‘Point Break’ Screenwriter Peter Iliff on What Pacific Palisades Means to Him and Westside Recovery
Our hearts are broken.
So many dear pals lost homes in the wildfires ravaging Los Angeles and Pacific Palisades. Many were neighbors, Hollywood pals and friends from my 20-plus years of sobriety in the 12-step recovery community, which has had an enormous presence in the Palisades and Malibu for decades. First, let me say, my wife Ruthanne and I are safe. We moved out of the Palisades some years ago. We bought a home across from a park near downtown Culver City, but we spent 28 good years in the Palisades.
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My love affair with Pali started when I was 8 and lived in Philadelphia. My father died, and every summer mom sent me to the Palisades to spend a month with good ‘ol Uncle Bob. He lived on Grenola Street with a front porch that overlooked the ocean where he’d sit and listen to a young Vin Scully calling Los Angeles Dodger games. This was back when a common working man could afford the Palisades. I cherish a photo Uncle Bob took of 9-year-old me climbing the street sign on (coincidentally named) Iliff Street where every house but one burned down.
After attending University of California Santa Barbara, I lived in a room provided by a set designer pal near Cross Creek in Malibu. My first job after five years of university was as a dishwasher at Malibu Chart House. Then I moved up to busboy at Alice’s on Malibu Pier. My girlfriend at the time lived in a house across that walk bridge just north of Gladstones, and we would walk the beach to get there.
After I sold Point Break and the Hollywood money started coming in, Ruthanne and I built a dream house on Hightree Road in Rustic Canyon. That’s the house where we had our children, Dane and Bella, and where we lived when I started my journey in sobriety. In 2003, I checked into Promises Treatment Center, which became Cliffside Malibu. Three stunning recovery homes sit side-by-side at the top of Red Rock. Hunter Biden currently lives across the street. For nearly 10 years, we thrived with Wednesday night alumni meetings at a beach house situated along Pacific Coast Highway. All of it burned down in the fire.
I relapsed once the following summer after a tragic death led to emotions I did not want to feel. Ruthanne threw me out, but I was determined to put our family back together. I rented a room in Greta Garbo’s old beach house, La Esperanza, located within walking distance of the Reel Inn, another heartbreaking casualty of the wildfires. There was great sobriety and meetings in nearby Pali and “I did the deal,” as we say in the program. Big nature, that ocean, that sky, became the face of my higher power. I walked the beach at 2 a.m. one night while doing my 7th step and tearfully dropped to my knees to humbly ask God to remove all my defects of character. Admittedly, it was a long list. But I never drank or used drugs again. Ruthanne and I recently celebrated 35 years of marriage, with an asterisk for those five months when she kicked me out.
In 2008, the market crash coincided with a WGA Strike, during which time I lost two high-paying studio writing jobs. We were forced to sell our Rustic Canyon home but we moved to a lovely place on Via de la Paz with a pool and an ocean view. The kids were older and could walk into Palisades Village. I coached baseball and basketball at the Recreation Center. When my mother got older, we placed her in an assisted living home by Gelson’s, and I walked to see her every day. We eventually moved to the top of Iliff Street, which becomes Goucher, into a four-story home with stunning views. We got in great shape by climbing those stairs and walking the dogs up the hills to the water tower. I also frequently rode my bike up the hill from the beach.
All the while, I stayed sober attending 12-step meetings in the Palisades and Malibu. I frequented meetings at the Palisades Women’s Club near Gelson’s in Pali. It’s where I last saw Matthew Perry, who was such a sweet guy and a regular face in Westside recovery before his death, as he wrote about in his book. There was a long-running daily recovery meeting at 7:15 a.m. above a bank (which moved to Rick Caruso’s Palisades Village). The popular Saturday men’s meeting, called Bread & Roses, has been held for several years at Community United Methodist Church on Via de la Paz. The church also hosted a Monday night writer’s meeting. Another popular meeting was on Friday night at Palisades Lutheran Church. I loved the Saturday morning meetings at Gladstones restaurant on PCH. We’ve had meetings at Theatre Palisades across from Palisades High School. All of it is now gone. All of these landmarks and recovery meccas are no longer.
In a world with so much heartbreak and devastation, this is my first personal experience seeing a community I love wiped off the map. A horrible reminder of how fragile life and everything we hold dear can be. Our kids, Dane and Bella, are deeply heartsick at losing the town where they grew up. I have wonderful memories of early sobriety, new friends walking the path together, big tables of us eating and laughing at Café Vida after meetings. Now we are left waiting to hear where our meetings, like Bread & Roses, will resume. They certainly will. We must console and help all our friends who lost homes. I pray that those who are suffering rise to become the best versions of themselves, as we all try to help each other out of this mess. If sobriety has taught me anything it is this: I know we will recover.
W. Peter Iliff is a veteran Hollywood screenwriter and producer whose credits include Point Break, Patriot Games and Varsity Blues, among others. He’s executive producing upcoming films including Renny Harlin’s Deep Water and Claudio Fah’s Turbulance. Iliff can also be found rocking out on the local club scene as Naughty Pete, performing original tunes about “bad behavior, getting sober and trying to stay out of trouble.”
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