My father left this mortal coil in January of 2021. As of this writing, five years have passed during which I have had the opportunity to reflect on our relationship. Peter Mark Richman was a good man who spent his life fighting an uphill battle. His beginnings as the “oops” of five kids in the only Jewish family in an Italian neighborhood of South Philadelphia during the Great Depression informed his street-scrabble approach to confrontation throughout his life. He would instruct his own children that we should always aspire to be the wolf among the sheep and never the opposite. Of course, my father was ever-ready with other unsolicited “should’s” whenever the occasion might or might not warrant it—a quality which eventually prompted me to vow elimination of that word from my own vocabulary. However, his penchant for judgement and constant correction contrasted the deep love he felt for his wife and children. He often became sentimental and nostalgic when describing the sense-memory of holding his babies in his arms for the first time. My father’s yearning for the love he had not felt as a child comes through in the story my mother would tell about sitting with my father during a screening of the original movie musical, “Oliver,” in which, as soon as the title character began to softly sing, “Where is Love?,” she suddenly became aware of a loud, viscerally raw whimpering sound coming from her husband beside her.
In the Jewish tradition, when someone passes away, we say the phrase, “Zichrono Livracha” which translates as, “May his memory be a blessing.” Indeed, in remembering my father, I do feel blessed to have had him as my father, but it is not without conflicting emotions. As they say: it’s complicated. Was I loved? Yes. Was I safe? Yes. Did he make sure we had what we needed as we grew up? Absolutely. Was he ever wrong? Absolutely. Did he ever admit that he was wrong? Absolutely not. Were the results of his failings ever manifested from a malicious intent? Never. Did he exhibit behaviors that would ultimately compel his children to cycle through therapists’ offices? The jury is still out…
I realize my father is no longer here to defend himself and my goal here is certainly not to besmirch his name or memory. In fact, during our time together, I know I did whatever I could to make him proud. Each musical achievement was an opportunity for patrician validation which, without fail, was heaped on with hyperbolic praise. I was fortunate enough to have chosen an artistic path about which he knew little so I inadvertently avoided the instructional follow-up that would surely have come had I decided to become an actor. When he was not engaged in the filming of a television show, he spent days on end in his art studio under the house, painting acrylic portraits or manifesting pen and ink drawings with classical music blaring in the background. While my father was familiar with many of the most virile works from the classical canon, he was unable to articulate his appreciation on a technical level. Instead, after many of my musical performances, he would just unhesitatingly grasp my shoulders, look me in the eye and, with the clenched-jaw delivery of intense sincerity he would growl, “Lucassss…you are major!,” before pulling me to him in a full bear hug. Always appreciative of the validation, I would look towards my next project as a means for connection and affirmation.
My earliest memories are mixed up with images imprinted in my brain from hours of videos captured due to his dutiful obsession with memorializing our lives on Super-8 film. Each episode, edited in the camera with planned shots, conveys a family doing family things like celebrating birthdays, building projects together, playing in Tapia Park and watching the older generations talk around the pool (may their memories be a blessing). I never met my father’s father, Benjamin Richman, as he had passed away when his youngest son (my Dad) was but sixteen years of age. However, two other family father figures in my life reside in that hazy barrier between the celluloid archives of my father’s home movies and my actual memories. My mother’s father, Samuel Landess (or “Papa” as we affectionately called him) and my mother’s brother, Alfred Landess, each in their own way filled in the deficits of connection I was regrettably unable to establish with my own father. Papa often offered slices of life-earned wisdom followed by a gentle tap on the cheek and a “heh-heh” chuckle, while Uncle Alfred and I would regularly become enmeshed in deep discourse about music, musicians and the emotional achievement of the composer at hand—relationships forged without judgement or conditional pretenses.
The memories I share with my siblings often revolve around us being kept busy so we would not be in our parents’ way. The times my father did engage with his children were generally for constructive purposes such as building school projects, making puppets for our homegrown puppet theatre, teaching us how to do chores around the house or reminding us to practice for our music lessons. If ever one of us were to express being in a state of boredom, the response was inevitably, “Go to your room and do something constructive.” Of lesser interest was sitting down and engaging in the discussion of emotions, interpersonal relationships or other subjects outside of show business and “important people.” Those “important people” came from the tier of Hollywood celebrity to which my father’s acting career gave access. I believe my parents’ choice to raise their family in the more remote San Fernando Valley suburbs was mostly fiscally-based (where else could one purchase a new home in 1962 for $55k?) but, besides the fact that the steepness of the hill on which the house was built negated the joy and practicality of learning to ride a bicycle, our upbringing away from the “industry” provided us with grounded upbringing in normalcy that evaded many children of other celebrities who lived “over the hill.” My parents would often throw dinner parties to host the stars or directors of this television show or that film, compelling their Hollywood industry friends to make the long drive over the Sepulveda Pass into the land of orange groves. After a dinner usually centered around chicken curry from the Brown Derby recipe book, the Richman children would dutifully perform as the nightcap of entertainment. My older brother would unveil his latest pianistic achievement in the world of Chopin, then I would slog through a violin piece before switching roles to become the accompanist to my sister’s most recent obscure musical theatre audition song.
My involvement with high school musical theatre productions as the accompanist set me up to be the in-house piano player supporting my father’s own penchant for singing show tunes. “On A Clear Day,” “Soliloquy,” “The Olive Tree” and “Some Enchanted Evening”—anything sung by Robert Goulet, Richard Kiley or John Raitt provided the common ground for our collaboration. Admittedly, this arrangement fostered an awkward situation when, years later, he auditioned (unsuccessfully) for the role of Pangloss in the Los Angeles Music Center’s production of “Candide” for which I was the musical director. But we did end up collaborating in other ways, both onstage and off. I am grateful for the many times we shared the stage for concerts in which he served as the narrator to orchestral works I was conducting. Performances of my own cantata, “The Seven Circles of Life,” and Aaron Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait” brought us to Spokane, Innsbruck, Knoxville, Bangor and the foot of Mt. Rushmore. Our last performance together was when I engaged my father to narrate an evening of music by John Williams with his hometown orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra. This took place eight years before he passed away from complications of dementia but, at age 85, he had already begun to show signs of halting memory loss and slower speech.
I can recall only one shared lunch with just the two of us when I, back in town for business, suggested my father meet me for lunch in West Hollywood. In retrospect, my father never really seemed interested in simply listening to me and absorbing the things I had to say. So lunch together merely presented a chance for him to joke, “Okay, so we’re having a conversation: I talk and you listen.” More often than not, he would immediately direct any discourse towards how I could be more productive or make yet another connection to further my career. While a deeper connection to my father may never have truly manifested, there was always a connection to be made in the industry, some of which led to more professional collaborations for my father and me. One such connection manifested in an opportunity in 1987 when my father was engaged to play the role of a priest alongside Cesar Romero and Monte Markham in Ferde Grofe Jr’s gothic thriller, “Judgement Day” (originally released as “The Third Hand”). My father mentioned to Ferde that I was a composer–and it wasn’t long before I was standing in front of an orchestra leading the recording sessions at Capitol Records for my first film score. A second cinematic collaboration occurred in 1999 when, with my having previously written the musical underscore for his one-man play, “4 Faces,” my father asked me to adapt that score for the film version of the play.
Throughout his acting career in television, my father was mostly relegated to portraying the roles of either a police captain or the bad guy. I remember proudly boasting to friends that I had watched my father die over 150 times in westerns or detective series. In 1988, my father starred in “Bonanza: The Next Generation” which was being produced as a possible reboot of the original groundbreaking series. Once again, he served as the story’s nemesis, this time as archrival to actor John Ireland who embodied the role of Ben Cartwright’s brother, Aaron. David Dortort, creator and producer of the original “Bonanza” series was producing this reboot and, in conversation with my father, he made it known he was looking for a composer to write music for “Bonanza: The Musical.” Enter Lucas and, four years later, we were in the recording studio with George Hearn and Karen Morrow, laying down a full score of songs for which I had written both the lyrics and music. Act One ended with a powerful anthem that presented me with the opportunity to express in words and music the kind of love I hoped a father would convey to his children. George, in top form, knocked the song, “I Am a Father,” out of the ballpark. Unfortunately, it became clear after a staged reading that, while people seemed to enjoy the score for being tuneful and exciting, the script itself was not credible or compelling, so the piece has become what is affectionately known as a “trunk” musical. Perhaps most striking to me is the realization that I was 28 when I wrote “I Am a Father” and now, in 2026, my own son just recently turned 28 years old.
Those words, “I am a father,” took on a personal and profound meaning for me at 3:00 am on May 19, 1998. During the first financially-droughty years of our marriage, Debbie and I agreed that I was obliged to accept just about any work that came my way. As such, while I was making a modest salary teaching middle-school music, I also took up as many private students, wedding gigs and commissions for musical arrangements as possible. When I received the call to serve as musical director for the Tony-winning actress Zoe Caldwell who would be performing her one-woman show as a benefit for the Los Angeles Music Center, we agreed I needed to accept the opportunity—even though it fell on the same day as the due date for our son Max’s arrival into this world. My wife’s one caveat was that, if I were to do the gig, I needed to arrive at the hospital in my full tuxedo. The day of both events arrived: Debbie checked into the hospital with her mother, Clara, by her side while I was downtown for my dress rehearsal with Zoe. After the rehearsal, I made a mad dash (LA traffic allowing) back to Tarzana to visit Debbie in the interim. Things were progressing but our son’s birth was not yet imminent, so I made my way back to the Music Center and took up my duties at the piano on stage. Ninety minutes later, Zoe and I were taking our second bow when she stopped the applause to announce with her most dramatic Australian flair, “Ladies and Gentlemen: we thank you so much. But we must let this dear boy go—his wife is in hospital and is about to have a baby!” I drove back to the hospital—in my tux—and was immediately brought into the miraculous process of childbirth. “I am a father”—indeed.
My father genuinely stopped being my “father” ten years before he passed as his dementia had already claimed the independent man he had always been. Whatever mourning process I had for the man began once I realized he had crossed the threshold and was no longer really of this world. I think it’s okay to take care of ourselves at this point in their process by reminding ourselves to be grateful for the person they have been in our lives while also recognizing they are no longer able to be that person. We become the parent, the caretaker. Of course, one should and will do whatever one can to continue keeping him safe and bringing him joy but my belief is that it is in gratitude for what he has been in the past rather than with the expectation for growth in the relationship moving forward.
In my father’s later years, we had expected the more turbulent sides of his personality to come forward so we were relieved when things actually went in the opposite direction as his behavior became increasingly docile. In the moments when he hadn’t fully retreated into his inner universe, he relished the hugs even more than he had over a lifetime of hugs. His smiles were issued in simple and genuine appreciation, and, in his eyes, one no longer saw the desire to immediately follow up with a suggestion or path of improvement. For the celebration of his 90th birthday, I surprised my father with our final creative collaboration: a full reading of a chamber opera, “The Open Heart,” for which he had written the libretto based on my own one-act play thirty years earlier. I re-wrote parts of the libretto and completed the score (which had lain incomplete for decades) so we could present a private performance of the full work. Seeing the tears of joy and appreciation he shed when he once again could revel in the nostalgic lilt of our song “There’s a Place That I Know” will remain one of my fondest memories.
I am immensely grateful for the blessing of becoming a father, myself, as the meaning of my own path in life has opened in a way I could never have expected. Every perceived priority and every choice suddenly became filtered through the lens of the profound responsibility which had abruptly come into my life. With that understanding comes a need to evaluate the lessons one has learned from one’s own upbringing and the mandate to do better for one’s own child. I hope I have learned to listen better, judge less and trust more. With all that being said, if I miss anything, it is the feeling of being held by my father and witnessing the genuine joy it gave him to hug his son. Zichrono livracha.
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