Stories From Candyland (6 page)

I have another fan that was painted in France in 1914. It shows an elegant couple dancing. The dancers look like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers to me, dancing in
Top Hat
,
Shall We Dance
, and
The Gay Divorcee
, those romantic movies they made in the 1930s. I look at the fan and hear “Night and Day,” “Let’s Face the Music,” and “Lovely to Look At,” and I hear Fred Astaire singing those songs to me.

More than once, that little fan has inspired me to dance around the room, imagining that Fred chose me over Ginger. I worry I’ll lose count . . .
one, two, three, and one, two, three, and one, two, three
. Is that the polka with Yul Brynner in
The King and I
or Astaire’s Carioca in
Flying Down to Rio
? It doesn’t matter. Fred chose me over Ginger, and we’re dancing cheek to cheek; Fred holding me tight, looking into my eyes, just like the couple on my fan.

One very racy fan shows a couple on a swing, and they’re kissing. On the other side of this fan is a beautiful bouquet of flowers. I’m convinced he’s just proposed to her, and they are kissing to celebrate. The flowers will be part of her bridal bouquet.
After the wedding, they’ll return to the swing, and then kiss on the swing on their anniversary, and then bring their children (a girl and a boy) to the swing with them. What could be more romantic, and who is going to dispute my story?

After a while, I started buying fans with clowns on them. I’m not sure why, except that I like laughing just a little less than I love romance.

I can’t help smiling when I look at my fans and the silly but regal-looking clowns who smile back at me. None of them looks like a Bozo or Chuckles. One in particular has a girl clown on one end and a boy on the other, who I’ve imagined are about to meet, fall in love, redefine romance, conquer the clown industry, and then be invited to entertain British royalty. I’m waiting to read that the beautiful clown couple has joined superstars such as Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Elton John as knights.

I have stories about my Steuben figures, too. Those figurines bring out some of my best obsessive-compulsive behavior. I know where each piece belongs, if “he” or “she” has been moved, and who belongs with whom.

I have a family of three Steuben beavers. Leave it to Candy.

My husband gave me the most beautiful Steuben hearts for my birthdays, Mother’s Day, and other special occasions. One has the key to his heart. I keep all the hearts together, and remember how much I loved Aaron. And, of course, I make up romantic stories about where some of the Steubens lived before they reached my home, the romantic thoughts the other
owners had as they admired the pieces, the secrets the pieces might have overheard in other people’s houses, and even some of the travel adventures they might have had. I have no worries that any of them would ever be inclined to tip off the tabloids about any of the exploits they’ve witnessed.

When Aaron and I got married in 1968, my mother gave me a beautiful Steuben bowl. My wonderful husband bought me crystal fruit to fill it. He’s the only man I ever knew who could make apples, plums, bananas, grapes, and pears romantic.

I think my Steuben mushrooms are right out of
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
, and that delights me.

I imagine that my dog, Madison, hangs out with some of my Steuben animals when I’m not home. She can play, but she’d better not touch. I wonder if she likes the giraffes or elephants more. Does she discriminate? No, Madison loves almost everyone.

Although most of my stories are happy fantasies and great memories, one piece of art serves a valuable purpose.

Directly across from “the Mrs. chair” in my office is a painting called
Lily Garden
, by Louis Ritman. It’s a beautiful painting filled with colorful and blooming flowers, and a woman at work faced with two paths winding through the purples, greens, and reds of the gardens. When my work gets overwhelming—and that kind of stress hits me maybe fifteen or twenty times a day—I imagine myself strolling on one of those two paths to another place.

I always have work to do, and whenever there’s a crisis
with one of my charities or an emergency city commission meeting, or if there’s a problem with one of my kids or grandchildren, I snap into action. But I have a secret weapon. I gaze at those peaceful paths across the room. I imagine myself as idle as the woman in the painting, walking down one of those paths to nowhere and everywhere, as carefree as the flowers enjoying the spring breeze.

I’m even able to cope when I hear a story about how Tori announced on her TV show that I didn’t attend a lavish party she threw. I want to yell to the tourists in the buses parked outside my house, “But I wasn’t invited!” but instead I imagine myself on one of those idyllic paths. I fantasize about finding a handwritten note from Tori among the lilies. It reads, “Dear Mom: Come on over . . . anytime. Bring Randy. Love, Tori.” I can’t wait to call my son, Randy, to tell him the good news. There’s no cell phone on these paths, so I’ll call him as soon as I finish my walk down the path to happiness. He’ll be happy, too.

Aaron told stories about families, romance, relationships, law and order, good and bad, fantasies and faith. For decades, millions of people tuned in every week to hear those stories and see how they related to their own.

My stories have an audience of just one, but I have a lot less pressure. No network executives can change my words. No sponsors can say I’m being too bold. My characters don’t have egos or rules. And if my audience of one doesn’t like the way the plot is going, I can change it. That’s a plot I like.

Chapter 4
Hollywood Wife and Mother
101: A Star Isn’t Born

I
always had mixed feelings about being the spouse of a famous person.

I felt so sorry for Norman Maine in
A Star Is Born
, his frustrations and problems increasing as his wife’s star rose.

I often wondered what Mrs. Spencer Tracy was thinking at premieres when Tracy and Katharine Hepburn were exchanging loving glances.

On the other hand, I’d see the wives of big stars such as
Clark Gable and Rock Hudson and think they must have great lives. They could be shy women like I was, yet get to go to all the best events, wear the most gorgeous clothes, and meet exciting people.

I really didn’t expect to become the wife of a famous man, so I never decided if there were more pros or cons involved. And then I became one.

When I met Aaron Spelling in 1966, he was more famous as a Hollywood playboy than as a Hollywood executive. He was the life of the party, a great date, a laugh a minute. And I wanted no part of him. I was looking for solid and successful, not Hollywood stereotypical.

We dated on and off for the next two and a half years. I moved to New York to get away from him. I returned, we got a marriage license, and it expired. I moved to San Francisco. I always came back. He had enlisted my parents’ help.

Love prevailed, though, and we did get married. After all that time, we thought about driving to Las Vegas to do so, but my parents had been Aaron’s secret allies to persuade me to marry him, and he wanted them to be there. So we got married at their apartment in West Hollywood; my mother and father; my brother, Tony; Aaron’s brother, Danny; and a close family friend were there with us. That night my parents hosted a beautiful reception for about forty friends in the rec room of their building. It was wonderful, and I still look at our wedding pictures all the time to remember that happy day.

My new husband was smart, charming, and in debt, owing
money on a house he had had to give his ex-wife, actress Carolyn Jones. He had some good Hollywood credits to his name, but was a staff writer or producer then, and never envisioned or dreamed of anything that would become an “Aaron Spelling Production.” Besides, he had always wanted to be an actor, but small roles on
I Love Lucy
,
Gunsmoke
,
Dragnet
, and
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
wouldn’t pay many bills. Still, he was an incredibly smart and talented man who, like many others, was looking for his big break in show business.

It’s not news at this point that my husband became one of the most successful, and thus famous, producers in Hollywood history. His list of credits causes people to gasp first and then nod and smile, and almost everyone has a story about how one of the episodes from
The Mod Squad
,
Fantasy Island
, or
Beverly Hills 90210
impacted his or her life.

Aaron’s success provided us with a life of luxury almost beyond imagination. And, yes, we were invited to every great party, got to meet many of the most interesting people in the world, and enjoyed experiences that were better than those of a lot of his television characters.

But we were just a regular couple who wanted children—although I wanted children much more than he did. But I was not able to get pregnant. We tried everything. The more I couldn’t get pregnant, the more I wanted a baby. I became obsessed with taking my temperature, so we wouldn’t miss an opportunity. I made Aaron come home from the office for yet another attempt, and repeated the steps over and over.
Finally, when it looked like I couldn’t get pregnant, Aaron agreed that we would adopt a baby.

Once the pressure was off, even before we started applying to adopt a baby, I got pregnant. We were blessed with Tori in 1973, and after much trying, Randy was born prematurely more than five and a half years later, in 1978, when I was just six and a half months into the pregnancy.

I had always loved the name Victoria, and dreamed of having a daughter I could give that name. But in true Candy style, I worried that her nickname would become “Vicki,” and I didn’t want that. We named our daughter Victoria, but at the suggestion of her godmother, Barbara Stanwyck, we called her Tori immediately. Barbara said, “Why don’t you nickname her Tori before the kids decide on another name?”

The ultimate irony was that Tori was conceived during the annual television “pilot” season, a time when producers such as Aaron, already working twenty-hour days, were putting in even more hours. He was never as pressured as during pilot season, and 1972, when he was working on getting
The Rookies
on the air, was no exception. The timing of my pregnancy might have made a great episode for one of his fantasy shows.

Over the years, I had learned a lot of lessons about the pitfalls of being a Hollywood stage mother, and Aaron and I were determined that our kids would be as “normal” as the circumstances permitted. It’s difficult to explain to children that there’s nothing special about them when you go to the movies as a family and photographers yell, “Candy, Tori,
Randy, Aaron! Over here! Smile,” or when strangers ask them for their autographs before they’ve even learned how to write their names. We were offered the best tables at restaurants, despite lines of people waiting, and the kids were often told they were “beautiful,” “handsome,” and/or “smart” by complete strangers, who’d stare at and examine them thoroughly. It was heady stuff, especially for the kids.