An unlikely later-in-life romance in ‘Our (Almost Completely True) Story’

In Jerry Sroka and Mariette Hartley’s 2021 dramedy “Our (Almost Completely True) Story,” the real-life husband and wife (who are now 76 and 81 respectively), play themselves in a film about struggling to find love later in life.

“I’ve always had problems with men,” Hartley’s character says, but “I’ve heard that Jewish men make nice husbands.” Perusing a Jewish dating website, she considers including in her profile “Shiksa goddess looking for a nice Jewish man whose mother is dead.”

Meanwhile, Sroka is going through his own version of dating hell until he meets Hartley in a bird store in North Hollywood. The voice-over actor immediately becomes smitten with Hartley, (best known for her work in Sam Peckinpah’s “Ride the High Country,” television’s “The Incredible Hulk” and numerous appearances on “Gunsmoke” and “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.”)

As Sroka’s character says in the film, “If the stars align just right, a tall shiksa Hollywood icon might just fall for a short Jewish leprechaun.”

The Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival will host a Q&A with Sroka, Hartley and the film’s director, Don Scardino, on Feb. 14. SoCal Jewish News spoke with the couple, who married in 2005, via Zoom from their home in Los Angeles.

SoCal Jewish News: Were you looking to date a Jewish man in real life?
Mariette Hartley: I’ve always been attracted to the idea of a Jewish man. I feel that Jewish men make good husbands. I tried a French count for 20 years (in a previous marriage). But I hated the idea of dating.

SCJN: Jerry, what was your dating experience before you met Mariette?
Jerry Sroka: [A friend] took me to a bar, but it was dark and smoky, and [my friend] said, “The women come in around 11.” And I said, “I hope we can see them.”

SCJN: Did you really meet each other in a bird store, like you do in the film?
JS: We met at a meeting of the Screen Actors Guild board of directors. After that bar experience I thought, “How am I going to meet women who ‘get’ me? … and lo and behold, I got elected to the board and so did Mariette. Mariette walked by me and I said, “Ooh.” [My friend] said, “Are you kidding me? She’s so far above you in more ways than one.” I don’t know what possessed me but we had to go around the room introducing ourselves. I said, “I’m Jerry Sroka. I am substituting for [actor] James Cromwell,” and then I jumped on the chair because Cromwell is 6-foot-5.

MH: We all fell off our chairs laughing.… The first thing I saw were his eyes, and his glasses and his hair. It was like, “Oh my God, what an attractive guy.”

SCJN: Were you at all reluctant to go out with him?
MH: I was a little reluctant, especially when he stood up. He was pretty pushy, and pretty short.

JS: We broke for lunch and I got in line behind her at the buffet, and she loads her plate up with all this green stuff.  I pulled on her jacket and said, “Are you going to eat all that?” And she does one of these (he makes a disgusted face) and says, “Oh, it’s you. It’s your business?” Very Jewish. I followed her to a table … and proceeded to insult her for an hour. It went both ways.

She said, “Look, I know you’re going through a difficult divorce. If you want to go to a movie or something and just laugh for an hour, just give me a call.

MH: I meant it. My divorce was the most difficult thing I’ve been through.… It was just devastating. I grieved for like 10 years.
JS: [After the date], and this is in the movie, I had to get up on the threshold of the door to reach her lips, which she found kind of cute, but I found rather embarrassing. And I kissed her and I [thought] this is going to work out just fine.

SCJN: What led you to write a film about your romance?
MH: I believe in journaling and Jerry was so interesting to live with. I really learned about what intimacy really is and talking to each other about things that don’t seem to be going right. I think we kind of looked at each other one day and said, “Let’s [do it].”

SCJN: Mariette, you’ve been candid about your past traumas, including your father’s suicide in your memoir, “Breaking the Silence,” and your one-woman show, “If You Get to Bethlehem, You’ve Gone Too Far.”  You mention this in the film. In real life, how did you introduce all this to Jerry?
JS: [Mariette was] going away on a job. You tossed me your book and said, “You want to peruse this when I’m gone?”  And she called me that night …  and I was crying. I had never dealt with any of that stuff before. I had no idea.

MH: It was scary because I didn’t know how heavily involved we were going to get … but he really opened his heart. Jerry had led a very different kind of life emotionally. I [wondered] if [my past] would be acceptable to him.

JS: When she got back, we talked, and over the years — especially with her devotion to people who have lost people to suicide — she started the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, which is now in 50 states, and we both became members of the board in L.A. When you go to these meetings and hear people’s stories, you don’t know how they’re still functioning.

SCJN: The movie ends before you get engaged. How did you propose to Mariette?
JS: We had been together two years. I got down on one knee in the kitchen and said, “So you want to get married or what?” “Really?” she replied. “Really.” A pause, then, “Sure.”

The Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival will stream the film Feb. 11-14. A Q&A with Sroka, Hartley and the film’s director, Don Scardino, will take place on Monday, Feb. 14, at 5 p.m. PST. Tickets for the online screening and Q&A are $12. To watch the film and for more information, visit lajfilmfest.org.

(Mariette Hartley and Jerry Sroka in “Our (Almost Completely True) Story.” Credit: Courtesy)