A shattered family picks up the pieces

By Jon Nordheimer

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. It's been a year now since William C. Loud, his wife Pat, and their five children underwent intense national scrutiny in the National Educational Tele-

vision's 12-part series called "The American Family."

The journal documented the private lives of the handsome Loud family, told its secrets, and let America sit as a spectator as the family unit unrav-

New York Times

William Loud, who says he is enjoying bachelor life since his divorce from Pat, dines with a friend, Cheri McCarthy.

eled in divorce and disunity.

The series was hailed as a landmark in sociological investigation Margaret

Mead called it the most important advance in human thought since the development of the novel and others rejected it as unrepresentative of the American way of life, heaping scorn on Bill and Pat Loud.

In a spasm of media reaction, the Louds went 'from upper-middle-class anonymity in comfortable Santa Barbara, to national prominence.

One year later, the members of the family are leading quite different lives.

In some ways they were all scarred by the public fascination with their frailties, but they are the scars of duelers, marks worn proudly.

Pat Loud has taken up 'residence in New York City, awaiting publication this spring of her book “Pat Loud-A Woman's Story.”

Bill Loud remains in San ta Barbara, trying to restore the health of his trouble-plagued business, and experimenting with a bachelor life-style at the age of 53 that his former wife says had its roots in the waning years of their marriage..

One son, Kevin, now 20, is still in Santa Barbara, but the rest of the brood Lance, 22, Grant, 19, Deliah, 18, Michele, 16have more or less taken up residence in their mother's onebedroom apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

"These kids of ours are capitalizing on the weakness of the situation," Loud complained recently in an interview, recounting his trip to New York early in February to tape a Dick Cavett show with the rest of the family.

"Patty's sleeping in a day bed in the living room, the two girls have the bedroom, and Lance and Grant flop anywhere. No one's earning any money except Deliah, who's doing public relations

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Pat Loud has taken residence in New York City and is currently job-hunting. With her here are three of the Loud children, from left, Michele, 16, Delilah, 18, and Lance, 22.

for some New York cosmetics firm.”

Even when Bill Loud's voice turns angry, the emotion cannot penetrate the calm, easy-going nature and perpetual grin that masks his handsome features.

But lately he has become more sharply critical of his sons, who embrace dreams that the national exposure they received last year can still be converted into enduring prominence.

On a table behind Loud's office desk are large photographs of his children, including Lance, the homosexual son, who is dressed for the occasion in a bright tutu, with his face heavily made up.

"I really came down hard on the kids while I was in New York," Loud said.

"I told them they had to get on the stick and start doing something substantial.

"Lance's response was that he would either be a gay acid rock star or a failure he didn't want anything in between."

Back East, Pat Loud said she believed the family was in better shape today than before the series changed

their lives.

"For the most part,” said Mrs. Loud, wearing blue jeans and a man's shirt and standing before a wood fire in the living room of her Manhattan apartment, "we heard from a lot of people who sympathized with our troubles.

"We provided a springboard for people to verbalize their triumphs and

failures.

"It was just the intellectuals from the East who looked down on us with such sadness and pity. We were the Western barbarians raising a generation of more barbarians.

"The truth of the matter is that we are typical, and people didn't like what they saw in the mirror."

Mrs. Loud, now 47 and the only member of the family who says she regretted the notoriety that the series heaped on them, nevertheless conceded that she had moved to New York to exploit her media exposure, and is currently jobhunting.

· Loud traces the family's trouble to 1970 when for the first time bills began piling up and his business encountered the first in a series of setbacks.

"No one else in the family was earning any money and they didn't seem to care that I was having a rough time," he said.

"I sent Kevin and Grant to Oregon to work in a foundry up there for the summer and it was like pulling teeth. Lance? I wouldn't even consider

sending Lance.

"Anyway, I finally began to see that these people couldn't progress beyond this indolent world I had created for them. When the film crew began shooting the series in the spring of 1971, the family was already at a point of disintegration.”

Loud lives in an apartment near the Santa Barbara beach.

"I'm not exactly sought

after socially," he said, deScribing the life of a middle-aged bachelor in Santa Barbara, "but I do exactly what I want to do. Since the divorce I've taken ballet lessons, gone to cooking school, and done some scuba diving."