LOS ANGELES, CA — Randy B. Fowler woke with a start. He couldn’t quite remember the nightmare, just that it was about his family — specifically, about his younger brother Kevin Spacey. Then his phone began to ring and the news broke everywhere.
Spacey was accused of molesting a young actor.
Fowler’s nightmare suddenly became a reality, and the memories of sexual abuse at the hands of his father came rushing back — rapes he says he endured in the belief that he was somehow protecting his little brother from the same fate. Those were years when no one would listen to him, when his the mother turned her back on his screams.
Now his little brother is accused of preying on teenage boys and young men.
With the public downfall of powerful men such as Spacey, Harvey Weinstein and Director James Toback, a revolution of sorts is changing the narrative of sexual abuse in America. Suddenly it’s the accusers of powerful men who have the power. Those who were previously silent are speaking out en masse — and they are being heard.
But for Fowler, this public paradigm shift is deeply personal. He loves his brother, a man accused of serial predation, but he identifies with his brother’s accusers.
Life in the Spacey-Fowler household was full of “dirty little secrets,” Fowler said. His father, Thomas Geoffrey Fowler, was an American Nazi with a penchant for violence, verbal, physical and sexual abuse. Fowler, who has written a book aimed at helping survivors of childhood sexual abuse, is unflinching in recounting the abuse he suffered.
Fowler said he was 12 the first time his father molested him, and that his mother knew what was happening.
“How could she not know? I was screaming for her to help, and she was just banging on the door, yelling at my father, and all of the sudden her screams stopped. There was just silence. She abandoned me,” Fowler said.
Fowler said the abuse went on for years, becoming more frequent and more violent.
“I thought I was protecting my brother, that [my father] was only abusing me. But who knows? Maybe I couldn’t be there all the time,” said Fowler.
Fowler said he endured beatings and the family endured his father's racist rants and rages. Thomas was accused at one point of molesting a female relative, and Fowler’s sister ran away. Spacey withdrew into himself, Fowler said, working hard to avoid trouble and staying close to their mother.
However, when Fowler confronted his family about the abuse, he was the one who was ostracized. He has been estranged from his little brother for decades now.
Fowler, now 62, spent his entire adult life dealing with the trauma. In 2015, he wrote a book about his abusive childhood called, “A Moment In Time: Living In The Shadows.”
For Fowler, stopping what happened to him from happening to others is a way to heal. Abuse has to be pulled out of the shadows.
“I had to own it, digest it and relive it to break the cycle,” he said. “I believe in screaming louder, scratching deeper and kicking harder to break through.”
Rumors swirled for years about the secretive, Oscar-winning Spacey, but they never quite touched him. He won two Oscars for Best Supporting Actor and Best Actor, in “The Usual Suspects” and “American Beauty,” respectively. He won a Tony for his performance in the Broadway hit Lost in Yonkers, and a Golden Globe for his portrayal of a corrupt politician in “House of Cards.”
Then, less than two weeks ago, “Star Trek: Discovery” actor Anthony Rapp published an account in which he accused Spacey of trying to molest him in 1986, when he was 14 and Spacey was 26. Rapp said he went into a bedroom and spent the evening watching TV after a party at Spacey's apartment. Then Spacey came in.
"He picked me up like a groom picks up the bride over the threshold," Rapp told BuzzFeed. "But I don't, like, squirm away initially, because I'm like, 'What's going on?' And then he lays down on top of me. I was aware that he was trying to get with me sexually,” wrote Rapp.
"My stomach churns," Rapp said. "I still to this day can't wrap my head around so many aspects of it."
Rapp’s story opened a floodgate of similar allegations against Spacey.
Actor Harry Dreyfuss said he was 18 when Spacey reached under the table and groped him while rehearsing lines with Dreyfuss’s father Richard Dreyfuss. Former news anchor Heather Unruh this week told reporters that Spacey fed her then-18-year-old son drinks and fondled him against his will.
And several people who worked with Spacey during his stint as the artistic director of London's Old Vic theater, from 2004 to 2015, have accused him of groping or sexually harassing young staffers.
Fallout from the allegations was nearly instantaneous.
Production has been suspended on Spacey's Netflix series "House of Cards." The actor has also been cut from Ridley Scott's upcoming film "All The Money In The World” and CBS' upcoming special celebrating Carol Burnett.
One of the biggest names to be brought down by Hollywood’s ongoing sexual abuse scandal, Spacey has said little in response to most of the allegations. He did not respond to Patch's request for comment through his legal team. He did, however, issue a public apology in response to Rapp's allegations.
"I honestly do not remember the encounter," Spacey said in a statement on Twitter. "If I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior. I am sorry for the feelings he describes having carried with him all these years.”
Spacey vowed to make changes in his life.
"The story has encouraged me to address other things about my life," added Spacey, who then publicly came out as gay.
For his part, Fowler wonders if his brother will reconnect with him over their shared shadows. He has read the accounts of his brother’s alleged victims and recognizes their pain.
“Yes. They are me. I can’t question their motives or their timing,” Fowler said. “It all sounds so deja vu. The circumstances are different, but, in the end, when you strip away all the layers, it’s still abuse from their perspective.”
But Fowler still feels the urge to protect his little brother.
“The people who protected him these last 40 years, their silence now is deafening,” Fowler said. “I understand why my brother is the way he is. When you love someone, you understand who they are.”
For Fowler, though, protecting Spacey isn’t about hushing his accusers.
“You have to get these people help. The other ones — they need to be taken off the streets, and people can interpret that however they want.”
In the years since his parents died and his estrangement from his brother, Fowler has worked as a Rod Stewart-impersonating limo driver in Boise, Idaho. He has also spent a lot of time working on his book, which is now ready for publication. He hopes it will inspire victims of abuse to come out of the shadows and confront the pain and shame that holds them back.
Fowler builds models, too, and has won several Hobbytown contests for his work.
“I am living out the childhood I never had,” he said. “It’s amazing how much you lose in life when you don’t deal with the past.”
But Fowler also sees a more hopeful future beyond this sexual abuse scandal, one in which people will talk more about the problem.
“Things are very different from the '60s and '70s when this was happening to me,” he said. “Words are the way to truly help break the chains of silence and the chains of shame we all carry with us.”
Also See: Former TV Anchor Says Kevin Spacey Sexually Assaulted Her Son
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Photo: Actor Kevin Spacey gets a kiss from his mother Kathleen following the unveiling of his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Oct. 5, 1999. The rose refers to Spacey's just-released film, "American Beauty." (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
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