In Pieces(55)

And then there was Peter: this tiny creature with huge brown eyes, who lit up when I walked into the room, who reached for me when he was afraid, and who was soothed and comforted by my presence. And in return, I was comforted by him. His existence in my life enabled me to shut the door on the outside world, to be home without feeling lonely. As I took care of him—my all-consuming responsibility—I felt as though I were in command, becoming the more capable, confident part of myself, putting sadness in the back seat and consciously steering away from feeling helpless or powerless, as though I had a choice of what road to travel. With both hands on the wheel, I headed directly toward what I wanted, and what I wanted was as clear as a full moon peeking over the dark horizon: to be an actor, to have the chance to explore where that took me, what places it would push me, lead me, teach me. If I was not given that opportunity, it had to be because I wasn’t ready, that the power to change everything rested in me. Like my stepfather, the industry had decided that it knew who I was, threatening me with failure and the ability to cut off the lifeline I had to myself: acting. But if I could take care of Peter, I could take care of me. If I failed to get a role, let it be because I wasn’t skilled enough or talented enough or because another actress’s interpretation was better; I could fix that. What seemed a harder path to find was how to be given the opportunity to fail when my name never appeared on anyone’s list, when I was systematically dismissed, when no one wanted it to be said that the Flying Nun had been cast in their film.

With my new haircut and my growing son. Onward.





I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is the story of a mentally ill young woman trapped in a make-believe world created as a defense against her frightening childhood, and when I read the book in March of 1970, I desperately wanted a chance to play the lead. So when I wasn’t allowed the opportunity to audition, or even to enter the room for a meeting, I took a monologue straight from the book and decided to make my own screen test. Steve operated a rented camera; Lou Antonio—my friend from the Actors Studio—was the director; and another Studio member, Lane Bradbury—Lou’s very talented wife—was our crew. I then sent the footage to Al Wasserman, the New York–based producer affiliated with the project. And the letter I received on April 1, 1970—April Fool’s Day—I still have. Mr. Wasserman writes, “In doing the test I can see you ran into the dilemma that is going to face us during the filming (perhaps even more so, because of the short duration of a test and the need for immediate impact), how to avoid a sameness of performance in playing a character who is ‘stone-faced’ during most of the story; and, on the other hand, how to avoid indulging in emotional pyrotechnics that are not rooted in the truth of the character or the moment. Quite understandably, I think, you erred on the latter side. The director and I screened the test several times in order to make sure we were isolating performance from conception, and we both agreed that you handled individual moments and a range of emotions extremely well. However, as I’m sure you know, we were already well advanced in our negotiations for the part. Your test would have had to carry extraordinary impact—and this, I’m afraid it did not do…”

I have to say—mostly because I’m a spiteful little twit—that for whatever advanced negotiations they were deeply into, the film was not actually produced until 1977, and the name Al Wasserman does not appear anywhere on the credits. So there!

This is not to say that I didn’t still have some opportunities. Though the motion picture industry wanted nothing to do with me, television was still interested, offering me several TV films. In the early 1970s, original movies made to be viewed on television seemed like a brand-new concept, but they had probably been inspired by Playhouse 90, Schlitz Playhouse, and all the live shows of the fifties and early sixties, shows where my mother had spent much of her career.

My first—an ABC Movie of the Week airing in February 1971—was probably the best of the lot. With a title song sung by newcomer Linda Ronstadt, Maybe I’ll Come Home in the Spring was directed by Joseph Sargent from a screenplay written by Bruce Feldman (though Steven Spielberg told me years later that he had written the original draft). It attempted to look at the runaways of my generation, the young people who needed to escape the confinement of their families by vanishing into the world of hippies, only to find that coming home again—if they ever did—was not easy. Obviously, this wasn’t something I had experienced in my own life, but I did understand inarticulate, dysfunctional families and, saints be praised, I wasn’t playing a nun.

Happily, Lane Bradbury—who had helped me with my homemade test—played my younger sister, and since she’d been a member of the Studio much longer than I, we could confide in each other about the work. Playing my troublesome mother was the beautiful Eleanor Parker, who was at the tail end of a wonderful career and to me, she was fascinating. Never in my short time as an actor had I worked with anyone so frantic for control. Every time a scene required us to hug—which for some reason happened a lot—she would automatically turn my face away from the camera, making sure the only things on display were her glowing, tear-rimmed eyes and the back of my head. But Lee had always said, “The best acting is no acting at all,” and since the mother and daughter had a contentious relationship in the text and I didn’t feel exactly bonded with Eleanor, I “used it.” As I watched this actress—who had been extremely successful by anyone’s definition—I realized that she was a cautionary tale for me, a blinking hazard sign. True, she came from a different era of acting, and that was part of it, but as I sat quietly in a corner, observing how she worked, I realized that I never wanted to get to the point where showing my face on camera at just the right angle was more important than the work itself. This work that I was just now trying to understand.