Show Business Kills (24 page)

To Have and
Have Not

I
always thought as I got older that fiery anger that sometimes grabs me unexpectedly would level off. That eventually I’d
become a nice mellow old lady. But even though the old lady part is coming true, I feel as if I’m more full of rage than ever.
And this isn’t just a little umbrage over some political issue, this is outrage at everything that crosses my path. Maybe
it’s hormones, maybe it’s living in L.A.

For a while I thought it had to do with my abandonment issues around Billy moving out of the house. But I decided that was
too facile an explanation. On closer examination, I think it has to do with my inability to face aging and all the implications
that come with it. Like the idea that I’m no longer eligible to create babies, and that maybe I should have had many more
after the twins were toddling around.

I also can’t bear the idea that unless someone has a part for me in some show or film or even a commercial, I can’t create
artistically, either. That I’m at the mercy of a business that wants me to be obsolete. It all makes me feel so out of control,
and that’s the way I find myself behaving. Also, the twins are at the age where they’re very independent, they mostly need
me to drive them from point A to point B, and
pretty soon they won’t need me for that, either. So I feel obsolete as a caretaker, too.

Lately I’ve been painfully aware of the fact that I had to find something that was just for me. The way my mother keeps telling
my retired father, “Get a hobby or you’ll die, Thomas.” And that’s why I campaigned to get elected to the board of the twins’
school, and became co-chair of the school’s country fair, and a few months ago I accepted the presidency of my neighborhood
committee.

Recently the big issue we dealt with in the neighborhood committee was how to stop the damned production companies from filming
on our streets all the time. The location scouts love our area because it’s always so picture-perfect, but they block our
driveways with their big trucks and the mobile dressing rooms. The noise pollution is awful, and the kids can’t play outside
their own homes. Everyone, including me, was really eager to see them stopped. So I initiated a petition for everyone in a
radius of a few blocks to sign, and we worked out a whole system of how to prevent the film crews from coming here so often.

What I’m saying is, I am occupied with things other than just the occasional interview. And when I do get one, I try very
hard to put it in perspective, but I always walk in with a colossal chip on my shoulder, thinking, Why are they making me
audition for this? I have miles and miles of film they can look at. They can screen every episode of every show I’ve ever
done and spare me the humiliation of humbling myself by sitting in front of a group of yawning people and reading lines I
could say even in my sleep. But they never do.

A few months ago, I went in to read for an advertising
agency casting a series of national spots for a new car. I was hoping it would turn into the kind of thing Lindsay Wagner
does for the southern California Ford dealers. A spokeswoman, with an ongoing relationship to the product, in a very classy
kind of showing.

Well, in spite of my bad attitude, I got to the casting office, and everyone there couldn’t have been nicer and more respectful.
The director was someone I’d worked for years ago, and he came over and gave me a big hug, and the man from the agency was
there, and he said, “This meeting today is just a formality, you’re the one we wanted for this, and all we really wanted to
do today was say hi.”

I walked out of there feeling absolutely great. They sent me straight to wardrobe and the clothes were wonderful and I was
all psyched up to shoot on Friday. When I got home, there was a message on my machine from Harry, my agent, saying they were
paying me top dollar, and the shooting schedule would arrive that night. It was going to be an A plus experience all around.

When the messenger arrived with my shooting schedule, I told the twins I got a job, and they were thrilled for me. They gave
me high fives and said they wanted to come on the set and watch me the way they always did with their dad. Once I overheard
Sarah talking to a little friend of hers who came over to our house to play. The other girl said to her, “I know your dad
is Billy Mann, who has that TV show. But what does your mom do?” And Sarah answered, “She goes on interviews.”

At last one paid off.

I didn’t even open the envelope with the shooting schedule in it until after dinner, and when I did, I laughed out loud.
The commercial was shooting on Friday morning at eight
A.M.
and the location was Albermarle Street. The street that runs perpendicular to mine. I could walk to work. I live two houses
from Albermarle Street.

Then I remembered. My God! The neighborhood committee! After all we worked on about putting a stop to the filming around here.
There would be hell to pay if this production company got a permit to shoot on Albermarle Street. There was no doubt they’d
have to have the shoot moved somewhere else or get into a big brouhaha with the committee. My committee! But what if the production
company won the battle, and the angry neighbors looked out their windows to see that the star of the commercial they were
fighting was me? Their own president?

It was insane that of all the streets in this city they picked Albermarle. It had to be some kind of cosmic lesson to me.
A moment in time meant to teach me something. Maybe how to deal gingerly with things instead of always pulling on my army
boots and marching in with guns blazing.

I decided I was going to be very diplomatic. I’d call the producers and tell them that because of my ironic position as both
president of the neighbors committee and star of the commercial, I was in a position to warn him that the neighbors would
be hostile to them, and they ought to try and find a different location, or end up in an unnecessary battle. The solution
seemed pretty simple. They could just change the location of the shoot, and the neighbors would never be the wiser.

In the morning I called the production office. And the same receptionist who I’d met on the interview treated me as if she
were an immigrant arriving at Ellis Island, and I was
the Statue of Liberty. “Oh yes, Miss Bennet, so nice to talk to you.” She told me her boss was out, but I gave her the lowdown
to give him on the neighborhood committee and why he should change the shoot to somewhere besides Albermarle Street. And at
about eleven, while I was in the garden, I heard my phone ring, so I ran in.

It was the producer of the car commercial. He was ever so sweet, and frankly I felt a little guilty being in cahoots with
him and warning him about the neighbors, but my mother always taught me that the best choice is the one that blesses the most
people, and I knew I was doing what was good for everyone concerned. He seemed very grateful for the tip, and he said he’d
get back to me with the new location. That was Wednesday. I never heard a word all day. All day Thursday went by, too.

Finally, at about five on Thursday, I called the producer’s office, and the machine picked up because they were gone for the
day, so I called my agent Harry’s office to see if maybe my new shooting schedule and revised script had gone to his office
by mistake, instead of coming to me. Harry’s secretary sounded kind of tense when she heard it was me, and after a minute
she put Harry on the line.

“Marly,” he said in a very solemn voice, “I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but you’ve been released.”

“I’ve been what?”

“Released. From the car commercial. They’re not using you.”

I felt sick. I’d been one thousand percent sure this time. There was no doubt that I was the only one they wanted for the
commercial. “Why not?” I asked him. “What happened?”

“They said they decided not to go ahead with you, because you were being difficult.”

Difficult? The word stuck in my chest. Difficult? I couldn’t believe it. Now you all know that I have had reasons in my life
for being called difficult. Sit-ins where I’ve been removed by police officers, marches where I’ve carried the banner right
up the lawn of the White House. Which one of you was it that peeled me off President Reagan at that luncheon when I wanted
to kill him for his silence about AIDS? That was when I was difficult. This was not.

I had worked at handling this conflict with a ladylike suggestion to make the producers’ lives easier on the shooting day.
Well, now I was so enraged I threw the phone across the room and did what I always do when I’m frustrated and crazed. I cleaned
out closets. In one downstairs cupboard in the family room, I found a bunch of old photo albums of Billy and me with the twins
when they were toddlers, and I think I probably sat there for two hours crying over every picture.

On Friday morning when I got into the car to drive the twins to school, we couldn’t make a left turn onto Albermarle Street
because the trucks from the commercial shoot were blocking our way. I was about to make the right turn, but naturally I couldn’t
help it, and I looked left to see what was happening. I won’t even discuss the fact that my impotent little committee, including
me, hadn’t done a thing to put a stop to it. What really hurt like hell was to see that standing next to a shiny red car was
an actress having her face powdered by a makeup man, and from the back she looked actually like me.

I guess I must have been sitting there staring for a long
time, because all of a sudden I was looking into the face of one of those rent-a-cops who work on those sets. And he leaned
into my car window and said, “Sorry, lady. You can’t make a left turn here. We’re shooting a commercial for a car, so you
can’t drive down this street.”

“Mom,” Jenny asked me. “weren’t
you
supposed to be in a commercial for a car today?” I knew I would have to tell the twins what happened, but I couldn’t figure
out how I could possibly explain it. How could I teach two adolescents that honesty doesn’t pay? I wasn’t moving yet, and
the officer was getting miffed.

“I told you, no left turn, lady,” he said to me nastily.

Difficult, difficult, difficult. No, I would prove to myself that I had control. Not me. I would release the angst into the
white light the way my yoga teacher tells me to when we’re doing our deep relaxation work. I would breathe into my spine and
breathe out with love.

“Thank you, Officer,” I said, and miraculously I didn’t run him over. I simply made a right turn and headed for school. “There
was a misunderstanding between me and the producers of the commercial,” I heard myself saying to the twins, “so I didn’t get
the job after all.” But they’d already lost interest in my plight and were chatting about someone in their class.

After I dropped them off, I called my manicurist from the car phone and she’d just had a cancellation, so I went in and got
my nails done. And then I did several errands, hardware store, nursery for some new plants, and then I stopped and did a little
grocery shopping. When I got home and put everything away, I noticed there was a message on my machine, so I played it back
and it was Harry saying, “Get over
to Goldstar Casting right away and see Delia Katz. It’s for a big national spot and they asked for you, and look gorgeous
because they want an elegant mature woman, and that’s you.”

I tried not to react to the word mature, and called Harry’s office to get more information, but a machine answered and I realized
they were probably all at lunch. Delia Katz has used me several times before. You remember her? She’s a tough little New York
type with that street accent, who doesn’t mince words. I once heard her tell some darling character actress, “Yer lookin’
like a fat cow. Take off the weight or yer dead.”

Look gorgeous, I thought. Dear God. I was in my white sweats, and at that moment I didn’t know if I had any gorgeous left
to look. I tried calling Goldstar Casting and asked for Delia Katz, but she was at lunch. I asked for her secretary, but she
was out, too. The receptionist said they’d be back at two.

It was one o’clock, so I decided to hurry up and shower, wash my hair, put on my makeup, and just be at the casting office
at two when they got back from lunch. While I was putting on eye liner, I realized my hand was shaking. I was nervous. I’ve
been acting for thirty years and I still get nervous before I go up for one of those things.

I’d only driven three blocks when it started raining. I couldn’t believe it. It hadn’t rained in months. All anyone talked
about was how Los Angeles was in a drought, but on this day when I had to look gorgeous, it was pouring. So by the time I
got out of the parking lot and into Delia Katz’s office on Melrose, all the pouf was out of my hair. I didn’t
have a mirror, but I could feel that my makeup was already that kind of muddy it gets when the weather’s very damp.

It was one of those tiny reception areas, some shabby little chairs around the room and some old trade papers on an end table.
There was a receptionist’s desk, but nobody was sitting there. In fact there wasn’t a sign of anyone. I was glad. That meant
this wasn’t a cattle call. It always feels so eerie when I open the door to one of those places and look into the faces of
ten other actresses who look just like me.

Well, as I said, on this day no other actresses were there, and I was glancing around to see if there was a mirror so I could
check the condition of my hair, when the door from one of the offices opened, and Delia Katz herself emerged.

I was wearing very high heels and she was wearing completely flat shoes. And you remember what she looks like? With that frizzy
yellow hair? And too much makeup, as if she was wishing she was one of the actresses. Very chunky and so short she was looking
right into my belt buckle. I said, “Hi, Delia,” expecting she’d give me a big hello, but she looked up at my face and there
was no recognition in her eyes at all.

It was very strange. For a minute I felt like Jimmy Stewart in
It’s a Wonderful Life
. Remember that scene when he finds out what the world would be like if he’d never been in it, and he sees his friends and
nobody recognizes him, and even his own mother slams the door in his face?