There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me (15 page)

The first few months of school, I made some very good friends but I struggled in my classes. The school was way too progressive for me, and the kids were much more mature. We were still living on Seventy-Third Street and I would walk to school every day with my mother. Just like the years before, mornings with my mother, before she started drinking, were once again the best times. She would pick me up in the afternoons, and the moment I looked at her face, I could tell. She’d look at me as if I were accusing her of doing the exact thing that she was doing. But I didn’t have the guts to say this to her on the walks to school because I didn’t want to ruin the one time a day I knew she would be most lucid. Even a hangover was a welcome relief from who she was when she drank.

Enough time had passed and the negative parts of
Pretty Baby
had all but been forgotten. I remained sought after for movies. I soon got an offer to be in a movie called
Tilt
starring Charles Durning. I would be playing a young pinball whiz who runs away from home to gamble by playing pinball.

Even though my mother and I had sworn I was done with movies, some time had passed and this project could not have seemed more different from
Pretty Baby
in terms of tone, time period, and duration of filming—only a few weeks in November and December 1977. Plus, this one sounded fun and we could use the money. But was it the right move for me, careerwise? My mother had no real long-term plan for my career, nor did she consider the quality of the projects or the directors. She appreciated the beauty of
Pretty Baby
but seemed unable to turn down projects just because they didn’t carry the same artistic weight.

Did it not occur to her that following up a movie of the caliber of
Pretty Baby
with one being guided by a first-time American director might not have been such a smart move? There didn’t seem to be a great deal of thought put into any of it beyond the question of money and the possibility of adventure. It seemed that my mom made many of my career choices based on everything but the creative factors.

To this day I remain shocked at her lack of commitment to craft. She truly had exquisite taste in the cinema we watched, but those parameters never seemed to consistently apply to me and the work I was doing or could be doing.

This absence of commitment to becoming a cultivated actor was perpetuated and supported over the years. It was easy to do because I was always busy working on something, so we could justify that I was successful and getting better. Two prominent film directors hired me because they did not want a studied thespian but an untapped resource. I had been labeled a “raw talent.” Was raw talent supposed to become “studied”? Wouldn’t that contradict the situation? And yet how was it supposed to be nurtured? Mom did not have a clue.

When working with directors like Louis Malle or, later, Franco Zeffirelli, I would trust them completely to spend time actually directing me. I knew they would not finish a scene until they were satisfied.

Later, I thought that because I knew I wanted to be an actress, Mom’s goal was for me to be a cultivated one. She convinced me that work led to work and it would all come together, but I believe people became confused as to what I was. In high school, while I was dreaming of being in Merchant Ivory movies, Mom seemed to have had little focus beyond keeping me in the public eye and maintaining a name the world knew. I think Mom’s goal was for me to be a movie star and for us to earn enough money to be wealthy. Fame to her was not a bad thing but it opened doors. She associated it with power. We both worked very hard for the money we had but not for the clarity of a career.

I am rather conflicted by it all. I appreciate that my work did not take precedence over my young life. Yet this attitude also seemed to keep me from committing to my work in a way imperative for growth and to cause a lack of clarity as to what I really was.

As a result, I never researched or deeply contemplated the characters I played, either. I learned my lines right before bed the night before and sometimes even on the day. I have a photographic memory, so memorization came easily. Mom never discussed the lives of the characters I portrayed. I never studied acting or took it very seriously. The moment the director yelled “Cut,” I would jump out of character and back into silly kid-Brooke mode. I resented scenes in which I had to feel deep emotion. I wanted to pretend but not actually be affected by the emotions.

This was in a way healthy for a girl my age with my acute innocence but would take a toll on my talent. I just didn’t take any of it too seriously. I thought all the actors who moped around or stayed in character all day were missing out on the fun it was to make movies.

But in the end, I feel my talent suffered. It would not be until years later that I recognized that I deeply wanted to be an actress and that I saw the beauty in identifying with the characters I played. My focus shifted slowly toward wanting to improve my ability. As I grew older, being respected for the quality of my work became my priority. As I matured, it all became a matter of perspective and balance. Whereas I had previously thought it a waste of time and embarrassing, I began to value the deeper levels of acting. I found freedom in detaching from everything to focus on a character. This would not happen until years later, however.

But back in 1977, I was too young to think in terms of a creative next move filmwise. But the sound of spending two months in sunny Santa Cruz, where I’d be eating Butterfingers and playing pinball,
sounded a lot better than staying in New York, getting C’s on tests, and being still somewhat socially awkward. Plus, I’d heard I’d have two pinball machines in the house we’d rent. It sounded like a vacation. I reconsidered my original position of never again doing another movie.

It’s funny how Mom’s stringent rules on my missing school changed just as I was entering my most important years of education. Just when my actual presence in school should have mattered, Mom decided that it made sense to leave for a few months at a time. But I didn’t mind—I wasn’t doing that well in my classes anyway! On set I would have a social worker and a tutor and I could get my assignments from my school. It might even be a positive thing, almost like being homeschooled. In addition, as an A-plus student in ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics), the only class in which I seemed to currently excel, I was secretly hoping that being away from New York would inspire my mother to curb the booze. Oh, how I continued to hang on to that persistent dream.

Mom and I packed up and headed out to Santa Cruz, California, and settled into a big wooden ranch-style house on a quaint street. Inside the living room sat the promised two pinball machines. One was Bally and the other a Williams. I was thrilled. I played during every free moment I had and became quite good. I had the mechanic set my tilt feature to be very delicate so as to make the game harder for me. I started to get very competitive but it was never against anybody else. I was always going up against my highest score.

I’d practice and practice, but at the time I had a bad temper in general and had always been a sore loser. I hated not winning, and if I made what I considered a stupid mistake, I often took it out on the machine. I once got so mad at myself for not playing well that I smashed my flat hands on the surface of the machine and screamed. Can anyone say “projection”?! Mom got so angry at me for displaying such a temper that she sent me directly to bed.

Even then I found it funny how conventional ways of parenting
seemed so ill fitting on Mom. She typically didn’t just ground me or send me to my room. No, she’d pour Yoo-hoo down the toilet or wake me up in the middle of the night and get me out of bed for no real reason. And on this particularly frustrating pinball evening, that was her exact punishment of choice. After sending me to my room, she continued to drink with friends, then suddenly decided to wake me up and force me into the living room. By now it was extremely late and I had fallen asleep on the top bunk of the dark-painted pine bunk bed. She threw open the door and told me to come out
now
. She told me to sit on the brown velvet couch in the living room and stare at the pinball machine. She wouldn’t allow me to play but made me just sit there, looking at it and thinking about how not to get so angry. Well, this just made me angrier, quite honestly. It felt crazy to me, but I admittedly never smashed my hands on top of the machine again. Once more Mom’s behavior was reinforced.

Mom prided herself on her particular methods. She practically gloated at the fact that she never spanked me. She preferred controlling my mind and my emotions. She honestly believed it was a genius approach and effective in ways that quick physical punishments weren’t. She thought she was really doing the best thing for me. Simply discussing things might have been a nice change of pace. Mom also found that instilling the fear of potential punishment proved effective. I never got the belt, but she often left a wooden spoon on the kitchen counter where I could easily see it. Every now and then she would pick it up and smack the palm of her hand with it so it made a loud cracking sound. Each time I went near the spoon, I offered to put it away for her.

“I put away for Mommy?”

“Nah, that’s OK. You can leave it out.”

It was never unclear as to who held the power in my house. As I got older I sometimes wished I had been hit in order to be done with it. But I knew Mom would never hit me—she knew it would be wrong, and it wasn’t in her nature to be violent. It could be in her nature to
be nasty and hurtful and to emotionally unravel—but not to be physically violent. Mom would sooner come at me wielding a butter knife than a sharp one, dramatically crying about what I had done to her. I think Mom wanted to prove her prowess as an authority by manipulating my brain, not by hurting my body. She was creating and forming me and I was dutiful.

•   •   •

But back on set, filming was a lot of fun, but much to my dismay, Mom did not show any signs of quitting drinking. She treated the movie like a permission slip to drink. She drank and I played pinball all the time. We worked mostly in and around Santa Cruz and then went to various locations in Texas. We traveled to Corpus Christi and heard country music (my all-time favorite at the time), and I even got to ride the mechanical bull at Gilley’s Club in Houston.

This was a great couple of months and not a great movie. I can’t say I really cared. We had had another very different experience. I returned to school in January a very different student. It turned out that tutoring was immensely positive. Not only was I ahead of my class when I returned, but my study and organization skills had improved dramatically, too. Despite the fact that Mom’s drinking didn’t get any better while we were gone, and she showed the first signs of how truly volatile she could be, I’d had a good time and we both had a better taste in our mouths concerning filmmaking. Once home, I again tried to forget how difficult it could be when Mom drank. Every shift in location seemed to give me hope. Back then I didn’t know how irrational that sort of thinking was. I just craved what I felt was the safety net and avoidance tool a movie set was.

•   •   •

By the spring I had another movie offer. I was called in to meet Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis, who was producing a movie called
King of the Gypsies
. The film was a family drama about present-day Gypsies in New York and the reluctant rise to power of the eldest son. I was playing Susan Sarandon and Judd Hirsch’s daughter. Shelley Winters and Sterling Hayden were my grandparents, and Eric Roberts played my brother. The director was Frank Pierson, who had written the Oscar-winning screenplay for
Dog Day Afternoon
. The movie shot in New York City and I had to film only during April and May of 1978. Because of the large cast, I had a very light shooting schedule and much less pressure than had I been the star. In hindsight, this was a good next step in my career. The cast was strong. It was a big Paramount production and had a reputable Italian producer at the helm.

I was a bit surprised that both Susan and I were cast as Gypsies because we both had very light coloring and sandy hair. She was completely lovely to me during this experience and I think she actually liked me. I was a bit older this time and clearly not the star. We were not isolated on a location together, and it was a totally different experience. We also never had a one-on-one scene together like the traumatic slapping incident during
Pretty Baby
.

It was rather cool to cast us as mother and daughter twice, because it almost seemed as if it were true. (The craziest thing is that now I would be too old to play her daughter. I’m not sure how I caught up, but now it almost looks like it.) Susan actually dyed her hair black for the film but Mom insisted on a Roux rinse for me. It was a temporary color that washed out. Every time I stood in the shower to wash my hair, the black dye would blanket the tub. I was glad not to have to dye my hair black, and I read later that Susan resented actually changing her hair color while I was allowed to use a temporary one.

I have to admit that her hair looked much more natural than mine did, and in hindsight, I feel her choice was the better one. Here again Mom made a choice that may have protected me personally but that
compromised the integrity of the piece and my portrayal. It doesn’t feel right to blame her. It frustrates me, but can I really say I’m angry now because she wouldn’t let a production team do anything they wanted to my naturally highlighted blond-brown hair? It is interesting where she chose to draw the line, however. Consistency, except in drinking, was never one of my mother’s strong points.

Shelley Winters was also fair skinned and lighter haired. She was a piece of work to navigate. I am not sure she liked me too much, but I can’t say I liked her, either. We had only a few scenes together, so I knew I would survive. However, there was one scene in which my character was skateboarding through the hallways of the hospital as my grandfather lay dying in bed. I was supposed to be eating a sandwich that Shelley was going to rip out of my hand as I skated by. She insisted I eat ham on white Wonder Bread with ketchup. Who eats ham with ketchup?