You'll Never Nanny in This Town Again: The True Adventures of a Hollywood Nanny (5 page)

Probably best that I didn’t know about his legendary vindictiveness when I was considering moving into his home.

When I pulled up to the curb near the Ovitz driveway, I saw four luxury vehicles sitting alongside a very exotic-looking black sports car. A man walked out of the house, who I’d later learn was Ron Meyer, Michael’s partner at CAA. He would eventually run Universal Pictures.
He waved from the entryway, saying, “I’ll be at Stallone’s house if Michael needs me.”

Sylvester?
And I might be working here?

My hand began to shake as I reached for the intercom next to the twelve-foot-high wrought-iron fence. It hit me that I might actually live in a residence where you had to ask permission to enter—a far cry from even the most expensive home in our small logging community. No one there had intercoms or gates. Come to think of it, most people in my town never even locked their back doors.

The house, situated on nearly an acre of land, was a two-story Southern Colonial made of brick and wood, with three majestic white columns across the front and two massive black lacquer front doors with shiny brass handles. In the brick-inlaid driveway a man busily washed a pristine SUV; three other cars were lined up behind it. I would soon see this as routine: the same man came every Saturday morning and performed a full detail on all the family’s vehicles.

Judy greeted me at the side door. She seemed friendly but a bit aloof. She was dressed in a coordinated casual outfit and looked even more perfect than she had before, if that was possible.

“Technically, this is our side front door,” she told me as we walked into a family room with an informal dining area. Then she led me to the main entry with the tall black doors and said, “This is our
main
front door.”

Huh?
I’d been inside the home for all of two minutes and was already confused.

Judy glanced back and gestured for me to follow her. “Come on. I’ll show you around.”

Passing from the kitchen through the formal dining room toward the living room, I stopped dead in my tracks.
My God, my mother would die if she saw this
. The photos hanging behind the elaborate wet bar looked like a spread in
People
magazine. Barbra Streisand, posing with Michael. There was Michael with Michael Caine, Michael and Judy with Tom Hanks, and Michael with Jane Fonda on the set of a movie. My mouth hung open as if I was a tourist.

I remembered that the personnel director at CAA had warned me that celebrities, such as Paul Newman, came over to the house frequently.
She had asked me if I thought I could maintain my composure, and I had assured her I could. I closed my mouth. I vowed to stay silent, almost stoic, during my tour. I hoped I was projecting casually,
I, too, live in a home where it is commonplace for Charlie Sheen to stop by for dinner
.

“Susan, you can follow me this way,” she said, her voice snapping me back into the moment.

“Um, Mrs. Ovitz,” I said, gently touching her arm, “uh, it’s Suzy.”

So much for trying to be mature and use my full name, Suzanne. I thought I would be taken more seriously if my name didn’t conjure up the image of a ditzy cheerleader, but at least Suzy was
my actual name
.

As I followed her, I noticed that there was art on practically every wall. Perhaps not in the bathrooms or in the kitchen, but we moved so fast it was hard to tell. I had never seen so much art. She told me that there was even a gallery on the second floor above the family room. I didn’t recognize any of the artists, except one. It looked like a real Picasso.

The country bumpkin inside me was screaming,
I have never been in a house like this!
My friends lived in homes with fake fur covering the toilet seats and blue water in the toilet bowl. A nice kitchen boasted plenty of frozen pizzas, Kool-Aid, and Cheetos. The only art collection I had seen up to that point in my life belonged to my friend Missy’s dad. His John Wayne memorabilia filled their entire family room. I think his spittoon even had the Duke’s picture on it.

“As you can probably see, Michael is one of the foremost art collectors in the country,” Judy said, picking up one of the small animal ceramics and holding it up to the light. “Michael got this in Africa. Have you ever been on a safari, Suzy?”

Oh, sure. Two of my friends can’t even get cable television because their houses are on gravel roads too far away from the main highway. But we frequently jet off to the African savannah
.

It wasn’t until much later that I would see this question as an early warning sign I hadn’t heeded. It was the first evidence that the wealthy and famous, at least this wealthy and famous, didn’t have a clue about how the rest of the world lives.

As the guided tour continued, we passed a young Hispanic woman in a starched white uniform. She and I exchanged smiles, but there was no
introduction. Judy rattled off the schedules of the entire staff and added that I would have Saturdays and Sundays off. How many people did it take to manage this house? I’d seen at least six so far.

She took me upstairs to show me the room I’d be staying in. Located between the children’s rooms, it was spacious and neat, with twin beds covered in matching peach-colored bedspreads. The cream-colored carpet had suffered quite a bit of wear and tear from live-in employees, but the room had its own TV. Even better, its own bath! At home, my two sisters and I had shared one bathroom. This was heaven.

In the midst of my glee, Judy asked me to come back to the living room for a talk. She began asking questions about my family and, in particular, about my mother, since Judy knew she had flown into town with me.

Then she insisted upon meeting my mother.

I stared at her, perplexed. Was that necessary? I was almost nineteen years old. I was grown-up enough to pick a job on my own. Did she want to gauge me better by viewing my mom? I felt a little like a foal that was being purchased—and the buyer wanted to check the teeth of the mare.

After a stilted exchange in which I explained that I
wasn’t
going to get my mommy and bring her back for this job interview, she ushered me into the room of Brandon, her newborn baby. As we walked in, Michael was telling his son Joshua to leave the baby alone. Apparently, the six-year-old was trying to pick his baby brother up out of the crib. Next to Michael stood three-year-old Amanda. These children could have modeled on magazine covers. They were gorgeous, just like their mother. Josh was very blond, almost a towhead, and Amanda had long beautiful hair, a perfect natural mix of blond and brown—the color women all over LA paid hundreds of dollars trying to duplicate.

“Joshua, I’m not going to tell you again,” Mr. Ovitz said. “Put the baby down and meet Suzy.” Joshua turned, shot me a disinterested look, and once again started to reach into the crib.

“Amanda, this is Suzy,” Judy said. “We think she’s going to be your new nanny.”
She’s still thinking about it?
I guessed my final test was to win the approval of the kids.

“Hi, Amanda,” I offered. She smiled shyly as she hid halfway behind her mother. “Hello, Amanda,” I said again, peeking around Judy. “It’s very nice to meet you.”

Okay, on a scale of one to ten, I just scored a 5.5. Maybe. My last chance would be with the baby. I walked up to the crib.

He was the most adorable human being I’d ever seen. Despite the fact that his brother had been antagonizing him, he was attempting a grin and was gurgling happily. I reached down, picked him up, and cradled him in my arms. He fit perfectly. Bliss.

This was clearly my ideal family; a newborn baby to care for, a busy household with three children, and a full-time housekeeper.

“He’s absolutely adorable,” I said as I turned and faced Joshua. “Here, Joshua, sit in the rocking chair. This is how to hold your brother.” I gently placed the baby into his arms. “Make sure you always cradle his head like this.” I tucked a pillow under the arm that propped up Brandon.

Michael and Judy stood back, watching. They seemed pleased. Finally, Judy said, “Do you have any questions?”

My mind went blank. Blank. Blank.

“How do you feel about spanking?” I finally blurted out.
What did I just say?

There was an awkward moment of silence, and then Michael said in a loud voice, “Oh yeah, I beat them all regularly.” Then he let out a quick laugh.

Oh God. I’d meant to say something like,
It’s just that I don’t want to work for a family that uses spanking as a punishment. I don’t agree with it
.

But I didn’t say that. I didn’t ask about what discipline strategies they
did
use with the children. If any.

And I certainly didn’t ask about a contract, how many hours I would work each day, what I would be responsible for, or how I would be compensated for overtime. I didn’t even ask if I would be offered health insurance.

I didn’t ask anything.

Looking back, they must have thought I was more than a little naive when that was the only question I could come up with. But it probably wasn’t an oversight that they didn’t mention a contract, either. I fit the
part that they were casting perfectly. I was a trusting, small-town girl whose only concern was for the well-being of their children. Money, working conditions, who cared? After all, when you have servants, it’s nice to believe that they work for you mainly out of a desire to devote themselves to your comfort. It removes any pressure for equality or respect.

Michael said they would like to hire me right away. He wanted to know how long I planned on staying with them, and I told them I could commit to two years. They seemed happy with that. Michael told me he didn’t like turnover because of the impact on the kids. Their cook had been with them for seven years, and he hoped she would stay forever. I was really glad that he realized how hard it must be on his children to have people come in and out of their lives. I didn’t stop to think that there might be a bit more to the story of the cook’s tenure. Judy mentioned that their last nanny was a young girl who decided after two months that she just wasn’t cut out for the job, but I didn’t let that bother me, either.

Michael told me to call his office when I got home, and they would make arrangements for my flight back. What a nice offer. I was so pleased with the position I had found. Going to Northwest Nannies Institute was such a great idea—all of the classes had really assisted me in becoming a “professional.”

I had so much to learn.

Perhaps I need to back up a bit. Just a year earlier, I’d had no post–high school plans. My entire existence had transpired quite peacefully and uneventfully in Cottage Grove, a town tucked away in a remote corner of Oregon where the highlight of a typical resident’s week was bingo at the Elks Lodge with a $250 pot. The best way to picture Cottage Grove is to imagine a cross between Dodge City in the 1800s and Mayberry from the
Andy Griffith Show
. It was a place where almost every young boy dreamed of owning a four-wheel-drive truck with a rifle in the gun rack, and most of the girls hoped for a boyfriend who fit that description. When we finally got our first fast-food restaurant, there was so much excitement that six hundred residents showed up at the school gymnasium to compete for a position that would have them saying, “Would you like to supersize your meal today?”

I didn’t want to pursue that line of work, but what to do? Where to go?

Graduation day was looming. Some of my friends had busily applied to various colleges over the past year. I had been at my best friend Kristi’s house when she filled out the paperwork for her father’s alma mater, Stanford. I had just hoped to God her parents wouldn’t ask me where I was going, because I hadn’t applied to
any
colleges, much less
“the Harvard of the West.” Fortunately, they didn’t ask me about my plans. I think it was just understood that it was a topic better left untouched, given my pretty much total lack of interest in academics. You might say I had pursued a degree in
social
studies.

My high school experience had, unfortunately, pinnacled with my election as homecoming princess of the sophomore class. My grades were always fine (that wasn’t so difficult) and the times I lugged any homework home were few and far between. But keeping up on who was dating whom was my greatest motivation to go to school every morning. I was considered
the
go- to girl for any and all dish at Cottage Grove High. Great fun, but not exactly a college prep course load.

I began to rack my brain for career ideas. Nothing. My guidance counselor, luckily, noticed that I hadn’t signed up to take any college entrance exams and handed me an application to a nanny-training program in Portland, the big city, almost 150 miles away. Nanny school sounded like the perfect plan—why hadn’t I thought of it? I had been babysitting since the age of nine and had worked for several families for years. I loved being with children. I’d be like Mary Poppins. Northwest Nannies Institute, my counselor explained, had just opened and was one of only a handful of nanny-training schools in the country. I took it as a good omen that it was located so close to me.

Along with the application and a small processing fee, NNI asked for three letters of recommendation, which I easily provided from families for whom I’d been working for half my life. They also requested an essay entitled “Why I Want to Be a Nanny.” That was a breeze—suddenly I was bursting with lofty aspirations, eager to provide the privileged toddlers of the world with the most devoted and loving attention. Besides, the tuition was reasonable, and my parents were more than happy to pay for my four months of “higher education.”