Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 11, 1992 TAG: 9201110395
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PATRICIA BRENNAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
THE FINAL GIFT OF LOVE
IN the autumn of 1983, dying of ovarian cancer that chemotherapy could no longer quell, 75-year-old Ida Rollin pleaded with her daughter, Betty, to "help me find a way out" - out of life.Rollin, a television feature correspondent (at the time for ABC's "Nightline"), struggled with the moral and personal implications of granting her mother's request but managed to find that way, with the help of a physician in Amsterdam who told her what to do.
Their story comes to ABC Sunday night (at 9 p.m. on WSET-Channel 13) in "Last Wish," the title Rollin used for the 1985 book in which she detailed her mother's 2 1/2-year-long illness and death. Patty Duke stars as Rollin, Maureen Stapleton as her mother.
"To think that you're going to see, on national television, in prime time, a woman kill herself, and you're going to root for it," Rollin reflected. "I would never have imagined that."
But then, some would not have imagined that Derek Humphry's "Final Exit," a book that detailed methods of suicide, could remain on the Publishers Weekly best-seller list for 14 weeks last year. Rollin wrote its preface.
At the same time, Jack Kevorkian, a physician known as "Dr. Death," made news when he helped two women end their lives by using a suicide machine he devised.
So "Last Wish" stands to have a substantial number of viewers. Rollin, who supports legislation to provide for physician-assisted suicide, believes that few doctors will be among the viewers.
Those who do watch will see Ida Rollin's surgeon portrayed as brusque and impersonal, a man she trusted, but whom Betty resented for his lack of empathy.
Rollin, who now works for NBC-TV, said she has seen the movie only once, because it reminds her of her mother, an independent woman who was full of life.
"It's hard for me to watch," she said. "It makes me miss my mother, so I cry right at the beginning, when she's dancing, more than during the sad stuff. It just seems strange that she's not around. You never get over it in a way. I miss her a lot. I miss her during the good times. I miss her now, during this movie. She would have loved it. It seems strange that she isn't here. She would be loving this, and it would be much more fun if she were here.
"My mother loved celebrations. This is a kind of celebration in that I feel very happy with the movie, and I felt very good about the book. I think she would have, too. I feel that this is a tribute to her."
"Last Wish" has been reprinted in 18 countries and was a best-seller in Italy, she said. Her earlier books are "First, You Cry," about her own struggle with breast cancer, and "Am I Getting Paid for This?"
"I think the book, and in some sense the movie, is comforting. Here is someone who escaped in time," said Rollin. "In that sense, it's very helpful. I'm hoping what this movie will do is, in a way, give permission. There are a lot of people who are at the end of life and who are suffering and feel guilty about it. And the children and the spouses feel guilty about this. But really, death can be a friend."
There were times when Ida Rollin was so nauseous that she could not have gulped down the pills that would end her life. She had to wait for a day when she felt better in order to kill herself.
"The key thing was that when she knew she would escape, her spirits lifted," said Rollin. "[Suicide] gives people a feeling that if they want it, they can escape from life if they need to. That's the kind of language my mother used: She would say `trapped.'"
Rollin said she does not support the actions of Kevorkian, 63, a retired Michigan pathologist who crusades for physician-assisted suicide. Last month the medical examiner in Oakland County, Mich., ruled that the deaths of two women who used a Kevorkian-designed machine to kill themselves last October were homicides.
A grand jury is considering whether to charge Kevorkian with the deaths. After he assisted another woman in suicide in 1990, a judge ordered him to stop helping people kill themselves, and his medical license was suspended.
As in many television movies, there are small changes in "Last Wish" from book to film. The film does not detail, as does the book, the drugs and method of taking them that Ida Rollin used.
But in both, Ida Rollin was in charge, asking her doctor for a prescription, arranging to have her son-in-law clear out her safe-deposit box, then taking the drugs voluntarily, even eagerly, with Betty and her husband, Harold "Ed" Edwards, at her bedside.
By Rollin's account, there is no doubt that that is what her mother wanted.
"Last Wish" is the second Rollin book to be televised. "First, You Cry" aired on CBS in 1978 and drew high praise. In that one, Mary Tyler Moore played Rollin.
This time the actress is Patty Duke, who looks nothing like the tall, dark-haired Rollin. But that doesn't worry her.
"This is the second time I've been through this," Rollin said. "I've been twice blessed. Patty Duke and Maureen Stapleton are just great. I love what they do. I'm glad they didn't go the glamour route . . .
"As I told the movie people, I'm not Lincoln; we're not historical figures. What matters is not that we look alike, but that they captured us. Our inner selves are there."