Scorned Women
Lorenzo Lamas is a player. I suppose one could make the excuse that he was still finding his feet after he made multiple women fall head over heels for him. This article’s cover was assembled by finding the Polish poster for The Flesh and the Devil (a TV movie) along with the Hong Kong VCD cover for The Immortal (a TV series). Old flames Daphne Ashbrook and Kathleen Kinmont wrote memoirs where they revealed Lorenzo’s philanderous ways. Daphne’s 2012 memoir is titled Dead Woman Laughing: An Actor's Take from Both Sides of the Camera. Daphne wrote: “I knew that he had a bit of a reputation, so I was prepared. Lorenzo asked me to marry him on New Year's Eve, before I knew that I was pregnant. I told him I would think about it, but I knew about his record. He got married...a lot. And then would just leave. I didn't want to be a link in this chain of women. But I was definitely willing to think about it, kind of. He never brought the marriage up after Paton was born, and neither did I.”
The man about town was a freeloader: “Lorenzo had been living with me. He couldn't afford the house he had been renting in Malibu. He was in debt to the IRS by no small amount, so it just made sense for him to move in with me. We had been living off of my savings, what there was left of it, and I had every intention of getting back to work when the time was right and I knew he would continue to work as well. I never thought I would be doing this all alone.”
After 1988: “Several years later, I was working on a play and one of the fellow actors walked in with a tabloid magazine and plopped it down in front of me. He said, "You have to read this." It was about how Lorenzo had met up with a girl while I was pregnant, both of them were engaged already, and they made a pact with each other to not get married. To wait until the baby came and then they would both dump their fiancés and marry each other. Well, that was news. It didn't surprise me, though. Outside of him dragging Paton into a seedy story in public, I had no feelings at all. Other than a little relief that I hadn't ever been fooled into believing he would be a great partner and father. He was true to his press persona. My heart did break for Paton, though. I wondered how this kind of thing would affect her when she was older.”
The other woman was Kathleen Kinmont, whose 2020 memoir is titled I Should've Been Nicer to Quentin Tarantino - and Other Short Stories of Epic Fails and Saves. When she met Tarantino, he was still finding his feet as a film-maker while having established his foot fetish. Kathleen wrote in her own book about being the co-star of Lorenzo’s Renegade TV series: “Since Lorenzo and I were not love interests on the show, there was a revolving door of 'chick du jour' interests for his character, Reno Raines a.k.a. Vince Black. My character was obviously pining over him, but since we were working together as a team of bounty hunters, it was not a good idea to fraternize. Even the characters had better sense. So, the writers had a lot of fun dishing out babes to serve up to Lorenzo's character on a weekly or reoccuring basis. I was pretty used to this as I had dated Lorenzo off and on during his Falcon Crest days and had become accustomed to watching him make out and bed numerous women, as Lance Cumson. I mean, really with that character name? I had become somewhat immune to the very odd and unnatural visual of watching the love of my life with someone else.”
Back to the Renegade show where I’ve had to cut down on a certain amount of things so as to strength the connection between the dots: “One particular pretty actor, who will remain nameless, was a reoccuring guest. I believe she was asked to come back because Lorenzo was crushing on her. I was beyond dumb trying to please this phony nuisance who didn't like anything. She did like my husband, though. A lot. Enough to continue making out with him after the director yelled, "Cut." I heard about it in the makeup trailer the next morning. God, I love the makeup trailer, it's the bone collector of all gossip and meaning of life. I remember it was the middle of summer and scorching hot outside. When I heard that news from our lovely make-up artist, and our beautiful hairstylist, my heart broke into a million ice chips, freezing my veins and clouding my eyes with stinging tears. I knew Lorenzo and I really were done in that moment.”
I attached the first paragraph of chapter 5 to the end of this paragraph: “That he could willingly and publicly display affection for someone else in our workplace was the final straw. I finally threw my wedding ring at him and confronted him, to which he denied everything. Although, after we separated, he and b!tch dated for about a minute. It didn't last for more than a few weeks. Lorenzo and I were never together again after that. We did manage to continue working on Renegade, but they started to cut back on the episodes I would appear in, thoroughly fazing me out. I got fired after four seasons. Lorenzo and I were married for the first season and halfway through the second. We were divorced and working together for two and a half seasons.”
Flashback time where I’ve had to condense things for clarity of perspective: “I'm going to go out on a branch and say this time around, I met Lorenzo Lamas when I was fifteen. My first encounter was watching him tell a fascinating story on The Mike Douglas Show. I was there at the taping, watching from the sidelines, with my mom, who was also part of the Falcon Crest line-up for the show. We started dating in my senior year at Our Lady of Corvallis High School in September of 1982. I was seventeen, a few months shy of my eighteenth birthday. He was in his second season of Falcon Crest playing the role of Lance Cumson, my mother's son and Jane Wyman's grandson. He was twenty-four, a TV star, and every inch a rock-solid stud.”
Another get-to-the-gist edit from yours truly: “On my eighteenth birthday, I had a party at the Japanese restaurant, Yamashiro, in Culver City. I had about thirty family and friends at the event. As the dinner partied on, I noticed that a couple key guests were missing. One of them was my best girlfriend, who will remain nameless, and Lorenzo, soon to be the same. I noticed a flight of stairs guarded by a velvet rope. An unattended velvet rope keeps no one out, especially if there's not a bouncer keeping vigilant watch on the forbidden palace. Just like those two distasteful party guests, I hopped the velvet rope and claimed the dark stairs to the dimly lit closed portion of the restaurant. As soon as I reached the landing, I could hear the moaning and the kissing and the breaking of my heart.”
The madness of a loathsome lothario: “It was a few years, another marriage, and two kids for Lorenzo before we finally got married on January 19th, 1989. I was twenty-three and he was thirty when we jumped onto a plane with his two young children, A.J. who was five and Shane, three. Lorenzo and I worked together on six independent films, four years of a television series and numerous celebrity charity events and fundraisers. We were married for about 5 years and I loved being his wife and stepmom to his two children. Unfortunately, I was never given the opportunity to meet his youngest daughter, Paton, and sadly the absence of her would cause many concerns.”
It gets crazier: “I have been very lucky with stepchildren. Each set has proven to be a true gift in my heart. Stepchildren are the lovely little pawns in life who dutifully follow the happiness of their parents' current love. In my case, I fell in love six times with three marriages. Lorenzo's two children, A.J. and Shayne, precious and adorable were only five and three when I became their stepmom. Paton, Lorenzo's baby with his ex-girlfriend, remained with her mother, so I never had an opportunity to welcome her into our family.”
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned: “I was so furious at the world when Lorenzo and I broke up. My life was doing so great. We were working together on a great show. I was only twenty-eight and looking forward to having kids with him. I had waited so long for him to be finally ready to have a life with me. It seemed like everything was in place for a wonderful life together with the man of my dreams. I was a loving stepmom to his kids. I took good care of our home. I was contributing financially, spiritually and emotionally.”
You shouldn’t impregnate a woman if lust is your Achilles' heel. Back to the first memoirist, Daphne Ashbrook wrote in her book about 1994: “It was around this time that Paton (she was six) asked to meet her dad. I had always told myself that if she asked to meet him, I would arrange it. He was married to a Playboy Bunny. Paton was going to spend a weekend with him in San Diego, where he was living while shooting a series. I was to meet Shauna, the bunny, where she was doing a photo shoot. I wanted Paton to be loved by her dad. But you can't always get what you want.”
2002 (when Paton was 14): “Lorenzo had sporadically appeared in Paton's life, and had on several occasions made plans with her and then just didn't show up. I was watching her heart break a little more each time. I was so afraid that this would happen. His participation in her life was minimal and she had naturally become aware of his lack in parenting skills. I found out after the fact that Paton would often be the babysitter when she went to visit him. I told her she never had to be the babysitter if she didn't want to. But she loved her little sisters and had bonded with them, and she liked taking care of them. The point is that he really just ignored her.”