In Pieces(36)

I remember watching him plop down on the cheap, unpainted bar stool I’d purchased for the kitchen counter, worrying that it would snap as he leaned back and casually suggested I make some coffee so we could talk. Quietly, I scooped and poured and pushed the appropriate buttons, willing my new percolator to hurry, until finally, holding his freshly made cup of Folgers, Jocko began. Harry Ackerman had called him, he told me. Which was a huge surprise because I had only recently told Baa about the offer and as far as I knew, Jocko and Mr. Ackerman had never met. But now he acted as if they were old friends, telling me that Harry wanted his help, wanted him to talk to me before it was too late. Looking at me as if I had four flat tires and he owned the only jack, he said, “I’m here to help you, Sal. Do the show.” Or something to that effect.

I was unprepared, had to scramble to find the confidence that wavered whenever my stepfather came near. Feeling my face flush with heat, I told him (with a definite whine) that I didn’t like the show. But Jocko started talking over me, saying he thought I was lost, that I was feeling like hot shit because I’d just had my first movie experience. I could feel my insides frantically searching for the new strength I’d found, wanting desperately to stand firm. Instead I opted for the truth and haltingly confessed that I wanted to do better work, that I wanted to be a better actor. He paused for a moment as if taking in my words, then said solemnly, “They’ve already started shooting this… with someone else. Do you know that?”

I hadn’t known, and for the first time a smack of doubt hit me. Thoughts flew through my head: Maybe I’ve given up something that other actors actually want, or maybe I don’t know enough to know what’s good, or maybe I have too many voices in my head to have any clear opinions at all. Then Jocko—the man who had told me he knew me better than I knew myself—reminded me that I’d earned very little money doing Gidget and even less making the movie, that I didn’t know the business like he did, and finally said something that I’ll never, ever forget. “If you don’t do this show, Sally, you may never work again.” And with that, one of the water balloons tossed from the Eugene hotel window landed on my head, drenching me with icy-cold fear. I was afraid.

Because of that, for three years I was the Flying Nun.





9


Wired


THE FLYING NUN was an instant hit. Everywhere I looked someone was telling a nun joke: on talk shows, variety shows, street corners. I couldn’t tell if the Flying Nun was the joke or I was, couldn’t distinguish between the bell of my past and the chimes of the present. I felt deeply disgraced, as if everyone were laughing at me.


When we first meet her, she is stepping off the boat in San Juan, Puerto Rico, having been transferred from San Francisco to the Convent San Tanco. Born Elsie Ethrington and given the name Sister Bertrille upon entering the convent, she is still a novice, not a full-fledged nun—a petite little slip of a girl who finds that when the trade winds come in contact with her wide-winged cornette, she has the startling ability to become airborne. “When lift plus thrust is greater than load plus drag, anything can fly” was the piece of scientific information that Sister Bertrille would repeat at the drop of a hat, though hopefully not her own. And trust me, her petite body—the load part of the equation—fluctuated radically throughout her stay at the Convent San Tanco.

It was all gibberish. Not inspired comedic nonsense like I Love Lucy or Fawlty Towers, but meaningless twaddle with nothing real to relate to. Most of the time the little bundle of ecru spent the half hour trying to convince agnostic Carlos—Argentinian actor Alejandro Rey—to change his playboy ways by manipulating him into helping her accomplish some good deed, usually teaming up with either Sister Sixto (Shelley Morrison), Sister Ana (Linda Dangcil), or Sister Jacqueline (the formidable Marge Redmond). And whatever well-meaning mischief the little nun and her cohorts got into, it always ended with a disapproving, though secretly charmed, reaction from the mother superior, played by the imposing, enigmatic Madeleine Sherwood.

The only episode I can remember actually being about something was the one where Sister Bertrille had to deal with Irving, a lovesick pelican, explaining gently that while she was very fond of him, she was not ready to settle down yet. Other than that, every episode was pretty much the same, every day pretty much the same. Including the day or two in each episode that was different, because they were always different in the same way. On those days I would have to fly. That meant I’d be wearing the harness, which was a cross between a corseted one-piece bathing suit and a straitjacket, with one large screw sticking out of each hip. After I got it on and tightly laced to my body, a specially made habit with corresponding holes on either side was placed over the torturous contraption, allowing the screws to poke through where two thin wires were then attached. They were called piano wires, but I doubt that they were the same fine strands of steel used to create music. Not while I was attached, at least.

During the pilot and early in production, I was required to do all the flying. Not only the tight shots—where you could actually see my face—but also the wider ones shot from a distance, when you couldn’t tell if it was me or Baby Huey thirty-five feet in the air. On these exterior days, mostly spent at the Columbia Ranch—so close and yet so far from Gidget’s neighborhood—I’d be connected to an enormous building crane by my nonmusical wires, then hoisted up over the fa?ade of a large town square containing a brownish-gray convent. Operating this heavy piece of machinery was a bleary-eyed special effects man who usually smelled as though he would have failed a Breathalyzer test. This guy would then proceed to fly me smack into building after building, while the whole time I’d be screaming for him to watch where I was going. Luckily, I’d have time to prepare myself and as I watched the convent speeding toward me—or me toward the convent—I’d raise my legs and extend my arms, then plant myself on the wall—looking like Spider-Man in a nun’s habit. Halfway through production a blessed saint of a stuntwoman was hired, and Ralph, or whatever his name was, would then splat her all over the convent wall instead. I guess she was expendable.