Diary of a Stage Mother's Daughter: A Memoir (15 page)
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Authors: Melissa Francis
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Personal Memoirs, #Entertainment & Performing Arts
BOOK: Diary of a Stage Mother's Daughter: A Memoir
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“So don’t say a word to anyone. I think we saved you. Again.
By lying
,” Mom said.
By lying
,” Mom said.
On the last word she pounded her balled-up fists on the table and cocked her head to the right, looking hard into Tiffany’s face. Tiffany had been looking vaguely in Mom’s direction while she spoke. Now her eyes went back to her magazine and she essentially acted as if she didn’t hear Mom any longer.
Clearly in the mood for another fight, Mom pushed harder. “‘Thanks, Mom’? ‘Thanks for going in and lying for me’?”
“Thanks,” Tiffany said as insincerely as she could.
Normally, this would have been Mom’s cue to attack and Tiffany would have immediately taken up arms. The drama would have escalated until Mom pulled out Tiffany’s chair and screamed at her to get out of the room. I could see the scene unfolding and I just kept browning the beef. I was starting to feel like getting involved was fruitless if Tiffany didn’t want to pitch in and do at least
some
of the appeasing. She never even tried to turn Mom’s mood anymore; she seemed to prefer fanning the flames
some
of the appeasing. She never even tried to turn Mom’s mood anymore; she seemed to prefer fanning the flames
But this time instead of pouncing and attacking, Mom paused. Her eyes got stuck on the stitches in Tiffany’s forehead and the anger drained from her face. She studied the scars setting in, Tiffany’s skin dotted with purple here and there. Then she leaned forward and her head fell into the palms of her hands.
I looked over from the pan I was stirring. Dad hung in the doorway, still looking at the ceiling. Mom’s eyes were hidden in her hands, and I couldn’t tell if she was crying or just exhausted into silence. Tiffany had returned to her magazine, her feet tucked underneath her and her shoulders rolled forward, her whole body curved protectively into a ball. I turned off the burner, and as the gas flame popped and went out, the room fell silent.
CHAPTER NINE
I
walked down the hallway, tugging at the hem of my navy blue pleated skirt. I wondered if I’d shortened my new school uniform a little too much, since it fell to about the same length as my cheerleading skirt. I tucked in the hem of my blue collared shirt as I neared the classroom. The taskmasters at my new school were fanatics about the dress code.
walked down the hallway, tugging at the hem of my navy blue pleated skirt. I wondered if I’d shortened my new school uniform a little too much, since it fell to about the same length as my cheerleading skirt. I tucked in the hem of my blue collared shirt as I neared the classroom. The taskmasters at my new school were fanatics about the dress code.
Two girls stood at their locker. One said, “That’s her!” Then they turned back just as quickly and started whispering.
I’d graduated from elementary school to Chaminade College Prep, the Catholic coed school where Tiffany went. Everyone on campus knew me as the girl from
Little House on the Prairie
. When I’d gone to cheerleading camp the summer before school started with the other girls who’d made the Chaminade squad, twelve- and thirteen-year-old cheerleaders had mobbed my room looking for Cassandra.
Little House on the Prairie
. When I’d gone to cheerleading camp the summer before school started with the other girls who’d made the Chaminade squad, twelve- and thirteen-year-old cheerleaders had mobbed my room looking for Cassandra.
“Is she in there?” I’d heard a girl say in the hall while I stayed hidden in my room, tired of being a spectacle. The girl knocked, and I could see through the peephole that she’d brought half a dozen friends in matching blue and white cheerleading uniforms and pigtails that bounced as they turned their heads to one another.
“I’m going to slide this program under the door. Maybe she’ll sign it if I put a note on it. Let’s come back after lunch,” the leader of the group said. She turned and left as the rest of her squad trailed after her.
Little House on the Prairie
had been out of the primetime lineup for almost three years, but the fervor around the show had yet to die down. It still ran every day in reruns on the syndicated channels, in more than one language, so they’d cycle through the seasons pretty quickly. You could always tell when they’d gotten to my years, because more people would stop me on the street than usual.
had been out of the primetime lineup for almost three years, but the fervor around the show had yet to die down. It still ran every day in reruns on the syndicated channels, in more than one language, so they’d cycle through the seasons pretty quickly. You could always tell when they’d gotten to my years, because more people would stop me on the street than usual.
For the first half of seventh grade, I was so distracted by a new middle school and a huge batch of new classmates and friends that I barely noticed that I hadn’t worked much. I was grateful not to be working, in fact, because I didn’t want to miss a minute of my new life. I moved from class to class, mixing with different kids every period. I had eight teachers instead of one, a whole range of new subjects to dig into, like chemistry and Spanish. And then there was a brand-new selection of boys. The student body was almost ten times the size of my old school.
I’d scored a handful of meaty commercials during the summer and the fall, national spots that ran often and filled the mailbox with checks. Every afternoon my mom brought in the mail, quickly sifting the junk mail and tucking the envelopes with checks in a neat stack inside her purse.
But while commercials still seemed a dependable “get,” the theatrical roles were proving to be more of a challenge. Fellow veterans were no longer peers but major roadblocks, Sydney Penny in particular. She was petite and absolutely gorgeous with dark skin and shiny dark eyes that set off her sparkling white teeth and pink nail-beds. Mom said she looked “ethnic,” but casting directors who would normally complain about the challenge of matching someone with Cherokee roots to a set of fictional parents didn’t seem to mind. Even though she was a couple of years older than I, her smaller frame helped her pass for my age and thus take my roles as well as the ones in her age bracket.
She wasn’t the only problem. There were too many other girls like her. The field had simply gotten a lot more competitive now that we were all young teens who knew the drill, understood the value of working, and showed up at auditions hungry.
But a few months into seventh grade, just when I was starting to really worry I was washing up as an actress, I somehow landed a big one. This was the perfect role to end a dry patch, the lead on a new series on NBC. The creators had already sold a slate of episodes to the network, and the first one was centered on my character and a little brother.
The premise was wildly improbable. The show focused on a combined orphanage and old-age home. I was pretty sure orphanages didn’t exist anymore, although this would be my third or fourth time inhabiting a fictional one on TV. The show was called
Morningstar, Eveningstar
just in case the viewer missed the juxtaposition of the oldies and the kids, all left for dead by their biological families. The script and the dialogue were saccharine sweet, but then again I had come from the corniest family drama ever to enthrall viewers.
Morningstar, Eveningstar
just in case the viewer missed the juxtaposition of the oldies and the kids, all left for dead by their biological families. The script and the dialogue were saccharine sweet, but then again I had come from the corniest family drama ever to enthrall viewers.
The new show was even shot on the MGM lot where we did
Little House
. Returning to work on the lot was like going home, if home was a place where you’d find a new crew of kids in your bedroom every time you returned.
Little House
. Returning to work on the lot was like going home, if home was a place where you’d find a new crew of kids in your bedroom every time you returned.
The producers cast Fred Savage, a boy out of Chicago, to be my little brother. Fred was short and round, with a pudgy nose, dark eyes, and a mop of coarse curly dark hair that fell in his eyes when it got too long. We didn’t actually match that well physically since my eyes and hair were both lighter, but the producers figured it was close enough. Fred had come out to L.A. with his mom for the job and brought a midwestern accent with him.
The show had seven adults and seven kids for balance. Tammy Lauren played one of the older girls. She was about six years older than I and a veteran like myself. Like so many successful child actors, Tammy was fit and had a compact frame, and was pretty but not stunning. She had bouncy blonde blunt-cut hair that fell to her shoulders and swung when she walked, and bright blue eyes. All her features were bigger than the space they filled: eyes, nose, teeth and lips, which was also a common trait among actors. Mom always said successful actors had little bodies and huge heads and even bigger facial features because that’s what the camera liked.
Tammy’s loud, friendly, funny demeanor made almost everyone like her immediately. Like a true workhorse, she showed up every day, lines learned, acting choices made, hoping to stand out and outshine the rest of us or prove to the writers the next episode should be based on her. She was competitive, but only with herself, never the rest of us, which was rare in our business.
The boy closest to my age was Joaquin Phoenix. He’d decided to call himself Leaf, though, to fit in with his older siblings who had the woodsy names, River and Rain. Rain, however, was currently calling herself Rainbow, so who knew what anyone’s real name was in that family. River never came to the set, but Rainbow hung around all the time, and I took to her immediately because of her free-spirited friendliness. With her round face and warm smile, she loved life and lacked the bitchiness girls my age were already developing. She and Leaf had two younger sisters as well, Liberty and Summer, who looked like twins to me but weren’t.
Leaf was younger than me but handsome in a rough way with wavy brown hair, light eyes and red lips. He was born in Puerto Rico to parents who were missionaries for the Church of God, which explained a lot. The whole family could sing and play instruments, and they’d traveled through Central and South America in a van, singing in tiny town squares for donations to buy food. On the set, Leaf had declined to eat a Caesar salad because it had egg in it and he was vegan, a practice I’d never heard of.
In spite of this perceived worldliness, a lot of basic stuff I took for granted was brand-new to him because Leaf’s parents homeschooled their children, regardless of whether they were traveling or in one place. The birthday party we threw for him in the studio schoolroom turned out to be the first one he’d ever had.
“Happy birthday, Leaf!” the teacher chimed in when we finished the song. She presented him with a cake that craft services had made without eggs.
We crowded in to hug him and pat him on the back, and his eyes welled up with tears. Then he hugged the set teacher as if she’d given him a kidney.
“I haven’t had a party like this before,” he said quietly, now suddenly shy.
I couldn’t believe he’d missed the gravy train of presents all those years, but he seemed more struck by the gesture. I was charmed by the idea that he’d seen so much of the world and also so little.
Two older boys and a young black girl who wasn’t even in school yet filled out the seven, but I stuck mostly to the Phoenix clan or Tammy.
On
Little House
, we’d spent half our days on the lot, and the other half outdoors in Simi Valley, and on the Simi days, the show runner would hand out per diems. A per diem consisted of a little yellow envelope filled with cash that was supposed to cover our gas and expenses for not being on the lot. Ironically, on the per diem days, they also fed you from the world-class catering truck in addition to doling out gas money. The per diem equaled twenty-seven bucks a day, which Mom let me keep. That kind of cash really stacked up in my piggy bank at home.
Little House
, we’d spent half our days on the lot, and the other half outdoors in Simi Valley, and on the Simi days, the show runner would hand out per diems. A per diem consisted of a little yellow envelope filled with cash that was supposed to cover our gas and expenses for not being on the lot. Ironically, on the per diem days, they also fed you from the world-class catering truck in addition to doling out gas money. The per diem equaled twenty-seven bucks a day, which Mom let me keep. That kind of cash really stacked up in my piggy bank at home.
But on this new show, we spent every day on the lot, so no per diem. And on the lot, the cast had to fend for themselves when it came to food and buy what was available out of their own pocket. We could leave the property, though we only had an hour.
I loved to eat at the studio commissary. Mom said it was expensive, but they had crackers on the table and you got to see many of the other actors who were on the lot shooting different shows, so we became regulars. I always ordered a BLT sandwich. Leaf’s mom thought the commissary was pricey too, so her brood rarely visited, but Tammy and her mom often joined us.
When the show started, Mom finally told me what I was getting paid. I was making five thousand dollars per episode, which was great money for a fourteen-year-old girl in the late’80s. I think she couldn’t help herself this time. She was brimming with the news. She’d fired my agent and hired a new one who had brokered this deal. She’d lined up Harry Gold, Missy and Tracey Gold’s father. They were both very successful child actors with regular shows and their dad had managed their careers so well he decided to make managing kids his business.
“See,” Mom told Dad. “Jack wouldn’t have gotten this much money.” Jack was the agent she’d fired.
Dad was standing at the sink shaving, and she was sitting on the edge of their bed, where she could look into the bathroom and talk to his reflection in the mirror.
“How much money?” I piped in. No one had noticed that I’d entered the bedroom.
“You don’t need to worry about that,” she said.
“Come on,” I pressed.
“Five thousand dollars an episode,” she boasted.
I was dazzled. Five grand went a long way back then. It took a week and a half to do an episode so I calculated I’d be rich by the end of the year. She quickly straightened me out.
“They only sold seven episodes. So you’re getting $35,000 for the whole thing until they rerun it, and the government takes about half.”
“What?” That seemed illegal to me.
“I know. I always fill out the form that you have ten dependents so they don’t take the money right away, but we have to pay the IRS at the end of the year anyway, so they get you one way or the other.”
I put the fact that I had to give away half my earnings to the government on the back burner and started to plan for the other part. “What are we buying? Can I have a new horse?”
“No. It all goes into the bank for college. You know that.”
“That account must have a bazillion dollars in it by now,” I said.
“I’ll never tell,” Mom said.
After the first episode aired, I got the sense the show was a clunker. Even though I was only fourteen and probably didn’t have the most sophisticated taste, I knew
Morningstar
was hokey beyond belief. There was a catchphrase we all said at the end of the first episode, “Rain on you!” which made absolutely no sense to me. When we all delivered the punch line together, I hoped I was the only one who didn’t get it.
Morningstar
was hokey beyond belief. There was a catchphrase we all said at the end of the first episode, “Rain on you!” which made absolutely no sense to me. When we all delivered the punch line together, I hoped I was the only one who didn’t get it.
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