Me and My Shadows

by Lorna Luft

  I just said, “Oh, yeah, people are always saying that. Of course, half the drag queens in the city look like Liza.”

  He just laughed, and we went on chatting. The first chance I got, I pulled the sheet back over Liza’s face.

  When we got to the hospital, we took her inside, got her admitted under a false name, and had her taken upstairs. Once there, I handed the doctor Liza’s purse, with its cache of assorted pills, and said, “Here. I don’t know what they are. I imagine she’s had some other stuff, too.” We got Liza settled, and then it was back to the phones.

  I had to call Mickey Rudin, Liza’s attorney, and have him make financial arrangements for the treatment at the Ford Center. He wasn’t too pleased, but he went along with me. Then Roni and I talked about transportation. We couldn’t very well put Liza on a commercial flight to Palm Springs, where the Ford Center is located. We finally decided to call the Sinatras; I knew Frank had a private jet that could make the trip, and I knew he would be discreet. Roni got him on the phone, and he was truly wonderful. He agreed immediately, no questions asked, and said he’d have his manager, Eliot Weisman, make the arrangements. Eliot was wonderful, a real champion, and the plane was ready the next day. One thing I can say for the Sinatras: they’ve always been there for me and my family; always helpful and gracious.

  By that time Liza was sound asleep, so I left her at the hospital and went home to finish my calls. Arlene was still with Jesse. By then it was mid-afternoon, but it seemed as though weeks had passed since I’d left the house that morning. I gave Arlene a brief explanation, sent her home, nursed Jesse, and got back on the phone to Dr. Skinner.

  I really didn’t know what I had gotten myself or my sister into; I only knew that the Ford Center handled problems like Liza’s, and that they were used to dealing with celebrities. I also trusted Elizabeth Taylor’s judgment, and I knew Liza did, too—or would, if she were thinking clearly. Dr. Skinner tried to explain to me that we couldn’t force Liza to go, that she had to go willingly, and that was why he would need to bring the interventionist with him. I still didn’t understand; I understood nothing of my sister’s disease, and I’d never heard of an intervention. Baffled, I had no choice but to trust Dr. Skinner and agree. While I tried to deal with him, Roni and Allen continued to scramble around making arrangements for money, for the press, for Liza’s understudy to take over in The Rink, and a thousand other details.

  Fortunately, we had an ally we could trust staying a Liza’s house, an old friend from high school named Pam Reinhardt. Pam and Liza had been friends since they were kids. Pam was as square as you can be, in the nicest possible way, and she truly loved my sister. I knew I could trust her absolutely. Liza had called Pam the week before and asked her to come and stay awhile because Liza was depressed over her problems with Mark. Pam, always the staunch friend, had flown out from California and was still staying at Liza’s house. I’d called her to come to New York Hospital and “babysit” Liza while I went home to make calls. Pam had been with Liza all afternoon, watching over her while she slept, and about nine P.M. Pam called me to say Liza was awake. Pam and I already agreed that Pam wasn’t to tell Liza anything about the plans. By that time Jake had come home, so I handed him the baby and told him I had to go back to the hospital. He didn’t ask any questions, and I didn’t want to get into it right then.

  Once at the hospital, I decided it was time to start preparing Liza for what was about to happen. Pam and Roni were both there with her, so I said, “Don’t you think it would be a good idea if they ran some more tests or something? You might need some, you know . . .”

  “Need some what?” Liza asked suspiciously. Her head was beginning to clear.

  “Well, look at Elizabeth,” I said. “Amazing. She went to the Betty Ford Center, and they say it’s really quite an amazing place.”

  Liza immediately said, “Well, I don’t need to do anything like that!” She was starting to feel better, and now she wanted to go home and pretend nothing had happened.

  “Fine,” I said. “But you know, Elizabeth’s coming out soon, and I hear she’s looking really great.” I looked over Liza’s head at Pam and Roni. Pam’s eyes were crossing, and Roni mouthed, “Oh, my God!” at me. They couldn’t believe I was saying it. But somebody had to say it. I was just planting the seeds, giving Liza something to think about.

  By the time I got home that night, I was so exhausted, I just fell into bed and went right to sleep. Early the next morning Roni called to say that she was sending a car; Dr. Skinner had arrived, and we were going to meet him at his hotel. He had given orders for me, Roni, and Pam to meet him there immediately. We were all to bring yellow legal pads and pencils with us. I turned Jesse over to our Jamaican housekeeper, threw on some clothes, and climbed into the car with Roni and Pam when it got there. The next thing I knew, the three of us were sitting in a hotel room with Dr. Skinner, taking notes on our legal pads like three schoolgirls.

  As we took notes, Dr. Skinner and the interventionist, a conservative-looking woman in her mid-forties, explained what an intervention was. “You are going to confront Liza,” she told us.

  We all looked at each other. “Confront her?” Liza is incredibly scary when she’s angry. Her eyes turn dark and snap, just the way my mother’s did. None of us wanted to confront my sister.

  The interventionist continued, “You need to write down all of the times she has hurt or embarrassed you with her behavior while she was using. You can’t use hearsay; you can only talk about times she has hurt you personally. Your job is to confront her with the reality of her own behavior, so that she will realize she does have a problem and will accept help. She must be convinced that she needs help.”

  She and Dr. Skinner continued, explaining that they would be with us throughout the intervention, to monitor the situation and keep it under control. He also explained Liza’s state of mind; he made it clear that as the drugs left her system and she started feeling better, she would think she was fine and just want to go back home. We must not let that happen. If we were lucky, he said, she’d see the problem and want to go. But if not . . . well, it was up to us. We might not get another chance. Liza might not get another chance.

  I looked at Roni. I had never respected her as much as I did at that moment. Roni had everything to lose by doing this: her job, her friendship with Liza, her whole way of life. But she never wavered. She just nodded. Pam was frightened, too, afraid it would be the end of a lifelong friendship. Of the three of us, I had the least to lose. After all, you can’t fire your sister. But still . . . After a moment’s silence, I said, “We’re doing this to save Liza’s life.” We were.

  So we started writing, each of us making a list on our yellow legal pads. Mine was the shortest, for Liza had hidden much of the worst behavior from me. Mostly I wrote about how sad I was when I looked at her, how sad I felt when she slept on my couch at night. The whole time I was writing, I kept thinking about my own drug use and saying to myself, “Who are you to talk?” I was also scared to death about confronting her. I kept thinking, “God, I hope this doesn’t happen. I pray this doesn’t happen. Please, please, don’t make us have to do this.” But most of all, I thought, “I lost my mother to drugs. I’m not going to lose my sister. I don’t care what it takes. I’m not going to lose my sister.”

  Our lists completed, Dr. Skinner gave us final instructions. We were to make final preparations to depart for Palm Springs immediately, because if Liza said yes, with or without an intervention, we would have to leave immediately. That meant we wouldn’t even have time to go home. Pam was to go to Liza’s apartment and pack bags for both herself and Liza. Under no circumstances was Liza to be allowed to return home. She would have to go straight from the hospital to the plane. Roni was also to pack a bag, and to make sure the Sinatras’ plane had arrived and was gassed up and ready to go. Roni was also to finalize last-minute business arrangements and make sure Liza’s driver was ready with the car. I was to go home, make arrangements
for someone to care for Jesse for at least a week, and pack a bag for myself. And that was it. We double-checked our orders and went home to wait for the night, like soldiers about to land in France on D-Day. I don’t think we’d have been more frightened if we’d been facing a firing squad.

  At home I called Jake and told him briefly what was going on. He asked few questions. Then I checked on Jesse, made a few last-minute arrangements, and sat down quietly for the first time in more than twenty-four hours. And finally, sitting there on the couch, I just fell apart.

  Ever since Roni’s emergency call the morning before, I’d been in Superman mode, pumped up on adrenaline and fear, functioning in overdrive. I’d reverted back to the little girl who’d run around taking care of things when my mom went out of control. But now, for the first time in the whole ordeal, it all hit me. I started sobbing. I cried out of frustration, and out of fear, and out of hope, hope that somehow, my sister would still be all right. “Maybe this is good,” Dr. Skinner had told me. “She’s bottomed out. That can be a blessing.” Maybe Liza would be all right after all. But then I thought about what we were about to do, about taking Liza to this strange place in the California desert, and most of all, I thought about what we’d do if Liza just got up and bolted out of the hospital and down the street.

  For an hour or two I just sat there, crying with fear and exhaustion.

  It was about six P.M. when the phone rang. It was Pam, from the hospital, where she was sitting with Liza. She sounded hysterical, giddy, and she kept saying, “She’s going to go! She’s going to go! She saw Elizabeth Taylor on the news, coming out of the Ford Center, and she’s going to go!” Pam was laughing and crying at the same time.

  I couldn’t believe it. What an incredible stroke of luck. None of us had known Elizabeth was coming out of the hospital that very day. “Thank God, thank God,” I kept thinking, dizzy with relief as I called Roni, and then Dr. Skinner. As soon as the sun came up the next morning, Roni arrived in Liza’s car, and we went straight to the hospital to get my sister. With Dr. Skinner and the interventionist, we sneaked Liza and Pam out a side door, sidestepping the press, and whisked her away in the limo, toward the airport. Gail, Liza’s faithful driver, was in on the secret. She’d been told not to stop for any reason without orders from me or Dr. Skinner, so the minute Liza stepped into the car, Gail hit the gas pedal, and we went roaring out of there.

  What a ride! I’ll never forget it. The whole thing was like a ridiculous movie. Liza was wedged in between me and Gail, and reality was beginning to dawn on her as we sped toward the private airport where the Sinatras’ plane was waiting. All of a sudden she yelled, “I want a hot dog!”

  I said, “You don’t need a hot dog. We’ll eat on the plane.”

  Liza yelled, “I want a fucking hot dog!”

  You do not want to be in a car with my sister when she’s yelling.

  I shouted at Gail, “Keep driving!”

  Gail was shaking like a leaf. Liza was still yelling at the top of her lungs, and Gail kept saying, “I don’t see any. I can’t find a hot dog stand. It’s too early.” All the while she was saying this, Gail kept pushing harder on the accelerator. By then we’re roaring through the streets of New York City at eighty miles an hour, with everybody’s eyes bugging. When my sister is angry, she’s scary.

  Liza continued to yell for a hot dog, and I finally said, spotting a hot dog stand, “Stop, Gail! I’ll get it!” Gail hit the brakes, and before Liza could move, I leaped out of the limo and ran to the hot dog vendor, shoving money at him. Pam and Roni somehow managed to keep Liza in the car until I got back and shoved the hot dog into Liza’s hands. It worked. She finally shut up for a few minutes and gobbled down her hot dog.

  Meanwhile we’d arrived at the airport. As we all piled out of the car, Gail said to Liza, “Go and be healthy,” and burst into tears. Liza was really touched. She put her arms around Gail and started to cry, too.

  “I’ll be all right,” Liza told her. “Don’t worry.”

  We said good-bye to Gail and went inside while the baggage was being put on the plane. We were so relieved to have made it that we all collapsed into chairs in the small waiting area. There we sat, catching our breath, when Pam suddenly said, “Where’d Liza go?” We all sat bolt upright and looked around. Liza was nowhere to be seen. Our hair stood on end. “Oh, God—Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God . . .” And we were off.

  It was like the Marx Brothers. Everybody took off at top speed, scattering in all directions. I ran to the limo, where they were still unloading the luggage. Gail said, “She’s not here!” I raced back inside the terminal, where the others were frantically searching. We looked everywhere—the cleaning closets, the ladies’ room, lying on our stomachs to peek into the stalls. We were grabbing everyone in sight, saying, “Have you seen a short woman with dark hair?” We threw open one door, and it turned out to be a conference room filled with businessmen. As the startled faces in suits turned to look at us, I said, “Have you seen . . . Oh, never mind,” and shut the door.

  We went panting back to the waiting area, in a blind panic, staring hysterically in every direction, when we suddenly heard a voice say, “What’s the matter?” It was Liza. She had reappeared, from God knows where, as if by magic. We all looked at each other blankly.

  “Uh, nothing,” somebody said, and we all sat down simultaneously and tried to look casual. It was like a scene from a movie.

  At last someone came out and said, “Time to board.” We jumped as if we’d been shot and tried to discreetly hustle Liza onto the plane. Once there we sat down, buckled our seat belts, and got ready for takeoff. I’m absolutely terrified of airplanes, and the Sinatras’ plane was a little Learjet, which is even worse. I kept thinking, “I can’t let Liza see I’m scared. I can’t let Liza see I’m scared.” So I sat there pretending to be calm, making casual conversation, while every nerve in my body was shrinking in terror. I looked at Liza’s purse, filled with that little pharmacy of hers that would be emptied at Betty Ford. I felt a sudden impulse to leap on it and swallow every capsule I could find. “Calm, Lorna, be calm now. Calm . . .” The plane took off. Liza had begun chatting with Dr. Skinner. Pam and Roni and I looked at each other. All three of us were still wearing our sunglasses, big dark lenses. We looked like three bugs, all in a row. We each whispered, “You okay?”

  “Yeah. You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  We were in the air by then, several thousand feet above the ground. Liza couldn’t escape now. We were safe. Six hours later, we landed in Palm Springs, California, and drove to the Ford Center.

  I helped Liza check in. She was upset to find there was no TV—she can’t go to sleep without one—but all in all, she took the whole procedure calmly. They asked her a list of routine medical questions. When asked if she took any medications, she said, “Occasionally. On weekends. Prescription drugs.” I didn’t say a word. They knew what they were dealing with. The paperwork completed, Liza signed some forms and was told she would be going to the Eisenhower Center first thing the next morning, for a round of medical tests. And that was it. Ronnie and Pam came in to say good-bye, and we all hugged Liza and cried. I still remember how small she looked as they led her away—tiny and vulnerable and scared. My big sister.

  Afterward we checked into the hotel and made the necessary phone calls. I asked Liza’s press agent to say she had been hospitalized but not to give the location or the reason, though they would find out soon enough. I called Jake, and I called Elizabeth. Then I called my father in Los Angeles, and finally I called Liza’s father. That was the hardest. Vincente understood all too well what was happening to Liza; he had gone through it forty years earlier with my mother. He started to cry, and I had to keep reassuring him that Liza was going to be all right, that it was a very fine hospital. He was up in years by then, and it must have been very hard for him to take in. He hadn’t realized what bad shape Liza was in. Finally he seemed to feel better, and he thanked me for helping sa
ve his little girl. I was touched, but I told him I’d just done what I had to do, what anyone who loved Liza would do. By the time I got off the phone, I was exhausted.

  Only three days had passed since Roni had called me that morning to say, “I need help.” It had been the longest seventy-two hours of my life. By the time Pam and Roni and I finished our calls and regrouped in Roni’s room, we were beyond exhaustion, mentally and physically. We all looked at each other, and then somebody said, “Where’s the bar?”

  Oblivious to the irony of what we were doing, we headed straight downstairs to the cocktail lounge and ordered three huge margaritas with extra ice. As we sat there sipping our drinks in that blissfully cool lounge, Roni suddenly said, “I want a hot dog!” We all cracked up. We laughed until we were sick from laughing. And then we started crying from sheer relief until someone else said, “But I really do need a hot dog. I need one now” And we’d burst out laughing all over again.

  I don’t know how long we sat there together, alternately laughing and crying. Finally they started closing up the place and we made our way upstairs and fell asleep.

  Collection of the author

  Me and Jesse, my son and my best friend.

  CHAPTER 18

  The Magic Lamp

  These days the Betty Ford Center is almost a rite of passage for celebrities. In the decade of Oprah Winfrey and Sally Jesse Raphael, it’s hard to believe that just fifteen years ago, the word “addiction” was applied only to junkies in back alleys, and if a family member had a “problem,” the best you could hope for was a quiet month or two in a medical clinic. These days there must be a rehab facility in every city in America.

  In 1982, when it was established, the Ford Center was revolutionary. Like an oasis in the California desert, the center, established by and named after Betty Ford, was the first place “respectable” people could go to get help. The day that the former First Lady publicly said, “I am an alcoholic with an addiction to prescription drugs,” she changed the face of America with her courage. And the day Elizabeth Taylor picked up the gauntlet Betty Ford had thrown down and checked herself into the Ford Center for chemical dependency, she transformed herself from a glamour icon to a role model millions of Americans could identify with. We owe these courageous women a tremendous debt of gratitude. I knew that when I took my sister to the Ford Center on that remarkable morning fourteen years ago, I was giving her a chance to save her life. What I didn’t know was that I was saving my own life, too.