You might not know the name Jack Merrill, but chances are you’ve probably heard of the name John Wayne Gacy. And while that connection is not the only major event in his life, it’s as good a place as any to serve as an introduction to the incredible story of Jack Merrill.
Merrill comes from a family who worked hard to create a seemingly-enviable life in prosperous Evanston, Illinois. However, he managed to flee his abusive homelife and through the support of his friends and his boyfriend — a relationship that presented its own set of problems in the late 70s — he finished high school after being unofficially adopted by his neighbors and left Evanston behind, diving headfirst while still a teenager into Chicago’s exploding disco and underground gay scene.
"My father was Jerome Holtzman," Merrill says, adding, "Yeah, I changed my name. He was a baseball journalist and he was the official historian for Major League Baseball from 1999 until he died in 2008. He’s in the Baseball Hall of Fame."
Merrill’s one man show is called, The Save, a term that has become common in today’s everyday parlance, but it was Merrill’s father that actually coined the term.
"It's a statistic in professional baseball now … Let's say that somebody starts a game, like a pitcher, and they don't do that well, then a relief pitcher comes in and actually holds the lead or wins the game, right? It used to be that the starting pitcher got the win. And baseball loves statistics," Merrill said.
"So he’d want to make sure they know who won that game, right? And my dad realized that they weren't getting their due, so he came up with the idea in 1959 and it was officially adopted as a statistic in 1969."
However, as Merrill puts it, his father just wasn’t interested in actually raising any of his children and there were five back then, Merrill and four sisters. Despite growing up in a three story mansion with seven bedrooms on Sheridan Road, he sought parental guidance elsewhere.
"I didn't get along with my dad or my mom. My mom had a narcissistic personality disorder and an interesting brand of Munchausen by proxy, in a way," Merrill said. "When I was 16 years old, I got in a fist fight with my dad on Christmas Eve, left the house and moved in with the family down the block, which, without a doubt saved me."
He finished high school and moved into his own apartment in downtown Chicago on his 18th birthday. Lying about his age, he worked in restaurants and nightclubs, making a half-decent living. And then, when he was 19, he was abducted and raped by a mass murderer.
John Wayne Gacy was an American serial killer and sex offender who raped, tortured, and murdered at least 33 young men and boys near Chicago, between 1972 and 1978. Gacy committed all of his known murders inside his ranch-style house and typically, he would lure victims to his home and dupe them into donning handcuffs on the pretext of demonstrating a magic trick. He would then rape and torture his victims before killing them by either asphyxiation or strangulation with a garrote. Gacy was eventually arrested in 1978 and executed by lethal injection in May 1994.
Merrill is almost nonchalant as he talks about this terrifying experience, saying, "I’m the only survivor out of anyone who encountered him in this way."
He was hanging out one night in a run-down part of a Chicago suburb that was popular with gay men at the time when he saw Gacy and was ultimately persuaded to get into his car.
"To cut a long story short, he chloroformed me in the car, I woke up in handcuffs and he took me back to his house. [Over the course of the night] he played mind games with me and he raped me … but because of having to deal with my mother when I was younger, I understood that I must not make him angry," he said.
"I didn't know he was a killer, although I knew he could hurt me for sure. But there were a lot of scary people around back then. I mean, I was a young kid who was desirable on a variety of levels and [some] guys were not cool."
To learn more about how Merrill managed to escape, you’ll have to watch the show, but he absolutely, positively credits the fact that he is alive today down to his turbulent childhood.
"I wouldn’t have come out of it right? I grew up with somebody extremely volatile and dangerous. And that's why, when people are shocked about how scary it must’ve been, I think ‘you didn't grow up with my mom. You don't know what scary was.’ I was frightened. And then I got to a point where I realized that I don't have to be scared," he said, adding, "I found confidence in my own decision making."
A few years later Merrill moved to New York City, where he lived for many years, graduating from New York University’s School of Drama. His first job upon graduation was as David Mamet’s assistant on the original Pulitzer-Prize winning Broadway production of Glengarry Glen Ross. He then became a founding member of the renowned Naked Angels Theatre Company where he performed in New York City for over a decade.
Living in West Village in Manhattan, he had a front row seat to the events of September 11, 2001. Merrill moved to Los Angeles after that, but returns to New York several times a year and he married his long term partner of 24 years just three years ago.
"I want people to come and see the show. I mean, I'm a writer and a performer and I'm proud of both. It's funny, if you want to be ultimately judged, write a show about your life and act in it, there's no stone uncovered," Merrill laughs.
"Everybody who sees the play says that the Gacy thing is a small part of it, right? But it was a small part of my life, it was one night, something that happened, that's all it was," he said.
The Save is written by and stars Jack Merill, It’s directed by Mike Reilly and is currently showing at The Electric Lodge, 1416 Electric Avenue. Call (310) 306-1854 for ticket information or email info@electriclodge.org. Alternatively, visit thesaveplay.com for more information.
scott.snowden@smdp.com
