When I read the script that was sent over by messenger to my hotel in New York, I threw it across the room, trying to hit the wastebasket. The violence was so relentless, and my character, a political drone named Betsy, was such a cipher, that I couldn"t imagine breathing any life into her. My anxiety was palpable-what"s a Cybill Shepherd type anyway? With my little pilot light of insecurity fanned by a few years" worth of scathing reviews, I thought: Maybe I"m not even good enough to play my own type Maybe I"m not even good enough to play my own type. But I admired all of Scorsese"s films-Mean Streets was a searing portrait of small-time hoods in Little Italy, and the evocative was a searing portrait of small-time hoods in Little Italy, and the evocative Alice Doesn"t Live Here Anymore Alice Doesn"t Live Here Anymore had resulted in an Academy Award for Ellen Burstyy mother in had resulted in an Academy Award for Ellen Burstyy mother in The Last Picture Show The Last Picture Show.
In person, Scorsese was energetic to the point of manic--he talked as if his life depended on maintaining a certain velocity. One of the people he talked about was the talented young actress he was hoping to cast in the role of the child prost.i.tute Iris.
"This girl Jodie Foster is so young, I don"t know if her mother will let her do it," he said. "You know the nature of the material. But she"s so good. And she looks just like you when you were fourteen."
Concomitant to the talks about Taxi Driver Taxi Driver, Peter was planning our next project, ent.i.tled Nickelodeon Nickelodeon, which would reunite him with Ryan O"Neal. Their friendship was improbable--Ryan was an enthusiastic partic.i.p.ant in the recreational drug scene of Hollywood, while Peter rarely considered fogging his brain with even a c.o.c.ktail. Ryan often greeted Peter by kissing him on the lips and grabbing him by the b.a.l.l.s, and he never considered their camaraderie an impediment to chasing me--on the contrary, he had a reputation for pursuing the girlfriends of all his friends. He pinned me against a wall at one of Sue Mengers"s parties, ran his fingers through my hair, and whispered, "Let"s f.u.c.k." I giggled and slugged him in the solar plexus.
One day I answered the phone to find Ryan on the other end calling Peter, who wasn"t home. "And how are you?" he inquired, all Irish charm. I"d just come from a dance cla.s.s and told him that I was getting into shape. Carbohydrates had been my chief form of consolation after the debacle of At Long Last Love At Long Last Love, and although Peter still liked me nice and round, I wasn"t sure about Martin Scorsese.
"You"ll have to stop eating to lose weight," said Ryan, his charm suddenly dissipating. "I couldn"t believe Peter putting you in nothing but white for At Long Last Love At Long Last Love. You looked like a beached beluga. And everybody"s starting to wonder if he"s lost it. The sound of that flop is still echoing through the Hollywood hills."
Most other "friends" had been more tactful than to repeat such gossip to my face. I started to cry. "Look," he said, both guilty and triumphant, "we"re supposed to work together. I"ll come pick you up, we"ll drive to my house at the beach and talk."
Red lights and warning buzzers should have been going off--STAND AWAY F FROM THE DOOR, NOT A THROUGH STREET, TOXIC IF INGESTED--but I didn"t see or hear them. Since Ryan had just indicated he found me unappealingly fat, and since establishing some bond of friendship seemed a good preamble to working together, I agreed. Ryan barely acknowledged me when I got into his Porsche and almost knocked down the exit gate in his impatience to leave, giving me a filthy look as I buckled my seat belt. I couldn"t figure out if he was trying to keep me off balance by shifting his mood without warning. There was no possibility of conversation--was singing along to loud acid rock on the radio--he left the motor running with the music blaring when he pulled into a 7-Eleven. I could see him sharing some laughs with the counterman as he paid for a six-pack of Coors.
Pulling up to his house off the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, he touched a b.u.t.ton on the dashboard and the garage door opened, revealing a wooden floor with a rich varnish like a gymnasium. I turned to comment on such unexpected elegance, but he had already vanished inside, leaving the door open behind him. I"d been in this house for a party once, had already seen the pool table, the stereo equipment, the bra.s.s-framed movie mementos ("To Ryan, with deep and sincerest affection, William Holden"), but then I was with Peter, and I"d stayed downstairs.
"Ever seen my bedroom?" he asked. "C"mon upstairs. The view is fabulous." WRONG WAY: NO OUTLET, DANGEROUS CURVES--I still didn"t see the signs.
Climbing the stairs, we entered a bachelor pad, decorated in earth tones with a fur spread on the bed-the real thing, I think. Suddenly there was a clatter of bottles coming from the bathroom. Ryan ran in and emerged a moment later, with a pretty girl in tow. She was wearing a cheap cotton shift and rubber gloves. "This is Sarah," he said familiarly. "She"s doing a little tidying up, but she"s going to come back later. Now beat it, honey," he said, giving her behind a playful slap. As soon as she left, he turned to me and said, "I don"t know why I let her in here--she has no idea what she"s doing." I didn"t know what she was doing either, but I had clearly interrupted something.
Gesturing toward a couch, he said, "Have a seat," but he stood near the window with its spectacular view of the surf, pointing out the various celebrity homes up and down the beach. "I can see everything that _____does," he said, naming a well-known actor, "and believe me, he"s weird." Then he came to the sofa, standing over me. "You know, you could be really good if you had the right parts," he said. "Something has happened to Peter. He has to get back on track, and you"ve got more to do with it than anyone." As he tallied, he periodically used both hands to cup his b.a.l.l.s, which were right at my eye level, a gesture that, at the time, I didn"t know as checking his package.
The whole scene was starting to give me the creeps. I stood up, saying that it was getting late and I needed to get back. He stopped me by putting his arms around my shoulder, drawing me close to his chest, and making little moans of satisfaction as we swayed back and forth, one of his hands on my neck and the other at the small of my back. I started to pull away and felt his muscles resist, stop me for an instant and then relax. I excused myself to use the bathroom, and when I came out, he was looking at his watch--another mood shift.
"I"d better be going too," he said irritably. "I"m supposed to pick my son up by six."
On the way home, he put a Vivaldi ca.s.sette in the car"s tape deck. "If you like this," I said in a friendly tone, "I can turn you on to some music that makes this sound like s.h.i.t."
He snapped his head around. "How can you say this is s.h.i.t?" he snarled.
"I didn"t mean that," I said hastily, seeing that I had insulted his tastes and not wanting to provoke him. "I just meant that there"s some beautiful Beethoven I"d like to play for you...."
"I know about Beethoven," he said, then popped out the Vivaldi and turned on the radio full blast, although it could barely be heard through the whoosh from the open sunroof. The Vivaldi turned out to be part of the soundtrack for Ryan"s next film, Barry Lyndon Barry Lyndon, and after I"d seen it, I sent him a copy of the Beethoven Piano Concerto no. 4 with the inscription, "This is a fitting tribute to your superb performance." He never responded.
Both Nickelodeon Nickelodeon and and Taxi Driver Taxi Driver were to be made for Columbia Pictures, whose president, David Begelman, announced that I had to choose between the two. It was a tough decision--Peter had written a part especially for me, incorporating my myopia into the character, which gave me an excuse to do a lot of pratfalls. But we were still in a public relations abyss--of the kinder a.s.sessments at the time labeled me "a no-talent dame with nice b.o.o.bs and a toothpaste smile and all the star quality of a dead hamster." We both knew that anything we did together in this vitriolic atmosphere was doomed. And not working with Ryan O"Neal was the consolation prize. It was a crushing disappointment to give up were to be made for Columbia Pictures, whose president, David Begelman, announced that I had to choose between the two. It was a tough decision--Peter had written a part especially for me, incorporating my myopia into the character, which gave me an excuse to do a lot of pratfalls. But we were still in a public relations abyss--of the kinder a.s.sessments at the time labeled me "a no-talent dame with nice b.o.o.bs and a toothpaste smile and all the star quality of a dead hamster." We both knew that anything we did together in this vitriolic atmosphere was doomed. And not working with Ryan O"Neal was the consolation prize. It was a crushing disappointment to give up Nickelodeon. Nickelodeon. The part went to... Jane Hitchc.o.c.k give u"d modeled with me in New York. And Begelman got busted for embezzling money from the studio. The part went to... Jane Hitchc.o.c.k give u"d modeled with me in New York. And Begelman got busted for embezzling money from the studio.
In 1975, Robert De Niro still had a youthful, almost preppy quality, the ant.i.thesis of his character in Taxi Driver, Taxi Driver, the psychotic Vietnam veteran Travis Bickle. We used the same technique of scrawling microscopic notes on the script, covering every inch of the page, but I"d never seen an actor immerse himself in a role at De Niro"s level of intensity. He actually got a hack license, and during the preproduction phase, when he was still filming 1900 in Italy with Bernardo Bertolucci, he would leave Rome on a Friday, fly to New York, and drive a cab for the weekend. He went to an army base in northern Italy to tape-record the voices of some soldiers from an area in the Midwest that he wanted to use for Travis Bickle"s accent. Once we started filming, he stayed in character all the time. Waiting for the cameras to be set up for our "date" in Child"s Coffee Shop (airless in hundred-degree heat and perfumed by years of lard for deep-fat frying), he stared at me with a goofy but menacing half grin so disorienting that I called over the hairdresser to change the dynamic to a less threatening threesome. the psychotic Vietnam veteran Travis Bickle. We used the same technique of scrawling microscopic notes on the script, covering every inch of the page, but I"d never seen an actor immerse himself in a role at De Niro"s level of intensity. He actually got a hack license, and during the preproduction phase, when he was still filming 1900 in Italy with Bernardo Bertolucci, he would leave Rome on a Friday, fly to New York, and drive a cab for the weekend. He went to an army base in northern Italy to tape-record the voices of some soldiers from an area in the Midwest that he wanted to use for Travis Bickle"s accent. Once we started filming, he stayed in character all the time. Waiting for the cameras to be set up for our "date" in Child"s Coffee Shop (airless in hundred-degree heat and perfumed by years of lard for deep-fat frying), he stared at me with a goofy but menacing half grin so disorienting that I called over the hairdresser to change the dynamic to a less threatening threesome.
Scorsese, who was given to wearing white straw fedoras with colorful hatbands, used the sights and sounds of New York City like a big palette of colors to create a mood, and he dealt with the limited budget by shooting at night with a minimal crew and high-speed film, as if for an underground movie. He liked his actors to improvise and videotaped our efforts with a handheld black and white camera during rehearsals in his St. Regis hotel suite, inserting the bits of dialogue that worked best into the script. De Niro is a master at underplaying, doing little and having it be effective. That"s part of what makes it so terrifying when Travis Bickle does go off the deep end. The first day of shooting, I remarked to Scorsese that De Niro epitomized Hitchc.o.c.k"s advice to actors: Don"t put a lot of scribble on your face. "I think I should try to match that," I said, and it became my pact with Scorsese.
"Do less," he would say. Then, ""Now do even less." And then, ""Now. do even less than that."
One day, De Niro and I were walking up Fifth Avenue together at the end of the day.
"Do you want to get some barbecue?" he asked, fixing me with a s.e.xy half-smile.
In approximately an hour, I was expecting The Producer on my doorstep, after an absence of three or four weeks, and I wasn"t about to blow off what I knew would be a torrid reunion, not for this intense, inscrutable man who still seemed to be vaguely in character. "I can"t," I said. "I have someone, a friend, in town."
"Oh," he said, "is Peter here?"
"Not Peter."
He grew rather quiet, walked me to the door of my apartment, and said good night. Other than as Travis Bickle, that was the last time he spoke to me during the filming.
At the end of the shoot, I had a special taxi key chain made and inscribed for Scorsese-it cost the larger part of my salary. I was so grateful for the opportunity, but it wasn"t until twenty years later when the film came out on video disk that I could fast-forward quickly enough through the savage finale and realize that I"d been given an extraordinary last scene. Of course, I remembered shooting it, but wasn"t sure that it made the final cut: I"m a wimp about movie violence, even though I know it"s really chicken blood or Max Factor Technicolor Blood Number 5. Recently, I saw those final rearview mirror shots of Travis and Betsy, who has unknowingly gotten in his cab. At the end of her last ride, she leans through the window and starts to apologize to Travis. She appears to realize there"s no point and dejectedly asks, "How much was it I feel a subtext between Cybill Shepherd and Robert De Niro, almost as if I"m saying, "I"m sorry I didn"t give you a tumble," and he"s saying, "You better believe you"re sorry, baby. You can"t imagine what you missed."
It wasn"t until the re-release of that film that I was credited with a performance of any merit--at the time I was still the no-talent dame with big b.o.o.bs too closely a.s.sociated with Peter Bogdanovich. Julia Phillips, one of the film"s producers, declared in You"ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again You"ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again that the only reason the Italian Scorsese had cast me was my big a.s.s. that the only reason the Italian Scorsese had cast me was my big a.s.s.
OVER THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS, A SERIES OF STROKES had disabled and silenced my grandfather. Still physically capable of speech, he mostly sat in a chair seeming rather docile and lost, as if he didn"t know quite where he belonged, until he was summoned elsewhere, like the dinner table. Moma took him to Romania for monkey-gland injections, which, to the surprise of no one else in the family, did nothing to help. I"d gone home to see him propped up for their fiftieth wedding anniversary party. Failing in memory and strength, he spent the last year of his life in the Rosewood Nursing Home and died in the fall of 1975. had disabled and silenced my grandfather. Still physically capable of speech, he mostly sat in a chair seeming rather docile and lost, as if he didn"t know quite where he belonged, until he was summoned elsewhere, like the dinner table. Moma took him to Romania for monkey-gland injections, which, to the surprise of no one else in the family, did nothing to help. I"d gone home to see him propped up for their fiftieth wedding anniversary party. Failing in memory and strength, he spent the last year of his life in the Rosewood Nursing Home and died in the fall of 1975.
My reaction was curiously impersonal and detached, more an acknowledgment of a milestone than a true sense of sorrow. I thought, in all naivete, that Da-Dee had ceased to have any power over me or my direction in life. His funeral was to be the first I ever attended, not counting the time that our dog Freckles unsuccessfully tackled a car on Highland Park Place, a far more traumatic event in my life. I didn"t even want to go home, but my mother insisted, and it would have been unseemly to take Peter. He had not seen my mother since her insults at the premiere of Picture Show Picture Show, and Peter is nothing if not grudge holding. The Producer volunteered to come along, and his twisted humor got me through the day--we exchanged irreverent glances about the wavering vibrato of the buxom redhead singing the gospel that Moma loved, along with the absolute latest in dying offered by the Memphis Memorial Gardens. There were three panels of automated curtains: the first opened to reveal the coffin to the immediate family; the second revealed the coffin to the larger group of mourners; the third revealed the family to the mourners. I stared at the folded freckled hands of the man in the open coffin, the only part of him that looked as elegant as in life, his once vibrant face shriveled and masked with makeup, his ungainly ears oddly flattened against his head by the mortician, and I thought I might throw up.
My grandfather"s last words, according to my brother, were, "Don"t let the hens getcha." He had never placed much faith in Moma"s business ac.u.men, and I remember more than one occasion when she"d say, "Cybill, darlin", rush to the bank with this cash. I"ve just bounced a check, and I don"t want Da-Dee to find out." Trying to ensure that my grandmother would never get control of Shobe, Inc., he named the bank as trustee, but Moma fought his posthumous bully pulpit in court for six years and won the right to run the firm herself. For the following twenty years, she used the company letterhead for all her correspondence, simply writing "Mrs." in front of her husband"s engraved name.
A few months after my grandfather"s funeral, I was alone with Peter at Copa de Oro. It would be the first time we listened to my alb.u.m Mad About the Boy Mad About the Boy together. Peter had already heard it and wanted to be free to give me notes, so he requested that The Producer not be present. That night I was talking to a friend on the phone when I heard a strange click on the line. Immediately I had the thought that someone was in the house. (We"d had two intruders there: an overzealous fan who walked ough the gate behind a deliver), truck, with a picture of me in his wallet, and an escapee from a mental inst.i.tution who ran through the halls screaming, "Where am I?") I quickly dialed the emergency number for the Bel Air Patrol, then went and got Peter from his office, and we locked ourselves upstairs, me wishing I"d been willed part of Da-Dee"s a.r.s.enal. When the security police arrived, they searched room by room, suddenly yelling from the bas.e.m.e.nt: "We"ve got somebody. Says he knows you." together. Peter had already heard it and wanted to be free to give me notes, so he requested that The Producer not be present. That night I was talking to a friend on the phone when I heard a strange click on the line. Immediately I had the thought that someone was in the house. (We"d had two intruders there: an overzealous fan who walked ough the gate behind a deliver), truck, with a picture of me in his wallet, and an escapee from a mental inst.i.tution who ran through the halls screaming, "Where am I?") I quickly dialed the emergency number for the Bel Air Patrol, then went and got Peter from his office, and we locked ourselves upstairs, me wishing I"d been willed part of Da-Dee"s a.r.s.enal. When the security police arrived, they searched room by room, suddenly yelling from the bas.e.m.e.nt: "We"ve got somebody. Says he knows you."
My heart nearly stopped when two security men in gray uniforms brought The Producer upstairs, slumping, with a firm grip on each of his arms. He had his own set of keys to everything in our lives and had let himself in. "It"s okay," Peter said, "we know him." Once we declined to press charges and the cops left, The Producer gave us an explanation about being there--he had wanted to hear Peter"s unexpurgated comments about the Getz alb.u.m, and he adamantly denied being the telephone eavesdropper. I was sure that Peter would find out about our secret past, but he seemed to accept the theory that The Producer had been temporarily wiggy and stressed out too.
But I was growing weary of amorous subterfuge that smacked of my teenage years and remorseful about my duplicity. Having s.e.x with another man"s business a.s.sociate is pretty much beyond the pale. And living with a lie is a prescription for going crazy. Chekhov wrote that the quickest way to reduce the stature of a man is to lie to him. I had done that with both Peter and The Producer.
Feeling the stress, I started grinding my teeth at night until my doctor prescribed Valium. I was dreaming about a clean slate, starting fresh, not lying. In a moment of unprecedented candor, I sat with The Producer in a Westwood coffee shop and told him it was over. He had been such a significant presence in my life--maybe not the creative partnership I had with Peter, nor the irresistible flame of Elvis, but an enduring pa.s.sion. We used up half of the thin folded napkins in the metal dispenser as surrogate Kleenex.
It would be so easy to dismiss the next decade of my life as the lost years, defined by unremarkable or irredeemable projects. There was a movie called Special Delivery Special Delivery with Bo Svenson, who introduced himself to me by knocking at my dressing-room door and dropping his pants. I couldn"t even get Michael Caine to kiss me as an adulterous s.e.x kitten in with Bo Svenson, who introduced himself to me by knocking at my dressing-room door and dropping his pants. I couldn"t even get Michael Caine to kiss me as an adulterous s.e.x kitten in Silver Bears. Silver Bears. The first time I saw him coming across the ornate lobby of the lakeside hotel in Lugano, Switzerland, he seemed to glow from within--here was a real movie star. But shooting our love scenes, his mouth clamped shut, and a damp line of perspiration formed on his upper lip. The lack of heat was so obvious that the director, Ivan Pa.s.ser, came to me privately and asked if I couldn"t warm things up. The first time I saw him coming across the ornate lobby of the lakeside hotel in Lugano, Switzerland, he seemed to glow from within--here was a real movie star. But shooting our love scenes, his mouth clamped shut, and a damp line of perspiration formed on his upper lip. The lack of heat was so obvious that the director, Ivan Pa.s.ser, came to me privately and asked if I couldn"t warm things up.
"He won"t kiss me," I protested.
"Well, you know what to do," said Pa.s.ser. Actually, I didn"t. But once the production moved to London, Caine"s att.i.tude changed: he was frisky, enthusiastic, inspired.
"Am I imagining it, or is the difference apparent?" I asked Pa.s.ser.
"Sure," he said, "Shakira"s in town." It seemed that Caine was a more pa.s.sionate leading man when he could look past the camera and see his own wife on the set. But Silver Bears Silver Bears suffered the fate of being Columbia"s "other" movie, released in 1978 at the same time as suffered the fate of being Columbia"s "other" movie, released in 1978 at the same time as Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Almost no promotional efforts or finances were put into it, and the film disappeared. Almost no promotional efforts or finances were put into it, and the film disappeared.
There would have been no problem playing love scenes with the cameraman, since we were acting them out privately. All my resolve about fidelity didn"t amount to a hill of beans. I saw, I wanted, I took. In my long career of sleeping with charming cads, he was among the charmingest and caddiest, a married rogue with long black hair and a goatee who liked to drive his Mercedes at a hundred miles an hour. During one l.u.s.ty encounter, he sucked my chin so hard that the next day, I looked like a bruised peach, and when he viewed me through the camera lens, he started to laugh. When we were scheduled to shoot some footage in Las Vegas, I made sure I got to the location early so we could have some time together. The first night I came down to meet some of the movie people for dinner and saw him already sitting at the table, nuzzling another blonde. I could hardly justify outrage that a married man was not only cheating with me but on me. For several days, I lay around my room at Caesar"s Palace nursing a broken heart, writing self-pitying poems and listening to a constant odd hum that turned out to be the lights on the building"s facade. As much as I liked to believe, even announce, that I could have a relationship that would be purely physical, not emotional, I got hooked. Miserable and looking for distraction, I went to see Sinatra perform and found him strangely wooden and listless. I found out that he had chartered a plane to bring his mother out to Vegas--the same plane that had been used for the shooting of Silver Bears Silver Bears the previous day--nd it had crashed into the side of a mountain. the previous day--nd it had crashed into the side of a mountain.
Since I knew I had a lot more to learn about acting, I sought advice from Orson Welles. "I don"t know which direction to take," I said. "I may have an offer to do a revival of the play The Philadelphia Story The Philadelphia Story in New York, or I have a definite offer from the Tidewater Dinner Theater in Norfolk, Virginia, to do in New York, or I have a definite offer from the Tidewater Dinner Theater in Norfolk, Virginia, to do A Shot in the Dark A Shot in the Dark, or I could go study with Stella Adler in New York."
"Do not take acting cla.s.ses," he said. "When you walk through the door, you will be envied and despised because you are already more famous than most of them will ever be. Learn by doing theater, and do it anywhere but Los Angeles or New York. Just make sure that you talk loud enough so that people in the last row can understand what you"re saying. n.o.body will support you, but it will be the most important thing you ever do. It will give you an opportunity to fall on your face. The audience will teach you what you need to know."
The only person who thought this was a good idea was Gena Rowlands. "Oh, Cyb," she said, "it"s easy, and you"re going to have the time of your life." Everyone else acted as if there might be the need for an intervention, including Peter. (Stella Adler actually supported the theater plan, with a caveat. "No more ingenues," she said. "Play what you haven"t lived. It will help you with your life.") I went to Virginia, reprising Julie Harris"s murderous role in A Shot in the Dark. A Shot in the Dark. That"s when I really fell in love with acting. What I discovered is that film is more a medium for the director and the editor, but in the theater, the writer and the actor have more control. The preparation is intense, but once the performance starts, there"s no one saying, "Cut," or "That was a little over the top, Cybill, take it down a peg." Every night, from the entrance stage left to the final curtain, there is a full dramatic arc to follow. After opening night I felt: Not only do I have wings, but I can fly. That"s when I really fell in love with acting. What I discovered is that film is more a medium for the director and the editor, but in the theater, the writer and the actor have more control. The preparation is intense, but once the performance starts, there"s no one saying, "Cut," or "That was a little over the top, Cybill, take it down a peg." Every night, from the entrance stage left to the final curtain, there is a full dramatic arc to follow. After opening night I felt: Not only do I have wings, but I can fly.
In 1978 Peter was still depressed about the failure of Nickelodeon, Nickelodeon, thinking that his career was going to h.e.l.l in a hand basket, even without me. He was set to direct thinking that his career was going to h.e.l.l in a hand basket, even without me. He was set to direct Saint Jack, Saint Jack, the book whose rights I"d won as part of the settlement in my suit against the book whose rights I"d won as part of the settlement in my suit against Playboy. Playboy. There was never a part in it for me, but I thought it was an unusual story and even wrote a first-draft script. There was never a part in it for me, but I thought it was an unusual story and even wrote a first-draft script.
I was starting to feel an impetus for another kind of production, but Peter had always rejected the notion of his ever having another child. If I had been asked even a year before whether I wanted children, I would have sai no. I was afraid it would keep me from doing what I wanted to do in my life. But at the age of twenty-eight, I began longing intensely for a baby.
The last time I"d broached the subject with Peter, we had just made love. "Please don"t bring that up again," he said with mood-killing finality, grabbing a robe at the end of the bed and sitting down at his desk with his back toward me. Part-time single fatherhood was one long unending battle for Peter, and pushing the issue probably meant unconsciously scripting the end of our relationship.
Sensing a last hurrah, a few months later I joined him on location for Saint Jack. Saint Jack. I flew to London and then on to Singapore, where we stayed at the fabled Raffles Hotel--romantic in a slightly seedy way, cooled by ceiling fans reportedly invented for the hotel in the late 1900s by the Hunter Fan Company of Memphis, Tennessee, which had given me one of my first modeling jobs. One night we were sitting in the lounge drinking potent Singapore slings when I realized that the fans were no longer spinning, but the room was. I flew to London and then on to Singapore, where we stayed at the fabled Raffles Hotel--romantic in a slightly seedy way, cooled by ceiling fans reportedly invented for the hotel in the late 1900s by the Hunter Fan Company of Memphis, Tennessee, which had given me one of my first modeling jobs. One night we were sitting in the lounge drinking potent Singapore slings when I realized that the fans were no longer spinning, but the room was.
There was a small part in the film played by a beautiful young Asian actress named Monika Subramaniam, who lowered her eyes when she met me and lit up like Las Vegas when she saw Peter. I didn"t confront him. He didn"t have to confess. I just knew. Our relationship was limping to an end anyway. This didn"t help.
TWO THINGS HAVE ALWAYS SAVED MY LIFE: READING and singing. Books and music have comforted me, informed me, helped me define myself. It"s impossible to overstate their importance to my mental health, spiritual sustenance, and survival on the planet. The difference, of course, is that while reading is private, personal, unexamined, with no need to explain or justify, singing is quite the opposite. I put my voice out there to be examined, reviewed, sometimes reviled, as I"ve done since childhood, when my parents would ask me to sing for company and I always felt that people seemed a little disappointed. But I always come back to it. Every song has at least one character--and I don"t need a movie studio or TV network to finance it. Cabaret is an opportunity to tell stories around a fire. From an early age, long before the benefit of therapy, I have felt my heart healed by singing. But it takes the most courage of all. For the performer it"s like being stripped naked, and for the audience it"s like being in the performer"s living room--really torturous if you don"t like the person. I"ve had some mean things said about my voice. No matter: even if I felt that my singing was utterly unappreciated, it would remain a necessary component of my life. and singing. Books and music have comforted me, informed me, helped me define myself. It"s impossible to overstate their importance to my mental health, spiritual sustenance, and survival on the planet. The difference, of course, is that while reading is private, personal, unexamined, with no need to explain or justify, singing is quite the opposite. I put my voice out there to be examined, reviewed, sometimes reviled, as I"ve done since childhood, when my parents would ask me to sing for company and I always felt that people seemed a little disappointed. But I always come back to it. Every song has at least one character--and I don"t need a movie studio or TV network to finance it. Cabaret is an opportunity to tell stories around a fire. From an early age, long before the benefit of therapy, I have felt my heart healed by singing. But it takes the most courage of all. For the performer it"s like being stripped naked, and for the audience it"s like being in the performer"s living room--really torturous if you don"t like the person. I"ve had some mean things said about my voice. No matter: even if I felt that my singing was utterly unappreciated, it would remain a necessary component of my life.
I was feeling disconnected from Peter, even though nothing had been articulated between us, and I had no movie or TV offers. So I went to New York and sang on Sundays at a glorified hamburger joint in Greenwich Village called the Cookery. The rest of the week belonged to the extraordinary blues artist and fellow Memphian Alberta Hunter, who had learned the music that played on the gramophone in the St. Louis brothel where she went to work as a ladies" maid when she was eleven years old. She wrote Bessie Smith"s first hit "Down-Hearted Blues" (""I"ve got the world in a jug and the stopper right here in my hand, and if you want me pretty papa, you better come under my command."). Her performance was so moving, so dignified, so authoritative. Music is about the pauses as much as the notes, and even her breathing between the phrases was powerful. Alberta called me "Memphis" and always greeted me with tremendous warmth, which was more than the audience did. I stood at a microphone in front of a small room, singing over the sounds of conversation and cutlery banging against crockery. n.o.body wanted to hear me--one woman approached the stage and asked quite loudly, "Where"s the rest room, honey?"e in my>During the two weeks of my engagement, I slept in a tiny room at the Pierre Hotel with three different men in quick succession: one was the s.e.xy young waiter at the Cookery, who roamed the room in a figure eight moaning "Woe is me. I"ve been in love with you my whole life, and now I can"t get it up." Two was an agent I met, a married father of five. (I know, I know.) Three was Charles Grodin. My Heartbreak Kid Heartbreak Kid costar, who I had found distant, humorless, and unappealing, called when he heard about me performing and shocked me by making me laugh. Either he got funny or I finally had a sense of humor. We went to dinner at a dive not listed in any guidebook, the sort of dark and clandestine place that is the culinary equivalent of the No-Tell Motel. Our one-night stand never went beyond the morning after, when I found out that he was living with someone else. costar, who I had found distant, humorless, and unappealing, called when he heard about me performing and shocked me by making me laugh. Either he got funny or I finally had a sense of humor. We went to dinner at a dive not listed in any guidebook, the sort of dark and clandestine place that is the culinary equivalent of the No-Tell Motel. Our one-night stand never went beyond the morning after, when I found out that he was living with someone else.
Suddenly, and rudely, my life as a s.e.xual libertine caught up with me. The only protection I"d ever been taught was abstinence, based on an archaic morality. Condoms had become antiques--at that time there were no s.e.xually transmitted diseases that couldn"t be treated out of a prescription bottle. When I moved to Los Angeles with Peter, I had been on the Pill since I was sixteen. When I was twenty-seven, I had a notoriously gallivanting Copper-7 IUD, which eventually got "lost" and X rays were required to locate and retrieve it. By the time I was in New York, I was using a diaphragm. But it was not fail-safe.
Even a woman who feels pa.s.sionately that abortion should be safe and legal does not terminate a pregnancy with an easy heart. For me it was testimony to another kind of failure, like going back to the s.e.xually secretive dungeon of high school. I checked into a clinic under a false name on a Sat.u.r.day when there were no other patients and vomited from the anesthesia by myself in the recovery room. I told no one what I was doing.
The female body gearing up for pregnancy is a hormonal roller coaster. The hips automatically tilt forward; the body has more blood and fluid. (When I later became pregnant with twins, I needed a retainer because my bottom teeth started moving around.) The aftermath of my abortion was like hitting the wall. Along with the feeling of relief was a nagging wonder: will I get another chance? Regardless of how important and correct the choice was at the time, a woman always wonders about the child she didn"t choose to bring to life.
Women will always end unwanted pregnancies, safely when they can, unsafely when it"s the only option, and several hundred thousand die every year as a result. I"ve marched for the right to choose, and I know, deep in my bones, that pregnancy as punishment is bad for both women and children.
I knew I had done the right thing. But I was feeling the emptiness of s.e.x with men who didn"t matter, feeling like I didn"t matter to them either. I actually felt like a hooker when the owner of the Cookery paid me for singing by saying, "Here, baby," and stuffing some crumpled twenty-dollar bills in my hand. Like a wounded animal, I called my mother, who listened, mostly silent, as I poured out my unhappiness. I heard my voice rise and soften like a little girl through sniffles and sobs. Finally my mother spoke, strong and rea.s.suring. "Cybill," she said, "come home." She had gone through her own miserable and lonely post divorce odyssey, finally carving out a busy, optimistic life. At fifty-three, she met a charming and high-spirited widower named Mondo Micci which is p.r.o.nounced "Mickey" in Memphis), a former Golden Gloves champion who used to climb up the fire escape at the Peabody Hotel to sneak into the rooftop dances there. For the first time in her life, she was being protected and cared for by someone else, making it so much easier for her to protect and care for me.
I"M ALWAYS PRESSING MY NOSE TO THE AIRPLANE WINDOW One of those buildings feels like my foster child. A musician named Hillsman Wright was involved in a effort to save from demolition the grand old Orpheum Theater at Beale Street and Main, the ornate movie palace of my childhood dreams, where I"d seen The Ten Commandments The Ten Commandments and and Gone With the Wind. Gone With the Wind. He took me backstage, up rickety staircases, and across catwalks dating from its days on the vaudeville circuit, and he played Bach on a monster Wurlitzer pipe organ as it rose up from the orchestra pit. That was all I needed to get involved in the fund-raising campaign, making a public service announcement and eventually singing Hoagy Carmichael"s "Memphis in June" at the Orpheum"s fiftieth-anniversary celebration. He took me backstage, up rickety staircases, and across catwalks dating from its days on the vaudeville circuit, and he played Bach on a monster Wurlitzer pipe organ as it rose up from the orchestra pit. That was all I needed to get involved in the fund-raising campaign, making a public service announcement and eventually singing Hoagy Carmichael"s "Memphis in June" at the Orpheum"s fiftieth-anniversary celebration.
One night I went with my brother to Blues Alley, a smoky club on Front Street near the riverbank. Leaning against the bar was a burly, dark-haired man whom I first mistook for the cameraman, the English cad who broke my heart. This was David Ford, who was twenty-five years old (three years younger than I), and still living with his parents in the suburb of White Haven and working as the manager of the parts department at a Mercedes repair shop near the airport to pay for cla.s.ses at the University of Memphis. I sent him one of those nakedly undisguised C"mon-a-my-house looks that are possible between strangers in nightclubs, and before the evening had ended, I knew we were destined to be lovers. I thought: Maybe I can find happiness in Memphis with a regular guy. Maybe I can find happiness in Memphis with a regular guy.
Thus began an interesting confluence of events, as my mother and I were both dating others but living under the same roof. While David and I were necking on the living room couch, I"d hear a car pull in the driveway, idling for too long until the motor shut off, when Mother would come inside with a satisfied smile. The first time David and I made love, we had to wait until my mother was asleep before we raced to my brother"s bedroom. After all those years, I was still sneaking around.
Before urban renewal almost renewed Beale Street out of existence, most white folks went there in the wee small hours after too many martinis, observing a tradition known as Midnight Rambles. Back then, Beale Street was mainly wh.o.r.ehouses, p.a.w.n shops, and saloons like Pee Wee"s, where in 1912 William Christopher Handy first put the notes on paper for a song he called "Memphis Blues." No one had ever used the word blues in a song t.i.tle before, and as a result, in the 1970s Congress proclaimed Handy "Father of the Blues" and declared Memphis "Home of the Blues."
David Ford became my companion in the search for my musical roots. He introduced me to Ma Rainey II who, from a wheelchair, could whoop up "Got My Mojo Working" better than anybody. I also got to know Furry Lewis, another Memphis legend. Though his recording career had ended in the thirties, he"d had an amazing career revival in the sixties, opening for the Rolling Stones and making frequent appearances on the Tonight Show. Tonight Show. During the lean years in between, he had been employed as a street sweeper for the Memphis sanitation department. His slide guitar technique, sweet voice, and songwriting skills were backed up by a dignified but wicked sense of humor. One time we visited his home where he sat on the side of his bed playing guitar, singing, and talking. He wore thick c.o.ke-bottle spectacles to compensate for cataracts, and kept a saucer on the top of his gla.s.s. In between sips of Ten High Whiskey he said, "I can"t see too good and I want to be sure there"s nothin" in there but the High." During the lean years in between, he had been employed as a street sweeper for the Memphis sanitation department. His slide guitar technique, sweet voice, and songwriting skills were backed up by a dignified but wicked sense of humor. One time we visited his home where he sat on the side of his bed playing guitar, singing, and talking. He wore thick c.o.ke-bottle spectacles to compensate for cataracts, and kept a saucer on the top of his gla.s.s. In between sips of Ten High Whiskey he said, "I can"t see too good and I want to be sure there"s nothin" in there but the High."
I was privileged to get to know and work with many more great Memphis musicians: Lee Baker, Jimmy Crosthwaite, Jim d.i.c.kenson, Little Laura Dukes, Prince Gabe, Honeymoon Garner, L. T. Lewis, Harold Mabern, Don McMinn, Jamil Na.s.ser, Calvin Newborn, Sid Selvidge, Bob Talley, William Thais, and Mose Vinson. Grandma Dixie Davis would so inspire me with her barrel-house version of Handy"s "Beale Street Blues that I would sing it for twenty years and finally record it in 1998 on my CD Talk Memphis to Me. Talk Memphis to Me.
When you hear the blues in Memphis, the musicians kind of sit back on the melody, playing a little behind the beat so that if the leader holds a phrase out for an extra measure they can follow with a kind of fa-lop. fa-lop. That"s what makes it funky. That"s what makes it Memphis. As Lee Baker used to say, "even the Memphis Symphony plays behind the beat." That"s what makes it funky. That"s what makes it Memphis. As Lee Baker used to say, "even the Memphis Symphony plays behind the beat."
In 1978 I recorded Vanilla Vanilla, my third alb.u.m of standards, featuring the renowned jazz pianist Phineas Newborn, Jr. The producer was tenor saxman Fred Ford (he had howled like a dog on Big Mama Thorton"s recording of "Hound Dog"). He was surrounded by his Beale Street USA Orchestra, usually twenty pieces but, as he said, "mortified down to twelve for this occasion."
In 1978 I was quite optimistic about my first TV movie. A Guide for the Married Woman A Guide for the Married Woman was a follow-up to was a follow-up to A Guide for the Married Man, A Guide for the Married Man, a clever romp about the art of adultery. David managed to take some time off and accompany me to Los Angeles, staying at my apartment. I sent David and a bad toothache to the dentist who treated Peter and me, and the two of them happened to cross paths in the office. The dentist mentioned that the s.h.a.ggy-haired fellow, who"d just left was an out-of-town referral from me, and Peter figured it out. When I drove to Copa de Oro to see Peter, he confronted me with his suspicions. I admitted to the affair and in a fury he threw a heavy crystal ashtray across the room. It was a final gesture of disillusionment at the end of our grand plans. There was a visible dent where it shattered on the tile floor. a clever romp about the art of adultery. David managed to take some time off and accompany me to Los Angeles, staying at my apartment. I sent David and a bad toothache to the dentist who treated Peter and me, and the two of them happened to cross paths in the office. The dentist mentioned that the s.h.a.ggy-haired fellow, who"d just left was an out-of-town referral from me, and Peter figured it out. When I drove to Copa de Oro to see Peter, he confronted me with his suspicions. I admitted to the affair and in a fury he threw a heavy crystal ashtray across the room. It was a final gesture of disillusionment at the end of our grand plans. There was a visible dent where it shattered on the tile floor.
We did have one last phone call. Feeling bad about the ashtray-throwing scene and knowing that both of us were in Los Angeles, I tried to reach out to him and called to ask if it was okay to come over and talk. I didn"t know that his latest squeeze, Monika, was also in residence and that he was hosting a party for a dozen of our mutual friends.
"It"s really not a good time," he said with genuine discomfort in his voice. Later he would say that he wanted to make everyone else disappear. Although he"d never told me, I think he wanted to give our relationship another chance. But I was calling to repair, not renew. Our reparations would be postponed, but once made, they have endured to this day. Peter remains one of my only truly intimate friends, and I think the main reason for our abiding friendship is that I never took him to court to get money. When I moved out, I said, "Send me whatever you think is mine," and he sent rugs, books, his father"s paintings. There were no lawyers to extend the period of discontent. And we say "I love you" to each other as much now as when we were a couple.
The best thing about A Guide for the Married Woman A Guide for the Married Woman turned out to be the way, my hair looked. Next, in the summer of 1978, I was cast in a remake of the witty forty-year-old Hitchc.o.c.k cla.s.sic turned out to be the way, my hair looked. Next, in the summer of 1978, I was cast in a remake of the witty forty-year-old Hitchc.o.c.k cla.s.sic The Lady Vanishes The Lady Vanishes, shooting at Pinewood Studios outside London and in the Austrian Alps. I was cast as a "madcap heiress" working with a Life Life photographer played by Elliott Gould to solve the disappearance of Angela Lansbury on a train. Though I"d played madcap before, this time I got the wardrobe right: a bias-cut white silk satin dress worthy of Carole Lombard. (The costume department made nine identical copies.) In one scene I was supposed to run alongside a vintage steam engine on fist-size sharp gray rocks, wearing high heels. I had sprained my ankle playing basketball in high school, so the director Anthony Page agreed to let me do it in high-tops, shooting me from the knees up and earning the eternal grat.i.tude of my ligaments. Angela and I sang Gershwin together while waiting for scenes to be set up. But Gould was mercurial, seemingly detached from the process and easily miffed. One day we were told about some glitch in production. photographer played by Elliott Gould to solve the disappearance of Angela Lansbury on a train. Though I"d played madcap before, this time I got the wardrobe right: a bias-cut white silk satin dress worthy of Carole Lombard. (The costume department made nine identical copies.) In one scene I was supposed to run alongside a vintage steam engine on fist-size sharp gray rocks, wearing high heels. I had sprained my ankle playing basketball in high school, so the director Anthony Page agreed to let me do it in high-tops, shooting me from the knees up and earning the eternal grat.i.tude of my ligaments. Angela and I sang Gershwin together while waiting for scenes to be set up. But Gould was mercurial, seemingly detached from the process and easily miffed. One day we were told about some glitch in production.
"Oy vey," I said with a weary sigh. I said with a weary sigh.
"Don"t ever use that expression again!" snapped Gould. "You have no right." (Years later I would tell this story to the Jewish producer of Moonlighting, Glenn Caron, who said, "That"s ridiculous," and immediately wrote me an "Oy vey" vey" scene.) scene.) I didn"t want to be away from David, but he knew that if he took any more time off from his job, he"d be fired, so his arrival in Europe, unemployed, was a rather emphatic declaration of love and commitment. The only discordant note in our reunion was a bellhop at the hotel asking him "Where shall I put your bags, Mr. Shepherd?"-a portent of things to come. We stayed near Pinewood at a three-hundred-year-old inn called something like the Crocked Bull, with ceilings so low that we had to bend over to climb the stairs. There was no central heating, and I had to report to the set in the frigid predawn, so David lovingly got up with me and filled the tub with the hottest water. When we made love, I had the primal, mystical, earliest awareness of conception.
Not long ago, that child remarked, "I wish I"d been wanted." Extracting the knife from my heart, I convinced her that nothing could be further from the truth. Just because a pregnancy is unplanned doesn"t mean a child is unwelcome. My children were wanted, which is the most important message of pro-choice, for to be wanted is a child"s surest protection against being abandoned or abused. David and I decided to live in Memphis (naively, I thought it would be possible to have a career while bringing up my child in the place that felt like home, a feeling that eludes even native Californians). And we decided to marry, despite my lack of enthusiasm for the inst.i.tution, because in my hometown, wedding bells are the socially acceptable antecedent to impending parenthood. When Michael Carreras, the film"s executive producer, heard there was to be a wedding, he asked if we"d like to be married in the Anglican church and signed an affidavit stipulating that we"d been staying with him in the parish to satisfy the residency requirements. But I had to fill out a lot of paperwork for the rector at St. Peter"s of Wynchecombe. He wore pince-nez over almost colorless eyes that indicated years of study in musty church archives, and had no discernible sense of humor.
"How old are you?" the vicar asked.
""Twenty-eight," I said.
"A spinster," he noted.
"I am not," I said, heartily offended.
"Miss," he said sternly, "if you"re over eighteen and unmarried, you"re a spinster."
The wedding took place just before we left for the States. I recited the standard wedding vows about "honoring," eliminating the "obeying" part, but in private I made a heartfelt pledge to David. "I will never lie to you," I promised. "I will never cheat on you. I will always be honest with you. Just don"t ask me any questions if you don"t want to hear the answers. And don"t leave me alone." I didn"t have any illusions about happily ever after, and left to my own devices, I didn"t trust myself to be faithful. My wedding gown was a boldly printed red and black dress that was the best thing I had in my suitcase. I didn"t have a mother or a father there, butI had a producer and director: Michael Carreras walked me down the aisle, and Anthony Page was best man. But I was so violently nauseated, it was all I could do to keep from tossing my cookies at the altar (although my queasiness about marriage might have had something to do with my equilibrium), and I literally ran from the magnificent poached salmon at the wedding lunch, held in an old vicarage owned by Anthony"s sister. For months, the food that stayed down was avocados and digestive biscuits. And we lied to my grandmother about the date of the wedding.
There was a glorious Victorian house for sale in a historic district of downtown Memphis, but Bob Sanderson, the real estate agent who was a friend of my mother, kept intoning in a solemn voice, "Dead in bed, you"ll be dead in bed." So we chose (and I paid for) a modest 1928 bungalow on Court Street, half a block from the apartment where my mother had lived as a baby. One of the two bedrooms had a deck shaded by a beautiful old dogwood, but what sold me was the huge wooden swing, big as a bed, on the front porch. My mother never forgave Bob for letting me pay the asking price. He said $75,000, and I said okay. I figured if I paid the full freight, they"d have to sell it to me. (The owners of another house I wanted had reneged on the deal when a better offer came along. As Kipling said, "There is no promise of G.o.d or man that goes north of ten thousand bucks.") And I went to the dealership where my grandfather bought a new white Cadillac El Dorado every year (my family had made a religion of white automobiles) and got myself a silver Caddy.
David and I attended childbirth cla.s.ses given by two certified nurse-midwives: Peg Burke, a former nun who had served in Vietnam during the war, and Linda Wheeler, who had worked for Vista. Their att.i.tude was: even though there is no such thing as a "normal" birth, every woman should have the freedom and dignity of being prepared. They gave me an extensive reading list that included Childbirth Without Fear Childbirth Without Fear by Grantly d.i.c.k-Read. Nearing the age of thirty, I had heard next to nothing about menopause until I read these books, some of which reduced the process to a one-liner: you dry up and you take hormones. (I decided I"d skip that stage.) by Grantly d.i.c.k-Read. Nearing the age of thirty, I had heard next to nothing about menopause until I read these books, some of which reduced the process to a one-liner: you dry up and you take hormones. (I decided I"d skip that stage.) I gained forty-five pounds during my first pregnancy (even though I kept missing my mouth whenever I ate because my swollen belly kept me at some distance from the table), and just to keep me company, my husband, David, gained fifty. But our mutual leviathan state was not a deterrent to a satisfying s.e.x life, proving once and for all that size has nothing to do with eroticism. Relatively late in my third trimester, I was given permission to fly to London for the premiere of The Lady Vanishes The Lady Vanishes, my doctor figuring that I"d literally be in good hands, since it was a benefit for the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. But none of my maternity clothes were worthy of a premiere, let alone a royal one. A kindly saleswoman gave me the name of a shop in Palm Beach that catered to very wealthy, very large women. I was sent a fire-engine red dress festooned with read feathers and beads. I looked like a transvest.i.te Santa Claus. I turned my instructions about meeting the queen into a little mnemonic verse (wear white gloves, don"t chew gum, call her Ma"am, which sounds like Mum), and I should have charged admission to the comic routine of a gigantic me trying to curtsy while towering over the pet.i.te and porcelain-skinned monarch.
Guided by the midwives, David and I had made a list of things to take to the hospital: nuts, raisins, cheese, lollipops, a thermos, a plastic rolling pin, and a sock with a tennis ball for back labor, lotion for back rubs, Chapstick, breath freshener, tape recorder, guitar, change for the vending machines, and a pre-washed flannel baby bonnet. As I was packing the bag, we had a fight. I have no idea why. I couldn"t sleep, so I got up and cleaned the whohouse. As I was dusting the bookcase, my water broke. There were no contractions, so we were told to go to the hospital. Room 518 had been reconfigured into a birthing center. Peg, Linda, and David took turns breathing with me, rubbing my shoulders, feeding me ice cubes, and keeping me as comfortable as possible. David tried to distract me by sticking an empty diaper box on his head and playing the guitar. But twenty-seven hours later I was exhausted but not fully dilated. I was given the synthetic hormone Pitocin to stimulate contractions. It felt like being electrocuted. I couldn"t handle any more pain and pleaded for drugs. My epidural lasted for forty-three minutes and then it started to wear off.
"I"m ready for more, please," I announced.
"You can have more," Peg said. "It"s your decision, but if you do, you might not be able to push the baby out when the time comes, and if that happens we"ll need forceps."
"When is this motherf.u.c.ker going to be born," I growled.
She looked at the clock, which said 6:11 P.M. "Seven o"clock," she said.
My darling Clementine arrived at 6:59 6:59 P.M., weighing eight pounds, two ounces. After the hardest work of my life, I was starving, and David brought me an enormous stack of blueberry pancakes with double bacon on the side. P.M., weighing eight pounds, two ounces. After the hardest work of my life, I was starving, and David brought me an enormous stack of blueberry pancakes with double bacon on the side.
When she was christened six weeks later at Calvary Episcopal, I wore Birkenstocks. My mother and grandmother complained, but I told them Jesus wore sandals and would have understood.
I"d never seen anyone nursing a baby until I was pregnant myself, at my first meeting with the La Leche League, an international network of women dedicated to promoting and sharing information about breast-feeding. I called the instructor for advice all the time, especially when I started to travel. Some doctor in a strange city would tell me I couldn"t nurse if I was taking a certain antibiotic for strep throat, but the La Leche leader would check the most updated list of medicines and a.s.sure me that Clementine would suffer no ill effects. It was a wonderful way to start parenting, a bonding experience that my own mother had been denied because of a breast infection, although she was horrified that I nursed in public places.
"I just hope you don"t embarra.s.s the family," she said. "How long do you intend to do this?"
"I think Clementine should be weaned by the time she"s in first grade," I said.
"Sarcasm does not become you," she harrumphed. "And of course you know you"ll lose your bustline. You"ll probably need one of those breast deductions."
The first appearance I made after Clementine"s birth, when she was six months, was an alb.u.m-signing for Vanilla, Vanilla, and just as I was chatting up the disc jockey of a local radio station, I started to feel the pins and needles that signaled my milk letting down. I was still wearing pregnancy clothes, and the sticky fluid seeped through the synthetic red knit material of my pantsuit jacket, making a rapidly expanding wet circle. I grabbed an alb.u.m and held it in front of me until I could stop the leakage by pressing my wrists against my nipples. and just as I was chatting up the disc jockey of a local radio station, I started to feel the pins and needles that signaled my milk letting down. I was still wearing pregnancy clothes, and the sticky fluid seeped through the synthetic red knit material of my pantsuit jacket, making a rapidly expanding wet circle. I grabbed an alb.u.m and held it in front of me until I could stop the leakage by pressing my wrists against my nipples.
I was still about twenty pounds overweight when I tried out for an Albert Finney film called Wolfen, Wolfen, having been told that the director wanted "a Lauren Bacall type." I wore high heels thinking I"d look thinner. (I had to look it up to know that the part went to... Diane Venora.) Instead, I got to do having been told that the director wanted "a Lauren Bacall type." I wore high heels thinking I"d look thinner. (I had to look it up to know that the part went to... Diane Venora.) Instead, I got to do The Return The Return, not quite the worst movie ever made but close. The plot, such as it was, concerned aliens who come to Earth and inhabit cows. Raymond Burr played my father, Martin Landau was a scientist, and Jan-Michael Vincent was my love interest--a rather sad group of actors, all of us trying to resurrect our diminished careers. Burr read his lines off a teleprompter. To simulate the s.p.a.ceships comig to Earth, there was a helicopter rigged with lights that created a dust bowl as it hovered above us, so noisy you couldn"t even hear yourself scream. I did the scene once, then walked over to the prop man and asked to borrow his walkie-talkie.
"We"re going to try this one more time, Cybill," the director said through static.
"I don"t think so," I said. It was just too scary. (A short while later, the actor Vic Morrow and two young children would be killed in a helicopter accident on a movie set, and the director, John Landis, would face criminal charges. He was ultimately acquitted.) That same night I had to be tied up in Bronson Cave near Griffith Park, surrounded by gas torches. The prop man kept trying to light them, and the gas kept blowing the match out. I could hear the sound of the gas getting louder in the one next to me--whoooooosh, then a sudden explosion, like the gas grill years before, and I couldn"t get loose. Ever since then, I have had an extreme aversion to being tied up.
The Return was eminently forgettable in every way, though I"ll always remember it just because I had the largest b.r.e.a.s.t.s and wore the tightest jeans of my career. (The fashion of the time dictated that jeans were supposed be so snug that you had to lie flat in bed and lift your hips up to close the zipper.) I was still expressing breast milk while I was working outside the house so that it wouldn"t dry up, so I could continue nursing Clementine. First I bought a breast pump at the drugstore, a fiendish device worthy of the Spanish Inquisition, with a lever that clamped down and sucked my nipple into an elongated clear plastic tube, a perfect realization of the expression "a t.i.t in the wringer." The La Leche League had taught me that the best breast pump is the human hand anyway, so I gave up the mechanics and stood over the sink, squeezing milk out like Elsie the Cow. When I"d ask the teamsters for yet another roll of paper towels to mop up the floor of my trailer, they"d groan, "Must be milking time again." I"d long since given up the Los Angeles apartment, so I stayed at a motel in Santa Monica and took the baby for walks in Ocean Park with all the local loonies, like the guy who wore a cowboy hat and a black ski mask. was eminently forgettable in every way, though I"ll always remember it just because I had the largest b.r.e.a.s.t.s and wore the tightest jeans of my career. (The fashion of the time dictated that jeans were supposed be so snug that you had to lie flat in bed and lift your hips up to close the zipper.) I was still expressing breast milk while I was working outside the house so that it wouldn"t dry up, so I could continue nursing Clementine. First I bought a breast pump at the drugstore, a fiendish device worthy of the Spanish Inquisition, with a lever that clamped down and sucked my nipple into an elongated clear plastic tube, a perfect realization of the expression "a t.i.t in the wringer." The La Leche League had taught me that the best breast pump is the human hand anyway, so I gave up the mechanics and stood over the sink, squeezin