‘Don’t listen to what your mother says,’ I can hear Ted Levy say, his grizzly bear arm a comforting presence around me. ‘She has no idea what she’s talking about. She doesn’t know you like I do. And I have faith in you. Always will.’ We kiss and his oversized hands feel urgent as they cup my jawbone.
The Tedettes fan page on Facebook is tucked away, and I almost miss it as I comb for ‘Ted Levy news’. For now, it has thirty-five members, all female, and all seemingly under twenty-five.
‘A place where we can talk all things Ted Levy. No trolling and no in-fighting, this is a space for love and appreciation and LAUGHING,’ the header reads. ‘Ted Levy is a creative genius and if you get it, you get it.’ Delighted with myself, I click ‘Join’.
The admins ask a couple of questions about Ted’s various roles, so as to weed out the tyre-kickers, probably.
‘What is the supernatural series in which Ted plays a spiritual werewolf?’ (Eclipse Hollow. Easy.)
‘What is the feature on the Blu-Ray disc ofShe’s Got It Bad?’ (Commentary along with the director.)
By the end of the day, I’m in. I open the page with a delighted little squeal.
The page has done a pretty good job of collecting most of the online articles that I have already read. There are screen grabs from the many YouTube clips of Ted Levy. Thrillingly, his high-school yearbook photo is there, one I’ve not seen before. The members have taken turns changing out his high-school hairstyle by using Photoshop badly: dreads, frosted tips, a Vanilla Ice haircut.
One photo album, entitled ‘BATHURST STREET’, is a collection of photos from Ted’s neighbourhood posted by someone called Fifi, although he is regrettably in none of them. There’s the McDonald’s Drive-Thru, a bus stop, a Shopper’s Drug Mart.
‘I just had a drink on Ted’s street,’ Fifi posts. ‘He’s lucky, this is a pretty cool neighbourhood. Kinda hipster.’
The comments underneath congratulate her on a mission well accomplished. Seems they all knew about this pilgrimage beforehand.
‘DYING with envy here that you got to go and hang out there!’ writes another member, Gabby. Underneaththe album, there is much chatter about which door is his (‘Someone told me it’s a blue door!’ is one comment).
‘Just remember, ladies,’ writes a poster called Violet Stafford. ‘If we put our minds to it, we can all go there one day and experience Bathurst for ourselves. Maybe even together soon! Wouldn’t that be awesome? Once I finish school and get a job that will pay enough for the airfare because that shit’s not cheap when you’re coming from Adelaide, hahaha.’
Violet, with her dyed black hair and multiple piercings, comments on every single post with the proprietary pride of Ted’s nana. ‘Not to be overly dramatic but I think that is the Tim Hortons where he broke up with Linda,’ she writes on one street image. ‘Poor guy. At least he is free from that fat fkn WITCH. Anything that they worked on together sucked donkey ballz. She was the WORST actress ever.’
There are the other ‘Tedettes’– Layla, Juliet, Maxi and Molly. Lots of winged eyeliner, pink hair dye and boxrooms splattered with all kinds of gothy band posters. They remind me of a younger version of me, with so much undirected energy in store and so much silly love and affection they need to offload on to someone, anyone.
The Tedette hierarchy presents itself almost immediately. Maxi, who barely looks five minutes over twelve years old, is unabashed in how much she is physically attracted to Ted. She cannot keep it in, and that somehow puts her lower down on the totem pole, because she is someone who doesn’t appreciate him solely for the Work.
‘Quit objectifying our guy!’ Layla writes under every one of Maxi’s thirsty posts. ‘You’re probably making him feel cheap.’
I recognize that they all defer to Violet, the creator of the page and Ted’s self-named ‘fan zero’. On one old clip,taken of Ted at a college theatre production ofLes Misérablesin 2002, Violet captions it as ‘Back when none of yas even knew who he bleddy well was lololol.’
‘That’s so cool,’ writes Molly. ‘He was so cute at twenty. Looks a bit weird with all his Jewfro hair.’
‘The curls were off the hoooook,’ Maxi writes below. ‘Yumyumyum.’
‘Was he waiting tables around that time?’ posts Molly.
‘Foot Locker job, I believe,’ replies Violet.
I am astounded and impressed that she, a teenager living on the other side of the world from Toronto, even knows this. How? Does she know him personally? Is she part of his online team? Who are the sources? Is she making it all up?
Violet has written on the group’s ‘About’ page:
Ted Levy’s artistry is so authentic and sincere. He is a perfectionist who will stand up to any fat cat movie executive or asshole producer who will get in the way of his artistic vision. He is generous with the right collaborators and has no problem telling those who professionally hold him back to sling it. More than anything else, Ted Levy believes in the courage of his creative convictions. His acting moves against the tide of the mainstream, and he is especially talented in inhabiting the characters that no one else will. In creating them, he holds a mirror up to society that so many others aren’t brave enough to. He will ALWAYS be a legend in our eyes.
I read it again and again as my pride for him burns brighter.
I wonder how the Tedettes would feel if Ted did meet someone else romantically who wasn’t Linda. Clearly noone on this page has any time for her. Are they rooting for him personally as well as professionally? Do they ultimately want good things for him? Would that person also be a fat fkn witch, or could they learn to love her in time, given how much she might mean to Ted and would make him happy? I decide not to bother asking. Instead, I take a snoop on their own Facebook profiles, taking in every link to a My Chemical Romance song or clip fromThe O.C.and mentions of annoying little sisters and bossy dads. They share pop songs, self-penned poems and photos of their pet dogs amongst themselves. They are a sisterhood. It’s one non-stop pyjama party with Ted as its shiny, glittering piñata.
As I’m looking at Fifi’s excessively moody profile pic on Facebook– excessively moody for a Hollywood film about impending apocalypse, never mind for a boxroom in Edinburgh– a notification out of the corner of my eye makes me want to sing from the highest heavens.
‘You and Ted Levy are now friends.’
Only then do I notice the date: 14 February 2011. Valentine’s Day. To think that Ted Levy is sitting in on his own, looking at Facebook, on the morning of Valentine’s Day.
