A Lotus Grows in the Mud

by Goldie Hawn

  I hesitated. “Wh-what do you mean?”

  “Well, tell me about yourself.”

  “Er, I did a bit of acting on Good Morning World, but that didn’t work out, and, really, I’m a dancer. I mean, is that what you want to know?”

  He laughed deep and loud. “Well, can you sing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you tell a joke?”

  “No. Not to save my life!”

  “And where are you from, Goldie Hawn?”

  The interview went on. I told him all about myself, but I still didn’t know what I was being interviewed for. At the end he said, “I’ll tell you what, would you like to be on Laugh-In?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t tell a joke, and I can’t be funny like that,” I said. “I’ve never done a review or anything, so I’m not sure what I would do on the show.”

  George laughed again. “Well, I don’t know what you’re going to do on the show either, so why don’t we give it a try? Three shows and we’ll see if it works out. What do you say?”

  “Well, okay. Thanks.”

  I left his office thinking, Wow, what was that all about? This is crazy. I just got three shows from a man who doesn’t even know what he wants me to do!

  The first time I arrived at the Burbank Studios, I got lost and had to ask someone the way. I walked into the rehearsal hall and found the cast standing around a piano, singing songs and laughing. There seemed to be a cacophony of creative indulgence.

  Gee, this sure looks like fun, I thought, hugely relieved.

  Cher, an icon of the time, was standing with them, rehearsing for the show as that week’s special guest. She was the epitome of the sixties and looked like a million dollars with her long black hair and her platform boots and her beautiful white Mongolian lamb coat.

  “So, you’re Goldie Hawn,” she said in her unique voice, looking me up and down. “We’ve been waiting for you. We wanted to see what you looked like. We thought you were a myth.”

  I was so intimidated. I couldn’t find the words, so I giggled. Ruth Buzzi beckoned me to the piano. “We’re just running through some stuff with Billy.” She pointed to Billy Barnes, the musical director. “Just watch the others and fall in when you can.”

  I stood there with the whole cast as they sang, “What’s the news across the nation? I have got the information…” and as I joined in, Cher put an arm around me. I melted and started to feel safe again. Yes, yes, yes, I am back, I am back, I am back in the chorus again!

  Next came a read-through of the script, sitting around a table, each of us reading our lines in turn. This was my newfound family—Ruth Buzzi and Arte Johnson and Jo Anne Worley. I liked all of them. But staring at my lines, I couldn’t see what was funny about them. They seemed to be straight introductions: “Here’s Dick and Dan with the news of the future!” or “Okay, now over to Ruth.” My lines just weren’t funny like everyone else’s.

  Oh boy, this is going to be so frigging boring, I told myself on the way home, wondering what Art Simon had gotten me into.

  The day of the shoot, I was all ready, if a little nervous. “Okay, Goldie, you’re up!” I rushed out of my dressing room, wearing a pillbox hat, skimpy top, bangles and a turquoise Pucci miniskirt. Taking my place at the podium, the studio was in darkness and silent. There were three cameras, little lights shining all around me and someone holding up cue cards. I’d never seen cue cards before and I squinted at them anxiously.

  “Okay, Goldie,” George said from his booth somewhere high up in the darkness above me, “all you have to do is read the words off the cards when the red light goes on.”

  But what George didn’t know—and I didn’t tell him—is that I am mildly dyslexic and sometimes mix up words when I read. So when the red light flashed and the cue cards began rapidly flipping over and over, instead of reading, “Dick and Dan, Ladies and Gentlemen, Laugh-In is proud to bring you the News of the Future,” I read: “Dan and Dick…I mean, Dick and Dan is…I mean, are…Oh.”

  I started to laugh because I felt so stupid. I mean, how simple could this be and I screwed up? The more nervous I got, the more I giggled. The more I laughed, the more we all laughed.

  Holding my hand up against the bright lights to see if I could see George, I called up to the booth. “Wherever you are, George, can I please do this again? I screwed up. George? Where are you, George?”

  His deep voice boomed out across the studio through the speakerphone. “No, Goldie. That will do just fine.”

  “No, but please, George, give me another chance.”

  “We like you just the way you are, Goldie,” came the reply. “Keep the cameras rolling, fellas.”

  “No!” I protested, still giggling at myself and thinking of my father, who always told me never to take myself too seriously.

  “That’s right, Goldie,” he said, “it was just perfect. Next time I want you to do it again just like that.”

  And so a career was born.

  By being a little bit absentminded and accidentally inverting my words, being nervous and then laughing at myself, a character emerged. I guess part of her was me. I guess this part of me had popped up in the high school play when I kept fainting like Olive Oyl; it was there when Ronnie Morgan slammed a plate into my face; it was onstage when I inadvertently made the audience laugh as Juliet. I was even called the “giggly girl” in a Disney movie I’d done called The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band, with Buddy Ebsen and Lesley Ann Warren. It also starred a popular child actor of the time named Kurt Russell.

  Suddenly, I was the Ditzy Ding-a-ling, the Dumb Blonde, the Bubblehead. Some sections of the press accused me of setting back the Women’s Liberation Movement. My answer to one reporter from Good Housekeeping was, “But I am already liberated.” One time, a reporter asked me if I felt any responsibility for the Women’s Liberation Movement. I looked at him and said, “Well, it first depends on what you mean by liberation. I mean, it’s important to be liberated from my fears. I don’t think burning bras is going to do that. I think laughing out loud is a great liberator. So I guess I think I’m doing my part.”

  On Laugh-In, I learned how to exercise a muscle that would allow me to empty my mind and laugh. That way, I could be surprised when the guys, bless their hearts, deliberately switched my cue cards or sabotaged my lines by holding up rude words instead. Or pretend that dear Dan, God rest his soul, actually made me laugh. Everyone always expected me to smile, or be silly, which I didn’t always feel like. But when that red light came on I had to forget everything and pretend it was all new to me. Laughing was sometimes hard work.

  One in every four Americans watched Laugh-In at its peak. It was a national love-in, a Monday-night ritual. I suddenly had exposure I could never have dreamed of. Along with everyone else in the cast, I was in the nation’s living rooms every week and people felt they knew me, could come up to me, talk to me and touch me.

  In the beginning, the sudden attention freaked me out, but now I was better able to handle it because of the intensive work I was still doing in analysis. Laugh-In became my healing ground.

  I also got married. His name was Gus Trikonis. He was Greek, and I was completely in love. I wore lilies of the valley in my hair and dressed in a flowing green pantsuit. I was twenty-three years old. We were married by a judge in a Honolulu courthouse in 1968. Art Simon, my manager and dear friend, was our only witness. Afraid to tell my mom and dad for fear of their disapproval, we eloped.

  Skipping out of the courthouse and down the street with childish excitement, I was now a married lady. Wending our way back to our beach hotel, I couldn’t stop staring at the ring sparkling on my finger, which meant I finally belonged to someone. I was living my dream; I was an honest woman, I was going to have children and live happily ever after. But first I had to tell my mother.

  Once she started talking to me again, Mom handled it pretty well. And, eventually, she fell in love with Gus too. He grounded me in those early years. It was so importan
t for me to be married then, as my star was rising. I wasn’t dating other men; I wasn’t handed around. Gus helped me grow up. He led me through my formative years in show business and helped me through the analysis of my own journey of self-discovery. He was patient and calm and kind. Through him, I learned to appreciate the simple pleasures in life—the comfort of sharing a home, planting a garden and cooking a meal. He opened up new worlds to me—of philosophy and of art—and taught me to ask the bigger questions in life. He introduced me to meditation, and taught me about the workings of the mind and the spirit. Thanks to him, for all of my time on Laugh-In I led as normal a life as I could. I stopped by the supermarket every night to buy something to cook for my new husband. I knitted sweaters for him. I even planted roses.

  I talked on the phone for hours each night with Ruth Buzzi, catching up with what we’d missed that day. Nobody could believe we could talk for so long about so little. Our time together on that show seemed to be almost one continuous conversation, punctuated with peals of laughter about the silliest things. Life was simple, calm and idyllic. I had a secure job, a secure marriage and the security of money in the bank. Everything was just perfect.

  But Art Simon committed me to the show for only three years. His genius was that he was right. The film director Billy Wilder spotted me on Laugh-In and called Mike Frankovich at Columbia Studios to tell him about me. Columbia offered me a four-picture deal, which meant that Laugh-In would—and did—continue brilliantly without me.

  Despite my deep personal happiness and my sense of bliss, time breached the moat of my safe little castle and dragged me back into the real world. There would be no going back.

  “Goldie, you’re up.” I reluctantly leave the sanctuary of my dressing room and, bracing myself, walk past Dick and Dan in their big dressing room. Nearing the soundstage where we always start out by banking one-liners, it feels like I am walking the last mile.

  All around me is the usual hustle and bustle, but it feels different for me because I am leaving and everyone else is staying behind. George is standing on the stage, soupy-eyed, and so am I. Our eyes lock. He doesn’t speak. He just takes my hand and barely lets it go for the rest of the day.

  I am in a daze. I can barely concentrate on what I’m supposed to be doing. I speak my one-liners like “Poop!” or “He doesn’t look Jewish” methodically. Mostly, I just hold George’s hand. We each cling to the other, afraid to let go.

  George tries to lift my spirits by taking me down memory lane. We reminisce shamelessly about Sammy Davis, Jr., and his “Here comes da judge” routine. I fondly recall guests like Nixon and Reagan, who were happy to make fun of themselves with their “Sock it to me!” lines. I remember Carol Channing, who called me her spiritual sister, and who lived on a diet of lobsters and some strange herbal concoction.

  “Hey,” I laugh, “what about that time I was supposed to be in Swan Lake as a duck, and you had the guys push my head through the wooden ceiling?”

  George roars with laughter, a sonorous laugh from deep within his belly. “God, I’d forgotten that! You only went through halfway and got stuck.”

  “Oh, and the trapdoor sketch!” I remind him, gasping. “You were horrid to me. How could you? You knew I was scared to death of that damn trapdoor.”

  Smiling, I think about Judy Carne’s misguided attempts to reassure me that day. “It’s okay, Goldie,” she said, “I’ve done this a hundred times. You just put your arms by your side and let yourself go. Pretend you’re high.” I looked at her and laughed, thinking, You have no idea how scared that makes me!

  George nudges me. “Judy was sweet. She waited for you underneath by the mattress. I could hear her shouting up encouragement.”

  “But you made me stand there, trembling and waiting for the drop. I felt like I was standing on air. When I was finally ready, you never even pulled the lever. All I could hear was your laughter ricocheting across the studio. That’s when I realized I was the butt of the joke.” I slap him playfully across the chest and then hug him. “You scared me, George. I hate you!”

  It is time to go. I squeeze dear George good-bye, and the tears start to flow. My fellow cast members gather around, and we form a circle of love. I kiss every one of them, hugging them with every inch of my life. My dear Ruthie, who I thought would be my best friend to my dying day; sweet Dick and Dan; Jo Anne Worley, who always made me laugh.

  “So long, Goldie,” they all cry, “see you around!” as I head back down the long corridor to the real world.

  I can’t look back, so I hold up my hand and wave. Door B of Studio One slams shut behind me. It slams shut on that part of my life that was so perfect.

  As I walk out of NBC for the last time, I recall the words of the actress Greer Garson when she came on the show. She was so gorgeous, and I remember she lived in Texas, not Hollywood, which amazed me. In her impeccable English accent, she told me, “Goldie, darling, if you want to be really happy, get out of this town.”

  I wonder what she meant.

  postcard

  The sparrow doesn’t sing; sorrow clipped his wings

  How lightly he was perched upon the icy birch

  His lover shot a dart through his tender heart

  He tumbled to the ground hoping he’d be found

  His stiffened body lies beneath the sun-filled skies

  To make reminder of to care for those we love

  —A poem I wrote the night Elvis died

  life’s rewards

  True rewards come from the intention of living an honorable life.

  Somewhere deep in my dream there is a bell. It is ringing incessantly. Oh God, I don’t want to wake up yet. It can’t be time. There must be a couple more hours before I have to get up.

  My hand reaches for the telephone in the dark. “H-hello?”

  “Goldie? You got it.”

  “I got what? Who is this?”

  “This is Alan from Columbia.”

  “Oh, oh. Hi, Alan. How are you?”

  “You got it.”

  Half asleep, I pull myself up, rubbing my eyes. Staring at the clock, I see that it is four in the morning. “I got what? What are you talking about?”

  “You got the Academy Award.”

  Sitting up in bed, I shake my head of sleep. “I what? I got the Academy Award? You mean, I won?”

  “You won the Oscar, Goldie. They just made the announcement. You got Best Supporting Actress.”

  I hear the words, but they don’t make any sense. I feel them reverberating inside my brain, ricocheting off the walls of my skull. Oscar? Best Supporting Actress? I knew I’d been nominated, but I never thought in a million years that I would actually win. When the words finally sink in, I jump up and switch on the light.

  “I did what?” I yell, pacing back and forth beside the bed. “Say that again. I won what?”

  “The Oscar, Goldie!” Alan laughs. “You won the Oscar for your first movie. It’s amazing!”

  “I won? B-but how is that possible? You mean for Cactus Flower? Oh my God! I totally forgot it was last night.”

  “I want to be the first to congratulate you, honey. I’m backstage here at the awards ceremony, and everyone is just so pleased for you. The studio asked me to call and let you know.”

  I can’t wait to get him off the phone, to call my mom and dad. It all feels so unreal. Sitting on the edge of my bed, in the middle of an unseasonably cold London night, I begin to shiver as I dial my parents’ number.

  “Mom? It’s Goldie! I won, I won the Academy Award! I’m in my hotel bedroom in London, Mom, and I just heard. I mean, I don’t understand. I won, Mom!”

  What I can hear in the receiver isn’t so much understandable English as a series of high-pitched syllables. She is crying, I’m crying—both of us sobbing into the telephone. “Goldie, Goldie, my Goldie,” is all she can repeat through her tears.

  “Oh, Mom,” I cry, “this feels so weird. This is all happening so fast. I mean, I’m not even there to pick i
t up.”

  Daddy comes on the extension, and I can’t tell if he is laughing or crying. Breathlessly, he tells me how he and Mom sat and watched it together on TV with some friends and neighbors. “I wish you’d been there, Kink! It was incredible.”

  “But who picked it up for me?”

  “Raquel Welch,” Mom chimes in.

  “Raquel Welch?”

  “Yes, honey. I didn’t know you knew her.”

  “I don’t know Raquel Welch!”

  My mother begins to cry again. “Oh, Goldie, honey. You made it. I’m so proud of you. We both are. Aren’t we, Rut? Rut? You there?”

  I hear a strange choking sound and know my father is crying. “Yes, honey,” he says. “So proud.”

  “Thanks, Daddy,” I reply, tugging shyly at my T-shirt. For a moment, I am unable to say anything more, thinking of them sitting in their living room, watching the ceremony on television. I can feel their joy. I made them proud.

  The telephone never stops ringing for the rest of the night. My producer and father figure Mike Frankovich screams into the telephone at me, “I can’t believe you did this, kid! I can’t believe you pulled this off.”

  Telegrams arrive at the hotel and are brought up to my suite on a silver tray, most of them from people I have never even met. One of them is from my childhood hero, Fred Astaire. “CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR OSCAR, GOLDIE HAWN” is all it says. I hold it in my hands as if it is the most precious jewel on earth.

  After taking a shower and pulling on some clothes, I float down into the lobby to wait for my wonderful driver, whom I love. A round-faced Cockney with a broad smile, he is early and ushers me into what I call my “Princess Coach”—the Daimler I literally walk into, it being as big as a living room.

  “Congratulations, Miss Hawn, this must be so exciting for you,” he says, handing me a beautiful bouquet of flowers.

  “Oh, thank you, Harry.” I smile, burying my nose in their scent.

  Sitting in the backseat on my way to Shepperton Studios as my car finds its way across central London, I sip my coffee and look at my flowers and can’t help but feel how hollow it all seems. What would it have felt like to get all dressed up and go to the ceremony with Mom and Dad? To walk the red carpet? To smile and wave and do all the things I used to watch the big movie stars do when I was a child? Once again, I am on the outside looking in.