Shirley, I Jest!: A Storied Life

by Cindy Williams

  And with that, he pulled the curtain back. I stepped out to the audience applauding. In my head, I was saying Johnny’s on my right, Johnny’s on my right! Whatever possessed me to agree to do this?

  Doc threw me a smile. I bowed, looking over to see Johnny standing. What did the stage manager say about the hugging and kissing? I couldn’t remember, but I think I hugged him, then took my seat while the audience applause died down. Freddie de Cordova, the show’s producer, was also standing as well as the affable Ed McMahon.

  Johnny couldn’t have been sweeter. He asked me a few questions about American Graffiti and if I had been a cheerleader in high school as I had played in the movie. I answered no, that I was the drill team captain. Uh-oh! I was at once aware of my slip-up. I had not been the drill team captain; I had been a squad leader on the drill team. I was mentally kicking myself for this faux pas and snapped myself out of the momentary guilt in time to respond to a question Johnny was asking. Somehow we were on the subject of Return of the Blob. I told Johnny that in this movie I had been eaten by the blob in a drainpipe in Glendale. This made the audience and Johnny laugh. At that moment, Johnny said,

  “Well, we’re out of time. Will you come back, Cindy?”

  I couldn’t believe it. It’s every guest’s dream to be asked back. Fred de Cordova and Ed McMahon were smiling at me and nodding.

  “I would love to,” I blurted out.

  And with that Johnny thanked all his guests and the show was over. Johnny got up, said good night to everyone, and apologized to me for having so little airtime. I had scored! God bless Larry Hagman for giving me that little part. Well, everyone loved me, my family, my friends, my segment producer—so much that I was invited back for a second round with Johnny.

  This time I would like to say I wasn’t nervous, but that would be untrue. After makeup I was walking to my dressing room and noticed “The Amazing Kreskin” name on the dressing room door next to mine. I was a fan and had always been mesmerized by his mental genius. The door was ajar and I saw him standing there. I knocked and introduced myself and told him I was a big fan. He was delighted and thanked me. I told him I thought I was a little psychic.

  He said, “Great! I’ll use you in my presentation tonight!”

  I immediately tried to backpedal and said that I thought it would be better if he used someone else. Why did I open my big mouth? He said I’d be perfect and instead of telling a long story about how I couldn’t trust myself because when put on the spot I might not be clear-headed. I just said, “Thank you, but I really think it would be better if you used someone other than me.”

  My “snappy patter” went well enough that night. I moved down on the couch on cue. Johnny announced the Amazing Kreskin. You could tell Johnny liked him and was looking forward to whatever mentalist fete Kreskin was planning for the night. By this time I had forgotten all about being asked to participate and as Johnny was questioning Kreskin about performances he had brilliantly executed recently, he led him into saying something like, “Well, Johnny, tonight I would like to try something with you!”

  Johnny was jazzed by this and Kreskin went on. “I’m going to need someone else.”

  “How ‘bout Doc,” Johnny said. Doc smiled.

  “No,” Kreskin said.

  “I’m going to ask Cindy to help us.”

  “No,” I blurted out, “Use Doc!”

  “No,” Kreskin said, turning to me. “I’d like to use you, Cindy.” (I was psychic enough at that moment to know this was not going to end well.) Obviously Kreskin was not picking up on the thought!

  If memory serves me correctly, the mental trick went something like this: Kreskin predicts, on a piece of paper, which hand Johnny will hide it in. He folds the paper and gives it to Johnny who puts his hands behind his back, placing the paper in one of them, and then holds his hands out in front of him. Kreskin asks me to predict which hand the paper is in based on his telepathic guidance.

  Johnny was ready, the audience was waiting and Kreskin gave me the cue to reveal my bold prediction. Left or right? My first thought was left, then wait, oh no, right! It’s the right hand. No, no, left. Definitely left. And so I boldly predicted “Right.”

  There was a slight pause and Kreskin asked me if I wanted to change my mind. I knew then and there my initial instinct was correct. I wrestled with myself for a nanosecond. Which would be more embarrassing; to have guessed wrongly or if I changed my mind, the audience perhaps thinking Kreskin was signaling me in some way? I stuck to my guns knowing I was taking the Amazing Kreskin, whose powers of mental prowess I thoroughly believed in, down into the crapper.

  Johnny revealed that indeed it was his left hand that had held the paper. Kreskin revealed that he had predicted the left hand. Yet I had chosen the right.

  Dear me, even while I’m writing this forty something years later, I’m humiliated! I think, if only I’d been smarter, gotten my nursing degree, I could have avoided all this mortification! But then again, what mistakes might I have made with my patients? No, better to take this hit publicly than mix up somebody’s apple juice with their urine sample!

  While we were still standing there and Kreskin was going on with his challenge I blurted out, “Well, we won’t be taking this act to Vegas!”

  No one laughed!

  Later, backstage I apologized profusely to Kreskin and I have to tell you he was so gracious and self-effacing in letting me off the hook!

  However, I must have done something right because Freddie de Cordova paid me the huge compliment of asking if I were interested in guest hosting The Tonight Show. My mind was clear, my heart rate calm and steady as I respectfully declined.

  Cary Grant

  The familiar and charming voice called my name: “Cindy.” Every cell in my body and mind responded with delight. I turned and in what seemed to be a beam of heavenly light stood Cary Grant. I made an audible gasp. “Well done,” he continued, smiling at me. I managed a “thank you.” He nodded, still smiling. Dazed, I reluctantly turned and made my way back to the table in the clubhouse at the Hollywood Park Racetrack.

  I had just come up from the winners’ circle where I had picked a name from a barrel to announce the recipient of a year’s worth of groceries. It wasn’t easy trying to get thousands of horse racing enthusiasts to quiet down long enough so I could read the winner’s name. But finally the lucky family made their way from the stands to have their picture taken together with me and the winning horse and jockey. When I got back to my table, my mother and my friend, Doodles Weaver, the wonderful comic actor, were waiting for me. I was about to tell them I had just met Cary Grant when my mother shouted at a deafening decibel level, “Oh, my God, it’s Cary Grant!”

  I looked up to see him walking toward us. I could see my mother was about to shout out again, so I gently kicked her under the table signaling her to keep quiet. In that same moment Cary Grant arrived at our table.

  “Ow! You kicked me,” my mother said.

  “No, I didn’t!” I said demurely.

  “Yes, you did!” she protested.

  “No, I didn’t!”

  Cary Grant was standing there smiling down at us. I knew he sensed that I had indeed tried to “quiet” my mother down with a swift kick to her shin. Standing there he seemed to absolve me of my transgression. “Good afternoon, ladies!” He turned to acknowledge my mother.

  Batting her eyes and offering her hand, she said, “Frances.”

  He took it. “Lovely to meet you, Frances.”

  “Lovely to meet you, Mr. Grant.”

  “Cary.”

  “Cary,” she gushed.

  I could see she wasn’t letting go of his hand. My foot was on the ready. I considered sending another warning signal to her shin. Still holding my mother’s hand, which he couldn’t have let go of if he tried, it was as though she had attached herself to him with superglue! He tur
ned to me.

  “Really, Cindy, very good job out there!”

  “Thank you!”

  “I especially liked it when you told thirty thousand people to ‘Shut up!’”

  I took it as a compliment and sincerely thanked him. He turned to Doodles.

  “Doodles!” he acknowledged.

  “Hey, Cary!” Doodles said. “Nice suit!”

  He was referring to Cary Grant’s white suit. I too was wearing white. It was a white pantsuit. The reason being I had read somewhere that Cary Grant wore white to the track, and that is why I chose my outfit. Kismet?

  “It was lovely meeting you. Enjoy the rest of your day.”

  With that, Cary gracefully wrenched his hand from my mother’s vicelike grip, he turned and walked away. My mother said, “My leg is going to have a bruise, you know.”

  Mick Fleetwood

  I was asked to emcee a charity event honoring Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac. It was a black tie casino night affair with blackjack tables, roulette, and craps played with faux money bought by guests. All the money went to charity. The organizers were very generous and gave me a table of my own so that I could invite guests. I invited my friends Jesse, J. Sean, and Bette. It was a great event and very well put together. Everyone had lots of fun.

  I waited until I had finished my duty at the microphone welcoming everyone and introducing the gala’s organizer and leaving her the stage to give the charity’s mission statement. I took my seat at my table with my friends and started sipping a glass of wine. I had no further duties except to help out by calling out the raffle ticket winners at the end of the night. I hadn’t eaten dinner yet and was enjoying the festivities with my friends. We were all having a great time! I made a mental note: Black tie, faux gambling night—great fund-raiser!

  We all strained to catch a glimpse of the fabulous Mick Fleetwood, the man of the night. He was sitting at his table directly in front of the stage. His table was filled with family and friends and like us, they were having a grand ol’ time! He would receive an award later for his good works for this charity. The celebrity who would give his introduction and present him with the award had not yet arrived. I was unaware of this fact at the time and poured another glass of wine. Music played, more wine was poured as the evening went on. More speakers appeared on-stage. It was all leading up to Mick Fleetwood’s introduction. I tried to grab a waiter to get a dinner plate, but had no luck.

  All of a sudden the organizer appeared at my table, knelt down by me and with a cry of urgency and desperation said, “You’re going to have to give the introduction for Mick.”

  “What?”

  “The intro for Mick, Cindy, you’re going to have to deliver it!”

  She was in a panic and explained to me that the celebrity who was going to introduce him had not shown up yet. I told her I had had two glasses of wine on an empty stomach and I had no speech prepared.

  “I’ll get you a pen and a piece of paper.” And she was gone! Bette, Jesse, and J. Sean all turned to me.

  “I can’t do this,” I confessed to them with adrenaline coursing through my body.

  “Sure you can,” my friends rooted me on.

  The organizer was back. “Cindy, we don’t have time. You’ve got to go now! His introduction is next.”

  Without a pause, she swept me up like a tsunami. She led me to the stairs, up onto the stage and hurled me toward the microphone and, all the while, all eyes were on me. Damn the celebrity who was supposed to do this. Mick and his wife and guests were all smiling up at me from their table. The organizer stood to my right. I thought, speak from your red-wine-laden heart!

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” I began. “We are here tonight to honor someone.” I can’t remember all of my opening remarks, but they went off well enough. And when it came down to actually introducing our man of the evening and bringing him up onto the stage to accept the honor that was due to him, I remember exactly what I said: “Ladies and gentlemen. The best drummer in the entire universe. Fleet Micwood!” I heard it, but I didn’t want to claim it! Then there was the undeniable silence in the room and Mick and his guests and family looked up at me.

  “Did I just say that?” I asked my audience.

  “Did I just say Fleet Micwood? Did I mention I have dyslexia?” I confessed.

  The humiliation was quite uncomfortable, but the wave of the tsunami had to drop me off somewhere. “Let me try that again. Ladies and gentlemen” (my brain strained to put the “icks,” “acks,” and Fleet in the proper order), “the best drummer in the universe, Mick Fleetwood!” He took the stage and hugged me. He was so gracious. His table smiled at me.

  J. Sean, Jesse, and Bette encouraged me by saying things like; “It was funny!” and “You were charming!”

  The irony is that the celebrity scheduled to present the award showed up immediately after my debacle and delivered a great and elegant speech. Oh well, it could have been worse; I might have called him Meat Flickwood!

  The organizer never invited me back again!

  Cher

  Honestly, I have no idea how we ended up there, but one Saturday in the ’70s Penny and I found ourselves trying on clothes at Fiorucci’s in Beverly Hills. Fiorucci’s was an Italian clothing store which featured underground trends of the day such as thongs, camouflage prints, jumpsuits, gold lamé bags, and newly invented Spandex stretch jeans. A trendy clothing wonderland lined with racks and racks of hip clothes as far as the eye could see. Not much of it was Penny’s nor my style, but it was great fun looking. We modeled clothes for each other, holding them up to our bodies, still on the hangers, commenting and laughing about how silly each of us looked. Then all of a sudden we spotted these black, glossy, spandex jeans. We were intrigued so we decided to try them on.

  The dressing rooms at Fiorucci’s were situated side by side on a little platform balcony about ten feet above the main floor. You climbed up a few stairs to get up there. While we were both thin and in very good shape thanks in part to the demanding physicality of our TV show, it still proved to be a real challenge to get those pants on. The darn things clung to your thighs no matter how petite you might be. They really should have come with a bucket of oil to help them slide on.

  Penny was in the dressing room next to mine. She shouted, “I can’t get these on.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m having trouble, too.” I decided to lay down on the floor. Perhaps inertia, gravity, or sheer determination would help. I yelled back to Penny, “Try putting them on lying down!”

  I yanked. I pulled. I squirmed and finally success! I had them on! The problem now was that I was lying on my back like a turtle, unable to stand. I rolled over, pushed myself up onto my hands and knees, crawled to the chair that was in the corner, grabbed onto it and, bracing myself, managed to stand.

  “Penny,” I shouted, “do you need help?”

  “No,” she replied. “If I can just get to the chair, I can hoist myself up.”

  I walked stiffly out of the dressing room, as did Penny. When we saw each other, we burst out laughing. Our legs looked like licorice sticks.

  “I’m not getting them,” she said.

  “Me neither,” I agreed. “We look stupid. I’ll never wear them.”

  Just then a familiar voice chimed in from the floor below. It was Cher looking up at us. She said, “Those pants look great on you girls. You should get them.”

  And so we did.

  The “Cher pants” hung in both of our closets for years and years, never to be struggled with again.

  The Famous Cookie

  The cast of American Graffiti had been invited to the Vanity Fair Oscar party. Earlier in the year Annie Leibovitz had photographed us for the magazine and each of us had received an invitation. A week before the party I was talking with my friend Suzanne Somers. The subject of the party came up. She, of course, had been
invited, too. She asked me what I was planning to wear. I had already planned my trusty “big party cocktail” outfit—black cocktail pants, a black velvet jacket, a studded camisole, and all of the good jewelry I owned.

  She said, “Cocktail attire, yeah that sounds right.”

  I assumed we were on the same page, which gave me confidence about my choice. The Vanity Fair party is a very exciting event and my date (one of my managers) and I were thrilled to attend. When we arrived, the paparazzi was all over Angelina Jolie, who was speaking intently with her father, Jon Voight, and her brother, James Haven. As we wended our way past them toward the entrance, a shout rang out.

  “Hef! Hef! Over here!”

  We turned to see Hugh Hefner with all of his lady friends on his arm. I swear it seemed like he had six girls with him and an arm for each one of them. We were almost to the door when the paparazzi shouted out again.

  “Over here! Over here! This way! Right here! Look here!”

  Before I could turn, I heard the thunderous sound of a thousand flashes go off.

  “Over here! Look here, please!”

  I turned to see Suzanne posing and flashing that beautiful smile of hers and wearing what I can only describe as a full-length, nude wedding gown with a train. Diamonds were strategically encrusted to ensure her modesty. On her head she wore a skullcap headdress reminiscent of the 1920s, with strands of diamonds hanging down, framing her face. She made Cher look like a hausfrau. After I picked my jaw up off of the ground I went inside and waited. Suzanne and her husband, Alan Hamel, came in and started talking with a group of partygoers. I snuck up closely behind her and tapped her on the shoulder. As she turned, her diamonds swung and hit me lightly in the face.

  “This is what you call cocktail attire? How much wine did you have to drink to get up the courage to wear this?”

  “One glass on an empty stomach!” she laughed.

  The next day, her picture in that outfit was plastered everywhere. Her daughter, Leslie Hamel, had designed it, and Suzanne wanted to wear it. Talk about marketing genius! Suzanne is a superb businesswoman and I’ve always admired her for that as well as her moxie. And I have to say, all in all it was a pretty stunning “cocktail frock”!