There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me (34 page)

I had the space to expand my thinking about my life and about my career. Andre supported my every dream and helped me see how I could make them actualities. I was away from my mother and living a totally new and different existence. I talked to Andre at length about my mother and her drinking and my staled career. I bared my insecurities to him and put my absolute, unfettered trust in him to guide me through. He said things like “I want your dreams to become my reality.”

“What!”

“I wish you could see yourself the way I see you. You would really love what you see.”

Oh, good Lord Jesus, where had this guy materialized from? He was too good to be real. And he would do incredibly thoughtful things like getting the LA house tented for termites when he heard we had a problem. He gave me books by Marianne Williamson and C. S. Lewis to read and thought
Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus
was a great way for the sexes to grow together. I did not question a thing he suggested. I just wanted to keep breathing in the fresh air of contentment.

I bared my heart about wanting to be an actress and feeling like a joke and a failure. I was out of shape and rejected and I didn’t know how to turn my career around. He said that if I was serious about being an actress, I should be out in Los Angeles and I should get an agent. In order to do so I’d have to scale down propertywise and consolidate my finances. I’d have to sell and buy myself time to forge a new path and not be forced to take jobs just for the cash. And, most important, I’d have to leave my mother as my manager and establish myself financially and professionally separate from her and the debts. That last part I had come to know but hearing somebody else say it hit me like a Mack truck. I knew it was true, but the reality terrified me. It would kill her.

Andre said he would help, and I could use his office and lawyers to ease the transition. His manager and best friend since childhood,
Perry Rogers, was controlling his life at this point. Perry had basically facilitated Andre’s breakaway from his own father. I figured that since he had guided Andre through a similar disengagement, he must have all the answers. Plus, Agassi Enterprises was a huge operation with many on its payroll. There were trainers, doctors, massage therapists, secretaries, pilots, assistants, lawyers, ex-girlfriends, all being subsidized in one way or another. I was property-rich but had both an entangled relationship with a drunk business partner and a depleted cash flow. I was in no position to say no to the possibility of reclaiming my future. I felt empowered and scared but knew I needed to cause a huge shift in my life.

Andre helped me believe in myself and in my talent and in the possibility of future success. There were concrete steps that could and should be taken, and both Andre and Perry presented me with a game plan. I had never before understood any of the financial aspects of my life. Mom handled it all with an accountant and I never paid attention. These two guys, who were five years my junior, tried to educate me on what needed to happen financially and professionally, which aided personal growth as well. Andre was never as emotionally connected to his father as I was to my mom. I deeply loved my mom, whereas he remained ambivalent toward his dad and all he stood for. My emotional separation was going to be tougher for me than his was but the goal was the same. Andre suggested I investigate the possibility of obtaining an agent from an important agency in LA.

•   •   •

I went alone out to visit my mother in Haworth to tell her that I had thought a great deal about it and I had decided that I wanted to go out on my own as an actress and that if I failed, I wanted to fail on my own. I planned on trying to go back to William Morris and working once again with my old agent. I wanted to try my hand at a career my way and with a vetted professional team.

I explained to Mom that I felt we were becoming polarized as people because of her drinking and expressed my dissatisfaction with the way my career was going. I said I wanted to try to salvage the mother-daughter part of our lives. I told her the only way I thought that could happen would be for me to separate from her professionally. It was all too confused and becoming toxic. I added that I really wished she would quit drinking for once in her life.

“Don’t you worry about my drinking. Have you talked to a lawyer?”

“No. I wanted to talk to you first.”

It was true that I had not told our lawyers yet. I wanted to keep to my word about this being a personal decision and I wanted to show her respect by coming to her in person, and first. I was a bit hurt that she thought I had already contacted an actual lawyer but felt clean knowing I had not. The idea had not come from Perry or Andre—they were just helping with practical elements.

“Well then, do whatcha gotta do.”

There was a hint of her thinking it bullshit that I wanted to save our personal relationship. I saw her smirk as if I were just using it as the excuse. She was a mix of hungover and still drinking, ingesting enough every time she left the room to have her senses dulled but her edges nicely sharpened. Most people soften their edges with alcohol. My mom’s protruded and hardened with booze. I started to feel a sense of panic rising in my gut, and the moment she drove off to rehab, I felt guilty and I wanted to try to make it better for her. I did not realize that I could never have gotten her approval for something that was going to destroy the very foundation of all she thought she had built. But I wanted her approval nonetheless. I wanted to help give her security in this moment, so I stupidly threw in that I’d just split everything we had together in half and she would be fine. It was never going to be that easy. I had no idea how difficult it would all be financially and legally.

I left the house feeling vaguely concerned that it had all gone far
too smoothly to be true. As it had been with rehab, I knew this was just the calm before the storm.

I had made sure I had been clear and unapologetic. I knew I could not want her approval on something that would devastate her. But I told her I loved her and wanted to repair our relationship and that without the pressure of the career we could start anew. But I think we both knew that this was only part of my plan, and maybe Mom sensed what she thought was the falseness of my approach.

I knew this is something I had to do. I desperately wanted a better relationship with her but was finally convinced that it was never going to happen as long as she was still drinking. The career part was true in the sense that I did want to learn independently from her. But I also knew I would have an agency at the ready. I did not want to eviscerate her, or undermine all she had done. I had a goal and I was not dishonest. I just tried not to be cruel in my delivery. I had to say I wanted to try on my own versus saying I was unhappy with the job she was doing. Both were true and I was leaving no matter what, so why not remain kind and generous in spirit? She was the one who would be left alone. I was not.

But even though she’d seemed calm about it, she wasn’t buying any of it. I knew it. I got out of the house before I would want to backpedal and apologize and ask her to tell me it was all OK with her and that I was making the right decision, and that I would end up getting work, right? And that maybe she was correct and I should just stay with her and we would figure it out?

Can you say ACOA?

•   •   •

I then called the William Morris Agency. I was humble and honest and said I had come to a place in my life where I needed a fresh start. I was separating from my manager-mother. Would I be able to sit and discuss the possibility of rejoining the agency?

I was given a bit of a scorned response that I played right into. I might not have known the business of entertainment, but I did know the business of people. Wasn’t it all a game anyway? If my mother taught me anything, it was that it was all a game.

Bargaining and posturing was how the business was run, right? The only problem was that Mom would not bargain and she didn’t consider her bravado false. But I’d learned from her mistakes as well. I had to find a way to make it their idea to represent me. I had to defer and slightly smooth their ego. After all, they had been scorned. I was sweet and humble, and even though I really was sincere, I played all the right cards on this call. After the agent seriously said his perfunctory “I’ll have to run it by my colleagues to see if there is interest” line, I once again had representation.

•   •   •

I think Mom believed it was just a bluff and that I was being manipulated and brainwashed by the Agassi team. I don’t think she believed I would follow through on any of it. She would come to hate Perry with such venom in her veins that she would never accept him. She reveled in the fact that even Andre eventually fired Perry. Mom would never come to believe that this was a good move for any of us.

I explained the split to the lawyers Mom and I had been using for years, but I also informed them I would be using another team to handle the logistics. I couldn’t afford the legal fees but Andre said he would help detangle the mess and help me get back on my feet. I took the charity for the first time in my entire life. I had no idea that once reality hit her, my mother would dig in her heels legally for quite some time and emotionally until her death.

I was offered a role replacing Rosie O’Donnell in the Broadway revival of
Grease
as the Pink Ladies leader, Rizzo. Andre and Perry and my “new” agent all thought it was an amazing idea and hoped that the quickest way to Hollywood was via old Broadway.

I was to go on tour for three weeks as a sort of break-in/rehearsal period with
Grease
so I could get used to the grueling schedule of doing eight shows a week and performing live in front of thousands of people. Right before I left I did something that I will never fully forgive myself for, but which was ultimately the only chance I had at survival. Soon there would be no turning back.

I had visited my mother right before leaving for the
Grease
tour. I had personally told the three employees at Brooke Shields and Co. Incorporated in Norwood, New Jersey, that some changes were being made and they would all be taken care of, but that I was scaling down and that after Friday they would not need to go into the office. I asked for their respect in not talking to my mom so as to give her time. I did not tell anybody of the other part of my plan. My mother went to the office on a pleasant Friday morning as if it was business as usual. She had gotten into the routine of going to the office practically every day, and this Friday was no different from any others. I had told her good-bye and left for tour in Cincinnati to be put into the company. I was busy and avoided phoning home for fear I would break down from nerves and guilt.

Perry had told me that the only way to have a clean break in a complicated relationship like ours was to be drastic. I had to take a stance and make everybody know I was serious. He was used to dealing with big corporations and a very discordant relationship like the one between Andre and his father. But Perry was insensitive to the layers of hurt that his tactics incited. He ruled by fear and by very false bravado and he loved reducing people in business so as to win.

He and Andre had convinced me that as with interventions or corporate takeovers, damage inevitably had to occur. But this was not supposed to be a hostile takeover. It was supposed to be a sensitive, but firm, declaration of my independence. Easier said than done.

I was relieved to trust Andre and his trusted friend and follow along, by proxy, with their plan and their team of bad cops. I always
felt better as good cop anyway. Mom left the office on a Friday at about 6:00
P.M
. The office was four floors completely filled with all my almost thirty years’ worth of archives, film, TV and photo files, memorabilia, scripts, office equipment, collected antiques, and furniture. When Mom arrived back at the office on Monday morning, she put her key in the keyhole and opened the door to find a completely gutted space. Cowardly or not, over the weekend, while I was in an entirely other city, Perry had organized movers and trucks to come empty the space. It was devoid of all signs that any of us had ever been there. Everything—all the legal files, film reels, photos, wardrobe, art, and even my mom’s personal desk and furniture—was loaded onto huge moving trucks and en route to Las Vegas.

Mom would never forgive me for what I had sanctioned. But I needed to go cold turkey. I would never have had the strength to do anything other than close my eyes and rip off the scab. The bleeding would not stop for decades.

I buried my head in the tour and avoided her attempts to call me. I stopped the credit cards and began the legal transactions to establish a new corporation, which would be based in Vegas. I got in touch with my mother and said that I would send her money on a monthly basis and that as soon as I returned from tour we should sit down to discuss how to divide all the various assets. I told her that doing what I did was the only way I knew how to do it, that I was sorry to do it to her but knew she would never have made the actual break possible, and that because of her drinking I could not trust her or her judgment. I did what I had to do. She kept reiterating that she knew Perry was the one who put me up to it and that I was being brainwashed. I refuted her claims and said that although Agassi Enterprises had assisted me, it was generated solely by me. She just kept spewing hate toward Perry. She did not blame Andre but kept her rage directed at his manager, Perry. This gutting of the office was the beginning of a deeper, more painful end. We never fully recovered.

Mom started telling anybody who would listen that her daughter had divorced her. She asked Lisa to come over to the house to start to go through my personal things. What she planned on doing with whatever she found I have no idea. Lisa refused, saying she did not feel comfortable doing so. She had recently moved our safe from upstairs in the house into the garage for some reason. Mom did things like that all the time. She hid precious things all over the place out of some kind of paranoia and then usually forgot where they were. She accused me of probably stealing all the jewelry as well. I told her I had not touched the jewelry. But I admit this sent up a warning signal to me. Much later on I finally did orchestrate a sneak into the garage to empty the safe of its contents.