Despite the occasional near-death experience, like the aforementioned earthquake incident, Babylon 5 was a career highlight.
Every day it was fun to go to work, because everybody was always in a good mood. I think it had a lot to do with John and his crew. The director of photography and the director set the tone of the set and we had very nice, very competent directors the majority of the time. Except for this one Italian guy who didn’t have a clue what Babylon 5 was about. He kept telling me, “You have to be more sexxxy. Be more sexxxy.”
“Have you ever watched the show? Ivanova doesn’t do sexxxy.”
Years later, at conventions, I’d hear from actors on other sci-fi shows about personality differences between cast members. That didn’t happen on Babylon 5. We didn’t want anyone to spoil our fun. Joe Straczynski would listen to the cast and crew and keep his finger on the pulse of the production. If you were a prima donna, your character got reassigned or killed off, the preferred method being getting sucked out of an airlock. At the end of the day we had a group of people who meshed together extremely well, and I think that shows in the final result.
Every actress hopes to be famous one day. If nothing else, you land better roles, and you don’t have to worry about where your next paycheck is coming from. When Babylon 5 came along I already had a certain level of recognition because of my eleven years in TV and movies, but being on Babylon 5 took my career to a completely different level. For the first time, I had loyal fans who knew me by name. It wasn’t stardom of the same wattage as Julia Roberts’s or Tom Cruise’s, but it was (and still is) a constant pleasure to be recognized and acknowledged for my work. Even when I went overseas to the UK, France, or Germany, people on the street would call out, “Ivanova!”
We all knew we were onto something good, but no one had any idea that Babylon 5 would become such a phenomenon. It would last five seasons and spawn six films, countless novels, short stories, comic books, and a spin-off series. It won two Emmy Awards, Hugo Awards, and dozens of others. Today, eighteen years after we started, Babylon 5 is still going strong, racking up more than $500 million in DVD sales and gaining fresh momentum on digital platforms. During my years on the show, from 1994 to 1997, SFX magazine voted me “the sexiest woman in sci-fi,” and I was named one of “The 25 Women Who Shook Sci-Fi,” as covered by the Los Angeles Times.
When the show went on hiatus for a few months at the end of season two the producers flew me to London to do some television ads for Babylon 5 Uncut. So I called my old friend Dodi Fayed to let him know I was coming to town.
We’d kept in touch over the years. At one point I heard his mother had died suddenly of a heart attack, and I remembered how he used to call her every day. I found an antique silver cigar case with his initials on it and had it delivered with a note of condolence; even while he was in mourning he wrote back expressing his gratitude. He said that very few people had reached out to him after her passing, and that it meant a lot to him. He would later say to me, “If it meant giving up everything I have—cars, wealth, and women—I would do it to bring my mother back.”
Dodi was glad to hear from me and invited me to stay with him in his Kensington apartment. Things were going well with John, but he was my on-set lover, a part of the show, and after two years of hard work I needed to get away from it all and let off some steam. As I flew into London I thought back to the pleasant times I’d had with Dodi when we last traveled around Europe and breathed a sigh of relief. This was just the thing I needed, a well-deserved break.
I had no idea he was going to ask me to have his baby.
DEATH BY IRONY
Dodi and I laughed and loved our way across London. He’d just finished working as executive producer on The Scarlet Letter with Gary Oldman and Demi Moore. I told him about my adventures on Babylon 5 and learned that he’d already enjoyed some episodes with European friends who were fans of the show. We always seemed to meet when things were going especially well for us.
Despite starring in a sci-fi series and having worked on two sci-fi movies I was woefully ignorant of the genre. Dodi set out to educate me and ran screening nights with movies like Blade Runner and Alien.
We had such a good time that he invited me to stay for a few months until Babylon 5 started filming again.
When Dodi and I first started dating years before, he gave me a big gold ring with an amethyst set in it. The inner band was engraved with his name.
“They gave this to me after I completed my service in the Egyptian paratroopers.”
It was a heartfelt gift, one that I’d cherished for more than a decade, but now it was time to return it. I was going through a period of returning keepsakes to old lovers. I’d sent one guy back his high school football ring and another his grandfather’s wedding ring. It seemed like the right thing to do.
So one night while we were drinking champagne after making love I fished the ring out of my purse and pressed it into his palm.
“You should hang on to this. One day, when you settle down, you can give it to someone you really love.”
He looked at the ring with a slightly confused expression. Then he looked back at me, then back to the ring, and then he burst out laughing. In that same instant I got the joke.
“You made these rings up, didn’t you? There’s a whole host of women out there with these things!”
He looked embarrassed for a moment and then it was my turn to laugh.
“And I schlepped it all the way back here so that you could give it to someone else!”
I have to admit, in that environment even the air seemed better, more luxurious. When I remember Dodi, I always think of wonderful smells: the deep, musky tendrils of smoke from his Cuban cigars; the crisp, clean fragrance of his cologne; the sensual undertones from the exquisite leather seats in his private jets and cars. I loved the ambiance.
But there were downsides. An entourage of staff and armed security formed a protective perimeter around us 24/7. It always used to amaze me that Dodi could live like that. He told me that he’d been kidnapped as a child and that as a result he had grown up used to having a serious security presence. Having a battery of armed guards clear the way for him was second nature.
The idea of hiring men to lay their lives on the line for my safety made me a little uneasy. Even when I have security at sci-fi conventions I always go out of my way to make friends with them. Some of Dodi’s guards were treated okay, but others would be swapped out and replaced like his girlfriends. For Dodi, they were so completely integrated into his life that they were invisible.
A billionaire lives in a rarefied world. Everywhere he goes the red carpet is (often literally) rolled out before him. Elegant cars with courteous, uniformed drivers picked us up at the door. When we ate out it was at the best tables in Michelin-starred restaurants. The chefs would come out to greet Dodi as an old friend, inquiring whether the food was satisfactory.
Dodi lived in another world that just happened to intersect with mine. You don’t need to travel to an alien planet if you want to see another form of sentient life. You don’t need an interdimensional transporter to visit a parallel reality. You just need a few billion dollars and the whole world changes around you.
When I got back to L.A. I fell in love with a house in the Hollywood Hills but was $25,000 short of the amount needed to settle. I signed the contract anyway, not knowing where I’d find the money. The next day I opened the mail to find a residual check for a little over $25,000—my cut from the sales of Ivanova merchandising. Everything seemed to be going my way.
Back on set John was waiting for me with open arms. Neither of us asked any questions or offered any answers. We just started up where we’d left off.
Dodi and I talked on the phone as often as we could. Whenever I had a break from Babylon 5 he flew me (first class, naturally) to meet him. During the production hiatus Dodi and I had been able to drink and dine with abandon, but while I was shooting the series I maintained a healthy diet and drank
lightly or not at all. The one time I did drink too much, while at a friend’s birthday dinner, John noticed it immediately the following morning when he was lighting me for a scene.
“What did you do last night, baby? Your eyes are all puffy.”
I was so embarrassed I never did it again.
For all the fooling around we did, in the trailers and on the set, John and I always took the job seriously and maintained our professionalism. I didn’t drink much at all in those years, even when I wanted to, because I had respect for the gift I’d been given. I was on a hit show, working with so many people I loved. The very thought that I could let my colleagues down and disappoint the fans by indulging myself with a drinking spree in my off hours was unthinkable. My drinking was still at the point where I could control it.
In 1995 I celebrated my thirtieth birthday with a party attended by the Babylon 5 regulars. I noticed throughout the night that Jeff Conaway was acting a bit off. By the end of the party he was completely wasted and holed up in the bathroom doing lines. A mutual friend told me that Jeff was having a bad night—his wife was about to leave him because she couldn’t handle his addictions anymore.
“Addictions? What addictions?”
“Cocaine, alcohol, painkillers, you name it.”
I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t seen any sign of that, because on set Jeff was a consummate professional. He was always on time, he’d have his dialogue down, and he was always friendly and sober. The only behavior that had ever stuck in my mind as being unusual was that he used to carry around supersized bottles of vitamins. I thought it was pretty cool that he had all of these pills, potions, and unguents in his trailer, so one day after an exhausting shooting schedule I asked him what I should take.
“Here, take a niacin tablet. That’ll pick you up.”
I brought it home and tried it. My skin turned bright red and started burning. I rushed into the shower and turned the cold tap on full force. That stopped the burning, but when I tried to get out of the shower I was hit by a dizzy spell and ended up lying on the floor feeling as if I’d just been through the spin cycle in a washing machine. The next day I went into work and tracked him down.
“What the hell were you thinking giving me that stuff?”
“Oh. You can’t take the whole niacin pill. You have to build up a tolerance, so you should just take a little bit. I guess I should have told you that.”
A few years ago I saw Jeff on TV. He was in a reality show called Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. It broke my heart watching that. He looked like a frail old man, not the handsome, talented guy I knew.
He had a girlfriend who was bringing him drugs during the show, which ended up getting him kicked off, and then he’d come back and then get kicked off again. They were getting him to talk about his past, his tortured childhood, trying to get him to confront the fact that he was an addict, but it always puzzled me that no one did anything to treat his biological addiction. The more you drink or take drugs, the more the neuro-pathways of addiction and compulsion in the brain are strengthened. Why weren’t the doctors on the show treating this instead of just the psychological component? Addicts attract other addicts, for comfort, for mutual justification, or, as in this case, just to help feed the addiction. I thought it was sad that there seemed to be no one there for Jeff. Maybe he’d burned through his friends and family, broken one promise too many. Most addicts do. I know I did.
Jeff, like many people I know, was an opiate addict. He had an accident early on in his career on the set of the movie Grease, while shooting the “Greased Lightning” scene, that left him with chronic neck and back pain. Most opiate addicts start their addiction after going to a doctor and complaining about back or neck pain; some of the painkillers that they’re prescribed are derived from the same source as heroin.
Jeff had multiple surgeries to try to rid himself of the pain, but by then he was addicted to painkillers. One addiction led to another until they finally claimed his life at age sixty in May 2011. It was a tremendous tragedy that Jeff died so young, battling his demons to the end until his body wore out and couldn’t take it anymore. In the aftermath I got the impression that the media were very blasé about his death. They even left him out of the Emmy memorial photo montage.
Jeff was fifteen years older than me. At the time, the news of his addiction was tragic, but I didn’t see that it had any relevance to my own life. I had no inkling that before long the same monster that haunted Jeff would come knocking on my door, and I’d be designing my own detox-vitamin program. I was too busy living the life I’d always dreamed of.
These were the halcyon days. I was developing a strong fan base (and boy, are sci-fi fans loyal—I’d never seen anything like it). I was in constant demand at conventions, so I hired an assistant named Holly Evans to help manage the bookings. Holly is ex-military, loyal to the bone, and has stuck with me through all of the highs and lows. She’s one of the best and brightest angels in my life.
When the Los Angeles Times ran an article asking people to choose the next host of the Oscars, Holly took up the challenge and contacted my fans, letting them know where to vote. From the Los Angeles Times, December 13, 2000:
The ’01 Oscar Host: You Voted, We Counted
And you thought the presidential election results were confusing? In the wake of Billy Crystal taking himself out of consideration to host the next Academy Awards, we asked readers to nominate their candidates to replace him—and the wide range of responses made the margin of victory in Florida, whatever it might be and for whomever, look like a landslide. . . . The biggest draw, thanks to an apparent write-in campaign by her fans, was Claudia Christian of Babylon 5.
I got over 6,000 votes and left Jim Carrey and Steve Martin for dead. I’ve got my dress picked out in case the Academy decides to call. It doesn’t matter if they don’t—fifteen years after my last appearance on Babylon 5, I’m still in demand at conventions around the world, and Holly is still making the bookings. You can’t beat loyalty like that.
Unfortunately, there is a point at which loyalty crosses the line and becomes obsession.
I’d been receiving crazy-colored, hand-knitted items from a fan who claimed to be a postal worker. He would send me packages containing homemade tea cozies and doilies that he’d knitted himself, and I sent back thank-you notes. Then he wrote to say that he was finally going to meet me at a convention in upstate New York. He had a gift he wanted to give me.
I was sitting at my table signing things for folks and having a pleasant time when I saw something large and furry out of the corner of my eye. I looked up to see a giant tribble (a furry alien creature from Star Trek) waddling toward me. The tribble stopped at the table, identified itself as my postal worker fan, and held up an enormous black plastic garbage bag. From out of it, he drew a hot-pink, lime-green, and purple afghan large enough to cover a California-king-size bed. If it were the ’60s and I were on acid and living in a commune, I’d have appreciated it. But since I hadn’t eaten a trunkload of magic mushrooms that morning, I had to draw on decades of acting experience to conjure up convincing superlatives.
“It’s . . . um . . . beautiful. Colorful. Handmade.”
“I made it myself. For you.”
“And I appreciate that. It must have taken some finesse to create such a work of art. Thank you, thank you so much.”
I could tell the giant tribble was pleased. I could hear him purring inside the suit. He waddled off, but not before promising to deliver another gift later in the day.
I was expecting a Day-glo cloak the size of Rhode Island or a scarf long enough to span the English Channel, so was I in for a surprise when, about an hour later, another giant tribble came lumbering toward me. It was the same guy, but the costume had been modified. Wires stuck out of its head, and dozens of strong red lights flashed around its furry body. This was clearly a scary tribble, a tribble with unfinished business.
“I am a morphed tribble. Now you will be morph
ed, too.”
And then a gun emerged from the mass of fur and he shot me. I felt the bullet hit me in the ribs, and I fell back, clutching my side. My life didn’t flash before my eyes, but the next day’s headline did—“Death by Irony! Babylon 5 Star Shot by Sci-fi Alien.” I was supposed to die a dignified death in bed in my Tuscan villa at ninety, clutching my Oscar in one hand and my Screen Actors Guild award in the other. Instead, I was lying on the ground clutching my ribs as my security guys wrestled a giant tribble to the ground.
I pulled up my shirt to reveal a reddening, nasty-looking bruise and a fat, rapidly rising welt. There was no blood. I wasn’t going to die. The gun was real but the bullets were blanks—the same caliber that killed Jon-Erik Hexum and was involved in Brandon Lee’s death. If the blank’s paper seal had hit flesh instead of bone it could have damaged an internal organ or, on an unlucky day, killed me. I was pissed off. I got up and scanned the room for the guy—I wanted a piece of him. But he was already being dragged away by security, and my friends were gathering around, shepherding me back toward the green room. Later on in the day I received yet another black garbage bag. This one had two hand-knitted pillows in it, in the same headache-inducing neon color scheme. I tried to piece together his thought process in my mind. This was actually meant to be the second gift, but somehow he’d been taken over by the morphed tribble, decided to shoot me instead, and then came around without any memory of what had happened, threw the pillows into the bag, and had them sent to me from jail. Maybe one of the pillows was meant to be from the relatively harmless tribble and another from the totally fucking crazy tribble? Who can say?
Babylon Confidential Page 10