A Lotus Grows in the Mud (8 page)

Suddenly, a laugh rises up from the audience like a hot-air balloon. I feel a flicker of panic. Oh God, you’re not supposed to laugh in Shakespeare, are you? Juliet isn’t supposed to be funny. Uh-oh, what did I do? I pull myself together and continue with the scene. When I leave the stage, Howard Scammon doesn’t seem to have noticed. “Very good, my dear.” He smiles, nodding. “Very good.”

The play carries on as Romeo, Mercutio and Benvolio sneak into a party at their rival Capulets’ house. There, Romeo spots Juliet and falls in love. Then it is time for me to rush up a rickety spiral staircase to get to my most cherished part: the balcony scene. I want to fulfill every teenage girl’s dream. I reach the top and the spotlight flicks on. I am illuminated high over everybody’s heads, up in the trees. I can’t wait to deliver the lines “O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?” secretly hoping nobody will laugh. I so want to get it right. The good news is I don’t fall off and the scene goes well.

Later, in the most tragic scene of all, I awaken from my potion-induced sleep to discover that my beloved Romeo has needlessly taken
his life. I know this scene like the back of my hand, and I go down deep inside myself and pull out everything I’ve got.

Willy Hicks shares the stage with me as the friar as I waken and stir. “O comfortable friar! where is my lord? / I do remember well where I should be, / And there I am. Where is my Romeo?” His eyes urgent, he grabs my hand and tries to pull me away. “Lady, come from that nest / Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep…” and then runs off the stage, afraid of being discovered.

“What’s here? a cup?…” I begin, my eyes alighting on the goblet drained of its poison by my beloved, “…closed in my true love’s hand?” Sniffing at it, my eyes strange with grief, I murmur, “Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end.”

Just as I begin to really lose myself in the moment, I feel a spot of water on my face. Then one on my hand, and another on my head. Looking up, I see that it is beginning to rain, soft summer rain. I feel it settling on my hair, my clothes, my skin. For a moment, I don’t know what to do because no one is moving. Should I stop talking or go on?

“O churl!” I cry, “drunk all, and left no friendly drop / To help me after? I will kiss thy lips; / Haply some poison yet doth hang on them, / To make me die with a restorative…Thy lips are warm.”

I kiss the lips of Romeo as the rain gets heavier. In panic, I look across at Willy, now standing in the wings, and he motions to me with his hands and mouths the words, Keep going, keep going.

Nobody moves, not even the children on the lawn looking up at me with their heads in their hands, so I carry on. Kissing Romeo’s lips again, I start at the noise of people approaching and look around in fear.

The rain comes harder now and a few people put up umbrellas. Some get up and leave, but most just sit there. Willy is still nodding at me, encouraging me on. Keep going, he continues to gesture. Through the light drizzle, I carry on through to the dramatic conclusion.

Cupping my hand over my right ear, “Yea, noise?” I cry, “then I’ll be brief O happy dagger! / This is thy sheath”—plunging it deep between my breasts, I slump forward and gasp finally—“there rust, and let me die…” Rising up as if in pain, I allow my body to go limp and collapse.

Lying across Romeo’s warm body, the dagger in my chest, I peek up to see the guards arrive, and then Willy Hicks comes onstage in his friar’s robes to speak some of the play’s most poignant lines. The rain dripping off the hood of his habit, he catches my eye and winks before speaking his last line: “…if aught in this / Miscarried by my fault, let my old life / Be sacrificed, some hour before his time, / Unto the rigour of severest law.”

The prince and the Capulets and Montagues flood onto the stage, united in their grief. As they stand around in shock, the prince declares: “For never was a story of more woe / Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”

There is nothing but silence. It seems interminable. Opening an eye, I see that some of the children on the lawn in front of me are weeping.

One by one, the members of the audience stand until nobody is left sitting. Their applause increases in volume and intensity until Willy Hicks lifts me by the hand and leads me to the front of the stage to take our bows.

I am experiencing my first standing ovation. I never want it to end. The experience feels so pure, so perfect. Something magical is happening.

Out of the corner of my mouth, I say to Willy, “I didn’t know whether to go on when it started to rain.”

“Goldie,” he replies, his eyes bright, “I don’t think anyone would have noticed if the sky had fallen in.”

Out in the audience, I spot my father walking straight toward me. A few paces behind him are my mother and Patti, both beaming. Daddy’s eyes are fixed on mine, an expression on his face I don’t recognize, and he weaves his way through the departing crowd and walks, backlit, right up onto the stage.

Staring at me as if he has never seen me before, his piercing blue eyes burn right through me. “Go,” he says finally, “where in the world did you learn to do that?”

The last word lodged in his throat, he turns his head away quickly, spinning away from me so that I won’t see his tears. Throwing my arms around his waist from behind, I rest my head on his back. “Oh, Daddy, I don’t know.”

I
t was never my intention to become an actress, least of all a comedic one. That wasn’t what I lived for. I wanted to be a prima ballerina or a Broadway chorus girl but never the goofy, crazy Goldie Hawn most people think of today. That comedy just happened, unintentionally, and I think it all began with a desire to be liked and to fit in.

Well, that and the fact that some people just seem to look at my face and laugh. In one of my earliest dramatic roles, a high school production of
Bye Bye Birdie,
I played the mayor’s wife but it wasn’t really acting. My character had to keep fainting over a handsome young man, and each time they picked her up she had to faint again. Using my dance training, knowing what a funny move was and what wasn’t, I made my body loose like the cartoon character Olive Oyl, and it worked.

That was the first time I knew I could make people laugh, really laugh, and the reputation followed me throughout high school. Kids used to say, “Remember the time when you brought the house down?”

Later, when I was in a comic play called
Shot in the Dark
in Maryland, every time I came onto the stage and opened my mouth the audience began to howl. My mother saw the show, and she came backstage afterward and stared at me in a curious way.

“You know, Goldie,” she said, cocking her head to one side, “I don’t think you’re funny.”

“I know,” I said, so relieved that someone finally agreed with me. “I don’t either! I mean, what
are
all those people laughing at?”

It was many years before I realized that much of what made people laugh was my own physicality—my big smile, my giggle, the way I rolled my eyes and all the things I hated about myself as a young girl that combined to create something infectious.

I learned at Williamsburg that I could act in the toughest Shakespearean dramas if I wanted to, but I also learned that I didn’t have to—there were plenty of other people who could do it far better than me. It was a long time before I really understood that what I ended up doing actually had its own value.

We are all in service. Making people laugh is what we do. We’re jesters; we help people forget their troubles. We’re there to depict certain aspects of humanity, to mirror some truths. This was a lesson for me in authenticity, about finding my strengths and honoring them.

There have been times in my life when I have longed for Juliet and all that she meant to me. I have wanted to go back to her simplicity, to the beauty and value of what she gave me. There was an alchemy about that special night; a mysterious blending of people and place and time that led all of us who were there to drink from it deeply. I know I have never forgotten how it felt to have my father stand there and look at me for the first time as an adult.

The key is to look at our gifts, understand their power and modulate them realistically. Understand how important it is to honor them. Accept responsibility for them.

I feel so fortunate to have been put in the limelight and allowed to shine. I don’t own this thing I do. It’s not mine. It’s what I was given. I try to hold this gift lightly and thank God for it.

A
cockroach scuttles across my arm. In my sleep, I find myself standing in the middle of a room I don’t recognize. Where am I? Oh yes, I remember. As my brain begins to focus, I realize I am in my one-room apartment in New York City. Opening my eyes, I watch the cockroach scurry across the floor and disappear through a crack in the wall. It is May 1965, and I am in my first apartment on West Seventieth Street, an area known locally as “Needle Park.”

Cringing at the cockroach and wondering how many others share his space beneath the floor, I feel homesickness flooding my heart. On the dirty white walls I summon a comforting image of my old bedroom on Cleveland Avenue, my street of hopes and dreams. In my waking dream, I can see the oak tree that stands tall outside my window, the azaleas, dogwoods and hydrangeas in the yard that my mother planted. Catching sight of myself now in a cracked mirror that hangs on the wall, I look no better than a long-necked baby bird fallen from the nest, waiting for its mother to rescue it.

My mother. The image swirls and I can see her warm brown eyes cradling pools of tears as she waves good-bye to me in front of our redbrick home just one month ago. My throat tightens and I choke back a sob inching its way up my gullet.

“Mommy, please don’t cry,” I tell her. “New York City is only five hours away.”

For a moment, she looks more like a child than I do. Is she crying for
me or for herself? For the mother she lost as a child? Or her first child, a baby boy who died in his crib? She sheds tears so rarely, but, when she does, her face is etched with the hidden pain of her life. When Laura Hawn weeps, so does the world. Or maybe just my world. I don’t know.

Daddy’s comic appearance slinking through the front door saves the day. Determined to be upbeat, he gives me the wide grin that always lifts my heart. Sharing the special little dance we do that makes us both giggle, he glide-steps, dip-steps and whirls me around. Leaning against the hood of his old black Cadillac, he offers me some lofty pearls of wisdom.

“Hey, Kink. Whatever you do, stay real in the big city,” he advises. His arm is draped loosely over Mom’s shoulders in a rare show of affection that steadies them both. “Show business is a fake business, so don’t let it fool you. Don’t walk around looking up at all the buildings, people will know you’re a newcomer. Always look like you know where you’re going even if you don’t.”

“Anything else?” I laugh.

“Yes. Don’t pick your nose in public.”

He and Mom couldn’t be more different. But standing side by side, they are a monolith of strength. By uniting their own amazing proteins of life, they have manufactured their own petri dish of creation in which Patti and I have grown.

The cab pulls away from the sidewalk on our dead-end street with me sitting in the backseat. Twisted round, never taking my eyes off them, I wave and wave at the two people I love more than anything in the world, and who love me back more than anyone ever will again. I only turn away when the cab rounds the corner and they are lost from my sight, severing the invisible umbilical cord that holds me so close.

If I knew then that I would never live with my parents again, I don’t think I would ever have left.

T
he school bell rings across the street, shattering the image on my wall and dispelling the nostalgic postcard from my past. This was the reason I took this crummy apartment in the first place: the school.
The sound of the children playing makes me feel a little easier about being a stranger in a strange town.

Realizing the time, I rush around the room, pick out a dress for my first modeling audition, stuff my big white vinyl dance bag with swimsuits and hope I won’t be late. Poking a tongue out at myself in the mirror before I tackle the four heavy locks on my front door, I think to myself, I wish I didn’t look so much like a parakeet.

Come on now, Goldie Jeanne, I tell myself sternly as I dash out the door and run down the stairs. This could be your lucky day.

But I am stopped at the entranceway to my building. Blocking it is a woman who has passed out.

“Excuse me, miss!” I cry. “Excuse me. I’m sorry, but you can’t sleep here.”

She looks up at me, her eyes rolling inside her head. Mumbling something unintelligible, she dribbles saliva down her chin before slumping back to the floor.

Hearing the creak of a hinge, I turn to see the door to the basement apartment opening. Inside sits a bald man in a grubby, darkened room. He is half dressed, sitting in dirty old shorts with his legs apart. He glares at me so ferociously when I meet his gaze that I gasp. Where the hell am I living? I ask myself. Under my breath, I close my eyes and repeat, There’s no place like home. There is no place like home.

But no magic spell transports me back to Takoma Park, and I realize that this is the reality Daddy spoke about. Looking up, I spot a uniformed police officer strolling past the entrance to our building. Leaping over the woman at my feet, I run outside.

“Excuse me, officer!” I call. “Please, can you help me?”

“Sure,” he says with a twisted grin. “What can I do for you?”

“There’s a woman passed out in my hallway and she doesn’t belong there. Could you help me? I’m a little scared.”

“Not a problem, ma’am,” he says, and follows me inside.

“Come on, Deidre, let’s go,” he yells, reaching down and picking her up by the scruff of her neck.

“You know her?” I ask.

“Yeah, she’s harmless enough. She’s a junkie. Come on, Deidre. I said, Let’s go!”

He drags her through the front door and out onto the street. “Her dealer lives in that apartment.” He points to a door that is still ajar. The man inside, watching everything that is going on through the gap, looks perversely pleased as he slams the door shut.

The police officer hurls Deidre unceremoniously into the street, and we both watch as she ricochets from car to wall, stoop to railing, toward Central Park. He dusts off his hands and bids me farewell.

Feeling sticky and icky and wanting desperately to be away from this place, I rush down the street away from my apartment building and try to clear my mind.

This is just a little glitch, I tell myself. You won’t have to live here forever. I listen to the sound of my shoes
tap tapping
along the sidewalk, and I allow the brightness of the sunny New York day to lift my spirits. The air is warm and yellow, and the birds are chirping so loud I can actually hear them above the din of the city.

As I approach the corner of Seventy-first Street and Broadway, where I have to mount my chariot—the subway—I spot a handsome young man in his mid-twenties. He is wearing white pants and a sky blue shirt. He appears to be backlit with divine light. He flashes me a smile, and, involuntarily, I smile back.

“My, don’t you look nice today!” he says as I walk past.

“Thank you.” I blush coyly.

“That bag is bigger than you are,” he says, getting into step with me. “Can I carry it for you?”

“No, thank you, I’m fine,” I say, flattered. “It’s my dance bag. I carry it all the time.”

“You’re a dancer? With legs like that, I should have guessed.”

We reach the corner and he stops. “Listen,” he says, “my name is Bobby.”

“And I’m Goldie.”

“Oh, I have an aunt named Goldie!”

“Really? That’s an old Jewish name.”

“I know. I am Jewish.”

Perfect. Mom would approve. “You wouldn’t by any chance be a dentist, would you?” I laugh.

“No.” He laughs.

As it turns out, he wants to introduce me to a man he knows—a famous cartoonist named Al Capp.

“Have you ever heard of him?” he asks.

“Yes, of course.”

“Mr. Capp is a national institution. He created the cartoon character Li’l Abner, the most popular comic strip of all time.”

“I know!” I reply, putting down my bag. “Of course I know L’il Abner. I danced in the chorus of the school play.”

Bobby hesitates. “Listen,” he says, “I’m really not trying to put the make on you. In fact, here, look at this, I have a girlfriend, she gave me this gold watch.” He peels off his watch and shows me the inscription:
I LOVE YOU
.
DOLLY
. He adds, “You can trust me.”

“Oh, I do,” I reply, when all I can think is, Lucky Dolly.

“Good, Goldie. Now listen. Al Capp’s created a new character for a TV series for NBC. She’s called Tenderlief Ericsson. She is not classically pretty, but she’s interesting-looking. You’d be just perfect for the part.”

Interesting-looking? Yes! Now he has my attention. If he had said I was pretty or sexy or beautiful, he would have lost me.

“Hey, my car’s just around the corner. Let me give you a lift to wherever you’re going and we can talk about it some more. I have a script for the show on the backseat.”

Before I know it, I am scooped up in Bobby’s green 1965 Cadillac convertible, the top down, being chauffeured to my audition. It all seems too good to be true. Here I am, living my dream: being discovered on the street by the cutest guy I’ve ever met, just a month after arriving in the Big Apple. I flop back, stare unashamedly at the giant skyscrapers towering above me and melt into the soft leather seats.

He drops me off for my audition, and I hold my head high as everyone watches me climb from his shiny new car, his script in my hand. “Goldie Hawn.” He smiles. “Al Capp is going to make you a big star.”

I giggle and wave good-bye, looking longingly after him as he disappears down the street. Glancing at my watch, I realize I am now horribly late for the bathing suit audition and decide to skip it.

Who wants to be pawed by dirty old men? I tell myself, allowing a little of Bobby’s enthusiasm to rub off on me. Any day now, I’ll be having an audition for one of the greatest cartoonists in America. And then I can buy Mom wall-to-wall carpeting, just like she always wanted.

Walking down Fifth Avenue, I think about what he said and I start to feel less confident. Do I really want to be a star? That has never been part of my plan. All the stars I’ve ever read about have screwed-up lives or die tragically young. That’s the last thing I want; I just want to dance.

Days grow into weeks, and still there is no call from Bobby as promised. My job as a dancer at the Texas Pavilion of the World’s Fair keeps me busy and tired. But I can’t help but feel a little sad. Like the cockroach that shares my apartment, my Prince Charming seems to have slipped through the cracks.

T
he hammering on my door wakes me from a deep sleep. “Goldie!

Goldie Hawn?” a voice yells. “Wake up. It’s me, Bobby.”

Jumping out of bed, I pull a robe around me, tackle the locks and peep out through the gap allowed by the heavy-duty chain. “Bobby? Hang on a minute.” I close the door, slide the bolt on the chain and let him in.

“Hi, Goldie,” he says, luminous in my shabby apartment in his starched white shirt and pressed pants. I love the way he smells, and I love the way he says my name. I hope Deidre wasn’t in the hall when he came up, or the man in the basement apartment.

Blinding me with his smile, Bobby plants himself on my bed and picks up the telephone. “Goldie, I want you to talk to Mr. Capp. I just spoke to him, and he’s so excited about meeting you that he wants to talk to you right now. He’s out of town, but when he gets back into the city you’re first on his list.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes. Now, let me call him. He likes to speak to all of his actresses first.”

Before I can stop him, he is dialing Mr. Capp’s number. When he gets through, he hands the receiver to me. I freeze. What am I going to say to this world-famous stranger? I don’t even know him. I can feel myself perspiring.

“Oh, hello, Mr. Capp, this is Goldie.”

“Darling Goldie,” Mr. Capp’s deep voice bellows his reply. “I can’t wait to meet you. Bobby’s told me all about you. I’m in Washington, D.C., right now, accepting an honorary doctorate from the American University, but when I get back we’ll arrange a meeting and you can read for me.” He ends his sentences with a strange little giggle, like a secret afterthought.

Weird. Just weird.

The audition is arranged for the following Friday, and Bobby prepares me for it. “Al Capp is the funniest man alive, and is adored by women all over the world,” he says. “He’s been like a father figure to me. I want you to be extra nice to him, honey. I don’t want to let him down.”

I can’t hear anything after the word “honey.” My heart is hammering under my ribs.

O
n Friday, rain falls from the sky in sheets, and my hair won’t do a damn thing. Staring at myself in the mirror, helplessly trying to fight the ravages of humidity, I tease it higher, spraying it rock-hard and hoping it will stand tall for my big audition. What if Mr. Capp likes me? What if I get the job? What if I end up in Hollywood and become the big star Bobby told me I’d be? What about Mom and Dad? The whole idea scares the hell out of me.

I smear on my last coat of frosted lipstick and slip into my favorite pink crocheted dress. I wrap a string of orange pop beads around my neck, grab an umbrella and dash out of my armored door. Flying down the stairs, I leap over Deidre without a second thought and out into the rain. I open my umbrella but the damn thing breaks. Running through the wet streets, with spokes sticking everywhere and the black cloth flap
ping round my head like a nun’s habit, I finally manage to flag down a cab before my hair is completely ruined. He pulls away at such speed that my head snaps back against the seat.