As soon as I knew the agents had sealed the deal for the movie, I went from the production office straight to the Mercedes-Benz dealership and headed for the biggest sedan they had on the showroom floor. It could probably sleep four. The doors were so heavy it took both hands to open them. It offered lousy mileage but had an incredible sound system. It was white. It was beautiful. I loved it. I didn't know anything about bargaining. I just said, "I'll take it." It was ridiculously expensive; I'd never indulged myself like this before but I thought I'd feel powerful if I drove something that could drive over David's Porsche, should the need arise.
For me, Betty Broderick's world was a great one to walk around in. She was privileged, so there were great sets and wardrobe. She was arrogant and entitled, so there were many scenes of her self-centeredness and demands, and she was angry, so we got to see her act on her self-pity. It was great! I identified on every front. What a character! A woman with no boundaries of her own who certainly didn't respect anyone else's. I read everything I could get my hands on about Betty, tons of magazine and newspaper articles and interviews. And I found I held a certain amount of sympathy for her; I wouldn't have chosen to kill two people, but I felt I understood what brought her to that point. I think there was a fair percentage of the female public who felt the same way at that time.
If I had to pick one scene that I found most therapeutic, it was the one when Betty, at Christmastime while her children are at their father's, drove her Suburban SUV up over her husband Dan's lawn and straight through the front door of his new house. Again, I wouldn't have done this, but I understood it from the twisted perspective of having been in a harsh custody battle with David and the sense that if you have the children in your possession, then you are the winner. And Betty's children were at their dad's and happy to be there, so she was the loser, impotent and unsupported.
It was cold and foggy the night we shot that scene. Our crew was gathered outside a beautiful corner house in Hancock Park, a very upscale section of Los Angeles. The company had built a false front entry onto the house that extended out about four feet; that was my target. It was very dewy and the grass was slick. The stunt people gave me very clear directions. Then I climbed behind the wheel of the old Suburban, my walkie-talkie at my side, got the car into position near the middle of the intersection, and waited.
Usually they don't put principal actors behind the wheel for stunts but they needed to clearly see it was Betty driving, even in the long shots. I'd been lucky and pulled off some nifty car stunts before in other movies and felt confident I could handle this. I was eager to do this. I was driving a big mother of a car and the engine sounded ominous under the best of circumstances, but this night the rumble sounded like an imminent stampede and I was tingling with anticipation. From a distance, I heard them yell "Rolling," I tensed and waited for the camera's pan to include my car, and at "Action, Meredith" from my walkie, I stamped down hard on the gas. The wheels spun on the wet asphalt until they found a purchase. Then the car shot over the pavement, bounced up the curb, up the grassy incline, across the lawn, and crashed into the front door, knocking a spectacular hole in the false front to reveal the foyer. And there stood the family, as if for a family portrait, except for the looks of fear and astonishment on their faces. It was perfection!
It was everything I had wanted it to be: the anticipation, the rumbling, the wrestling of the SUV over the slick ground surfaces, the crash, the shocked faces. I got to do it over and over again as they shot it from several angles.
This scene was followed by Dan coming out of the house and physically attacking Betty; we were really going at each other, swinging, punching, swearing. Not many jabs hit their mark in all our flailing but because we both totally committed to it, we were torn, bruised, and breathless by the end of the night. Stephen Collins (my husband from All the President's Men) played Dan and he was just marvelous. He threw himself into this with a passion that matched my own. What made working together especially intense was that in some ways we each held the same strong points of view as our characters and I think our identification with their opposing sentiments that night propelled us into the fury of their conflict. It may have been a cold, misty, foggy night but we were white-hot.
I'm embarrassed to say how cathartic that was for me. I think I was more in touch with my anger than I'd realized. The good thing is that I got it out of my system while driving someone else's car and play-thumping an actor. I didn't have to use my huge new two-bedroom music system as a battering ram after all. It was a physical and emotional purging. I was calmer for a while.
A Woman Scorned ended up being CBS's highest-rated TV movie of that season and landed me an Emmy nomination for my performance. CBS had ordered a sequel to the Broderick story, which we were shooting when my nomination was announced. I found out about it when I returned to my motor home, which the producers had stuffed with balloons and streamers. A month before the first movie was shown, Betty was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to thirty-two years to life. Our second movie, Her Final Fury: Betty Broderick, the Last Chapter, which was shown less than nine months later, focused on the stretch of time between the killings, both trials, and the outcome.
In the interim between the two movies, I was excited to have a chance to read the court transcripts, which I knew were going to be very revealing. I was stunned. Betty had duped me. When I first came on board I'd read everything available in print written about her. What I had not realized was that when she was put in prison, she had immediately hired a publicist and gave interviews to every single periodical that would talk to her. So, of course, everything I read had Betty's spin on Betty's story--a very sympathetic spin, which had seduced millions of women sympathizers across the country to her cause. Including me.
Where before, I had believed she had been victimized, manipulated, and bullied, I came to see she was the ruthless master manipulator. Psychiatrists showed her to be a nine-point narcissist, seemingly incapable of considering anyone's needs unless they coincided with hers. This was a woman who acted solely in her own interests, regardless of her voiced concerns for her four children's welfare. Our second movie, Her Final Fury, put me in the wonderful position of being able to correct a misconception I had myself embraced and put out there for others. Actually, maybe I got that Emmy nod for A Woman Scorned because I was so committed to Betty's self-assessment and could embody her with absolute certainty.
While I was filming, I was only getting to my 12-step meetings on weekends, but I still went regularly. I liked the meeting at Cedars in Los Angeles that my new friend Carla introduced me to. It was a very social meeting, late on Sunday morning, so I still had time to run beforehand. My comfort level there would come and go, depending on the day. Many times I'd arrive early enough to get a good seat but I'd still sit with my head buried in the New York Times Sunday crossword--anything to keep my face down and people at bay. My stepfather Allan always did the puzzle in ink, so I did too, hoping I looked as smart and confident as he. So, I guess I didn't want anyone to get to know me, but I still wanted them to have good assumptions about me. Once, I was sitting, trying to appear engrossed in my puzzle, as the speaker started. I heard her mention a prayer she sometimes used, that started, "Dear God, please help me for I am too little," and I sat there while tears ran down my cheeks, blurring the ink on my puzzle. That's how I felt, too small to bear this room of strangers, too small to deal with divorce, child custody, and my deep sense of damage and neediness. I felt so powerless. I started using that prayer.
I grew to really enjoy this meeting and Carla. I loved her conversation, wisdom, and especially her irreverent humor. We frequently talked on the phone during the week. She had been sober more than ten years, and I relished her insights into the program, especially as she talked about emotional sobriety. She listened with great compassion to my own story and we talked at length about our mother issues. I felt seen and heard in ways I never had before.
I think it was about 19
92 when I was going for full custody of my youngest children and I was at the end of a second long and dreadful child custodial evaluation. A team of family analysts had come to both David's and my house to make a critical assessment of our individual parenting skills with Peter and Mollie, who were about six at the time. It seemed that months went by before the results were in and I spent many anguished hours with Carla, wailing in fear and apprehension. She had become really close with the kids, engaging their trust, and I came to rely on her wise counsel.
The day I got the results I think I kind of lost my mind. I was devastated that the official evaluation determined that we should maintain the custody division as it was, which I perceived as a loss; I still had the kids only four out of seven days a week. Not only did I feel it was a repudiation of my claims of David's abuse of the children, it also felt like an indictment of my relationship with them. I'd lost my fight for them as I was feeling crushed and engulfed by the endless divorce. I didn't know what to do with the huge feelings that came up. I didn't want to drink ... I wanted to die, bury myself somewhere. I just got in my car in despair and drove up the coast, no destination in mind.
This was in the days of car phones (no cell phones yet) and mine rang so many times I turned it off and rode in silence except for my crying. I had no words for the devastation I felt. I thought I'd failed the children; once again I wasn't able to defend them. Somewhere north of Santa Barbara I turned around and headed home in defeat; there was Carla, waiting for me in front of my house, worried that I'd been unreachable for so long. Over the next few weeks, she talked to me about acceptance. She said it wasn't personal and that the kids had their own path and being in David's life meant they would grow to know and understand him as they wouldn't, couldn't, if I had sole custody. I really struggled with the possibility of a picture bigger than the one I could see, one that didn't focus solely on my sense of calamitous loss. Carla said I was severely limited by my inability to imagine that the arrangement might not be a calamity and (this was hard) I had to allow that the children's own higher powers had necessary lessons in store for them.
I trusted her words, and many years later, I can say there was such truth in what she said. I personally might have chosen different lessons for them in less painful ways but ... who asked me? No one put me in charge.
Carla and I became fast friends and the kids were delighted that she was like part of the family. It had been a long time since I'd had a close friend like this. We did movies, museums, holidays, and a number of road trips together. The constant was laughter.
One Fourth of July, Whitney and Allan invited the kids and me to spend the night at their Malibu beach house and watch the fireworks. It was only natural that Carla was included. We'd all had a great day on the beach with Peter and Mollie, barbecuing and watching the big show. A few of the Broad Beach home owners regularly got together and hired a crew and barge to come up from San Pedro loaded with fireworks, sit offshore, and put on a huge, indulgent, excessive, and extravagant display for everyone. It was over-the-top phenomenal.
Late that night after the twins were asleep, Carla and I were lying in bed laughing softly, and talking about the day, and I kissed her. It felt very organic. I just loved her; I loved how she was such a vital, fun part of our lives; I loved what a good friend she was to me, how loving and present she was, how generously she gave of her time. It just felt like the right thing to do. I couldn't think of any better way to express my depth of feeling for her. I can't talk about the kiss in terms of sexual attraction because it wasn't about that--which is probably what the problem was from the start.
It became a sexual relationship. I was thrilled to be close to someone whom I loved and felt safe with, trusted and enjoyed so much. We just laughed and laughed. I never questioned my sexuality because making love felt like the next natural step in our singular relationship, not an expression of my desire for a woman, even this particular woman. This was no awakening. No penny dropped. I was simply happy to be with her.
I don't know how long I would have remained in this unexamined state were it not for the fact that, over time, Carla fell in love with me. I tend to back off when I feel that people have expectations of me. And in truth, I think I had already given just what I'd wanted to give. At that time, that was all I could do. But of course, how would she know that? I hadn't said there were limitations to my involvement. I hadn't thought. I hadn't considered ... I had just acted, impulsively and, I guess, selfishly. I think I didn't see it as selfish at the time because it was reciprocated; but I understand today, those are separate issues.
Carla was amazingly honest. She had learned a lot in her years of sobriety, and I learned how to be fearless and thorough in relationships by her example. And I could be really honest and clear with her, which was unusual for me. I wasn't in love with her. But I loved her. I wanted to be in her life because I valued her friendship so much. That, too, was selfish, wanting what I wanted even in the face of her deep feelings and hurt, but I'm slow. We broke it off. I told Carla that I thought I really wanted to be with a man, which was true as I knew it.
Carla and I continued trying to redefine our friendship over the next few months, despite wanting different things, and at the same time a guy from the program named Michael Blodgett began pursuing me. He would often come up to me at meetings and make oily overtures, telling me how beautiful I was, asking if he could walk me to my car. It felt weird, slimy. I remember once asking Carla, "Who is this guy? My god, he's so creepy. And my car's right there; I don't need him to walk me to it." But somehow, at some point, his attention and flattery stopped feeling unctuous; I actually started considering him. He was tall, built like a boxer, and very pretty, in a B-movie, sleepy-eyed matinee idol kind of way. In what felt like a relatively innocuous gesture, I invited him to go to a play with me at the old Westwood Playhouse. That was when Michael told me he was married.
Hold on a second.
Married? What?
This man had been hitting on me for months. There was nothing that ever indicated to me that he wasn't single. He told me he didn't always live with his wife; he had an apartment in West L.A. Oh. Okaaay.
I wore a skirt with boots and stockings to the theater in a quasi-unconscious effort to appear well protected. Our first date and something tells me to protect myself? With panty hose? It was odd--I was beguiled and repelled by the same thing: his intense sexuality. He knew he was attractive and counted on that to draw me in. It obviously had worked for him for years and it was the only currency he dealt in. We basically only saw each other at meetings, where he never failed to comment on my appearance, and at dinners after evening meetings, usually with groups of people. I was trying to keep it cool between us; I wanted other people around. I was very confused, feeling seduced by his powerful charm and allure, yet really put off by his calculated, fawning remarks.
It was this same spring of '94 that Elizabeth came to work with us as a nanny. She was from England, funny and capable, which got my heart right away. The kids immediately loved her and she became my trusty substitute when I was working or traveling. Elizabeth is one of the few people who saw the entire Michael Blodgett debacle in all its glory from the beginning to its sad, inglorious end. I think Elizabeth answered the door the first time he came to my house. She saw the looks, his and the ones he gave, that were often unnervingly intimate; she felt the pursuit and told me later it was a forgone conclusion: "You didn't have a chance; he was going to get you."
My part in that, because I always have one, is that somewhere I decided not to be perturbed by the salacious intent of his looks or flattery. In an uncomfortably familiar way he reminded me of Jack, how he looked at me, always assessing my appearance. I decided to view it all as sincere and heartfelt. It took some contorted effort but it filled a need in me; I desperately wanted to feel desired and, taken from that vantage point, how could I not? So, somewhere along the line, I thought, I'm not going to fight this anymore, and we began having an affair. Which wa
s immediately awkward.
Although I still resisted some of the program, one of the first things I did embrace was the tenet of rigorous honesty: I really wanted to stop lying to myself and to other people; we were as sick as our secrets. Hiding that I was involved with Michael definitely fell under the category of deception and it upset me. I hated that I'd fallen into secret-keeping, it was so antithetical to whom I'd wanted to be. I had said to Michael, "If this is what you want, you've got to say something to your wife. What about rigorous honesty?" But he didn't tell her and I didn't stop seeing him.
There was fun and excitement with Michael. No one had ever pursued me like he had and he lived up to all the sexual promise. I had adjusted to being a sort of afterthought in romantic moments with David; with Michael I was the most important person in the room. It was the only time in my life I'd felt such an erotic connection with a man. That was the fragile basis upon which our entire relationship was balanced. And it was all fraught with lies.
I never knew what to tell people about Michael's background except pieces he'd told me. He'd been arrested a couple of times, usually around fights in bars. He seemed to revel in his "drunkalog" stories, which included colorful and often violent episodes involving alcohol. I got the feeling he could be a very nasty drunk and was grateful he had been sober about eighteen years when we met. People in Los Angeles remembered Michael as the dreamy, barechested, blond, curly-haired host of Groovy, a beach-party music show that aired on a local channel in the '60s. He had acted for a while but by the time I met him, he'd switched careers and was a screenwriter. He'd cowritten the movies Turner & Hooch and Run with a writing partner; he'd also penned a few sex-and-mayhem novels--Captain Blood, White Raven, and The Hero and the Terror. Michael had three daughters, one from each of his marriages. The youngest was about seven at this time and he brought her over once or twice. She was a smart and darling little girl.
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