The Varnished Untruth

by Stephenson, Pamela

  Then I hatched a mad caper. I asked Todd Smith from CAA to call the casting agent. ‘Tell her you have a new French actress on your books who has just arrived in California. Tell them she doesn’t speak much English but you feel she could be perfect for the role . . .’ Todd complied, and I donned a complete disguise. As Danielle Bergeronette, a dark-haired beauty from Perpignan who had just made a comedy with French pop star Johnny Hallyday, I flounced back to the studios where I behaved coquettishly towards the Zuckers . . . and a little erratically. At one point, when they were telling me the story of the film, I even pretended to get upset. ‘You joke about Le Resistance?’ I pouted, ‘Ce n’est pas amusant . . .’ ‘Well,’ said Jerry, hurriedly trying to cover his tracks, ‘It’s just a movie . . .’

  Oh, I enjoyed myself. At the end of the meeting I left the room, then whipped off my wig and returned to tease the brothers. We all had a jolly good laugh, but I still didn’t get the part. ‘Yes, it’s true we want a real French woman,’ explained Jerry. ‘But not THAT one!’ In the end, the role went to Lucy Gutteridge, a non-French actress who had appeared in Airplane! Yes, I never liked feeling powerless to create my own destiny; and that, unfortunately, is the lot of most Hollywood actresses.

  Even beyond the humiliation of auditioning, I hated the whole process of movie-making – sitting alone in one’s trailer for hours and hours in full make-up, having to stay so incredibly thin (or at least that’s what I believed was necessary for me), travelling to faraway locations to film and never being sure when it would all end. And anyway, since I was now in my forties, and the cult of youth was alive and well – especially when applied to woman – I knew things would only get a lot harder.

  I’d already achieved everything I ever wanted in comedy, and now I would just be repeating myself. I longed to do something with less focus on external appearance and behaviour, and more focus on my brain and internal self. I also recognized that it would be better for the children and family as a whole if I was firmly rooted in one place.

  Most importantly, I sensed this would be the most important step in my personal evolution. The mysteries of the mind – especially my own and Billy’s – had been drawing me towards a formal investigation of them for many years. Rather than being just ‘an option’, deciding to become a psychologist was probably the most vital step in my destiny thus far – and not just for me, but for the whole family. I had been leading up to it since my teenage curiosity about, well, poetry really. I had never heard of the ‘mythopoetic centre’ back then, but yet I understood that human beings held within them a reservoir of acute feeling, longing and passion that could not be articulated through ordinary conversation.

  Yes, aside from the sheer intellectual curiosity I held for the workings of the mind, the desire to be a psychologist seemed to emanate from the part of me that cradled my own aching and harboured enormous empathy for people like me. And now I’m grateful for the people and circumstances that frustrated my performing career, because they helped pitch me towards what I was truly meant to do.

  But at the same time, it was downright scary to imagine doing something else, being someone else . . .

  What exactly was that like for you?

  Oh, I guess I actually underwent a massive existential crisis. I was having daily intrusive thoughts and images of a giant crack appearing in my universe, through which I was gingerly trying to step into another world. ‘On that other side,’ I thought, ‘No one will know who I am.’ The image was powerful; I would almost say it was a hallucination. I had come to identify so strongly with myself as a performer I just couldn’t imagine letting go of that, no matter how ready I was for a new career. It was a rather obvious psychological image, but the feeling that went with it was one of genuine, extreme fear.

  I had to persuade my timid self, to proceed slowly – with baby steps. Feeling very insecure, I took myself off to Antioch University for a beginner psychology course, just to see how it felt. I absolutely loved it, and adored my professor, Dr Joy Turek. Joy advised me about the field of Psychology and the life of a professional psychologist, and I eventually enrolled in the doctoral programme at the California Graduate Institute – one of the best clinical programmes around.

  I was ready to use my mind in a different way. This may seem strange, but psychology is not that different from comedy. Both involve the examination of human behaviour. I had been interested in the subject since I was a teenager. Eric Berne’s Games People Play was very popular in the seventies – one of the many ‘pop psychology’ offerings. I gravitated to Primal Scream by Arthur Janov which, for the first time, exposed me to the notion of healing catharsis, in this case taking off to the woods to have a good scream and let your demons out. I began to understand that we were all creatures who held important truths below the surface of our conscious minds, and that notion truly intrigued me.

  I was also drawn to Luke Rhinehart’s The Dice Man because it was utterly anarchic and proposed breaking all the social rules I’d come to obey; it was shocking to consider any other way of being in the world, but I longed for such freedom. I was re-evaluating everything in those days – and a good thing, too. I felt I had to re-educate myself in what really mattered – the antithesis of what I’d already been taught. And I searched for people from whom I could learn. Oh, I was on a mission. I regularly consulted the Chinese oracle, the I Ching, that had been providing guidance in symbolic, often cryptic, form to people for thousands of years, and I learned that it could be trusted. When it had told me, just before I left Australia, that ‘It would be of great benefit to cross the wide water in a large boat’, I paid attention.

  You were desperately searching for guidance, weren’t you?

  Yes, since I was a teenager, really. But in California, I finally found my way to a wonderful therapist, Lu, who provided the solid psychotherapy I really needed. And she eventually guided me into her field. She completely changed the way I fitted in the world, helped me make sense of my life. After I began working with her I came to have a far better understanding about the things that continued to upset and sadden me. I mourned things that had happened to me early in life and began to recognize how my psyche had buried trauma-inspired thoughts and feelings that subtly influenced my behaviour and choices in an unhealthy way. My initial healing took several years and, as you know, it’s ongoing; but at least I learned to be hopeful that one day I can be truly, deeply happy . . .

  Pamela, what do you imagine happiness is actually like?

  For most of my life I would have settled for the absence of pain. Instead, I settled into an academic life and found that I adored studying. At first it was terrifying to have to take exams again, but I soon got used to that. I admired most of my tutors, and found them encouraging. The California Graduate Institute was not the most highly accredited establishment in the USA, but swisher universities, like the University of California, Los Angeles, only offered research programmes in psychology. Anyway, at my age I wasn’t going to be snooty about where I got my degree; the clinical programme at CGI was excellent and nicely set up to accommodate ‘mature students’ or people who were also working and needed to progress through the course at their own pace. I love that about America; it’s easy to find learning programmes that work for you at any stage in your life. And my fellow students at CGI boasted a wonderfully wide range of ages, races, ethnicities and backgrounds.

  Billy was hugely supportive. In fact, he was thrilled that I was doing something that brought, as he described it, ‘an atmosphere of studiousness into the household’. But, naturally, being me, I pushed myself terribly hard and put extreme pressure on myself to get As in every course (anything less would wound me). What is WRONG with me?

  Pamela, in this instance, you already know the answer to that question . . .

  Hah, yes. I do.

  Articulate it, if you please . . .

  I had unconsciously internalized my parents’ expectations and addressed them to myself.

  Precisely. But the
workings of the unconscious are mysterious so you didn’t figure it out at that time. But frankly, getting Bs – and being content with them – would have been fine and even more appropriate for a busy wife and mother.

  Yes, and I didn’t really have to steam through my PhD faster than anyone else had ever done it . . . And yet, that’s what I made myself do. But I did really enjoy the process immensely. I loved all the material – well, except the higher-level statistics, which I found ridiculously challenging. But I especially loved the psychodynamic courses about childhood trauma, learning about personality and mood disorders, my hypnosis courses, and my studies in human sexuality. Actually, CGI provided a particularly good sex therapy training, and it was there that I first formed an idea that I might specialize in that field. It’s always a good idea for a practitioner to have a speciality and, after a couple of years, sex therapy seemed an obvious choice – along with hypnosis, trauma work and mood disorders, which also came to the fore as possible specialty areas.

  I was fascinated by the field of sexuality and the psychology of sex. It seemed to me that it was a far less well-trodden path than many other areas of my studies – probably because many professionals were scared of it. It wasn’t easy to learn to talk comfortably with patients about their sexual problems, to put them at their ease and be helpful. First you had to be very comfortable with your own sexuality and get rid of your prejudices. In order to be a skilled sex therapist one has to be non-judgmental and, since most of us have been brought up in a society with negative attitudes towards sexuality, people usually enter adulthood with an enormous number of hang-ups. I was no exception (well, just look at my history!), but I worked hard and, after a good deal of extra training through professional bodies such as the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists, it was very gratifying to emerge as a well-trained sexuality professional.

  But in your personal life – even before you began formal psychology training – you had already been learning about aspects of the brain and psyche, hadn’t you?

  Yes . . . well Billy, of course, is a very unique individual and I was very interested to find out how he ticked . . . More importantly, there were a lot of day-to-day issues we both faced due to his learning difference and I wanted to know how to help him. I knew he was very easily distracted, and had some severe problems with short-term memory. For example, he loves to cook and, at that time, he particularly loved to follow Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian recipes. So he’d stand at the kitchen table and write himself a shopping list, then take off for the shops. The special places where you can buy fresh Indian spices were some distance away, but he’d get there and realize he’d left the list behind. That was in the days when he refused to carry a mobile (‘You take a wild beast somewhere on the Serengeti Plain and tag it, then set it free again . . . Only it’s no longer free, is it? It’s got a fucking tag on it!’– that’s how he viewed mobile phones). And I’d be there at home unable to study because I’d found the list and was worrying about when he would realize he’d left it behind, and how upset he’d be. And I’d be furious all over again that I couldn’t get him to carry a mobile (nowadays he’s the one complaining that he can never get me on the phone, and I grit my teeth and try to avoid saying, ‘Hah! Now you’re getting some of your own medicine.’).

  So I started studying learning disabilities and Attention Deficit Disorder, and began to understand how the trauma Billy sustained as a child affected his present life, and the relationship between alcohol/substance abuse and both trauma and ADD. It was a revelation, although I had to tread very carefully and avoid appearing to diagnose him. That, of course, would not have been appropriate; although most psychology students find themselves looking at the people around them in a new light! I observed him and thought a lot about his unique challenges, and it honestly made me even more impressed with him, knowing more about what he had overcome. But if I ever said anything that sounded dangerously close to the mark, Billy’s immediate retort would – understandably – be: ‘Quit the psychobabble!’

  But Billy finally decided to seek therapy for himself! This was triggered when he happened upon an American TV programme in which the well-known psychotherapist and author John Bradshaw was talking with a small audience about childhood trauma. When I caught Billy crying by the TV set, I knew he was ready to heal. A great therapist then helped him come to terms with the abuse he experienced as a child.

  I had to face the reality of with my own psychological shortcomings. I finally understood that I’d had an eating disorder for more than twenty years, although now that I no longer needed to diet for filming, it seemed to be in remission. I had begun to go to the gym regularly . . . and was still reaping the benefit of erm, my first face lift. Inspired by the pressure to look good beside the thin, athletic, youthful-seeming blondes who inhabited my new town, I had sought out a plastic surgeon shortly after arriving in LA. He had also replaced my old silicone implants with more natural-looking saline ones, and performed some liposuction on my thighs. But that was before I began my psychological studies; otherwise, I might not have bothered.

  Through my psychology course I learned to be a better parent, acquiring new skills and a better understanding of child development. I was already acutely aware of the mistakes my parents had made in putting too much pressure on me, for example, and not being warm. I tried to be as loving and tactile as possible, and did my best to see my children as individuals and love them for who they truly were . . .

  And Daisy . . . she turned out to be a truly unique individual, didn’t she? Like Billy in so many ways . . .

  Mmm. Daisy is a truly adorable creature – bright, funny and quirky. Nowadays she is very outgoing socially and just loves to tease me mercilessly. She adores small children and works as a nursery school assistant. I don’t usually talk about her publicly – or any of the children, really – but Daisy has . . . certain challenges and developmental delays in various areas – learning, eye-tracking and large motor skills. When she was around four we began to notice she did not achieve certain developmental milestones, but it was really only once we settled in LA that we found someone who could figure out exactly how to help her. We found her an excellent school for kids with special needs.

  You’re downplaying all the worry and anxiety you and Billy had about her . . . all the time you spent searching for the right treatment, school placement . . .

  I suppose . . . yes, I am. It’s never easy for parents to figure out how to help any of their children, and when you have a child with special needs there’s the added challenge of being an advocate for her, finding your way to services and the right treatment protocol. Of course, my psychology course was enormously helpful. I often joke that I needed to get a PhD in psychology just to understand myself and the unique people in my family . . . but it’s more or less true!

  Now, our middle child Amy – there’s a natural born actress! She has not entered the field of show business but, honestly, she was a proper diva at three years old! She was sweet-natured, loving and kind, too, and she was a very placid baby, for which I was very grateful, since a lot of my energy had to be focused on Daisy. That’s one of the hardest things about having a child with special needs in the family – finding the balance of focus with the other siblings. That truth was brought home to me loud and clear by one of my patients, a woman who had a brother with severe special needs. She felt she had suffered greatly in a family where he had unwittingly sucked up an unfair share of available parental attention. ‘If he’s “special”,’ she said to me, ‘then what does that make me? Not special?’

  But Amy has a beautiful spirit and continues to be a very caring person. She, too, had some challenges with focusing that made academic learning harder than it is for most others, but she has gone on to achieve excellence in higher learning – just shows you, doesn’t it, that people who struggle at school can be the ones who shine in tertiary education.

  As for Scarlett – a chubby-cheeked, exuberant bubb
a who grew into a poised, teenaged ballerina. She is sweet and loving, with a sensitive nature and is a gifted artist. I encouraged Amy and her to attend ballet lessons in LA. Not only did it make their bodies strong with grace and good posture, but the discipline it once imbued in me was something I wanted for them. It was a good choice, I think. On weekends, when other youngsters were sulking around the city’s malls, they were rehearsing for performances with the American Youth Ballet – and loving it. OMG I just realized something. Do you know I actually dressed my three girls rather alike from time to time? Never exactly alike, but close enough! How could I have repeated that mistake? I must ask them if they resented it. What is WRONG with me?

  Unfortunately, we all naturally parent by rote, and have to work really hard to avoid unwittingly making our own parents’ mistakes . . .

  Anyway, well before we went to the USA, Cara had chosen to attend full-time boarding school in England. After leaving, she lived with us briefly in LA, then attended Glasgow Art School and emerged with a Fine Arts degree in Photography. After school, James toured with Elton John and other bands, then eventually settled in LA where he began to work in the film industry – in the props department. Unfortunately, like Billy, he struggled with one of the issues that commonly runs in families – substance abuse. In the early nineties I took him to the airport and told him: ‘Jamie, we’re going on a plane to a place called Hazelden. You won’t be back for many months but you’re going to get the best possible help.’ He did, and he has been sober ever since. He’s a gentle soul, whose mantra is: ‘I’d rather be fishing!’

  Boy, there was such a lot going on within your family, wasn’t there? And after the first two years in LA, Billy was away a great deal, either touring or making movies. Can’t have been easy . . .

  Yes, but it was nice to have the support you get from being in one place for a while. I made good friends among my academic pals and, being more home-bound at that early time in Los Angeles, I gradually got to know our neighbours. That was a new experience for me; in the past, I’d always been travelling too much for that. And what fantastic neighbours we had! I already name-dropped some of them. David Hockney invited us to his house and studio – just a hop, skip and a jump from us – and there it was: THE swimming pool! The one in all those amazing paintings! He was finishing a large picture of the Grand Canyon that was on its way to an exhibition in Paris. It was painted on many squares of canvas that I suppose made transportation easier. He told us he was sending the ‘canyon’ separately from the ‘sky’ – which wasn’t quite dry; Billy and I found that practical detail very amusing.