There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me (35 page)

After the office incident, I knew Mom would never willingly give me the jewelry we had bought together over the years. It had all been purchased with the money we both had earned, and even the stuff she had gotten before I was born was all left to me in her will. So, technically, my going into the garage with a girlfriend when I knew she was out was not stealing. My goal was not to keep everything for myself, but it was to prevent her from doing something potentially irresponsible, such as giving all the jewelry to a troubled young woman she had just met at the movie theatre or selling it to a guy she knew who knew a guy whose cousin was from Newark. I placed it all in a safe-deposit box until things settled down.

•   •   •

When I had my debut on Broadway three weeks later, I invited my mother to opening night. She was my mother. I was opening on Broadway for the first time in my life. I knew she would be proud and I was keeping to my word of wanting a mother-daughter relationship. I was not pretending. I wanted my mommy to “look at me, look at me. . . . Mom, watch. . . . Watch this.”

She came to the dressing room a bit early, and in her hands she held
my trophy from the Hula-Hoop contest twenty years prior. It was filled with fragrant lily of the valley—my birth flower and her favorite scent.

“You did it, kid.”

“I love you, Mama.”

Mom did not seem happy in life but she did seem a bit less angry. She was still hurt and I still felt bad for the way I handled it, but there was no going back. I really believed it had been the only way. I did hope that without her being my manager, our relationship would improve. I always seemed to forget that little, ever-present thing called addiction and still naïvely felt that this change would help. It would really only help me. I admit I did not expect her to change her views entirely and all of a sudden, but I was sure that once I felt more secure professionally, I would be more tolerant and compassionate. I would have more patience because I could not blame her for my career, and maybe she would affect me less. Neither one of us felt the need to apologize for anything. We all just had to wait and see.

Mom enjoyed the show and I got a standing ovation and a Theatre Guild award for outstanding newcomer on Broadway. The fastest way to Hollywood was via Broadway. Things were picking up for me professionally, and Andre and I were inseparable.

But as for my mother . . . she seemed to be aimless.

Chapter Fourteen

MIA

T
hings were going well careerwise in late 1995. After my six-month run on Broadway I was offered a guest spot on the Super Bowl episode of the show
Friends
.

Andre visited the soundstage to watch me shoot my
Friends
scene. In the scene I played a crazed fan who begins licking Joey’s fingers and throwing my head back with maniacal laughter.

As we were shooting the second pass of the same scene I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. Andre had stormed off the set. At cut I ran outside to find him and had to yell to him from the doorway so as not to get wet from the suddenly pouring sky. He said I made him look like a fool by licking Joey’s fingers, and he got in his car and drove all the way back to Vegas.

Upon arrival he systematically smashed and destroyed every single trophy he had won, including Wimbledon and the US Open, never mind all the others.

It took me three years to have them all replaced. I always believed his kids would one day want them. I hadn’t thought of their being my
kids at that point, but it was just a shame to waste the legacy. He probably threw them away, too, because I had them made.

But the
Friends
episode was ultimately a success, at least, and thanks to that one guest spot, I got the show
Suddenly Susan,
which ran for four seasons.

Suddenly Susan
was the best thing that had happened in my career since being cast by Louis Malle in
Pretty Baby
. This was my real emancipation from my mother as a manager. This was all on my terms and with the help of an actual professional team. I was amazed at the support I had now. There were agents who said no for me. There were lawyers who negotiated better deals for me. I had never experienced the way the business should be run. I felt like I was getting away with something. I loved being able to say no and I loved being on a series on TV. I was in my element and I felt alive.

I wanted my mom to know I still wanted her to share the joy with me, but I also wanted the recognition for getting and carrying the show on my own. I never got to speak to her about it, but it was enough to know she thought I was funny. The bond that we always shared through comedy was shepherding me through what would be the next big phase in my career. I suspect that Mom felt a bit responsible for the possibility of this new turn because she always said I got my humor from her. I don’t think it was selfishness on her part as much as pride for having nurtured and shared my sense of humor. It had amounted to something she could emotionally take part in. We were both still trying to define our relationship in the wake of the initial separation.

The actual separation of the business took years to complete because Mom would not agree to any way I offered to divide the properties and the various assets. She was becoming more sad and irrational and feared settling anything. I tried to tell her that she should sell off the Haworth and Sun Valley houses as well as the ranch in Montana and scale down.

She would agree to meet to discuss the issues, but then get drunk and either not show or leave in anger. I tried bringing in a mediator, but she refused to speak during our planned and paid-for meeting. It became a bizarre and frustrating situation that showed no signs of ever improving. I was so frustrated and exhausted by all of it and could not understand how I still managed to find myself on a hamster’s wheel, getting nowhere with her. Meanwhile, Mom was drowning in sorrow and pickling her cortex more and more each day.

•   •   •

In many ways—both good and bad—I had basically allowed myself to be overtaken by Andre and his enterprise. It was such a relief to breathe for a change. He decided everything and planned everything and took care of everything. He was such a hero to so many that I could do my favorite thing; I would walk in slightly behind him into events or stadiums and enjoyed not having to be the center of attention for the first time in my life.

Our first few years together were amazing. I had never felt more taken care of and loved unconditionally in my entire life.

Once I was working again, I was incredibly happy. I loved performing in
Grease
, and Andre saw the show twenty-seven times. He loved it. He and Gil would stand in the back of the house and mime the dances, and the cast would send them secret messages from the stage. We were happy. Andre’s game had begun yet another climb and he was feeling good about his road. He had begun slower and with qualifiers so as to regain his footing. I, too, was starting my career fresh and via a path that was undeniably the most difficult for me. We were an extremely famous couple and for the first time got to really share the burden. Because we were not in the same industry—and obviously not in competition—we could hold hands and jump into what we thought was real life together.

We were like little kids. We ate candy and huddled together like
golden monkeys, with wide eyes and a giggle at the rest of the world. I always remembered what he said when we first met: “I want your dreams to be my realities.” And it was happening.

Andre was loving and generous with my mother. He bought her a safer car and invited her whenever he could. He struck a very healthy balance, treating her with acceptance. He knew the sadness she caused me, but he also knew I loved her. He had the distance I would never have but would covet. He was a “reformed born-again Christian” who could name the origin of any quote from the Bible.

Mom hated Perry but could not reject Andre. I could tell from early on that she liked him. There was something about the essence of Vegas and his lack of formal education that rendered her less intimidated and less desperate. She also knew he was genuinely sweet and loyal and admired how he had built himself up in the world. I think she knew he helped me stay connected to her and saw herself being taken care of as well. Mom never really believed that I would completely abandon her. Now with Andre, she felt she would be protected somehow. I thought we’d all reached a happy place, and hopefully, it would last forever.

•   •   •

But, of course, there will be the inevitable bump in the road. One night while on hiatus from
Suddenly Susan
, I was in New York City and got a call from the emergency room at St. Vincent’s Hospital. They had my mother there. She had taken a bad fall or had some kind of altercation that left her with an enormous hematoma on the side of her head. I rushed downtown and was terrified of what I’d find. She was so relieved to see me—weepy and oblivious to the fact that she looked like the Elephant Man.

As I was walking the corridor outside her bed’s little pulled curtain, I looked up to see
Suddenly Susan
being aired on the TV up in
the corner of the ward. There was a homeless man who had been beaten up and was off in his own area. He recognized me and said he wanted to give me a gift. I told him it was not necessary but that he should just take better care of himself. He insisted and he handed me a cardboard box with a turtle inside. He smiled a bloody smile and presented me with this gift as if he was one of the wise men following the North Star.

I thanked him and excused myself to check on my mother, who was starting to feel the pain of her bulbous, mushy, swelling mass of blood. I showed her the turtle and realized that it was in fact dead and stank up the whole area. The smell of the dead turtle and the sight of my mother’s beaten-up head mixed with the one-liners being wittily emitted by my character on TV made me feel like puking all over the linoleum floor.

I excused myself to find the doctor and was relieved when he told me they wanted to keep Mom overnight for observation. I kissed my mom’s good side and said I had to go home. She panicked, but I told her she should sleep. I waved bye to my homeless buddy and thanked him again for the turtle, promising to take good care of it. I waited until I got outside and out of view before I threw the box of dead turtle in a Dumpster. I walked a while and didn’t even know how to feel.

Still, I told myself that things were going to keep getting better. I was doing comedy and I had found my home. My mom adored
Suddenly Susan
and watched it religiously. Even my dad, who never saw any of my movies (or if he did never told me), watched the show and loved it. Comedy was in my veins and it unified us all.

Suddenly Susan
changed my life in another way. It gave me David Strickland. The day I met David, I knew I had met the brother I had never had. I really felt like his sister. I basically didn’t need anybody as long as David was in my life. We were all at the first table read of
the show, and right before beginning to read the script we were mingling around and chatting. I can’t explain it properly, but we each simultaneously made a comment under our breath and it was the same comment. I heard him and he heard me and we both began to laugh. We were obviously on the same wavelength. I was four years older than he was and we even looked like we could be related. He understood me completely. He was the first person, since college, with whom I felt utterly myself. Even more than I did with Andre or Dean, to tell the truth, because it felt like blood.

David played Todd Stities, the music reviewer at the show’s magazine,
The Gate
. He became my best friend. By this point Lisa and I had become temporarily estranged because of Andre. Andre believed I needed to rid myself of any friend of mine who would choose to drink with my mother while I worked or was recuperating from surgery. Andre was very rigid and judgmental that way. All it would take was one meeting or one story and he could completely cut someone off from his life. I obeyed his wishes. Without Lisa in my life, there was a huge void. David overflowed it. It was love at first sight and a love not many would ever understand.