When I was 2 years old, my family moved from Boston to the Boston suburb of Milford, Massachusetts. The Coyne estate held dad Francis Coyne, mom Claire, and kids older brother Mike, myself and younger sister Cathy. In 1970 Patrick, the last of the brood, came along. My earliest memory is of seeing the film "Zebra in the Kitchen" at the now demolished Milford Cinemas.
Historically, Milford was known for two things: the pink granite culled from local quarries and shoe factories. Neither still existed when I moved there. Milford was a quintessential 70's suburb. I was raised on Tupperware, NASA, G.I. Joes, Planet of the Apes, Marshmallow Fluff, Zarex and Cap'n Crunch, I lived in a residential area that was populated with many kids my age. We played S.W.A.T., rode our Big Wheels, hiked in the woods, went to Cub Scouts, swam in each other's pools, all had dogs from the same litter, and celebrated the Bicentennial.
I was part of a group of bi-centennial parade marchers named the Milford Youth Militia. During one such 1976 parade in Lexington, Mass, a young girl named Elaine Hehir watched as I marched by.
It was a great place to grow up, and I was taught the value of community, family and a respect for nature. The woods behind my house were as full of adventure as my imagination would allow. I also knew there was a world beyond Milford and I would someday want to pay it a visit. When I was given my first 10-speed bike, I was told not to take it onto busy Purchase Street, which is the first thing I did. I was the one with the inflatable raft and the Huckleberry Finn complex.
I always thought I would someday become a professional artist. My childhood job hopes were to either design billboards or to work at the local dump where I could have my pick of the world's leftovers. As a teen, I delivered the Milford Daily News, delivered Central Cleaners' dry cleaning and was night crew chief at Burger King. Still, drawing was what I did best and upon graduation, I was voted Most Artistic by my 1982 classmates. My high school didn't have much in the way of art scholarships and I vowed one day to return and create one.
I also learned I could write a little and also spell it correctly. My passions for art and creative writing were combined in my favorite hobby, super-8 filmmaking. I first picked up my mom's Bell & Howell camera when I was 10. Of course, that could never be an actual career, could it?
In high school, I also acquired my lifetime best friend (so far), Mark Cicciu. He's Sicilian and I figured I needed a Mafia connection to get ahead in life. Truthfully, he was an usher at the local theater and with him as a friend, I wouldn't have to pay to get into the movies. It took a year for us to realize that like me, he was surprised to be born July 1, the same year. Hobbies included skipping school, watching Monty Python and Humphrey Bogart, listening to rock and classical and reading the works of Charles Dickens, John Steinbeck, Ogden Nash and Douglas Adams.
My heart was opened when I found my first real love with the pure heart of the very special gal named Michele. She set the bar pretty high for all loves that would follow.
My money was wasted with my first car, a Buick station wagon that didn't have a reverse gear. I learned that one can spend a good deal of time moving forward without too much consequence.
I applied to several art schools but one Saturday, I caught an old John Ford film, Drums Along the Mohawk. Not a great film but something suddenly clicked. Scales fell from my eyes. The heavens parted. I realized that I should go for my dream and become a filmmaker. I applied to Fitchburg State College in Massachusetts and was accepted into their film program. Of course, I think all that mattered to Fitchburg was that I had tuition money and they had an empty bunk in the dorm.
It took some time for me to get out of Fitchburg. I suffered a back injury which caused a long delay. I watched a lot of Ironsides for inspiration. Also, I took some time off to earn the money to pay my own way through school. I worked as a theater usher, a security guard, and as an investigative newspaper reporter.
While at FSC, I found that I had a bit of a knack for film editing. I enjoyed directing and writing but for some reason, I really loved piecing the puzzle together. In 1988, I directed a fundraising film for the United Way which was an homage to Casablanca.
Everything happens for a reason. Or, maybe we just create the reasons after everything happens.
The year after I should have graduated, Elaine Hehir transferred in from Salem State College. The next year, we met at a mutual friend's video shoot. The friendship was immediate. We arrived at an all-night diner at 11:00 that night and talked over coffee and orange juice until 9:00 the next morning.
Two weeks later I asked her to marry me. She said, "Yes! What took you so long?" We were married on August 12, 1989.
Elaine and I did something no one from Fitchburg had attempted before - a Hollywood internship. We convinced Fitchburg to let us go and go we did. On April 9, 1990, after an eye-opening cross-country drive, we arrived in Los Angeles. The trip was our first taste of the road; the people and the surprises found around every corner of our small world.
We spent much of our first few months extremely broke and extremely happy. Sometimes we'd go to bed early so we wouldn't have to eat dinner. But we were where we wanted to be, together and dreaming of tomorrow. We discovered that dreams can more easily be realized if you have them while you're awake.
Elaine became a motion picture camera technician and I became an assistant editor and then an editor. "Dolphins: Minds in the Water", one film I edited, won an Academy Award in the Academy's student category. I was then offered my first feature film, the ultra-low budget "Misfit Patrol".
Then in the autumn of 1992, Elaine was diagnosed with cancer. Through most of her life, she had suffered from an extremely rare medical condition called LAMB or NAME syndrome. By the time she was 18, she had had two open-heart surgeries to remove benign atrial tumors. Now, malignant tumors had taken hold in her spine and had spread to her lungs.
We immediately moved back home to Massachusetts. Elaine fought valiantly, never losing her spirit and love for others. She convinced me to take part in a 26 mile walk for cancer, the Jimmy Fund Walkathon, though she was confined to a wheelchair. As I finally pushed her across the finish line after 10 hours, she looked up at me and said, "I beat you." That was her humor and spirit.
When Elaine was her most healthy, we would take long road trips to neighboring states. Thus began a hobby of photographing diners we would visit. Elaine lost her battle on April 9, 1994, only a week after my father passed away. I've continued my involvement with the Jimmy Fund and created a women in film scholarship at Fitchburg in her honor.
I returned to Hollywood in 1996 and over the last few years I've somehow become a reality television editor on shows such as Big Brother, The Bachelor and The Amazing Race. I was supervising Producer on William Shatner's Invasion Iowa, and recently co-produced the hilarious feature film The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green, which screened at the Tribeca Film Festival. Hey, it's a living.
I've also been able to produce projects that are much closer to my heart such as The Living Century and The Childrens Miracle Network Telethon, to raise money for Children's Hospital Los Angeles. I recently edited the Alan Arkin feature film "Raising Flagg".
In 1999, I fulfilled a promise I made to myself in 1982 and created art, writing and film scholarships at my old high school, In 2000, I was asked to give the keynote address at Milford High's graduation. I'm not much for public speaking so to prepare for it, I suffered through several embarrassing nights of karaoke. Ugh. Still, it was quite an honor and the class of 2000 was pretty thrilled that I got Danny Glover to offer them congratulations and good wishes.
When I left Fitchburg State, I was three credits short of graduating. In 2005, I finally took care of those credits and became a real college graduate! In what I consider the biggest honor of my life, Fitchburg State awarded me the honor of Distinguished Alumnus of 2005 in consideration of my career and philanthropic achievements. I'm pretty darn proud of that one!
Things have been going quite well. It took some time to sort through the loss of my wife, but I have been able to move on and attempt love again. For some reason, I dated several women whose names begin with the letters E or M. With M and E's like them, who needs friends? (sorry, couldn't resist) I have two wonderful dogs, Chicago and Roscoe, and we're enjoying the California sun, though I very much miss the east coast. It will always be my home and it often calls me back.
I guess I'll always be a guy who believes in the improbable. Life moves forward and I'm happy to be along for the ride, even when I'm not always the one driving. For me, having experienced it, there is no greater gift than love. And yes, it's just as pleasant to give as to receive.
For me, love, life and learning are always adventures worth taking, eternally full of surprises. Dreams and truth are fires that must be guarded from the winds of fear. I never want to stop hoping. I try to grab life by the horns and honk as loud as I can. I never tire of the twists in the road though I look forward to the straighter path which has so far eluded me. Of course, I'll continue to use cheap metaphors.
I guess I'll see what happens next.