Jeff Chandler - The Reincarnation of

Dennis Potter gratefully acknowledges the case of Marilyn Monroe/Sherrie Lea Laird as presented by Adrian Finkelstein, M.D.¹ Without that case, Dennis Potter wouldn't have found a similar one to draw from in presenting the case of Jeff Chandler/Dennis Potter.

Who was Jeff Chandler?

In 1952, Marilyn Monroe was the hottest thing in town, with marquees billing her over such stars as Ginger Rogers and Cary Grant. Twentieth Century-Fox had upped her loan-out price to over $100,000, and expected to up it another $100,000 when she completed Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953).²

That same year, when 20th Century-Fox tried to borrow Jeff Chandler - who had previously worked at that studio in Broken Arrow, Two Flags West, and Bird of Paradise - from Universal-International for The Robe (1953), all U-I asked for in return were the services of - Marilyn Monroe.³

Dennis Potter, raised as a Methodist, had his religious framework shaken when, as a teenager, he learned that his mother practiced atheism. After years of dutifully attending all church services and functions, Dennis Potter broke tradition, branched out into other beliefs, and gravitated, eventually, toward reincarnation.

Dennis Potter prefers to use the phrase, "past lives" instead of "reincarnation" because the common definition of the later has been altered from its original meaning. The word has come to mean "to be born again in different life forms" whereas its actual definition is "to be born again into the flesh or into another body."⁴ Dennis Potter, through his longtime association with Scientology, has certainty that he has lived lives prior to his current one. Dennis Potter's past life as Jeff Chandler, however, isn't a past life he pursued; Jeff Chandler came to him.

For as long as Dennis Potter can remember, people (other than close friends, co-workers and family) have always called him "Jeff"; never "Tom," "Dick," or "Harry"; always "Jeff." After discussions of the matter with friends as well as some soul-searching, Dennis Potter realized that in a past life he must have been someone in the public eye; a politician, an author or, perhaps, an actor, because many people saw something in him that he could not see.

Dennis Potter suffered from a childhood of mental and physical abuse. After years of alcoholism, he quit drinking; in 1999, on the eve of cancer surgery, he cut all ties to his mother. As a result, he found unexpected quiet; for the first time in his life, he could focus and see things clearly.

Dennis Potter's past life as Jeff Chandler is validated as an accurate match when using certain criteria consistent from that lifetime (as Jeff Chandler) and this lifetime (as Dennis Potter). Criteria such as: facial and bodily features; preferences; behavior; other significant signs of a previous life.

Facial and bodily features consistent from that lifetime to this one; they share:

• Same height (6' 4").
• Similar weight (210 lbs.)
• Similar smile with a curl on the upper lip.
• Similar coat, shirt, pant, neck, and hat size.
• Similar rich, baritone voice.
• Poor circulation indicated by darkened lower extremities.
• Like Dennis Potter, Jeff Chandler had "an upside down body. He had no shoulders at all, he was all neck with no shoulders and a big ass and wide legs - big legs. Naked he looked like he was upside down."⁵

Preferences consistent from that lifetime to this one; they share:

• The same favorite color (dark green).
• The same favorite vegetable (spinach).

Behavior consistent from that lifetime to this one:

• Dennis Potter (as a child) and Jeff Chandler were cross dressers.⁶

One day in 1999, Dennis Potter, with a list of people who had died before his birth, focused on finding "Jeff." He didn't locate anyone named "Jeff" who died before he was born; he found only one "Jeff": Jeff Chandler, who died a few months before Dennis Potter's sixth birthday. Prior to 1999, Dennis Potter had never heard of Jeff Chandler.

Many people reincarnate ("to be born again into the flesh or into another body") nine months after death. Dennis Potter's paternal grandmother, Rachel, reincarnated as Dennis' older niece, Julie, nine month's after Rachel's death; likewise, Dennis' maternal grandmother, Joyce, returned as Dennis second niece, Sandy, nine months after Joyce died. For some, the return to Earth takes longer; for others, like Jeff Chandler, death arrives too soon, and, sometimes, violently: in 1961, Jeff Chandler, only in his early 40s and one of Hollywood's wealthiest personalities, died suddenly after a botched surgery in Culver City, California.

Around his sixth birthday, Dennis Potter had a nightmare. Enveloped in darkness, he scrambled in vain along the bedroom walls, searching for a light switch, a door, a window, an exit - any exit. Exhausted, he woke up in a cold, distant environment; observing his parents, he wondered: Who are these people?

Before that nightmare, some people considered Dennis Potter slow, perhaps retarded; after the nightmare, he became a child prodigy with the sudden emergence of a full-blown skill: piano playing. Testing soon revealed a high I. Q.; mid-third grade, school officials accelerated him to fourth. Later, Dennis Potter knew (and pinpointed the exact spot on a map) that he would someday go to Hollywood. The first place he visited upon his arrival in Hollywood: the landmark, "Crossroads of the World" where Jeff Chandler's radio agent had an office. Jeff Chandler flourished as a radio actor, his first significant work in Hollywood, before receiving an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Cochise, the feared Apache Chief, in Broken Arrow (1950).

Dennis Potter knew exactly the location of Jeff Chandler's crypt at the Hillside Memorial Park and Mortuary, without having seen or visited it before; at that first visit, Dennis Potter swung 180 degrees, pointing at the crypt (a final resting place situated numerous levels above the floor of the mausoleum) before he saw it and declared: "That's where Jeff Chandler is buried!"

From the first time that Dennis Potter heard of Jeff Chandler to when he signed his book contract with McFarland, his computer system (the monitor and CPU) turned itself on dozens of times, without warning and always at midnight. When he signed the book contract, his computer system returned to normal.

Ever since Dennis Potter found Jeff Chandler, nobody has called him "Jeff"; that is, the only people who now call Dennis Potter "Jeff" are those who know him under the pen name, "Jeff Wells."

The result of Dennis Potter's research of Jeff Chandler is the book (written under the pen name, "Jeff Wells"), Jeff Chandler: Film, Record, Radio, Television and Theater Performances (McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2005). A scholarly, reference book, the biography is in five of the eight Ivy League schools and can also be found in libraries worldwide. It is to Dennis Potter's credit not only to have "found" Jeff Chandler, but to have written his own autobiography - two lifetimes later.