Read Is My Bow Too Big? How I Went From Saturday Night Live to the Tea Party Online

Authors: Victoria Jackson

Is My Bow Too Big? How I Went From Saturday Night Live to the Tea Party (13 page)

I said, “It could still happen, except Scarlet was little in my dream and she’s big now.”

Dad said, “I think we dream about things that are worrying us.”

I notice people staring at me. Do I have toilet paper on my shoe? People are pointing. I go to the women’s restroom to look in the mirror. I see a puffy, old, bleach blonde. What’s so unusual about that? I get a large Diet Coke from the snack bar. People are still staring. I sit near my gate, 42-B, and call my Mom to check on the kids. When I start speaking, eight heads spin around and stare at me. A woman approaches me. “I don’t want to bother you,” she says. “But weren’t you in that movie with Andrew Dice Clay?”

Mid-sentence on my cell-phone, I smile at the lady and reply, “Yes.”

My mom on the line gasps, “You want her to take your diary to school for show and tell?”

“I knew it was you when I heard your voice. So, that’s your real voice?”

“No!” I shout. “Hold on, Mom.”

Being a star gives you a certain amount of power, while it takes away the same amount of freedom. One area you suddenly have power in is negotiating. You can negotiate your salary and how many sparkly dresses you can keep from the wardrobe department. You can negotiate how many bowls of unsalted cashews are in your trailer, and how naked you will be, and you can negotiate what comes out of your mouth.

Negotiating

Charlie, the producer of the new cable show I’ve hesitantly agreed to be on, enters the room because I had told my agent I was uncomfortable with some language in the script.

C
HARLIE
: Now Victoria, I hear you have a problem with saying “sh*t” in Scene 2, Episode 5, when Pammy says, “I mean who would buy the sh*t they have in that store?” And your character, Kimber, says, “I love that sh*t?” I’ve talked to the other writers. They’re willing to substitute “crap.”

V
ICTORIA
: I don’t say that either. How about “poop”?

C
HARLIE
: What’s the difference between “sh*t” and “poop”?

V
ICTORIA
: Well, s-h-i-t is a bad word. I say “poop” to my four-year-old when she does a good poop. I say, “That’s a great poopie, honey!”

C
HARLIE
: Whatever you’re comfortable with, Victoria.

V
ICTORIA
: Oh, thanks!

C
HARLIE
: Um, can we talk about your line in Scene 4, Episode 6? Kimber says, “Patty, you’re my best friend, you’d let me kiss your ‘ass’ anytime, right?”

V
ICTORIA
: Why can’t I say ‘butt’?

C
HARLIE
: Victoria, even the networks say “ass.”

V
ICTORIA
: They didn’t until David Letterman started saying it.

C
HARLIE
: I suppose “Don’t f*ck with me” in Scene 7 is out of the question.

V
ICTORIA
: I would never say the F-word!

C
HARLIE
: Victoria, everyone says the F-word.

V
ICTORIA
: Okay, Charlie. If you want to talk about the real meaning of the word, it’s believed to have Germanic origins. It was originally “fricktin,” which meant “to plow” in the sixteenth century. Because the slow, pushing motion of the plow (which is phallic in its shape and use) resembled the thrusting action of the male during coitus, and the furrow resembled the female’s vulva, resulting in the planting of a seed that grew in mother earth’s womb, eventually the word migrated to America and became the slang you are familiar with. But that’s only one theory.

C
HARLIE
: [dumbfounded expression]

V
ICTORIA
: I’m glad you didn’t ask me to take God’s name in vain, Charlie, because that’s one of the Ten Commandments. Sometimes when the script says, “God,” I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I say, “gosh,” and actually I feel bad about that because it’s a euphemism. So, from now on, I guess I’ll leave that out too. I don’t want my character, Kimber, to be perceived as “bad.” That’s all.

C
HARLIE
: [speechless]

Signing Autographs

I was at a bar in the airport watching the TV coverage of Phil Hartman’s untimely and tragic death. I was in shock. I was very sad. Strangers were noticing me and starting to point and whisper.

“Oh, yes, bartender, uh, I’d like a chardonnay. What kind? Um, anything over six dollars a bottle.” I told Lorne Michaels once that I thought I had a drinking problem. He asked, “Do you still use a glass?”

I said, “Yes.”

“You don’t have a problem yet.”

I asked him why he never drank too much. He said, “I’m too vain.”

Now, I’m at a bar in the airport. I’m not on
Saturday Night Live
anymore. I try to live in the present, but as soon as I forget about it someone reminds me of it, so I live in a continual state of
SNL
reflection.

The guy next to me says, “Uh, we have a bet. Are you the girl from…”

“Yes.” I smile warmly.

“Can we take a picture with you?”

“Sure.”

Glancing at my waist, he says “When are you due?” Feeling as if I’ve just been punched in the gut, I say, “Oh, I’m not pregnant,” and I force myself to smile for his picture.

Waiting at the gate to board my plane home, I check my reflection in the glass to see if I really look pregnant. Someone approaches and begins to ask the same ten
SNL
questions.

I say, “Tell me about
you
!”

“I’m John, originally from Ohio. I was at a valve-pipe convention. You know, my favorite place in the world is South Beach because there are a lot of topless models playing Frisbee there. I’m married. I’m a Virgo. Um, and can I have your autograph?”

I understand. I always want a photo when I meet a celebrity.

Having a Stalker

At the height of my “hotness,” I acquired a stalker. He snuck into my world innocently enough, as they all do I guess. I didn’t suspect him of anything except writing me letters too frequently. I was in my office at
SNL
. My typewriter had the blank sheet of paper in it. Pink and blue tulle was stapled to the ceiling to look like fairy-tale clouds. Fan letters were stapled to the walls. One said I had “luscious melons.” One guy named Joe kept writing and calling. He sent me a video of his family to prove he was not a psycho-killer. He wanted me to come to his Midwestern town to raise money for a charity event involving a little girl with no insurance who couldn’t afford treatment for her mysterious illness. I was new at this celebrity thing, but from what I had seen, people in the movies always “wanted to give back.” Especially being a Christian, I should help anyone anytime. So, although the situation sounded odd, I agreed to fly to the Midwest. The celebrity-charity thing is strange: appear at a charity event and wave to strangers, because you have a cooler-than-usual job? I don’t get the correlation. The cooler the job, the more you have to wave? Surgeons have a cool job, but they don’t show up at charity events and wave. Wait a minute. Yes, they do. Charity balls. Never mind. I told Joe I’d pay for my own plane ticket so that I wouldn’t be taking from the charity fund. I brought my daughter Scarlet, who was five. I was recently divorced and dating Paul, the SWAT-guy, during this time. He stayed in Miami to work. He had a real job: 9 to 5. Well, 6 p.m. to 5 a.m., actually. And it’s a cool job, but he doesn’t wave at anybody. Sometimes people wave at him though. Sometimes women “flash” the police choppers.

Anyway, as soon as we landed in the Midwest, weird things started happening. Our hotel room was a trucker stop with a plastic Jacuzzi standing in the center of the room. I kept saying, “No Scarlet, you can’t swim in that—you’ll get a disease.”

She looked at me quizzically, “Why can’t I swim in the tiny pool?”

When I spoke at the Chamber of Commerce, they laughed a little too long when I answered their question, “How did you meet Joe?” I said, “He wrote to me at
SNL
. He could’ve been a psychokiller for all I knew!” I didn’t know what to say. I’d never raised money for a little girl’s mysterious illness before. They laughed, so I kept saying it at all the events until Joe told me to stop saying it. He said that people were sensitive to mental illness in his town; and that there were lots of mental institutions nearby.

Joe’s wife disappeared one night and he told me it was because she had a lover in another town who made her pregnant. The last night I was there, Joe called my hotel room at midnight, “I want to come over. I have to tell you something about my past. It’s going to be in the newspaper tomorrow.”

“Oh, no, don’t come over! I don’t want Scarlet to wake up. You know, we have to get up at 6 a.m. to catch our plane. You’re driving us right? You could tell me then!”

“Have you read my autobiography yet?”

“Oh, no… not yet.” I rushed over to the manuscript he had handed me the day before. I quickly flipped through it while he spoke on the phone. He was abused as a child in horrible ways. On the phone he continued, “I stabbed a girl to death when I was… I wrote to you at
SNL
from a mental institution, where I met my wife…”

“Wow,” I stammered. “Uh…” I said a quick prayer in my head. “Well, uh, Jesus forgives people for all kinds of sins. Remember the guy on the cross next to him?” I tried to be calm and normal. I called Paul, the cop. He screamed into the phone, “Only you could get into a situation like this!”

“Can you get me a police escort?” I pleaded.

“No! He hasn’t done anything to you yet.”

“So, if he stabs me to death, then I can get a police escort?”

“Vicki, whatever you do, don’t let him drive you to the airport tomorrow.”

It was 2 a.m. I didn’t know anyone in this little town. I made a few phone calls. There were no rental cars or taxi services. My plane was leaving in six hours and I wanted outta there! I left Scarlet locked in my hotel room and ran to the lobby and dinged the bell frantically. Finally, someone woke up and told me the nearest big town. I dashed back to my room and phoned a cab to come earlier than Joe, so we could be gone. However, there was a complication: my brand-new Springer Spaniel puppy was lodging at Joe’s house because the hotel didn’t allow it. So with one hour of sleep and a toothless taxi driver in a dented car, I drove around looking for Joe’s house and my puppy. Minutes ticking by, I called Joe from a pay-phone, there were no cell phones in 1991, and told him my dilemma. He understandingly arrived with his teenager and my new dog. I apologized for Paul’s worrying about him. I was confused and sleepless and afraid of the toothless taxi driver, so at 6 a.m., a psycho-killer was driving my five-year-old and me to the airport. Joe said, “I didn’t tell you before because I thought you wouldn’t come.” He showed me a newspaper article in his wallet about the murder and said, “I keep this to remind myself not to do it again.”

Ten years later, I heard that Joe was arrested for faking charity events in order to steal money, and he had a restraining order from the local comedy club. That was the last time I got personally involved with charity work. Now I just send money in envelopes. It’s a lot safer. Then, one day at a comedy club somewhere (I forget where), I ran into the little girl I’d done the charity for. She was a beautiful young lady. She hugged me and thanked me, and said her mysterious disease was gone.