The Art of Men (I Prefer Mine Al Dente) (19 page)

My three costars were the legendary actor Sidney Poitier, the handsome Tom Berenger, and the endlessly talented Clancy Brown. The story went something like this: diamond-stealing psycho murdering lunatic (Clancy) kidnaps the beautiful, hauntingly gorgeous girlfriend (Kirstie) of Tom Berenger’s character. But Sidney Poitier, FBI man or CIA, I get confused, is on the case to find and rescue said luscious heroine.

The fourth person involved in the film was the wild and wily Roger Spottiswoode. He was a fine director, but he was a bit of a lunatic. When Roger interviewed me for the movie, I told him I was afraid of extreme heights, mainly because there was a scene in the script that required me to walk across a rope bridge above a gorge. I gave him this heads-up before he cast me, so he could evaluate whether or not I was the right actress for the part. He said, “Don’t worry, love, I’m not shooting that scene anyway. We can’t find a rope bridge in Canada.”

I’d never done more running, jumping, hiking, falling, and climbing than I did in this action thriller. Roger, a zany eccentric from England, wanted me to push harder and harder to prove my character was something to “reckon with.” On Monday he coaxed Clancy to hit me in the face (it was in the script, so I knew it was coming), but instead of the usual stage hit, Roger wanted Clancy to
really
hit me.

Clancy is the definition of “gentle giant.” He has huge muscular hands, is stronger than an ox, and is a hulking six foot four. Clancy has made his career playing killers, monsters, and bad guys in movies such as
Highlander
and
Shawshank Redemption
. But in real life he is a dove. A giant dove, but a dove nonetheless.

Clancy said, “Come on, Roger, I don’t wanna hurt her.”

“No, no, no, Clancy,” Roger quipped back in his fey-sounding British accent. “Of course we don’t want you to hurt her—but it must look real—so just give us a good slap, and she will then turn her head away.”

I’m by nature a tough chick. I have a brother, and I know how little slaps feel. “Action!” Roger shouted. We said our lines “blah blah blah,” and Clancy gave me a little slap. When Roger yelled “Cut,” Clancy asked, “Did I hurt you, are you okay?”

“God no, Clancy, I barely felt it,” I assured him.

“Now . . . Clancy . . .” Roger continued sounding like Bridget Jones on acid, “that hardly looked like the slap of a dangerous man. Let’s go again and give us a good pop!”

The stunt coordinator came over and showed Clancy how to make the “pop” LOOK hard but how to pull the punch so it wouldn’t hurt me. Clancy was so nervous, he is such a giant man, and I was all skinny with my silly little face.

Roger yelled, “All right everyone! Rolling!”

“Speed,” yelled the camera operator.

“Now Clancy, make it look REAL! Give her a bloody smack, man! ACTION!”

Blah, blah, blah, we each said our lines again and WHACK!

Injuries always feel as if they occur in slow motion. The whack resonated like W-H-A-C-K-K-K-K-k-k-k-k. The stage directions in the script designated that the actors say their lines, then the bad guy slaps my character. Then my defiant character, Sarah, speaks again, spouting some wise smartypants wisdom.

But my defiant character could not spout. Her jaw was dislocated.

Clancy was beside himself freaking out. “Oh god, oh god. I’m so sorry, are you okay? Jesus, did I hurt you?”

Roger was calm, “Oh dear, do we have a bloody medic up here?”

We didn’t have a bloody medic up there on top of snow-covered Whistler Mountain. But what we did have was an Inuit hairdresser/makeup artist/acupuncturist.

I couldn’t speak or close my mouth, and my jaw was pushed way to the right. I gotta admit I was slightly freaking, too. I needed this star-studded film for my résumé. And of course, I needed my jaw intact.

The Eskimo girl pressed a spot between my shoulder and neck. She pressed it with a mighty force, sorta like a Vulcan death grip—and easy as a tiny dick sliding into a whore, my jaw was back in its correct location. The crew applauded!

Roger merrily proclaimed, “Luckily, we got the shot. Let’s move on!”

Every day was a new injury. During a chase scene with Roger yelling on the walkie-talkie in the car, “Faster, Clancy, faster. Harder turn at the intersection Clancy! Crank it!”

Clancy and I braced ourselves for take number 37. We barreled down the alley of a Vancouver ghetto. The car flew over a big bump, which torqued my spine, and then Clancy cranked the car sharply to the left at the intersection. FYI, there are these people in movies called STUNTMEN. There are also the ones known as STUNT DRIVERS. Roger opted for neither, as he wanted it to LOOK REAL. My back wrenched, and I screamed in excruciating pain. I laid there in the backseat of the STUNT car while Clancy profusely apologized.

Roger opened the car door to see if I was okay. The medic examined me and said, “She probably just threw her back out, but let’s get her to the hospital.” That was a keen observation that any idiot could have observed, and I’m pretty sure medics on movies are from local high school first-aid classes. Roger replied, “Thank god we got the bloody shot, let’s get her to the hospital,” whereby he accidentally slammed the car door into my head, jamming my skull into my neck like a turtle.

Henry Kingi, the most gloriously cool-looking stuntman in the history of stuntmen, rushed me to the hospital. Henry Kingi is six foot five, a Native American, and has jet-black hair to his waist. He is a spiritually enlightened human being and has remained a lifelong friend. After being examined, it was recommended I take lots of pain meds. Ugh! I didn’t want to go through the next week of filming doped up. I called the production company and asked if there was a good chiropractor in the area.

The production people recommended a particular chiropractor because he utilized a rare form of therapy called Grostic. I won’t forget that word as long as I live: “Grostic.”

Soon I was lying facedown on the chiropractic table, and Henry Kingi was standing in front of me four feet away. I commented to the doctor, “You can’t crack my neck. I won’t let anyone crack my neck.”

“That’s not how I do it. I use the Grostic technique. I won’t even touch you,” he proudly proclaimed.

I tilted my eyes up to Henry with a
Really? He’s not even going to touch me? What the fuck?
Henry raised his eyebrows.

The chiro started hopping around like he had ants in his pants. I’m not exaggerating. He began hopping and bending and “gathering” something. Gathering and scooping at the air around him. Scooping, gathering the air, and rubbing his hands like people do when they’re freezing. Jesus, it was all too much and way too comical and stupid looking. I peered up at Henry again, and we had to divert our eyes lest we fly into hysterical laughter and interrupt the Grostic process.

Well, Dr. Freakshow did this bizarre ritual for about three minutes, and then what occurred was literally inexplicable. He swooped in and pressed his hands down hard, landing one to two inches from my back. If I hadn’t been there, I would never have believed this ridiculous story. Thank god Henry was there as my witness.

It felt like a cross between being electrocuted and having a two-by-four smashed into my spine. A shock wave of the most painful pressure smashed into my body, and I threw up when I was hit by the crush that almost rendered me unconscious. This was a violent hurl that was immediate and reminiscent of Linda Blair in
The Exorcist
.

And it was TRUE. He hadn’t so much as touched me.

I’m no voodoo witch doctor occult-believing kind of girl. I need explanations. I need analytical reasoning. I need to understand fully how something works.

All I know is that I did get up. I did run, not walk, out of Grostic Central so my back was somehow working properly. But it freaked me out so terribly that I became violently sick, puking my guts out for days, like I’d been possessed by some alien demon. I have no idea what the hell he did to me. I’ve asked other chiropractors what the hell he did to me, but only one had heard of Grostic, and he merely replied that it was “energy work.”

I can testify that I will never again have energy work.

This is how the movie went on, injury after injury. Remember, Sidney Poitier and I hadn’t worked directly together up until this point. My character was with the psycho killer, being dragged around the mountains, while he was killing off all the campers I’d taken on a camping trip. They kept falling off cliffs or being stabbed—you know, psycho-murderer kind of stuff.

Meanwhile Sidney and Tom were joined at the hip, just a few days behind us in pursuit of the murderer and trying to ensure I wasn’t his next victim. The only reason Clancy didn’t kill me was because he needed me to guide him out of the mountains, plus he was holding me for ransom.

My point is, the only people who saw me get whacked, pushed, terrified of heights, or whiplashed were Clancy, the crew, and of course, Rog.

When we completed shooting at Whistler, we segued to an enormous ferryboat. This is where Sidney Poitier, Tom Berenger, and I began working together.

Clancy’s character had me at gunpoint aboard the vessel, as his hostage. At one point he had to jump from the ferryboat railing and smash me to the ground. Needless to say I was horrified at my impending doom. I had a stunt double, but Roger had yet to use her. Clancy also needed to “pistol-whip” me, causing Tom to leap in and rescue me. Sidney was sitting behind the camera watching the scene.

Clancy grabbed me by the throat and put the fake gun to my head. Roger explained, “Now, Clancy, when Kirstie struggles to escape, you must take the butt of the gun and pretend to smack it across her face. The gun falls to the floor, you jump on the railing to escape, she grabs the gun so you jump on her and ‘smack her across her face’ again with your fist, rendering her unconscious.”

“QUIET ON THE SET!” yelled the first assistant director.

“ACTION!” screamed Roger.

Clancy grabbed me by the throat—I struggled—I screamed—and Clancy pretended to belt me across the face with the gun. The gun fell to the ground, and I grabbed it. Clancy leapt from the railing, pretending to smash me onto the hard metal decking, and “play” smacked me across my mouth. I ACTED like I was rendered unconscious.

“CUT!! CUT CUT cut cut cut,” Roger complained. “Clancy—that looked fake. Just place the butt of the gun in your palm. It will look like the gun is striking her. When you leap on her, go for it, man! Knock her to the ground, grab her face, and act like you belt her!” By this point in the film the stunt coordinator was ready to shoot himself; this is a perfect example of how actors get hurt. Really hurt. I could see the coordinator shaking his head behind the camera. He was whispering to Roger, probably telling him this was dangerous, beckoning him to use my stunt double.

Even the pretend fighting was painful. Being pushed down onto a metal floor, no matter how gently it’s done, hurts like a bitch.

“All right everybody, let’s go again!” Roger announced.

But Mr. Poitier strolled around from behind the camera, took me by the arm, and said to Roger, “She’s done. Bring in her stunt double and one for Clancy. This is ACTING, Mr. Spottiswoode, ACTING.”

It was magnificent! I mean, who the hell is going to argue with Sidney Poitier? His intensely powerful voice is enough to quail a Marine.

While Roger reluctantly summoned the stunt doubles, Sidney sat with me, and that’s where our friendship began. What an awesome person he is. Everything out of his mouth was riveting. I prompted him to tell me stories about all his movie adventures. From
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
, to
To Sir, With Love
,
The Defiant Ones
,
Lilies of the Field
, to
In the Heat of the Night
.

He was terribly gracious. I’d ask him what it was like to work with movie greats such as Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. For days he told me intimate, funny tales of all his experiences. We had lunches and dinners together, and we have kept in touch throughout the years. He is very special to me. But at that moment in time he was my hero. He stuck by me throughout the remainder of the movie. Roger never asked me to do another stunt, nor did he ask my costar Clancy Brown to belt me.

Sidney taught me to stand up for myself on movie sets and to stand up for other actors who are green and being taken advantage of. I guess you could simply say, he taught me, “I’m an actor, not the bionic woman.”

Oddly, I ended up adoring our wacky director, Roger. He really was a well-intentioned man; he simply needed a new moviemaking mantra . . . “Stunt doubles”—
namaste.

I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.

—ANAÏS NIN

The Art of
Cheerful Men

I
F I hadn’t walked into the
Cheers
meeting at the Four Seasons with the confidence of Atlas, I

A. wouldn’t have gotten the part and,

B. wouldn’t have had the opportunity to star in one of the most famous sitcoms in history.

Jimmy Burrows, undisputedly the finest, most talented sitcom director/producer in history, had first seen me as Maggie in
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
at the Mark Taper Forum in LA some three years prior. He remembered that I was funny, which in itself is funny because
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
is a drama. But then what all the
Cheers
cast had in common was that all of us were, and are first and foremost, talented dramatic actors. Put any brilliant actor with a sense of what’s actually funny in a dramatic piece, but in the wrong place and time, and those will be your comedy geniuses.

I’d just completed
Shoot to Kill
, and I was very cocky when I walked into the
Cheers
luncheon in my skintight Kelly-green leather dress with denim inset details. I’d paid $1,500 for that dress in 1986, so it damn well better have been outstanding. I filled the dress well, was skinny as a stick, and wore Kelly-green stilettos on my feet. My hair was huge and wavy and down to my hips. In my mind I was a cocky film actress who had only done dramas and only done movies, except for a short-lived series and a cruise on
The Love Boat
because I wanted to make sure my new boyfriend, Parker, wasn’t cheating on me.