Authors: Melissa Gilbert
I said yeah.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I was on the phone with people from SAG, and the lady who wants to be president said some things that hurt my feelings.”
Michael took a deep breath, gave me a hug, and said, “Mom, she’s just jealous of you.”
That was the last time anything SAG-related made me cry. For the next three months, I helped SAG wrangle its way through the ATA mess until there was an agreement. The election was at the beginning of March 2002. Ballots were counted two days before the SAG Awards, the union’s annual celebration of outstanding performances of its members. Whoever won the election would attend the rehearsal the next day and then the awards show on Sunday, which meant I had to prepare for either winning the election and attending the awards show or losing and watching the gala from home.
Wanting to be closer to town, I decamped with my family to the Beverly Hilton Hotel, where its owner, Merv Griffin, a family friend, generously let us have a penthouse suite. On the day of the election, my family, friends, and supporters waited in the suite with us while the votes were counted. SAG’s national executive director and CEO Bob Pisano let me know the turnout for the election was the largest in SAG history. He said the media had turned the headquarters into a zoo.
Ordinarily, results were announced around seven o’clock, but by nine that night we still hadn’t heard anything. My mother and her husband, Warren, were attending a black-tie function downstairs for Rudy Giuliani, and they kept running up to the suite for news. The wait was nerve-racking. On the bright side, though, I was so stressed-out that I was the thinnest I had been in years. There’s always a silver lining.
At close to two in the morning, my cell phone rang. It was Pisano. He asked what I was doing, as if I would be doing something at that hour other than waiting by the phone for the results.
“I’m standing here with everybody,” I said.
“Well, congratulations,” he said. “This is awesome news.”
Normally, a member of the election committee would call with the election results. Since I hadn’t received that call yet, I said, “What are you talking about?”
“Oh shit,” he said. “You haven’t gotten the call yet, have you?”
“No,” I said, looking around the suite at everyone anxiously staring at me. “What do you know?”
“You won,” he said.
“By how much?” I asked.
“About fifteen thousand,” he said.
I calmly thanked him, then hung up. Everybody asked me whom I’d spoken to, and when I said it was Bob, they lost interest, since they knew he wasn’t the official call. Then I said, “He knows. I won.” This was met by a collective scream, and I burst into tears in a delayed joyful reaction.
I’d won!
Indeed, the official call came a minute later. As Bob had said, the results weren’t close. I had taken 56.6 percent of the vote, compared to Valerie’s 33.4 percent. I felt vindicated, drained, and elated all at the same time. For the next several hours, the phone rang off the hook. Later that morning, I gave a press conference, declaring the victory a mandate for change.
“I’m upset we had to go through this again,” I said. “It was a big waste of money, time, and effort. But the silver lining is that so many members voted in the election. I hope that’s a sign the members can put aside differences, come together, and accomplish some great and necessary things.”
If the previous weeks had been awful, the SAG Awards made up for it. My dress was an unusual off-the-shoulder brown full-length gown. It was also leather, which was a conscious decision on my part: I wanted to look pretty, yet tough. The red carpet was nuts. My victory had made headlines all over the world and now every media outlet wanted to talk to me. It was actually kind of scary, but I was on the arm of my incredibly strong and handsome husband, who kept gently nudging me forward.
The SAG Awards is a cozy affair; actors fill the front tables, eat dinner, and visit between commercials. And trust me, if you want to have a good party, invite two hundred actors and put a couple of bottles of wine on each table.
At one point I left to have a cigarette. When I came back, Bruce had an odd look on his face. Apparently while I was gone Kiefer Sutherland, who was also at our table, had leaned over to him and confessed that he was in love with me, and had been in love with me since we were kids, but he’d never had the courage to tell me.
“He said I was a lucky man,” said Bruce.
“Are you okay with that?”
“Of course. I know how lucky I am.”
I’m the lucky one,
I thought.
I married an amazing man.
As the SAG president, I was scheduled to give a speech, and I was uptight about delivering it. I made a sarcastic crack to Bruce during dinner about this being a fine time to be sober. Moments later, I was dragged backstage and then I heard myself introduced. Nervously, I walked onstage, where I was met by thundering applause that turned into whoops and chants, and finally a standing ovation led by Joe Pantoliano, followed by Jack Nicholson. I was so overwhelmed I almost fell apart on live TV. But I delivered my remarks and held it all together.
Back at my table, I leaned into Bruce and said, “This may be one of the biggest things I’ve done in my entire life.” He put his arm around me and said, “I’m so proud of you. I can’t believe you did this.” Neither could I.
Apparently neither could James Gandolfini, who I hadn’t seen since we acted together in the basement theater beneath the Trocadero bar in New York. At the after-party, he barreled across the floor, scooped me into his arms, and tossed me in the air like I was a beach ball. He put me down and said, “Congratulations, Grandma!” Grandma? I don’t know what he meant by that. I didn’t care either. It was the best election party ever.
A
t the next board meeting, I banged my gavel and opened discussions on the ATA agreement. It was immediately combative, and I had to repeatedly call the room to order. Kent McCord actually challenged my friend Peter Onorati to step outside and fight. It was surreal. Staff members were brought to tears, some asked where their thirty pieces of silver were. Esai Morales capped off the classy gathering by saying, “It’s like I’m bent over this desk and I can feel the tip, man.” Charming!
After this final salvo, I thought about calling in a shrink or my son’s kindergarten teacher to give the worst offenders a time-out; we needed more than me as Madam Half Pint banging a gavel. During a break, I stepped off to the side and Valerie Harper sidled up to me and said, “Isn’t it just awful the way people are fighting?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Well, better you than me, kiddo,” she said.
I turned my head to the side and looked at her with absolute shock and more than a little disrespect. If she felt that way, why had we just put our union through the cost, effort, and embarrassment of a second election? Had she even wanted the presidency? Or had she truly been a puppet?
Then came the debate before the membership. What a circus that was! Kent McCord and Scott Wilson presented one side. Kevin Spacey and I were supposed to speak on the other side, but Mike Farrell had to step in for Kevin after his mother took ill. Afterward, Kevin called me and asked how it had gone. I described the insane debate during which Kent had, at one point, recited the Boy Scouts oath while I had been loudly booed every time I opened my mouth, and how in the end, I felt, we lost.
“Shit,” Kevin said.
“I have never seen people behave more horribly in my life,” I said.
Kevin apologized for not being there.
“There is a silver lining here, though.”
“What’s that?”
“I must finally be rid of the Half Pint image because these people really hate me!”
Not everyone hated me, though. One day I was in my office when an assistant came in looking flustered. She said Marlon Brando was on the phone for me. I glanced at the phone on my desk; the light indicated a call was on hold. I glanced back at the redheaded woman as if to say, “Really? Marlon Brando?”
“I think it’s really him,” she said.
I picked up the phone and said, “This is President Gilbert.”
The man on the other end introduced himself. He was indeed Marlon Brando. He said he thought it was great I was the new president.
“God, I couldn’t stand that other guy,” he said.
“Thank you very much,” I said. “Your confidence means a lot to me.”
Then he said he needed some help tracking down several residual checks from
The Godfather
. I knew there had been a problem with getting residual checks to people in a timely fashion, but I still couldn’t help myself from blurting out, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Oh, no, no, no, no,” he said. “I’m very serious.”
I walked down to the residuals department and explained that Marlon Brando had just called to say he was behind and we needed to figure it out as soon as possible. It turned out he was right. Three days later, I received another call from Mr. Brando. He thanked me for getting him the dough.
“The other guy never helped me,” he said.
“Well, I try,” I said.
“That’s why I like you.”
I
still had to work, and I couldn’t have felt more comfortable when I made the pilot
Then Came Jones
in summer 2002. It was a twisted Western that starred Sean Patrick Flanery as a small-town whorehouse owner turned sheriff with a nervous stomach, and me as his reformed alcoholic sister. I loved the script, the Western-style clothes felt familiar, and best of all, we shot at the Big Sky Ranch, the same place we had used to shoot exteriors for
Little House,
so it felt like home.
On the first day, I stepped out of my dressing trailer, turned the corner, and heard someone shout, “Hey, Half Pint, you old rat ass.” I instantly recognized that voice. It was Jack Lilly, the man who had taught me how to ride a horse on
Little House
. Denny Allen, our former wrangler, was next to him. They had been training the guys on the show to ride and shoot and act like cowboys. I half expected to see Mike around the corner with his shirt off.
We enjoyed a warm reunion and laughed as I read from a press release I had in my hand about the show taking place in Texas at the dawn of the twentieth century—“when men were men, and women loved them anyway.” Unfortunately, when ABC tested the show, the results came back saying that TV audiences didn’t want to watch a Western. I thought that was a lot of horseshit. I was disappointed; I had enjoyed the job and everyone involved, and it would have been a joy to work with them for an extended period of time.
In hindsight, my life may have already been too busy to take on a full-time acting job. The SAG presidency consumed way more time than I had ever imagined, but I didn’t know how to do it or anything else halfway. Bruce resented the intrusion into our lives—the phone rang constantly, and there were always meetings to attend, trips out of town, or strategies to plot. He was only half joking when he said he would run for a spot on the board of directors to ensure he saw me regularly. He did, and he won.
Thanks to a rule change, all hundred-plus seats on the board were up for reelection that year, and I ended up with a super majority in the boardroom. As a result, meetings that had routinely lasted from six hours to two days were completed within two hours. Mike banged the gavel in Hollywood Division meetings in record time.
Everything from work to my home life, including my sobriety, was in pretty good running order, except for one major pain in my neck. It really was a pain in my neck, too. Ever since the fall I took nearly ten years earlier on
Sweet Justice,
the discs in my neck had been degenerating and causing an increasing amount of pain. I had been under the consultation of renowned spinal specialist Dr. Robert Bray, and we’d been doing everything to avoid surgery. Acupuncture, physical therapy. But over the years my neck got worse and worse. Tired of flare-ups that would paralyze my left arm and leave me couch-bound, taking Vicodin like Pez when I was trying to stay sober, I went in for tests, which revealed several leaky discs as well as bone spurs that clamped down on the roots of nerves coming out of my spine.
I went in for surgery feeling confident in Dr. Bray, but scared of the possible side effects, since the doctors would be going through the front of my neck to get to my spine. In the operating room, as the anesthesia began to take effect, I grabbed Dr. B.’s shirt, pulled him toward me, and said, “If you screw this up, my husband and my sons are going to kick your ass.” Then I was out like a light.
Luckily, he was a good sport—and an even better surgeon. I woke up several hours later in the recovery room, and after the grogginess began to wear off, I realized something extraordinary. My neck didn’t hurt. Nothing hurt. I had been living with a low-grade level of pain that was so constant I had grown used to it.
When my doctor came in and asked how I was doing, I started to cry. I told him that I had pain from the surgery, but it was different than I was used to. The pain that brought me to him in the first place was gone. I could also hear better, which was weird. He laughed knowingly and said, “Yeah, you were a mess.”
After recovering, I dove into the process of trying to merge SAG and AFTRA. A meeting developed into committees that explored the issues for both sides and eventually led to a plan for consolidation and affiliation that I really thought we could get passed. While working on the plan, I attended an AFL-CIO and AFTRA event at Ron Burkle’s home, kicking off the Working Families campaign. A number of high-profile SAG and AFTRA members were in attendance that night.
Bruce was out of town, so I asked Kevin Spacey to be my date. We met for tea at the Ivy in Beverly Hills and then Kevin drove both of us up to the Burkle mansion. He drove like a maniac through back alleys to escape paparazzi that had chased us after we left the restaurant. He very calmly turned to me at one point and said, “Don’t worry, I’ve taken an evasive driving course.”
I walked into Burkle’s house and came face-to-face with a marvelous van Gogh painting, a real one, which enchanted me for about twenty minutes. There was a van Gogh inches away from me. I was standing in some pretty rarefied air there. Indeed, the event’s headliner was former president Bill Clinton. Kevin engineered a quick introduction beforehand, and then at the end of the evening we were cracking jokes in the corner about some poor schmuck’s toupee when Clinton sauntered over and began talking to us.
Actually, he talked to Kevin. I just nodded, trying really hard not to say anything stupid. I figured I had to nod, smile, and keep my mouth shut for about ten minutes, and then Clinton would move on. Instead, looking right at me, he asked, “What are y’all doing after this?”
“I’m in Kevin’s car,” I said hurriedly. “So I go wherever he goes.”
Clinton looked over at Kevin.
“Why don’t you guys come with me?” he asked.
He was heading to a fund-raiser for Senator Thomas Harkin at Haim Saban’s house and then another at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Kevin blurted out that he was in, and I said, “Sure, whatever.” Before we left, my pal John Connolly, AFTRA’s president, said that AFL-CIO president John Sweeney wanted to take us out to dinner. The political move would have been to accept, but I said no thanks and explained I was about to leave with President Clinton.
“Kevin and I are going,” I said.
I was trying so hard to be cool. Now I wonder if I came off that way. As Kevin and I climbed into the backseats of a large black Suburban—Clinton and a Secret Service agent were in the middle row, another Secret Service agent drove, and an assistant sat beside him—I could sense myself quickly running through my reserves of coolness.
We got about a half block down the street when I saw flashing lights from cop cars behind us. I immediately thought,
Oh my God, the Beverly Hills police are pulling us over. Wait till they find out whom they’re going to ticket
. I was about to say something, then thought better of it, and I was glad I did. It turned out not to be the police but the police escort. There went my last ounce of cool.
We were chatting when Clinton received a call from Senator Tom Daschle. From what I was able to hear, Daschle wanted to talk through strategy about how to deter President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld from invading Iraq. I looked at Kevin nervously; I was unsure if we should be eavesdropping on this conversation. It wasn’t like listening to someone talk about getting a plumber to fix a leak. They were talking about how to get people on board to block the country from going to war with a country that had nothing to do with the September 11 attack on the United States. It was power personified.
When Clinton hung up, he swung around, and without mentioning a word about his previous conversation, he told stories about his childhood. He said he was working on his autobiography. He was delightful, charming, smart, funny, easy to talk to, and thoroughly, disarmingly magnetic. I had seen his charisma work its magic in a room full of people. One-on-one in the back of a car, he was almost overwhelming. I could see why people fell all over him.
We were late to the fund-raiser at Saban’s magnificent house, but apparently Clinton ran on his own time schedule. It was nothing for him to be an hour or two late. The Secret Service guys told me it was called “Clinton time.” Whenever he got to an event was when it started for him, and everyone was thrilled he was there. Afterward, on our way to the next event, we somehow got on the subject of nose jobs. I described a letter I’d recently received from a girl who wrote how much alike she thought we were.
“Get this—she said, ‘I am also the victim of a botched nose job,’” I said.
Both Kevin and Clinton laughed. The former president then told a story about former supporters of his who had strongly advised him to get his nose done before he ran for president. They didn’t think he could win with his real nose. He laughingly said, “They thought it was functional, but not presidential.”
We were having a good time when we pulled in front of the Beverly Hills Hotel for the last event. The walkway leading into the hotel was lined with a crowd five deep on both sides. People screamed his name. It was like being with all four Beatles rolled into one. As we walked in, Marty Sheen came walking out of the hotel. He said hi to Kevin; then he looked at Clinton and said, “Mr. President”; and then he looked at me and said, “Madam President.” Since Marty occupied the top office on
West Wing,
I quickly picked it up and said, “Mr. President.” Then I looked at Clinton and said, “Mr. President.” Though amused, Clinton put out his hand to indicate he wasn’t going to enter into our Marx Brothers–like silliness. But he added, “Actually, Melissa is the only real president among us, the only one who’s actually in office.”
After that, Clinton, Kevin, and I were taken into the kitchen behind the stage of the ballroom where the former president was set to speak. While he waited for his introduction, he shook hands and posed for photos with the kitchen staff, from the chefs to the waiters to the busboys. He took time to acknowledge everyone. I was impressed with his ability to connect with people. But then, that’s what made him Bill Clinton.
At some point, Kevin, who was getting ready to start filming
Beyond the Sea,
started singing “Mack the Knife,” and the next thing I knew, the two of them were singing and bopping along. I chimed in, too. Around one in the morning, we finally rolled back up to Burkle’s house. They invited me to stay and play cards. But frankly, I was out of cool, and moments away from saying or doing something totally dorky. I let a Secret Service agent drive me back to my car and went home replaying the whole evening in my mind.
I
was fully rehabbed from neck surgery and feeling strong and fresh when I flew up to Calgary to work on
Hollywood Wives: The New Generation,
a TV movie event based on Jackie Collins’s best-selling novel. On and off camera, the movie, whose cast included Farrah Fawcett, Robin Givens, and my longtime friend Jack Scalia, was full of Jackie’s trademark excess. At the first photo shoot, Farrah took one look at Robin and me, then ran back to her trailer, sobbing, “They’re so much younger than me.” We waited three hours while she redid her makeup. But waiting for Farrah, who was listed number one on the call sheet, became part of the routine. Every day I came in and asked, “How’s Number One today?” Let me just say I read three novels while shooting the movie. Still, I adored Farrah. There was something about her vulnerability that made me want to protect her.
If Farrah was fragile, there was one person on the set with the strength of ten: Jackie Collins. I loved and admired her. She was a real dame—a strong woman who existed successfully in a man’s world without sacrificing an ounce of her femininity. In fact, she oozed femininity. Jackie had everything figured out, including men and women, sex, money, and power. She shared her expertise on wardrobe, jewelry, and looking sexy, and the stories she told on the set were better than her books. She knew the most delicious dirt about everyone. She told me about a superstar singer turned actress who would check into the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills to get a manicure and pedicure, strip off all her clothes, and then order room service so she could see the reaction on the waiter’s face when he walked in and saw her nude while getting her nails done.
I was afraid to ask what she knew about me. But then again, if I had, she might have warned me about the role I slipped back into on that movie—that of alcoholic. Bruce and Michael were with me during most of the production, and one night we were at dinner, along with my brilliant assistant Kari, and after they ordered drinks, I said, “You know what? I’m going to have a martini.”
As the waiter wrote down my order, the others at the table—not Michael, but Bruce and Kari—looked at me with shock and confusion.
“Why can’t I have a martini?” I said. “I’m not in pain anymore, not since my neck surgery. I’m not covering that up anymore. I’m no longer traveling with a box of painkillers and muscle relaxants. There’s nothing going on. I’m fine. I can have a drink.”
I was doing cartwheels inside as I sipped my martini. I could hear my brain say, “Yeah, I’m drinking again.” The next day I called my shrink and told her that I’d broken my sobriety, but I felt confident I could have a drink here and there. She said, “Okay. If you say so.” Of course, that didn’t last long.
Nor did the stability in my life. In July 2003, I decided to run for a second term as SAG president. I knew my job wasn’t finished after my effort to unite SAG and AFTRA barely missed. Although 58 percent of the membership voted for the merger, constitutionally it needed 60 percent to pass. In any other world, 58 percent would have been a mandate. In the world of SAG, it was a defeat. The theatrical contract between actors and studios was also up for negotiation. We had extended it the previous year in order to study what new media was going to look like in the future, and to avoid a possible lockout over issues we weren’t sure about, but the contract needed to be addressed.
As I threw myself into both the contract and my campaign, Bruce landed a starring role in the series
Young Blades
. The series shot in Vancouver, requiring him to move there and be gone for large chunks of time. It was rough, and I handled the stress and strain by drinking more.