A Lotus Grows in the Mud

by Goldie Hawn

  More than that, this award scares me a little. There is so much inside me that I still want to do, to stretch myself and to do some real drama. I sense that it will probably be a long, long time before I ever experience anything like this again.

  Crossing a bridge over the River Thames, I let my mind drift back to my experiences on Cactus Flower. It really wasn’t that hard, I remind myself. It was a very light role, and it was easy for me. Walter Matthau was supposed to be my love interest, but he was more like a father, or a Jewish uncle. “Goldala, my Goldala,” he used to call me affectionately, shortly before spraying the room and himself with disinfectant so he didn’t catch any of my germs.

  Walter was strange and wonderful and interesting, but he wasn’t the easiest person to work with. When I couldn’t rehearse with him one day because of a magazine interview I had to do, he punished me. Giving me a withering look when I returned, he put me under such pressure, not trusting that I knew my lines, that he sabotaged me and made me flub them for the first time.

  Ingrid Bergman couldn’t have been kinder. She became a mother figure to me, caring for me when I had a cold and worrying about me constantly. She was such an icon, a grande dame of movies. I had always imagined her being delicate and angelic and soft, like Ilsa in Casablanca. I was surprised to find that she was incredibly powerful—a tower of female energy.

  But despite that strength, she was also extremely nervous about her return to movies after an eighteen-year hiatus. She had led a very singular life, and had been exiled from Hollywood for a controversial love affair. I couldn’t help but think how difficult that must have been for her, and how our industry can be so cruel. She was always cordial and lovely to me, but there was something very lonely about her. She kept to herself, retreating alone to her dressing room every night.

  During an intimate scene in the movie where we had to share a listening booth in a music store, Ingrid turned to me and whispered, “Tell me, how do you do it, Goldie? You look like you’ve been doing this for a thousand years. I am so petrified I can hardly speak.”

  “I don’t know,” I replied, shocked by her honesty. “I guess my family brought me up to be pretty unflappable. And, let’s face it, this is hardly Juliet.”

  “Is this really your first picture?” she asked, wringing her hands.

  When I nodded, she said, “Then I think I need to take some tips from you, my dear.” I looked at her askance. All my illusions about her faded. Underneath it all, she was a frightened and vulnerable human being, just like the rest of us.

  Now here I am a year later, halfway through my second movie, There’s a Girl in My Soup, and suddenly, at the age of twenty-three, I have an Oscar. Arriving for a regular working day, my driver sweeps me through the big front gates at Shepperton and up the long drive, and I make my way across the set.

  “Congratulations, Miss Hawn!” yells one of the cameramen.

  “Thank you, Joe.”

  “Well done, Goldie!” My director, Roy Boulting, hugs me.

  “Thanks so much, Roy.”

  “Wonderful news, darling.” Tony Britton, one of my costars, kisses my hand.

  “Why, thank you, Tony.”

  “Thirty minutes, Miss Hawn.”

  “Okay, Charlie.”

  I reach the old property at the heart of the lot that has housed some of the greatest actors of all time. I close the door to the dressing room they tell me was once occupied by Vivien Leigh. I throw open my French doors and inhale the fresh English air. Gazing out on the sweeping lawns, with their big cedar trees, I listen to the songs of the birds.

  Here in the sanctuary of my room, I don’t have to put up a front anymore. I don’t have to pretend. I can feel it all—the joy and the disappointment and the fear. Holding my head in my hands, I bawl and bawl.

  Pulling myself together, I put on my costume and apply makeup. I brush out my hair and wander back out onto the set. Peter Sellers, my costar, opens his arms wide to greet me.

  “Goldie, my dear, sweet girl, my warmest congratulations, this is wonderful news,” he says effusively, enveloping me in his flamboyant velvet jacket.

  “Thank you, Peter,” I say, with a smile.

  Every day with Peter is like a balancing act. At any one time, he can be manically depressed, ecstatically overjoyed or just plain mad. He is always tender with me, but it could so easily have gone the other way.

  For my first day on the set, I agonized for an hour over what I should wear. It was cold and damp, but I wanted to look my best. I finally selected an outfit I loved—purple bell-bottom trousers, a purple sweater and a long purple cardigan vest, all worn with purple platform boots. I thought I looked très chic.

  As I walked onto the set, the wardrobe lady looked at me and shook her head. “Oh dear,” she said, before hurrying off without saying anything more.

  Looking down at my clothes, suddenly worried, I saw a woman rushing over to me, aghast. It was Peter Sellers’s assistant.

  “Oh no!” she said, looking me up and down.

  “What? What’s wrong?”

  “Peter can’t stand purple!” she said. “He doesn’t let anyone around him wear it.”

  Oh no, I thought. How crazy is this man I’ve heard so much about really going to be? “Why on earth not?” I asked her.

  “Well, he died of a heart attack once on the operating table and came back to life. But, you know, all he saw when he was dead was purple. You should have been told.”

  I wanted to rip the clothes off my body as fast as I possibly could. “Have you got anything that I can wear?” I asked, panicking and plucking at them uncomfortably. But then Peter walked in and headed straight for me with that devilish smile on his face.

  “Oh my God, Goldie,” he shouted from across the room, “but you’re lovely.”

  It was a line straight from the script. I looked into his burning eyes and thought, Oh my God, he’s already in character.

  “Oh, thank you, Peter,” I said, coyly. “But, listen, I’m so sorry I’m wearing purple.”

  “Why should you be, darling?” He grinned, waving his hand dismissively at his assistant. “It is one of my favorite colors.”

  But when Peter laughs the world laughs too. He can’t stop, I can’t stop, no one on the set can stop, and we have to turn off the cameras and break for lunch. We break for lunch a lot.

  A few days after I won my Oscar, we were given a day off. “I’ll pick you up at ten,” Peter told me. “I want you to meet some friends of mine.” He arrived in his Rolls-Royce convertible and drove me to Windsor Safari Park. There, we were formally introduced to the owners, who were at one time members of the circus. They were all little people, not more than four and a half feet tall. It was more than a little strange to me.

  He swept us through the high security gates into the wild animal compound, and, within minutes, we were surrounded by dozens of baboons with big red bottoms. As I squealed, they clambered all over his beautiful Rolls-Royce and began playing with the windshield wipers.

  “These are the friends I wanted you to meet,” he said, smiling.

  We watched, laughing, as the baboons groomed each other on the hood of his Rolls. Babies clung to mothers with tiny little hands. Fathers strutted around, naked rumps in the air, tails held high.

  The largest male suddenly jumped up onto the soft roof of the car with such a thump that I screamed. Above us, I could see the imprint of his huge body. Sliding down the windshield, he picked up a wiper and snapped it clean off, glaring at Peter threateningly through the glass. I glanced over at Peter furtively, taking in his slightly manic behavior. As much as all this was absurdly funny, his reaction seemed a bit extreme to me.

  The two of us sat there helplessly, his Rolls-Royce being destroyed all around us.

  “Peter, what are we going to do?”

  Looking across from me, his eyes full of mischief, he replied, “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

  We laughed so much it hurt.

  It was never
my ambition to win an Oscar. The only competition I was ever in was with myself. I never wanted to be number one, and I never aspired to be a movie star, rich or famous. While I am proud of winning the Oscar, and delighted to have it, the whole experience was so surreal that it sometimes feels like it never really happened.

  It wasn’t that long before I won it that I had been dancing on a three-legged table at the Peppermint Box. Since then, I’d been transformed into a star of television, had gone into analysis, and married my first husband, someone I believed I was going to spend the rest of my life with. I was halfway through my four-movie deal with Columbia, so there was no major hike in my salary, no change in the studio’s perception of me, just a couple new words at the beginning of my name on the credits. They now said “Oscar winner” Goldie Hawn.

  Although these new words were now attached to me, I never considered them part of my definition of me. At this stage in my life, I was still trying to figure that out for myself. Instead, I came to the conclusion that these kinds of iconic things are just what they are: icons. They shouldn’t hold any other power. They shouldn’t become a symbol of anything other than that special moment in time. My father taught me that it is important to remember that no matter how wonderful applause is, it is just noise.

  The important thing in life is what we are doing today. What we are doing tomorrow. Not what we did yesterday. Through my long journey of self-discovery, I have come to understand that my Oscar is not who I am. I am not my success; I am not my model; I am not my fame.

  I was right about my Oscar. It was a long time before I was ever nominated again, and I haven’t won an Oscar since. I can’t say that it hasn’t been lovely having my gilded statue sitting in the various places that I have put it over the years. But getting awards is not what I work for; it is not what any of us should work for. Such motivation, for your art, is misguided.

  Decide what your clear intention is in your chosen field. If it is to win an award, then you may or may not win, but it won’t change the reality around you. It’s nice to have; it’s a good thing. But to set more importance on it than it deserves means you are overestimating its power. An award is just a little icing on the cake, a fun night, but it can never fully define you or be the declarative sentence that describes your genius, because it doesn’t.

  We play a game at home. Who won the Academy Award last year? Who won it two years ago? In my book, only the geniuses remember that.

  The next time I came in contact with Ingrid Bergman was entirely unexpected. Shortly after my marriage to Gus sadly ended, I went on a journey across Europe with a Swedish actor I had met. I took a left-hand turn.

  Almost strangers, the two of us traveled across Europe before arriving in Norway, en route to his home. It felt like we had landed in fairyland with all its little houses and heart-embossed shutters. One day, I promised myself, I would build a house like that.

  My friend took me on an old fishing boat out into the North Sea to meet a friend of his called Lars, who owned a house on an island. Crossing the oily dark water, we finally reached our destination: a small island on which sat a house built out of the rock. Lars and his girlfriend, a beautiful young model, were waiting for us on the dock. They were charming and hospitable, and as the boat disappeared off into the mist I felt as if I had landed in one of Grimm’s fairy tales. Inside their beautiful home, they had prepared for us a delicious dinner of gravlax and salads, meatballs and herrings. I watched the love and reverence with which they prepared the food and was in awe. Outside, through the window, I could see the waves crashing dramatically on the shore.

  Tired but elated, we retired that night with full and happy hearts. They showed us our room, which was dominated by a most beautiful wooden chest. Painted across it was a single name: INGRID.

  “Who’s Ingrid?” I asked innocently.

  “That’s Ingrid Bergman,” my friend replied.

  “Why, is this Ingrid Bergman’s house?” I asked.

  “Yes, it is.” He nodded.

  Thrilled to be in the home of someone I considered a friend, I looked around with renewed interest at all her lovely things, the way she had decorated the rooms with hearts and flowers and candles. I could feel her presence in this house, sense her remarkable spirit. I was suddenly filled with joy. Turning back to my friend, I asked curiously, “Then who is Lars?”

  “Her husband.”

  I slumped onto the bed, winded. Looking up at him in horror, I whispered, “Does she know?” There was a lump in my throat. “Does she know he has a lover?”

  “Oh yes,” came the casual reply. “A long time ago. It is just one of those things.”

  I slipped between the sheets that night unhappily. I wanted to be far away from this place.

  Is this my future too? I asked myself sadly. Is this how it ends? Marriage after marriage after marriage before settling for whatever you can get, even if it means knowing there are other people? Is this my fate? Is this the fate of all successful women in Hollywood?

  I had already seen the loneliness of the female movie star. It is a cross borne by every successful woman in Hollywood. When you are famous, no matter how much you try to include your partner, whenever you walk into a room people look only at you. You end up being endlessly apologetic, trying to introduce him, make him feel less excluded. There are very few men who can live with a woman who is, or is perceived to be, more powerful than they are.

  That is what destroyed my marriage to Gus—and that alone. There was never a lack of love or comfort. Stardom and the baggage that came with it is what drove a wedge between us. And because there was so much love, neither of us wanted our relationship to die an ugly death. He wanted to see me succeed. I wanted to see him thrive, to feel like a man in his relationship. And so we had to end it. We both knew it. We let each other go, fully mindful of the reasons why.

  I shed silent tears for dear Ingrid that night. She didn’t deserve this. She was beautiful and powerful and loving, and she so deserved to be loved in return. Like me, she had won her first Oscar very young, when she was still in her twenties. She went on to win two more. But, more than that, she had tended to me and cared for me and shown me such kindness. I wanted her to have all the rewards she deserved for a life well lived. I felt that I was betraying her in some way by even being in the same house as her husband and his lover. I felt complicit. I knew I couldn’t stay.

  We left the following day. Thanking our hosts for their hospitality, I turned my back on Ingrid’s beautiful house of hearts forever.

  sisters

  Rediscovering the fun you had in childhood when you were sisters is one of the great joys of growing up.

  My father is laughing, rocking back in his chair, his eyes squeezed shut. My sister and I are sitting opposite him and Mom around Patti’s kitchen table. There is a barbecue going outside, there are cream puffs in the oven, but we are too busy telling our parents of our great adventure to Italy together.

  Dad is all ears while Patti and I roll over each other as we speak, finishing each other’s sentences with our sisterly syncopation. We can hardly talk because we are laughing so hard at all the things that happened to us in Europe.

  Mother, sitting with her legs crossed, flicks her cigarette absent-mindedly on the tablecloth while beaming proudly from ear to ear.

  Daddy says, “Laura, your ash is going all over the table.”

  In her raspy voice, my mother snaps, “Oh, Rut, for Christ’s sake, listen to the kids already.”

  Patti and I glance at each other and smile. I am home at last. It feels so good. Little has changed, and I feel like Patti’s little sister again, my favorite role of all.

  Daddy takes his trusty tape recorder out of his pocket and hides it behind the milk carton, recording our every word. Yeah, like we can’t see it. He is always up to something.

  “So,” he says, baiting us, “start from the beginning.” He hee-haws in his high-pitched way and starts firing silly questions at us, just to keep us going.


  Patti begins, “It was so hot…”

  “Yeah, it was really hot. We wanted to jump into the…”

  “How hot?” Daddy asks.

  “Oh, I dunno, eighty-two…”

  “No,” I cut in, “maybe eighty-five.”

  “Rut, let them finish, honey,” Mom cuts in. “Who cares how hot it was? Come on, let’s go. Go on, girls.”

  We continue like this for hours—Dad taping the whole story, making us repeat things just in case the recorder isn’t working; Mom trying to keep things on track, knowing it doesn’t really matter. It is the most beautiful day. Here we are, just the four of us, our entire family, rolling with laughter. This is what I miss the most—just hearing the harmony of our joy.

  My sissy is so beautiful, I think, as she reaches up and places her bag in the overhead compartment of our plane. She is the true flower-power girl. Everything, including her big straw hat, is adorned with flowers. I notice her hourglass figure, the one I didn’t get. Small waist, beautiful breasts, and a shock of red hair falling down to her shoulders from beneath her hat. She loves hats. She loves to party. She loves a good time. And that’s just what we are going to have in Italy.

  It is 1970, and I have been awarded the coveted David di Donatello Award, Italy’s equivalent to the Academy Award, for Cactus Flower. Goody, goody, I finally get to receive an award for that movie in person. Maybe this will make up for the time I wasn’t able to be there. Only I’m a year late in picking it up, because I’ve been filming There’s a Girl in My Soup. With all expenses paid, Rome is a place I have never been, and I have an extra ticket. My sister is the only person I want to go with. It is time for us to play.