Read My Lips

by Sally Kellerman

  I approached the neighbor across street to watch Claire. Rita was a very sweet woman and a real character. “I don’t know if I can make it today, kid,” she said. “But my boyfriend might be able to. He needs some work. He just got out of prison.”

  No, thanks.

  I myself was trying to play a bigger role in Claire’s life, but I had my share of screwups too. One day when I was having lunch with my agent at Ma Maison, the hottest restaurant in town, I suddenly realized that it was Claire’s ninth birthday. I had forgotten. I dropped everything, jumped in the car with her presents, and raced right over. When I opened the door to Ian’s place, I saw Claire sitting with two of her friends in the living room, at a tiny card table covered with a colorful paper birthday tablecloth. Some candy was laid out.

  “Who did this?” I asked, bewildered.

  “I did, Sally,” Claire said. “I went down to Jerry’s Liquor.”

  My boyfriend, Chuck, who had always been incredibly supportive of my relationship with Claire, told me that I couldn’t leave Claire at Ian’s. Either I had to take her, or we had to send her to boarding school. The night he suggested boarding school, I became so mad that I slept on the couch.

  Claire would sometimes run away—who could blame her—and Ian, poor thing, couldn’t keep up, being so ill. As soon as I heard she was missing, I would dash over, but sometimes the police would find her and bring her home, or Claire herself would call me in a panic.

  So I did what many frightened adults do in situations like this: I began to threaten her.

  “Claire, you can’t keep running away! You have to listen to your dad. And if you don’t, I’m going to have to send you to boarding school,” I said to her one night on the phone.

  “What’s boarding school?” she asked, not sounding scolded at all but instead more curious. “Would I like it?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Would you like to go see? Shall we find out?” I was amazed by her reaction and so moved, because somehow she knew she needed a change in her life.

  Through a friend I heard about a boarding school in Ojai, and the two of us drove up to check it out. As we drove past its split-rail white fences—there were horses—we immediately knew it would be perfect. The grounds and the buildings and the people felt real, not fancy. Claire would even have her own horse to ride and take care of. I knew I had to make this happen, to get her enrolled. I would even pay for it, though my business manager thought that would be a very bad idea. But I didn’t care.

  Claire was excited, and Ian agreed to let her go. That was his compromise.

  With Claire settled in her new school, I had divided my time between rehearsing for the tour and nesting in the new house. I wanted some shelves added to the den, so I asked Chuck if he knew anyone who could do the job. He recommended a friend of his who did some fine woodworking, and brought him by to meet me.

  The guy was in his early thirties, tall and fit, in that carpenter’s sort of way, and very laid back. He lived nearby, drove an old beat-up truck, and had a couple of kids. With his brown hair and kind of cockeyed smile, he was so handsome—a real looker. What a shame he’s married and a friend of Chuck’s, I thought.

  I told him I wanted a built-in couch in the den. I know: a built-in couch, but hey, it was the early seventies. There had to be enough room for two people to lie down side by side. I also wanted a couple of extra windows.

  I would be in the living room, singing, preparing for my first tour, while he was pounding away in the den. I would occasionally go in to check to see how things were going.

  I thought the couch wasn’t deep enough. Whining, I said, “I wanted the couch wide enough for two people.”

  “That’s the way it has to be,” the carpenter answered.

  Okay, then. I had told him I wanted some changes to the bookcase he built too, but—you guessed it—it was the way it had to be. The carpenter was so damn sure of himself that it was impossible to argue with him.

  Of course, he was also an actor. He had been in American Graffiti and Coppola’s The Conversation, but because his career hadn’t quite taken off, he was still working carpentry gigs here and there. Over the two or three months he worked at my house, we got into a little routine. He’d come in the morning, we’d have a cup of coffee or maybe smoke a joint, then we’d both get about our business.

  My neighbor at the time was Phil Mandelker, a television producer. I told him he should hire my carpenter on one of his shows. During the time he was working on my house my young handyman did two TV pilots, neither of which sold. I don’t know which, if any, Phil had a hand in. I was happy whenever the carpenter got a gig, but I was just as happy when he came back to work on my projects. He would do a pilot, come back and hammer, do a pilot, come back and do some more hammering.

  Then one day he came in to take care of wiring the dimmer on a lighting fixture in the den.

  “Well,” he said, in his deadpan cadence. “I was probably their last choice, but I got some outer-space movie with Alec Guinness.”

  “Oh, that’s great!” I said, picturing him on a white wooden ship, Alec Guinness standing at the helm in a long white gown, holding a staff. “I really hope it works out.”

  The next time I saw Harrison Ford, he pulled up in front of my house in a Mercedes.

  “I hate to be Hollywood,” he said when I answered the door, “but can I use your phone?” He came in and made his call. I joked with him that I didn’t have a handyman anymore. “Neither do I,” he said, “but I do know where you can get some tools cheap.”

  Star Wars, that “outer space movie with Alec Guinness,” had indeed worked out quite well for him. And for everyone else involved, I imagine.

  WHEN I CAME BACK FROM MY THREE-MONTH SINGING TOUR, I was exhausted. But there were real problems to deal with at home. Ian’s condition was much worse. I didn’t want Claire to be with me just part time when she was home from boarding school.

  Chuck had heard enough. He had witnessed my frustration and scared phone calls, and he’d personally watched as Ian’s health deteriorated.

  “You asshole,” Chuck said to me one day. “Why don’t you adopt her?”

  “What about my sister? What about Ian?” I said.

  But he was right. Shouldn’t I at least try to establish some official relationship with Claire?

  Diana and Gloria were still living in France, and Diana’s agreement with Ian was still in force: Claire was not to see Diana until she was eighteen. As Ian’s condition deteriorated, my parents and I did our best to help out. I hadn’t been in touch with Diana because I had felt, in a way, that it was unfair to Claire if everyone but her could be in contact.

  But now I had to reach out.

  I didn’t want to call and put Diana on the spot. So I wrote to her in the south of France. How would she feel if I adopted her daughter? Diana wrote back almost immediately.

  What are you waiting for?

  I made the offer to Claire, who accepted. Then both Claire and I approached Ian, who had recently gone to Scotland. Rather than spend his remaining days in a home in LA, Ian’s doctor knew of treatment he could seek near his family in Scotland. His final days would be much more comfortable there with so many relatives to take care of him. Claire’s school was just an hour and a half from home, so if she needed me, I could drive up to see her. She’d come home for weekends.

  Again, we made our proposal in writing. I let Claire compose the letter to her father, and what she wrote was remarkably clear, touching, and beautiful: I would be in a nice loving home like I was with you the first ten years of my life, she said. It is incredible to think that she was only ten years old when she wrote that letter. She had been through so much and had had to grow up alone in so many ways—abandonment, sickness, and care from a not-terribly-stable aunt. I wasn’t ready; I was scared. But I knew what I wanted, and I wanted Claire in my life officially. Permanently.

  Ian wrote back with his answer: Yes. I learned later he told his brother-in-law, “I can
die now,” knowing Claire would be okay. Not long afterward he passed away. It pained me to have to tell her about his death. We had a small memorial service for him. Claire soldiered through, like she always had, so much stronger than I was.

  On the day the state adoption representative was coming to give me the once-over, I had been down the street visiting with my friend Jerry Belson and his wife, Joanne.

  “You better go put on a bra before the adoption people arrive!” he said.

  I rushed home to put on a bra. Claire, however, wanted to run around naked. “I think she should see the real me, all of me!” she giggled, referring to the adoption rep. So there I was, chasing naked Claire around, when I looked out the window to see a big black limo pulling up.

  “Claire, she’s here! Get your clothes on!”

  I checked myself in the mirror and ran outside to meet the state representative. The limo door opened.

  Groucho Marx stepped out of the car.

  I knew Groucho only slightly. Bud Cort had been staying at Groucho’s house, and Groucho would host salons. All kinds of people would stop by to sing or play or recite something. My friend Morgan Ames would play the piano. I would sing. But that was pretty much the extent of my and Groucho’s relationship—thin, at best. A woman stepped out of the car after him: his companion, Erin Fleming. She had recently been accused of abusing Groucho who, at eighty-four, was getting visibly weaker but had recently starred in a tremendous one-man show at Carnegie Hall. Erin was not yet forty, and I didn’t know her from Adam.

  What could I do? I showed them both into the living room. Erin just stood there. Groucho immediately sat down at the piano and began tinkling. Claire—now dressed, thankfully—was loving every minute of it.

  Now I heard another car’s wheels hitting the gravel.

  Shit.

  I run out the door, flustered. Was I nervous? You bet your life.

  Yep. This car had a state seal. I rushed over to the woman exiting the car, blurting each step of the way.

  “Groucho Marx is in my living room! I don’t really know him, but you have to believe me that I would do anything in the world to make Claire happy!”

  The representative looked me up and down and then came right on in. I introduced her to Groucho and we got down to business. It went surprisingly well.

  “You know, Claire,” she said as we were finishing up the papers. “You can have any name you want now.”

  Claire had actually given this some thought. Her name was Claire Anderson Graham. She, however, wanted to be called “Malibu.” Groucho, joining the discussion, yelled over from behind the piano, “Sam! Call yourself Sam!”

  However, Claire thought he had yelled, “Sand.”

  So it was settled: Her new name was officially Claire Anderson Malibu Sand Graham Kellerman.

  I didn’t care how many names were in little Claire’s lineup; the last one was all that mattered to me.

  BETWEEN THE MONEY I’D LOST ON THE MUSIC TOUR AND MY debt to the IRS, I had to land some acting gigs. As if I needed another reminder, one day Sue Mengers called me in a panic. I don’t think I had ever heard her in such a state.

  “Sally! Have you seen Cosmopolitan?!” Sue asked when I picked up the phone.

  “No, why? Who did I knock?” I asked, assuming I had said something mean about someone and it had come back to bite me in the ass.

  I had unwittingly knocked a wonderful director a few months before in an interview with After Dark magazine. I had thought the interview was over, but I learned the hard way that anything you say in front of a reporter can end up in print.

  “Nobody!” Sue said. “I knocked you.

  Worried that I might have already heard about it, Sue was mortified.

  Relieved that I hadn’t put my foot in my mouth, I was delighted.

  What had Sue said? She had told Cosmo that she thought I had lost my mind, passing up on so many opportunities and leaving town to follow my bliss.

  “Who did she think she was?” the article read. “Last year’s Sandy Dennis?”—the implication being that I wasn’t even this year’s Sandy Dennis. And for those of you who do not remember Sandy Dennis? Well, that’s the point.

  But I couldn’t have cared less. Sue sent me a nice bouquet of flowers to apologize along with a note and vase that I kept for years.

  As for my decision to go on the road when I was hot in the movies—well, what can I say? I followed my heart. I wouldn’t recommend my career planning to anyone else, that’s for sure. But I did what I felt I needed to do—and I lived to tell the tale. What I would recommend to anyone else is that that, no matter how good you are, you should value whatever opportunities come your way. I read somewhere that Clint Eastwood said that he has always felt lucky. That’s wisdom for the ages. Feel lucky.

  I was lucky to have people who were still willing to work with me, despite my ignoring most of their advice. Paul Ziffren, my old neighbor in Malibu, once said, “You don’t build trust in this town. If they need you, whether you’ve robbed a bank or written a bad check, they’ll hire you.”

  He was right. Hey, it’s Hollywood.

  My favorite Ziffren advice: “Make a call to someone every day, whether you’re awake, drunk, lying down, whatever. You have to be proactive.”

  Boy, is that the truth. The buzz will never be “Oh, but how wonderful she was back in 1942 . . .” The question is always “What have you done for me lately?” Unless you’re proactive and staying alive and working, then no one gives a shit about you. Hollywood has a short memory.

  Before my music tour I had started saying no to everything, including the chance to work with Bob Altman again. Now I started saying yes to everything, but still not for the right reasons.

  I was ambivalent about doing Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins. I had already done a road picture with Jimmy Caan that I loved. But I did it anyway because I was going to get to sing. Also, it would be another chance to work with Alan Arkin, who had starred with me in Last of the Red Hot Lovers. On Rafferty Alan was very supportive of both me and my ideas, and I appreciated that. The director, Dick Richards, and I had completely different ideas about my character, Mac, a sympathetic yet droopy loser who longed to be a country singer. When I would make a suggestion about a scene or a way to play something, Dick would almost always say, “No, that’s not possible.”

  But Dick would always listen to Alan’s suggestions. After Dick shot me down, Alan would often chime in with a reiteration of my suggestion. “Why not?” Alan would say. “That’s a great idea!” It was maddening, but thanks to Alan, at least I got heard.

  Mackenzie Phillips, who was just a teenager then, was also a joy to work with on that movie. But I would love the chance to redo that character. Unfortunately, that’s not how the movie business works.

  “A NEW BROOM SWEEPS CLEAN.” THAT’S WHAT MY BELOVED manager Stuart used to tell me when we wanted to make some kind of change. Time to move on. Shake things up.

  Get on with your life.

  By now I had gotten to the point that I rang Stuart about ten times a day. He was so fabulous to me. I had come to rely on him for absolutely everything. People either loved him or hated him, but few would deny that Stuart was boundless in his energy for me.

  He was my constant champion. When I was with the agent Jack Gilardi at ICM, Stuart would physically go into Jack’s office and sit on his desk in the middle of the day, no matter who was in there. If the phone rang, Stuart would chime in, “Is that for Sally?” God knows how many jobs I got simply because someone was trying to get Stuart Cohen out of the office.

  So one morning I rang Stuart up, full of energy and optimism. Ready for change, ready to reinvent myself in Hollywood.

  “You know what I’m going to do?” I said. “I’m going to write a letter to everyone I’ve offended in this town.”

  Stuart laughed. “That’ll be a long list.”

  I got off the phone, so pleased with myself. I was ready for change, ready to sweep everything clean.
It wasn’t long before the phone rang again. This time it was Rudi.

  “Hello, am I speaking with the kinder, more benevolent Sally Kellerman?” Rudi asked. “The one who is going to write everyone in town and make amends?”

  I laughed and said, “You got her!” Stuart had clearly passed along my ingenious plan.

  “Well, that sounds great, but the only thing is that when you called, you forgot to wish Stuart a happy birthday.”

  Oh my God! I forgot Stuart’s fiftieth birthday!!!!

  I hung up in a panic. Stuart had been talking about his birthday for the longest time—how he was going to have a huge party and invite everyone he’d ever known, friends and enemies alike. Apparently he hadn’t pulled that together. Now I had to add Stuart—my darling Stuart, my champion—to the long list of people I had offended.

  David “my fake cousin” Bennett was visiting me from New York and had brought along some leftover furs from his shop. I raced upstairs to rouse him.

  “David! David!” I yelled. “It’s Stuart’s birthday, and I totally forgot! What can I give him?”

  “I have a brand new shaving mug!” David said, trying to help.

  “Perfect!”

  That was something. I threw a stodgy mink stole on over my famous pink nightgown and out the door we flew, me with a head of snarled, ratty hair and no makeup. We tore through town until we reached Stuart’s high-rise.

  Stuart opened the door and howled with delight at the sight of me. Bob Esty had come by with a bottle of champagne. None of us really drank that much, but we spent two or three hours just enjoying ourselves. It was perfect. David and I wished Stuart a happy birthday and said good-bye. Later that day, when I talked to him again on the phone, he said he had been invited to a party. I was very happy to hear that. I was so self-centered, worrying what I was doing, that it never entered my mind that I and all the other clients who loved Stuart could’ve thrown him a party. But Stuart didn’t keep score. He didn’t care. He was too busy enjoying life.