The Man in the Rockefeller Suit by Mark Seal Page B

make them subscribe to newfangled channels. But Chris! How could anyone deny sweet, cultured, darling Chris? So many of the good citizens of San Marino wanted to help Christopher Chichester in whatever he wanted to do. And he certainly looked like a rising show-business star. On shoot days, he would replace his customary Ivy League jacket and tie with “L.A. casual” attire: white jeans, V-neck sweater over a striped polo shirt, its collar points turned up to frame his neck, and aviator sunglasses.
    â€œAssemblyman Richard Mountjoy will be the featured guest on the May 29 edition of Inside San Marino ,” trumpeted one newspaper article, which included a photograph of Chichester smiling at the camera, alongside Peggy Ebright, with his hands crossed. “Above, Mountjoy discusses the program’s format with producer Christopher Chichester.”
    The local notables Chichester roped into appearing on the show—the mayor, the headmaster, various Super Marino powerhouses—were soon depleted and Chichester began looking beyond San Marino for guests. Within a couple of months his roster expanded to include L.A. luminaries, growing so large in scope that Chichester changed the show’s name from Inside San Marino to just Inside. “Welcome to Inside ,” went one intro. “I’m Peggy Ebright, and today we are in the offices of Mr. Daryl Gates, chief of the Los Angeles Police Department.”
    Off camera, but always in control, Chichester flashed cue cards and shouted directions. “And, Chief Gates, you are responsible for the safety of how many people?” he instructed Peggy to ask.
    After filming Inside segments, Peggy would chauffeur her producer home—at least to what she assumed was his home, in lower San Marino. On the day of my visit, Peggy drove me over to the house, which sat on an expansive corner lot. It was “a Monterrey house,” she said, referring to its Spanish style: red terra-cotta in color, a haven of arches, lush landscaping, and, most auspiciously for Chichester, she added, stained-glass coats of arms on the windows.
    â€œI would tell him, ‘I’ve always loved that house, I’d love to see the inside,” Peggy said of the many evenings when she dropped him off at the grand hacienda, which he told her was owned by his parents.
    â€œThey let me live in it to keep it properly maintained,” Chichester said, before bidding Peggy good night.
    â€œWell, I would love to come in and take a look someday,” Peggy said.
    â€œCertainly,” he would always reply, “but not tonight. Mother and Father asked me to keep up the house, but I’m not doing a very good job, and I couldn’t abide your walking into a messy house. I’ll invite you over for tea once I get things in order.”
    He never did.
    â€œI thought, ‘Maybe he’s a remittance man!’” she told me, meaning the black sheep of the Chichester family, sent to America to gain education and experience while, best of all, staying out of the way of the working members of his prominent clan. It never occurred to her that he had fabricated the entire Christopher Chichester persona from whole cloth.
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    In San Marino, where eligible young bachelors were rare, especially one with good manners and a royal pedigree, Chichester found several ladies who accepted his request for a date.
    â€œI produced The Prisoner ,” he told the daughter of one prominent San Marino family. He had met her at a San Marino library event where they were both volunteers, and with her parents’ prodding, she accepted his invitation to go out on a date.
    â€œYou know, the Patrick McGoohan series,” he said. “It was big in Great Britain.”
    She had never heard of The Prisoner , and she never checked to see if Christopher Chichester produced it. If she had, she would have discovered that The Prisoner —the classic 1960s British television series