By Erin Free
In this regular column, we drag forgotten made-for-TV movies out of the vault and into the light. This week: the 1976 true-life drama The Secret Life Of John Chapman, starring Ralph Waite, Susan Anspach, Brad Davis, Pat Hingle and Elayne Heilveil.
Though forever remembered for his indelible performance as hard-working Depression-era patriarch John Walton Sr. in the long-running and much-loved TV series The Waltons, late actor Ralph Waite also appeared in a number of fascinating film and TV projects. He featured in westerns like Chato’s Land (1972), Lawman (1971) and Kid Blue (1973), cult faves like Five Easy Pieces (1970) and The Sporting Club (1971), and even a Blaxploitation belter with 1972’s Trouble Man. Waite even tried his hand at writing and directing with 1980’s offbeat skid row drama On The Nickel.
A one-time social worker and Presbyterian minister, Waite was a thoughtful, socially minded man, and even ran for office as a Democrat in the 1990s. A profoundly likeable, charismatic and talented actor, Waite found an ideal vehicle in 1976 with the telemovie The Secret Life Of Chapman, which was adapted from the book Blue-Collar Journal: A College President’s Sabbatical by John Royston Coleman, which sees the eponymous academic and intellectual take a break from college life to instead work at a variety of manual labouring jobs. Though the script by TV regular Albert Ruben takes some liberties with the source material, the spirit and feel are both there.
Directed by hard-working TV vet David Lowell Rich (1986’s The Defiant Ones) and first broadcast on major US network CBS on December 27, 1976, The Secret Life Of Chapman stars Waite as John Chapman, a widowed college president who has risen from a working-class childhood to a level of considerable financial and personal success. Chapman, however, is restless, and emotionally at odds with the constant bureaucratic red tape that ties him up every day. Ironically, Chapman’s relationship with his son Andy (a handsome, long-haired Brad Davis, two years before he broke out with Alan Parker’s Midnight Express) frays when the young man states he’s done with college and wants to live a more free and easy life.
Desperate to break free, and also curious to experience something of the life that his stonemason father had, John Chapman takes a sabbatical from his college position, and hits the road. He works digging ditches on a pipeline project for the bullish Gus (Pat Hingle is terrific as always), and takes on a job as a short order cook, where he embarks on a relationship with a cute, kooky waitress played with incredible verve and personality by cult actress Susan Anspach, who featured in era classics like The Landlord (1970), Five Easy Pieces (1970), Play It Again, Sam (1972), Blume In Love (1973) and Montenegro (1981). A Manic Pixie Dream Girl decades before the term existed, Anspach is an utter delight here, and her chemistry with Waite is voluble.
There’s much to like about The Secret Life Of Chapman, which actually has a few thematic similarities with the aforementioned Five Easy Pieces. The performances are fantastic, with Waite a perfect fit for the role of a seemingly straightforward man with a vivid interior life. His scenes with Brad Davis are especially well-played, as the pair fight tooth-and-nail despite their obvious love for one another. Chapman’s relationship with his doting daughter Meredith (nicely played by Elayne Heilveil from Unsung Auteur Daryl Duke’s 1973 cult fave Payday and the superior telemovie Birds Of Prey) is fraught in different ways, and adds another curious, unconventional shade to the film. Susan Anspach and Pat Hingle are superb, and even the tiniest roles are effectively and perfectly cast.
A fascinating artefact from the decade characterised by people trying to “find themselves”, The Secret Life Of Chapman works with deft economy (it runs at just 75 minutes per many telemovies of the time) towards a deeply emotional and satisfying climax. An essential entry in the canon of the underrated Ralph Waite, The Secret Life Of Chapman is a richly rewarding small-screen experience.
Availability: The Secret Life Of Chapman is easy to find online in slightly ropey but definitely watchable form.
