New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Mind game: Former golf pro brings mental health to the stage in one-man show
Chris Fuller’s passion for golf was sparked at the extremely young age of 4. That may be the case for a lot of devotees of the game, but Fuller may stand alone in that he played golf with Bette Davis in his living room as a youngster.
The silver screen legend was staying with his family and played golf with Fuller on a play putt-putt set. She was chain smoking, of course, and cigarette ashes dropped on the tyke’s head.
It’s a memorable moment Fuller has written into his one-man show, “Cheese Fries & Froot Loops,” which he will perform for the first time on May 23 at the Fairfield Theatre Company. The evening will serve as a sort of homecoming for Fuller, who lives in Arizona and grew up in Weston.
“One of the props in the show is my kiddy putter that she autographed: ‘To Master Christopher—I won! Bette Davis,” Fuller said.
During the show, Fuller takes audiences throughout his life, going between the past and present.
“I was 8 years old when my dad died; I weave him throughout,” Fuller said. “He had a major impact on my life. I was told that when I was born, he said that all he ever wanted was an athlete for a son.
“He could have cared less about my academic success. The first eight years of my life, Dad and I played some sort of sport almost every day after school and on weekends. Homework wasn’t ever brought up. In third grade, I was taken to the psychologist. I tested in the low range for math, but my eye-hand coordination was off the charts!
“When dad saw the scores, he burst into tears — overjoyed about my ‘superior’ hand-eye coordination.”
That superior hand-eye coordination helped Fuller succeed as he played competitive golf, beginning when he was 12. He also played on his high school and college teams before turning pro and participating in such tours as The New England Golf Tour, The Pepsi Tour, The Dakotas Tour and The Outlaws Tour.
Everything changed when, at the age of 26, Fuller was diagnosed with Bipolar II.
“Suddenly I’m trying to compete playing professional golf while struggling with racing thoughts that I can’t control,” he said. “My sudden mood swings set me on a path of total selfdestruction.
I was sure that I was going to die trying to make the PGA Golf Tour. I landed in a mental hospital four days before a major qualifying event. Everywhere I went I would hear, ‘You gotta get yourself a fallback career.’”
That led to Fuller enrolling in the Golf Academy of America and giving up his playing career to teach and become a golf pro.
“I graduated and got a job at a local country club in Arizona, and it pained me every day to see people out playing and I was stuck in a golf shop, counting inventory,” he said. “I had thousands of ‘fallback’ careers — everything from Uber driver to bug inspector to insurance salesman. Every job made me more miserable. I couldn’t stomach driving by a golf course, and if you live in Arizona, that’s tough.”
While Fuller doesn’t consider himself a writer or actor, he comes from a theater family. His father, John G. Fuller, was a bestselling author who wrote two plays that were performed on Broadway. His mother wrote a show, “Me & Jezebel,” about the night Bette Davis came to their home for dinner — and moved in. That show was directed by Mark S. Graham, who’s helming “Cheese Fries & Froot Loops.”
It would certainly seem that Fuller is a writer now, as “Cheese Fries & Froot Loops” has been optioned by Robert R. Blume, the former executive of the Drama Desk Awards, who Fuller said is planning to present a showcase of the work in New York mid-summer.
Fuller is also performing the show, and to play 17 characters he has been working with an acting coach, John O’Hern, who lives in Fairfield.
“When we first started working together, all my 17 voices sounded like Bart Simpson,” Fuller said. “Well, I’ll let the audience judge how far I’ve come.”
He noted “Cheese Fries & Froot Loops” is about pursuing a lifelong dream while living with a mental disorder and finding his niche in a world where he isn’t understood or accepted. With that in mind, he notes that the show isn’t really about golf.
“It’s about refusing to give up my dream when everything is stacked against me,” he said. “Even my parents — my mom remarried— didn’t really understand what I went through on a daily basis. They tried to protect me.
“They didn’t want me to tell anyone that I am Bipolar II. They would say, ‘Don’t tell anyone! They’ll think you’re crazy!’ So, you end up walking around, feeling crazy and scared to tell anyone.
“Come to think of it, I don’t think I ever fit in, but now I don’t see that as a deficit. Telling my story has been liberating. As the saying goes, “You’re only as sick as your secrets.”
And by sharing his story on a stage in front of audiences, it certainly seems that Chris Fuller doesn’t have any more secrets.