Is My Bow Too Big? How I Went From Saturday Night Live to the Tea Party (7 page)

Actress

I put on a good show, didn’t I?

I left the crowd, jovial, laughing,

Thinking good thoughts about me.

Maybe they were putting on a show too.

…A good show.

I
got paid $450 for being on Johnny Carson for six minutes. Considering that my previous jobs—preschool gym coach, typist, baker’s assistant, retirement hotel employee, and cigarette girl—paid only thirty cents every six minutes, Carson didn’t feel like work. Within the next year, doors began to open.

People paid me to fly to England to do the same shtick; I’m paid to tap dance on a drug store counter while Radar from
Mash
watches me; I’m paid to be slapped in the face by Joe Pesci (it wasn’t in the script); I’m paid to talk to an invisible bee in a Honey Nut Cheerios’ commercial; I’m paid to work my way up the Hollywood ladder; and finally, I’m promoted to the top.

I’m paid… for nothing.

Twentieth Century Fox sent me a huge check to do nothing. In Hollywood it’s called a “holding deal.” They believed I was so special they didn’t want anyone else to nab me while they were developing a sitcom just for me. It sure beat serving Steak & Ale, and cigarettes. The only requirement was that I go to several meetings with two television writers. I never knew what to say at those meetings. These handsome older gentlemen were studying me. They stared at my every move. So I tried to move. And talk. I didn’t know how to write a sitcom for myself. I wish I did. They used to write for
I Love Lucy
. My life is charmed. I’m definitely special and kissed by God. Well, I may not have big breasts, but I’m young and perky.

At lunch at the Fox commissary, I felt so uncomfortable. I was trying to think of clever stories. Working actors were passing by. They must have had a lot of clever stories; their TV shows were on the air. I ordered Chinese Chicken Salad and worried that Schiller and Weiskopft were thinking I was too fat, so I just ate one bite.

It was starting to feel like work.

“Warren Beatty wants you to come to his house Tuesday for a read-through of
The Pickup Artist
,” my agent said casually.

“What? Is that normal procedure to actually go to someone’s home when you’re auditioning for a movie?” I asked incredulously.

“I guess so.”

“But I didn’t even know I got the part. The audition was, like, three months ago.”

Silence.

“Am I still being tested, or did I officially get the part?” I asked.

“So far, I guess.”

“Well, can I bring my husband… ’cause it’s kind of weird and all?”

“I guess so.”

I’d been married fourteen months and usually tried to include A.F.K.A.S. in everything. Especially since I detected that my career threatened him a bit. I was also feeling strangely vulnerable because I was three months pregnant and had not told anyone. I didn’t want to risk losing work because of it. I was the breadwinner. I think my swollen breasts might have gotten me this call back.

Warren Beatty opened the door wearing only a towel. Surprised, I managed to mumble, “Should we have dressed more casually?” More people arrived. A movie star I recognized stumbled out of a bedroom with a disheveled girl. We read through the movie at a big kitchen table. When we were leaving, the houseboy explained, “Warren sunbathes nude. He only wore a towel out of respect for his guests.”

No one actually told me I got the role. I just got a phone call eight months later from the Wardrobe Department asking me to come in for a fitting. This gave me six months to gestate and deliver my baby and two months to lose the forty-five pounds I’d gained. Somehow I did it. I guess I was ambitious.

One midnight, after hours of shooting, trapped in a trailer on the set, waiting for the next shot, the movie’s writer James Toback was rambling on and on about his sexual exploits. He was using vulgar language and offending everyone. I mean, he wasn’t just normal vulgar, he was award-winning vulgar. Finally, I couldn’t be sweet and quiet any longer. I started telling him about Jesus and what the Bible said about sex. He smiled at me like my confrontation was turning him on. So much for my preaching career!

Every actor is waiting for that perfect role, the one that will catapult her into stardom. It might never come. Or it might come and go and then you need another one.

A Mysterious Voice called my Laurel Canyon home one day and said they were from
Saturday Night Live
. It sounded like she said her name was Dyna-Mina, a
Looney Tunes
name. I still don’t know how she got my home number.

I had purchased my first house with the money from my first series,
Half Nelson
, which only lasted six weeks. The show had potential but the star of the show, Joe Pesci, was difficult. He would stay in his trailer for hours sometimes and not come out. I never learned how to be a “diva.” Once I had the stomach flu, but I didn’t miss a second of my workday. I got all dressed up, walked onto the set, threw up in the garbage can, put a breath mint in my mouth, threw that up, had my makeup reapplied, rinsed with some mouthwash, did the scene in the car with the other two actors, leaned out of the car door and threw up spit, did the second take, had the dry heaves, and without getting a single drop of vomit or spit on my wardrobe, ran back to my trailer, hunched over, brushed my teeth, and prepared for my next scene.

I had lived in seventeen apartments while I struggled through my early Hollywood days. My house in Laurel Canyon was my first home. It was in the Hollywood hills; coyotes and deer stared in through the windows sometimes. I was in love with this home. There were rats in the walls, but we got an exterminator. We found a newspaper from 1927 rolled up in one cabinet. I had a Kermit the Frog telephone, and I was holding one green leg to my ear when the Mysterious Voice said that if I wanted to audition for
SNL
, a plane ticket was waiting for me at LAX. She said, “Bring your characters.” I didn’t have any “characters,” so I brought my handstand and my ukulele. I left my newborn baby, Scarlet, with A.F.K.A.S. and flew to NY. The airlines lost my ukulele, and the panic kept me awake until they delivered it to my hotel room at 3 a.m.

Ten girls who had been flown in from across the continent assembled in the lobby of our hotel, The Mayflower. We were marched down the street, single-file, like ducks in a row, following our leader, Julian. We passed the big statue of Atlas holding the world on his shoulders. The moment was heavy with meaning. I was trying to be Christ-like and think loving thoughts toward my competitors, but I couldn’t help the passing fantasy that an out-of-control taxi would sweep by and wipe some of them out. I needed all the help I could get. I didn’t have any “characters,” whatever they were, and I’d never watched
SNL
before.

We were placed in the hallway outside Phil Donahue’s studio and waited our turn. Some paced. Some chatted nervously. Someone whispered that one contestant had stripped for her audition.
That’s stupid
, I thought.
This is a network show. You can’t be naked; it’s about being funny, not being attractive naked.

I looked at the photographs that lined the halls: famous people posing with Donahue. The thing I love about show business is that even when you get rejected from an audition, you get to do wondrous things like visit Rockefeller Plaza for free, meet famous people, and get a giant dose of adrenaline!

My turn. Deep breath. Open door. Hit center stage. I did my ten minutes from my first Johnny Carson. The room looked much smaller than it did on TV. The audience was producer Lorne Michael, a bunch of empty chairs, and three attractive twenty-year-old women (the Lornettes), one of which was working the video camera. Lorne smiled at me.

Back at my hotel, while I was packing up to go home, the phone rang and Mysterious Voice said, “Lorne wants you to stay another night so he can meet with you tomorrow. We’ve changed your flight. He doesn’t come into work until 3 p.m., so come after that.”

“Uh, what time should I come?” I stuttered.

“Anytime after three,” and she hung up.

I called A.F.K.A.S. and told him I’d be gone another night. Scarlet was only 3 months old and I was having nightmares from separation anxiety.

At 3:01 p.m., I was at Lorne’s office on the seventeenth floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. I was staring at halls of photographs of Lorne posing with famous people. A twenty-year-old model stationed outside his door told me he wasn’t in yet. “Go shopping in SoHo for a while.”

“SoHo? What street is that on?” I thought it was a department store.

The gorgeous skinny blonde chuckled patronizingly. “It’s um…” She was at a loss for words. A. Whitney Brown was nearby and sweetly tried to explain which streets were included in the neighborhood of SoHo. It was all Chinese to me. I had no cab fare, so I just left the building and started walking, hoping I didn’t walk into a dangerous neighborhood. I didn’t know what “for a while” meant. I was afraid to ask her. She’d laugh at me again. What if I was gone too long and missed my big opportunity? This whole thing was so fuzzy. They could be obscure and nebulous: their lives didn’t hang in the balance. Mine did.

I tried to stay away from my big meeting, but I couldn’t. I returned after an hour and sat outside Lorne’s office for almost two hours more waiting for him. I started wondering if maybe my dignity was more important than this. There was something humiliating about this. Finally, Lorne arrived and after a while, I was invited into his private office. He was handsome and elegant. I didn’t know what to say. He asked a few simple questions. I answered:

“I just had a baby three months ago.”

“I’ve been in NY once before to do the movie,
The Pickup Artist
.”

“My husband is a fire-eater.”

Lorne said, “Your audition was very funny, but I’m not sure you are so strong in characters.”

Then, he stood up and started ushering me to the door.

I stood up. Watching the brass ring slip away, I drawled, “I could tawk like this.” Lorne smiled.

I clipped my British accent, “I could toke like this.”

He smiled again, and said, “What if I wanted you to be a Mid-western housewife?”

“I am a housewife,” I said. “And my parents are from Chicago and Minnesota.”

Lorne said, “Or Diane Keaton?”

“Well, I’d wear men’s clothing and look at the floor a lot.”

Lorne smiled and nodded me out the door.

All the way back home I relived this odyssey. I rented some videos of Diane Keaton and some other celebrities. I practiced. I realized I had no talent for impersonation. Then, I realized I was booked to appear on Johnny Carson’s show in two weeks. I’ll continue my audition on national TV! That has got to impress Lorne.

Everything felt right. I was slim, twenty-six, and had the perfect pink dress. Johnny said I could continue my
SNL
audition on his show as long as I didn’t say the name of the show I was auditioning for. I went to the couch. I told Johnny, “I’m auditioning for a show where you have to do impressions and make up characters. They’re not sure I can do that, so can I try some out on you and see if you know who I’m doing?”

Johnny said, “Sure!” smiling gamely. I did really bad impressions of Tina Turner, Terri Garr, and Edith Bunker. He guessed each correctly. Everyone laughed. My final impression was a deep-voiced, arrogant, smoking person.

Johnny said, “I don’t know. Bette Davis?”

“No,” I said mischievously.

“Who is it?”

“I made her up.”

There was a beat of silence and then everyone roared with laughter, especially Johnny. He said, “How am I supposed to guess who it is if you made her up?”

I shrugged, “It was a joke.”

Big laughter. I hadn’t really planned my answers. I love to not plan things and see how they unwind. It keeps life interesting.

A week later, Mysterious Voice called and said, “Congratulations, you are now in the cast of
SNL
. There is a plane ticket waiting for you at LAX. Your flight leaves tomorrow morning at 8 a.m.”

I calmly put down the phone.

Click.

“Aaaaaaggghh!”
I screamed. Baby Scarlet woke up and started crying. A.F.K.A.S. threw up on the bed. He didn’t deal with stress very well. We had to wash the sheets and pack diapers, tax papers, baby bottles, formula, baby swings, toys, and strollers, and then try to get an hour of sleep.

I can’t remember my first week of
SNL
except that A.F.K.A.S. had hemorrhoid surgery. As usual, he was trying to take center stage. People always ask me what it was like to be on the show. Of my six years on
SNL
, every week was pretty much the same, except for the person in the guest host chair.