Born with Teeth: A Memoir (5 page)

At twenty I had not yet formed a coat of armor. Incapable of guile, I relied on a kind of brazen honesty, which I suppose I thought would protect me or guide me or, at the very least, set me apart. And so I told Claire that I was being considered for the part of Emily in
Our Town
and that if I got the role it would be my first choice, no question about it.

Her face fell, but she pressed on, “Will you at least agree to the test? You haven’t signed a contract yet, have you?”

Any actress, young or old, knows better than to close a door before she knows what’s behind it. I agreed to test.

The world that I walked into the next day was unlike anything I had ever seen: bright lights glared from every angle, three massive cameras on wheels were operated by men in dark clothing, a sofa, chair, and coffee table were situated in the middle of the stage, and far beyond that was a long, tinted window behind which I perceived shadows moving. This, I learned, was the control room, where only the producers and directors were allowed. A disembodied voice instructed us to begin the scene on a countdown of five, four, three, two, one, at which moment the stage manager gestured with his right hand and, pointing at me, mouthed,
Go!
My christening felt nothing short of wonderfully natural. I felt confident, unthreatened, and even a little cavalier. When it was over, I thanked the actor who had done the scene with me, asked if I could leave, and waved in the direction of the control room, where I knew Claire Labine and a panel of experts sat in judgment. This did not concern me at all—if anything, it excited me. I walked out the studio door and took myself to lunch.

The fifth-floor walk-up where I lived on York Avenue looked like something out of an Elmore Leonard novel, spare, dusty, and bleak. It was composed of two tiny rooms, a kitchen that doubled as a bathroom, and a bedroom that had just enough space for a single bed, a dresser, and a lamp. Everything creaked, including the two old ladies who lived across the way. Invariably, when I put the key in the lock, their door would open, and one or the other, gray head bobbing, would inquire about my day, the weather, the landlord, and the grave injustice of having to scale five floors at their age. I never saw them
either coming or going, so I could only conclude that they subsisted on canned goods and whatever leftovers I put in a takeout bag and hung on their doorknob.

Inside, I prepared to bathe by first dismantling the dining table, which was a plank of wood that rested on top of the bathtub. Just as I turned the faucet on, the phone rang in the bedroom. I turned the water off and made a beeline for the bedroom, picked up the phone, and heard my agent’s voice on the other end.

“Kate, Stark here. Are you sitting down?” I sat very gently on the bed. “Well, my dear,” he continued, “you’re about to become a very busy young actress. You will be playing Emily Webb in
Our Town
at night, and during the day you will be taping
Ryan’s Hope
in New York. Claire Labine demanded that ABC provide you with a car service. Said something about this casting being a deal breaker. You’re off to the races, young lady. I think we should celebrate, don’t you? Let me take you to the opera tonight,
La Bohème
is playing at the Met.”

I was no longer sitting on the bed but had fallen to the floor on my knees, and when I hung up the phone, I stayed there for a long time and finally, looking heavenward, whispered, “It doesn’t get any better than this, does it?”

Stella stood in the middle of the classroom, sipping from a tiny shot glass of vodka. There had been a party celebrating someone’s birthday, but now it was getting late, and Stella and I were alone. Despite rising terror, I told her the unvarnished truth. “I don’t feel I have any choice but to take my chances, Stella. I know it would be best if I completed the program, but even you have to admit that this is an extraordinary opportunity. I hope you’ll give me your blessing.”

My magnificent teacher drew herself up to her full height and, simultaneously lifting an eyebrow and lowering her gaze to meet mine, said this: “I fear for you, Kate. It will be so easy
for you to take your eye off the prize and skate into Hollywood. And, believe me, Hollywood will beckon.”

“But, Stella,” I interrupted her, “you know that my first love is and always will be the theater, and while it’s true I’ll be doing a soap opera, I’ll be cutting my teeth on Thornton Wilder. What could possibly be better than that?”

Those eyes, the color of the sea, stormy and tough, turned a sudden cool blue, and once again she took my chin in her hand and said, “Darling, there are endless temptations, but only the work will lift you up. Never forget that.”

Rehearsals for
Our Town
began in earnest. Michael Kahn was exacting and utterly professional. At no time did he suggest that I was a rookie and should be handled with kid gloves. Instead, he threw me into the games arena the first day, where I found myself playing alongside some of the best. Eileen Heckart, an inveterate smoker and knitter, always wore a wry smile on her face as if to say,
It’s only a play, kids—lighten up.
Everyone adored her. As Mrs. Gibbs, she stood in perfect counterpoise to the mysterious and beautiful Geraldine Fitzgerald, an unusual and inspired choice for the role of Mrs. Webb. She was quintessentially Irish, which is to say she was at once shy and stern, wise and vulnerable. Richard Backus played George, and I was devastated to learn that he had a wife and two children—it seemed somehow unnatural and lacking in taste, as if it were his professional duty not only to play the part beautifully but to fall madly in love with me while doing so. This disappointment was ameliorated by the presence of Fred Gwynne, the tall and marvelous actor playing the central role of the Stage Manager. This, above all others, was the friendship that caught fire—I took delight in his unbridled sense of mischief, and he took an unfatherly delight in sharing it with me.

Managing the business of life was another matter entirely. I
moved like a vagabond, abandoning the fifth-floor walk-up on York in favor of a young man’s apartment on West Seventy-Sixth Street. Arthur Karp was the production stage manager for
Our Town,
a lovely, carrot-topped guy with a maturity and generosity beyond his years. I think he liked me. He certainly never asked for anything in return.

A long weekend came up, during which I was released from all professional obligations, and I took the opportunity to fly home. There, I found my mother and my sister sequestered in the back of the house, in what was once my mother’s studio but which now contained a narrow bed for my mother and, for my sister, a hospital bed overlooking the apple orchard. Not that Tessie could appreciate the view. The tumor, strategic from the beginning, had waged a slow, insidious, and relentless war. It had taken my sister’s hazel-green eyes and forced them inward, so that now there was nothing left to look into but two ghoulish membranes. It took, too, her beautiful, lithe body and all of her grace. She lay there blind, paralyzed, and nearly deaf—nearly, I say, because she was adamant that the window remain open at all times. The birds sang in the orchard, and she strained to hear their music.

There was a small bathroom next to the studio and, as I passed it on my way into Tessie’s room, a familiar face looked up from the sink. Nancy Gilbert looked at me and smiled. When she had learned of my sister’s diagnosis, and understood what it was my mother would have to endure, Nancy had kissed my father lightly on the lips and, without explanation, moved quietly into the back of the house. There she had been ever since, at my sister’s side, a tender, vigilant nurse and a devoted friend to my mother, who warned Nancy that if my father ever came into Tessie’s room drunk, she’d kill him.

When I walked into the room, the first thing I noticed was the absence of the kerchief or any other concessions to vanity.
Tessie, by now living almost entirely on a diet of morphine and Ovaltine, lay in her bed, head unnaturally tilted backward, a cigarette in her hand. She could no longer speak, and so, in lieu of this faculty, she had devised a system of communication using her hand and her cigarette, which she used as a writing baton. She composed all of her questions and answers by drawing them in the air with her “baton.” I kissed her and, leaning close, told her everything about my current life. I sensed the beginning of a smile, but perhaps this was wishful thinking, the longing for absolution. I put the cigarette to her lips and let her draw on it, exhaling the feeblest of vapors. How like my mother to have accommodated this last pleasure. While Tessie smoked, I studied her face, noting with relief that the birds were indeed singing in the orchard, when suddenly my brother cleared his throat and, catching my eye, tapped his watch. I struggled hard against tears so that I could embrace Tessie without upsetting her—the thought of this was unbearable—and when I took her head in my hands, I felt her lips move against my cheek. Pulling away, I understood that she wanted to say something to me, and I watched carefully as she lifted her baton in the air and began to write. Painstaking, they were, these last words, and harrowing to witness. Incredulous, I realized what she had spelled out for me. Something that once upon a time had been a great joke between us, part of our shared love of the irreverent.

The cigarette, in invisible script, had written:
YOU WILL BE WITH ME IN PARADISE
.

Mother used an expression I didn’t like very much; it seemed too cavalier in the face of anguish. But she had a point.
And the beat goes on
suited the reality of what happens when we part from someone we may never see again, get on a plane, and in short order resume life as if nothing had changed.

In New York, something unexpected was unfolding. Overnight,
Ryan’s Hope
had become a huge success, and the character of Mary Ryan in particular attracted a diverse and sweeping viewership. Women of every stripe tuned in to see what Mary would do next. They loved her because she was an independent spirit, unafraid to speak her mind, passionate,
impetuous, and brave. Seldom lauded for her beauty, Mary Ryan had something else to offer, something women could grab ahold of and understand. She had a powerful sense of self, and this proved more magnetic and more relatable than any other single quality. Almost immediately following the show’s debut, I was recognized on the streets of New York. Whole gaggles of girls would call out “Mary Ryan!” and when I would turn and wave or blow a kiss, they would shriek and burst into applause. It was curious to me then, as now, the power of the performer over an audience when, in fact, the gift itself springs from the writer’s pen. Claire Labine had poured her heart and most of her own unique qualities into the character of Mary Ryan, and she had done so with lyricism and authenticity. In many ways, Claire was Mary Ryan, and Mary Ryan was, in many ways, me. This synthesis, rare enough under the best of creative circumstances, proved even rarer as our personal friendship deepened into a sympathy that would survive, and surmount, many trials.

But in Stratford, trouble was brewing on the banks of the Housatonic River. In the middle of rehearsal one afternoon, I looked out into the theater and saw a stranger approaching Michael Kahn. There was nothing particularly prepossessing about this young man, but even as he strode down the aisle, something in me sat up. At the break, Michael introduced him to the company as the newly arrived directorial intern, whose job it was to assist the director and to learn from him. His name was David Bernstein, and he would be with us for the duration of the summer season. Black eyes, black hair, black mustache, a fringed suede jacket, black boots.

In no time at all, his lanky indifference and calculated elusiveness drove me to distraction. I was undone and done for.

Grayce Grant, an older member of the company, had taken me under her wing. A character actress of about fifty with
small blue eyes, a broad nose, and a head of tight ash-blond curls, she confessed to me that her husband of many years had recently left her (and, by implication, their five children) for a younger woman. She was livid over this betrayal, and I often wondered who was looking after her children, as I don’t recall having met a single one of them.

Grayce had rented an old farmhouse in Putney Woods, just outside of Stratford, and asked me if I would like to join her there. The house contained three bedrooms, and people came and went as the season demanded. After work, we often gathered around the small kitchen table for cocktails, which consisted of a giant bottle of very cheap Pinot Grigio and a plate of Grayce’s preferred hors d’oeuvres, Triscuits topped with small shards of Muenster cheese.

One night, I walked into the kitchen and was surprised to find Grayce and David Bernstein in a curious
tableau vivant.
Grayce, in suspended animation, leaned forward in her chair, as if eagerly awaiting a response. In contrast, David looked as if he had brought his chair with him and sat with long legs comfortably crossed, slightly turned away as if in distaste, dangling a bottle of beer between index finger and thumb.

“Oh, Kate, guess what?” Grayce cried, when she saw that it was me and not Tom Everett, another Putney Woods tenant, who worked backstage and slunk around the house in a permanent state of gloom. “Tom has to leave—his girlfriend is threatening to dump him—and so when I told David about the available room, he asked if he could take it! Isn’t that terrific?”

I looked at David, assessing the odds, and said, “I don’t know, Grayce, does David think it’s terrific?” The cool, hooded eyes, the hint of a smirk, and our new tenant was on his feet, suddenly needing to meet his friend Arthur Karp for a drink. “Say hi to Arthur for me,” I said to David as he pulled car keys from his pocket. After his car was safely through the gates, I
bounded up the stairs two at a time and hit the landing with a short, ebullient jig.

It was late July, and while the heat was intolerable in New York, it was pleasantly oppressive in Connecticut. I had established an efficient and satisfying routine, taping
Ryan’s Hope
every day in the city and then being driven to Stratford to perform onstage at night.

Weekends were spent in Connecticut to accommodate the five-performance schedule. My life was busy, fulfilling, and very, very good. I recognized this period as one of unfettered happiness and found joy in everything. Every meal, every scene, every dip in the ocean, every curtain call, was an ode to exuberance.

This sense of abandon was modified by the arrival of my sister Jenny. Tessie’s sickness had taken a toll on everyone, not least the youngest children, or as we referred to them, the Smalls. Jenny and Sam were closest in age to Tessie, and the burden of living with their sister and having to witness her suffering firsthand must have caused them considerable agony. Mother and I agreed that it would be a good idea for the baby of the family to come and stay with me, at least until the summer was over. Details were not discussed; it was simply understood that Jenny was coming and that I was to look after her.

Jenny’s company in no way cramped my style—if anything, it enhanced it. At eleven, she was everything actors love: funny, full of life, and madly curious, she was a little freckle-faced dynamo with wide blue eyes, a button nose, long brown pigtails, and an inherent sense of mischief. Everyone embraced her as a kind of mascot, and when she wasn’t standing in the wings mouthing my lines while I was onstage looking at the moon with George, she was in my dressing room, chatting up the other actresses, fingers in every pot, her newfound entitlement complete. She soon became a familiar presence at the beach, at the bar of the Blue Goose Grill, and in every corner of the house in Putney Woods.

Impossible to know where she might have been hiding one unseasonably chilly night when David Bernstein offered to build a fire, and I, bending down beside him, fully intending to assist the effort, instead found our hands touching over the fire and felt that first absurd, uncomfortable gurgle of laughter, followed by the meeting of the eyes, at once riveting and intense, then the second of calculation sent gleefully to hell when mouths came together in a kiss so sublime, so longed for, that if my hair had caught fire at that moment, I’d have snuffed it out and carried on.

David released me from the kiss and at the same time from any ancillary obligation that might attend such a kiss. He disappeared into thin air, or so it seemed to me. He wasn’t at the theater; he wasn’t at the house; he was nowhere to be found. Finally, in desperation, I employed Grayce as my spy and asked her to do the necessary reconnaissance. She found me waiting in the wings, about to make my entrance into the graveyard scene, and, using a resonant stage whisper so as not to disappoint the first two rows, said, “David went to Florida to visit his son. His son’s name is Seth. Adorable, no?” And then, slipping into character, took her place onstage among the throng of mourners attending Emily Webb’s funeral.

This information, though by no means promising, nonetheless allowed me ample space in which to live life as I liked to live it, with a modicum of restraint and plenty of abandon. My little sister, a constant appendage, kept my feet on the ground, and together we enjoyed an interlude of real happiness. We were delighted when Arthur Karp brought us ice-cream cones, which we devoured sitting cross-legged on his fire escape, overlooking the rooftops of New York. We loved our lunches with my actor friends, in particular my
Ryan’s Hope
costar Nancy Addison, whose dazzling beauty and salacious gossip held my sister spellbound. The cool, dark silence of the television studio intrigued Jenny, but in Stratford she blossomed.

We had company picnics on the shores of the Long Island Sound, where I learned that Jenny’s shyness about pulling off her cover-up and jumping into the water was actually born out of a very reasonable terror. She couldn’t swim. How was it that my mother had overlooked this fundamental life skill? I discovered that while I might know a great deal about my mother’s vulnerabilities, I knew next to nothing about my baby sister’s. I knew only that she was thrilled to be with me, far from a home that was no longer safe. She was free to be young and silly, to love and be loved in return.

But darkness had its way, as we knew it would.

The phone rang on Arthur Karp’s kitchen wall and I answered, “Hello? This is Kate Mulgrew speaking.”

“Kitten, this is your father.” His voice, strained, distant, determined. “Tessie died last night and we’re going to bury her tomorrow, so don’t even think about coming home. It’s best if you just stay there and look after your sister.”

“But, Dad,” I interrupted, “we can get on a plane this afternoon and be there late tonight, it’s not complicated.”

I heard a long, controlled intake of breath, and then my father closed the argument. “It’s done, Kitten, it’s all over. The burial is a formality. We just want this thing over. Please stay in New York with your sister. We’ll be in touch soon.” There was the briefest of pauses, not even air enough to breathe, and then he hung up. I turned to my little sister, already in tears, and put my arms around her.

“I’m staying with you!” Jenny cried, slipping precipitously into an anguish she could not understand, knowing only that she did not want to return to a place where everything would be permanently changed, where the missing pieces would make the puzzle impossible to put together.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang. My friend Nancy Addison had come by to say hello and had stumbled unwittingly onto our
grief. Nan and I were partners in crime on
Ryan’s Hope,
despite the fact that we came from entirely different worlds and had, on the face of it, almost nothing in common. This complicated girl, this ravishing Jewish beauty from New Jersey, whose father was a furrier and whose mother lay in bed wasting away from a disease no one could name, knew a thing or two about the inequities of life. She knew she was the apple of her grandfather’s eye and wanted only to please him when he had placed her, at the age of seven, ever so gently atop a sable rug and, with his fingers and his mouth, showed her again and again just how special she was and how good it feels to be adored.

Nancy understood the vicissitudes of love and the immutable nature of loss. She touched my sister’s cheek and said, “I think Jenny and I should go for a walk in Central Park, get a hot dog, and go to the five o’clock show at the planetarium. Sound good?”

I had only a few hours to spare and needed to move quickly. I flipped through my address book, found the number I was looking for, and dialed. A man’s voice answered.

“Come over,” I said. “I’m alone.”

Within minutes, he was there. Nothing was said. I took him by the hand and pulled him to the floor. My memory is blunted. Was it Arthur Karp, so good, so kind, so eager to please, who helped me meet the first wave of grief? A look of surprise, no words, I didn’t want words. But who was it there, on the floor beside me, on top of me? It wasn’t the one I wanted, that much I knew.

It wasn’t David. Nor did it matter. I needed something fundamental, harsh, and palpable to cut the pain, and I found it. But I can’t remember his face.

Our grief abraded both of us, my sister and me, and for the next few weeks we clung to each other for what little comfort we could find. The summer was drawing to an end, the turn was imminent in the soft autumn air, and the play had run its
course. One by one the actors in the Putney farmhouse packed their bags and set off for home. The mystery of David Bernstein’s disappearance remained unsolved, but I wouldn’t allow anyone to take his room, and everything in it remained just as he’d left it. I broke down when Grayce, hoisting the pink Samsonite suitcase she’d arrived with into the backseat of her station wagon, took my face in her hands and said, “I’m leaving a half bottle of Pinot Grigio as a memento. Don’t forget me, kiddo, and remember who loves ya.”

I knew what the next day was about to bring, but my sister didn’t, and when she saw a familiar green truck coming down the lane and turning into the gate, she took off as fast as her little legs could carry her. I let her go, knowing it was just a matter of time before she reappeared.

Mother had sent her friend B. J. Weber to pick up her youngest child and drive her back to Iowa. Blond, thickset, and rough around the edges, B.J. was on a quest for spiritual enlightenment and had met my mother at Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey, a Trappistine convent just outside of Dubuque. They instantly became friends, and in exchange for his devotion, my mother taught him manners. “Come to my house for dinner every night for six months, and I’ll teach you everything you need to know,” she’d said, and kept her promise. Now here he was, ready to fetch my little sister and take her home. I cautioned him to be gentle and patient with Jenny, that a child’s grief was irrational.