The Patriarch of our family was my Uncle Bud - my dad’s oldest brother, business partner and friend. He was one of the most influential people in my whole life, someone I will forever miss, but was fortunate to have in my life until I was fifty years old. We lost him, in 2015.

Bud had three super special children who are very different from each other but who love each other madly and completely. They are all a great success and learned from their parents how to lead us by spreading love, positivity, laughter and joy. To face things directly in the eye, to help others, but to enjoy the life they were given.

Jeff is the youngest of the three and born just six months before me and I just grew up entirely in awe of him, of his certainty in following his own north star.

Jeff has always been hysterically quick witted and a brilliant artist, someone everyone loves to be around. In a high school ceramics class he created a castle masterpiece that was eventually flown to New York City where it won an award for student art. It came out of his fascination with castles all over the world. “It is a combo of lots of different styles from French Normandy to Arabian (and everything in between) and I just mixed them all together from my dreams. I used to pour over National Geographic.” He went to American University in Washington DC where he earned a degree in Economics in 1987, then immediately moved, as one does, to Hollywood.

There, he spent the next thirty two years in the Entertainment Industry as an Emmy award winning producer and programming executive in television. He started out by creating shows including one that was purchased by MTV called BioRythym - which earned him a prestigious Peabody Award in 1999. Eventually he rose to serve as the Executive Vice President of Programming for E! Entertainment where he oversaw all original programming and series development for this global pop culture powerhouse seen in 160 countries and translated into 26 different languages. This meant, he was Kim Kardashian’s boss… “ I tried to destroy the world one Kardashian at a time”

Over the years he produced TV projects with talent such as Eva Longoria, Emma Stone, Mariah Carey, Drew Barrymore, Ryan Seacrest, Joan Rivers, Queen Latifah, Chelsea Handler, Dr Drew, Laverne Cox, Sara Bareilles, P Diddy, Melissa McCarthy, Zendaya, Kathy Griffin, Keke Palmer, Sharon Osbourne, Paula Abdul, Britney Spears and many others. He received the NAMIC Vision Award in 2000 for representation of people of color on TV and won the GLAAD award for outstanding LGBTQ programming in 2017.

Soon after he arrived in Hollywood, in about 1991, he came out to our family which caused exactly zero to change within our family, aside from us loving him even more for his courage. But, he was in despair about the way homosexuality was a cause for such discrimination, hatred and violence in our country still, and how our laws did not encompass all people, or protect all people. Our family celebrated the wonderful day in 2009 that he married his husband Alan, who had worked with him constantly from the time they met in 1997 to the day they married, to help the country learn, that Love is Love…. and to fight for all rights of the LGTBQ including marriage, in our country. They worked tirelessly on the front lines, to change the way LGTBQ people in our country were treated, at a time when the LGTBQ community wasn’t as yet even defined - when they needed them the most.

Today when I see the way my kids and their friends treat all their friends, including those who are coming out today, with such acceptance, openness and a sense of normality - and how different it is today than when I was their age, I am filled with gratitude. I know that this is the change that Jeff and Alan spearheaded. They fought for this and won this change for all that would come after them. And, it is a fight they are still committed to today.

Jeff always called himself “The First Lady of Hollywood” as he proudly reminds us that “Alan’s the good one here ... He truly helped make the world a better place but I had a lot of fun making good trash tv and it bought us a pool, so…” For ten years, Alan was on the National Board of Directors for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), which is the largest LGTBQ Rights organization in the world. He also served on the board of Equality California and over the years they dedicate their time and resources in support of numerous organizations including The Human Rights Campaign, The Stonewall Museum, The Point Foundation and are the founding sponsors of The Trans Chorus of Los Angeles. They were invited to the Obama White House to meet President Obama and to be honored for the work they did on behalf of the LGTBQ population in our country.

In 2020, just before the Pandemic, they retired and moved to Palm Springs to design and restore a midcentury modern home for themselves and now Jeff follows his passion for interior design by studying and helping friends with their design projects. (See my Homes Portfolio) But mainly, in this new chapter of their lives, he is focused on travel and writing.

They are in the midst of extensive travel in Europe, especially Portugal, where they hope to spend more and more time in the future.

I am so proud, honored and grateful he is willing to share his brilliant voice with me in collaboration for this project by providing his brilliant images Postings from the Road, here. The remaining voice in this page, is Jeff’s. Enjoy.

Brenda