The Face That Changed It All

by Beverly Johnson

  At the airport and the hotel, white employees wouldn’t even look me in the eye while checking my bags. The valet barely acknowledged me, and it was the same with the front desk at the hotel. It took my praying to God for strength and patience to allow me to see the love in all the people around me.

  Sun City was a luxury casino and resort situated in the North West Province of South Africa. It was only a two-hour drive from Johannesburg and was considered a key entertainment venue in South Africa at the time, welcoming performers such as Frank Sinatra, Queen, Rod Stewart, and Elton John.

  But the resort wasn’t without its share of harsh critics. In 1985, activist and producer Steven Van Zandt founded a group to protest apartheid in South Africa. The group produced the song “Sun City,” which urged musicians not to perform at the resort, suggesting that to do so would be an acceptance of racism and apartheid.

  After arriving in Johannesburg, I headed straight to Danny’s home, which was one massive, sprawling mansion. Anansa had already been enrolled in one of the finest schools in the area, and Danny seemed to want to stay there for a while. But I was determined that my daughter wouldn’t be joining him permanently. Common sense, however, didn’t appeal to Danny, so he didn’t budge, and he refused to give me Anansa’s passport.

  I was done with custody battles, so there was very little I could or would do, and Danny knew it. But fate would intervene before my trip was done. Though I didn’t know how I would get my daughter back home, I decided to make the most of the two weeks in South Africa by going on safaris with Anansa and doing as much sightseeing as we could. It felt so natural to be in the motherland and among people with skin that so closely resembled my own. What beautiful land, customs, and people! It was the trip of a lifetime and a great opportunity to teach Anansa about our heritage and culture. The stories were all around us, and I could see and hear them in the faces of the people that passed me by on the street, and in the shapes of the buildings. Anansa and I bonded over hot-air balloon rides over the city, fireworks celebrations, and the best music concerts ever, at Sun City. I loved every minute of my time with Anansa there, but it couldn’t last. I needed to get back home and wanted her to come with me. There was no way for me to make frequent trips back and forth to South Africa given the cost. Danny and I would have to find a compromise.

  My compromise was simple—Anansa had to come home.

  One night, I arrived at the hotel frazzled, not to mention very late, to a reception held by a high-ranking woman with close ties to the African National Congress. Arriving late anywhere is incredibly rude, but being late is one of the worst forms of disrespect you can display toward the host of any event in South Africa.

  The host wouldn’t even speak to me for the first thirty minutes or so, and remained in a back room handling other business. At one point, I was escorted back to see her, and after apologizing profusely for my tardiness, I immediately launched into the story of my daughter and how she’d been taken away from me.

  I couldn’t tell if my story was registering at all, but after a while her body language shifted slightly and she began to nod as if she understood exactly what I was saying. Other women in the room began nodding their heads, too, and speaking in low voices in a language I didn’t understand.

  I had no idea how much that night would change my circumstances for the better with my ex-husband.

  The next day I went to visit Anansa. When I got there, Danny opened the door and handed her passport to me as soon as I walked in. I didn’t ask any questions or say anything—instead, I just took the passport and helped my baby girl pack her things. We were going home! Praise the Lord!

  I was told some time later by those in the know that the ANC and the women who worked with it had a lot of power, and were none too pleased to hear of Danny’s globe-trotting ways with my daughter. They made their displeasure known to my ex-husband in very clear terms that even he understood, and demanded that he return my daughter instantly.

  I took my daughter back to New York a few days later, and Danny dutifully found his way back there over the next few months, too. Anansa continued to move between our two households—she still needed time to decide where she wanted to be, and I was content to wait as long as she needed to make the decision.

  Since I was celebrating the return to my career, and the fact that Anansa was beginning to see the truth about her father, I decided to try to see family and old friends again, people I’d shut out of my life at my lowest moments and now needed to see more than anything.

  One face I really wanted to get up close and personal with again was Grace Jones’s. We had only met once at a roller rink, but I knew that if we were to ever spend time together, much fun would be had. We both had children around the same age. Grace had a son named Paulo Goude, and he and Anansa often had a ball playing together in New York. Everything about Grace inspired me to keep moving forward and away from the gloom and doom of the years past. I needed to reinvent myself, and no one could deny that Grace was the master of reinvention, not to mention of self-esteem.

  Most women should be lucky to have the type of confidence that Grace displayed. And just having Grace’s slightly manic energy around me was a real boost for my morale. Plus, Grace loved nothing more than a good party, and I loved nothing more than giving one!

  But that’s not all we had in common. Since we both started out as models, we shared a few very bad habits, too. Sadly, my self-medicating ways hadn’t quite gone away. Being sober around Anansa, whom I was spending more and more time with, was no problem, and I was similarly careful when I was working. Only when I was alone in my apartment did I fall victim to those dangerous vices again.

  I still didn’t believe I had a real problem, but a big hint was on its way.

  The hint came in the form of my old friend Alicia Melkon, who called me from Paris, where she lived. She was concerned about her daughter, Gigi, who she was certain had joined some type of crazy cult. She had gotten this idea because Gigi had begun to recite a number of strict rules by which to live.

  Gigi lived in Los Angeles, but regularly traveled to New York for work, so Alicia asked if I would have a heart-to-heart with her to find out more about what was going on in her life.

  When Gigi came to New York, I threw a party at my swank high-rise and filled it with libations and many other substances. I had much more than my share of good times that night, and the next morning, as I tried to deal with my daily hangover, which included a splitting headache among other things, Gigi asked me, “Have you ever thought of getting sober?”

  What in the world was this girl talking about?

  Then Gigi opened up about her troubles with addiction and how she had sought help through various AA programs (the “cult” her mother was worried about). Gigi’s brutal honesty with me that morning hit me hard. But I still wasn’t ready. I needed something more to push me to get real help.

  My modeling career continued to flourish throughout the eighties, as did the insane money that came along with it. I was making ten thousand dollars a day for advertising jobs, and a hundred and fifty thousand when hired for three days to do a spread for a Neiman Marcus catalogue. As supermodel Linda Evangelista famously said once about top-tier models, “We don’t wake up for less than ten thousand dollars a day.” I know it sounds a bit tacky, but it was true.

  As my career continued on the upward swing, I thought more and more about business ventures that could seal my success for years to come. I had had the chance to work with Naomi Sims and watch her develop product lines in the eighties that did fairly well in the marketplace. Very few black women, besides Madame C. J. Walker, the woman who invented the hot iron, had their own line of products, so the idea of following in Naomi and Madame Walker’s footsteps appealed to me. Luckily, I would have the chance to meet a woman who could teach me all the essential steps to becoming a success in business: Nikki Haskell.

  I met Nikki at a dinner party in New York while I was in the thick of my child-custody ca
se. We became the best of buddies almost in an instant. Originally from Chicago, Nikki was raised in Beverly Hills, studied at the Chicago Art Institute and the New York Institute of Finance, and was one of the first female stockbrokers on Wall Street (she was named stockbroker of the year in 1968). In the 1980s, she was known for hosting some of the hottest parties of the decade, for stars like Michael Jackson and Cher, at Studio 54 and The Underground. She was totally my kind of friend—a strong and fearless woman who wanted nothing more than to see me get higher and higher in my career.

  Nikki knew a lot about everything and introduced me to all sorts of people, including the person who signed me to my first major licensing deal. That meeting set me up with a prescription eyeglass deal with Sears department stores nationwide, which was incredibly lucrative and successful for me for many years. Her introductions didn’t stop with business, however. She also introduced me to a talented and good-looking actor named Chris Noth. Chris at that time was riding high in his role as Detective Mike Logan on the legal drama Law & Order. (He would gain much larger success in the late nineties as the enigmatic Mr. Big on HBO’s Sex and the City.)

  Nikki was fairly certain—aren’t they always—that Chris was the perfect new man for me. I didn’t care either way, but agreed to accompany her to a dinner where Chris would be. I had dyed my hair a lighter color that night, and I chose to take a vote at dinner about whether or not it looked good. Chris had the most favorable opinion, which I completely dismissed—he barely knew me, so what did his opinion matter? He was OK looking, but nothing to write home about. Later on that night, I walked to the bar to get a drink, and Chris joined me a few minutes later. He came up to me from behind and put his arms around my waist. There was something so calming and reassuring about that gesture that any doubt I’d had about him quickly dissipated. I could see big potential in Mr. Big.

  But the excitement of meeting Chris couldn’t mask what was happening in other parts of my life.

  All good things must come to an end, and the opulent lifestyle of the eighties would be no different. The overindulgence and the devil-may-care attitudes of that period had taken their toll and done their share of damage to us all in various ways. AIDS had cut a path directly through the heart of fashion and left pain, heartache, and death in its wake.

  The deadly infiltration of drugs and AIDS robbed our industry of the most amazing talent, and me of some incredible friends. Beloved dears like Quintin, Suga, Halston, Willi Smith, and Patrick Kelly all lost their lives. So many were gone in such a short period of time that I was once again overwhelmed with grief. It was becoming too much for me to handle alone in the big city, and I knew it was time for a major change.

  Moving to California had been a dream of mine for about a decade. I yearned for palm trees, for trying out for more film roles. I could take more acting classes, and enjoy the beautiful sunshine twelve months out of the year. I could begin again, and what a joy that would be!

  It just felt right to start my life once more at a new address in a new city. I needed a fresh start, and I felt that I deserved a fresh start after all I’d been through.

  But that’s not exactly how Anansa felt. She was shocked when I told her I was packing up and moving across the country. She couldn’t believe I would move so far away from her. She still was fairly satisfied with the arrangement of moving back and forth between her father and me, though in recent times she had realized that her father was taking longer and longer trips away from home to places farther and farther away. Sometimes she had to live for months at time with nannies or sitters while he was away.

  As her mother, I hated the fact she had to deal with such a harsh reality at such a young age, but I also knew she couldn’t run away from what was real. She had to put on her big-girl pants and make her decision once and for all.

  Anansa decided she wanted to come to live with me, but she wanted me to tell Danny. I made it clear to her that she would have to tell her father—she needed to take back control. I wanted her to understand, even at her young age, that she had to be in control of her own destiny, or else risk always being under someone else’s thumb.

  Ultimately, my daughter did tell her father she wanted to be with me, and he agreed. It was as though it had never been an issue in the first place. He was one crazy man.

  And so began a new chapter in my life.

  Now I had to learn how to parent a preteen full-time. Anansa was accustomed to having her way with her father—this was a child who could write on the walls of the apartment with crayons because Daddy would let her. Getting her to follow my rules, any kind of rules, was going to take some doing, but I had a clear-cut, no-fail plan. I enrolled both of us in therapy—parenting therapy, as well as individual therapy for each of us—and I tried to make it fun. I mixed it up with dance classes, pottery classes, and cooking classes—anything, in fact, that I thought would build more trust and stronger communication between the two of us.

  I remember telling Anansa on many occasions to go to her room and scream into her pillow when she was angry with me because that’s what the pillow was good for. She would reply, “Oh Mom, what self-help book have you been reading today?”

  I had grown up in a time and in a home where your parents weren’t your friends, they were your parents, but the situation with Anansa’s custody had made a traditional parental relationship more challenging. I wasn’t in a position to enforce rules and guidelines the way most mothers would have when she was younger, so I couldn’t just pretend we were the regular mother and daughter, because we weren’t.

  My good friend Nikki, who’d moved back to Los Angeles around the same time I had, was a tremendous help with Anansa. She wasn’t a mother, but she had a gang of nieces and nephews and understood Anansa’s teenage antics the way that I couldn’t—I was too blinded by my love for her and wanting her there with me, after not having her for so long, to really understand.

  But with the help of music mogul Quincy Delight Jones—who had just launched Michael Jackson’s solo career with Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad—Anansa was accepted into the very best schools in Beverly Hills, where her classmates were the likes of Nicole Richie, Paris Hilton, and Kim Kardashian. Yes, Anansa was in “high cotton,” as the old folk used to say, and Danny had no choice but to foot the bill for her pricey private schooling. I’m sure he loved that!

  After Anansa had been in Los Angeles with me a year or so, I encouraged her to read the entire custody court proceedings. I wanted her to fully understand what had happened over the years in court, and what had been said during the hearings by everyone—me, Danny, the judge—everyone. I wanted her to know how her father and aunt had lied. I wanted her to know how hard I had fought for her, and that the case had never been about my being an unfit mother. I needed her to fully appreciate what that custody battle had really been about. I can still remember her curled up in the middle of the floor going through page after page, reading every line. It was imperative that she understood how important she was to me, and what I had endured to make sure I got her back.

  Anansa’s arrival back in my life full-time again came right on time, and I was ever so thankful. She was a godsend and became my rock as I made the decision to finally face the most drastic change in my life.

  I reached out to Alicia’s daughter Gigi and asked if I could attend my first AA meeting with her. With my daughter by my side, I was ready to forge ahead into a life without the crutches of drugs, alcohol, and nicotine. From my first meeting at AA, I knew in an instant I was exactly where I needed to be. My recovery wouldn’t be a walk in the park, but sitting at those meetings felt like I was on the right track, even though I knew it would be an ongoing struggle. Recovery from any addiction is a continuous process—it’s not the end when you kick your habit, only the beginning. Anansa, bless her heart, loved to bring me birthday cakes celebrating the anniversaries of me quitting drinking, smoking, and using cocaine. My daughter was so proud of me, and I was so happy that I could make her proud
with every little step. She was still my baby girl, the only person I had anything to prove to.

  Ironically, the smoking habit was the toughest of all the vices to quit. I yearned for a cigarette day in and day out, and sometimes the desire was so intense I wanted to crawl out of my own skin. But addiction was something my family had battled quietly for years, and I had to face that reality as well. My father had his issues with alcohol for most of his adult life, and some of his children have walked that same slippery slope with drinking, too.

  As I eased into my brand-new world of motherhood and normality, I continued seeing a therapist to help me sort out a host of inner demons. But I honestly don’t know how I fit motherhood, auditions, modeling assignments, television appearances, and my efforts to stay sober and sane into my daily life. I was fortunate that I had a job that allowed me a certain amount of latitude in my daily dealings. That freedom afforded me the opportunity to attend AA meetings whenever I needed and to focus on any other business I needed to keep my life on track. I was, and I am, blessed.

  The blessings continued to flow as Nikki called with news that Chris Noth would be coming out to Los Angeles for a few movie auditions and wanted to give me a call. My mind wandered back to that night at the party in New York and his arms around my waist. I had really appreciated that sense of comfort and security I felt in that moment with him, and I wanted to experience it again. It had been a while since I’d felt that feeling in my life.

  My darling daughter answered the phone when Chris called after he arrived—from watching him on Law & Order, she’d decided to nickname him Big Nose—and immediately yelled with him in earshot, “Hey, Mom, Big Nose is on the phone.”

  Teenagers! I can tell you they never warmed up to each other over the course of our relationship. Nevertheless, we had a charming dinner while he was in town, and I could tell that a wonderful new friend/relationship was in the making. The next morning, still on cloud nine, I stepped outside to pick up my Los Angeles Times newspaper and noticed my new, very tall neighbor leaving her apartment. She had just moved in across the hall with her boyfriend and young daughter, and I couldn’t wait to meet them. I wanted to make as many friends as I could in my new hometown, and I had heard so much about them from the landlord.