Prairie Tale (10 page)

The episode came toward the end of season six, and I didn’t want to do it. To those who came up to me and asked, “Hey, Half Pint, how do you feel about your big kiss?” I quipped that I would’ve preferred to kiss Scott Baio or Shaun Cassidy. I knew those teen-idol guys were unattainable and therefore safe to mention, though the truth was, I didn’t want to kiss anyone. Especially Dean Butler. I didn’t want to kiss a man. I didn’t want to kiss anyone with stubble!

I was too scared to talk to anyone about it or ask questions. Nor did anyone offer information. For instance, how was I supposed to kiss this guy? How was I supposed to convey passion? Should I kiss him as if I was on
The Brady Bunch
? Or should I go for something closer to what I saw on
Dynasty
? How did they do it on the prairie? All I knew for sure was that the expectations were high. This was the real beginning of Laura and Almanzo’s romance, which was one of the great romances of all time. When the time came to kiss Dean, I shut my eyes (inside, they were blank screens) and gently puckered up, letting him find the target.

I was never as relieved as when I heard Mike, who directed the episode, yell cut. I felt like I took my first real breath in a week. I turned and saw my mother, the woman who’d once told me tampons were for makeup, standing just off camera, smiling with tears in her eyes. She gave me a hug before I hurried off to the craft service table and popped some chips in my mouth to get rid of any cooties.

One bad taste lingered through the rest of the season, though it wasn’t openly discussed by anyone until it was too late. Mike had become very friendly with a new stand-in on the show, a pretty young blond named Cindy Clerico. I first noticed her during production of
The Miracle Worker
when Mike visited the set one day and said hello to her before he did to me. I wondered who she was, then someone said, “Oh, she’s a stand-in. I guess they know each other.”

Though it didn’t register with me then, I’m pretty sure that was the start of their romance. As the season progressed, I noticed they spent a lot of time together. It was nothing untoward; they weren’t ever in a closed-off room, not that I saw. But Mike would walk around holding her puppy, and she was a pretty young thing who wore stylish tight jeans, leotards, and high-heel boots.

Their friendship hit my radar as something that might be wrong. I mentioned it one day to my mother and she snapped, “Oh, you’re crazy.” And so it seemed. Mike still bought Auntie Lynn gifts, thanked her when he picked up awards, told everyone how much he loved her, and fawned all over her when we went to Hawaii.

Things seemed perfectly normal during that year’s vacation. Though that trip proved he wasn’t the only one with a secret: I got drunk for the first time and didn’t tell anyone. The event was the brainchild of Helen Reddy’s daughter, Tracy Wald, whose family was also vacationing at the hotel. She came up with the idea of raiding the hotel room minibar while our parents were at dinner. Leslie pointed out mine was off-limits since it was full of cold cuts, sandwich spreads, and milk. But they figured out an alternative. Tracy was light-years ahead of Les and me in experience. They were both ahead of me physically; at seventeen and sixteen years old, they were girls who looked great on the beach in teeny bikinis, and knew it, while I was a year younger and still wearing a one-piece with pajamas over it. Anyway, the three of us parked ourselves in front of the minibar and drank everything in it. We had vodka, rum, wine, champagne, Crown Royal, and Baileys Irish Cream, which I liked.

We got rip-roaring drunk. Sick drunk. We were out of control and running through the hallways of the Kahala. Little did I or any of us know you weren’t supposed to mix different types of alcohol or drink till you puked, passed out, or both. We did it all, and paid the price the next morning when Leslie and I decamped to the beach, feeling like we were an inch from death and wishing with each throb of our heads that we were dead.

We slumped in chairs on the sand and shielded ourselves from the world under layers of towels. We were probably groaning, too. At one point I peeked out from under my towel and saw a pair of legs—they looked like a man’s legs—next to our chairs. I looked up and saw Mike, who stood next to us holding a tray with two glasses of what appeared to be tomato juice.

“I hear you two had a little adventure last night,” he said.

Leslie looked out from under her towel. I could see her headache as she stared up at her father, then at me with a look that begged me to tell her when he had found us. I shrugged.

“Yes, we did,” she said.

“Uh-huh,” I agreed.

“Well, I’m assuming you don’t feel very well today,” he said.

“No, I don’t,” I said, and started to cry.

Leslie burst into tears, too, though I think both of us were crying from the pain we felt and the relief we hoped he could provide, rather than from fear or shame. Mike handed each of us a glass. They were Bloody Marys.

“This will make you feel better,” he said.

‘Thank you,” I muttered.

“I trust neither of you are going to do this again,” he said.

“No,” Leslie replied.

“No way,” I said.

Beyond that, there weren’t any more repercussions. My mom never mentioned it to me. I’ll bet she didn’t have a clue. No further punishments were necessary, anyway, since we were already paying a steep price for our stupidity.

Back then, I was relieved. Now I’m not so sure I shouldn’t have been given a talking-to. Put aside the potential benefits of a theoretical discussion about whether my biological parents might’ve had a drinking problem, something that would’ve been useful to know but was clearly beyond my mother, who still had not yet broken with the story that my birth mother was a prima ballerina and my father a brilliant scholar. It would’ve been good for me to hear that my actions, like anyone else’s, had consequences for both me and those around me. Such a lesson can’t be underestimated; none of us live in a bubble, even those among Hollywood’s most privileged. I would have to learn this basic lesson myself, as did so many others around me, old and young.

A
fter Hawaii, I went to work producing and starring in my second TV movie,
The Diary of Anne Frank
. As on the previous movie, I prepared with acting teacher Jeff Corey, who scared the crap out of me when he asked my thoughts on boys and tried to bring up issues of female sexuality. I understood the points he wanted to get at by alluding to Anne’s relationship with Peter van Daan, the sixteen-year-old boy whose family hid out with the Franks until they were all given up by informants and taken to Nazi prison camps. But I didn’t feel comfortable opening up to him or anyone else. Maybe it was his intention to make me uncomfortable.

Prior to filming, we rehearsed as if we were doing it as a play, and then we went through it scene by scene on a soundstage. As you’d expect from working on one of the most moving human tragedies of modern times, the daily expenditure of emotional energy took a toll on me. I would take a short nap as soon as I got home; it was a transition back to real life, which playing Anne made me appreciate so much more.

On the set, though, I would quake watching veteran TV director Boris Sagal, who was a screamer given to tantrums and dropping the F-bomb, including on days when we were visited by high-ranking dignitaries from the United Nations, Israel, and Great Britain. I’d never worked with anyone like him. Mike had a smoldering temper—he could kill you with a look—but he masked his intensity and perfectionism with a world-class sense of humor. Not Boris. One day a visitor made a noise and he whirled around and screamed, “What the fuck is this here, some sort of shit house?”

By contrast, the cast was a seamless group of talented, lovely actors led by Joan Plowright, Maximilian Schell, James Coco, Doris Roberts, and Scott Jacoby in the role of Peter. Scott was the first of my leading-man crushes, and it was my big secret. He was considerably older and beyond my reach. I was still listening to Barry Manilow. He was into Led Zeppelin.

With high ratings and three Emmy nominations, the movie turned out to be another respected achievement for my production company and me, but to tell you the truth, I was occupied by other, more personal milestones. Like turning sixteen. First, I celebrated the big occasion with a cake on the set of
Diary of Anne Frank,
and then I had a more fittingly girlish luncheon for all my friends at the Beverly Hills Hotel. The beautiful party made me realize I wasn’t in any hurry to grow up, but I finally felt ready for this next baby step.

In one respect, I was like every other kid who turns sixteen. I couldn’t wait to get my driver’s license and then I wanted a car. A car meant freedom. A car meant escape. Of course, my mother set out strict rules before I even got one: No driving alone at night. No driving outside a five-mile radius. If I drove farther than that, I had to have a parent or my on-set guardian in the car with me. There were so many restrictions I might as well have bought a bicycle.

I’m sure my mother would’ve liked it if I had. But I was intent on having my own set of wheels. My mantra was simple: freedom and escape. I made enough money to afford any number of cars, including a cute BMW convertible, which, if I could live my life over again, would be my first choice. However, my mother talked me into getting a brand-new…station wagon.

For reasons that escape me, I went along with her plan. As I recall, our conversation was kind of rhetorical. My “uncle” Bud Barrish owned a Chrysler dealership, and Harold and I both got new cars at the same time. He got a LeBaron convertible and I got a cream-colored LeBaron station wagon, which was delivered to the driveway with a big red ribbon on it. It couldn’t have been dorkier.

All my friends drove sporty cars like Mazda RX-7s. I pulled into school in a friggin’ station wagon, singing Barry Manilow’s “Mandy,” which was cranked on my eight-track. Any chance I had to be remotely cool was again instantly squelched.

F
rom across the set, the object of my horror looked to me like some sort of medieval torture chamber. In reality, I was staring at a bed—the bed Dean and I were supposed to get into for our first scene in our house after getting married. My head was full of vivid images of the vile things that could happen to me in there. Not that I had a clue what any of those things looked like; for me it was all imagination, and what I was imagining scared the shit out of me.

The seventh season of
Little House
had opened with Laura and Almanzo pledging their troth to each other for eternity. Their wedding, which aired in September 1980, was one of the major events of the fall TV season (from behind the cameraman, my mother sighed, “Oh, my baby’s growing up”), and this scene in bed, like their wedding and their first kiss, was a highly anticipated moment that was supposed to convey their special love. But make no mistake, this was no love scene per se…this was prairie lovin’.

We were lying under the covers, reading the Bible and eating popcorn. Even Kermit and Miss Piggy had spicier scenes on
Sesame Street
. But just as we were getting ready Dean turned, put his mouth close to my ear, and like a slimy lounge lizard crooned “Strangers in the Night.” He cracked up, thinking it was the funniest thing ever. Had I been a little older and more experienced, I probably would have laughed with him, but that was not the case. Singing that song in that place at that time was a fatal mistake. All my fears were confirmed. I thought I was in bed with Chester the Molester.

From that day on, any time I saw a script in which Almanzo was supposed to kiss Laura, I begged whoever was standing near me to find Mike and I’d ask him if we could change it to a hug. I was petrified by having to pretend to be in love when I’d never
been
in love. Obviously I wasn’t experienced in everything I did as an actor, but love was different. Showing it required exposing more of myself and more places within myself than I was ready or able to do.

I was also questioning the concept of love itself. One morning my mother came into my room with a look on her face that clearly meant bad news. She prefaced her remarks by saying, “Something’s happened,” which made me sit up straighter, since that phrase was akin to an airline pilot coming on the PA and telling passengers to buckle up because the plane had hit serious turbulence. Whenever
something happened,
it was usually horrible. Something happened when my dog died and when my dad died, and so I looked at her, wondering,
What next?

“Auntie Lynn and Mike are separating,” she said.

“What?” I asked.

“Mike is seeing someone else,” she said.

Everything about my mom—her voice, her expression, her gestures—was very dramatic and kind of defeated as she told me the news. She said he was seeing Cindy, whom she referred to alternately as the makeup artist and the girl who used to be a stand-in. I think she said Auntie Lynn had thrown a bottle of vodka at Mike’s head. She also said we had to be supportive of Auntie Lynn, as well as Leslie, Mike Jr., and their little ones, Shawna and Christopher, because they were going through hard times and it was going to get even harder.

I was obviously concerned for my friends, who were like a second family. They did go through a tough time, too. Mike Jr. was hit hard, as was Leslie. I didn’t know what to say to either of them. I had never been talked to about feelings, so how could I begin to discuss my friends’ feelings with them? The split also rocked my world, which was dominated by Mike. At a certain point, I thought,
Hey, wait a minute. What about me? I have to work with Mike. I can’t take sides, yet he’s done something that’s turned my world into angry, opposing sides.
I was put in a horribly uncomfortable position.

Worse, I’d seen it coming. I’d expressed my suspicion about Cindy to my mom. I’d told her something didn’t seem right about the time Mike spent with her, but it had been like walking over a dead body in a room and no one commenting on it. My mom had said I was crazy. Not Mike and Auntie Lynn, they were the devoted, loving parents of children whom they adored.

In public Mike was seen as a pillar of morality and family values, a real-life incarnation of Charles Ingalls, not someone who would leave his wife for a younger woman. The public believed it. So did close friends like my mother. And to some extent so did I. Then,
bada bing,
the picture cracked. At home, the phone didn’t stop ringing. My mother talked nonstop to Auntie Lynn. Hard as the news was to believe, it was really happening. It was like the
Titanic
hitting an iceberg.

Then the shit hit the fan in the tabloids and celebrity magazines. Mike lost lucrative commercial endorsements. He admitted he wasn’t perfect and warned people not to confuse him with the character he played on TV. I watched it all unfold. Though it wasn’t my family breaking apart, I still went to work every day with Mike and on weekends hung out as always with Leslie and Mike Jr., so I was more than peripherally involved. Yet no one said a word about it to me. I wasn’t given any advice or direction.

It was so strange to watch this drama play out around me while being left on my own to figure it out. But that’s the way it always was with me. After my mother and Harold married, they rushed Harold’s daughter Patrice to therapists to help her through the difficulties she had with her parents’ split and subsequent fighting. In the meantime, I wasn’t asked if I needed help coping with this newly blended family situation. Nor did anyone ask how I felt about Harold.

No, there was an assumption that my life was perfectly fine—
Melissa’s good. She’s a trouper.
The same was true after my father died. I appeared to make it through that tragedy without consequences (“She’s remarkable,” my mother told people), though if anyone had asked they would’ve found out that getting up and going to work every day without complaint doesn’t mean you’re accepting and adjusted. It just means it’s all stuffed away, ready to explode at any moment.

Likewise, it was assumed I could soldier on as always with Mike after he’d left his wife—and my mother’s dearest friend—kind of date his son (who’d begun seeing other girls), and remain best friends with his daughter as their world crumbled and changed. Indeed, it was assumed I could manage all those relationships on my own without any guidance. I was given only two instructions: don’t talk about Mike in front of Auntie Lynn, and don’t mention Auntie Lynn or my mother in front of Mike.

I was caught in the middle as the people all around me chose sides. Everyone on the crew supported Mike and so did I. He was our boss
and
our pal. At home, though, we sided with Auntie Lynn. At the dinner table, my mom preached girl power and talked about what “a shit” Mike was being to Auntie Lynn.

Sometimes I would catch myself staring at Mike and wishing he would take me aside and say he knew it was awkward for me but things would turn out well. He didn’t. I don’t think he ever talked about it to his own kids either. He moved out of the family’s home in Beverly Hills and got a house in the Malibu Colony. At work, his parts got smaller and he directed fewer episodes. He became less involved in the show. His name dropped down the call sheet from number one to…whatever.

He was creating a new life for himself—one that didn’t include me. I get it now. My family’s allegiance was with Auntie Lynn and the kids, so my relationship with Mike began to dissolve. No explanation. No discussion. No acknowledgment that I might be feeling confused, betrayed, and abandoned. To me, it was like a death but without the grief, since I’d never been allowed to experience that.

I wasn’t supposed to feel anything because he wasn’t my father, because it wasn’t my family, because if you asked my mother, my life was charmed and perfect. I was on a hit TV show, met amazing people, and acted in movies during my time off. What complaints could I have?

A
mid that upheaval, Harold suffered a brain hemorrhage. He collapsed one day in his bathroom and was rushed by paramedics to the hospital. My mother was a wreck. Brain trauma is very unpredictable, and Harold developed various issues that kept him hospitalized for quite a while. I resented being dragged to the hospital to see Harold when I knew it was mostly to impress the nurses who would give him better care if they knew he was related to a celebrity. But I didn’t say a word.
Why start now?
I thought.

Look, I understood. My grandmother still lets people know her relationship to me and my sister if it means getting her air-conditioning unit fixed faster. But I didn’t have any emotional investment in Harold other than he was my sister’s father and I didn’t want her to go through the same kind of pain I did when I lost my dad. At one point, Harold pulled out a shunt that doctors had implanted to drain fluid from his brain. He also went through a phase where he was combative and pulled out tubes from his arm.

Through all of this, he maintained the one thing about him that I did admire: his humor. One day a priest came in and asked if he wanted any counseling. Harold said no, but he introduced his doctor, who happened to be in the room, to the priest as “Dr. Antichrist.” He was also delusional due to his condition, but we never knew when he was joking or when he was hallucinating. On his way to the operating room for a procedure, he told my mother not to worry because she owned the Rams. (This was back when L.A. still had a football team.) The ordeal, quite unexpectedly, inspired me to want to become a doctor. I felt comfortable in the hospital and fascinated by what went on there.

When Harold finally came home he seemed pretty much back to normal. He did, however, get hepatitis from a blood transfusion. All of us had to get a gamma globulin shot, which pissed me off because I wasn’t fond of needles, and the fact that I had to get a shot because of him made me even madder.

That’s awful to admit. Horrible, in fact. But it’s true. This was around the time I told the press “I had my crying moments” over Harold, which was a lie. As I said, I didn’t want Sara or my mom to suffer, but beyond that I really didn’t care.