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Chapter Nine
Cold Feet

THE PERCEPTION MAY
have been that I was a child star who stopped working when I got married, but the truth was that lately I'd been working steadily. I had no doubt that more dramatic roles would come my way, but visibility was definitely a factor in my decision to do the TV show with Ryan. I wanted the acting work to keep coming.

In my life, I'd known the greatest possible range of fortune. I started off dirt-poor in my mother's house, which was in a constant state of disrepair and where I was haphazardly clothed and fed. Then, at six, I moved into the fancy Malibu house with my movie-star dad. By eight, I was earning my own money (which I wouldn't control until I was eighteen). At eleven, I was the highest-paid child actor ever, earning $350,000 for
Bad News Bears
. By fifteen, I had my own credit cards. Nobody oversaw what I bought. Whatever I charged, the accountant just took out of my savings. Cher was my idol, and I developed an obsession with shoes and clothes. I had three of everything I owned, just like Cher. When I was a teenager, Ryan arranged for me to be financially responsible for my mother. I became my mother's parent.

Then, at twenty-two, I was engaged, and in the next several years I had three kids with John, who had more money than I had ever had. There were private planes and homes everywhere. I was constantly remodeling houses. That became my hobby. That's what rich people do. I guess my understanding of money went a bit haywire, because all of a sudden there was just so much of it. It kind of lost its meaning to me. As I transformed into the wife of a very wealthy person, my identity was corrupted by the assumption that with great wealth comes happiness, which, as it turns out, it
does not
. Money can keep you distracted from looking at the big picture but not forever.

When I left my marriage in 1993, I left John's fortune behind. What money there was in the divorce settlement I spent almost carelessly, as if I wanted to use it up quickly because it was tied to the past, to a relationship gone sour. It wasn't given willingly, and I never felt like it was truly mine. In the years that followed, I was not nearly as financially comfortable as I had been at various times in my life or might be again, but what mattered most was that I was free.

After September 11, I had lost custody of my children, and I left for Los Angeles because I thought I needed to give up, that I was a true failure as a mom, an actress, and a woman. Around that time a significant amount of money went missing from my account. My accountant at the time kept telling me it was my fault, that I was spending too much. I knew that wasn't the case, but when I pressed for answers, he scolded me for accusing the company of mishandling my money. Isn't there always one of these accountants in a story like mine? I allowed myself to feel ashamed. If I'd been sober, I definitely would have figured out that something was seriously wrong and that it wasn't me. I left that accounting firm because I knew in my gut that the whole company was a crooked mess. It was an instinct, and my instincts have often served me well. Soon afterward, I read in the paper that the head of my former accounting company, Ken Starr, had been arrested for stealing $30 million of his clients' money in a Ponzi scheme over the last few years. Had I been more aware, had I not been using and dealing with the emotional wreckage of my past, I would have caught on to what that firm was doing far earlier.

Time passed. I spent ten years litigating over my divorce and my kids, and have since gone through many periods of feeling poor and worrying about money, working hard to make ends meet and to take care of my children.

I'm not opposed to a fancy life. I had one, and it wasn't bad at all. My ex-husband and I lived in one of the biggest apartments in New York. We had serious houses in Malibu and Long Island. When we went to Paris, we stayed at the Bristol. He bought me expensive jewelry that I have locked in a safe-deposit box to some day give to Emily. A girl can get used to that kind of life.

Having been there, however, I can now say without reservation that I don't need to be rich and I don't need a rich man. I've loved being humbled the way I have, because I'm happier now than I was when I had money and whatever I wanted. Being rich makes many things look easy, but, as I said, it just doesn't guarantee happiness. In the beautiful Upper West Side apartment I shared with John, I watched the world passing me by. I felt like Rapunzel, trapped in my tower. I just wasn't happy. I wanted and needed out.

Now, sixteen years after my divorce settlement, I earned my own keep, and for the past ten years I had lived on what I earned. I helped my children financially. But there were plenty of middle-age actresses without drug histories. It was too easy for Hollywood to write me off. That reality motivated me to do everything I could to make the most of career opportunities.

I had thought long and hard about doing the TV show. Now it was rolling forward, and I was optimistic. Endemol set up meetings for us with several cable networks. Ryan started off willing and chipper. He'd switched from introducing himself as “Ryan O'Neal:
Love Story
” to “Reality Ryan.”

I did all of the talking in the meetings. I'd say, “This is the story of a reunion. A father and daughter who had a great relationship that was torn apart by their careers, their dynamic, and their personal struggles. It's about a woman's struggle to find what's left of her family.” I explained that we didn't know what might come out on-camera—we weren't perfect, by any means, but we had a lot of ideas and were willing to explore our relationship in different ways.

Those meetings made me proud of how far I'd come. After all, I hadn't picked acting as a career. It had picked me when I was too young to know myself. I was just a ranch kid, a wild child, and I didn't arrive in Hollywood with enough confidence or fortitude to carry me through a whole career. I could barely speak in public. Then, when I was nineteen, just before I met John, I decided that I wanted to be an adult actor, but I wanted to do it right. I didn't have any formal training, and I couldn't rely on my childhood aptitude growing with me, so I went to New York and enrolled in acting classes. From then on, for the entire time I was in New York, I took acting classes off and on, whenever I could. Even when I was primarily focused on being John's wife, I always knew I wanted to better myself, to perfect my craft.

Ultimately, I took the same approach with life: I hadn't been given the basic life tools to develop into a strong, self-confident woman, so I worked hard to become the person I wanted to be. I spent years in AA and years in therapy. I searched inside myself. It was hard, but it was worth it.

At last, I was in a position to show off the results of my years of hard work. I was finally capable of making eye contact without feeling the urge to bow my head like a naughty schoolboy awaiting punishment. Finding grace and dignity in those meetings was a real achievement for me.

As we went to the first few meetings, Ryan was enthusiastic, but soon, when we had our postmortem chats, he started to voice some doubts. Would this ruin his film career? His chances at an Oscar? I was pretty sure he was joking about the Oscar but not entirely. The upshot was that my father was hesitant about what this kind of exposure might mean for his career. And, truth to tell, so was I. I believed in the show, felt that it could bring about much positive change for me, my dad, and perhaps even for viewers. Nonetheless, if not done well, our good intentions could backfire. Long story short: we didn't want to be turned into laughingstocks. My old friend and former agent Sue Mengers is a Hollywood legend. I'd met Jon Hamm at one of her parties and, out of the blue, he said, “Don't you ever dare do a reality show. You can't.” Ha! Easy for him to say. I do like to think of myself as a legitimate actress and I thought our show was different, but I didn't know how it would be perceived. What about my career? My pedigree? But I wanted to make my decision based on the work before me, not on the fear of industry perception. I believed in this show.

For all the potential pitfalls of exposing one's real self on television, I thought we had a rare chance to make something quirky and different and dark and funny. Ours was a story people might relate to: a parent and a child reconnecting after many years of estrangement. And I couldn't help hoping that if our reunion played out on the screen, where Ryan was so comfortable and proud, maybe it would buttress our relationship. Maybe it would be the mirror he needed to face his own past, present, and future. Maybe it would help our newfound fledgling family dynamic endure.

From the beginning Ryan's mood was unpredictable. At one of the production meetings—before we found Endemol—there was a glass of water waiting on the table in front of his chair. Ryan arrived a little late and everyone else—producers and some executives from a cable network—was already in their seats. When Ryan sat down in his chair, somehow he was hunched over in such a way that he smashed his forehead into the glass. Blood poured down his face. That's right—head hit glass. It was a dramatic and seemingly impossible feat of coordination. Before I could reach to help him, he turned toward me and said, “Did you put that glass there?” He later would joke that, in his mind, I shifted the glass just before he made his entrance, that it was all a plot.

I made light of it: “Dad, stop sitting down headfirst.”

The table of executives chuckled, and Ryan joined in: “Do I have to do this in every meeting?” We never did manage to reenact how his head was so low and yet so . . . forceful. I was scared that he would be too embarrassed to show up at another meeting.

We had first started thinking about doing a show in July. Now it was September and Ryan's attitude toward the show darkened. After three months of being on board, Ryan started threatening to quit. I was pretty frustrated—I'd made this commitment and I was ready to go through with it. Every time Ryan threatened to quit the project, he had his reasons, though they weren't the reasons one might imagine. For instance, if I missed one of his phone calls, he threatened to quit. Missing Ryan's calls was different from missing Emily's calls. Emily and I had an arrangement: if I missed one of her calls, I would call her back as soon as I was able. I understood and respected her concern for my well-being. Ryan and I were two adults, yet he expected me to answer my phone—at all times—not because he worried but because he wanted me to be immediately available whenever he wanted to talk to me. Could I be in a relationship with someone who expected me to answer the phone whenever he called—even when I was asleep or in the shower?
Answer your phone!
I had no idea how to react.
Answer your phone!
How could I have a normal conversation after that? Finally, I stood up for myself. “I can't always answer the phone, Dad. Sometimes I'm busy. People don't always answer their phones.”

Then, for fear Ryan would quit, I called and texted, apologizing, and trying to woo him back. Wasn't I a fool, to put myself in a position where Ryan had the power to disappoint me over and over again?

Then we met with OWN, Oprah's new cable network. The morning of the meeting, I put on gray jeans, high-heeled black booties, a black silk shirt, and a leather jacket. I wore my usual makeup, but punched it up a little with some bright red lipstick. I got my hair done, so it was sleek and flowy. I was trying to be glamorous. From the minute we walked in, it was clear that this was a network that wouldn't sensationalize, manipulate, or exploit us. At OWN, we'd found our home. We sold the show. Now came the tricky part—making it.

Chapter Ten
How Can You Do This to Me?

WE DIDN'T EXACTLY
celebrate making the deal with Endemol to produce the show for OWN. The process of bringing the show from concept to reality had taken far longer than Ryan and I had expected. In my dad's life, everything needs to happen fast, and he still seemed frustrated at the pace. And, as I found myself jumping through more and different hoops, I realized I had to fire my agent. Ryan and I were trying to iron out our separate agreements with the various players, and it became clear that sharing a representative created a conflict of interest. There was quite enough conflict in the equation already, and I bowed out. That also meant that Ryan couldn't instruct me to contact our once-mutual agent with his questions or ideas; if he had something to say to his agent, it was now up to him to do it.

Putting our negotiations aside, for Sean's twenty-third birthday in September I planned a family celebration at Matsuhisa, our favorite sushi restaurant in West Hollywood. My father and Sean came together, arriving a little late. They joined Sean's stepsister Ruby (John's wife Patty's daughter) and her friend; Sean's best friend, Doug; Ryan's friend Marketa; and me at the table.

I was expecting a nice evening, but as soon as Sean came in, I thought he looked agitated. My father, too. I was worried.
What was going on? Was Sean okay?
I must have given Sean some kind of questioning look, because suddenly he said, “Don't look at me like that. Don't look at me like that.”

He went outside and sat on a bench. I had no idea what he was talking about. It wasn't ordinary for a glance of mine to freak Sean out. I followed him outside and sat beside him. He said, “You can't look at me like that—you're condemning me. How can you do this to me on my birthday?”

Those words, coming from Sean, were familiar, though the last time he'd said them had been in much worse circumstances—five years earlier, on one of my worst days as an alcoholic. Right before
A Paper Life
was published in 2004, I was living at the Mercer Hotel in the heart of SoHo. I wasn't using drugs but I was still angry and willful. I was complying with the judge's orders for regular drug testing, motivated by my desire to be with my children. But simply complying with the court system isn't an indication of the highest level of sobriety. The system doesn't necessarily lead to true sobriety. I hadn't yet made the spiritual shift.

Although I wasn't fully aware of it at the time, I was still trying to get away with whatever I could get away with. I was more interested in fighting John and the system than looking at my problems and dealing with them directly. I knew that alcohol wouldn't show up in the court-mandated tests for drugs in my urine, and so I decided that it was fine for me to drink occasionally. I'd never been anything but a social drinker. That soon changed. Quick riddle: What do you call a junkie who takes up social drinking? Answer: An alcoholic. There followed a three-month drinking period that was anything but social. I remember drinking sixteen mini-bottles of vodka, throwing them into the trash one after another.
Bing,
each went as it landed in the can.
Bing. Bing. Bing.
At some point during my stay at the Mercer, the housekeeper stopped refilling the mini-fridge with mini-bottles. She said, “Oh no, Miss O'Neal, we can't put more in your room.” Yep, as it turned out, I couldn't drink, either. Alcohol: not good.

In 2005, Sean's eighteenth birthday came around. He was staying on the couch of my room at the Mercer, and I came home drunk. He said, “How dare you do this to me on my birthday?”

And now he was asking me that question again. Hearing those same words five years later, I was taken aback. I didn't know what I'd done, but I knew I hadn't violated his trust this time. In fact, ever since his eighteenth birthday, I had tried to make every one of his birthdays as loving and wonderful as possible. It's one of the ways I make my living amends to Sean.

On the bench outside Matsuhisa, Sean told me that he felt like I was scrutinizing him. Later he would explain to me that it was because things were tense at the beach house with my father. But in the moment, I just apologized for probing and coaxed him back into the restaurant.

Eventually, my father paid the check and we all said good-bye. The night hadn't gone smoothly—the unresolved issues among us were bubbling just beneath the surface—but we'd gotten through it without disaster. Or so I thought.

My apartment was pretty near the restaurant. Within minutes of my arrival home, my phone was ringing. It was Sean. He said, “Grandpa kicked me out of the car. Can you come get me?” Sean was stranded on La Cienega Boulevard, not far from the restaurant. I ran downstairs to get my car.

I was livid. The last thing I wanted, especially on Sean's birthday, was for him to experience anything like I had experienced as a child. I wasn't going to hold my tongue just because we had some TV deal. I called my father and said, “You promised. You promised you would not attack or hurt my son! You are a monster and I hate you!” The past slammed into the present, and out spilled years of pent-up rage. He couldn't get away with this. Not anymore.

“I hate you,” I screamed. “You and your fucking gross problems.”

Before he could respond, I hung up the phone, so angry I couldn't stop shaking. Ryan had already threatened to quit the show over much smaller issues. I knew he would quit for real this time. Well, so be it. No TV show was worth the destruction to my family and me. I'd come to him—and to the project—determined to love him until he could love himself, but as it turned out, that was easier said than done. It was over. We were over. All that work and effort—it had been thrown out on La Cienega with his grandson.

Twenty minutes later, Sean and I arrived back at my apartment and talked about what had happened. Sean and my father have plenty in common. Sean is careful and methodical. He keeps his stuff neat, just like Ryan. They both like sports. They were a good roommate match for a while. But the moodiness I had witnessed in my father had gotten worse since I had left the beach house. There wasn't anything Sean could do right. Sean felt as though he was trying to stay out of Ryan's way, but no matter what, he was still underfoot. Perhaps this was why I sensed they were both edgy when they arrived at the restaurant.

According to Sean, the fight was triggered by a discussion Sean, his stepsister Ruby, and I had at dinner about the fact that Sean didn't want to appear on the upcoming TV show. Sean felt that the show should be about me and my father; it was, after all, subtitled “Ryan and Tatum.” It was our business, our relationship, not his. I understood that and had no need to bring him into it. But, for whatever reason, Ryan seemed to take Sean's decision as a rejection. At the time, this was the only explanation I could come up with. In any case, Ryan had overheard Ruby, Sean, and me talking. He waited until Sean got in the car, then turned around and said, “Tell me right now you're not going to be in the show.”

Sean said, “I'm not going to be in the show, Grandpa.”

Ryan said, “Get out of my car.” This baffled me. Why did Ryan need Sean to participate? What did it mean to him that Sean chose not to? Why had Ryan thrown Sean out of the car? As far as I was concerned, people don't leave their grandchildren in the middle of La Cienega Boulevard. Period.

As predicted, soon after I yelled at him on the phone, Ryan sent me a text saying to tell the people at Endemol that he had quit the show. I texted back, “If you want to quit, please do it yourself.”