Forbin
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I've never seen it, but, in 1986, Blake Edwards made a highly autobiographical film called "That's Life!" starring Jack Lemmon (more or less playing Blake Edwards).
Edwards' wife, Julie Andrews, plays Lemmon's wife, and Edwards' real children play the couple's children in the film. Much of the film was even shot at Blake Edwards' Malibu home.
The real Blake Edwards had come down with ME/CFS three years earlier, in Los Angeles (i.e. Hollywood / Malibu) in 1983, the same year and place as myself.
At the time the film was made, the term "CFS" had not really come into use and the term "myalgic encephalomyelitis" was essentially unknown in the US, even among the medical community. Pre-1987, the term Blake Edwards might have come across would likely have been CEBVS, or "chronic Epstein-Barr virus syndrome" - or "post viral fatigue," or he may have had no name for his illness.
In April 1986, Ben Stein wrote an article in an L.A. newspaper describing a chronic "flu" that was striking "everyone" in Los Angeles. Later, in June 1986, the LA times ran a front page story on the Lake Tahoe outbreak (which had started in the summer of 1984). The LA Times article seems to have been the first significant report on the Tahoe outbreak.
A few months later, in September 1986, the illness was called "The Hollywood Blah's" in an article in New York Magazine. That article is the first instance I know of that uses the term "yuppie" in connection with the disease - noting that it had been called "Yuppie Plague" because it was striking the materially prosperous Hollywood community.*
Edwards' film, "That's Life!" came out one month later, in October 1986. My impression is that it is something of a black comedy about the mid-life crisis of an architect who seems to have a great deal of material happiness. Among the many assaults on that happiness is the architect's conviction that he is suffering and/or dying from an undiagnosed illness. You see just a snippet of this aspect of the film in the trailer, when Lemmon's doctor tells him that his tests are normal and that he should see a psychiatrist (see below).
Anyway, I guess I mention all this because it seems likely that "That's Life!" is the first theatrical drama/comedy to have featured a character with ME/CFS (even if the disease is not identified as such).
*[ Obviously, the disease was not just striking the Hollywood community, but wealthy and/or celebrity members of that society had the wherewithal to seek second and third diagnoses - and did not have to just accept that it was "all in their heads." They were also members of the "media industry." Consequently, they got noticed, while others of lesser means were not being heard from... yet. ]
Edwards' wife, Julie Andrews, plays Lemmon's wife, and Edwards' real children play the couple's children in the film. Much of the film was even shot at Blake Edwards' Malibu home.
The real Blake Edwards had come down with ME/CFS three years earlier, in Los Angeles (i.e. Hollywood / Malibu) in 1983, the same year and place as myself.
At the time the film was made, the term "CFS" had not really come into use and the term "myalgic encephalomyelitis" was essentially unknown in the US, even among the medical community. Pre-1987, the term Blake Edwards might have come across would likely have been CEBVS, or "chronic Epstein-Barr virus syndrome" - or "post viral fatigue," or he may have had no name for his illness.
In April 1986, Ben Stein wrote an article in an L.A. newspaper describing a chronic "flu" that was striking "everyone" in Los Angeles. Later, in June 1986, the LA times ran a front page story on the Lake Tahoe outbreak (which had started in the summer of 1984). The LA Times article seems to have been the first significant report on the Tahoe outbreak.
A few months later, in September 1986, the illness was called "The Hollywood Blah's" in an article in New York Magazine. That article is the first instance I know of that uses the term "yuppie" in connection with the disease - noting that it had been called "Yuppie Plague" because it was striking the materially prosperous Hollywood community.*
Edwards' film, "That's Life!" came out one month later, in October 1986. My impression is that it is something of a black comedy about the mid-life crisis of an architect who seems to have a great deal of material happiness. Among the many assaults on that happiness is the architect's conviction that he is suffering and/or dying from an undiagnosed illness. You see just a snippet of this aspect of the film in the trailer, when Lemmon's doctor tells him that his tests are normal and that he should see a psychiatrist (see below).
Anyway, I guess I mention all this because it seems likely that "That's Life!" is the first theatrical drama/comedy to have featured a character with ME/CFS (even if the disease is not identified as such).
*[ Obviously, the disease was not just striking the Hollywood community, but wealthy and/or celebrity members of that society had the wherewithal to seek second and third diagnoses - and did not have to just accept that it was "all in their heads." They were also members of the "media industry." Consequently, they got noticed, while others of lesser means were not being heard from... yet. ]
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