you have to appear in public with this ‘cute blonde’? Is this cute blonde your girlfriend? And how could you have a girlfriend when you know how I feel about you?”
No answer.
Because he wouldn’t answer, I decided he didn’t want to let me know whether he had a girlfriend or not, which I thought was strange. I decided that I did deserve to know one thing, and so I asked him, “Have you gone to bed with this “cute blonde?”
No answer.
This made me really furious, because I thought for sure he’d want to let me know without reservation that he had not gone to bed with her. But the noises on the phone remained the same. He would not answer this question. “You mean you’ve gone to bed with her? And you still listen to me on the phone every day, and you let me make love to you every day on the phone? What do you think I am, some game player who takes my marriage vows lightly? Do you think I’d risk my marriage to make love to you, if I knew you had a girlfriend!”
No answer.
I really screamed at him then, which I never did to him before, but it did no good, because he would not tell me anything, and I couldn’t force him to talk.
About the only questions he would answer are the following: “Does she understand and respect our feelings for each other?” To this, he seemed to reply in the affirmative. However, this answer didn’t satisfy me, because he wouldn’t make it clear to me whether he’d gone to bed with her.
Later, I calmed down and felt guilty for my outrage (so unlike me). For me to get upset with Brent like this was rare, because I’m not the jealous type, but for some reason, on the night of June 25, 1996–I wanted him to clarify with me who this “cute blonde” was and because he seemed to evade the question (especially the questions about whether he had sex with her), I got frustrated with him and screamed at him on my phone.
For some reason I wanted to press him about this matter on the evening of June 25, 1996. I had read about the “cute blonde” every couple months in the Brent Spiner fanzine Data Entries in the letters section, where fans would comment about the “cute blonde” that Brent always appeared with at Star Trek conventions.
I never went to Star Trek conventions because I thought them stupid and Brent made sure to never attend any Star Trek conventions near me, any ways. But even though I’d read about the cute blonde since 1993, it never occurred to me to press him about her until June 25, 1996.
I always assumed she was his business associate, though I despised her for the effect she had on him, because every time I read about her, the letter writers described him as nervous, and that at his Star Trek convention appearances he constantly looked at her. This indicated to me that this woman, whoever she was, put him on edge.
To me she appeared shallow, because she delighted in showing off with Brent at Star Trek conventions. She seemed one who delighted in public appearances with Brent and I always felt that one’s private life should stay private and that any woman who delighted in parading her private life with a celebrity in public lacked depth or class or any real feeling for the man. THE ONLY REASON I’VE GONE PUBLIC ABOUT MY RELATIONSHIP WITH BRENT IS BECAUSE THE PUBLIC LIES ABOUT HIS PERSONAL LIFE HAVE REALLY GOTTEN OUT OF HAND, AND I MUST DEFEND HIM AGAINST THESE LIES. THE JESUIT PRESS CAMPAIGN AGAINST HIS LOVE FOR ME HAS BEEN BRILLIANT!
This Loree craved the limelight and I knew Brent did not, so she and he could not have any true oneness or intimacy. I was correct in this assessment, but it confused me that he appeared in public with her.
My confusion and outrage over the “cute blonde” in Brent’s life did seep into my novel Silver Skies, as I wrote often about shallow women who delighted to manipulate the press in order to manipulate their men and create false impressions.
How little did I realize it at the time, but I had brilliant discernment into how the Jesuits had manipulated the love life of Brent with the cute blonde Loree McBride (a Jesuit). When I wrote about these brilliant manipulative women, to me it was all make believe, I really did not know Brent had Loree McBride as his girlfriend until June 26, 1996.
But I did sense this “cute blonde” did not have Brent’s best interests at heart.
No one was at my home at the time when I pressed Brent with these questions about the “cute blonde”, and I believe my son was asleep. By the time bedtime rolled around, I apologized to Brent for my outrage and decided to forget about it and go to sleep. I figured the “cute blonde” was just a business associate, because with all the time he spent listening to me on the phone, he couldn’t have a girlfriend. And if he did have a girlfriend, it was a mighty strange relationship, because I knew he listened to me every day for at least two hours, I could tell by the noises he made on my phone.
No girlfriend would tolerate a boyfriend who listened to a woman make love to him, when I shared my entire life to him on the phone for at least two hours every single day.
Of course, I didn’t realize that Loree McBride was a criminal and, therefore, didn’t have your typical girlfriend/boyfriend feelings and that she was in a predator relationship with Brent, where she was the predator and Brent the victim. I’d figure this out later in December 1999.
So I forgot about the “cute blonde” and went to bed.
The next morning, I followed my usual routine with my entire days devoted to my writing, where I read the paper first thing in the morning, cooked meals for the family and spent the rest of the day reading writing instruction books on my bed (with a highlighter) and immediately applied the writing principles to my novel (my monument of love for my awesome relationship with Brent).
Some days, I’d take off on research assignments to visit synagogues and take notes for scene descriptions or for characterization. I’d visit synagogue libraries to research Judaism and bought some of the books in the synagogue libraries to assist me as I wrote about Dor Ben Habakkuk. Or I’d drive to Meyerland, where Brent grew up, and take notes about the landscaping and surroundings there to assist me to flesh out my novel, so I could honor Brent by writing about his hometown. I relished the fact that I lived in Brent’s hometown and saw this as a real opportunity to write a novel to honor him.
When inspiration struck me as I lay on my bed and took notes from my writing instruction books, I’d jump to my computer and write. From the summer of 1993 until the summer of 1996, I worked on my novel just about every day. In June 1996, I was about 120,000 words into my novel.
Every time I got in my car (from June 1991 to the time I learned about Loree as Brent’s girlfriend in June 1996), I plopped my copy of Brent’s Ol’ Yellow Eyes Is Back into my car’s cassette player and listened to him sing his love songs for me.
His music made me intimate with him. I chose the car to listen to his music, because my family couldn’t hear what I played in my car.
So as I sat on the sofa in my little two bedroom apartment in Webster, Texas and read the Houston Chronicle on June 26, 1996 (as I’d done everyday since I arrived in Houston in 1994) and saw the name of Brent’s mother Sylvia mentioned in the paper.
My heart always jumped when I saw Sylvia’s name in the Houston Chronicle’s society column, because I wanted to know everything about Brent, and Sylvia always talked about Brent in the paper.
But on this June 26, 1996, I noticed in the Houston Chronicle society column a statement by his mother that Brent Spiner had a birthday bash for his girlfriend Loree McBride, at Spago’s in Los Angeles.
My heart fell. I felt numb. I ran to the phone and cried my eyes out to him on the phone for days and days. I asked him to explain this. But I only got his noises on the phone. He wouldn’t talk to me.
Devastated and confused, I knew Brent was on my phone.
Brent offered no explanations. I cried for a month. I sensed that something was terribly unhealthy about Brent’s relationship with Loree McBride, and I was anxious for him. I prostrated myself on the floor and prayed for hours for Brent — laying flat on the floor — face down. I did this for three weeks, hours every day.
This Houston paper always had a society column that reported the latest gossip on all the celebrities that hailed from the Houston area. Houston, proud of its celebrities, reported on them from its local paper. The huge Houston newspaper took me an hour or longer to read.
But on that morning of June 26, 1996 I read in the Houston Chronicle society column, Sylvia’s comments: “Brent had a huge birthday dinner for his girlfriend Loree McBride, at Spago’s, and boy was it some celebration. . .” My heart about dropped to the ground and died. I’d already forgotten about the “cute blonde” incident I brought up to Brent the previous night.
I immediately ran to my wiretapped phone and read word for word the article that I just read in the Houston Chronicle. “I want to know why you have this girlfriend. What do you need a girlfriend for? You mean I’m not good enough? There’s something going on here that I don’t know. Why do you have this woman for your girlfriend?” And then I screamed at him. “How dare you have a girlfriend when I’ve literally worshipped the ground you walk on and have written a novel to honor our love. How could you do this to me? How dare you! How dare you!”
I cried on the phone for at least a half hour and said nothing, just cried my heart out on the phone.
“I’m going to go to the floor and spend all day for the next month in prayer for you. Because something’s not right here. I know Loree does not love you and I know you don’t love her, and I can’t understand why you have her as a girlfriend.” I tried to get some answers from him about why he had her. But he’d never talk to me, just made noises on the phone. About all I could garner from the noises he made in answer to my questions was that he had some sort of deal with her and that she understood his feelings for me and respected his feelings for me.
But I couldn’t understand why he felt he needed to have Loree. About the only thing I could figure was that he was ashamed to admit in public that he loved me, and so he had Loree to protect his image. When I came to this conclusion, it devastated me that I had devoted my entire life to him since May 1991 and that it appeared my feelings for him were deeper than his for me.
But what disappointed me more than anything was that my hero had fallen from his pedestal. His greatness and vastness as a man so inspired me that I had written an epic novel to honor him, and now it seemed that his greatness and manliness was a joke, that I suffered delusions about him, that he wasn’t the great hero I thought he was.
How confused I was over what I should do about him as a lover now. I devoted my entire life to honor and extol his manliness and greatness, that’s why I wrote the great book for him. I couldn’t understand how he could ever think that I’d find his girlfriend acceptable, because I risked my life, marriage and moral standards to maintain communications with him.
I then asked him, “You know I’ve thought about possible marriage to you, but it appears that marriage has never entered your mind, or you wouldn’t have this girlfriend. How could you treat my feelings for you so lightly? How could you have me and Loree McBride at the same time?”
So I cried my heart out and cried and screamed at Brent and demanded an explanation from him. He told me nothing. He never talked to me after I received the Fed Ex letter in January 1994–just made a bunch of noises on my phone to let me know he was there.
As I mulled over this new knowledge in my mind, I threw up a bit in my kitchen sink (in spite of my iron stomach and that I hadn’t thrown up since around 1974)–to think I’d dreamed of him as my hero for years and that he listened to me on the phone for hours on end and he had Loree McBride the whole time.
To think I risked my marriage (when I had no job) to keep my communication with him for years. So, for a month (July 1996), I cried every day, and prayed flat and face down on my apartment’s floor and my emotions so drained me that sleep fled. I asked God for strength to go on. The brightness in my heart (because he was my dream hero) had turned to despair and confusion, because I couldn’t tell anyone (except Brent and God) why devastation now darkened my life and why for a month I couldn’t stop crying.
Fortunately, when I read this article about Brent’s girlfriend Loree, my husband was out at sea (and not due back for a month). So confused about God’s plan for my life, it didn’t make sense to me at all why God seemed to tell me that Brent was part of His plan for my life, if Brent had Loree.
I, who yearned for Brent’s presence in my life, from 1993 to June 26, 1996 envied this “cute blonde” when I read about her in Data Entries for only one thing–that she could be in the presence of my hero, and I could not. It seemed so unfair, because I sensed this “cute blonde” lacked the depth and discernment to appreciate Brent’s greatness and that she didn’t deserve all this time with him. I felt she poisoned him because she made him jumpy and nervous. I knew that I brought to him wholeness and completeness.
Her looks and fame didn’t phase me.
It just seemed so unfair that she could have his presence and fly with him on jets to Star Trek conventions, when I wanted more than my life to give him my presence, to infuse him into greatness. I sensed from what I’d gleaned about her in Data Entries that she had no comprehension of his soul, did not care about what moved him and did nothing to inspire him to greatness. It seemed outrageous to me that Loree, incapable of understanding the depths of Brent Spiner (or else she wouldn’t make him so nervous), could have the honor of his presence, when she seemed to have no clue about the vastness I knew lodged in his heart. I knew Brent could never feel intimate with a woman who delighted in making appearances with him at Star Trek conventions.
His desire for privacy about his love life, I respected. This indicated to me he had depth of feeling.
Loree had too much ostentation to grasp the depths of Brent Spiner.
Now that I knew he paraded with her as his girlfriend, and that her occupation was publicist, I thought perhaps I overestimated his depths and greatness. I knew he didn’t love her, because he had too much depth to love a woman who delighted in parading her relationship with him to the tabloids.
So I cried for hours on the phone with him and pounded him with questions about Loree. He wouldn’t tell me much and never talked to me now, only made noises on my phone. It was a lousy way to communicate with me at such a momentous time in my life. But I was married at the time, and knew that stood between us. About all I could discern from the noises he made and the questions I asked him was that she somehow extorted him into a relationship with her, but I got no details about it.
I could only conclude that he must be a coward, because he allowed Loree to extort her way into a relationship with him, when I felt he should have stood up to her. I sensed that she ruled over him and manipulated him and I despised him for allowing this showgirl to invade our sanctuary (in that he gave her public girlfriend status). And gradually, as it dawned on me that my hero was not a hero, but was a wimp, I lost respect for him. Because I could only love a man who I thought was manly and great, by the end of the month I lost all romantic feeling for him, and could only offer him feelings of friendship. I only dreamed of heroes in bed, a wimp would never do for me. For a month, I cried my eyes out to him on the phone, and averaged about three or four hours of sleep for several weeks. I became depressed.
My sleep problems not licked, I felt perhaps my manic depression had returned, and I’d started Ambien (a new sleeping pill) in the middle of June and didn’t realize it, but one of the side effects of that tranquilizer was depression. When I realized that the Ambien brought on my depression, I quit taking it, then my depression vanished and my sleep returned. I weathered this emotional storm with incredible strength. Despite my despair and confusion, I knew God had a plan.
So in July 1996, I spent hours and hours every day on the floor of the bedroom in my Houston apartment with tears and confusion to God (who seemed to tell me in November 1992 with the song “Somewhere”, that He had a plan and future for Brent and I). So face down on the floor with my head buried into the carpet and with my hands spread out as I pleaded in prayer to God (for hours and hours every day) to receive clarity about how I should respond to Brent Spiner’s girlfriend, it seemed all I could do was cry and cry and pray and pray, because this man who had so transformed my life and who inspired me to write and almost finish Silver Skies, and who gave me the courage to climb the mountaintop as a writer, was not the hero I thought he was.
Perhaps the Jesuits timed the release of this newspaper article about Brent, because they hoped I’d become so devastated about Brent and Loree, that I’d commit suicide or do something drastic. The Jesuits had me on Ambien (that induced depression) at the time. However, I, like Catherine the Great, am strong, and though I cried my eyes out, I did much better when I quit taking that tranquilizer and then my sleep returned.
Besides, no matter what I said about Loree, and though I challenged Brent, if Loree McBride mattered, to drop his wiretap of my phone, he wouldn’t do that (I no longer wrote him letters–this stopped in January 1994). So, I decided to keep him as a friend and he seemed to want this. My communications with Brent continued, but the nature of our relationship changed, because I now knew about Loree McBride.
No longer my hero, he became to me a cowardly Hollywood actor who didn’t have the courage to honor the depths of his heart, or perhaps was too shallow to appreciate a vast love. After I learned about Loree, the romantic feelings I had for Brent weakened every day until they vanished to nothing. It didn’t help that Loree paraded around as the young and pretty, cute blonde. I discerned she was about ten years younger than I, and I thought to myself, “She just loves to go around and flaunt her youthful good looks and her bright, sparkly eyes, and wear those mini-skirts to show off her legs and uses teeth whitener to make herself look like a Hollywood glamour girl. I can tell she loves to be photographed with him, so unlike myself. I desire to love him in private and stay away from the crowds. She’s obviously shallow. She thinks just because she’s younger than I that Brent would prefer her to me. She takes advantage of the fact that I’ve kept my relationship with Brent very private and she has gone real public about her relationship with Brent to make it look like he never called me and talked to me on my phone. She obviously knows all about me and is in competition with me and loves to show off all her pretty clothes, her pretty legs, her pretty eyes, and the fact that she’s ten years younger than me, like she thinks all Brent cares about is pretty young girls. This doesn’t seem like Brent at all. I’m so confused. Brent doesn’t act like he’s in love with her, so I don’t get it–why is he parading around with this shallow, pretty young thing who obviously can’t understand his depths and intelligence and who obviously loves the limelight and to be associated with this very private celebrity? This is so unlike the Brent I love. It doesn’t make sense. I thought he had more depth than this. I thought he had more courage than this. I thought he was shy and private about his personal life and he parades around with this glitter queen, so ostentatious and flagrant, as his girlfriend? I bet when she gets to my age, she won’t look half as good as me. She looks like some shallow twenty-something, who doesn’t know who she is or what she needs in love. The fact that Brent hangs around with her, makes me really wonder about his manliness and his courage. He’s obviously not in love with her. She’s too ostentatious and shallow to be a woman he could love. I thought Brent was a manly Texan with depth and sensitivity! And now that I know he isn’t the manly hero I thought he was, I don’t even care if he makes love to me anymore!”
In fact, this whole girlfriend charade disgusted me so, that from August 1996 to December 1999, I never dreamed about Brent any more in any romantic fashion. I relegated him to friendship status. As if he’d never consumed my days from 1991 to 1996, my romantic feelings for him in my heart–vanished.
Because I quit dreaming about him as a lover, and lost respect for him–when I saw his photos in the Internet, I could tell this devastated him. But then he devastated me by having her, and I despised him for falling off his manly pedestal. So I felt justified to shove all romantic thoughts of him from my heart.
At this time, I did not realize Loree McBride was the same fierce woman who, after Brent made love to me on the phone, called me in July 1993 and screamed at me with venom, “Hey bitch, what the FUCK are you doing to my boyfriend!” If I had known this, I may have discerned that Loree McBride was a criminal and Brent her victim, and I may have, despite her, retained Brent as a romantic interest.
But the Jesuits doctored up her Internet photographs to make her appear nicer than she was, and I thought Brent just had her to protect his image and to placate Paramount. I knew she was his publicity girlfriend (because her occupation was publicist) and that he had no deep feelings for her, and I thought if his image so concerned him that he felt he needed a publicity girlfriend, then he didn’t have enough backbone, depth, moral courage and manliness to interest me. I felt I somehow overestimated his manliness and greatness, and now no longer had enough respect for him to retain any romantic interest in him.
I wasn’t sure I could pull myself together before my husband came back from sea duty, but when I got off the tranquilizer, I did better. I changed to a different medication and to a different psychiatrist.
With any of my psychiatrists, I never discussed Brent Spiner or Loree. I only went to them because they gave me the medicines that helped me sleep. Despite my loss of respect for Brent, I still tried to protect his communications with me on my wiretapped phone and told no one that Brent had wiretapped my phone and listened to me every day.
I told myself to keep on writing, that the novel needed an ending, and I did work on it for about a couple of months following the schedule I’d maintained over the years to work on it.
But by December 1996, it just “sat there”.
I couldn’t put soul into the writing, because the characters and the story line lacked urgency for me now. I lost my passion for the story. My manly hero, who inspired me to be a writer, was not a hero, he was a wimp who paraded around with a shallow woman who could care less about his vastness as a man.
Perhaps he had no vastness, no great vistas of manliness as I’d dreamed of every day since 1991. If he lacked these vistas, he had no attraction for me. That novel was my monument of love for my manly hero, Brent, and I’d written it to make it up to him that I couldn’t give him my body. Now that I felt he didn’t deserve this monument, I lost interest in it.
It’s funny that at this time, my family decided to get the Internet.
So in the middle of August 1996 I had the Internet, and, of course, I scoured the Internet to see what I could learn about Brent and Loree. I studied her face and discerned she had unusual physical beauty, but I could tell she lacked my depth or intelligence. I noticed as I read the Internet that Brent made more television appearances to publicize his girlfriend relationship with Loree and that he did this (in July 1996) while I was devastated about her and thought I’d die and that he committed these distasteful public appearances about Loree when I needed his reassurance about his commitment toward me as the love of his life.
I never doubted that he had feelings for me, what I doubted was his commitment to me. I felt that he didn’t have the courage to be true to his heart and I despised him for his cowardice, to the point that he became unattractive to me as a lover.
While I cried my eyes out in July 1996 about Loree, he had the gall to make public appearances, to admit on national television that Loree McBride was his girlfriend, and he did this while I averaged about three hours of sleep a day because I was so devastated about Loree’s intrusion into our sanctuary.
This really insulted me. This really made me doubt his manliness and his honor. I couldn’t forgive him for this. Now that I had seen her photo and realized she came nowhere near me in depth, maturity or intelligence–I wasn’t depressed about her as Brent’s girlfriend–I was disgusted. I then read on the Internet that he made national television appearances where he gloated about her and her two dogs on national television, where he acted as if I’d never stirred a string of his heart, as if he’d never spoken to me with longings on my telephone in 1991, 1992 and 1993.
So I read on the Internet that on national television (in July 1996 when I thought I’d die) he talked about his “girlfriend” and her two dogs. I lost all respect for him after this.
That did it. I always encouraged him to be private about his love for me, because I felt it tacky to be public about a truly great love, that something this awesome should be private, because it was too great, too awesome to be tarnished by the press and the tabloids.
Now he brazenly advertised his relationship with this glitter box blonde, as if he could care less about the great and inspiring love I’d infused into him. I knew that he could understand and appreciate a great and awesome love, or he wouldn’t have wasted all his time to listen to me and my writings for hours on end from 1991 to now.
So I could only conclude that he was a coward and too much of a coward for me.
I decided this man had no respect for how greatly I loved him and how much of my time and life that I’d invested into him over the years, that I needed to find a replacement for him, some fantasy hero who I could use to still inspire me to finish my book. I’d already become a different person, a person more true to my real self (that he’d helped me to find). I’d become a dreamer of great heights and one who had found greatness within myself. If Brent was not the great man I thought, I still believed I’d find that great man, even if only in my imagination and I determined that this greatness that infused me would live on, even if only in my imagination, because it made me better, even if I could never find this great man in this life. Far better to dream about greatness, than to continue a relationship with a man not great. I determined that I would only have a great man for my lover and would settle for nothing less, even if that lover could only be in my imagination. I couldn’t go back to what I was before Brent’s music transformed my soul (in June 1991).
Loree appeared self-centered, whose only motive to be with Brent was to “show off”. If Brent associated with her, she cheapened him; and he lacked greatness, to associate with this woman, who seemed shallow, clamorous, and no companion of greatness. She seemed to delight in public appearances with him. I did not think her a criminal, but knew Brent didn’t love her.
I knew she didn’t inspire Brent to dream noble thoughts or reach for the heavens, as I thought I’d done for him. Perhaps he really was as jaded as he claimed in some magazine articles, and if this was the case, he would depart from the reigns of my heart because I refused to allow someone this inferior to reign with me in my romantic fantasies. I would relegate him to some inferior friendship status.
I couldn’t understand why he had Loree McBride, or why he felt he had to advertise this inferior woman as his girlfriend, as if he could care less about the greatness he inspired in me and how he inspired me to find the courage and vastness within me and to nurture it, and how the greatness I sensed in him inspired me to forge mountaintops and to attempt to write a masterpiece to honor him.
So now he paraded around with this shallow and self-centered young thing, as if I was just some entertainment for him, as if he was not committed to me for anything more than to be entertained by my voice on his phone, even though I’d risked my life and marriage (and had transformed my entire life) to maintain my communications with him.
If his public image so obsessed him that he was ashamed of me, but not ashamed of his shallow and self-centered girlfriend, so that he could avoid a “scandal” because of his love for me– then he was too much of a coward for me.
I saw none of the soft effervescence of love in the way he looked at her. In fact, he never looked at her. I determined that both he and Loree were mentally ill and incapable of greatness in love or anything. His relationship with her seemed strange and unhealthy, and I figured that he and she had some sort of mental illness that prevented them from happiness or depth in relationships and that he was addicted to me, but lacked the courage to be a great lover or a great man. So I played a bunch of movies to find solace for my disappointed heart, to find a hero in my imaginations to replace Brent.
My real life hero, the imaginary Brent I’d conjured in my mind, had just been a figment of my glorious imagination. He was not the hero I thought he was, so I decided to create my own fantasy hero to replace him and to use this hero to give me the motivation to finish my book. But it didn’t work, because in Silver Skies I’d created a hero too much like Brent Spiner and so I lost interest in Silver Skies, and dropped it after December 1996.
The reality about Brent slapped me the face. Brent was not great, so he was not worthy to be the main character of my glorious book. Dor Ben Habakkuk, the hero I’d created in Silver Skies, was not Brent, could never be Brent and Brent was so far below Dor Ben Habakkuk, Brent did not deserve Silver Skies, so I didn’t want to work on this book anymore. Brent, no longer my hero, made me search for a new hero, even if only a fantasy hero.
I still had more respect for Brent than most men, despite Loree McBride. Because I did determine one thing about Brent–that he was generous with his time with me. If he only wanted friendship, he was a generous friend.
Brent had shown me that all men I’d had up to him did not love me. And I wondered if Brent loved me or if any man could love me, but I wouldn’t settle for anything less than what I’d had with Brent. I had to move on, even if I moved on without Brent, or without my marriage.
I’d grown by leaps and bounds because of my relationship with Brent and had taught myself professional writing skills and had allowed myself to grow as a person. Now a new person, I couldn’t throw all this away because Brent disappointed me in love. True to the greatness I discovered in myself, even if I could find no greatness in others, Brent had shown me I had greatness within, and I determined to honor this newfound knowledge about myself. Perhaps I exceeded Brent, perhaps if all he did was to show me (through my dreams and fantasies) that I could find greatness in writings and from within, he did me the best favor of all, even if he disappointed me in love.
I told Brent that his association with Loree McBride cheapened him and did not do him honor as a man– because a man should have depth, substance and commitment. I told him I could not understand why he felt he needed her as a girlfriend. Was not I enough? Wasn’t he honored enough that I wrote a novel to honor our love? I read to him every day about the work I did on the great novel inspired by our love. So why did he need her? I felt he didn’t deserve all the time and effort I put into my labor of love for him: Silver Skies.
Around August 20, 1996, I noticed Franco Nero, Italian film star, and told Brent I thought Franco was attractive and manly and I might write him a letter some years afterward. I watched over and over the scenes of Camelot that showed off Franco Nero in all his manly glory. I especially liked the scene where Lancelot was knighted. Oh, how manly and glorious he looked in his countenance as the sword glittered on both his shoulders as the king knighted him for the Round Table. Perhaps the actor himself had some of this manliness or he couldn’t portray it with such virility on the screen. So Franco Nero became my new manly hero, to replace Brent. And how manly he was in the way he made love to the Queen, how he made love to her like a hero, with valor and courage, and the way he sang to her, “If Ever I Would Leave You.”
How his manliness stirred my heart for him and I dreamed of my new hero every day and told Brent I’d found someone who had the manliness that he lacked, and that I’d found my hero now, that my hero still lived on, in Franco Nero.
Then, in early September 1996, I perceived that Brent had added Franco Nero onto my phone’s wiretap. I introduced myself to Franco Nero on the phone and Franco took Brent’s place. But I maintained my friendship with Brent. I just never dreamed about making love to Brent anymore.
When I first got the Internet in August 1996, I noticed photos of Brent and Loree plastered all over the websites about Brent Spiner. The Vatican tried desperately to make her look like a typical Hollywood glamour girl and, therefore, believable as his girlfriend. In the meanwhile, they have tried to portray me as the Bible thumping, unsophisticated nobody with mental problems, who had/has a fan’s obsession with a Hollywood star.
What was really interesting about this fiasco was the doctoring up of the photographs. . .I recall a photo of Brent and Loree taken in London in December 1996 posted on several websites where she appeared to wear purple lipstick and wore a black dress with a V-neck that was about down to her belly button. I told Brent that she looked like she was dressed to seduce when I saw the photo. Her facial expression looked like a typical whore — the seductive, up-to-no-good look (these photos have vanished). What was even more interesting were the photos taken of Brent and Loree in Germany — a couple days afterwards. She had a defiant, self-righteous look to her face and Brent stared at her as if she was a viper (these photos have vanished from the Web).
I told Brent that she probably tried to seduce Franco Nero in London. Franco had a home in London. I deduced that she tried to seduce Franco from studying the Internet photographs.
I have not communicated with Franco Nero in any form whatsoever, except to talk to him on my wiretapped phone. There have been no verbal two-way exchanges between Franco and myself in any form whatsoever. Though Franco posted his E-mail address on the Internet in 1998, I never sent him anything. I did not feel it wise. Franco has never communicated with me in any form. I have only talked to him on my wiretapped phone and I discerned that he listened.
It would make sense for the Vatican to attempt to break up my communication to Franco. Because if Loree McBride was a Vatican agent, then in order for the Vatican to cut off my communication with Brent, they needed to make me disgusted with Franco, so that I’d report Brent’s wiretap to the police, which would enrage my then husband and result in Brent and Franco being cut out of my life. And thus, the Vatican would succeed in their goal of cutting out of my life any influential man, who could be influenced by my knowledge of Vatican corruption, and their goal to takeover the United States. The Vatican knew Brent had added Franco Nero onto my phone’s wiretap in late August or early September 1996. Now that I had transferred my romantic affections to Franco Nero, after I found out Brent had a girlfriend (Loree McBride), the Vatican’s goal was to break up my communication to Franco as well.
If Loree did try to seduce Franco, I don’t think it worked, because of the way she looked in the Germany pictures.
What was really interesting about this fiasco was the doctoring up on the Brent/Loree photos, especially the December 1996 London photo where she was dressed to kill (these photos have vanished from the Web). The Vatican used photographic hucksters to change her eye expressions to make her look more angelic and sweet, her long V-neck got gradually shorter and her purple lipstick became more muted and less purple over the months. They made the changes gradually over a period of about six months.
Needless to say, after observing this photographic hucksterism on the Internet — I don’t trust any photos I see of Brent and Loree. I’ve even noticed photos where Loree’s head didn’t match her neck or her body and/or where it appeared Brent and Loree had been fused together.
I can’t believe the extent the Vatican has gone to — to make Brent and Loree appear to have had a normal boyfriend/girlfriend relationship.
Apparently, the Vatican felt I was an attractive woman so, they hired a real “looker” to make me look dull and trashy in comparison.
Copyright © 2010 – 2018 Gail Chord Schuler. All Rights Reserved.