Both of Us (11 page)

The public has romantic notions about being an actor, that we’re constantly pampered and served. If you traveled with Farrah and me on location, you would see the truth of this life, and like us, I’m betting you, too, would have moments when you’d catch yourself looking for the nearest exit. I’m not saying there aren’t some delicious perks. The best hotels, a car and a driver always at the ready, invitations to exclusive dinner parties, most of which we didn’t attend because Farrah’s schedule was so brutal, except of course in London, when we’re asked to dine at the American ambassador’s residence. But when you’re away from home, simple acts such as driving yourself to work and buying your own groceries become the soothing routine that you desperately miss. And sometimes the longing for home can be overwhelming. When Redmond, who’s teething, has kept us awake until the wee hours, I know as I watch Farrah leave our room in the morning that it’s going to take everything she’s got to hit her marks that day.

But now Farrah is the consummate pro. No matter how hard she’s struggling, she shows up prepared and ready to work. Then she sheds the persona of Farrah Fawcett with all its burdensome complications, and slips into character, allowing the person she’s portraying to enfold her, become her. It’s one of the reasons she’s so good in this part, and will be nominated for another Golden Globe. It makes me feel envious at times, but I’m glad that one of us can enjoy a respite from the train wreck I’ve made of my life. We both
entered this relationship with baggage, but she brought a carry-on, and I came with a trunk.

To offset some of the stress, Farrah and I make the most of our time together on her days off: splashing with Redmond in the pool in Morocco; giving him his first swimming lesson; shopping at the casbah in Tangiers, Farrah relishing the market’s exotic offerings, and me seeing her light up like a teenager when she successfully bargains a reasonable price for an intricate handwoven rug. I also take pleasure in doing little things for her. An inevitable reality of living in hotels is the exorbitant price of laundry. In some of these places, having underwear washed is more expensive than room service champagne. Neither Farrah nor I are cheap, but that feisty Texas girl in her doesn’t like being taken advantage of. It’s another of her qualities that I respect. I remember once she told me she got into a taxi in New York, and the cabbie tried to take the long way around to her destination. She demanded he stop the car and when he refused, she threatened him with her stiletto heel. So one day, while Farrah is on set, I gather all her delicates and wash them by hand as a surprise. When she gets back to the room and sees her bras and undies hanging neatly across the shower rod drying, she gives me an Eskimo kiss, then whispers in my ear why she loves me. It’s one of the sweetest moments of the trip. Afterward, I would always pack a bottle of Woolite whenever we traveled.

In the years to come, I’ll learn to string together those
moments like a strand of pearls that I can remove from the box and admire when I need to remind myself why this love is worth fighting for. I have to open that box some days more than others. After we return to London from North Africa, Farrah and I attend a fashion show, and the following morning, as I’m reading the paper over coffee, I come across an article that stops me cold. Here’s an excerpt: “The 39-year-old former Charlie’s Angel hopes the £10 million mini-series
Poor Little Rich Girl
will make her a TV star again. Ryan, whose career is in the doldrums and who looks after their two-year-old son Redmond while Farrah is filming, earned his keep this trip.” Farrah is unfazed by the article and unsympathetic to my distress. Mean-spirited press doesn’t affect her the way it does me. Not yet.

The article sets me off. It magnifies something I’m already dealing with privately: feeling emasculated. That night I’m supposed to join Farrah and some friends for dinner, but all I can think about is getting the hell out of London. So I do what any red-blooded male would in the same situation. I pick a fight with my woman, hoping I can piss her off just enough that she’ll insist I leave. Instead I find this on the dresser:

After reading the note, I stay. Wouldn’t you?

B
y midsummer we’re back in LA. Griffin is in trouble again, this time for leading cops on a sixty-five-mile-per-hour car chase through Beverly Hills. He’s also remanded to jail for violating the terms of his probation on the Gian-Carlo Coppola case, not having completed the court-mandated community service hours. And my daughter informs me via post that she isn’t ready to see or talk to me yet (I wasn’t aware that we weren’t speaking; this was news to me) but will continue to send photos of my grandchild. Two months later, on September 23, 1987, she gives birth to another son, Sean McEnroe. I never knew she was pregnant.
The presence of her absence haunts me. With material like this, perhaps instead of being an actor, I should have become a playwright. Eugene O’Neill, stand clear.

Thank God I finally get a job to distract me from this long day’s journey into despair. In
Chances Are
, a quirky romantic comedy about past lives, I play the new husband of Cybill Shepherd, whose dead husband, reincarnated by Robert Downey, Jr., falls in love with his own daughter, or something like that. Geez, I can’t get away from this stuff. Anyhow, it’s a cute movie. Robert is a warm and engaging fellow and I take an immediate liking to him. I witness his affinity for partying during production, and today I have reams of respect for him for having been able to turn his life around. If only my son Griffin could have done the same.

Looking back, I think it was during the filming of that picture that I began to recognize how much Farrah had changed me. We were staying on Antelo Road, and we were disagreeing about something, I don’t remember what. I retreated to the beach house in a huff. That evening I went out with Robert and his friends. Drugs and girls were everywhere. It was anything goes. I couldn’t wait to get back to Farrah. I didn’t want that life. I didn’t want to be free. I didn’t want to chase women anymore. They were too easy to catch. So I called her and said, “May I come back?” And she said, “Of course.” And when I pulled into the driveway, she was standing outside waiting for me. The old Ryan O’Neal would have dallied with every skirt in the place. Farrah was
bringing out the better person in me, the man I wanted to become. Years later, I’d watch Robert being interviewed on ABC, confessing that his wife, Susan, had saved his life. I knew exactly what he meant.

Farrah and I also had a lot in common. For one thing, we were both athletic. Farrah’s body-sculpting method was calisthenics. That woman could do one hundred deep side bends, push-ups, sit-ups, all the exercises that might be considered old-fashioned today. The results sure didn’t look old-fashioned. I’d always been an active guy too, even owned a gym in Brentwood where bold-faced names worked out—Ali MacGraw, Jane Fonda, Mariel Hemingway, U2’s Bono—a place where I enjoyed spending time and still do. We were also avid racquetball enthusiasts. Farrah’s house on Antelo had a court. We’d spend hours playing racquetball or squash
together. Farrah was a fierce competitor, graceful and powerful. Some of my most vivid memories are of Farrah and me playing doubles. I often believed the teamwork we shared on the racquetball court would translate well on camera. That’s why I accepted a surprise offer.

Farrah and I battling it out on the racquetball court.

Farrah is on location in Canada with Redmond. She’s in production for
Small Sacrifices
, a television miniseries based on the book by Anne Rule about a mother who tries to murder her children in a twisted attempt to win back her lover. I’ve just flown in from Vegas, where Griffin, surrounded by two or three dozen of his closest friends and former cell mates, got hitched, all expenses paid by yours truly. You may be wondering how Griffin could go from jail to marriage in a few short pages. If you’re bewildered, try to imagine how it was for me.

Farrah and I have rented a sprawling ranch outside Edmonton, Canada, with rolling hills and rural views. There are several horses being boarded on the property. Farrah thrives in this environment, and Redmond has his first horseback ride. One evening after work we’re playing Ping-Pong (I put up a table and she’s beating me every game), and she tells me, in between serves, that the producers still haven’t cast the role of the lover, and would I be interested in playing him. Next, she places her paddle on the table, walks over to her purse, pulls out the script and hands it to me, and then leads me to the bedroom. Come morning, I’m learning my lines.

I was right about our on-camera chemistry. Farrah is as playful as she is erotic. There’s this intimate scene where we’re supposed to be engulfed in uncontrollable passion, so Farrah yanks off my belt and starts pulling my pants down. I blush and fumble my lines. The crew can’t contain their laughter. She laughs, she flashes that heavenly smile, cocks her head, and says knowingly, “Too Texas for y’all?”

About a month later we’re up at the house on Antelo, and Farrah is teaching me how to make chili. She’s written out a list of ingredients without proportions. I’m standing there with an open can of chili powder in one hand, a quartet of measuring spoons in the other, and asking her how much to put in, and she says, “All great cooks improvise; they make the recipe their own. You’re going to have to learn to trust your taste buds; it’s a little bit like acting.”

“Well, I don’t like improvising,” I say. “It’s why I never took an acting class and why I always preferred to hang out with Bill Holden rather than James Dean.” Farrah rolls her eyes. “I’ve been thinking about taking classes,” she admits.

“I’m insulted. Why would you need classes when you have me as your coach,” I say, only half in jest. She laughs. “Because almost everybody else we know, especially the ones from New York, take classes. They all feel it deepens their craft. It’s the same way I feel about my art.”

Farrah was an art major at the University of Texas and that’s how she thought of herself, as a sculptor and a painter.

“I stumbled into acting because a publicist saw a photo
of me when I was in college and thought I could make a living as a model,” she continues. “I never wanted to be an actress, and now that I’m successful I just wonder how much better I’d be if I actually got some training.”

“You’re a natural like me,” I tell her. “Classes would only ruin it.” I don’t know if I even believed that at the time, but I’ve always been a little superstitious, and she was on such a roll that I honestly didn’t think she needed anybody but me to help her refine her technique. And neither one of us had been conventionally ambitious. We cared without being driven. We took advantage of the opportunities that came along but rarely sought them. Mostly we just winged it. It almost always worked for us until it didn’t.

When production wraps on
Small Sacrifices
, both Farrah and I are eager to work together again. So when
Saturday Night Live
alum Alan Zweibel and producer Bernie Brillstein approach me about starring in a new CBS sitcom parodying sports chat shows to begin production the following year, in 1990, I suggest Farrah for the female lead. I negotiate a good deal. In addition to getting paid seventy-five thousand dollars per episode, Farrah will also own a third of the show, which gives her a large participation in syndication revenue. In the sitcom business, that can mean serious money. Shows like
Seinfeld
and
Everybody Loves Raymond
generate more profit in reruns than they did with new seasons. Using Farrah benefits everyone. She gives the show what the industry calls marquee status, meaning star
appeal. The name of the show, with its dual meaning, is
Good Sports
. Farrah portrays Gail Roberts, a former supermodel turned sports journalist. I play Bobby Tannen, a woebegone gridiron hero who couldn’t resist the temptation of women and booze. The premise is simple: we’re cohosts of a popular talk show on a network similar to ESPN. Apparently, we once had a fling. She remembers. I don’t. Our characters interview famous athletes who play themselves in scenes that reveal hidden aspects of their actual lives. For example, there’s an episode with football Hall of Famer Jim Brown in which he recounts his childhood ambition to become a harpist. And there’s another with the owner of the New York Yankees, George Steinbrenner, about his chicken farm in Florida. Farrah plays the bright one. I play the dim one. What could go wrong?