Me and Leon, untold stories of my life with Leon Uris, author of Exodus and Trinity...

What is my background, as a writer?

 “As the second son, I reflected a different side of Dad (Lee). I became his jokester self, the jester, the trickster, and the one who rarely met a rule he wouldn’t want to break. (My older brother) Mark stood under Lee’s right arm, and I took his left. I was happy to be there. My brother and father were the two most important people in the world to me. If I had to stand in their shadows, then, as far as I was concerned, it was better than the glare of the sun.” – The Uris Trinity

 How did my father and I envision writing?

“We all have rooms, areas of our mind, within our persona that we allow others to access. Then there is a personal locked room or vault. One that we dare not enter. The great writer sparingly immerses their conscious mind into the sludge and much that permeates from one’s deepest locked emotional vault. A place guarded by fear and repulsion. Inside the vault are your lies, your cheating, your greed, and a reflection of every evil thought you had since you were born. There you experience your own vicious reflection, one so hideous and vile that even seeing it for even a brief instant might cause you immense pain and a lifetime of remorse. And in the vault you cannot hide from your mirrored image, just as his sense of right and wrong forced Dorian Grey to view the canvas. Your vault is but a reflection of the dark side of your existence and even this side of you needs a place to survive.” – The Uris Trinity

 Kidnapped at age one—is where fact and fiction entered my life…

 “I was not quite two years old when something happened that would set the tone of what was to be an unconventional childhood. I was kidnapped… Fortunately, I was recovered. Lee got the movie studio involved and for all I know the maid and her husband are lying in shallow graves outside Las Vegas. That’s how things were then. If you worked for the studios and had any kind of profile, the studios used their own security forces to cover up any possible scandal.” – The Uris Trinity

Being an outspoken author and humanitarian, my father received regular threats on his life…

 By age fourteen, I hoarded weapons, ready to ward off assassinations threats and attempts on my father’s life. Leon handed my brother Mark, and I, a photograph of a French assassin. “Boys, if anything should ever happen to me, if I die for any reason. I want you to immediately order an autopsy and then kill that fucking French assassin.” – The Uris Trinity

 Dad lived life on the fast track, and so did my brother and I...

Interviewing hundreds of people for his upcoming novels, traveling, research, giving speeches for various venues, actively raising money and awareness for the emerging Jewish State of Israel, writing novels and screenplays, and political speeches for the Democratic Party—and scores of other daily activities. The more intrigue the better, each day became an adventure for our family. Never a dull moment around the Uris household, and he sucked my brother and I into his fantasy world, one fueled by a gifted mind gone array, an imaginary character that he himself created. Being a good father, he raised Mark and I in the same light—unable to tell if we were sounding boards for reality, or had we become offshoots of his fictional characters? I became lost in his world of fiction, with each day, it became harder for me to distinguish between reality and fiction. Determined to survive in his fantasy world, my brother and I learned how a master storyteller’s mind worked, what motivated his every thought, word and action. Mark avoided the pitfalls that I fell into—Leon’s cleverly laid traps. If anything, I embraced determination an early age, and followed my father into the darkest secret vaults. Nevertheless, I learned how to navigate through these uncharted territories, through emotionally charged aberrations rarely treaded by the cautious man—carefully hidden from plain sight within our minds.

 Following my father’s lead, I assumed womanizing a sport…

 When your charismatic role model dives into the ocean of celebrity and women throw themselves at him, being a young man cast out into the world to find his own way, how could I not be thrilled to follow in his footsteps. Looking back, most all of my relationships were riddled with Leon’s highly imaginative mentoring—and I became an extension of his triumphs and victories, inadequacies and frustrations, anger, jealousies and torment, from one failed relationship after another.

Who was my mentor? A serious man who moved nations, or a prankster out for fun?

 My older brother chose to follow Dad’s intellectual path.

 I chose the other.

 I had an advantage that no one else did…

 “I observed a highly intuitive writer every day, and I learned ways in the process of life that were both magical and well with my reach. Still, I knew my place and I would never set myself on the same pedestal as Leon Uris, but that hasn’t kept me from putting pen to paper in an attempt to emulate a man I love, even worshiped at times.” – The Uris Trinity

 Only others could see us as we really were, a perspective we could never see with our own eyes…

 “I saw the way your father looked at you, a special consideration that few sons ever receive. What your father saw in you was a reflection of his better self, his son doing the right thing. He looked up to you. That is real pride.”— The Uris Trinity.

Introducing the intimate memoir, The Uris Trinity: The father, the son and the trophy wife, available at Amazon in eBook and Print-On-Demand formats.

Find The Uris Trinity at Amazon.com
Read Michael’s blog/journal at” www.michaelcadyuris.com
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