It’s no wonder then that soap actors are, in the end, a community, and, for the most part, will close ranks to protect, defend, and support one another in public and try our damnedest to work out our personal problems among ourselves. Unfortunately, on rare occasions, that becomes impossible.
Only because many of us are still asked about it by fans and the press twenty years later, or I wouldn’t bother to bring it up at all: probably the most widely publicized battle within the Y&R cast was the backstage physical fight between Eric Braeden and Peter Bergman. It happened in 1991, and Eric, Peter, and the rest of us have long since moved on, but I might as well address it and get it off my mind and out of the way.
I’m not sure exactly what happened or what started it, beyond some ongoing tension between them on the set. Mercifully, I wasn’t at the studio that day, and the details are for someone else’s book, not mine. My only comment on that truly sad incident was and is my reaction to one of the many solutions that were being thrown around in the executive offices as the suits discussed what to do about it: when the suggestion was made that the easiest way to prevent such a thing from happening again was to fire Peter, I made it clear to anyone who would listen, and even some who didn’t want to, that if Peter was fired, I’d walk right out the door with him, and I meant every word of it. It had nothing to do with taking sides and everything to do with my outrage at the inequity of that solution. I didn’t want either of them fired, but only one of them? Are you kidding? Where would be the integrity and the fairness in that? And if we don’t stand up for what’s fair, aren’t we basically just taking up space?
The good news, of course, is that cooler heads prevailed in the executive offices, neither Eric nor Peter was fired, appropriate apologies were offered and accepted, and twenty years later Young and the Restless viewers are still blessed with the pleasure of watching the classic rivalry between Victor Newman and Jack Abbott as no one else could play it.
As far as I’m concerned, though, that fight was just a minor tiff compared to the battle I had with my publicist in 2004, and it all started with what sounded like a perfectly wonderful honor.
I was notified by the Y&R office that I was being presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at that year’s Daytime Emmy telecast. I was thrilled, flattered, grateful, and genuinely proud at the thought of sharing a stage with the other 2004 Lifetime Achievement Award winners, all of whom I’d admired so much throughout our long careers: Rachel Ames (Audrey Hardy of General Hospital); John Clarke (Mickey Horton of Days of Our Lives); Eileen Fulton (Lisa Grimaldi of As the World Turns); Don Hastings (Bob Hughes of As the World Turns); Anna Lee (Lila Quartermaine of General Hospital); Ray MacDonnell (Joe Martin of All My Children); Frances Reid (Alice Horton of Days of Our Lives); Helen Wagner (Nancy Hughes of As the World Turns); and Ruth Warrick (Phoebe Tyler Wallingford of All My Children). Who on earth wouldn’t be proud to stand side by side with such an esteemed, historic group of professionals, or knock herself out to find the exact right gown, shoes, and jewelry . . . not knowing that she could almost have shown up in her pajamas for all it mattered?
Those were the good old days when the Daytime Emmy Awards were held in New York City, and I was so excited on the trip there, not only because of the Lifetime Achievement Award but also because The Young and the Restless was nominated for Outstanding Drama Series, my dear fabulously talented castmate Michelle Stafford was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, and my great pal Anthony Geary, the legendary Luke Spencer of General Hospital, was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor. There was always something energizing about driving into New York, checking into the hotel, and getting ready for the nonstop activities to begin, and it was all I could do not to skip into Radio City Music Hall for the telecast rehearsal. My fellow award winners and I greeted one another with a thousand hugs and kisses, which is my last happy memory of that particular event.
The first indication that I’d let my soaring expectations run away with me was the news that there would be time constraints on the Lifetime Achievement Award presentations because on that same evening, on that same telecast, the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences had decided to honor Sesame Street, with a fairly lengthy appearance by Big Bird and the many stars who’d appeared on that show over the years. Now, let me pause right here to emphasize that I think Sesame Street and Big Bird are as good as it gets in children’s programming. God bless them all, I love Sesame Street, love Big Bird, can’t compliment them enough. I didn’t take exception for a moment to their being given a well-deserved tribute. I did, however, take exception to the news that our Lifetime Achievement Award segment would be abbreviated so that the television audience could get their fair share of Big Bird, which translated as far as we were concerned, to about three and a half hours (in real life, it was probably six or seven minutes). “So, sorry, Lifetime Achievement people, but there will be no film clips from your vast bodies of work, and there will most definitely be no acceptance speeches. In fact, we’ll thank you all to keep your mouths shut and not say a word so we won’t run the risk of cutting Big Bird short.
“But wait, there’s more—rather than have all of you waste a lot of valuable time walking onstage and off again, we’ve arranged for a very unique and exciting entrance for you. You’ll all gather below the stage, and each of you will stand on one of these clever platforms that will actually lift you up to stage level and then lower you back down again when your segment is over with. Won’t that be fun?”
“Fun” in this case was clearly a euphemism for making us feel as if we were there not for an award but for a lube job, and what an especially well-thought-out plan for the one Lifetime Achiever who happened to be in a wheelchair. But not to worry, we were assured, there would be small bolted-down stool-like devices behind us to hang on to in case we lost our balance during this brief, insipid elevator ride.
I admit it, I was ready to decline the award and walk out on the whole show. But the director took me aside and swore to me that our dignity would not be compromised in any way, and it would be a huge disappointment to our fans if any of us failed to appear. It was the one argument that was guaranteed to work on me. I finally and reluctantly agreed to go through with it. Not happily, but I did agree.
Already feeling quite pushed aside enough as the lead-in act for Big Bird (and one more time, I love Big Bird), I headed off to a publicity event at Gracie Mansion with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and several Emmy nominees. I was especially looking forward to meeting Martha Stewart, whom I admire tremendously and who I’d heard wanted to meet me. But it wasn’t that kind of day. The event was chaotic. Everyone and everything was running late. Martha Stewart left so soon after I arrived that I didn’t even get to introduce myself, and we were all being hastily shoved into a variety of smiling photo clumps by a variety of strangers, all of whom were so busy yelling, “Over here! Hurry!” that none of them remembered to say, “Welcome and congratulations. Would you care for an hors d’oeuvre?”
At some point I was being herded toward Mayor Bloomberg for yet another clump-of-people picture when the mayor made the mistake of reaching out and grabbing my arm to pull me into place. I reflexively yanked my arm away, looked him in the eye, and growled, “Don’t touch me.” I remember Meredith Vieira finding this hilarious, along with a few others within earshot, and I also remember not feeling a single twinge of remorse about it. If Mayor Bloomberg came away with the impression that I’m a disrespectful, short-tempered bitch, let me just say, “Not always, but I have my limits when it comes to being treated like a prop.”
Then, of course, it was back to the hotel to get ready for the Daytime Emmy Awards telecast and off to Radio City Music Hall, where, at the appropriate time, we Lifetime Achievement honorees were ushered into a small green room and then onto our assigned freight lifts to be presented to the audience and to stand there smiling and waving like puppets as each of our names was announced, after which we would magically disappear again into the
earth’s bowels. Why they didn’t just finish us off with water balloons I have no idea.
Incidentally, I found out later that the televised version didn’t include our vertical entrances and exits—too time consuming, presumably, or maybe the producers decided it looked as ridiculous as it felt—and that as we were introduced, brief dialogue-free clips were shown of us early in our careers, ending with a freeze-frame of us “way back when” beside a huge photo of us as we looked today. I’m sure it was meant to be an homage to our many, many years in daytime. In practice it looked like a documentary on the aging process.
Once we were gratefully below-stage again we were directed to a young man standing in the wings with a cardboard box, out of which he pulled our actual Lifetime Achievement Awards one by one, read the engraving, and handed them over with an unceremonious (for example) “Okay, Jeanne Cooper? Which one of you is Jeanne Cooper?” It was exactly as touching as I’m making it sound, although it certainly wasn’t the young man’s fault that I think at that moment each of us would have happily traded our statuettes for cab fare back to our respective hotels.
We were then directed upstairs to the pressroom, which involved about eighty-five escalators. Mind you, I hadn’t seen my generously paid publicist in hours, and I thank God to this very day for James Michael Gregary (Clint Radison on The Young and the Restless, who shows up every few years to kidnap Katherine Chancellor again). Michael was my escort that night and had no more of a clue than I did where I was supposed to go, but he kept me from getting lost all by myself and/or heading straight to the airport and catching the first flight to Los Angeles, gown, no luggage, and all.
I finished the requisite interviews, babbling about how honored I was and keeping my mouth shut about everything else, and was heading down one of the eighty-five escalators when I looked over to see my publicist escorting another of his clients, Michelle Stafford, up to the pressroom. Michelle had just won her first and so well-deserved Outstanding Actress Emmy, and I was thrilled for her. I wasn’t thrilled with my publicist who, after leaving me to my own confused, head-spinning devices all evening, was taking such attentive care of another of his clients.
“Jeanne!” he yelled over. “Where are you going? They’re expecting you in the pressroom!”
“I’ve already been to the pressroom, thank you!” I yelled back. “The box boy in the basement told me where to go!”
Thanks to the bottleneck of people on escalators number seventy-nine through twelve, I was nowhere near the auditorium when The Young and the Restless won its Outstanding Drama Series Emmy and the majority of the cast ran up onstage. I’m sorry I missed it, but being hopelessly trapped on an escalator while my show was being honored on international television was a perfect way to end that particular evening. In fact, by then, as far as I was concerned, I’d decided that my real Lifetime Achievement was making it through the previous twenty-four hours without committing a single homicide.
Incidentally, my publicist called the next day. He used his end of the conversation to tearfully apologize for his neglect the night before. I used mine to explain the meaning of the word “fired.”
(See, Charles? I was discreet enough to make it through that whole story without once mentioning your name.)
In sharp contrast, one of the loveliest evenings of my life happened on March 9, 2009, at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, when the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) presented AFTRA Media and Entertainment Excellence Awards (AMEES) to the brilliant singer-songwriter Smokey Robinson, legendary Dodger announcer Vin Scully, the late, great voice-over genius Don LaFontaine, and me. It was a gorgeous dinner party, not televised, at which each of us was surrounded by friends and family, properly introduced, and encouraged to speak for as long as we felt we had something to say. As an added bonus, the event raised a lot of money for charity, and my daughter, Caren, was given a well-deserved, thunderous standing ovation, for reasons you’ll read about in the next chapter.
Now, seriously, is that kind of fun, familiar, comfortable, touching award night at which the honorees actually feel as if they’re being honored really so much to ask?
Which leads me neatly, I feel, to the Emmy Awards.
Only twice have I been nominated for an Emmy and lost when I genuinely believed I should have won. One I mentioned earlier—my portrayal more than twenty years earlier of Katherine Chancellor, Marge Catrooke, and Marge Catrooke pretending to be Katherine Chancellor. The other goes all the way back to my first nomination, for a guest-starring role on the Vince Edwards series Ben Casey, in 1962.
Mine was the second episode ever shot, entitled “But Linda Only Smiled.” I played Linda, a strong-willed woman whose personal beliefs threatened to derail Dr. Casey’s treatment of her daughter’s potentially fatal illness. It was a great part, powerfully written, and forgive my immodesty, but yes, I’ll say it: I nailed it. When word came that I’d been nominated, I honestly thought, “Okay, if I don’t win an Emmy for that performance, I’ll never win one.”
Of course, that was in my more naive days when I knew nothing about bloc voting, an East Coast–West Coast rivalry, and all sorts of other political nonsense that I refuse to rant about here because it’s every bit as uninteresting as it is frustrating.
The Emmy Awards were bicoastal in the early 1960s. The primary telecast originated in New York, while we Los Angeles actors, directors, producers, and writers gathered at the then-gorgeous Hollywood Palladium, surrounded by plenty of cameras and microphones on the off chance one of us West Coast people happened to win.
I was gowned, jeweled, and stilettoed to the nines, and the acceptance speech I’d prepared was exactly the right blend of humor and sincerity. My heart was pounding out of my sequined bodice as Walter Brennan appeared on the Palladium’s monitors and arrived at the podium to announce the Emmy nominees for Outstanding Performance in a Supporting Role by an Actress in a prime-time drama series: Joan Hackett, Colleen Dewhurst, Mary Wickes, Pamela Brown, and me.
Then, with the traditional “And the winner is . . . ,” he opened the envelope. I swear he did a double take when he looked at the card, and there was a subtext of “Am I reading this correctly?” as he announced, “Pamela Brown, Hallmark Hall of Fame . . . ?”
There was a gasp in the Palladium, and I sat there stunned, frozen in place, knowing my reaction was being caught on-camera. I meant no disrespect to Pamela Brown, nor had I seen her performance. I’ve been told that in its entirety, it lasted less than a minute. If that’s true, it must have been one hell of a minute.
For the record, I wasn’t the only person having trouble grasping this news. My pal Barbara Stanwyck, sitting at a table behind me, whispered, “You were robbed! This is a travesty!” while another pal, Lucille Ball, leaned over from her chair to mutter in her own inimitably delicate way, “What the fuck is wrong with those people?”
All night long friend after friend and colleague after colleague made a point of seeking me out to express their outrage on my behalf, along with their love, support, and respect.
I can honestly say that, in the end, the reactions to my losing my first Emmy were infinitely more rewarding than winning could ever have been. Looking back, disappointment and all, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Bright and early one morning in 1987 I answered the phone to hear my son Corbin’s voice, so excited he was almost yelling into the phone. “Mom! Did you hear? They just announced it—I’m nominated for an Outstanding Lead Actor Emmy! Can you believe it?!”
Of course I could believe it. Since the fall of 1986 Corbin had been playing the swaggering, maverick, womanizing attorney Arnie Becker on NBC’s hit series L.A. Law and playing him brilliantly, I might add without a shred of objectivity. That his work had earned him an Emmy nomination came as no surprise at all, and I think I may have been more thrilled than he was, if that was possible.
I couldn’t wait to get to work that morning to share the news. When I arrived, though, it
appeared that everyone already knew—I was getting congratulatory hugs, kisses, and high-fives from the moment I stepped off the elevator and headed toward my dressing room. How wonderful and supportive, I thought, for them to be so excited for Corbin. So it caught me completely off guard when someone finally said, “I saw your episode, and you were fantastic. You couldn’t deserve this nomination more.”
Before I could ask the obvious—“What the hell are you talking about?”—my dressing room phone rang. It was Corbin again.
“Mom, I’m sorry! I was so blown away when I heard I was nominated that I didn’t hear the rest of the nominees. You’re nominated too! Outstanding Guest Performer in a Drama Series! Is this unbelievable?! Congratulations! I’m so happy for both of us and so proud of you!”
It was one of the rare moments in my life when I was rendered completely speechless. My incredibly talented, incredibly gorgeous firstborn child and I both nominated for prime-time Emmy Awards, for work we’d done together, playing, of all things, mother and son—it was stunning, it was overwhelming, it was humbling, and it would have been a dream come true if I’d ever had the audacity to dream something as incredible as this.
I’d had so much fun shooting two episodes of L.A. Law that I almost felt guilty being paid for it. (Operative word: “almost.”) My character, Gladys Becker, was an outspoken, aggressive, take-no-prisoners woman who wanted her son, Arnie (Corbin), to represent her in her divorce proceedings against her husband, Arnie’s father. It was neither interesting nor relevant to her that Arnie’s father also wanted/expected Arnie to represent him. In one particularly memorable scene, Arnie and Gladys are having lunch at an upscale restaurant. At the suggestion of the director, Janet Greek, Gladys expresses her displeasure with her steak being undercooked by impaling it on the long bloodred acrylic nail of her forefinger and holding it up for the waiter to see, while Arnie looks around, desperately embarrassed, hoping no one is looking. (In other words, come to think of it, not altogether unlike many of Corbin’s and my restaurant meals together.) I was flattered when someone described the brief, pleasant shock of it to that moment in the film The Public Enemy when James Cagney smashes a grapefruit into Mae Clarke’s face, but I had no idea at the time that it would help to inspire an Emmy nomination.
Not Young, Still Restless Page 11