Mom always dressed me like a little doll. I wore smocked dresses and pressed cotton bloomer outfits with matching bonnets. I was always spanking clean and all dolled up. Mom put extra effort into my looking a girl because I had no hair and people repeatedly asked, “Oh, what’s his name?” Mom taped little homemade pink mini ribbon bows to my head to ensure people knew I was a girl. But that still didn’t work much of the time. Once, in an elevator, a woman scoffed to my mother, “Why would you do that? Why would you put a pink bow on a little boy’s head?”
Mom told stories about my babyhood just like she used to tell stories about her own life. Some were true, some a bit embellished. One example of this happened while we were living on Fifty-Second Street. Mom let me crawl on the sidewalk before I learned how to walk. Evidently, one day, on one of these jaunts, we passed Greta Garbo’s apartment building. Garbo herself just happened to be out on a walk, and as the story goes, she stopped, looked at me and then to my mother, nodded her head, and continued on her way. Mom took this as a literal nod of approval from a legend and believed I had been blessed and sanctioned as one destined to make a mark in the world. I do believe Garbo was walking and perhaps noticed this little kid crawling on her knees on the pavement and made some gesture to me, but the real meaning of the nod is open to interpretation. For all we know, the regal Garbo could have been looking disdainfully at this careless mother who was allowing her baby to rub her soft knees on cement streets. Or may be she was, in fact, envisioning the future?
Mom and I were rarely apart from each other, and I’d do anything to make her happy and get her attention. When I was around four, she took me to a piano bar and I asked if I could go to the bathroom alone. The bathroom was a small place and tucked into an alcove. When I did not return quickly, Mom started to rise to come search for me. As she stood she started to hear my voice over the sound system. She looked at the piano and I was seated atop it, legs crossed and singing a cappella. I don’t remember if the piano player accompanied me or not, but according to my mom, my voice was heard throughout the club. I knew “Embraceable You” and “My Funny Valentine” were my mother’s two favorite songs. She would often sing them to me, so I knew the words to both. I was offered the mike, chose “Embraceable You,” and serenaded her. This particular club would later become La Cage aux Folles. We’d someday be among their favorite patrons, but I never did sing on the piano again.
• • •
Even before I could talk (or sing), people often remarked to my mother about my looks being rather extraordinary. My mom would boast that when I was an infant, people often stopped us to comment on my “beauty.” Of course Mom thought her child was the most beautiful child in the world, but doesn’t every mother think that?
One day, while riding in a checker cab, Mom was given an idea that may or may not have occurred to her previously. It was about her baby’s looks and the possibility of using them to make a living. The story she told was that one spring day in 1966 a typical New York cab driver was driving her and her ten-month-old baby girl uptown in his cab. The driver glanced in his rearview mirror a few times and then exclaimed in an old New York accent, “Ya know dat liddle kid a yers? She should model!”
Evidently he had a two-year-old niece who had become a model. “Now the kid makes more than I do by the hour. Figure dat.”
Mom thanked the cabbie for the compliment and the suggestion, gave him a nice tip, and exited the cab. But the idea stayed with her, and as fate would have it, a few weeks later one of her photographer friends phoned in a panic. “We need a baby who can kiss!” He was shooting an Ivory soap ad and was seeing countless babies for the campaign. The client was not happy with the selection. Not one baby out of hundreds he saw was the one. They were either not similar enough to the model chosen as the mom, not cute enough in a unique way, couldn’t kiss, or they were simply hysterical. The baby had to know how to kiss, but that was the last thing any of these kids wanted to do at this moment. It was mayhem. Kids were screaming and the client was on the verge of tears.
The photographer begged my mother to bring me down to his studio. I vaguely feel like I can remember being carried through the chaos and cries. It could be that I have been told the story so many times that I imagine I actually remember. But as the story goes, it was midafternoon and I had already had my afternoon nap, so I was in great spirits. Being, as usual, comfortable and acclimated around adults, I was all smiles, and kisses, and curiosity. I got the job on the spot and was shot for the ad, holding a bar of soap out to my “mother”—no kissing involved after all. During the shoot I reportedly sat on the floor of the freshly white-painted set and opened twenty-four cases of Ivory soap, each containing twelve bars each. The client was thrilled and everybody was happy.
The relieved photographer scooped me up in his arms and hugged my mom for saving the day. To the world, that photographer was the already famous Francesco Scavullo. But to me, he was just “Uncle Frankie.”
My modeling career had begun.
So by the ripe old age of eleven months I already had a major national ad under my belt. Mom realized that she had an opportunity and should follow up. I was not with any agency, so we had no percentage to give away and the money from this first job went solely to my mother and me. Mom had periodically worked part-time at Brentano’s bookstore, but the salary would not cover child care and living expenses. Though not required, Dad did help out with the rent, but the chance for additional revenue being generated by us was clearly appealing.
Mom found me a manager named Barbara Jarrett, although it appears as if I did not have another big modeling job for a while. By the time I was two or three, however, I began to get jobs for catalogues and I spent the next few years being managed by both Mom and Barbara. I find it interesting that both my mom and I began working at a very young age. Cleaning houses and modeling are very different, but a certain work ethic was instilled in us both early on. Mom was imaginative and gutsy as a child and now she was being forthright and creative as a mother. She was turning chance into an opportunity.
I still had hardly any hair, so for the first two years I modeled primarily as a boy. Once, right before leaving on a location shoot for a catalogue in Jamaica, Barbara took my mom aside and said: “For God sake, don’t take her bathing suit off around anybody. They think she’s a boy.”
As child models, we got paid to do the activities that we might not have always been able to afford ourselves. The trips were always a blast. The moms and the kids would meet early in the A.M. on a street corner and all load into a huge camper. They had fun drinks and snacks, and the drive was crazy, with kids playing and singing songs. I loved being on locations or checking into various tropical resorts and chasing lizards and being in the sun. It was usually the same basic group of kids who eventually became close and even longtime friends. These were some of my earliest and fondest memories of being a model.
I thought my mom could do no wrong. I believed she could even change the weather.
One day, when I was about four, she bought me a red patent-leather raincoat and matching rain hat. It was a sunny day but I still wanted to wear my new coat and hat. Mom insisted that it was unlikely that the rain would fall and that I’d be hot and uncomfortable. The way my mom told the story, I walked out of the apartment, and turning to her over my shoulder, I declared, “Don’t worry, Mama, you’ll make it rain.” And, as the story goes, as soon as we went outside, the skies opened and there was a torrential downpour.
• • •
Around the time I was nine years old, my mother and I moved into an apartment on Seventy-Third Street between First and Second Avenues. It was on the seventh floor of a white brick building called the Morad Diplomat. I was close to my dad, but it was my mother to whom I was incredibly bonded. She was my everything. When we moved in, we had very little furniture. Our first night was spent on a queen-size mattress on the floor, pushed up to the wall. We had sheets,
one down pillow, and large multicolored neon crocheted blanket that my mom had taken from a visit to her mother’s apartment in Newark.
Mom slept with her back to the wall, and I was the inner spoon. I will always remember that I fell asleep peacefully and comfortably. It was one of the best night’s sleep I can ever remember. To me, being spooned has always been an instant sleeping pill. This closeness with my mom gave me the utmost feeling of comfort and safety. In a way it was like being tied to her chest once again, only this time we were side by side. I think we both believed that we would forever exist within this dynamic. I loved the bed being up against the wall and spooning with Mom and being able to see the door. I was in a warm cocoon and had not a worry in the world. We were conjoined and content.
On those first nights I would say, “Hug me!” and my mom would wrap me up and drape her left arm over my side. She would always ask if her arm was too heavy. It never was, but even if it had been, I was too afraid she’d remove it if I said so. Instead, I always said it was fine. I’m not sure Mom ever gave me her full weight until she knew I was asleep.
I was becoming so enmeshed with my mother that it was as if my taste buds were affected. I liked Yodels until the day my mother tasted one and said it tasted “waxy.” After my next bite, I concurred and never ate another Yodel again. Actually, I’m not even sure if she disliked Yodels at all. She may have just wanted to get me to stop eating junk. But in any case, her opinions were strong enough to influence how I actually tasted my food.
I know she was drinking even then, but the effects weren’t clear to me at such a young age. If anything, it seemed to make her more fun and more creative. My mother was always such a great artist and creative crafter. Each Halloween she made elaborate costumes for me. Starting from about three years old and for many years after, she did get off easy because I always went as Charlie Chaplin. I often won first prize for that costume and for my ability to imitate his recognizable waddle and circular cane swing. But as I grew up I began wanting to wear more fun or feminine costumes. One year she crafted me into a huge blooming red rose. My head popped out from the middle of a layered red crepe rose. She dressed my body in a green leotard and tights for the stem, and on each hand she gave me cuffs of green crepe-paper leaves. I wore the tights over my penny loafers and by the end of the night had worn through them by walking around. Another year Mom made me an exact replica of a tube of Crest toothpaste. She perfectly copied the tube onto cardboard and even included the cap. I was transformed into a dental delight. I was thrilled with the precision of her rendering but it was extremely hard to walk in. I had to take geishalike steps and the edge of the cardboard cut into the front of my ankles. The pain didn’t bother me, though, because it was such a creative costume, and I was proud my mom made it by herself.
Mom put so much time into my costumes I began to expect to win the contest at the gymnastics space, Sokol Hall, where we’d attend their annual party. Because we lived in an apartment building, trick-or-treating was easy and I could go alone with a friend. I’d invite a school buddy and we’d begin on the penthouse floor and work our way down. It took hours, and our pumpkin-head buckets would be overflowing by the time we got to the lobby apartments. This was the height of the razor-blade-in-the-apple panic, and I was never allowed to eat any of my loot until after Mom had done a thorough check. It was always fine because we knew every inhabitant in the building. I never actually ate all the candy I got. It usually got stale before I finished even half the bucket.
Another story I love was about my doll, Blabby. Blabby was a doll similar to the amazing Baby Tender Love dolls of the seventies that I adored, but she was more unique. She used to make a sound like a baby cooing when you squeezed her rubber stomach. I took her into the bath with me so many times, however, that the coo soon turned into a bark. Later, with my kid scissors, I cut off almost all her hair. She looked rather punk and ahead of her time, but soon, because of the baths and the brushing, it all fell out.
Blabby went everywhere with me. When we traveled by plane, Mom would strap her in with me in the seat. The seat belt went around us both and was fastened only when Blabby gave a “nod” that it was tight.
When I was around six years old, Mom and I had a layover in some city on our way back to New York. I had left Blabby in the terminal while waiting for our connection and playing some Pac-Man–type game. We hadn’t noticed until Mom was strapping me into my seat and realized Blabby wasn’t on my lap. The plane had begun its taxi on the runway when my mother suddenly and frantically called for the flight attendant. She told me not to say a word and then looked straight into the stewardess’s eyes and calmly and emotionally, but deadly seriously, said, “We must get off this plane! It is a matter of life and death.”
This was way before 9/11, and security was much more lenient. The flight attendant must have been alarmed enough, though, so she went to the cockpit and they stopped the taxi and returned to the gate to let both of us off. Mom and I deplaned without saying another word and I went directly to the game I had played before boarding the plane. Blabby was not there, so we tried lost and found. We reported Blabby’s physical profile and had been waiting for over an hour when, from a distance, we saw a male airline official walking toward us, holding something behind his back. He was hiding my doll with an air of embarrassment and was, no doubt, relieved to returned her to me. Well, he could not have been more relieved than I was. I knew my mom would fix the situation.
I still have Blabby. But because she is bald and now has a large split down the middle of her head, my girls say she is “creepy.” I don’t agree. I have never before, nor since, seen a doll similar to her. Mom had given her to me, and after she died I put her necklace on Blabby. Creepy or not, she still sits in my room and reminds me of the time my mother stopped a 747 on a runway to retrieve my baby doll.
Mom probably loved the fact that she could wield that type of power. She always said that as long as you remain firm in your opinions and in their delivery—even if you’re not telling the entire truth or you’re not completely clear—you’d be surprised at what you can achieve.
• • •
Mom has been an unconventional person her whole life, and she wasn’t about to change just because she had become a mother. She continued to take me to bars even as I got older. I remember when she taught me to shoot pool from behind my back. I couldn’t have been older than eight and I learned fast. When I’d excitedly called my father and said, “Dad! I just learned how to shoot pool from behind my back,” I remember him saying: “Where are you?”
“At a bar,” I said.
“Jesus Christ.”
I’m sure Dad wasn’t thrilled with any of this, but I was seemingly safe and having fun, and my mother seemed in control. The argument was tough to have.
The most useful bar talent I acquired—before learning how to tie a knot in a cherry stem with my tongue—involved holding up twelve sugar cubes stacked in between my thumb and pinky finger. It was this skill that I would use as the beginning of a conversation with the one and only Jackie Onassis.
Mom and I were at her long-standing favorite bar, P. J. Clarke’s, when Mom spotted Jackie and Aristotle sitting at the tiny window seat in the empty middle section of the restaurant. It was their table! Mom said, “Brookie, that’s the mother of the boy you are going to grow up and marry.” Without waiting for permission, I leapt up and went over to the table to politely introduce myself.
I evidently went right up, said, “Hi, when I grow up, I am going to marry your son.” Jackie said, “Oooh . . . ,” as if the thought of her little boy growing up was too much to think of. I then showed her how to hold as many sugar cubes as she could between her two fingers. I simply showed her how to do this trick and then returned to my table. My mom claimed she was embarrassed, but it made for a great story and she loved to tell it.
Mom’s version of discipline was unconventional. She was creat
ive with punishments. I once begged her to let me have Devil Dogs for dinner. I cried, pleaded, and threw a tantrum, wanting this cakey, creamy, artificially made dessert snack for my meal. Mom finally conceded but said that if I really wanted Devil Dogs for dinner, I’d have to eat twelve of them. I thought I had hit the junk food jackpot until the third one brushed the roof of my mouth. I started to feel sick and ended up throwing up all over the bathroom. Mom simply asked if I ever wanted Devil Dogs for dinner again. I don’t believe I have ever had one since. (Two major cakey junk foods crossed off my list!)
She wasn’t afraid to embarrass herself, if necessary, to make a point. She once took my cousin Johnny to see Godzilla (which he called Godzillabones) and he threw a tantrum when leaving the theater. She immediately got down on the floor and threw her own tantrum, shocking Johnny and showing, once again, how creative—nd effective—her discipline could be.
• • •
Some of the stories Mom thought were funny could also be scary. She was great at imitations, and most of them I loved because they made me laugh. But the one I did not enjoy at all was her imitation of the Witch in Snow White. In the animated movie the witch had this horrible and terrifying cackle that my mom could copy flawlessly. She would do it randomly and it unsettled me horribly. I’d beg her to stop; she’d continue the imitation for longer than I would have liked. I loved her ability to mimic and I consider my talent in this area a gift from her, but the minute Mom started with the voice, I’d start chanting, “You’re my mother, you’re my mother!” She simply wanted to do what she wanted to do and loved the attention. I don’t think Mom ever knew I was actually, honestly scared. She would later tell this story and beam with pride at the fact that I kept repeating that she was my mother.
There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me Page 5