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October 22, 2004
Away from the cameras, 'West Wing' star shines
by Colleen Cason
Ventura County Star
October 22, 2004
The middle-age man who jumped out of the Range Rover at California Street and Harbor Boulevard in Ventura on Saturday probably thought no one was watching.
But Venturan Martha Waldman saw what he did.
Waldman and her husband, Michael, were bound for a home-improvement expo at Seaside Park when a train bore down on the intersection. The railway crossing signal clanged and the arm lowered.
To her horror, she saw a dog tied to the crossing signal. She was relieved when she realized the leash was short enough to prevent the animal from reaching the tracks. But she was distressed to see how the noise terrified the brown mastiff mix.
That's when the passenger jumped out of the SUV in front of the Waldmans' car and slowly approached the panicked mutt. The man's lips moved, but what he said was drowned out by the roar of the locomotive and the clickety-clack of steel wheels against the rails.
He stooped over the animal and, risking a dog bite, began to pet her.
"The dog was comforted by him. She was comforted by his touch," Martha told me.
The train was long, but the man gently reassured the dog until the caboose had cleared the crossing.
As he stood up to return to his vehicle, his eyeglasses dropped from his coat pocket.
So Martha rolled down her car window and pointed to the glasses on the ground.
At that moment, she recognized him.
It was Mr. West Wing himself. No, not President Bush.
It was the TV president -- actor Martin Sheen, star of television's "The West Wing."
Her path and Sheen's would cross again in the parking lot of Seaside Park.
"That was so kind of you to do that for that poor dog," Martha told Sheen.
Sheen said he was still worried about her. The collar had rubbed her neck slightly raw, as if she had been there for a while.
Martha decided she would check on the dog later that day, which she did. By then she was gone. Apparently the idiotic owner who had tethered her to the signal had come and gotten her.
Neither the county Animal Regulation nor the Humane Society shows any record of picking up a dog at that location Saturday afternoon.
Sheen and his son, actor Emilio Estevez, who drove the Range Rover, then departed for the Derby Club.
The Sheen family frequents the off-track betting parlor and is always welcome, said club hostess B.J. Tice.
"They are the nicest people you would ever want to meet," she told me.
I had a Martin Sheen moment about 15 years ago, when I worked at the old Thousand Oaks News Chronicle. I was assigned to cover an awards banquet at an ungodly early hour on a Saturday. Sheen was to be lauded for his anti-nuclear protests -- marches which usually ended with him being read his rights.
It was held in a plain, cramped room at California Lutheran University. Maybe 75 people squeezed around the cafeteria tables.
Sheen was then an A-list star after his breakthrough performance in "Apocalypse Now," but the organization giving the award was obscure.
Yet he ate the rubber eggs and greeted everyone who approached him. Every so often, he ducked down and stole a drag off his cigarette.
He seemed deeply touched to be honored and gave a heartfelt speech about the power of nonviolent activism to change the world.
Where are the paparazzi when you really need them? Why are they thick as thieves when Paris Hilton or Britney Spears is showing skin but never there when a celebrity is showing heart?
Many critics argue that Sheen's "The West Wing" has lost its magic since creator Aaron Sorkin decamped.
The Nielsens indicate it has lost some of its ratings might. Viewership for Wednesday's season premiere fell 30 percent from last season's opening episode, according to an NBC spokesman. He blamed the drop in part on the competing major league playoff game.
Ratings, of course, are the measure of how many million people are watching what an actor does.
Character is the measure of what a human being does when he thinks no one is watching.
Posted by Jo at October 22, 2004 03:31 PM