Then and Now (18 page)

I knew I was in big physical trouble, but my immediate response to the doctor's command was a simple “I don't think I can.” Even then I still didn't believe I had a drinking problem. I had a “calorie” problem and just couldn't stop eating and drinking. I knew the problem meant that with my body betraying me I couldn't work, and that as a result the most essential part of my identity was being taken away—yet the drinking continued.

It was an awful, awful time. With the club date over I was still in L.A., spending most of my time in bed, having panic attacks. My friend George Connolly let Wally and me stay in his house. He would sit by the bed for hours, not talking, simply holding my hand. He's still a close friend—a very good man.

When I finally got back to New York, a physician I knew put me on a strict low-carbohydrate, high-protein regimen, which was then the best-known treatment for hypoglycemia, the diagnosis I had been given in L.A. I was able to stick to this new way of eating, and for a while I was able to stay away from alcohol. I began to lose some of my excess weight and my head began to clear.

The most astounding things had begun to occur: I was getting my life back—I had stopped drinking and the terrible depression and great heaviness that had descended on me every morning were gone. Gone! It was as if someone had opened a window and let the sunshine and light and playfulness back in. For the first time in
years I was able to plan little pleasures and look forward to them with great joy. What a wonderfully silly Thanksgiving I had that year. Wally and I were working in Washington and decorated our hotel suite with garlands of paper leaves, as well as paper turkeys with those fanlike tails. I even bought little cardboard Pilgrims to mark each place at the table, and our friend Jonathan Hadary made Pilgrim hats with aluminum-foil buckles. I'm sure there must have been more worthwhile things to do with one's sobriety, but at the time this all looked mighty good to me.

Now, to what exactly do you suppose I attributed all this great change? Why, it was the result of my new low-carb, high-protein diet, of course. Everything was clicking into place. I had even stopped drinking, so as far as I was concerned that sad old chapter in my life was finished.

Which leads to one overwhelming conclusion: it is impossible to overstate the power of denial. As I shall demonstrate . . .

Wally and I had just finished a second studio album for Columbia and I was out celebrating with my colleagues. They were drinking Champagne and I was toasting with my Perrier. And then on the way home, I thought to myself, “Screw this. I'm gonna celebrate too!” So I stopped to buy a half gallon of my old favorite, Gallo Chablis. I hadn't had anything to drink for about six months, so it won't surprise anyone to know that it didn't take me long to get very drunk. I drank at least half of that big jug of wine and fell asleep—passed out is more like it.

I woke up about four hours later, in the middle of another terrifying panic attack. For the first time ever I made the association of the panic attacks with drinking. When the panic subsided, I looked at the half-filled glass of wine by my bed and said, “I am never going to do that again.” And I knew, in every cell of my body,
that I'd stick to that vow. Nearly forty years have passed since that moment and I have not touched a drop of alcohol since. The desire has vanished.

Even when the album that was the occasion of that final celebration with wine didn't do well, I didn't resume drinking. The album, titled
As of Today
, represented my one attempt at a pop record. The problem lay in the fact that the combination of that musical idiom and my theatrical soprano voice just didn't work. There are some good things on the recording, most notably a beautiful Janis Ian song called “Stars.” We mixed in a few standards, like Irving Berlin's “What'll I Do,” but the end result was neither fish nor fowl. I actually had known we were in big trouble as soon as we brought the recording to the Columbia Records executive who was to sign off on the finished product. He hated the record. Really hated it. It was clear that there would be no big promotional push and that the record was not going to go anywhere.

Completely sober, I began to work nonstop and eventually began attending a 12-step program—it just took me ten years after I stopped drinking to get there. I didn't want to go for a long time because I didn't want to call myself an alcoholic. I thought, “I've stopped. What the hell do you want? Fuck off!” I think what changed my mind is that at this same time I also began to grapple with my food addiction and was attending a 12-step group for eating disorders. I had tried this program some years before and had given up on it. But by 1987, when I put together my Broadway show
A Concert for the Theatre
, I was unhappy with my weight gain, and my son, Adam, said to me: “Why don't you go back to the meetings for food addiction?” I started attending those meetings, and after about one week I thought to myself, “This is about bone-crunching honesty. And that means I have to get honest about
my drinking, too.” I was ten years sober at the time, but I knew I needed to attend the meetings. I promised myself I would give it five years. It was one of the smartest decisions I've ever made.

It was not easy for me to get there. The first time I went I was alone. I opened the door and looked into what felt like the brightest room I had ever seen, when suddenly all the heads in the room turned and were staring at me. I closed the door and walked away. I was rescued by two friends who knew the rooms very well. They held my hands and walked me into my first meeting a few days later.

I discovered a truly beautiful fellowship. I stuck around and met some great people, all recovering alcoholics like me. They have given me tools that help me get through the day a little more easily. And one of the great things is that no matter where I am in the world, I know there are rooms I can go to and be welcomed and understood.

For all their similarities, however, there is a substantial difference between food- and alcohol-addiction programs: if your problem is with alcohol, you know—theoretically, at least—that you can turn your back on it. You don't have to drink in order to live. If your addiction is to food, however, there is no getting around the fact that you have to eat. You have to walk the tiger three times every day.

I had trouble with the “higher power” concept, but the program helped me with my search for a deeper spirituality. I would bring needlepoint to the meetings, sit and listen, and eventually came to realize that the meetings were helping me become a more honest person. They help you lead a more moral life, teaching you to follow through on your commitments. Don't say “yes” if you don't mean “yes.” Show up. Be present. Moment by moment, day
by day, I learned to sometimes “let it go.” There are no hard-and-fast rules in this program, but rather suggestions to help you lead a better life. The program helped me to calm down, and it definitely helped me connect with my audiences in an easier and more grounded manner. Gone were the days of excessive nervousness about speaking, because once I had shared at a number of meetings, I was no longer nervous talking to my audience between songs. Now I wanted to connect with the audience through my stories as well as my songs.

I believe my sobriety is a gift. I don't take credit for it. Was a higher power at work? I don't know. I was scared that my body was shutting down and I still wanted to live, and work, and love. After looking at that half-filled glass by my bedside I somehow knew I would never, ever, take a drink again.

I also know that some people just can't do it—they cannot and will not stop drinking, and refuse to join a program. I think about a friend who died in 2001. She was a terrific person who simply refused to stop drinking. I had organized an intervention for her in November of 1987 because by that time she had spent the previous ten months in bed, recovering, she said, from an injury to her leg. Finally it got through to me: nine or ten months in bed seemed excessive. Then when she asked me once again to lend her money—which she always paid back—Adam said I must stop enabling her. He was right, of course. I had taken her to one 12-step meeting with me, but that was all I had been able to accomplish—hence the intervention.

During this intervention, close friends reminded her of some of the dreadful drunken things she had done. Passing out at the dinner table. Peeing on herself and lying on the floor in her urine. Having to be cleaned up, carried upstairs, and put to bed. Passing
out in a restaurant with her face falling forward into her plate, the owner of the restaurant saying she was not welcome to return. I kept thinking, “This could have been me.”

She heard everything that was said, but couldn't and wouldn't take it in. Whenever we talked about her drinking, she said she could stop anytime she wanted to—she just didn't want to. Boy, that's an old one. She had run a successful PR business, representing major celebrities and public figures. Now she just stayed home and drank.

We had known each other for over thirty years and she had declared herself Adam's godmother. I loved her. But after the intervention we never had anything to do with each other again. I tried. I called to see how she was. I said I loved her and wanted to help her but she wasn't interested. Finally I stopped calling.

And then, in 2001, she was dead—from cancer and alcoholism. When I first heard the news I wondered if I had done the right thing with the intervention. Was there an intermediate step I should have taken first? What might I have done differently? Fifteen years later I'm certain none of it would have made any difference.

When I heard that she was dead I couldn't stop crying. Did I survive because of some genetic luck of the draw? I don't know. She threw her life away, and somehow I was saved from that same fate. Another friend told me that there were no plans for any kind of a memorial gathering or service. No getting together to talk about the fun times. I just can't bear to think of that. It seems so brutal.

When you read about Bill W.'s journey to sobriety, he says that some higher power struck him to the floor. I'm not a big believer in organized religion—I think an overwhelming amount of harm has been done in the name of religion. I know some of the follow
ing is hard to believe, but Anthony Hopkins, an acquaintance who has been very kind to me, talks about a similar thing—of being struck—“Boom! And it was over. It was like a great pilot light was lit”—and from that moment on not drinking. It's odd, and hard to explain. When somebody asks me, “How did you stop drinking?” I don't have much of an answer for them. I didn't do it. It was a gift. I'm not sure exactly where it came from. Part of it was my associating the drinking with the panic attacks. You'll do just about anything to avoid a panic attack. They are horrible and debilitating because they are different from the anxiety and stress that we all live with. An honest-to-God clinical panic attack contains one moment, always, when you're sure you're dying. You think there is no way any human body can go through what you're experiencing and survive.

When the panic attacks happen, you're so overwhelmed by the panic that you can't think clearly. After experiencing several such attacks, however, I realized that I
had
once again survived, so it occurred to me to try to pay attention to the symptoms. “Okay,” I'd say to myself, “I have that funny feeling in my scalp. My heart is beating out of my chest. I feel hot. But . . .” Then I would address the symptoms logically, observe and pin them down, and tell myself: “Okay, I've got this. I've got that. It's a panic attack. I'm not going to die. I'm going to get out of it. I will survive.” Once I stopped drinking, little by little the attacks went away. Occasionally I would have a tiny wave of one, but eventually they really did disappear.

LOOKING BACK ON
my drinking years, there's a hell of a lot I regret. During the years when I should have been doing my best work in the theater I was unemployable. After I stopped drinking, however, I became comfortable in the cabaret and concert worlds, where I could call the shots myself. I finally had control. Wally and I put the shows together and I sang what I wanted.

I recorded album after album, choosing material that spoke directly to me:
The Disney Album
,
It's Better with a Band, The Champion Season, Live from London, Oscar
Winners
, the Grammy-nominated Christmas album
Count Your Blessings
. I have appeared on thirty-six recordings besides the nine original cast recordings of shows in which I performed. I've recorded everything from
Songs of Perfect Propriety
, a 1958 album featuring poems by Dorothy Parker with music by Seymour Barab, to albums of songs by Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, and Oscar Hammerstein. Believe me, I know how fortunate I have been and still am to spend my singing life with this great material. I think that as I get older I have even more courage to go deeper and deeper into the text. It makes me think of Nelson Riddle's comment about Sinatra's masterful singing on his torch-song albums like
Only the Lonely
: “Ava taught him how to sing those songs—the hard way.”

The transition from being a cast member of a Broadway show to solo artist did not feel like an abrupt change to me. I was really
just returning to my roots—my first professional appearance in New York City had been at the Blue Angel nightclub. People had always asked me to sing in intimate settings, especially at parties, so it felt natural to me. I actually felt set free in many ways because I was now in complete control: I chose which songs to sing, what order they should be sung in, and exactly what the patter between songs would be. I was in charge and I relished the opportunity.

My approach to singing didn't change, but I felt that I improved every year. I developed more courage with my emotional choices, digging deeper and deeper into the lyric. Our influences as artists can come from anywhere and everywhere, and I found that even in intimate settings, my love of opera had really deepened my skills as a performer; good opera singers who can also act have to put themselves out on a limb and take chances; watching the opera singers who succeeded at this, who delivered moving and affecting characterizations even within the oftentimes larger-than-life world of opera, inspired me, giving me the courage to make ever bolder choices of my own.

I was invited to sing at the White House for the first time, and make no mistake—performing at the White House is a thrill, no matter what your political affiliations. Besides that first invitation to sing for President Carter, I was fortunate to also sing for the Clintons, George H. W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan. It was singing for the Reagans in April of 1988 that remains most firmly etched in my mind, not only because of Nancy Reagan's kind invitation, but also because of the sad evidence of the president's diminished capacity. The Reagans hosted a rather small (for them) dinner party for the king and queen of Sweden upstairs in their private dining room, and Nancy asked me to come to dinner and then sing for the royals. The evening began with cocktails downstairs, and I
happened to be sitting with Helena Shultz, the wife of Secretary of State George Shultz, who told me we were really in for a treat since the dinner was to be upstairs. The Reagans rarely invited people to their private quarters—Helena herself had never been invited up before. There were only about thirty people at four tables. Nancy was sitting right next to the king at one table, while at the table directly across, the queen sat next to President Reagan.

This was during the time when Nancy would often be seen whispering to the president and looking as if she were telling him what to do. Well, as it turns out she was. At the end of the dinner President Reagan got up to make a toast and began, “If Nancy were here I know she'd want me to say . . .” And there she was, only a few feet away, next to the king of Sweden and directly across from the president. I was startled, to say the least. We were then to move into another room, where I would sing. Reagan announced the wrong room, and Nancy gently corrected him, again. Finally, I sang several songs, but before I finished, the president got up to thank me mid-performance, and Nancy said, “Sit down, dear—the lady hasn't finished.” “Oh my God!” I thought. “All this can't be happening. He's the president.”

What didn't occur to me at the time was how difficult this must have been for Mrs. Reagan. Here's this man, whom she adores, this man who had become the president of the United States, slipping away from her; she was trying to help him, and being put down for it in the press.

I also sang for Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip at the 1997 Royal Variety performance. After the performance everyone lines up to meet Her Majesty. I was nervous—Helen Mirren calls it “Queenitis—the tendency to babble nonsense”—and I managed the usual “I'm so thrilled to meet you.” I then added, “As a little
girl I played with my Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret paper dolls . . .” The queen smiled and then laughed—a very queenly laugh, I might add. Definitely not a belly laugh. She was gracious, which is not exactly how I would describe Prince Philip after the show. During my performance, before we sang a duet of “People Will Say We're In Love,” my vocal partner, Michael Ball, had introduced the song as “Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip's favorite song when they were courting.” That obviously did not sit well with the prince, because after the show, while we stood in the receiving line, he barked, “Who said that was our favorite song? Nonsense!”

Equally exciting was my recent performance for the justices of the Supreme Court. Once a year they have these musical afternoons in a very intimate setting, a beautiful wood-paneled room in the Supreme Court Building with seating for no more than seventy-five or so. Sandra Day O'Connor used to plan these annual events, and now they've been taken over by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whom I admire enormously. The great John Pizzarelli and I were both asked to perform. John and I have done several concerts together that really worked well, but that afternoon we both sang solo.

While John was on, I peeked out and there in the front row was Clarence Thomas. My heart sank. I'm gonna sing for Clarence Thomas. Clarence Thomas who is famous for never speaking in the Court. Would he sit like a stone statue during my performance? HELP!

I walked on, took my place, and there, directly in front of me, no more than five feet away, was Chief Justice Roberts. And just over to my right, the mute Justice Thomas. But, boy, was I surprised by him. As I was singing he had a huge smile on his face—
loving it. Laughing at every joke, and when I got to my list of funny country-song titles, he nearly fell out of his chair. I don't know what came over me, but I yelled, “Clarence, control yourself!” He laughed even harder. After the show he came over to me and we had a very pleasant time together. He was completely charming. Never, never would I have expected that the Clarence I was enjoying was hidden there inside the political Clarence I knew from the news.

Shortly before I sang for the Reagans, Wally and I had decided that I should return to Broadway, but in concert. Early on, when we first started thinking of a Broadway evening for me, Wally found someone he thought should be our producer. With all of Wally's good qualities, he was often not a good judge of people, and I never felt secure about this proposed producer. Finally, when it was time to sign a contract, I refused. Wally was furious with me. But thank God I didn't sign. We later found out the guy was a crook.

I learned another painful lesson on the show because, although I was nearly sixty years old, I was still too trusting. We had begun to put the show together and some producers were interested, but when I learned that Wally's partner Michael was looking for additional producers for me, I told Wally I didn't want to be represented in any way by Michael. He had good qualities and he could be funny as hell, but he could also be a total pain in the ass and was not always good with people. Wally said, “No problem—he won't be involved. I had a long talk with him last night and it's okay”—but the very next day there was Michael at the production meeting about the show. I was so angry at that meeting I thought I was going to have a stroke. When Wally went to the men's room one of the producers who was already involved picked up on my feel
ings and said, “Barbara, how do you feel about Michael's participation?” I said, “I don't like it at all. I don't want him to be involved.” When Wally came back and found out what I had said he was livid.

The Shuberts eventually came on board as producers and we had the right theater, so it felt like now or never. We opened at the Ambassador Theatre in April of 1987 and called the evening
A Concert for the Theatre
. The show was a big mistake and simply didn't work. We were usually so careful about repertoire, but we really screwed up this time. Frank Rich reviewed it badly in the
Times
, and I think he was right. I received a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One Person Show but I knew the show should have been better. The timing was off in every way and it proved to be a terrible, terrible time for Wally. Michael, whom he adored, was dying of AIDS. We watched him disappear day by day and then he was gone. Very, very hard stuff. No way to concentrate on putting a show together.

Wally and I patched up our disagreement and continued to work together for another seventeen years. It's a sign of how strong our bond was that in three decades of working together, we never did sign any sort of contract. Back in 1974 we just shook hands on our deal. That deal lasted for all of our thirty-one years together.

Subsequent to
A Concert for the Theatre
, I was singing at the Carlyle Hotel in New York—a beautiful intimate room, very Upper East Side, very elegant and expensive. Stephen Holden wrote in his review: “She's not singing the sort of material that suits her best.” And of course he was right. From then on, there would be no more attempts at pop singing. Leave those songs to Lena. Theater songs and what is now known as The Great American Songbook—Gershwin, Porter, Berlin, and Kern—was the music that really suited me.

Concert jobs started to flow my way. I was singing not just with Wally but with beautiful symphony orchestras that he conducted. Whatever the musical setting, it seemed to work, mostly because I could sing well. And after everything I had been through, when I was singing a sad song, I knew what I was singing about.

Gone were the days of tiny clubs and changing in shoebox offices. I sang everywhere from London's Royal Albert Hall to the Sydney Opera House. I traveled to China, and one night in Moscow, along with Tommy Tune and Wally, I found myself singing “White Christmas” to Soviet rock musicians. Not only was I earning a very nice income, but my chronic problems with the IRS were finally cleared up. When things had been at their worst I ended up owing the IRS three years' back taxes, a figure that ran into six figures. It scared the hell out of me. I was no spring chicken—how the hell would I be able to pay them and still have money for my old age? But I paid it. I didn't pay it all at once, but I paid it, and after eighteen months I was square with the government.

At the time I was really upset about having to pay the government all that money, and I was crying when I called Adam to complain. But Adam, as usual, put it in perspective for me. He said, “Mom, this is not your money. It never has been. It was never yours in the first place. You've just been holding on to something that doesn't belong to you.” Suddenly, all the fear and anger just lifted off my shoulders and vanished. Adam is very good about things like that—he can see the big picture.

He is talented in so many areas, and happens to be very smart about finance. His first big job after college was at Merrill Lynch. When you start at Merrill Lynch you have to make cold calls, and you get hung up on nine times out of ten. Talk about a tough train
ing ground. It was absolutely no fun, but Adam said that the training actually helped prepare him for life's difficulties. He also had a job selling shares of oil in California, a job that landed him a six-figure salary. He also directs shows, and with his love of theater and opera seems to have found where he belongs.

Adam is a really good, honest man, and when he sat me down in 1989 to tell me, “Mom—I'm gay,” I laughed. I thought he was joking. He had been living with a lovely young woman for a couple of years and we all thought they'd get married. I was shocked, to say the least. When he said he had something important to tell me, I thought maybe he was going to tell me they were breaking up. We had a long conversation, and then, when he was at the door, about to leave I said, “Oh, Adam, what will I do when you bring somebody home to meet me?” Adam replied, “Don't worry, Mom. It'll be fine. He'll say, ‘Oh, Barbara, I just love your work.'
” But it just wasn't funny to me. When he left, I started crying—I mean, really sobbing—and except when I was asleep, that crying jag lasted five full days.

Finally I said to myself, “What the hell is going on with you? You've known and worked with gay men your entire career.” After my thirty thousand years of working with several different therapists, I got out my toolbox and began to try to understand what was happening. As a young person, I had always felt like an outsider—a little girl with her nose pressed against the window, not able to get in. And then having Adam, a man-child, made me feel that I was finally plugged into the mainstream. Somehow, his telling me he was gay had suddenly unplugged me. I had a new son, a new person I didn't fully know. It also occurred to me that I probably wouldn't have grandchildren. That's a hard one. But—the final step for me was when I understood that Adam wasn't here to plug me into any
thing. I was here to help him be Adam—as fully as possible. That was twenty-five years ago, and I am so happy to say we have a very close, loving relationship.