And then, in what seemed like an instant—either she kicked him out or he left—he was homeless and hooked on crack. It was devastating to watch the effect this had on my parents. They tried to use logic with an out-of-control addict—getting him on food stamps, for instance—but he wasn’t willing to work. “I’m too good for food stamps,” he told my mom once.
It had been some years, but I did see Kenny again, in the weirdest of circumstances. I was driving to an audition at the CBS Radford lot in Studio City, and as I was getting off at the Laurel Canyon exit from the freeway, there he was. My brother was holding a sign: HOMELESS, NEED FOOD, NEED MONEY.
Maybe you’re hoping this story ends with a tearful reunion. Well, it doesn’t. I’ll never forget that the sign didn’t say, WILL WORK FOR FOOD. I remember thinking, that fucker would rather be homeless than work! The sight admittedly shook me. I knew I had just witnessed something nobody should ever have to see.
Yes, I went to the audition. No, I didn’t get the job.
Then, things got even worse. I remember the day Mom and Dad returned to their apartment only to find Kenny had used his key to let himself in and burglarized them. And the panhandling that I had seen was, it turned out, to support his habit. Apparently in those days you could buy some rock cocaine for $5. He told my mom he would panhandle till he got enough for a rock, as he called it, then go back and beg strangers until he could get another $5 for another rock, and on and on. He would also go missing for days at a time, and my mom and dad would then drive around the streets of LA trying to find him.
It killed me to see my parents go through all this with Kenny. One time when I was at their apartment, the phone rang, and I picked it up. It was him. Keep in mind, I hadn’t talked to Kenny in many years at this point. But I just started screaming into the phone: “Stay away from Mom and Dad, you fucking child molester! I’m on to you! I know who you are! I know what you did! Stay away from them!” I remember saying to my mom after the phone call, “This isn’t a poor troubled drug addict to me. This guy is a child molester. That’s a whole different animal.”
Eventually he was arrested, I believe, for drug-related charges: burglary, etc. Then I had to watch my parents go through the excruciating process of going to court with Kenny, vouching for this middle-aged man like he was a child, and later making the sad trips to visit him at the state penitentiary.
My not shutting up about Kenny was always a sore spot with the family, but I held firm about what I knew, and the subject of Kenny never ceased to potentially turn any gathering with my parents into a volatile argument. But then my dad did something surprising. He was talking to Kenny on the phone, and Kenny—ever the victim—asked him, “Why does Kathy have such a problem with me?” And Dad told me he said to Kenny, “You know, she thinks you’re a child molester. Is that true?”
I couldn’t believe it. Dad had actually, finally, asked him flat out.
According to my dad, Kenny replied, “Well, I do what I do.”
After Dad told me this, he said to me, “So you can take that whichever way.”
Huh? “I do what I do?”
“DAD!” I responded, my jaw on the floor. “If someone accused you of having sex with children, your answer would not be, ‘I do what I do’! Your answer would be, ‘That’s outrageous!’ ANYTHING but ‘I do what I do.’ ”
And that’s where my family and I reached our separate peace, because that was the moment they stopped dogging me for separating from Kenny. Something might have finally clicked for my family. Not enough to admit it to themselves, but enough not to fight me about it.
I eventually learned that John had been suspicious about Kenny for a while, as well. When John’s daughter, Claire, was born, he and his wife were terrified that if they brought Claire out to Los Angeles for a visit, that there might be an instance when Kenny would be alone with the baby. John had held out hope that I was exaggerating, but when it came right down to it, he had to tell Mom, “Tell Kenny that he can’t ever come over when our kids are there.” When Kenny died, Claire was around twelve, and she never knew she had another uncle. Like me, John had come to realize that it was necessary to cut Kenny off.
Mind you, it was never like I insisted Kenny be cut off. I only wanted everyone to cut the bullshit and admit what my brother really was. How could anybody have begun to help Kenny if they wouldn’t face up to it? As it turned out, later in life Kenny admitted to my parents that he’d been molested by someone associated with his junior-league baseball team. We all now think a cousin of ours who used to babysit Kenny might have molested him, too. This cousin went on to become a priest who got moved from parish to parish each time he was caught with a kid. He eventually died of AIDS.
When I put myself in my mom’s shoes, I can see why being the parent of someone like Kenny leads you to think of his transgressions as symptoms of an illness, rather than criminal wrongdoing. I know the only time I’ve ever seen my dad sob was with guilt over Kenny. “What did we do? What did we do?” he cried, putting his fists to his forehead. They’d question everything about their parenting, and how could you not? I was hard on my parents about their denial, but they get a free pass from me now, and here’s why. After Kenny got out of prison, word was he tried to right himself. He even got a job as a deliveryman for a restaurant. My mom’s version of this story is that at the end, he had finally cleaned his life up. I don’t know about that, but here’s what I do know: He literally died in my mom’s arms. After years of living on and off the streets, he contracted pneumonia, and while on a visit with my parents at their condo, he took seriously ill. But before the paramedics could arrive, he collapsed in my mom’s arms.
When he was in Cedars Sinai hospital, he was declared brain-dead, and my parents had one last request for me: They wanted me to go to the hospital and say good-bye. I had not laid eyes on Kenny in several years, but of course I couldn’t deny them this request.
There he was, thin, frail, and finally harmless. It was easy to say good-bye, and even to forgive him, but only for the effect he had on me. I could never forgive him for what he did to those kids, and it wasn’t up to me, anyway. That’s an important delineation. Also, there’s something about seeing the lifeless state of someone who really did terrify you that finally allows you to stop feeling afraid. It was perhaps an illogical feeling at that point in my life—because for years I’d had no reason to be scared of him—but at that moment I was able to put the fear and angst that I had suffered for so long to bed as well.
I’d be lying if I said Kenny wasn’t a big influence on me. I don’t do drugs. I’m not homeless. I’m not an addict. I know what serious fucking up looks like. Kenny turned down the voice-over. I’d do the voice-over. Kenny called in sick to Hair all the time. I think, Don’t ever miss a performance. That’s a form of influence, for sure. Negative, perhaps, but an important one, nonetheless.
My parents probably wouldn’t have even considered retiring in California if Kenny hadn’t convinced them it was a beautiful place to live. So say what you want, but Kenny tangentially set the stage for my parents and me to come to Hollywood. I’m looking for positives here, people. Hopefully you’ll cut me some slack.
My typical ’80s dance club outfit … What’s the problem?
I wasn’t always a whore. There was a time when I was actually naive about things—like when I first moved to LA—and just barreled through life like it was mine for the taking, without thinking about the consequences.
Most people new to a city on the ocean would probably go to the beach during the day when there are people around. I, on the other hand, decided to try a midnight swim at the somewhat gamy Santa Monica pier, by myself. That is, until a nearby guard kicked me off the beach for my own safety.
Most people unfamiliar with the men in a new town might search for love until they find it. I picked out some guy on my second day in LA, who worked at the local bicycle shop, and handed my virginity to him. “You can fill a tire? Sounds good to me. Let’s call it a
date.” Needless to say he wasn’t Mr. Right.
Then there are the ballsy moves that pay off. In that first week as a Los Angeleno, I read in the alternative newspaper the LA Weekly—which quickly became my bible about goings-on in town—a review of the latest show at what had become a comedy hotspot, the Groundlings. This was a place I’d heard about, something in the vein of the famed Chicago troupe Second City. So I went to the Friday late show, and thought it was fantastic. The group did improvisational songs, sketches that involved the actors in costumes and wigs, and most important, included the crowd in a lot of the skits.
I was sitting by myself in the front row, and got picked for a bit involving audience interaction. I was so excited. I have to get in this group, I thought. This is where I want to be. This is the greatest thing in the world.
So at the tender age of nineteen I marched backstage by myself, past everyone’s lockers, through the girls’ dressing room—I can’t believe it now, it was so rude—all the while telling myself, “I’m going to just go up to the performer I think is the funniest and ask advice.” He was taking off his makeup, and I must have had a deranged determination on my face because he turned to me and said politely, but with that “uh-oh” sound in his voice, “Can I help you?”
“Sorry to bother you, but you’re so fantastic. Please, how do I get to do this?” I said.
He was so patient with me. “Well, there’s a school here, and first you have to go through all the levels of the school….” He continued talking as he got up and led me to the director of that night’s show, a guy named Tom Maxwell. “Here’s a girl who’s interested in classes,” he said, introducing me. I’m telling you, he could not have been sweeter. This guy was the star of the show, and he calmly spent a good ten minutes explaining how the Groundlings worked to this brassy, boundary-crashing audience member who he could have easily dismissed.
That man’s name was Phil Hartman.
Years later—I mean it took me years to get into the goddamn Groundlings—I would do shows alongside the great Phil Hartman. But until then, apparently I had to pay something called “dues.” More about this later.
When it came to pestering show folk for career tips, I wasn’t the only Griffin looking out for me. I had eager lieutenants in my parents.
Mom and Dad were always starstruck. In the early years of living in Los Angeles, they were unable to stop themselves from pulling the car over whenever they saw television shows or movies being filmed. The line of trailers was always the tip-off: hair and makeup trailers, wardrobe trailers, and moveable dressing rooms.
This is a Groundlings photo showing the cast for a particular skit. That’s Lisa Kudrow upper left. I’m the tough guy in the center. (Photo: David Siegle/Courtesy of the Groundlings Theater and School)
They would come back home, my mom saying, “We saw the trailers! We saw the trailers!”
One day my parents returned with complete delight in their voices, because they had happened upon (or stalked) a location for the then smash hit show Hart to Hart, starring Stefanie Powers and Robert Wagner. My mother told me the story of going up to Stefanie Powers on location in a way that if someone did that to me today, I’d punch them in the face. But mom showed no visible signs of bruising. Apparently Stefanie Powers, the victim in this scenario, was sitting on her director’s chair with her name on the back, and my parents saw this action as an invitation to lunch.
My mother went up to gorgeous and talented Stefanie Powers, fawned over her beauty, and told her how much she loved Bill Holden, too. But most important, Mom asked Stefanie Powers if she had any advice for me, her fledgling starlet daughter.
Mom: Oh, Stef, you have such beautiful features, and such a DA-A-A-ARLING figure. Do you have any tips for my daughter Kathleen? She’s got this crazy notion of becoming an actress in Hollyweird.
Stefanie Powers [under her breath]: Security.
Mom: I mean, you’ve just done so great. With all your TV shows and your movies, and all that and everything else. What advice can I give Kathleen that she can follow forever?
Stefanie Powers: Tell her to take everything. Never turn down work.
I listened without irony as my mother relayed this encounter, because Stefanie Powers was doing something I wanted to do. She was starring in a TV show. Not only did I not blow this advice off, but I clearly take it to heart to this day. In fact, I take it to heart to heart.
Unfortunately, Stefanie Powers, I didn’t have any work to turn down at that point, but I knew I could sign up with a talent agency and work as an extra. It was a crappy job, but I had to start somewhere. This is where the dues-paying comes in, with an assortment of acclaimed roles as an extra in some of the finest motion pictures of our time. I was a concert audience member in the Diane Lane musical Streets of Fire. Don’t know that one? Here’s one reason. D-list fun fact: That was the film that named itself for a Bruce Springsteen song, and then when Springsteen didn’t want to give them the rights to it, they still kept the title. Ouch.
I also stood outside of Grauman’s Chinese Theater for a crowd scene in the horror film Fade to Black, which obviously faded to black upon release. It chaps my ass to this day that no camera got an accidental close-up of the top of my head so some agent could see an aerial shot of my bangs and go, “She’s got the stuff! That’s our new It girl!”
And when I think about the now-famous-in-my-head shot of me as an alien extra reacting to a spaceship landing in that sci-fi gem Battle Beyond the Stars, starring Richard Thomas, it’s pretty amazing I wasn’t singled out for stardom. Movies with aliens became huge after that. You’d think I would have been in a few Star Trek movies by now, or at least on the spin-off series Star Trek: Now Voyager. I could have that title wrong. But again, where was the agent saying, “She’s got the stuff! That’s our new alien It girl!”?
The reality was, as an extra I wanted to absorb anything I could about the television and movie world. I’m surprised I never got fired, because I was always really obnoxious and always bothering the celebrities (sound familiar?), peppering them with questions:
“How did you get started?”
“How do you stay thin?”
“Do you know Stefanie Powers?”
It didn’t help that being an extra is humiliating work at times. You’re treated like cattle, and the second assistant director really keeps you in line. If you take one step out of the holding area you’re put in, you get screamed at in front of everybody, and because they don’t know your name, they’ll just pick on what’s least flattering about you.
“You with the ugly yellow dress!”
“You with the big nose!”
“You with that stupid retarded look on your face!”
It was like high school that way, just brutal. Plus, everyone around you is in the same boat you are, wondering how to get into SAG (Screen Actors Guild). The long-standing catch-22 you always hear is that to get into SAG, you need to be working, but to get work, you need to be in SAG. One day I heard somebody mention something about being “Taft-Hartleyed” into SAG, and I remembered signing something about that when I did that Chicago White Sox commercial. Well, this person explained that Taft-Hartley was an exemption law that means that if you’re an extra in something, but your face is distinguishable, you’re considered a principal, which is one of the requirements for SAG eligibility. Bingo! That Sox commercial—where, if you recall, I dazzled the city’s television viewers with my quasi close-up—was my ticket all this time and I didn’t even know it!
Getting the money to join SAG, though, was another story. At the time it was $1,750, and it wasn’t like we were rolling in it. In order to support myself (while still living at home), I temped (badly), and bused tables at a diner (because I wasn’t even good enough to waitress). I didn’t have any extra money lying around. And it wasn’t like I had an allowance from my parents. But after I convinced them I needed to do this, they paid the whole thing. That’s because my mother the master negotiator—able to scream any
utility employee into being reasonable about a bill—worked out a payment plan with SAG. It’s all about the payment plan with her.
In addition to helping me gain access to SAG, my parents were smart enough about fiscal responsibility that they figured out a way for me to go to the prestigious Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute on a bullshit scholarship by way of a loophole in a company that my dad hadn’t worked for in thirty years. Genius, huh? So for two years I went full-time to Lee Strasberg, which was founded by and named after the acting school giant who helped make the Method—a kind of memory-based acting that drew on what was unique about you to bring life to a role—into one of the leading acting disciplines in America. This guy taught Marlon Brando, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Al Pacino—all my favorite stars—and now his techniques were going to turn me into a serious fucking actress. It was dancing, singing, Method classes, elocution to get rid of my Chicago accent, the whole nine yards.
When I was there, Rebecca DeMornay had just been in the school, and suddenly she was in movie theaters everywhere getting raves for the movie Risky Business. That was mind-blowing to me. I remember I was in a tai chi class at Strasberg with Maria Conchita Alonso. She was serious about the movement exercises. I thought they were dumb. Two seconds later, she’s starring opposite Robin Williams in Moscow on the Hudson, and I’m in a movie theater watching her going, There’s the girl I made fun of for being dedicated while I was ditching class to eat Cheetos across the street at 7–Eleven with my girlfriends.
Official Book Club Selection Page 5