There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me (11 page)

We veered off the bridge, onto the Palisades Parkway, and up an incline, eventually slowing to safety. We shut off the engine and were fine, but that Jeep model and year was soon after recalled. I am sure I remember the event so vividly because Mom herself loved telling the
story of how her daughter would rather die than be without her. She got to hear me pledge my undaunted love for her. What more could she ever want?

•   •   •

I continued modeling throughout my childhood. I was getting a few more commercials and did one for Tuesday Taylor, a Barbie-like doll whose ponytail grew when you pushed a button. This one was fun because I got to keep one of the dolls while the other girl got to take home Piper, her sister. I also did a Susie Q’s spot, which was not nearly as fun because I had to eat Susie Q’s all day and got supersick. It was a commercial with Mason Reese, and I remember thinking his mom was a real character.

When I was nine years old, I was cast in my first film, then titled
Communion
,
which was later changed to
Alice, Sweet Alice
. The film was a horror story in which my character gets tortured by her older sister and is eventually murdered. It mostly takes place inside a church and during the young sister’s first Holy Communion. The casting process was an odd one, and the story of my audition became an anecdote my mother loved to repeat to anybody who’d listen. As usual, I went into the room by myself while Mom waited outside. I was then asked how I would pretend I was being strangled. Funnily enough, I was at the age when my friends and I did this crazy thing with our breath that always made me laugh. We’d push all the air out of our mouths and then do this deep, guttural, crazy machine-gun laugh until our faces got completely red and puffy and we became hysterical. Because our faces were so red and our eyes filled with tears, it looked kind of disgusting and scary. So I was very ready to pretend to be strangled.

I was told that in the pivotal death scene, my character was to get strangled with a candle, stuffed in a deacon’s bench, and set on fire. A deacon’s bench most commonly found in churches and chapels is
where the deacon or priest sits during the Mass. It’s usually wooden, with a spindled back and arms. During the audition, in a room full of people, I proceeded to do the demonstration of my suffocating red face. I held my breath, bore down, and let out a huge fart. I was incredibly embarrassed and quickly mentioned that during the actual filming I would not do that.

Later that same day, after having gotten the part, I showed up for rehearsal. A group of actors were discussing astrological signs and asked me when I was born. I said I was a Gemini, and one lady said, “Oh, that’s an air sign.”

“We know!” added the director, laughing. My face got really red, and not intentionally this time. Mom thought this was incredibly funny, and we would laugh about it for years, saying that maybe I should fart in auditions more often and I’d get more movie roles. Needless to say, the movie (later retitled again and rereleased as
Holy Terror
) was not a box-office hit but went on to become a bit of a cult classic.

Soon after filming
Alice, Sweet Alice
, I was brought in and cast by Woody Allen, to appear in a new movie he was directing that was titled
Annie Hall
. I was going to play the focus of the young Alvy’s obsession. In one of the scenes I was a sexy pilgrim in a flashback of a Thanksgiving-themed school play. I filmed for only two days, and although singled out briefly, I was one of many kids in the scene. I did stand out because I was dressed all in white with flowing hair while the others had mismatched clothing and seemed uncomfortable. Woody had chosen every odd-looking child he was able to find in New York City. The scene was filmed in a gymnasium and we were all given box lunches. During this time my mother and I had adopted a husky puppy, and Mom had brought the dog to visit me for lunch. I didn’t wish to finish my box lunch and asked Mom where I should put it. She said, “Give it to funny face.”

I went to a little boy who was very short for his age, had black
greasy hair flattened down on his head, and wore Coke bottle–thick glasses. I handed him my lunch. Mom blurted out, “I meant the dog!”

I felt so bad for having thought the kid was “Funny Face” and prayed his mother didn’t hear the conversation. Thankfully, neither the kid nor the mom heard a thing. But, embarrassingly, Mom and I did laugh pretty hard about it later that day.

The strangest part about doing
Annie Hall
was that Woody Allen asked my mother out on a date and she went. I think it was only the one night and it was just dinner. Mom left the apartment, and our close friend Alice from across the street came to babysit. Alice was young and blond and like a big sister to me. While Mom was out, Alice and I made crazy-funny signs that said things like “Oooooh, how was your date?” Or “Did Woody get smoochy smoochy?” Or “Hope you had fun, Mom.”

We stuck them all over the hallway on the seventh floor. When Mom got off the elevator, she was faced with all these funny signs leading to our apartment door at the far end of the hall. It turned out the date was uneventful. She explained that Woody was too neurotic and was in too much therapy for her liking. It is fitting that that was her take on the situation: a woman who would never fully be able to examine herself honestly, criticizing a man who appeared desperate to examine his neurosis. I get the phobic piece being unattractive in any person, but self-reflection, in my mind, is never a bad thing.

In the final cut of the movie, the flashback of the school play was edited out. My sexy pilgrim ended up on the cutting-room floor. I am pretty certain this had nothing to do with the date, but it was fun teasing my mom and accusing her of doing something that made Woody cut me from the film.

Mom and I were the closest when we were laughing. Our comedy and innate sense of timing created our deepest bond. We had the same sense of humor and it would carry us through many a difficult period. Mom kept her wit basically until the end.

Even though things didn’t work out with Woody, Mom did have two other notable relationships at the time. The first was a man named Bob, whom she began dating on and off when I was about three. I don’t think Mom was ever really attracted to him or was in love with him, but he was a very generous man who loved us very much and he embraced me fully. He worked in oil rigs and shared with us substantially. I think Mom accepted him as a temporary provider but never wanted to remarry. He was around—and a very strong source of support for me—for many of the more tumultuous years, when Mom’s drinking escalated to disruptive heights.

Mom also met a man in Brazil one summer named Antonio Rius. We had traveled to Rio when I was two, but we went back to visit several times during my childhood. Their relationship was intense. She was never more beautiful or happier than when they were together. But he was separated (though not divorced) from his wife, who said he’d never see his children again if he left her to marry an American. Mom was devastated but said if he was the type of man who could abandon his kids to be with her, then he would not have been the man with whom she fell in love. She said she would wait for him . . . and she did.

•   •   •

During these years my parents had very different reactions to my growing career. My father was uncomfortable with my fame and was intent on its not being a part of my life with him. I know he didn’t approve of my being a model or an actress and never went to see any of my movies. He liked my TV work better and in later years enjoyed watching me on the Bob Hope specials
and then on
Suddenly Susan
. But back then he really wasn’t comfortable with my other life as an actress and model. I remember once when we were taking the annual family photo, Dad stepped out and looked at me and said, “Now, Brookie, don’t pose!”

I was embarrassed and hurt but would later understand his fierce desire to keep me “normal.”

Even though my mother always believed in me and pushed me to take risks and never give up, she was also familiar with rejection and abandonment. She was concerned with how I’d deal with it. It wasn’t that she discussed it with me on an emotional level; she just tried to prevent me from feeling pain and rejection from others. But, ironically, over the years and thanks to her continued drinking, she herself would end up abandoning me the most and causing me the most emotional pain.

But in the moment, she could be wonderful. Right around the time I was starting to make movies, my mother took me to see the musical
Grease.
It starred Adrienne Barbeau and Jeff Conaway. Our seats were close to the stage. They were the seats we could afford, and back then Mom told me the closer the seats the better—something I would later learn was not true. We had not planned it, but we were attending the
hundredth performance of the original Broadway production. The preshow for
Grease
usually consisted of some fifties music and the DJ revving up the audience members and inciting them to clap and dance in their seats. To celebrate this particular show and momentous occasion, the producers decided to hold a Hula-Hoop contest. Any audience member could join in on stage. Mostly people from the
Grease
era—the actual fifties and sixties—began volunteering to enter. The prize for first place was a signed album, a chance to take photos with the cast, and an invite to their cast party celebrating their one hundred shows. I had never Hula-Hooped in my life but wanted desperately to meet the cast. I jumped up and raised my hand. Mom smiled and through a somewhat clenched mouth reminded me that I had never Hula-Hooped before. I didn’t care. Mom was always supportive of anything I wanted to try, but this was the first time I had ever volunteered to do something completely foreign, and in front of a packed and rowdy theatre. This was a far cry from singing in the church basement. She was nervous for me but encouraged my participation and urged me on.

“I’m going up there.”

“OK, then. Knock ’em dead.”

Well, I went up on stage and was given a Hula-Hoop and began to wiggle as if my life depended on it. It was nine adults, who had been teenagers in the fifties and had Hula-Hooped many times before, and me. I was blindly determined. My jaw was set, I looked at no one, and I made no notice when a contestant dropped the hoop and was eliminated. Before long, it was down to one older man and me. I would not give up. My hoop would go all the way down, almost touching the stage, and then suddenly go all the way back up, each direction eliciting a different-toned “Wooooooo!” from the crowd.

My mom could not believe her eyes. Then, in one amazing moment that I did not even register, the old man’s hoop dropped to the
floor. I kept going until the DJ stopped me and said, “Well, little lady, we might need to make you a part of our cast! Congratulations, and I’ll see you at the party.”

I didn’t even hear the thunderous applause. Back in my seat, the show began. From the overture till the finale, I was riveted. After the show I met the cast and got their signatures on my vinyl cast recording and attended the celebration. They presented me with a small trophy that said “Hula-Hoop Winner 1976.” From that day on, if I ever expressed a fear of failure, my mom would simply say, “Remember the Hula-Hoop!”

Part Two

I’ve never left her as a daughter, but everytime she drinks and hurts me, she leaves me as a mother. It’s been like this all my life.

—Brooke’s diary

Chapter Five