Aarons' 'Prayers' makes it to screen

<p>When actress Sigourney Weaver took on the lead role in "Prayers for Bobby," she was struck by the story of a god-fearing mother driven to "cure" her son of homosexuality.</p><p>"I felt that she wanted this story told and so did Bobby, and I think that they helped me in some mysterious way," she remembers.</p><p>Last spring, Weaver traveled to the home of Mary Griffith in Walnut Creek, the same suburban setting where Mary and her husband, Bob, raised four children, one of them a boy named Bobby who struggled growing up gay in a devoutly religious family.</p><p>"She showed me her bible, which had so many of these verses underlined in red with exclamation points," says Weaver. "She just looked at me and told me, 'I was very serious.'"</p><p>Rejected by his mother, Bobby fled to Portland, where he eventually committed suicide.</p><p>The story, retold in the book, "Prayers for Bobby," became a cult classic in the '90s, selling more than 30,000 copies.</p><p>Now, in a post-Proposition 8 world, the adapted cautionary film that airs Saturday night on Lifetime Television is as relevant and necessary as "An Early Frost," the first major film to address the AIDS epidemic nearly a quarter century ago. Bolstered by contributions and insight from several local artists, it reveals a moral compass for families facing the same dilemma.</p><p>"Had this movie existed when Bobby Griffith was struggling to find himself and find his footing in the world, he'd be alive today," says executive producer Daniel Sladek. "We really believe this movie has the power to save lives. This is the civil rights hurdle of our time."</p><p>For Weaver, it was the inspiration to launch her debut as a lead in a TV movie nearly 40 years into her career.</p><p>"I very much wanted to be a part of this story in television form so a lot of families could watch it," she says. "Apparently this is a book that kids give their parents when they want to start the conversation about coming out. And I thought if we could get this in another form, that would be wonderful -- 'Hey, let's watch a movie with that woman from "Alien"' and bam -- they're into it."</p><p>For the film to work, Weaver has to fully embody the dramatic arc of Mary's transformation. Bound to scripture, she initially sets out to cure her son, praying over him like an exorcist while he sleeps.</p><p>After Bobby commits suicide by jumping off a bridge, she eventually reaches an epiphany: "I know now why God didn't heal Bobby," she says in the film. "There was nothing wrong with him." It's the revelation that sets her on course to crusade and warn other mothers who might be caught in a similar trap.</p><p>Under the global themes of tolerance and equality, the film has myriad behind-the-scenes story lines, some that originated in Sonoma County.</p><p>There's the story of late journalist Leroy Aarons, who wrote the book "Prayers for Bobby" while living in Sebastopol. Initially inspired by a story he read in the San Francisco Examiner, he met repeatedly with the Griffith family and spent years researching and writing the book.</p><p>Aarons, who founded the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, found a spiritual connection in Bobby.</p><p>"Roy realized he was gay in a period when it was very hush-hush and he had difficulties as a teenager," says his partner, Joshua Boneh, who lives in Sebastopol. "But he was actually fighting with it until he was in his 40s and almost got married to a woman before we met."</p><p>Before he died in 2004, Aarons was discouraged that the film still hadn't been made after eight years of pre-production.</p><p>"But I think he would have been very, very excited with the way this film ended up," says Boneh. "He would have been in seventh heaven."</p><p>There's the story of executive producers Sladek and his partner, Chris Taffe, who slaved in L.A. for 12 years to make the film. Susan Sarandon initially signed on as executive producer. After that deal fell apart, the project was attached to Sela Ward at Lifetime and then Christine Lahti at Showtime, but never got off the ground.</p><p>"I've lectured at UCLA in the film and television department for 14 years, and the making of this film could be a master class seminar by itself," says Sladek, who, like Aarons, found parallels in Bobby's story. Sladek "came out" when he was 24 after growing up in a conservative Jewish family in Denver. His father ran the local synagogue. His mother ran the Jewish Community Center. But that's where the similarities end: "I never suffered any negative consequences in my insular family."</p><p>There's the story of Santa Rosa High School and ArtQuest graduate Rebecca Miller, who came to the film set as Weaver's assistant and left as a supporting actress.</p><p>The last time local audiences saw Miller was on stage in Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia" at Actors' Theater. After college, she wound up in Manhattan, acting in off-Broadway plays before landing a day-job as Weaver's assistant. Before "Prayers for Bobby" filming started and many of the actors had yet to arrive, Miller was asked to stand-in during a read-through of the screenplay.</p><p>"When the meeting was over, producers started coming up to me and saying, 'Uh, you're really good,' which was totally overwhelming," she says.</p><p>When a WB Network actress backed out, the producers auditioned Miller for the role of Jeanette, the cousin who takes Bobby in and provides safe harbor in Portland when he can no longer bear to live with his family in Walnut Creek.</p><p>"My husband is an acting coach in Manhattan, and we would get on iChat and he would coach me via video-conferencing for the audition," Miller says.</p><p>After landing the role, she eventually found herself under the Klieg lights in a confrontational post-funeral scene with Weaver, who offered this advice: "I just told her, since we're both from the theater, with television it all has to be very much inside. So you don't need to do very much. It has to be very specific, but very inside. It's not like theater where you're playing for the person in the back row."</p><p>And then there's the story that brings everything full circle -- the story of Mary's granddaughter, Cristina Griffith, who recently "came out" at an advance screening of the film.</p><p>When Mary Griffith, now 74, heard the news, "I just gave her a big hug," she says. "It was understood."</p><p>The same family that Bobby fled from three decades ago was now embracing homosexuality in the woman who would have been his niece.</p><p>"I just hope this movie reaches people who will be open to it and they won't be like me," says Mary Griffith. "That was terrible. It was a once-in-a-lifetime lesson."</p>