Inside Out(19)
In many ways General Hospital was like another new school I had to figure out, but the stakes were much higher. While I saw soaps as a stepping-stone, I realized the show had the power to change my life for the better, and I didn’t want people to see my weaknesses or sense my insecurity. On the surface I was hitting all my marks, but my internal compass sought outlets for my self-doubt. I started drinking.
There was often free time during the day when someone else’s character was being taped, but not enough time to leave the building and go anywhere, so I hung out with Tony Geary, who played Luke, in his dressing room when we weren’t needed on the set. Tony always had some kind of liquor on hand, which he disguised by mixing it with Coke. I never turned down his offer of a drink. He was the star of the show, after all, and if that’s how the star behaved, then it must be okay.
Freddy and I didn’t have more than the occasional beer at home. The problem was, when I did have a drink, I couldn’t stop; there was no little voice in my head saying, That’s enough, Demi. There were no brakes. One night, Freddy and I went to hear an up-and-coming New Wave band. As they moved through their set, I had one drink, then another, then another. Backstage, after the gig, I was talking to somebody from the band when I blacked out. The next thing I remember is him yelling at me in a heavy English accent. I have no idea what I said to him, but it must have been pretty bad. “Get out!” he screamed. “Get the fuck out!” That sobered me up quickly. Heads turned to look as Freddy rushed me to the door. That was my first major booze-related humiliation.
It’s one thing to get wasted at a club late at night. It’s another to get drunk while you’re working.
I was invited with several of the stars of General Hospital to fly somewhere to do a live panel for a dedicated soap audience. My unraveling began on the plane when I started ordering drinks from the stewardess, and accelerated when I got to the hotel and cleared out the minibar. I was so intoxicated by the time the panel began that I couldn’t stay upright in my seat.
The next day, I was horrified. It felt too out of control, too much like my parents. I knew that alcohol was moving me in their direction, back to where I came from, instead of forward into the future I envisioned for myself. I quit drinking, cold turkey.
BREAK NUMBER THREE came just after I turned twenty, in 1982, when I auditioned for a part in my first real movie and got it. My dream had always been movies, and everything about this one, Blame It on Rio, was intoxicating. It was shooting in a foreign country, and so for the first time in my life, I got a passport. It was with a big studio, directed by the legendary Stanley Donen, who’d made classics like Singin’ in the Rain, Damn Yankees!, and Charade. Valerie Harper was playing my mother—I’d grown up watching her on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda. And Michael Caine was playing my father. I didn’t truly understand what that meant at the time, what a unique opportunity this was to work with one of the world’s great actors, I just knew that I was excited to be in a movie. I negotiated three months off from my General Hospital contract to do the film.
I went to Brazil feeling—as I had many times in my life—like this was a new start: a whole new ball game. It was a pattern I’d gotten used to. If something wasn’t working, I knew in a short while we’d be gone, so I didn’t have to try to fix whatever it was. And if it was working? Well, enjoy it, because it’ll be over before you know it.
We were staying in a big hotel on Ipanema Beach, and the first night we all met for dinner. There was Michael Caine and his wife, Shakira, who was so elegant, exotic, and sophisticated—really something to behold for a grubby kid from New Mexico. Joe Bologna, the other male lead, was a total mensch, extremely warm; in truth, everyone went out of their way to make me feel comfortable. I was in awe, soaking it all up but trying to act cool. I wanted them to see whatever they wanted to see. I told myself, Don’t fuck this up. Sit still, watch, and learn.
The film itself was really a dirty old man’s fantasy—it could never be made today—but at that time, it seemed perfectly normal. I played a seventeen-year-old on vacation in Rio with my best friend, who basically seduces my father against his will. Joe Bologna played the friend’s father, and I was the supporting actress. The lead, Michelle Johnson, was a young model who’d been plucked out of obscurity in Phoenix, Arizona, and I think her breasts were a major factor in the casting—which also seemed par for the course in those days. She struck me as quite innocent. Even though I was not much older than she was, I felt like a veteran by comparison.
On set, I met a very cool local girl named Zezé, who had signed up to be an extra in the movie just for fun. Zezé came from a wealthy family; she was well educated and spoke perfect English. We became friends and quickly got a great little groove going. In our free time, she showed me around Rio, took me to restaurants, and introduced me to her friends. We all started going to lots of parties together, and it was a blast.
Freddy wasn’t there, and I was just me in a place where I had no history, so I could experiment with figuring out the me I wanted to be, without any encumbrances. It was an awakening in so many expansive and positive ways, offset, unfortunately, by a lot of cocaine. I nearly burned a hole through my nostrils while I was in Brazil.
The studio was putting me up in a very nice hotel and giving me a per diem allowance as well, so the living was easy. It became even easier when Zezé pointed out that I could rent a furnished apartment, and she helped me find a great one, overlooking the beach. We’d befriended Peter, a young guy who was running the second unit camera on the movie, and he became my roommate. Peter and I split the rent, and I pocketed the extra money from my allowance and put it toward cocaine. My Brazilian friends would get it for me, and they got very good stuff. Everybody in Rio seemed to be doing coke—and drinking, except, ironically, for me. I didn’t drink because I knew, I can’t handle that. It’s not safe for me. I didn’t give a second thought to the effects of cocaine. In my mind, I’d found this thing that made me feel up and productive and creative, so what could be wrong with it? I had the cash to keep myself well supplied, and because I had a relatively small part in the movie, I had a fair amount of time off to enjoy it.