All My Life (3 page)

Although I appreciated my father’s attempt to keep me interested, I wasn’t. I had a friend who also took lessons from the same piano teacher and she hated them, too. One snowy night she and I concocted a plan to lock our teacher out of our homes. When he rang the bell, I threw myself under the bay window in the front of our house and lay flat against the wall so he couldn’t see me. My friend kept to our plan and locked him out, too. We were so proud we pulled it off and happy we didn’t have to have our lessons that night.

A few days later, the piano teacher called to say he wouldn’t be teaching me anymore. Although I felt a little guilty about locking him out on such a snowy night, I was really glad I didn’t have to take any more lessons.

My mother is and always has been a very beautiful woman. She has fabulous red hair, perfect fair skin, and a gorgeous sprinkle of freckles. Her father was from Sweden and her mother was born in Pennsylvania and was of French and German descent, so my mother’s look is striking. My mother is very soft-spoken, can be very funny, is self-reliant, full of common sense, loves fashion, and has a real stubborn streak. She studied nursing in New York and was a practicing OR nurse for a number of years until my brother, Jimmy, was born and she decided to become a stay-at-home mom.

As far back as I can remember, I’ve had a definite and clear picture of what I wanted to do with my life. Although I was painfully shy as a child, I came out of my shell whenever I was acting, singing, dancing, and making believe that I was someone else. Playing games of “make-believe” was just the way I played. I loved to put my parents’ musical sound tracks on the record player and listen to songs from Broadway shows and old movies so I could sing and dance along. I loved Pal Joey, Oklahoma!, Golden Boy, and Damn Yankees, just to name a few. In fact, the first song I can remember performing for my family was “Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets” from the original sound track of Damn Yankees. I was three. That’s how we knew I’d grow up to play Erica Kane. To be certain, I was a totally different kid when I would perform. The stage was where I wanted to be, and when you’re a little girl with a vivid and active imagination, all the world is a stage.

At church on Sundays I would fantasize about climbing the stairs to the balcony that overlooked the congregation where the choir sang from, standing on the rail, pushing off, and latching onto one of the many lanterns. In my mind, I’d swing from light to light, high above the ground, until I dropped down onto the altar, where I would regale the congregation (my audience) with my song-and-dance numbers. Yes, everyplace I went, I would create a vivid scenario where I could perform—because that’s all I wanted to do.

I grew up in a neighborhood and at a time where most of the children were sent outside to play. But I preferred to be inside. When I was a very little girl, my mother finally convinced me to go outside and play with the other kids in the area. So one day I rode my tricycle down the street where we lived and some children pushed me off. I left my bike right there, went running home, and refused to ever go back out again. Whenever my parents tried to get me to play with the other children, I’d always find a way to sneak back into the house. One summer afternoon, my mother decided that I should spend the day outdoors. She sent me on my way to play and locked the door behind me so I couldn’t get back inside. Thankfully, my mother’s mother, whom I called Nana, lived with us. She came to the door and saved the day. I remember her turning to my mother and saying, “Jeanette, you cannot lock this child outside. She’s just a little girl!” So they let me back in. I immediately ran up to my room and spent the rest of the day putting on a show with my favorite dolls and stuffed animals. Whenever I’d put on these shows, I’d imagine an audience the size of the Ed Sullivan Theater inside my bedroom. And let’s be clear, it was standing room only. Later that afternoon my parents thought I’d had a breakthrough when they heard what they imagined were a couple of kids from the neighborhood playing with me. It turns out that the various voices they overheard were all mine. It was just me, playing and performing all by myself.

I adored my mother’s mother—my grandmother Nana. She was very jolly and had a warm spirit. She was exactly what a grandmother should be—kind, loving, and affectionate. Nana had a very sweet fox terrier named Snookie, whom I also adored. But I must be perfectly honest with you. Until recently, the name Snookie has always meant so much to me because it reminds me of my grandmother. Now unfortunately, I can barely say the name without conjuring up thoughts of the Jersey shore. It just isn’t right that such a precious memory has been tainted—make that tanned—by the association!

Nana was the first one up in the morning and the last to go to bed at night. She loved to laugh, play the piano for us, cook delicious meals, and bake the best cakes, pies, and even fresh bread! My most vivid memories of Nana revolve around music and food. My first exposure to the songs of George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Irving Berlin was when Nana played them on her piano. I adored spending time in the kitchen with her every day while she made the most wonderful treats. Nana never used a mixer. She beat all of her ingredients by hand. I remember sitting with her while she put the finishing touches on a delicious apple pie or sprinkled cinnamon on baked apples, which I loved to eat. She taught me what it meant to be a great cook—something my mother and I never really came around to being ourselves, but both now have a wonderful appreciation for. Her family came from Alsace, the same region of France as Jean-Georges Vongerichten, one of my favorite chefs in New York. Apparently, good food is second nature to people from Alsace. She made great stews, chicken and dumplings, and other hearty dishes infused with a French and German influence. She always started with the freshest of ingredients and only used the best of whatever she could find. Every day when I came home from school, there was always something fantastic and yummy waiting for me—which made me very, very happy. When we weren’t spending time together in the kitchen, she patiently let me create many hairdos with her hair. I could set part of it in curls and part of it in rollers. Nana never cared how it turned out, as long as we were having fun together, which of course we were.

I was so lucky to grow up in a home where there was always music playing and the smell of some delicious homemade meal. Since Nana lived with us, my mother never had to cook, and that suited her just fine. My mother preferred to do the cleaning. In fact, she kept a spotless and very organized home, something she tried to teach me to do, too.

I don’t have a lot of memories of my Swedish grandfather because he divorced my grandmother when my mother was just five years old. My grandfather lived half the year in Sweden and the other half in St. Petersburg, Florida. Although I didn’t see much of him growing up, I do recall that occasionally he’d write my mother letters asking how we were all doing. He didn’t completely disappear from our lives, but we weren’t close either. I don’t know many of the details about why he left my grandmother other than that he went to Sweden on a vacation and never came back. He sent my grandmother a letter saying he no longer wanted to be married. Nana was a very proud woman. She refused to take any child support or alimony from him. Instead, she chose to play the piano, supporting herself and three children all on her own. She was a very good piano player. She started an orchestra and played piano in the local hotels in the Pocono Mountains near the small Swedish-German communities where they lived. She often accompanied the old silent movies that were shown in their local movie house as well. The Milford Opera House, which looks more like a quintessential Andrew Wyeth barn than a classic opera house, was a favorite spot for my grandmother to play her piano, too. I have always been very proud of my grandmother for how she persevered and managed to take care of her children as a single mother. She was so ahead of her time. She chose to take her talent and do something with it rather than sit around and wallow in her sadness. Divorce wasn’t common back in those days. I am sure it was a challenge for the whole family because there weren’t a lot of single-women role models then for my grandmother to look up to or emulate. Hearing these stories as a young girl gave me the eyes to see and the ears to hear so that I could relate to all sorts of situations growing up. These weren’t my experiences, but they were poignant and important to the person I would later become.

I was eleven years old when my nana suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. I didn’t like to sleep much when I was a little girl. I seemed to always have lots of thoughts dancing around in my head, especially at night. Sometimes I’d fall asleep then awaken for one reason or another. I didn’t have nightmares very often or anything like that. I’d just wake up and was unable to fall back to sleep. The night Nana died was one of those nights.

I had just awakened when I heard a strange sound. It was a scary noise, unlike anything I had ever heard. I was in my bedroom on the third floor and the noise sounded like it was coming from our basement, where Nana lived. My father had finished our basement for her so she could have her own private quarters. He did a beautiful job on the space, making it very comfortable and beautiful for both Nana and Snookie.

I heard some sort of faint moaning. At first, I didn’t know what it was until I was finally able to make out that it was somebody calling my mother’s name.

“Jeanette, Jeanette.” I knew it was coming from my grandmother because everyone else called my mother Jean. Only my father and grandmother referred to my mother as Jeanette. I was so scared. I had no idea what was going on. I was always afraid of the dark and lay there motionless, frozen by my fear. I didn’t get up right away. In fact, I never got up to go to my grandmother that night. I stayed silent and still in my bed. Terrible thoughts were racing through my mind. I loved my grandmother very much. I was petrified at the prospect that she might die. That overwhelming thought was more than I could bear, so I pulled back the covers I’d been hiding under and ran into my parents’ bedroom.

“Nana is calling you!” I said to my mother. She hadn’t heard a sound. My mother dashed downstairs. Since she was a nurse, I knew she could help Nana get through whatever was happening that night. My mother called an ambulance right away. I overheard her tell the operator that she thought my grandmother Rose Granquist was having a heart attack.

“Come as fast as you can,” she said.

The ambulance got to our home within minutes. They tried resuscitating Nana while getting her onto the gurney and loading her into the vehicle so they could race her to the nearest hospital. But it was too late. Nana died.

For years, I never told another soul this story. I was so ashamed of myself for being so paralyzed by my fear. My husband heard it for the first time as I was preparing myself to write this book. I have carried my guilt for not getting up sooner and helping my grandmother since that time. Could I have saved her that night? I don’t know the answer to that. I will never know. Maybe she could have lived longer. I would have had my beloved grandmother with me for just a little more time if I had gotten out of bed sooner that horrible night. But the truth is, maybe I couldn’t have saved her. She smoked and drank coffee for many years. Like my father, Nana smoked non-filtered cigarettes. Those certainly wouldn’t have helped an already strained heart.

If either of my children had experienced a sudden and tragic loss like this, I would do my best to comfort and reassure them that what happened was not their fault. But my mother had no idea that I felt I could have possibly prevented Nana’s death that night. And even though logic tells me that I didn’t need to carry this weight on my shoulders for all of these years, I continued to feel terribly ashamed about the way my grandmother died, spending so many years wondering, If only.

Thankfully though, I have taken many memories of my grandmother with me throughout my life. Her love of food and zest for living along with her resilience, courage, perseverance, determination, and tremendous spirit are all traits I feel so lucky that she passed on to me. I can still imagine her in the kitchen wearing her housedress and pearls, whipping up something yummy. I’m so grateful that my mother gave me some of her jewelry and a green porcelain bowl Nana used all the time. I also have some sheet music from her days playing the piano in the Poconos. Maybe someday I’ll choose one of those songs to work into my cabaret show as a way to honor the deep love I have for my nana. I know she smiles down on me every day. If you believe in guardian angels as I do, there is no doubt that Nana is mine.

Although my mother was a nurse by trade, she absolutely had a love and passion for fashion. Mother’s love of style made her top dresser drawer a treasure trove for a young aspiring actress with an insatiable imagination like mine. She would allow me to play with all of her grown-up accessories. I was very big on wrapping her scarves around my head or turning them into different costumes. This was inspired by the old movies I grew up watching. Scarves and the sheer white curtains in our upstairs bathroom were magical to me because they allowed me to become virtually anything I wanted to be—a bride, an exotic princess, a first communicant. My mother often wore her hair pulled back in a chignon, with holders that were adorned with rhinestones. These were perfect for me to make a tiara out of. I’d slowly turn my head from side to side as I looked from every possible angle in the large mirror that hung over her dresser to admire the shiny sparkling headpiece I’d made. Once I had the tiara placed just right, I’d pull on her long white or black gloves and hold her ivory cigarette holder, which my uncle Leo brought back from Asia after World War II, between my fingers as if I were Ava Gardner or Gene Tierney. My mother always let me play and explore my creativity. And though she had no idea, she was inadvertently fostering what would later become my passion and calling in life.

As I got older, I began putting on shows with the other kids in the neighborhood. I was a one-girl operation, starring in, creating, writing, directing, choreographing, and costuming the entire production. By the time I was eight or nine years old, my parents knew I had developed a passion for singing, and they genuinely liked how I sang. I can’t say for sure how their friends felt about it, but after dinner, they would have to endure another song from little Susan Lucci. Wherever we went, whether to a dinner or someone’s birthday party, inevitably someone would ask me to sing a song or two. They’d clear off the table and lift me onto it, where I’d perform like a female Frankie Lymon. I was too ethnic-looking to be the next Shirley Temple. Plus, my older brother, Jimmy, listened to Frankie Lymon, a wonderful, soulful singer with a beautiful, sweet voice, so I had been influenced by his style. To our family and their friends, I was already a star.