Friends: A Love Story

by Angela Bassett

  Next I got a role in Václav Havel’s Temptation. My agent told me she had negotiated a handshake deal for the part with the general manager of the Public Theater since I was up for a role in The Hunt for Red October. I was naive at the time. A handshake means nothing, and the agent knew it. Obviously neither the GM nor my agent thought the issue would come up. When I actually got the role in Red October my agent told me, “The general manager’s saying he doesn’t know anything about a handshake deal.”

  “Whaat! Well you’d better go and remind him. You’d better do your job.”

  “I don’t know,” she told me. “You may have to talk to Joe Papp.” Papp was the theater’s famous producer.

  “Why do I have to go see Joe? You’re the agent. He’s just going to yell at me.”

  “You gotta talk to Joe.”

  I was so mad at having been placed in this position!

  So I went to see Joe, who was sitting behind his desk with a yellow legal pad in front of him.

  “Okay, Courtney, you tell me the reasons why you think you should go do the movie, and I’m going to tell you reasons why you’re not going to go.”

  In my head I was thinking, Um…Because I’ve made up my mind. If they’re going to sue me, they’re going to have to sue me. But I kept that to myself.

  “Well, Mr. Papp, your general manager told my agent that if this role came up, I’d be allowed to go. That’s all I know.”

  We talked for a good half hour about how it really was not going to work out for me to go. I thanked him for his time, left in a gentlemanly fashion and went downstairs to continue my prep to do the show. On my way downstairs, someone from his office caught me. “Mr. Papp wants to talk to you.”

  I went upstairs. Apparently the East Coast and West Coast offices of my agency had been talking. The head of the firm in New York called Joe. They were old friends. Joe got the general manager in his office and pushed him to the wall. “Did you make a handshake agreement with the agent?” The GM finally admitted he had.

  “You can go,” Joe told me.

  Acting in The Hunt for Red October was a dream come true. Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin were starring in it. (So was James Earl though I never saw him.) It was big studio film, filmed on the Paramount lot—I had never been on a studio lot before. I had my own little trailer. I was really well prepared but still in some ways an innocent. When an actor finishes the last scene for the day, the first assistant director shouts, “Last scene for Courtney B. Vance. Courtney B. Vance, last scene,” and everybody applauds. It’s a tradition. I was so naive, I thought they were applauding for me. Right about that time, Sam Neill, who later starred in Jurassic Park, took me under his wing and explained how things worked on the set…including the last-scene-of-the-day tradition.

  Hunt came out in early 1990 and did well at the box office. The premiere was a huge deal—it was a big, big function. My parents, Ahren, Cecilie and I went. My folks had been to all of my openings and, as always, we had a lot of fun. They were just ecstatic that this “acting thing” that they hadn’t understood was turning out so well. They kept asking when Ahren and I were going to get married. I didn’t know how to answer because I’d never been given any guidance on what a healthy male-female relationship leading to marriage looked like.

  My father got to meet Tom Clancy. Even though he was having a lot of fun, I remember thinking Dad looked a little tired.

  Between theater and movies my momentum was strong. I wanted to ride it as far as I could. I went back to New York and auditioned for The Last Black Man in the Entire World by Suzan Lori Parks, a black female playwright who would eventually win the Pulitzer Prize for Topdog/Underdog, starring Mos Def and Jeffrey Wright, as well as a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Award. I loved the piece. I wanted to do it. But at the same time I auditioned for The Last Black Man, I also auditioned for a John Guare play called Six Degrees of Separation, which was based on the true story of a lost young black man who bluffed his way into white high society by pretending he was the son of Sidney Poitier, an idea which was equally enticing. It was a grueling audition process with James McDaniel, Andre Braugher and myself as finalists. Then we all had to go through a huge callback where they worked with us individually. Mine went really well, but they chose James to play the role opposite Stockard Channing and John Cunningham. I was really disappointed.

  Chapter 7

  Room to Shine

  Shortly before Joe Turner opened I learned I had won the lead role in Dessa Rose, the movie I’d auditioned for when we were playing in Los Angeles. After only two months onstage in my first real Broadway show—and a critically acclaimed one, at that—I had to give notice. “Whoa, look who’s having a fabulous year!” Although The Color Purple had happened a few years earlier, few roles in film had opened up. There just weren’t that many roles for black actresses, and I had won one of them!

  Dessa Rose was based on the novel of the same name written by Sherley Anne Williams. The movie was being filmed in Charleston. I arrived there a week or two early to prepare. They put me up in a Holiday Inn. It was my first time away by myself and I liked it. Charleston was quaint; I got a bicycle and rode around a bit. In the meantime I reread and reread the book, taking every little jewel, every little pearl and every little tidbit I could use to inform the work. I also researched my character’s back history. I just lived it, breathed it, consumed it. I was living in the period and very excited about it. I was prepared for the role, ready!

  Soon my castmates—Laurence Fishburne, Tony Todd and Natasha Richardson—and I started rehearsing together. Then in came Cicely Tyson. “Oh, my gosh!” As a black child growing up in the ’60s and ’70s, you’d watch television and not see a soul who looked like you. If you were lucky you might catch Sounder. And now here’s Cicely Tyson, who starred in Sounder, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pitman and Roots—one of the few faces I’d seen on TV during my childhood that actually looked like me. I couldn’t believe it. It was an honor.

  “Hello, Ms. Tyson,” I said, bowing and genuflecting. “I’m Angela. It’s such a pleasure to meet you.”

  She received me very graciously, and we got the preliminary niceties out of the way. Then we went into the rehearsal hall and got to work. I just couldn’t believe it. If I had had any sense, I would have been intimidated. Instead, I was excited to have the opportunity to show her what I could do—to do what I loved doing with a person who I loved watching, with a woman who had inspired me as an actor. “Let’s throw down!” We improvised some scenes between her character, this mother figure, and mine. We were giving it back and forth. I’m in Cicely’s face, she’s back in mine and I’m right back in hers—we’re firing hot! It all went very, very well. I had to be dreaming.

  Between our scenes I would go to my trailer and be surprised to find people asking me if I wanted anything. “Huh? What can I have?” I felt like I had gone to sleep a pauper and awakened a princess. I didn’t know what to ask for. “Water? Diet Coke?” About forty-eight hours before we started shooting, Laurence and I rehearsed a scene in which we were both sitting on a horse. As we tried to maneuver and change positions, the horse reared up, threw me and took off with Laurence on its back. I hit the ground on my hip, like pi-yow! Understandably, they were concerned because their star has fallen off a horse. But I was young, so when I hit the ground I bounced. But next thing I knew, I heard a knock at my trailer door.

  “Who is it?”

  “Hello, masseuses!”

  I thought, Oh, my gosh! This is so incredible! I’m a princess, but a nice princess.

  Right after shooting began, our director, Irwin Winkler, left unexpectedly to fly out to L.A. When he returned a few days later his arm was in a cast. Rumor had it he had thrown his fist through a wall. Dessa Rose was to have been his directorial debut; however, the studio had suddenly pulled the money. Apparently he offered to pay the ten million dollars it cost to produce it from out of his own pocket. But something happened with the insurance bond, so the plu
g was pulled completely. I wouldn’t have the opportunity to play this leading role—my first role on the big screen—after all. I was disappointed but had lived in the moment and enjoyed the fullness of it. I was to learn from my agent this lovely term “pay or play,” which meant that I was to be paid my fifty-thousand-dollar salary—they had to pay me anyhow. So I went from having about fifty dollars in the bank to fifty thousand. Fifty thousand dollars! I was rich! Before we all departed, Cicely pulled together a fabulous catered farewell party at the house where she was staying. I remember her saying something like, “She was going to be so wonderful!” about me. I glowed. As a parting gift she bought me the baby doll from the prop department that we used in our rehearsals. In the movie his name was to have been Mony, so I named him Mony Tyson. He’s sitting in my living room today. After the party everyone cried and we all said goodbye to each other.

  When I returned to New York, the word was already out. Every black New York actress was saying, “Oh, you must be devastated!” That was the word—devastated! I said, “Nooo, I’m disappointed.” I had left Broadway to play the lead in this film, and now the movie hadn’t happened and I couldn’t go back to the play without the other girl getting replaced, fired or something. So I was back in New York and back at square one. At least I had fifty thousand dollars; that made me feel better. Now I could go into an audition with some confidence.

  Well, I wasn’t into shoes or anything like that, so what was a girl to do with fifty thousand dollars? See what was happening out in L.A.! People had begun to go to L.A. to get work, and Los Angeles casting folks had been coming to New York to look for talent. My agency, Ambrosio Mortimer, had even opened up an L.A. office. But it seemed that when it came to black characters, casting directors might audition New York actors but they cast actors who already lived in L.A. Wren had been encouraging me to come out there, so I thought I might as well go and try my hand at television. Well, TV or movies—it really didn’t matter. I would work with whoever would cast me.

  So I called my girlfriend Andi Chapman, whom I knew from drama school and had helped find an apartment in my building in New Haven.

  “Andi, I’m coming out there. Can I stay with you?”

  “You can stay with me for thirty days.”

  At the time I thought, whaat—thirty days? Today, I realize she was very smart; she had boundaries. That was very wise of her. I stayed with Andi for about two weeks, then lived with another friend, Joy, who had said, “Come crash—whatever.” Not wise in the end.

  I arrived in Los Angeles on October 10, 1988. I was thirty years old. My intention was to stay for six months, which was the standard amount of time people were giving themselves to find work or go home. I would go out for pilot season, intending to return to my life in New York. A television pilot is the one episode people use to pitch sitcoms or one-hour drama series to studio executives. During pilot season, actors come to Los Angeles to audition for the pilot episodes. If the pilot gets picked up, you’re hired for the series.

  I figured that maybe I’d go back the following year for six months, then maybe go back and forth—six months in New York and six months in L.A. But little did I know, when I got there, they’d canceled pilot season that year. The new thought was to cast things throughout the year. I was just sitting and waiting.

  Since Ambrosio Mortimer was new to Los Angeles, too, the casting directors didn’t know them so they were struggling to get their clients into auditions. I was used to auditioning frequently in New York. Now I was starting all over again; it was probably a month before I got my first audition. Fortunately I had money in my pocket and wasn’t hungry.

  Before I arrived in L.A., California seemed halfway around the world. Every picture or postcard I had seen of it had been palm trees, sunshine, Venice Beach. But compared to Florida, it was cold when I got here. I didn’t know that Los Angeles is located on a desert, and it can get really cold at night. I had only brought one suitcase filled with my little sleeveless and short-sleeved things. I needed sweaters and coats.

  In addition to needing clothes, I also needed a car. L.A. is big and spread out. You can’t just hop on the subway and get wherever you want to go like you can in New York. The hustle of trying to find a job is very much the same, except in New York you’re on foot and in L.A. you’re in your car. I didn’t have that many auditions, so I would take the bus or catch a ride. I missed walking down the street and getting bumped and jostled by other people.

  As I got around, I remember thinking the people were so beautiful. Everyone was tanned and fit. In L.A., people went to the gym and it was actually affordable; whereas back in New York you’d pay about twelve hundred dollars a year to join a gym that was nowhere near you.

  Joy was very generous with her car. Lots of times she let me drop her off at her job at the Hard Rock Café and borrow it; otherwise, it would just sit there while she was working. I remember thinking that I needed to buy a car of my own, but it was confusing; I didn’t really live there. I lived in New York and all my stuff was there. I was looking for work here, yet I wasn’t thinking of relocating. In L.A. there were lots and lots of parties. But I felt lonely without all my family and friends from back East.

  After about thirty days I got cast in a new television show with Avery Brooks called A Man Called Hawk. I was his pseudo, cryptic, clandestine love interest—Avery didn’t want his character to show vulnerability, but he had a relationship with this woman; you just didn’t see it. The show was filmed on the East Coast, so I flew back and forth between L.A., Boston, New York and D.C. I think the show lasted thirteen episodes; I did two. Afterward, I returned to L.A. and auditioned for every one-hour episodic drama on TV. Finally, I started to get cast. Every few weeks I was getting a job, so I felt good. In this incredibly competitive field, I was fulfilling my dream of becoming a working actress! But there were a finite number of roles available to black actresses—there ain’t but so many prime-time hours on TV. I began to expand my sights—I started auditioning for movies of the week. I got roles in movies like Fire! Trapped on the 37th Floor and The Morris Dees Story, about the famous civil rights attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center. I even got to meet Dees himself. I also began to notice little parts were opening up for black folks in feature films like What’s Going On? and The Mighty Quinn. I started to set my sights on them. I got small roles in films like Kindergarten Cop and Critters 4—the kind where you might miss me if you arrive at the theater late. In the meantime, a lot of my classmates had been auditioning for films. But guess what they wanted? Television! You know how it goes: what they want, you’re getting; what they’re getting, you want….

  After about a year, my living situation with Joy started getting old. She was an actress, too, but she wasn’t working as an actor; she was working at the Hard Rock. I was working as an actor, yet was always using her car. On top of that, we hadn’t entered into the apartment as roommates. It was her place, so I moved into it. I didn’t want to pay rent and not have a room of my own. I also got tired of people asking, “You’re working—why are you living with her?” So I found a place out in the Valley. I lived in a little one-bedroom bungalow in North Hollywood. There were four apartments in the complex, all connected. It was like a little commune, a little family. There were three actresses—Jennifer Lewis, Roxanne Reese, me—and two gay guys. I was by myself but around other people. That was nice. That worked. Before long, I joined the local church—First Southern Baptist—which was small and family oriented like back at home.

  Once I was working and had a place of my own, I kind of tried to start dating. Unlike in New York, where you run into people on the street, it was hard to meet people in L.A., especially if you didn’t go out a lot, which I didn’t. I remember feeling as if I kept meeting the same people over and over at all these parties I went to. I felt like there wasn’t much good boyfriend material out here. And I seemed to pick po’ folk, people who ain’t going up; I’d catch them on their downside. I dated one guy who was liv
ing with his mama. One day I woke up and realized that was a dead end; it was going nowhere fast. Then I dated another paramour I thought was really pretty special. Things started out nicely. It was polka dots and moonbeams, dessert every day. Everything was lovely. But I obviously wasn’t paying attention. First of all, his mama cooked for him daily like it was Thanksgiving. And every now and then he’d mention an ex-girlfriend—but I didn’t want to believe he hadn’t gotten over her. In passing, he would mention the way she looked. I knew I didn’t look like that. I don’t think anyone would call me dark-skinned, but I knew I wasn’t fair enough for his tastes. I’m not lighter than a paper bag—that whole sickness that comes out of slavery and Jim Crowism that still seems to plague so many people. I didn’t have that long, luxurious, silky black hair he seemed to like so much.

  Still, after we had been dating for a little bit he told me he had done a wonderful thing. “I’ve broken up with five girlfriends over you,” he proudly announced.

  I hadn’t even known he had five girlfriends. But instead of going “Whaaat!” or “Huh?” I remember feeling very proud. Like I must be a pretty incredible person to knock five other girls out the box, to be the last one standing, to be standing at the top of the heap, on top of it all. To be the one who was going to walk into the sunset on his arm. Now, I told myself, I was going to get all the attention rather than it being divvied up in sixths. In hindsight, that was pretty dumb. I should have shown him the door.

  Well, a couple of months later, he asked me what I thought he should do about someone he’d gotten pregnant. I guess he hadn’t really broken up with all of the five—or maybe there was a sixth who had climbed on board at some point. He tried to elicit my sympathies and my help, which I naively offered.