‘Love, Charlie’. Now on Netflix

For those who have yet to know the background let me give it as briefly as I can.

Charlie graduated from college in Madison, Wisconsin and took a job working as a busboy in a restaurant in Lake Forest, Illinois where I was the Executive Chef. It was the fall of 1982. We were a brand-new place owned by Marshall Field IV and operated under the direction of the deeply witty, savvy restaurateur Gordon Sinclair who had a chic restaurant, “Gordon” in downtown Chicago. About four months after Charlie’s start, he shyly came to the kitchen one early afternoon and asked me if he could join my kitchen crew. We did not yet use terms like, ‘brigade‘ in those years. I don’t think I had heard him speak a word before that afternoon. I pointed him back to the dining room explaining, “we are fully staffed” … but thinking, “you are way too skinny and way too green“. This scene was repeated almost daily for the next week. My Sous Chef was the immensely culinarily skilled and astute judge of character Carrie Nahabedian. She said, “Let’s give him a chance”. That was how it began. That’s when Charlie entered the ring of fire.

Thirty years and a million memories can age a man. But as Charlie said many times, “After Love, there is only cuisine“. No one was more loyal and giving to me in my professional life than Charlie. Love and cuisine welded into one with him.

When the documentary came out, I was one of the first to see it. That was a little over three years ago.

From my journal; May 8th, 2021: I drove us over to the “Love, Charlie” film’s producer Renée Frigo’s home. She had thoughtfully bought some wine and pizza for us to have. Eating was not on my mind. The arrangement that was pre-set was this. We would watch the documentary and then there would be a Zoom call. The film’s director, Rebecca Halpern (who grew up near where Charlie did but resides in L.A. now) and Ray Harris would be on to take in my immediate reaction to it. Ray, a New York City based financial expert was Charlie’s most loyal diner over the years and a significant backer to the project.

Showtime had come. Renée hit the start button. From the beginning there were very familiar settings. Like going back to one’s long-ago life. I felt a spiritual, nearly oceanic deep quiet come over me. Knowing how it would end was bound to be sad. But “Love, Charlie” starts with innocence and hope. There are vintage 8 mm home movies Charlie’s father had taken that show the exuberant young boy and his loving family both at their home and on family vacations. What the family fare was explained by the self-effacing, charming Mrs. Trotter. We see Charlie the gymnast in high school, twisting, vaulting, tumbling with marvelous form.  Then we learn of him working at the “Ground Round”, a chain restaurant briefly before meeting his first great romantic love, Lisa. Her character is a revelation. Though we were at their wedding in Chicago, we lived in faraway Key West and didn’t know her while they were married. She has grown into a wise and thoughtful woman. She helped protect Charlie when he was a bit odd, yet clearly amazing young man still known to all by the name, ‘Chuck’. Her role was a recurring one and it gave the film a feminine strength. Ultimately, she was a casualty of Charlie’s unflagging drive, but she was not finally a victim. Her life went forth in exemplary ways. ‘816’, (what we close to him called the restaurant) went from his haven to his prison over the years. Like countless artists over history, he was illuminated by and then consumed by his genius. Ms. Halpern conveys this in deftly elegant, human ways.

Due to the pandemic and the near impossibility of ordinary travel, I was on camera sporadically from film that was gathered from a previous ‘short’ version of this documentary Renée had created. I was there in voiceovers throughout for this full-length version. Some great chefs appear throughout the film. Wolfgang Puck generously praises Charlie as ‘being as good as any European 3 Star Chef’. Emeril was warm too, a bemused old pal who watched Charlie, (“Chaw-Lee” in his inimitable voice) with awe and fraternity. Rebecca chose to use the presence of Chicago Chef Grant Achatz of “Alinea” fame in and out over the movie’s arc. A potentially risky move those very close to Charlie it might have been feared, in that Charlie had a severely damaged relationship with Grant made clear in the film. But the depiction showed that Grant might face a similar twist of fate. That he too might one day be replaced in the hallowed space Charlie once held supremely to for years … until Grant ascended. In a haunting scene you can’t but help feel his potential to fall too. It humanized Grant more to me, seeing him question himself so honestly. Carrie was great throughout. She is the “Earth Mother” to Charlie. Her artistic garb and husky voice are warmly captivating. She is a total straight arrow and knows how to be tough, honest, sincere and caring. So many memories flooded over me!

Rebecca had created footage of the now ghostly empty kitchen that once was alive with volcanic activity. A place where I was invited by my brother to cook some of the world’s most exalted chefs. No chef in the world has ever hosted dinners like he did. Charlie never failed to show others of our brotherly bond. It was so touching. Charlie’s first hire ‘Reggie’ Watkins pretty much opens the film once we get to the restaurant and gives the film his great voice and authentic, hard-earned urban wisdom. Mrs. Trotter and Charlie’s radiant sister Anne were understatedly poignant. I will love watching the film again for moments like these many times. It must be difficult to make a film of a person with so much of a capacity for both passion and pain to be one those still closest to the subject will praise once all is said and done. Rebecca might have gotten as close as possible to portraying Charlie without going in for the kill that many movie directors would have indulged in during these less civil societal times.

It was set up prior to my viewing that after we watched it Rebecca and Ray would call via zoom to get my immediate, visible reactions. But as soon as it ended, I delayed that request. I had to breathe. I opened a sliding glass door and walked out into her yard, past the pool and then out among the trees. The sun was just fading in the western Florida sky. I looked up at a few spectral clouds. I saw the branches of some majestic trees gently waving. I looked for my brother up in the sky.