Lucky Me: My Life With--and Without--My Mom, Shirley MacLaine

by Sachi Parker

  Then, quite suddenly, the moment was gone. Our hands broke off, we pulled ourselves together, and the rest of the meal passed in awkward silence.

  When we returned to the house, Yuki gave me a tour of the upstairs and downstairs, but she didn’t want me going into the basement. So naturally I had to go into the basement. I managed to sneak down there while Mitch kept them distracted.

  What I found was a rambling living space, completely furnished. There was a huge kitchen, a fireplace, and a bedroom with a king-size bed. In the kitchen, I found special Japanese cooking utensils. I’d heard that Yuki’s mom would sometimes visit, so maybe this was her room? Yet, I knew it wasn’t. Traces of Dad were everywhere: in the refrigerator were his special mustards and his Dom Perignon. In the cupboard, I found his elegant bone china teacups, and his Darjeeling tea. And in the bedroom closet: Miki’s clothes. Clearly she was living here, too.

  I looked around the bedroom. On the bed-side table was a photo of Dad and Miki on their wedding day. So they had gotten married! Miki was now officially my stepmother! There were also photos of Yuki and her kids, and Yuki’s mom. And a picture of Dad walking Yuki down the aisle on her wedding day. It was now one big happy family.

  I flew back to L.A. feeling both fulfilled and confused. I tried to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Dad had clearly fallen on tough times since Mom cut him off, although he still possessed that confident swagger, the sense that prosperity was well within his grasp (and he still possessed that chalet, that yacht, and that private island, so times weren’t that tough).

  Yuki, for her part, probably felt that she owed him for her education and support, so she provided him with a place to stay, as any good Japanese daughter would. But why didn’t anyone tell me what was going on? Why didn’t Dad tell me that he was married to Miki, and living with Yuki and her family? Why was I purposely kept in the dark?

  Maybe the bigger question was, why didn’t I just ask? Why didn’t I confront Dad about his secrets? Why didn’t I ask Yuki, especially after our epiphany? Because I couldn’t. Because it wasn’t good form. Because I still couldn’t shake off that stubborn Japanese insistence on decorum at all costs.

  • • •

  MOM had a house in Seattle, Washington, with a view of Mount Rainier. We would often fly up there, she and I, and spend a weekend. I was the resident cook. There was a pool and a hot tub, and Mom would sit out there reading scripts while I went for hikes in the nearby forest.

  We had some beautiful moments up there, but one day stood out for me, and not in a happy way. Mom and I were in the hot tub relaxing. We were talking about various things, and I don’t know how the conversation turned in this direction, but for some reason, out of the blue, Mom announced, “Sachi, there’s something I want you to know. I’m not leaving you any money.”

  “What?”

  “In my will.”

  “You’re not leaving me any money?” I was bewildered on two fronts: why was she bringing this up now, and why was she not leaving me any money?

  “I’m giving it all to the Kronhausens,” she said.

  The Kronhausens? Those freeloaders who had coaxed me into losing my virginity? Those characters who had already talked Mom into buying them a farm in Costa Rica? Those Kronhausens? They get the jackpot?

  She was also planning to leave some money to a Spiritual Awareness Center somewhere in California, or was it New Mexico? The plans sounded a little vague, but the main point she wanted to get across was that I was getting nothing.

  “Okay,” I said quietly. I didn’t argue with her, or ask her why. It was her money; she could do what she wanted with it.

  Still, at that moment, I felt utterly abandoned. I don’t know why: she’d never given me any money before, cutting me off when I was eighteen, and she’d even made me pay her back for that broken-down car. There was no reason for me to expect her to take care of me in her will. Still, I held out the hope that, because she was my mom, she cared about me.

  There was always this twisted, tangled confusion of love and money in our family. Mom used to tell me, “Your trouble is, you need money to feel love.” It was an odd contention, because I never had either. I think it was Mom and Dad who had created this love-money equation, in the way they doled it out or withheld it. I came to understand that, in their world, material gifts equaled affection—and I was clearly undeserving of both.

  To give her her due, maybe Mom was afraid of spoiling me. So many Hollywood parents tried to buy their kids’ love, lavishing money and sports cars on them, and it almost always turned out disastrously. Mom wanted to avoid that for me, so she went to the other extreme. Her intentions were good—she was protecting me—but in the process, she made me feel unloved.

  Mom laid her head back on the edge of the tub and closed her eyes, as the water churned around her. She had made her statement and had moved on. There was nothing more to discuss.

  This really ruined hot tubs for me. Seattle lost a lot of its charm, too.

  • • •

  NOT surprisingly, I started seeing a therapist. Jean was a heavyset white-haired lady in her fifties with a quality of softness and kindliness about her. She had twinkly eyes and a very round, maternal shape. I told her about the growing conflict with my mother, and she suggested that maybe I should bring her in for a joint session and see what we could work out. It could really be helpful and could bring us together—or (more likely) it could blow up in our faces. Jean was right, though: one way or another, the issues had to be addressed.

  “Mom, I think we should go into therapy.”

  “You and Mitch?”

  “No, you and me.”

  She laughed. She thought that was ridiculous. For all her cutting-edge enlightenment, Mom didn’t think much of therapists. She considered them manipulative charlatans who preyed on weak-minded wimps—like me—and she did not suffer them gladly.

  Still, I worked on her and managed to get her to a counseling session in Jean’s office. Jean welcomed us warmly, and kicked things off in a soothing voice: “Okay, what would you like to talk about?”

  Mom shrugged. This wasn’t her idea, and she wasn’t going to give it the validation of an opening remark. She passed to me.

  “Well,” I started, “I’ve been trying very hard to get my career going, and I feel that my mother could be of some help, but it seems that sometimes she’s just not on my side. It’s a very tough business, you know, and you need all the support you can get.”

  “It is a tough business,” Mom countered, “and that’s why you have to be tough to survive in it. People don’t help you? So what? Help yourself. Hey, I could make a phone call and get you a role like that”—she snapped her fingers—“but is that what you want? Do you really want to get a job that way?”

  “Yes,” I admitted.

  “People don’t like nepotism in this business,” Mom said. (This was one of her favorite maxims, although I didn’t see much evidence for it in Hollywood.) “You have to make it on your own. I did.”

  “Yeah, well, you had Charlemagne and E.T. helping you.” I was being sarcastic again, but I didn’t think she would hit me in front of Jean.

  She glared at me evenly. “All right, I’m going to put this as gently as I can: everybody in creation knows that you’re my daughter, but you still can’t buy a job. What does that tell you? Maybe you’re just not very good.” A hit, a palpable hit.

  “Okay, let’s take a step back,” Jean said. “Sachi, talk a little about your childhood.”

  “Well—”

  Before I could get started, though, Mom was back in there with a preemptive strike: “She had a wonderful childhood. She traveled all over the world. I spent my entire childhood in Virginia. That was a treat.”

  Jean asked, “Was it a wonderful childhood, Sachi?”

  “I was raised by my father in Japan. I saw Mom only once in a while.”

  “I was a working mother,” Mom explained.

  “And do you feel that she abandoned
you?” Jean asked me.

  “Abandoned her?” Mom answered. “I saved her! The Mob was after her. They wanted to kidnap her. I saved my daughter from the Mafia.”

  Jean kept focusing on me. “Sachi?”

  “I wouldn’t say she abandoned me, but I did feel there was something missing from my childhood.”

  “Oh, really? What was missing?” my mother said. “I gave you everything you needed. Got you clothes every summer. Bought you that stupid car. Name one thing I didn’t give you.”

  “I wanted to go to college…”

  Mom exploded. “You have some fucking nerve! I sent you to the best boarding schools in Europe. It cost me a fortune! You wanted me to spring for college, too?”

  “And I wanted a baby.”

  Mom turned to Jean for support. “A baby, at her age!”

  “I was twenty-seven!”

  “You didn’t have the maturity.”

  “You were twenty-two when you had me!”

  “And look what happened to you!” This was like one of those courtroom moments when the defendant inadvertently blurts out a damaging admission, and then is stunned by the self-realization that maybe she is guilty after all. Except Mom didn’t look guilty. She just looked more pissed off.

  I waited for Jean to step in, but she was watching quietly, waiting to see where this would lead. So I took the initiative, trying to sound as reasonable as possible. “Look, Mom, you didn’t have to spend a dime on me. I didn’t want your money. I wanted you. I wanted you to take care of me, tuck me in bed, make sandwiches for me. I wanted you to make those peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for me every day. That’s what I wanted.”

  Jean turned to Mom. “How do you feel about that?”

  Mom had had enough, and pushed herself out of her chair. “How do I feel about it? I feel that this is a big goddamn load of nonsense! I feel like I’m swimming in bullshit!” She turned on Jean. “And you’re bullshit! And I’m not staying to listen to another word!”

  Mom was heading for the door when she had one more thought to share. She stormed back at Jean. “You know what happens when you break down therapist? It’s ‘the rapist!’ How do you feel about that?”

  Having nailed Jean with that sally, Mom steamed out the door, confident in her sanity.

  Chapter 15

  Domestication

  In 1988, I auditioned for a TV show based in New York City called Manhattan Express. It was a live morning news show, but it shot at six in the evening, because the TV audience was in Japan. Manhattan Express was produced by Fuji Television, and it was like a Today show for Japanese viewers. The news would deal with U.S. and world topics, much like any morning show, and the anchors would be typical photogenic all-American types, except that they would be speaking Japanese.

  By the time I auditioned, they had already done an exhaustive search for a Japanese-speaking Jane Pauley. It was desirable that she shouldn’t be too pretty, but have camera experience and speak fluent Japanese and English. Now, there are different levels of the Japanese language, and I had stalled at the twelve-year-old level—I spoke children’s Japanese. I thought this might be a drawback, but it actually boosted my standing, because I came off as childlike, which is what the Japanese audience wants in a female anchor. They don’t care for women who come on too strong. So I was hired.

  My male counterpart was Christopher Field, who had gone to Harvard and spoke high-level Japanese, which suited his role as the hard-core news anchor. I was the fluff, offsetting him with lightweight puff pieces, anything to do with society, entertainment, celebrities, or human interest. The job paid $1,300 a day, so I wasn’t complaining.

  It was very difficult at times to project the image they wanted. I remember in particular the Pan Am Lockerbie bombing in December of 1988. Chris was going to report the tragic story, and they wanted me to sit beside him and smile during the broadcast. Smile? Smile at what? Two hundred and sixty people had just gotten blown out of the sky! I couldn’t believe it. You want me to be charming and smiley while Chris is delivering this awful news? He’s not smiling, why should I? I’ll look like an idiot! Still, they insisted that my disconnected grin would be calming and reassuring to the Japanese audience—and I mean, they insisted. So I did it. Remember, $1,300 a day.

  I was on Manhattan Express for six months or so. It was seen only in Japan, but I got to appear in PR spots on Good Morning America and Entertainment Tonight. It was a great gig—until it abruptly ended. Without asking me, my agent, Denny, demanded more money. This, of course, was the American way: to angle for a raise at the first opportunity. The Japanese way, however, was to be loyal and patient; making salary demands was considered the height of rudeness. So they fired me.

  Not too long after that, I broke up with Mitch. He’d turned out to be a less-than-perfect fiancé. He had a violent temper, and he crossed the line more than once. Years earlier I would have put up with it, or tried to run away, but I was a grown woman now, more independent and confident, so I just told him, “It’s over.”

  Mitch didn’t take this well. He yelled at me, threatened me. He slashed my tires. Somebody peed on the kitchen floor of my condo in Marina Del Rey. I could never prove it was Mitch, but it had to be somebody. True, an animal might have gotten in—but man, there was a lot of pee. No raccoon could have produced it. Maybe a coyote.

  Mitch also wanted half my earnings from the TV show, citing our “common-law marriage.” When I laughed off that absurd notion, he told me: if I didn’t give over half, he would go to the tabloids with the clone story.

  I called his bluff on that one. Who would ever believe it?

  After we broke up, Mitch got involved in a new relationship with a mystery woman. I confess, even though I’d initiated the breakup, I got really jealous. “Who is it? Who?” I had to know. He wouldn’t tell me.

  Then one night I had a dream. In it, Mitch was kissing another woman. She turned, and I saw her face. Oh my God.

  When I awoke, I immediately called him up. “It’s Debra Winger, isn’t it?”

  He was surprised. “How did you know?”

  • • •

  I had some extra time on my hands, so I finally got my breasts done.

  I was going to do a play called Independence, by Lee Blessing, in North Hollywood. In the play, my character had a scene where she appears topless. I wasn’t really self-conscious about my natural breasts, but when the production was postponed for a year, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to finish what I’d planned with the sinister Jeffrey so many years before. I had the money saved from the morning news show, so I went ahead and did it.

  They were fabulous; I loved them. If I didn’t get more work in Hollywood with these babies, then the system was definitely broken.

  • • •

  WHEN we eventually did Independence, I was in the dressing room backstage with the other actresses and I took off my shirt. There was a collective gasp of admiration. “Did you get your boobs done?” They were volubly impressed. I have to tell you, it may sound shallow and regressive, but there’s something very gratifying about being told that you have an attractive body. It reminded me of being back at the noodle shop, with the waitresses marveling at my American assets. Plus, it gave me such confidence onstage: when the topless scene came along, I was proud to take the girls out.

  Next up: The Lulu Plays, an adaptation of Frank Wedekind’s German plays Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box. I played Lulu, the girl who goes from street girl to dancer to wealthy man’s lover to prostitute, and winds up getting killed by Jack the Ripper. It was a great character arc, and I spent a good deal of the play topless again—which I relished: I’d developed a kind of fearlessness onstage that I could never approach in real life.

  Lulu was a pitch-black variation on the whore with the heart of gold—the kind of role my mother had patented. I got some excellent reviews, but the one that mattered most would be Mom’s. So I was especially nervous the night she came to see it.

  After t
he show, we went to a local Denny’s—not exactly Sardi’s, but commensurate with the stature that live theater commands in Los Angeles. Mom had offered me the usual generic compliments, but she hadn’t told me yet what she really thought, and I knew it was coming. I watched her eat her omelet in silence, and finally I had to ask the fateful question: “So, Mom, what did you really think of my performance?”

  She solemnly put down her fork, waited until the moment was dramatically right, and then, without a hint of sarcasm, with an almost passionate earnestness, she said, “Sweetheart, I’m only going to say this once, and you will never hear me say it again. Tonight you gave one of the most remarkable performances I ever saw. It was truly transcendent. I was touched, and I was shattered. And when I am on my deathbed, and they ask me what was the greatest single performance I ever saw in my lifetime, I will say that it was you, in this play. And then I will die. And that’s all I have to say, and I will never say it again.”

  Then she went back to her omelet.

  She never did say it again, but she didn’t have to. I was overwhelmed. Tears welled up in my eyes. This was so beyond anything I might have expected her to say. It was the best thing I’d ever heard from her—from anyone—in my life. It was as if she were passing the torch to me, and giving me her professional blessing. I had never felt as connected with her as I did on that night twenty years ago.

  My performance as Lulu won me a Drama-Logue Award for Best Actress in a Play. In a wonderful coincidence, Mom won a Drama-Logue Award the same year, for her one-woman show, so we went to the awards ceremony together.

  I suspect that if I hadn’t won, Mom wouldn’t have gone at all. The Drama-Logues weren’t the Oscars or the Golden Globes; there was nothing formal or ritualistic about the ceremony, and the crowd was entirely different, struggling actors and theater folk, most wearing jeans rather than tuxedoes. There was a lot of clapping and cheering. Everybody knew each other from auditions and scene classes, and they would yell at you from across the room—“Hi, Sachi!”—and shout congratulations.