The Secret World of Danny Lopez



about the writer imdb page contact home		A hidden Latina history, sex, war, pop music fantasies, and child snatching. This is The Secret World of Danny Lopez—the TRUE STORY of a precocious *TWEEN* in 1970s Texas. Based on the mondo-beyondo childhood of writer/creator Samuel Garza Bernstein
	s	And though it's set in the '70s, it has everything to do with this moment, right here, right now. Because intersectionality—one of the root ideas propelling our seizmic cultural shifts—is at the heart of Danny's journey to find his authentic self within his intersecting identities.
	The first identity—the son of Ivan, a Jewish cowboy from a wealthy family in Texas. Ivan's dad made his money during WWII selling black market cheese. Ivan fancies himself a socialist He is magnetic, volatile, kind of hot, and probably bipolar. As far as he is concerned, rules do not apply.
		A year before the start of the pilot, Danny's parents split up. His mom, Linda, had custody but Ivan took Danny and his two older brothers Jake and Jeff to live in Cairo, along with Meg, his new wife (and their new stepmother)—who was so young she still had braces. In Egypt, Ivan sold arms to the Palestinians.
		Cairo is an adventure. Danny is chased down the street by a beggar with no arms or legs and no legs—just a piece of plywood with wheels. There are air raid blackouts. The kids see films of soldiers setting children on fire with napalm.
	Danny doesn't know where his mom is for the whole time they are in Egypt. He fantasizes about her all the time and pretends to BE her. This is where the pop music fantasies come in for Danny. He imagines his mother Linda as a glamorous star. So, he becomes a star, also named—
	He wants mass love, like Neely O’Hara in Valley of the Dolls. Surprisingly, his macho cowboy dad has no problem with Danny dressing up like a girl. It proves what a broad-minded socialist he is. When the family returns to Texas Ivan still won’t let Danny live with her, so Danny thinks about her constantly, obsessively.
		Linda's maiden name is Mayfield. Or so Danny has been told. This is when intersectionality really kicks in for the project and Danny's identity takes a major shift. In events that take us through the pilot, he discovers that his supposedly white mother is an illegal alien with a fake name and a fake birth certificate.
		Her parents brought her across the Rio Grande when she was seven and then abandoned her. She was raised by a white family as their servant and took their name. She was light-skinned. No one questioned it. But her real name is Verónica Lin López de la Peña,
		Danny is thrilled. He tries on the new name, pretending to be Verónica Lin López de la Peña, singing a Mexican pop song in Spanish. He wonders if Ivan will let him change his name to Danny López de la Peña. You never know. Maybe he can make Ivan believe it makes him even more of a socialist.
	For the production, this means casting for Linda will have to go another way—with sincerest apologies to Claire Foy. Who are we kidding? She is far too busy being an international movie star now to be in our little project anyway.Wait, Jennifer Lopez even has the right last name already!
	As if Ms. Lopez would somehow be easier to get than Ms. Foy—or Bradley Cooper for that matter. Anyway, another, more amazing revelation comes next, also in the pilot, Danny and his brothers find out that Linda isn’t the birth mother of Jeff and Jake. They have a different mother, a secret mother.
	Ever since Danny can remember, his deepest, unspoken desire has been that his mom will belong only to him. And now she does. In real life, and in retrospect, it should have been fairly obvious that writer/creator Samuel Garza Bernstein and his two very white brothers were not full siblings. That’s Sam in the middle.
		Danny knows nothing about Linda's family, but Ivan's parents Helen and Lenny are regular characters. We meet them at the airport in San Antonio. As they wait for Ivan and crew to arrive Helen embarrasses Lenny by loudly taunting him about his sexual performance... with his mistress.
		Then there's Meg, the boys' stepmother. Okay, she isn’t really *THAT* young, and the truth is, she's very loving and kind. She certainly loves Ivan. But sometimes he beat her up. Like Danny remembers him doing to Linda. (On the show we won’t go there much. That’s not what the project is about, but the threat lurks.
		From the outside looking in, people think Danny and his brothers lead a wonderful, exciting life. And it IS exciting. In the first scene of the pilot he is by himself in the middle of the night, in the upstairs lounge of a 747. He pours himself a rum and Coke and dives back into Valley of the Dolls. He is in his secret world.
		Eight episodes are outlined, including two set in Vegas, where Ivan loses $250,000 that he doesn’t actually have. Danny ponders running away. Back in Texas, Danny keeps fighting to live with his mother. In the season finale he discovers a new emotional weapon to use against his father.
		In the 2nd season, Danny wins. He moves in with his mom. But it’s a shock. He struggles to accept that she’s a real person, not the glamorous star of his imagination. Plus, his dad is very much still in the picture. Fantasy keeps Danny alive. But his journey is to find his authentic self within that fantasy.
		Airing a show like this would be unimaginable until this precise moment in the evolution of television. It’s set in the ‘70s but it’s geared to what audiences are watching right now. It explores the wild intersections of modern life where drama and comedy collide, reflecting the way we live now.
		And yes, Danny is an abused child. But so much of what he experiences is funny and sweet and hopeful. Just like it was in real life. The possibility of Ivan turning violent is manageable, like fearing the Boogie Man or the Monster under the bed. We see the world through Danny's eyes and he always finds a way to thrive.