A Lotus Grows in the Mud (17 page)

It wasn’t that long before I won it that I had been dancing on a three-legged table at the Peppermint Box. Since then, I’d been transformed into a star of television, had gone into analysis, and married my first husband, someone I believed I was going to spend the rest of my life with. I was halfway through my four-movie deal with Columbia, so there was no major hike in my salary, no change in the studio’s perception of me, just a couple new words at the beginning of my name on the credits. They now said “Oscar winner” Goldie Hawn.

Although these new words were now attached to me, I never considered them part of my definition of me. At this stage in my life, I was still trying to figure that out for myself. Instead, I came to the conclusion that these kinds of iconic things are just what they are: icons. They shouldn’t hold any other power. They shouldn’t become a symbol of anything other than that special moment in time. My father taught me that it is important to remember that no matter how wonderful applause is, it is just noise.

The important thing in life is what we are doing today. What we are doing tomorrow. Not what we did yesterday. Through my long journey of self-discovery, I have come to understand that my Oscar is not who I am. I am not my success; I am not my model; I am not my fame.

I was right about my Oscar. It was a long time before I was ever nominated again, and I haven’t won an Oscar since. I can’t say that it hasn’t been lovely having my gilded statue sitting in the various places that I have put it over the years. But getting awards is not what I work for; it is not what any of us should work for. Such motivation, for your art, is misguided.

Decide what your clear intention is in your chosen field. If it is to win an award, then you may or may not win, but it won’t change the reality around you. It’s nice to have; it’s a good thing. But to set more importance on it than it deserves means you are overestimating its power. An award is just a little icing on the cake, a fun night, but it can never fully define you or be the declarative sentence that describes your genius, because it doesn’t.

We play a game at home. Who won the Academy Award last year? Who won it two years ago? In my book, only the geniuses remember that.

T
he next time I came in contact with Ingrid Bergman was entirely unexpected. Shortly after my marriage to Gus sadly ended, I went on a journey across Europe with a Swedish actor I had met. I took a left-hand turn.

Almost strangers, the two of us traveled across Europe before arriving in Norway, en route to his home. It felt like we had landed in fairyland with all its little houses and heart-embossed shutters. One day, I promised myself, I would build a house like that.

My friend took me on an old fishing boat out into the North Sea to meet a friend of his called Lars, who owned a house on an island. Crossing the oily dark water, we finally reached our destination: a small island on which sat a house built out of the rock. Lars and his girlfriend, a beautiful young model, were waiting for us on the dock. They were charming and hospitable, and as the boat disappeared off into the mist I felt as if I had landed in one of Grimm’s fairy tales. Inside their beautiful home, they had prepared for us a delicious dinner of gravlax and salads, meatballs and herrings. I watched the love and reverence with which they prepared the food and was in awe. Outside, through the window, I could see the waves crashing dramatically on the shore.

Tired but elated, we retired that night with full and happy hearts. They showed us our room, which was dominated by a most beautiful wooden chest. Painted across it was a single name:
INGRID
.

“Who’s Ingrid?” I asked innocently.

“That’s Ingrid Bergman,” my friend replied.

“Why, is this Ingrid Bergman’s house?” I asked.

“Yes, it is.” He nodded.

Thrilled to be in the home of someone I considered a friend, I looked around with renewed interest at all her lovely things, the way she had decorated the rooms with hearts and flowers and candles. I could feel her presence in this house, sense her remarkable spirit. I was sud
denly filled with joy. Turning back to my friend, I asked curiously, “Then who is Lars?”

“Her husband.”

I slumped onto the bed, winded. Looking up at him in horror, I whispered, “Does she know?” There was a lump in my throat. “Does she know he has a lover?”

“Oh yes,” came the casual reply. “A long time ago. It is just one of those things.”

I slipped between the sheets that night unhappily. I wanted to be far away from this place.

Is this my future too? I asked myself sadly. Is this how it ends? Marriage after marriage after marriage before settling for whatever you can get, even if it means knowing there are other people? Is this my fate? Is this the fate of all successful women in Hollywood?

I had already seen the loneliness of the female movie star. It is a cross borne by every successful woman in Hollywood. When you are famous, no matter how much you try to include your partner, whenever you walk into a room people look only at you. You end up being endlessly apologetic, trying to introduce him, make him feel less excluded. There are very few men who can live with a woman who is, or is perceived to be, more powerful than they are.

That is what destroyed my marriage to Gus—and that alone. There was never a lack of love or comfort. Stardom and the baggage that came with it is what drove a wedge between us. And because there was so much love, neither of us wanted our relationship to die an ugly death. He wanted to see me succeed. I wanted to see him thrive, to feel like a man in his relationship. And so we had to end it. We both knew it. We let each other go, fully mindful of the reasons why.

I shed silent tears for dear Ingrid that night. She didn’t deserve this. She was beautiful and powerful and loving, and she so deserved to be loved in return. Like me, she had won her first Oscar very young, when she was still in her twenties. She went on to win two more. But, more than that, she had tended to me and cared for me and shown me such kindness. I wanted her to have all the rewards she deserved for a life well
lived. I felt that I was betraying her in some way by even being in the same house as her husband and his lover. I felt complicit. I knew I couldn’t stay.

We left the following day. Thanking our hosts for their hospitality, I turned my back on Ingrid’s beautiful house of hearts forever.

M
y father is laughing, rocking back in his chair, his eyes squeezed shut. My sister and I are sitting opposite him and Mom around Patti’s kitchen table. There is a barbecue going outside, there are cream puffs in the oven, but we are too busy telling our parents of our great adventure to Italy together.

Dad is all ears while Patti and I roll over each other as we speak, finishing each other’s sentences with our sisterly syncopation. We can hardly talk because we are laughing so hard at all the things that happened to us in Europe.

Mother, sitting with her legs crossed, flicks her cigarette absent-mindedly on the tablecloth while beaming proudly from ear to ear.

Daddy says, “Laura, your ash is going all over the table.”

In her raspy voice, my mother snaps, “Oh, Rut, for Christ’s sake, listen to the kids already.”

Patti and I glance at each other and smile. I am home at last. It feels so good. Little has changed, and I feel like Patti’s little sister again, my favorite role of all.

Daddy takes his trusty tape recorder out of his pocket and hides it behind the milk carton, recording our every word. Yeah, like we can’t see it. He is always up to something.

“So,” he says, baiting us, “start from the beginning.” He hee-haws in his high-pitched way and starts firing silly questions at us, just to keep us going.

Patti begins, “It was so hot…”

“Yeah, it was really hot. We wanted to jump into the…”

“How hot?” Daddy asks.

“Oh, I dunno, eighty-two…”

“No,” I cut in, “maybe eighty-five.”

“Rut, let them finish, honey,” Mom cuts in. “Who cares how hot it was? Come on, let’s go. Go on, girls.”

We continue like this for hours—Dad taping the whole story, making us repeat things just in case the recorder isn’t working; Mom trying to keep things on track, knowing it doesn’t really matter. It is the most beautiful day. Here we are, just the four of us, our entire family, rolling with laughter. This is what I miss the most—just hearing the harmony of our joy.

M
y sissy is so beautiful, I think, as she reaches up and places her bag in the overhead compartment of our plane. She is the true flower-power girl. Everything, including her big straw hat, is adorned with flowers. I notice her hourglass figure, the one I didn’t get. Small waist, beautiful breasts, and a shock of red hair falling down to her shoulders from beneath her hat. She loves hats. She loves to party. She loves a good time. And that’s just what we are going to have in Italy.

It is 1970, and I have been awarded the coveted David di Donatello Award, Italy’s equivalent to the Academy Award, for
Cactus Flower.
Goody, goody, I finally get to receive an award for that movie in person. Maybe this will make up for the time I wasn’t able to be there. Only I’m a year late in picking it up, because I’ve been filming
There’s a Girl in My Soup.
With all expenses paid, Rome is a place I have never been, and I have an extra ticket. My sister is the only person I want to go with. It is time for us to play.

Our lives up to this point have been badly out of sync. She moved out of the house when she was nineteen, leaving me like an only child. She moved to the suburbs and had babies and had the life I once imagined myself having with Willy Hicks. Only I didn’t have the babies, or Willy
Hicks either. I became a movie star instead, and wasn’t home enough to bridge the gap to our grown-up years.

This is time for us, just us. Not Mom or Dad. Not husbands or children. Not the growing responsibilities of our daily lives. Patti can dress up every day in a new outfit, and so can I. We can go wherever we want to go—the best hotels, great restaurants, in chauffeur-driven cars that can make left-hand turns.

We fly over Rome, peering down at all the buildings and the rolling green hills threaded by the mighty River Tiber. When we land in Rome, we are whisked by limousine to our hotel, which is on a hill. The weather is glorious for June, and as we stare in openmouthed wonder as we pass the Coliseum and the Vatican—which is like nothing either of us has ever seen—the laughter just pours out of us.

“Okay, what do you want to do first?” I ask as we unpack in the suite we have decided to share.

“Drink a cappuccino by the Trevi Fountain!” she announces.

Our feet barely touch the ground for the rest of the trip. We walk the streets as if we own them. In our floaty frocks and big hats, we make quite the pair. The Italian men flirt outrageously with us, and we flirt right back. We feel sexy and sassy. My sister. I don’t want this feeling to end.

My sister has such big energy; she is so alive. She walks quickly; she talks quickly; she is always on the go. She loves to sing; she laughs big; she is very feminine, and there is a lot of sexuality about her, the flaming redhead. Best of all, she has so many of the childlike qualities that I do.

Over the course of the next few days, I watch Patti be as happy as anyone I could possibly imagine. And it doesn’t take a lot to make her happy. A chance to go somewhere new, a new hat that looks fabulous—these things can make her day. I wish I could give her a new hat every day.

O
n the night of the di Donatello Awards, we get dolled up to the nines in our suite like two best girlfriends, drying each other’s hair, sharing makeup, zipping each other into our clothes. She
looks gorgeous in a beautiful green silk gown. I choose something simple, a sparkly little dress that I wear with some perilously high-heeled shoes.

The limousine collects us and drives us to the ancient Baths of Caracalla, built by the Romans in the third century
A
.
D
. It is an amazing setting for the awards, open to the sky, surrounded by redbrick walls and deep sunken baths in which emperors once bathed.

“
Prego, signorine.
This way,” someone urges as they usher us past the waiting paparazzi and into the main arena. Patti and I blink into the flashlights popping wildly all around us and do as we are told. The evening has been organized with great pomp and circumstance, with a grand procession to the stage, but also with the Italians rushing about and speaking so fast and so expressively that it all seems a little chaotic.

“
Mamma mia!
Where is the stage director?” someone shouts.

“Bellissime.
This way.
Prego!”

The organizers seem so disorganized, and everything looks like a Fellini movie, it is so over the top. I start to giggle, and then Patti starts to giggle, and we both know that we are treading on very dangerous ground. When the organizers try to separate us, sending Patti to the auditorium with the other VIP guests and me up toward the stage to wait for my award, we almost lose it completely, and they have to leave us for a moment and come back.

“Okay, now, stop it,” I plead, wiping tears from my eyes and checking my makeup in her mirror, “we’ve got to pull ourselves together. I know Dad instilled a healthy disrespect for this industry in us, but in a few minutes I have to go up and make a speech.”

Nodding, pursing her lips, yet with her eyes full of mischief, Patti allows me to compose myself before kissing me good-bye and wishing me luck.

A handsome young Italian in a tuxedo leads me backstage and introduces me to my fellow awardees. There is Bernardo Bertolucci, and Franco Zeffirelli, the famous film directors, and all these other
ucci
s and
elli
s whose names I can’t remember. With only one syllable to my surname, I feel like an impostor.

Oh well, I think to myself. At least I get to take home one of these
gorgeous eighteen-karat-gold replicas of the statue of David by Donatello. He’ll look just perfect next to Oscar.

Ryan O’Neal arrives backstage, and the chaos rises to a new level. Everyone fusses around him, wanting his autograph or his photo. He is here with Ali MacGraw to accept an award for
Love Story.

“Stand here, Signor O’Neal. Wait there, Signor. Smile into this camera, Ryan.” They say the name Ryan so that it sounds like “Orion.” I can’t help but giggle.

Ryan and Ali are at the peak of their careers. They seem unstoppable. Robert Evans is there too in his capacity as Ali’s husband, but he is a big producer at Paramount and really happening in Hollywood. I stand to one side, watching these big players being shoved this way and that with increasing pandemonium, and feel completely out of place.

Ali MacGraw sweeps in, wearing the most amazing gaucho outfit, with a black hat and silver studs, looking absolutely gorgeous. She strides across that stage—which I now notice with alarm is raked dangerously downhill toward the audience—and accepts her beautiful golden statue with a flourish. Not only does she look fabulous but, to my horror, she speaks fluent Italian both to the presenter and to all the people watching.

“Grazie tante,”
she concludes, as the crowd applauds enthusiastically. “
Mia tutte.
I love you all.”

Perfect, I mouth to myself. How in the world do I follow that?

“And now,” the presenter announces, “for Best Supporting Actress for her role in
Cactus Flower,
Signorina Goldie Hawn.”

A ripple of polite applause goes up, and I teeter with little baby steps down the stage toward the presenter. The closer I get to the microphone, the more I imagine what I must look like after Ali, and the more I begin to laugh.

Hardly able to walk as I negotiate the raked stage, I can see myself flying off and straight down into the Baths of Caracalla. Worst of all, I know that Patti is out there somewhere. Catching a glimpse of her at the front, I dare not look at her.

Reaching my spot with enormous relief, I turn to the presenter and try to pull myself together. Turning to his assistant for my award, he takes not the beautiful gold statue of David worth thousands of dollars
but a strange and rather ugly lump of green rock with a gold-embossed plaque. He plops it in my hands, and it is so damn heavy that it almost throws me off balance and straight into the orchestra pit.

“Oh. Oh, thank you.” I smile, looking longingly at the other gold statues.

“I’m sorry,” he explains, “we don’t give those to people who come a year late.”

Finding the whole situation more and more absurd, holding on to my lump of green rock with both hands, I approach the microphone and open my mouth to speak. But just as I begin with “
Signore
and
Signori
…” the orchestra cuts in and my time is up.

Catching my sister’s eye and abandoning all attempts to control myself, I give myself over completely to the sheer release of laughing. My mascara bleeding and desperately trying not to blow snot from my nostrils, I climb to the back of the stage, knees bent, steadily making the ascent clutching my rock, while the orchestra drowns out my howls of mirth.

My award being the last, suddenly everyone else is brought back onstage, and I find myself standing next to Sophia Loren, who is proudly flaunting her beautiful gold statue. With a long drumroll, the presenter announces that the 1970 David di Donatello ceremony has come to an end. As the orchestra strikes up, he pulls on a red cord and fifty white doves are released from a box into the warm night air above us, flicking feathers and droppings all over us.

Well, that just about finishes me off. I am now laughing so hard that I actually pee my pants, right then and there, next to some of the most illustrious movie stars in Europe.

Goldie Hawn, I hear a voice say in my head, you might as well just pack it up and go straight back to where you came from, girl, because you sure as hell don’t belong here. My knees clamped together, doubled over, I know that I shall almost certainly never be asked again.

“A
nd then…and then Goldie was holding this thing that was so heavy she could hardly move!” Patti is squealing into Daddy’s tape. “My sister—your daughter—was standing there, laughing so hard,
I just knew she’d wet herself…I thought she was going to roll down that stage, right into my lap.”

My father is laughing. So is my mom.

“Honestly, Daddy, I felt like I had my finger up my hiney! I didn’t know where to go. I didn’t feel like I belonged.”

My father laughs. “Oh, you two hippies. You so don’t belong up on that stage!”

“I know!” I agree.

“Oh, but then we went to Capri,” Patti continues, her eyes bright, her skin golden from the Italian sun. “Ryan O’Neal invited us to a party at Valentino’s house! It was amazing. Right by the sea…”

“And everything was in zebra,” I chip in. “Even the bathroom!”

“Zebra?” Dad repeats.

“In the bathroom?” Mom scowls.

We giggle some more, and Dad moves the microphone closer to capture every precious drop.

“We hired a little motorboat, driven by this gorgeous Italian,” I continue, “and he took us to the Blue Grotto.”

“We had to crouch down to go in, and, when we did, it was unbelievable. Electric blue. Oh, Mom, you should have seen this place…”