Soon after I arrived in Los Angeles, the writers went on strike, and there was a year where film and TV production pretty much shut down. Movie actors became TV actors, TV actors did commercials, and commercial actors were out of business. It wasn’t clear what category I was in, but I wasn’t getting any work. I learned to play golf.
Less than a year into my idyllic new Hollywood life, I was panicking, selling my house and telling my agent to send me up on any commercial gig I was remotely right for: Snickers, Budweiser, Dockers, I was there. I got a few, but I was cursed by MTV—it had made me too recognizable. The other reason I didn’t get those gigs? I probably sucked. After going to Russia with Billy Joel, it was hard to summon the gee-whiz attitude needed for a Dairy Queen spot.
Martha:
After Jordan and I had been a couple for a year or so, he went on tour in Europe with the Fuzztones. I broke up with him while he was there, using a line we still quote today: “I’m a free woman in L.A.!” As I understand it, he had no trouble finding companionship to console himself. But when he got back to the States, he visited me and saw my datebook, where I had written down dates with A&R exec John Kalodner. His attitude was, “Well, that’s enough of that. I’m home now.” We had a few more on/off periods, but ultimately we were best and happiest together.
I’m glad I dated Stiv, because that’s the path that led me to my husband and my kids. Jordan and I have been together pretty much 24/7 for over twenty-seven years now, and in all that time, I haven’t quite figured him out. Being with him still feels a little like walking on freshly fallen snow. When I left MTV in 1991, Jordan started working as a commercial music composer. Between ads for Revlon, Victoria’s Secret, and Neutrogena, his music was on MTV more than Nirvana. When we’re empty-nesters, our plan is to roam the country in an Airstream, with our vegetarian German shepherd and one CD: Tea for the Tillerman.
Mark:
When I left MTV, I was famous for a while. After a couple of years in L.A., however, being a VJ felt like a millstone instead of a stepping-stone. I was always the guy with hair from MTV, and that boxed me in. I would go on auditions, and the roles would always be for a DJ or a drug dealer or a record-company executive—and I wouldn’t even get those. I cut my hair short because I wanted not to be sent up for those roles anymore—I look at those headshots and they’re terrifyingly awful. Then the money started to run out and I figured out that my acting dreams were not going to come true. The biggest thing that I lost in the years after MTV was my confidence.
Nina was smart to come out first, and book those jobs on Solid Gold and Entertainment Tonight. If I had gotten those gigs, I believe I would have triumphed. But at the time, I was so adamant about changing everything in my career and not using MTV as a ticket to whatever I was doing next. In 1991, I remarried. By February 1992, my wife was pregnant, while I was broke and out of work—I decided I had better get a job. I opened up a radio trade magazine, checked out stations in cities where I thought I’d like to work, and called them up: “Hey, I’m Mark Goodman, former MTV VJ, would you like me to work for you?”
My daughter Spencer was born on October 5, 1992, six days before I turned forty; I call her my fortieth birthday present. Spencer celebrated her first birthday in Chicago, where I’d gotten a job at Q101, doing the morning show. When I was younger, I couldn’t figure out how having a child would work into my plans. Now I know this: Even though I’ve had a pretty exciting life, if I had done exactly the same things, but without my daughter, I would have felt like a loser somehow. I’ve always tried to uncover true feelings in the musicians that I love—in myself, the thing that provides the best access is my daughter.
Martha:
After a couple of years, MTV hired me back. In the interim, I’d become the spokesperson for Neutrogena (“All I wanted was a job in rock ’n’ roll and clear skin!”) and landed the role of Mrs. Bobby Brady on the CBS nighttime Brady revival. MTV gave me a great contract with tons of money—I think I was getting about two hundred thousand dollars a year. They built me a studio out in L.A. and I hosted a bunch of shows, including Martha’s Greatest Hits, where I played videos from the early years of MTV, and MTV Prime with Martha Quinn.
The first year in L.A. was pretty great, and came close to re-creating the family feeling of the early days: If the kid cleaning the studio had gone to the Depeche Mode concert, I’d bring him out on camera and ask him about the show. Then I got the MTV Suit Clampdown: They told me to stop talking to extraneous crew members. I should have fought harder against it—that killed the spark of the show. I also hosted the MTV version of the radio show Rockline, which was the greatest: Fans would call in with questions for people like Slash and Bell Biv DeVoe.
Plus I finally got to interview Paul McCartney! MTV did a contest with Paul, and I told executive producer Joel Gallen that if I didn’t get to do the interview, I would go crazy—maybe spontaneously combust like a Spinal Tap drummer. On the big day, Jordan came with me, armed with his Hard Day’s Night LP and my “White Album” for autographs. We met Paul and Linda at the Capitol Records building in Hollywood, and maybe I was amazed. During our interview, Paul sat drinking a cup of tea. When the interview was over and autographs gotten, he and Linda said goodbye and left. While packing up my gear, I looked down and saw Paul’s teacup—still half full. I froze, staring at that tea. Paul McCartney’s tea. The tea Paul himself had actually been drinking. I picked up the cup and drank the rest of Paul McCartney’s tea—I didn’t care if I got a bacterial infection, if I got it from Paul. I looked around, saw nobody was looking, and put the spoon, the saucer, and the teacup into my bag. Today, it sits behind glass in my dining room—and has never been washed.
My second year back, MTV told me they wouldn’t be paying me the raise that was in my contract. Doug Herzog, one of the executives, said, “Well, it’s better than the alternative.” I should have walked. Every job I’ve had since then, I’ve fought for the money. Not to be a prima donna, but because I know that if I don’t feel valued, I won’t do a good job. And if I’m not doing a good job, then what’s the point?
My three-year contract ran out in 1991, and MTV didn’t renew it. My final guest on Rockline was “Weird” Al Yankovic. Being let go the second time hurt, but not quite as much. Now I had the experience J. J. and Mark had at the beginning of MTV: I’d had gigs, I’d lost gigs. I started my second phase of MTV knowing the sun would surely set on their newfound adoration of me. That time around, I kept copies of my interviews.
Alan:
Jan and I had a baby girl in 1989, who we named Callie. When we were at the hospital for Callie’s birth, Martha babysat Dylan.
I did a few game show pilots: Haywire, Triple Threat, Pure Insanity. I’d be smiling and tap-dancing and acting like a monkey: “What’s behind door number two?” It was the squarest bullshit ever, and they’d always want bigger smiles and more energy. I felt trapped. When you’ve been at the center of the coolest TV thing ever, it’s hard to do an unhip game show.
I also did a pilot for a Fox show called Malibu Beach Party with Alyssa Milano. The day before, Ken Ceizler called me up and asked me to host. I was pale to the point of translucent, so I drove around in Ken’s convertible with my shirt off, trying to get a quick tan. The next day, I woke up, and because of my little belly rolls, I had red and white stripes across my chest and stomach. The makeup lady came to the rescue with spray tan. Ken put me in a hot tub with Alyssa Milano: more specifically, a fake hot tub filled with very cold water that they put on the beach. Alyssa was wearing a bikini; she was sixteen, while I was thirty-two and happy for the cold water.
L.A. was an equal-opportunity self-esteem buster. In 1993, we moved back to Birmingham, where I started a film company with my brother. I wanted to produce, I wanted to direct—I wanted to control whatever part of a little empire I could build. I knew that would make me happier, even in occasional failure, than waiting around trying to get a job that I probably wouldn’t love.
Martha:
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br /> Al and Jan lived down the street from us in the Valley—I was very attached to their family, and shattered when they moved to Alabama. I drove away from their house sobbing, as Alan stood on his front lawn holding Callie, calling out, “We love you.”
Al and Jan were paragons of marital bliss—one thing I could count on in life was that relationship.
Mark:
They were the paradigm for all of us.
Alan:
I had visions of being married forever, but feelings morph and things happen; the midlife crisis is a cliché for a reason. I got a motorcycle and had an affair. I went all the way back to my roots, only to dissolve my marriage in the fishbowl of my hometown. Ouch.
Martha:
I went to Atlanta to do a Bell South commercial. Alan and I were starring in it, and his company was producing it. That night, we drove back to Birmingham together, and at one in the morning, I heard Alan storm out of the house. I went downstairs, Jan and I drank some wine, and she told me what was going on. Ultimately, they got divorced, which really shook me up: If they couldn’t stay together, what chance did anybody else have?
Mark:
I think Martha took the divorce harder than Alan.
Alan:
My theory is that I needed an excuse to move out of that marriage. I don’t think Jan ever would have forgotten, but she was willing to forgive. We probably could have salvaged the marriage, if I had wanted us to. I’m not sorry about the nineteen years we were married, especially because we ended up with two great kids. I do I think it’s ironic that I was a faithfully married man when I was a celebrity at MTV with lots of opportunities and a single guy when nobody cared who I was.
Many years later, in 2007, I got married again. Elizabeth was eighteen years younger than me, and had never seen me on MTV because her family blocked the channel on their television. She came down to Birmingham for the summer to do some research on a screenplay she was writing, and we quickly fell for each other. We got married and had two fab little boys.
Nina:
Dennis used to walk around the house singing, “I love my wife, I love my wife.” Things were great between us, except I was working so hard. I had three jobs, and I was flying all over the place. One time, we went up to Santa Barbara for a weekend in a B&B so we could have a couple of days to chill out by ourselves. As soon as we got there, my beeper went off, and I drove back to L.A. so I could interview Ray Davies.
Michael Bolton needed a tour manager, so Dennis went on the road with him for a few months. I went out to visit him on the road a couple of times, and he seemed distant, but I chalked it up to the job, which is high pressure. But when Dennis came back home, I saw and smelled a different person. He had even changed his cologne from the lovely Grey Flannel to Eternity. To this day, I gag whenever I smell Eternity.
Dennis never unpacked—he told me that he didn’t want to be married anymore. I freaked out and found stacks of women’s telephone numbers in his briefcase, and charges for flowers on his credit card. The next day, he drove off in the red Porsche that I had bought him—his dream car—leaving me literally doubled over in pain. Next to my father dying, it was the worst experience of my life.
I went through a really bad period. The Entertainment Tonight gig dried up, and Solid Gold went off the air. Arsenio Hall, who was my cohost, went on to his own show, but all the work I was getting offered ran against my values. I got offered correspondent positions on Inside Edition and on Joan Rivers’s talk show—but as the gossip columnist, which I felt betrayed the trust musicians put in me. I actually did a day of work for A Current Affair, reporting on the red carpet at the VMAs—but then the show edited together my interviews with Madonna and Cher to fabricate a feud between the two of them, so I quit.
I was also offered an endorsement deal in the “What becomes a legend most” fur campaign—I could have really used the money, but I’m too much of an animal lover. I started seeing a therapist, who told me that I hadn’t grieved for my career. She also told me that I’d make a great receptionist. I told J. J. about that. “Bean,” he said, “get rid of her.” Being a receptionist isn’t necessarily a bad job—but it’s not what I worked decades to do.
J. J. was a good friend, but he didn’t understand depression. I’m not talking about feeling down in the dumps for a day, but the kind where you feel trapped, and you would do anything, even kill yourself, just to get out of the misery. If he ever got depressed, he never acknowledged it. He’d say, “You know, there are people who are suffering and starving.” I understood that, but it didn’t help—if anything, it made me more depressed, because that’s awful.
All my hope was gone. One day, I was driving home with my 149-pound Malamute, KRSNA (pronounced “Krishna”). That dog saved my life, because I was in so much pain, I wanted to drive the jeep into a bridge abutment. The only reason I didn’t was because I didn’t want to hurt the dog.
I ended up in the suicide ward. I couldn’t even get ahold of that terrible therapist. Gradually, I put myself back together and became a stronger person. Three other things changed while I was in the ward. The first was that I stopped drinking. The second was that I started swearing—before, my vocabulary had been strictly G-rated. The third was that I met this guy, Kelly. He was a Shakespearean actor, and a cool guy, and we became good friends. Year after year, we helped each other climb out of hell. We had a real connection of the heart and the soul, and we’ve been together for fourteen years now. We laugh about how we met: “It was so romantic, with the morning sun glistening on the barbed wire. . . .”
Kelly turned out to be the love of my life. He still lives in L.A., but when the city started to make me nuts in 2007, he was very supportive of me moving to Maine. I live by myself in the middle of nowhere. I do have lots of animals: two Alaskan Malamute dogs (Chinook and Kippen), an African Grey parrot (Einstein), a Red-Lored Amazon parrot (Thoreau), and six cats, all stray or rescue (Tux, Desdemona, Pyewackett, Leara, Nzuri, and Purrrrchouli). I also have regular visitors on my property: flying squirrels, woodchucks, porcupines, and a couple of moose. With all the wildlife and the blossoming trees, it feels like living in a Disney movie by way of Monet.
Driving across the country was an adventure. I flew the dogs out later, but I stacked all the cat crates on top of each other, and had the two parrots in cages in the front seat. Each evening, I’d have to find a pet-friendly motel and unload them all. When the clerk would ask, “What kind of animals? I’d casually say, “Oh, a couple of cats,” and ask for a room as far away from the office as possible. In the morning, I’d gather them up—I put each cat in a little harness and leash so I could manage them a bit easier—and roll out before dawn. It would take fifty miles of traveling before the meowing stopped.
Mark:
On New Year’s Eve 2001, Randy, my best friend in L.A., hosted a small dinner at his house in the Hollywood Hills. The plan was to drink lots of champagne, barbecue a great dinner, and then take car service to the rave that was happening on Hollywood Boulevard.
I had separated from my third wife a while back, and had been casually dating someone else, who had suddenly refallen in love with her ex-boyfriend. Four days before New Year’s Eve, she informed me that we wouldn’t be going out as planned. I was happy for her, and fine with whatever happened. I guess that’s when the big stuff in life happens. Randy worked for Interscope Records, commissioning videos; he invited this girl Lisa, who was an attorney for the company. Lisa brought her childhood friend Jill, who was visiting from New York. As it turned out, the only people on the guest list for Randy’s party were me, Lisa, and Jill.
I hit it off with Jill right away. She was incredibly sexy: a beautiful body, and a great mouth. We laughed a lot, and that night, we kissed. We’ve been together ever since. The first couple of years, we were on separate coasts, but we managed somehow. I moved back to New York in 2004, and that helped solidify our relationship. Jill’s got two great sons, who I love. Once they’re both off to college, it will
be our time.
Martha:
Jordan and I got married in Las Vegas in 1992, wearing our best blue jeans. We have two kids, a girl and a boy. When I first had my daughter, I disappeared completely into motherhood, even becoming a La Leche League leader, running breast-feeding support groups in Hollywood. Before she was born, I was auditioning for sitcoms and doing infomercials, but when my baby came, my attitude became, “Career? What career?”
When my daughter was two years old, CBS This Morning tapped me to do a biweekly segment called “Yikes, I’m a Grown-Up!” which I cohosted with Lisa Birnbach, author of The Preppy Handbook. It was amazing to be back on television, but it was very hard on my family. When my contract was up at the end of the year, I declined to continue. I was nervous to tell J. J. that I’d quit—he was very proud of me having that gig. But when I explained, “It’s too disruptive on my family, and my baby girl’s just three years old,” he got choked up and said, “I’m so proud of you, MCQ. You’re doing the right thing for Jordan and your baby.” I was so relieved—J. J.’s opinion carried a lot of weight with me.
Mark:
J. J. got back into radio in Los Angeles. I worked for him at a short-lived radio station called “The Edge”—it was free-form with structure, and he was the program director. J. J. was living with a woman and helping raise her daughter. Eventually, they broke up because she suddenly got into channeling, and he just did not buy into that. He felt like Dr. Mobius, or whoever the fuck she was channeling, was getting more attention than him. He wasn’t down with that.
VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV's First Wave Page 28