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Nicholas' Gift
1998
NICHOLAS' GIFT,
Part 3 of 3
MANY
NEED NICHOLAS' GIFT
STEPHANIE SALTER, EXAMINER COLUMNIST
Story of murdered
Bodega boy whose
organ donations
gave life to strangers airs on national TV
SAN FRANCISCO, 26.iv.1998: AS SOON as the folks at CBS gave
Reg and Maggie Green an air date for the television movie about
their family's story, Reg Green sent out 1,500 announcements
to people all over the country.
The notices went to organ donation groups in 50 states, to
hospital and university transplant centers, schools, charitable
foundations, foreign embassies, government officials, Rotary
and Lions clubs and friends.
Two weeks later, someone from the network called. The broadcast
date for the two-hour film had been changed. "Nicholas'
Gift," starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Alan Bates, would air,
not in May, but on April 26. "I sent out 1,500 new notices,"
said Reg. "I had no choice."
 In truth, the Bodega Bay business
writer did have a choice. But it was a choice neither he nor
his wife is likely to make. Ever since September 1994, when their
7-year-old son was shot and mortally wounded by highway bandits
in southern Italy, the Greens have, in many ways, behaved as
though there were but one course of action.
It began with their near-reflexive decision to donate Nicholas'
organs. It has continued for more than three years with the couple
working, quietly but steadily, to tell their story so that other
people might find solace in the same life-giving act.
Maggie Green is an active, creative and essential partner
in the telling, but most of her time and energy are gobbled by
the caring of the Greens' three children, Eleanor, 8, and Laura
and Martin, 23 months. Reg leads the mission.
Like others, such as Candy Lightner and John Walsh, he lost
a child to violence and responded with very public advocacy for
a cause. (Lightner founded Mothers Against Drunk Driving; Walsh
created "America's Most Wanted.") Rather than lobby
for tougher laws or hunt criminals, Reg doggedly pursues consciousness
raising - about organ donation and the inherent preciousness
of children.
While the Green family has made half-a-dozen trips back to
Italy in the 3-1/4 years since Nicholas was killed, Reg himself
has flown the13,000-mile loop more than 15 times. At least twice
a month he drives from Bodega Bay to San Francisco airport so
he can get to cities like Memphis or Syracuse for another meeting
or speaking engagement.
All this he does in addition to his paying job: researching
and writing a monthly newsletter on the mutual funds industry.
"I guess I spend half my time now on organ donation activities,"
said the 69-year-old Reg. "As a consequence, I don't read
much anymore or listen much to music. We don't hike much anymore
either; we haven't been to Yosemite since all this happened.
Yosemite was one of the reasons I moved to California."
British-born and, like his 37-year-old American wife, a self-described
stoic, Reg Green never publicly complains. He and his family
have lived through some excruciating events, including a year-long
trial that ended in acquittal for the men accused of shooting
Nicholas. Through it all, Reg's most pronounced public emotion
is silent tears that pool behind his thick glasses and run down
his pale face when he talks about the son he lost and still loves.
A former newspaper man, Reg does not refuse requests for interviews
or photos. Every journalist who asks gets his home phone number.
Calls and faxes are returned quickly. Although he repeats many
of the same observations to several people each week, there is
never the sound of the checklist in his voice.
Reg's journalistic instincts make him a champion of detail
and accuracy - a value not held dear by the movie industry. While
he and Maggie knew liberties would be taken with their story
in "Nicholas' Gift," none went unnoticed by Reg.
One night last December in Rome, he sighed: "I am not
a believer in essence over truth when the truth is different."
Invited by the movie's producers to watch some filming, the
entire Green family visited sets in Rome and Anzio. Maggie and
Reg had given up legal control over the film, yet they managed
to influence the actors and much of the crew just by being around.
At one point, co-executive producer Lorenzo Minoli worried: "It
is possible they are creating the question in everybody, "Are
we doing right?' That should not happen. We have to detach and
make a movie here."
But it did happen. Having the Greens around makes people want
to do right by them. And when people do right, they seem to be
rewarded. Everyone involved with the film - Minoli and the Greens
included - is pleased with the final product. Shown Monday on
Italian TV, it pulled in 5.8 million viewers, according to the
production company, one-tenth Italy's population.
During the 10-day December stay in Italy, Reg set an uncompromising
pace, usually on about four hours sleep a night. He carried notepaper
with him everywhere to record names, phone numbers and anecdotes,
and jotted down information over meals or a late-night beer.
The phone in the family's hotel suite rarely stopped ringing.
Each trip to the lobby produced a new stack of messages and,
sometimes, a journalist or grateful Italian citizen who'd learned
where the Greens were staying. Nobody got shined on.
One bitterly cold night in Rome, Reg stood outdoors for hours
to lend his name to a surreal fund-raising effort by the Italian
national organ donation association, AIDO: a model of St. Peter's
that is eight stories tall, 291 feet long and made of 15 million
aluminum cans.
In an address to hundreds of AIDO volunteers later that night,
Reg described his first meeting with the seven Italians who received
Nicholas' organs. They and their happy families half-filled a
huge bus. "I looked around, and I thought to myself, "Did
one little body do all this?' " he said.
Women and men in the audience wept openly. He told the same
story another day during an interview with Laura Costantini,
a reporter for the Italian news weekly, Oggi. She, too, was moved.
"Now, I make a stupid question," she said. "Do
you miss Nicholas?"
Reg's shoulders sagged. "Oh . . . all the time,"
he said, softly.
He began to talk about Einstein's description of life before
and after he formulated the theory of relativity: After it was
in his brain, no matter what he was doing, the theory was always
there. "Losing Nicholas is like that for me," said
Reg. "It colors everything in my life. Everything I do now
is seen from this perspective, that Nicholas isn't here now.
I'm always conscious when we sit down at the dinner table that
there's an empty place." Nodding, Costantini scribbled rapidly
in her notebook.
"People write to us that they see Nicholas as a star
or an angel or in a tree. I don't," Reg continued. "To
me, he's gone. The worst thing though is not missing him, but
that he never got the chance to live his full life. Nicholas,
who had such a wonderful future, didn't get to have that."
Earlier this month, the Greens and their children travelled
again to Italy for a public screening of "Nicholas' Gift."
Only three days before, they'd been to Chicago to tape a segment
of "Oprah." For Reg, just eight days had lapsed since
his last trip to Italy.
How would life be if he and Maggie had not donated Nicholas'
organs?
"I think there would have been a flatness, a feeling
of senselessness about the whole thing - as well as the pain,"
he said. "The pain doesn't go away. This doesn't help you
heal in any way - the wound is so green. But the senselessness
is to some extent alleviated by knowing such good came out of
it."
A few days ago, Reg said he and Maggie realized that, by changing
the date, CBS would be showing "Nicholas' Gift" on
their 12th wedding anniversary. "Maggie said she could see
our wedding, and it was as though an evil fairy had flown over,"
said Reg. "The fairy said, "On this night, 12 years
from now, a horrible tragedy will have befallen you.' Then a
good fairy came and said, "I can't reverse what will happen,
but I can tell you, out of that horrible tragedy, something wonderful
is going to come.' "
©1998 San Francisco Examiner
Nicholas'
Gift keeps on giving
By Stephanie Salter, San Francisco
Examiner Columnist
SAN FRANCISCO, 23.iv.98. It is possible that "Nicholas'
Gift" will be received by Americans as just another made-for-TV
film. But don't bet on it.
Other than its truncated commercial television format, this
CBS Movie of the Week (Sunday, 9 p.m.) has a ton going for it:
Superb performances by Jamie Lee Curtis and Alan Bates; tight
steering by an award-winning director; an Italian crew schooled
in feature film making; an intelligent script based on a riveting
real-life story, and an almost religious commitment from everyone
involved in the project to make a film worthy of its subjects.
Those subjects are Reg and Maggie Green of Bodega Bay, who
transformed the death of their 7-year-old son, Nicholas, into
a worldwide campaign to save lives. Probably mistaken for gem
dealers, the vacationing Greens and their sleeping children were
attacked in the autumn of 1994 by highway bandits as they drove
along a dark stretch of autostrada in Calabria, Italy. Reg, Maggie
and their then-4-year-old daughter, Eleanor, escaped injury,
but Nicholas was shot in the head.
When doctors explained the irreversible extent of Nicholas'
brain injury, his parents made the wrenching decision to remove
him from life support. They also made what they thought was a
private, finite decision -- to donate Nicholas' organs. Instead,
that act stunned much of the Western world and has prompted thousands
of people in the United States and Europe to turn their loved
ones' deaths into life for someone else.
"The attitude of these people!" said Lorenzo Minoli,
the Italian- born co-executive producer of "Nicholas' Gift."
"They come to a foreign country, their son is killed in
the worst, shaming manner, and they not only give the organs
of the kid, they don't look for vengeance. You couldn't find
a more compelling story."
Introduced to the Greens by the American documentary filmmaker
Marc Bruno, Minoli convinced them that he and his colleagues
could make the kind of movie they have long envisioned: a film
that might help the world understand how special their son was
and also could inspire millions of people to consider organ donation.
"There are people who've said this script seems wasted
on TV, that it should be a big theatrical release," said
Minoli. "But I think that, because of television's much
broader audience, we will have a chance to make our message much
broader."
Obviously, the Greens concur. From Day One of the project
they have weighed the limitations of a made-for-TV movie against
the potential of an audience of at least 30 million "ordinary"
Americans -- the very segment of society the Greens want to reach
with their message about organ donation.
In a kind of transmutative gesture, the Greens also provided
the film makers with a number of Nicholas' personal effects for
use as props by Curtis, Bates and the two child actors who portray
Nicholas and Eleanor: Gene Wexler and Hallie Kate Eisenberg.
Among the items were some of Nicholas' toys and his security
"blanket" -- a piece of sheepskin that his parents
tucked next to him in the ambulance so he would not be afraid
if he woke up alone.
Over the past several weeks the Greens have worked with CBS
and the film's producers to promote "Nicholas' Gift"
here and in Italy. In addition to an appearance with Curtis on
"Oprah," the family was in Rome earlier this month
for a press conference and public screening of the movie. Italian
television premiered it, Feb. 20.
Although the Greens signed away all legal control over the
movie, Minoli and his American co-producer, Judd Parkin, have
allowed them unprecedented input. On the set in Rome and Anzio
last December with Eleanor and their toddler twins, Martin and
Laura, the Greens spoke at length about their experience to Bates
and Curtis and submitted suggested revisions to producers.
As for the story itself: "We cut whole sections out of
the first draft to incorporate Reg and Maggie's notes,"
said the scriptwriter, Christine Berardo. A San Francisco native
and former high school English teacher, Berardo chose to abandon
"a very good, steady job, making lots of money" as
a writer for "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" to bring the
Greens story to television. "I had been really drawn to
this story since I read about it in the newspaper," she
said. "I saw it as a humbling, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
Berardo's research was disproportionately detailed for a TV
script. She spent three days in Bodega Bay interviewing Reg,
Maggie, Eleanor, Nicholas' teachers and family friends. Then
she traveled for weeks in Italy, retracing the Greens' every
move. She spent time with some of the Italians whose lives were
saved by Nicholas' organs and interviewed almost everyone with
whom the family had come in contact -- from the detective who
investigated the murder case to the nun who accepted Nicholas'
clothes for an orphanage.
Still, Berardo's 89-minute teleplay is hardly a pristine retelling
of the Greens' saga. While much of the dialogue is verbatim,
contexts have been changed. Some characters are composites or
fictitious. Time sequences are compressed.
"I explained to Maggie and Reg at the beginning that,
even if I tried to present everything exactly as it happened,
I still wouldn't get it right," said Berardo. "You
have to decide whether you trust the people who are telling your
story or not. Many things they'll see may not be accurate, but,
if they aren't exactly true, the essence is there."
Fortunately, for Berardo, no less loyal and like-minded a
person than her husband signed on to direct. Initially uninterested
in piloting the movie, Robert Markowitz began to warm to the
idea after he read his wife's script and talked with Minoli.
The two men had worked together on "David," one of
a series of Bible films that Minoli has produced for Turner Network.
When Curtis and Bates agreed to play Maggie and Reg Green, Markowitz
climbed on board.
An experienced director of television movies, including "Into
Thin Air: Death on Everest" and "The Tuskeegee Airmen,"
(for which he won a Cable ACE directing award), Markowitz is
accustomed to the warping process that occurs when TV entertainment
is fashioned out of a real-life story. Still, he said, "I
wrestle with it all the time. I come from journalism -- I worked
at CBS News for 10 years, I've done documentaries, I worked at
AP and on a paper in Springfield, Mass. This whole thing about
what's real and what's not and how TV authenticates something
whether it's real or not concerns me."
Curtis and Bates also experienced some complicated feelings
during filming. The mother of two, Curtis so intensely identified
with Maggie Green's loss that, instead of having to work to produce
tears in some of the more poignant scenes, she had to struggle
not to break down. "It's caused me to think a lot about
what strength is, what courage is," she said. "I think
about the courage Maggie and Reg have shown in becoming public
people to promote organ donations. It's the exact opposite of
what I'm trying to do, keep my life private."
Bates, whose 19-year-old son had died eight years before,
also found himself analyzing -- and revisiting -- loss. "Just
getting everything into perspective takes time," he said.
"It's a matter of accepting the unacceptable." On one
hand, "You don't want your grief for the person you love
to go away," he said. "But you have to live out your
span, too, you have to carry on, you can't become a martyr. So
many people want to blame someone; they look for it and focus
on that." That the Greens have done the opposite, said Bates,
gives their story "a whole other resonance."
"This film is an account of a very good thing that some
people did with a very violent moment," he said. Then, echoing
the cast and crew of "Nicholas' Gift," he added, "I
hope Reg and Maggie will be happy with it."
©1998 San Francisco Examiner
Bodega
Bay family previews Nicholas' Gift
By MEG McCONAHEY, Press Democrat staff
writer
PASADENA, .Jan. 14, 1998 -- Perhaps it was because they have
relived the horror of their son's death so many times in interviews
and public appearances, or maybe because no film could ever be
as awful as living through it. But on Tuesday, when Reg and Maggie
Green saw the last three years of their lives compressed into
a 90-second promotional trailer for a forthcoming TV movie, the
Bodega Bay couple responded with characteristic mettle.
 Not so for several dozen tough TV critics
who also viewed the short clip of "Nicholas' Gift"
during a press briefing at the plush Ritz-Carlton Hotel put on
by the top brass of CBS TV. When the lights came on, many were
sniffling and dabbing at their eyes. One broke the initial silence
by observing that Kleenex was in order.
The film -- starring British actor Alan Bates
and Jamie Lee Curtis as Reg and Maggie -- recounts the now-familiar
story of how the Greens' 7-year-old son was shot by highway bandits
as the family rode in a rental car on a remote stretch of the
autostrada during a vacation in Southern Italy in 1994.
The Italian people were overwhelmed by the
Greens' decision to donate their child's organs, thus saving
or improving the lives of seven Italians. The story, told in
headlines around the world, inspired an outpouring of organ donations
that came to be known as "The Nicholas Effect." Thanks
partly to the continuing efforts of the Greens, organ donations
in Italy have increased by 65 percent.
With some 30 million viewers expected to
tune into the broadcast in May, during the critical sweeps week
when the networks jockey for ratings, the Greens are counting
on "Nicholas' Gift" to further spread their message
that organ donation should be as "automatic as putting on
seat belts."
New Friends
The press appearance reunited
the Greens with Curtis who, as a mother of two, including a toddler
only slightly older than the Green's twins Laura and Martin,
developed a natural rapport with Maggie when the family visited
the Rome set last month. The two women, only two years apart
in age, shared mom-talk and locked shoulders Tuesday as they
strolled through the halls of the hotel.
"It was like making a new friend,"
Maggie said of meeting Curtis, who on the set fussed over the
Greens' young daughter Eleanor, fetching sweaters when she seemed
cold and letting her sit in her chair.
"She's really a wonderful woman and
a dedicated mother. We've had long chats about toddlers and preteens.
She's just very generous and warm," Maggie Green said.
Curtis in fact expressed concern to Maggie
about how Eleanor might react when she saw the trailer, which
includes snippets of some searing scenes, including a recreation
of the highway scene following the attack and dark moments at
the hospital with Nicholas barely clinging to life.
The couple, who have been open with Eleanor
throughout the ordeal, included her in a private screening just
before it was unveiled to the press. Maggie Green said Curtis'
instincts were right. Eleanor, who was 4 and sleeping beside
her brother when he was shot, broke down in tears when she saw
the clip.
The third-grader, who celebrated her 8th
birthday last weekend, did strike up a close friendship with
9-year-old Gene Wexler, who plays the imaginative and sensitive
Nicholas in the film. The pair trade notes via e-mail.
"Gene reminded me so much of Nicholas,"
she said, sitting on the balcony of the family's hotel suite
before Tuesday's appearance. "I couldn't hold my tears for
remembering Nicholas. I don't think they could have found anybody
better. He's bright like Nicholas and like Nicholas he doesn't
try to have things his way."
Curtis, who has starred in a string of films,
including the comedy hit "A Fish Named Wanda," and
her own TV series "Anything But Love," said it was
challenge to play the quietly resilient Maggie. The actress said
she's not sure she could have responded with such cool equanimity
in the face of losing a child.
"The Greens are remarkable people and
have exhibited a level of strength that will be unmatched by
anyone," Curtis said.
"We only had to do one take," Maggie
Green responded. That characteristic self-effacing humor, and
their crusade to promote organ donation, has helped the couple
live with their loss.
Curtis said she accepted the role partly
because of a personal relationship with a young heart transplant
recipient she befriended 15 years ago while filming a movie on
location in Illinois. The girl died several years later, at age
19, but Curtis said she was profoundly moved and has since tried
to keep her memory alive, among other ways, by donating videos
to entertain children in hospitals.
Personal Connection
Bates was committed to theater
work in England and could not attend Tuesday's briefing. But
Judd Parkin, co-executive producer with Lorenzo Minoli, said
the actor, who grew up in same part of England as Reg Green and,
like Green, served in the RAF, also felt personal connection
to the story of parents who lost a child. One of his twin sons
died after an acute asthma attack, at 19.
Movies based on headline-grabbing tragedies
have become a TV industry cliche. However, CBS seems to be taking
unusual care with "Nicholas' Gift," tapping a top-notch
crew, casting major screen stars in the lead roles and investing
$5 million in the production. Parkin said most TV movie budgets
are around $3 million.
The network chose "Nicholas' Gift"
as one of only two upcoming TV movies to spotlight during the
annual convention of the TV Critics Association, where networks
showcase new programs.
Consenting to sell the film rights to their
story took faith for the Greens, who had to accept that some
parts may be fictionalized.
"It's a leap in the dark," Reg
Green said. ""The control is not with us anymore. What
we've done in order to deal with that is to have as much input
as we possibly could."
Unprecedented Involvement
The couple said they felt confident
the film would be done with integrity, however, after reading
an early script by Christine Berardo, who has written for the
TV series "Dr. Quinn.'' Berardo's husband Robert Markowitz,
who did the recently aired "Into Thin Air," directed
"Nicholas' Gift."
"She interviewed us separately and together.
She talked to Eleanor," Reg Green said of Berardo's visit
to the Greens' ocean-view home. "She took her on walks that
Nicholas liked to take. She showed her their tree house and they
went to the school. We also took her to the grave and to the
bell tower."
The production crew in fact recreated the
modest Bodega Cemetery in a park above Rome. Maggie sent sketches
and the Greens even jotted down a few authentic names for headstones.
The couple also turned over all their interviews, speeches and
press clippings. Parkin said such a high level involvement is
unprecedented in TV filmmaking.
"Most people have an agenda, but Reg
and Maggie didn't want to rewrite history," he said. ""They
just wanted their story told well."
The film compresses into 89 minutes the Green's
long, difficult journey, from the happy days of excitement before
the vacation, to the shocking 1997 trial in which two suspects,
one a confessed mobster and killer, were acquitted.
The $100,000 the family received for the
rights to their story will go to the Nicholas Green Foundation,
set up to promote organ donation and provide opportunities for
gifted children. It's the largest infusion of capital into the
fund so far, Maggie said. The couple produced a video at their
own expense explaining and promoting organ donation, that has
been distributed to 2,000 hospital and health care groups across
the country. But they said they have many more people to reach.
"We've been telling this story for three
years and clearly it has got to many more people than we ever
could have expected,'' Reg Green said. ""But this will
do it in another dimension."
© 1997, The Press Democrat
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