Read My Lips (33 page)

My experience on the set of
Serial
was altogether different. Much lighter fare, it was a parody of the 1960s, with a wonderful ensemble cast that included Tuesday Weld, Martin Mull, and Tommy Smothers. It was a lot of fun, except for one big drawback: Bill Persky, the director. He wanted me topless. “No,” I said. “I’m not doing it. I’m not going to be topless on camera ever again.” I gave at the office.

“We’ll just shoot you from the back,” he insisted. “You won’t see anything. It will be a closed set.”

Where had I heard that story before? Sure enough, when I arrived on the set, the camera was in the wrong position.

“Hey,” I protested. “You said you were going to be behind me.”

“We won’t see anything,” he said again. “We’re just going to pan above you.”

So I gave in. How could I have believed him? There I was, sitting topless in the lotus position with Tommy Smothers, and I really thought he was going to pan above me. So when I was finally sitting with the audience at a screening at Paramount, I was shocked to see this slow, almost clinical pan across my breasts. I could have decked Bill, and I wish I had.

Our trip to Monaco for
The Big Blonde
was so spectacular that it eclipsed such indignities. We had two first-class tickets to Europe with lodging in an exquisite hotel. The first night we were too excited to sleep, so we went to a late night bistro, drank red wine, and ate
croques-monsieurs.
We didn’t get to bed until 5
A.M.
and missed practically the entire next day. When we finally woke up, Jonathan said, “We have to go get a hot dog.”

“Oy,” I thought. Jonathan had been going on about eating hot dogs and crepes on the streets of Paris. He may have lived there as a student, but I thought myself the more sophisticated of the two of us. But down we raced to the water’s edge for a hot dog, which came wrapped inside a hot baguette. It was the most incredible hot dog I ever had. When it came to food, I’d never doubt him again.

But the highlight of our trip was dining with Prince Rainier and Princess Grace. Cheryl Ladd, our fellow guest, was about to portray the princess in the television movie
Grace Kelly.
Cheryl was beautiful—perfectly cast. In the long, formal receiving line Grace greeted Cheryl and me just as one actress to another. She was so warm, embracing us both. At the dinner Cheryl sat next to Grace and I sat across from her, next to Prince Rainier. Unfortunately, Jonathan and Cheryl’s husband, Brian Russell, were stuck at the far end of the table and forced to drown their sorrows in lots of French red wine.

Grace was stunning to behold and one of those rare individuals whose vitality and dignity add an extra aura of allure to her already
incomparable natural beauty. Never has anyone ever been so aptly named: she truly was “grace” personified.

Prince Rainier was a horse of another color. He was charming in his own way, though he kept telling me about the good-looking stewardesses he’d had on a recent flight. When the evening was over and we couldn’t drink or eat or talk anymore, we stood up to leave. Prince Rainier leaned forward to say good-bye, so I leaned in assuming,
Hey
—
we’re in Europe. He’s friendly. It’s going to be kiss-kiss on the cheeks.

Apparently I’m not as fluent as I thought I was when it comes to regal body language. As I leaned forward to receive what I assumed would be a friendly farewell, Prince Rainier stiff-armed me, pushing me away and reminding me that he was, after all, a prince.

Not so fast, lady,
he seemed to be saying, his arm outstretched like a barricade.
I’m saving that for the stewardesses.

I
T WAS HARD ON
C
LAIRE WHEN
J
ONATHAN AND
I
LEFT FOR
Europe. She had been my traveling companion before he came on the scene. Now that Jonathan and I were married, the trip may have seemed like just one example of the way she could expect to get squeezed out of my life. After all, by this time she had been abandoned more than once, by a parent who had moved away and by another who had grown debilitated and died before she was in her teens. Loss had defined her young life.

Then to top it off, she got me as the consolation prize. It must have been scary to have grown up with a high-strung, singer-actress aunt-mom. On film I may have already transitioned to playing mothers, but figuring out how to be a good one in real life was harder. I was sure that I was screwing up the job, trying to use volume and authority to make up for my lack of experience.

I consciously wanted to be different from my dad—a good man who loved us all but also scared us with his quick temper. We never knew when his wrath would show up. I’m afraid that
I had inherited that temper. Like my dad, I could be unpredictable—joyful one moment, angry the next—and I could tend to assign equal blame to every infraction, no matter how minor. It took me too long to grow up, and Claire was along for the bumpy ride. It’s amazing to me how much she overcame, and with so much grace.

I went to my shrink one day, sobbing that I was ruining Claire with my temper.

“Why don’t you quit?” he asked. “That’s what your sister did.”

I knew right then that I never would. But not quitting doesn’t make me a hero; it just makes me a human being. I was the only one Claire had.

Soon she had Jonathan, too. Claire moved home for her last year of high school, and soon after we married he adopted her. I had had her all to myself for some time now, and sharing me would be an adjustment. I hoped I could give her more of a normal, stable family life. God knows, I was going to keep trying.

I thought I had to teach her everything so that her life would work out perfectly. But in the end Claire was the one who taught me. She taught me about love.

T
HERE WAS ONE THING
I
WAS LEARNING ABOUT MY NEW HUSBAND:
when Jonathan put his mind to something, there was no stopping him.

“I like your friends better than mine,” he used to say. “I’m going to get into show business and get you the jobs you deserve.”

“Right,” I thought. “I’ll be eighty-two by the time you break into show business.”

But Jonathan was serious. We knew Blake Edwards from group therapy; he was married to the gorgeous and talented Julie Andrews. Blake was already well established in Hollywood as a writer and director, with a long line of successful film and television credits, including
Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Days of Wine and Roses, The Pink Panther,
and
10,
among others. Now he was working
on a film called
Victor/Victoria,
in which Julie would star as a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman—and it would turn out to be another huge hit. Blake liked the studio money but not the constraints; temperamentally, he was very independent and headstrong. Knowing this, Jonathan—who at this point had zero experience in show business—formed a plan to help Blake gain more self-determination as an artist.

To pitch the plan, Jonathan decided to fly to London, where Blake was filming. He booked himself on one of those no-frills, brown-paper-bag-it flights. When he left the house, he was a sight to behold. Handsome? Yes, always. But his glasses were taped together on one side and kept creeping down the side of his face. It was my fault: I had accidentally knocked them off and stepped on them, then faked a good cry as I was laughing so he wouldn’t be mad. So off he went, glasses taped and cockeyed. But Blake clearly liked what Jonathan had to say: he flew Jonathan home on the Concorde with a deal. Jonathan began executive producing Blake’s films. Jonathan was happy, Blake was grateful, and their venture began to take off. But Jonathan, who is always pushing himself, wanted more. He decided to start his own management company.

This time I believed him and began spreading his name around. The minute someone said, “I wish I had a manager . . .” I would immediately put the person in touch with Jonathan.

M
EANWHILE,
I
WAS WORKING CONSTANTLY, WHICH IS A LOT TO
be thankful for. For a while I was mostly doing television movies. I got to sing in
Dempsey,
the story of the prizefighter, with Treat Williams and Sam Waterston. I had met Treat during my run at the Rainbow Grill and loved working with him. While shooting a very emotional scene, I asked the director for a second take.

“We don’t have time,” he said. Then, from the other side of the set, I heard someone say, “Don’t forget! We have to get that promo.” They needed me to do a promo for the film’s release in
Europe. For the promo they wanted to shoot me in bed with Treat. I got the same old assurance: “We won’t see anything but the side of your leg. . . .”

Oh, time for a promo shot, huh
? I thought.
Naked leg
?

“Gosh,” I said. “If there’s time for a promo shot, I guess there’s time for a second take?”

We did the take. Then it was on to the naked leg.

Flashes of
Venus
came back to me as the makeup artist began shading my arms, fingers, and rib cage, working her way around my thong and pasties. Meanwhile, the assistant director was yelling, “Come on, we’re running out of time.” “It’s okay,” I kept telling the makeup artist. “I don’t need any more shading.” But she was a professional—bound and determined to give me body makeup circa 1932.

All shaded, I finally got to the set and climbed into bed in my thong. Treat walked toward the bed, and out of the corner of my eye I saw him drop his underwear.

“Okay, let’s go,” the director, Guss Trikonis, called. At that moment it hit me that, with Treat naked and me in my thong and pasties, we might as well be fucking. Not that that would have been a terrible thing, but I was married now. So I froze. Much as I wanted to be a team player, I couldn’t even go through the motions. So after stalling and wasting everybody’s time, I said, “I just can’t do it.”

“Good,” Treat said, and he jumped out of bed, put on his pants, and left.

Luckily, my contract had a “body double” clause, which meant that I could have a stand-in for such scenes. Jay Benson, the producer, told me that I could choose my body-double. The “auditions” were held in his office. Jay and I were both a bit shy. As the women came in, we’d ask, “Where were you born? . . . Oh, lovely. How many children do you have? . . . Uh-huh . . . How do you like Los Angeles? What do you like to eat?”

We asked everything we could think of to avoid having to raise the obvious question, “What do you look like naked?”

The first two women got out without shedding their clothes. The third body double came in and asked, “Where would you like me to drop my dress? Right here, or should I take Sally in the other room?”