by Marlo Thomas
and a Jewish mother?
A: Eventually, a Rottweiler lets go.
—The Internet
Chapter 36
Growing Up Free
Even though we traveled around the country, growing up in nightclubs, when Terre and I were little girls, one of our favorite things to do was sit on the floor with our portable pink phonograph and play story records.
Loretta Young reading The Littlest Angel. Bing Crosby’s The Happy Prince. Bozo the Clown, Cinderella, Snow White. We’d lie on our backs and look up at the ceiling and see all the pictures in our heads. It was a great thing to do on a rainy L.A. day.
When Terre’s first child, Dionne, was around five, I was reading to her from the books she had in her room, and I was shocked by how outdated they were. They all told the same old stories, starring the same old prince, promising the same old happy ending. None of the books had any new ideas encouraging Dionne to dream her own dreams.
“I can’t believe you’re giving her the same stuff we grew up with,” I said to Terre. “Didn’t it take us half our lives to get over these stories?”
“That’s all I’ve been able to find,” Terre said. “Why don’t you try?”
Obviously, I thought, my sister hadn’t looked hard enough. So off I went to the bookstore, confident that I would return with an armful of inspiration. But Auntie Marlo had a lot to learn. Not only had nothing changed, but in some cases things had gotten worse. One book I’ll never forget was called I’m Glad I’m a Boy! I’m Glad I’m a Girl! The pictures were cute, but the captions were appalling.
“Boys are pilots, girls are stewardesses.”
“Boys are doctors, girls are nurses.”
“Boys can eat, girls can cook.”
“Boys invent things, girls use what boys invent.”
I almost had a heart attack in the children’s book section.
How could this be? After all the marches, the consciousness-raising, the literature? I thought back to Terre’s and my old records and wondered, How hard could it be to create an album for Dionne, with stories and songs that she could lie on the floor and listen to, and see pictures in her head that would awaken her imagination instead of putting her mind to sleep?
Girls use what boys invent, indeed!
It couldn’t be preachy. It would have to be entertaining and have some razzmatazz. This was not the Littlest Angel generation—these kids had rock concerts blaring from the TVs in their living rooms. And it would have to make kids laugh. That’s the only way they’d get it—and remember it. Who was it who said, “What is learned with laughter is learned well”?
We’d make fun of all the old stories and outmoded ideas of what boys and girls can do. And we’d go to showbiz talent, not kids’ writers, to create the material—people like Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Sheldon Harnick, Herb Gardner and Shel Silverstein.
My friend (and co-producer) Carole Hart and I began to develop the album by sitting around with the writers and talking about our own childhoods, and what we would have liked to change about them.
“I’d like to have heard that it wasn’t a sissy thing for a boy to cry,” Herb Gardner said. And Carol Hall wrote the terrific song “It’s All Right to Cry.”
“I’d like to have read one story about a princess who wasn’t blond and didn’t get married to the prince at the end,” I said. And Betty Miles updated the ancient myth, “Atalanta,” all about a king who holds a cross-country footrace, offering his daughter’s hand in marriage to the young man who wins. But in Betty’s version, the princess (now a brunette) joins in the race, so that if she wins, she can decide for herself whether she will marry at all.
I always loved the last line: “Perhaps someday they will be married, and perhaps they will not. But one thing’s for certain. They will live happily ever after.”
The ever irreverent Shel Silverstein wrote a piece called “Ladies First,” about a spoiled little girl who insists on being given special treatment just because she’s a girl—pushing ahead of everyone to be first in line and constantly announcing, “Ladies first, ladies first.”
At the end of the story, tigers appear and surround a camp of children, and try to decide which one to eat first. Misunderstanding, our little heroine cries out, as always, “Ladies first, ladies first.”
Shel’s last line hammered home the point: “And so she was. And mighty tasty, too.” (A tough punishment, but these were tough times.) The kids loved it. It was like a comic spin on a Grimms’ tale.
We were all on a mission, obsessed with changing the world, one five-year-old at a time. For one track on the album, we came up with the great idea of interviewing kids and asking them questions to illustrate how children don’t harbor sexist ideas.
We gathered a group of preschoolers and taped their conversations.
“What would you like to be when you grow up?” we asked one curly-haired four-year-old girl.
“I want to be a singer or an ice skater,” she said. Good—nothing sexist there.
“Would you like to be a doctor?” we asked, leading the witness.
The little girl got an adorable look on her face and burst into giggles.
“No!” she said. “Mans is doctors.”
My God, she was four. We were already too late.
WHEN IT CAME TIME to cast the album, we recruited a terrific group of performers, including Harry Belafonte, football player Rosie Grier (who, playing against type, sang “It’s All Right to Cry”) and a sweet fourteen-year-old Michael Jackson. With his creamy dark skin and pillowy Afro, Michael winsomely sang “When We Grow Up” with Roberta Flack. A line of the song would one day be haunting.
“We like what we look like. We don’t have to change at all.” If only Michael had held on to that notion.
All of the pieces on the album came out of our own experiences, and we soon realized we were rewriting our childhoods. But it was lyricist Bruce Hart, Carole’s husband, who came up with the timeless words, Free to Be . . . You and Me—and his title song, with music by Stephen Lawrence, spoke of rolling rivers and galloping horses, marvelously capturing a child’s passionate desire for freedom.
“When We Grow Up”: On the set with Michael Jackson and Roberta Flack.
I called Gloria Steinem and told her I wanted the money earned by Free to Be to benefit women and girls.
“Why don’t you join me, Letty Pogrebin and Pat Carbine in forming the Ms Foundation for Women,” Gloria said. “It will be the first women’s foundation in the country.” It was the perfect fit.
I broached with all of the artists the idea of donating their time and talent. They agreed enthusiastically to help out this new foundation called “Ms.” But when Carole was working out the details with Mel Brooks, he said, “I’m happy to do this for Marlo, but I don’t understand what it has to do with multiple sclerosis.”
So much for my communication skills.
FREE TO BE . . . YOU AND ME became more than we had imagined, first a record, then a book, then an ABC-TV special—which turned out to be the most difficult version. The execs at the network were terrified of the program’s messages. They begged us to take out “William Wants a Doll,” a wonderful song written by Mary Rodgers and Sheldon Harnick. Telling little boys that “It’s All Right to Cry” was bad enough. But telling little boys it’s okay to cuddle a doll? That was dangerous.
Another Carol Hall song, “Parents Are People,” featured Harry Belafonte and me singing the various verses in different locations around New York City. The message of the song was unmistakable: Dressed identically and working at the same jobs, Harry and I happily declared that “Mommies and daddies can be anything they want to be.”
Anyone sounds good in a duet with Harry.
In one of the scenes, Harry was pushing a baby buggy, singing about daddies, while I pushed a buggy alongside him, singing about mommies. That caused a furor. We were already “corrupting” little boys with songs about dolls and crying. But now we were insinuating that Harry and I
were married. The racial implications were way too threatening to the network, especially for a primetime children’s show.
Voices were raised and feathers flew—but in the end (and with the threat that we’d go to CBS), all of the songs stayed in.
And guess what? The world didn’t come to an end.
The show won an Emmy and a Peabody, the book became number one on the New York Times best-seller list and the record went gold. We were floored by the impact it all had. My little message for Dionne had gone straight to the hearts of moms and dads and aunties and uncles and, most of all, teachers, who embraced it as a way to teach the kids in their lives a new way of thinking about themselves.
But for me the most astonishing reaction would come years later, when I interviewed Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for my book The Right Words at the Right Time. When I left a message at her office, I wasn’t sure she’d even know who I was. But when she returned my call, she told me that she had always loved Free to Be.
“Really?” I asked. “Did you read it to your children?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, “and I always take it with me when I speak on feminism.” That was the best review of all.
But I’ll never forget the words of the Boston Globe critic the day the show aired:
“Keep your children away from the set tonight.”
In 1972, the world wasn’t changing as fast as we hoped.
AROUND THIS TIME, my father was campaigning for a local Los Angeles politician whose platform, I thought, was particularly questionable. Dad was a conservative Republican, and I a liberal Democrat, so we usually left politics out of our conversations. But I had to comment on this.
“Dad,” I said, “how can you campaign for this guy? He’s a creep. And, frankly, I think it looks really bad for the whole family.”
As usual, my father had the perfect comeback.
“Oh, I get it,” he said. “I’m free to be you . . . not free to be me.”
The man was hard to beat.
Chapter 37
One-Girl Show—Lily Tomlin
Over the years, we have all had the pleasure of meeting the many outrageous characters that live inside the head of Lily Tomlin—a snorting telephone operator, a precocious little girl, a homeless bag lady. And though each one is an offbeat creation, plucked from the playground of Lily’s boundless imagination, we believe we know them all, and have as much compassion for them as we have fun watching them. That’s because Lily never judges them. She simply loves—and lives—them. You can’t help but wonder where all these characters came from, and when I asked Lily, I was swept up in a colorful story, brimming with a cast of exquisite eccentrics, and starring the little Lily herself.
—M.T.
“I always wanted to be somebody, but I see, now,
I should’ve been more specific.”*
Lily: When I was a little girl growing up in Detroit, my father used to take me with him to bars and bookie joints. And as any kid does with their dad, I entertained. He’d set me on the bar and I’d sing a little song.
My father was kind of a street guy, but always dependable in his work. He worked more than thirty years in a noisy factory. While my mom was light-hearted, sweet and witty—right up until the day she died—my dad was more morose. He was also a big drinker and gambler. That wasn’t a great thing for him, obviously, but, as a teen, I never felt that I was affected by his drinking. I’d come home with friends, and he’d be passed out on the couch. So I’d just push his legs aside, and sit down.
“We’re so good at it, the ability to delude ourselves
must be an important survival tool.”
I’m not sure how other kids develop a sense of humor, but for me, it began when I started imitating the people in the old apartment house where I grew up. Later when we got a TV I’d see women doing comedy on The Ed Sullivan Show—comediennes like Beatrice Lillie and Jean Carroll. I was like a performance artist in that way. I’d wear my mother’s slip, throw pearls around my neck and do their jokes. I especially loved Jean. She was very attractive, always dressed glamorously and had a real breezy style about her, like:
“I’ll never forget the first time I saw my husband, standing on a hill, his hair blowing in the breeze, and he too proud to run after it . . .”
I thought that was a scream. It still makes me laugh.
But most of my material came from that apartment house I grew up in on the west side of Detroit. It was a three-story building called the D’Elce—it was pronounced Delsie—and every single apartment was different, each with its own idiosyncrasies. All of the people in the building were different, too. I think my sense of curiosity and compassion was developed by seeing these people at their highest and lowest.
I instinctively recognized how funny everybody was, and so from the time I was six or seven years old, I’d put on shows and imitate the neighbors. I’d create a stage on the back porch of the building—I always wanted a stage—and use my mother’s sheets as the curtain.
“If all the world’s a stage, how come
so many people have to pay to get in?”
I used to love to hang out with Mrs. Rupert. She was my favorite, mostly because she was an eccentric. She wore a hat and fox furs to empty the garbage, and she’d often propagandize to me about the evils of progressive people. On her desk was a sign that said “Don’t go away mad. Just go away.” I thought that was great—it somehow appealed to me.
Another neighbor, Mrs. Clancy, taught French at a very exclusive girls’ school. She was really out there, and pretentious, too. And then there was Jean Creek, who used to make me laugh just by the way she’d stand there with one baby up on her hip, while stirring a big old pot of oatmeal with her free hand. I’d go to Jean’s apartment, play Rook, drink Pepsi and dance The Chicken.
I’d also go by Betty’s apartment. She was the only woman in the complex who was divorced, and whose boyfriend, Frank, slept over. Back then that was really scandalous. Frank was a Jew and a communist who gave me all kinds of communist literature. He owned a chicken store, and every time I went down there, I’d beg him, “Please, don’t kill the chickens! Please don’t kill them!”
“The worst thing about dying must be that part
where your whole life flashes before you.”
And, of course, there was Mrs. Spear, who worked at one of the department stores and always wore a chignon. About three times a week Mrs. Spear would ring our doorbell and say to my mom, “Oh, Mrs. Tomlin, I’m sorry, I forgot my key.” Mother would be fixing supper, and Mrs. Spear would say, “Oh, something smells good!” So my mother, who was an incredibly generous woman, would say, “Well, why don’t you come and have supper with us?”
After she’d leave, my father would always say the same thing.
“Goddamn it, if old lady Spear rings that goddamn doorbell one more time to get a free dinner, I’m going to give her a piece of my mind.”
I somehow took that as my marching orders. The next night when the doorbell rang, I beat my mother to the door, and told Mrs. Spear, “If you ring our doorbell one more time my father’s going to give you a piece of his mind.” Mother was mortified. Dad got a kick out of it.
“Maybe the reason we have a left brain and a right brain is
so we can keep secrets from ourselves.”
Another one of my early things was making sock puppets. When I’d go to visit family in Kentucky during the summer, I’d get socks and buttons from my aunt, and I could spend days and days making these puppets. And because people seemed to enjoy them so much, I learned to improvise little shows. I’d take my puppets and go across the field to where, say, some elderly woman was bedridden. I’d kneel down on the floor at the foot of the bed, then hold the puppets up, facing her, as if they were on a little stage. Then I’d entertain her. I’d sing “Shoo-Fly Pie” or something funny. I loved getting a laugh. I always did.
My brother was the same way. He’s genuinely funny—naturally comedic—and we were always u
p to something. Because we lived in such a tough neighborhood, getting home from school without being beaten up was a good day. So when he was about seven and I was ten, we’d run home from school, take my mother’s vacuum cleaner hose, drop it out our second-story window and taunt the tough kids who were out on the street.
“Hey you!” we’d yell through the hose. “Yeah, you in the blue jacket! I’m gonna kick your ass!” Then we’d duck down behind the window. The kids would be looking up and around, not knowing where the voice was coming from. My brother and I would be rolling on the floor, laughing.
But that was mild compared to some of my brother’s other pranks. He once actually sawed our mother’s couch into three pieces. With a hand saw. He thought it would look more glamorous as a sectional. My poor mother didn’t. She wanted it up against the wall. In one piece.
“Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse.”
Then I became an entrepreneur. I learned very early on that there were lots of ways a kid could earn money.
It all started when I ordered a bunch of junk from the back of an old Red Ryder comic book, stuff like fake flies in plastic ice cubes and dog vomit; joy buzzers and soap that turned your hands black—all this crazy stuff that’s designed to give a kid power. In the ad, they said, “Send no cash”—they’d send the package COD, which was great because I didn’t have any cash and I didn’t know what COD meant. I thought I was the only kid in the world who had figured this out. You get all this stuff for free!
So I sent in my order, and it came to about eleven dollars—which was a lot of money back then. I came home from school one day and my mother was standing there, looking at all of it.
“Did you order this junk from a comic book?” she asked.
“Yes!” I screamed, so excited I was practically levitating.
“Well, you can have it when you pay me back,” Mom said flatly.