My Extraordinary Ordinary Life (18 page)

Because I was represented by Bill Treusch, I got a lot of auditions. One was for a Broadway musical called
Terre Haute High
, about a space station filled with young people from all parts of the country. It was being produced by the same people who created the hit show
Hair.
I tried out for it, even though the auditions called for singing and dancing. I was not a trained singer, and I’d never taken anything other than tap dancing lessons when I was a kid. But for some reason the director and the producers thought I was the find of the century, and they cast me in the lead. Now all they had to do was finance the show.

Terre Haute High
was a very expensive production because it had such a large cast and required elaborate, space-age sets. To try to raise money, the producers would take me along on their rounds to potential investors. I was thrilled to be introduced as “our star” and then perform my signature song, a soaring number about a phone call to home from space. It was a wonderful song, and the show would have been great, but the producers never could mount enough financing. And so my budding Broadway career went down in flames along with the imaginary space station.

But before I had time to dust myself off from the experience, another opportunity came my way. This time it would take me to Hollywood.

PHOTO SECTION I

AA Spacek and Mary Cervenka Spacek were first generation Americans who raised their family in the Czech community of Granger, Texas.

The Spacek family: Sam, Thelma, Momsy, Pops, Eddie (my dad), and Rose.

AA (“Pops”) and Mary Spacek (“Momsy”) outside their Granger home in a rare snowstorm.

AA with his sister Albina and his fiancée, Mary Cervenka (left).

AA Spacek and frequent houseguest, Lyndon Johnson, who nicknamed him “Double A.”

My dad checking the cotton crop in his white linen pants and two-toned shoes.

My dad at eighteen in Granger, contemplating his future at Texas Tech.

In college, my father, Edwin A. Spacek (above) played the banjo in a dance band. When he met my mother they were on a double date, and he was with the other girl. But when he heard my mother’s voice he thought, That’s the girl I’m going to marry! Two weeks later they were engaged.