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by Harper, Valerie

In Florida, the audience was even closer to the action than they had been in Pasadena, so close that they felt comfortable propping their feet up or resting a purse on the stage. They commented on the production as we rolled along, not realizing we could hear them. At intermission, one lady asked our stage manager, “Can you move this chair so I can see better?” “No!” snapped our stage manager, “the actors need to sit on it.” There was loud lozenge unwrapping and the occasional, annoying cell phone tune, but by and large, whether they knew Miss Bankhead or not, they unanimously loved the show.

  Looped opened with Tallulah blustering into the sound studio, belligerent because there was traffic on the freeway. I often struggled to speak my opening line without being muffled by entrance applause. The line was “Fuck Los Angeles!”

  One night in Florida, Matthew watched an older man turn to his friend and ask, “What did she say?”

  “Uhhhh. . . . ‘I’m fabulous!’” his friend replied. That is priceless.

  At the end of the first act, Tallulah suffers a cataclysmic breakdown from all of the substance abuse, and one suntanned matron whispered to her friend, “I don’t know what’s going on.”

  “Tallulah doesn’t know where she is,” her friend confided. “It’s the drugs.”

  After we finished the run in Florida, we regrouped in Los Angeles and reworked the play further. We were headed to the illustrious Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., a larger venue. We improved our sets, lighting, and sound. We were able to get William Ivey Long, the famous Broadway costume designer, to style the most unbelievably fabulous blue silk charmeuse dress for me to slink around in.

  Before heading to D.C., I decided to have some surgery. My wrist had been giving me trouble for over a year. I’d done my best to ignore it, but it had become so painful that I was having difficulty holding my glass of booze onstage. My magic healer of a chiropractor, Joe Horrigan, discovered the problem and recommended a surgeon. There was a tiny, broken bone in my wrist that needed to be repaired before we continued with the play. Tallulah could not drop her glass at the wrong moment.

  I was scheduled for surgery in Los Angeles with Dr. John Knight, a genius hand and wrist specialist, but I needed a routine chest X-ray before going under the knife. Tony and I were in New York for Jane Fonda’s Broadway opening of 33 Variations, so my doctor told me to have the X-ray done on the East Coast so that I would be ready for surgery when I returned home.

  I went over to Roosevelt Hospital to take care of the X-ray and asked the radiologists to send it directly to my longtime physician, Dr. Arman Hekmati, in Los Angeles, as I was late for lunch with my good friend Nicole. I hustled down the street to Joe Allen and thought nothing more of my brief trip to the hospital.

  chapter

  FIFTEEN

  Nicole Barth, my close friend ever since we both danced in Take Me Along in 1959, and I were sitting at Joe Allen in the heart of the theater district, busily catching up on each other’s news when my phone rang. It was Dr. Hekmati.

  “Valerie, I’ve got to tell you something. Don’t be nervous. I want you to go back to the hospital and get another X-ray. The doctors in New York think they’ve spotted something on your lung. It could be nothing—scar tissue, an infection—but I want you to get it checked out immediately.”

  My heart started racing. I’d left the hospital half an hour earlier after a simple chest X-ray, and now I was headed back. Nicole and I canceled our lunch order and dashed into a cab and went straight back to Roosevelt.

  The doctors and radiologists ushered me into a darkened room. Nicole went with me. They hung my X-ray on the light box for me to see. And there it was, high up on the right side, a little shining dime, a tiny gleaming moon.

  My God, I thought, look at that. What the hell is that doing there?

  Nicole stayed with me all afternoon. I didn’t panic, because she and Dr. Hekmati wouldn’t allow me to. During several calls from the West Coast, my great doctor, who has always been there for me and mine at all hours, held my hand transcontinentally. “Nothing is certain yet, Valerie, so take it one step at a time. First let’s get you in for more tests in New York.”

  The next morning I went in for a PET scan, during which I had to drink a glucose shake to determine if the “something” on my lung was metabolically active, meaning growing. I was hoping for scar tissue or an infection. But no such luck. When the glucose reached the dime-shaped spot, the spot wiggled. Just like me, it was fond of sugar. Still, there was a chance it was nothing more than a benign tumor, living but not cancerous. Hope springs eternal.

  Nicole met me after the PET scan and told me that she was going to get a chest X-ray herself, since she’d had an annoying cough for months. “Run, don’t walk, dear friend,” I urged.

  The minute the spot on my lung was determined to be growing and possibly cancerous, Dr. Hemakti ordered me back to Los Angeles.

  “Will a few days matter?” I asked. “I agreed to attend Jane Fonda’s Broadway debut.” Tony and I had promised Molly Smith, the artistic director of the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., where we were going to open Looped, that we would attend this play that had originated in her theater.

  “Okay,” Dr. Hekmati said. “Just get back here as soon as you can. I have a specialist I want you to see.”

  I wanted to enjoy Jane’s play before the monumental worrying set in. So, like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, I determined I’d “think about it tomorrow.” I did my best to have fun at the theater that evening. 33 Variations was fascinating, and Jane was terrific in such a demanding role. There was a gala after the show, and miraculously, I managed to have a wonderful time. My Scarlett act really did the trick.

  The morning after Jane’s play, Tony and I flew back to Los Angeles. We rushed to Cedars-Sinai for an appointment with Dr. Robert McKenna, the surgeon recommended by Dr. Hekmati. I was terrified. Tony was terrified. I had lost three mothers to lung disease: Mom, Angela, and Nancy Walker, my TV mom, Ida. On the way to the hospital, my mind started to go crazy—what had I done to bring this on myself? I didn’t drink. I’d never smoked. Maybe it was from doing Golda and Tallulah? Could that even be possible? Could pretending to smoke have created the spot on my lung?

  Dr. McKenna’s office was exceptionally busy. Nevertheless, his wonderful wife, Kathy, who works with him, greeted us warmly. Dr. McKenna reminded me of a young Wilford Brimley, with beautiful blue eyes and a lush mustache. He had a reassuringly calm manner, serious but with a twinkle. I trusted him on sight.

  “Listen, Valerie,” he said. “No matter what it is, this spot needs to come out.”

  “Do you think it’s cancer?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Dr. McKenna said. Stab in my heart.

  “Why?” I managed to croak.

  “The shape,” he said. “But it’s contained, which is great.”

  “But I’ve never smoked,” I said, trying to disqualify myself.

  “Twenty percent of women with lung cancer don’t smoke or have never smoked,” he said.

  “Oh, great,” I said. “I’m back in the running.”

  “Well, let’s find out what it is first.”

  Dr. McKenna explained how we’d find out. He was going to remove the tumor from the lung using a procedure called VATS—video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery. He pioneered this minimally invasive surgical procedure for lung disease in 1992. While I was still on the operating table, the tumor would be biopsied in an adjacent room. If it was benign, it was already out of my body, and that would be that. If it was malignant, Dr. McKenna would remove the top right lobe of my lung, where the little visitor had set up house, ensuring that all the cancer cells would be gone.

  This amazing operation was performed through several inch-long incisions using a tiny video camera, special instruments, and a whole truckload of skill. It was like arthroscopic knee surgery, but in the lung. Fantastic.

  I was worried about having a lobe taken out. When I discussed my concern with Dr. Hekmati, he said, “You won’t even
miss it. The remaining lung will fill up the chest space.” That sounded good, but I was praying the tumor would be benign and the lobe would stay put.

  To put my mind at ease, I kept reminding myself that Dr. McKenna was a premier specialist in the field and that he and his team had performed VATS for nearly three thousand lung cancer patients. This surgeon developed the procedure and has had more experience performing it than anyone in the world. What was more, my surgery was scheduled for St. Patrick’s Day, and my doctor was Irish-American. Perhaps luck would be on my side.

  During the days leading up to my surgery, there wasn’t much sleep or peace of mind in the Cacciotti house. A few hours before my operation, I called Cristina, who was studying for midterms at Emerson College in Boston.

  “Cristi,” I said, “I have something to tell you, but please don’t be alarmed. I’m going in to surgery shortly for a very small tumor on my lung. It could be cancerous. It could be nothing. I just wanted you to know what’s happening and that I love you. Please do not breathe a word about this to anyone. I’m here in the hospital as Valerie McConnell, Grandma’s maiden name. Dad will call you the minute it’s over.”

  “I’m coming, Mom,” Cristina said with her customary determination.

  “No,” I said. “It’ll all be over before you arrive. And don’t tell a soul. This is just in our family. Tu capiche?”

  “Capiche. I love you,” Cristina said.

  Keeping up a brave front, Tony had driven me to Cedars-Sinai. My darling husband tried valiantly to mask the fear in his eyes with forced joviality. Just seeing how much he was suffering prevented me from feeling sorry for myself.

  “Why you, Val?” he said, stroking my forehead.

  A good question. But I had an answer. “Why me? Why not me?” I have the finest doctor in the world, health insurance from my performers’ union, plus Medicare, and the most wonderful husband God ever put breath into. Better me than someone without resources. As I lay in the hospital bed preparing for my surgery, the concept of affordable health care for all never felt more urgent to me, more necessary. Everyone deserved the same chance I had to get well.

  Early in the morning Dr. McKenna came to my hospital room. “Okay, Valerie,” he said, “we’re good to go.” Yikes!

  As the gurney was wheeled down the hall, Tony walked alongside me, holding my hand as long as he could. When we parted, he gave me the biggest, most encouraging smile and two thumbs-up. And then the doors swung closed.

  The room I was wheeled into looked like a high-tech military control room—they could have used it in Mission: Impossible. The anesthesiologist was a really affable guy, and joking that “video-assisted” would be right up my alley. Just what I needed—a comic! Really, he was great. He administered the anesthetic and told me to count backward from ten. The next thing I knew, I was looking into my husband’s smiling face.

  “Was it cancer?” I whispered.

  “Yes, but it was tiny, and it’s out,” he said.

  Okay, I thought, it’s over, and I’m still here.

  The good news was that the surgery went perfectly. There were no stray cancer cells hanging around. The great news was that there was no need for chemo or radiation. I was cancer-free. As my genius doctor said with a beaming smile, “This is the best possible outcome.” I was a very lucky girl. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

  I couldn’t believe that the top lobe of my lung had been slipped out of a minute incision on my side. I thought of my mom’s surgery for a similar type of cancer back in the 1970s. She, also a nonsmoker, had suffered through an extremely invasive operation. This was pre-VATS, and her incision ran from her breastbone all the way around her side to the middle of her back. It’s incredible how far medicine has progressed since then.

  With cancer on the rise, especially among women, I cannot stress enough the importance of early detection. More women are dying of lung cancer these days than breast, ovarian, and colon cancer combined. Yet, ten times more money is spent on research for breast cancer than for lung cancer. The overall cure rate for the disease is only fifteen percent. To change that grim statistic, we need more funding, more research, and much earlier diagnosis.

  My friend Nicole, also a lifelong nonsmoker, got checked for her cough, as she’d promised. While I was at home convalescing from my surgery, she called with the results from her checkup. “You won’t believe this, Val, but I have lung cancer, too.”

  I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it. We started crying on the phone together, three thousand miles apart but never closer. I had to put aside my shock and fear and comfort my dear, sweet friend of fifty-three years.

  While we discussed Nicole’s next steps—a referral from Dr. McKenna, figuring out her insurance coverage—she kept interjecting questions about my health and convalescence. Glorious Nicole, thinking about me at a time like this. When we hung up, I locked myself in the bathroom and screamed in anger until my throat hurt. Good thing I was alone in the house.

  When I told Iva about Nicole’s diagnosis, she was heartbroken and beside herself. “Oh no, no, no, no, no,” she cried, “not another girlfriend. I smoked. I smoked in our twenties. Why you two?”

  Nicole and I talked every day, sometimes multiple times. She was being treated at our old standby, Roosevelt Hospital. We discussed each test and each result. In my 2009 datebook, I kept thorough records of Nicole’s progress. Unfortunately, VATS wasn’t an option for her, but she responded beautifully to chemo and radiation.

  Except for a few close friends and family, I didn’t tell anyone about my own cancer diagnosis. Looped was scheduled to open at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. I didn’t want the audience to know that I’d been sick, especially with something as serious as lung cancer. I didn’t want the word cancer to overshadow the play. We were trying to do comedy, for God’s sake! Most important, I was out of the woods—I’d even received permission from Dr. Hekmati and Dr. McKenna to “smoke” for the role. There was no reason for my health to be a topic of discussion. I didn’t want to talk about my cancer; I didn’t want to be pitied; I wanted to move on.

  Tony and I decided to spend a couple of weeks rehearsing in Hartford, where both our director, Rob, and playwright, Matthew, lived. Then we headed to Washington for a tremendously interesting three-month run. We played at the historic Lincoln Theatre—where the Arena Stage was in residence during the construction of their own new theater complex—which had seen the likes of Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald among other great stars. Looped was gaining momentum. We had reworked the play, given it more of a structure and a clearer story and we had a different Danny—a terrific actor, Jay Goede. When I wasn’t performing, I spent my free time lobbying Capitol Hill and met with many well-known lawmakers on behalf of RESULTS and RESULTS Educational Fund, a volunteer lobbying organization that takes action to end poverty and hunger. I know the founder, Sam Daley-Harris, and the current executive director, Joanne Carter, extremely well and love them very much! We have been working together on these issues for decades. People like them will save the world. They’re in the process of doing so now.

  When our time in Washington was over, we came home to Los Angeles and waited for a Broadway theater to become available. Tony, Rob, Matthew, and I retrenched and rewrote and just before Thanksgiving thanks to Joe Horrigan my chiropractor I had partial knee replacement surgery by superb Dr. Andrew Yun. Looking back, three surgeries in one year. Holy smoke! Thank goodness for Ana Miriam Jimenez, my fantastic, longtime housekeeper, who cared for me like a mom. When I grumbled about taking three trips to the operating room she reminded me in her El Salvadorian accent: “Joo didn’t take four.” Sí, Miriam!

  Come December, we headed to New York to cast for the Broadway production of Looped. Brian Hutchison joined us as Danny, and Michael Mulheren, as Irish as Paddy’s pig, took on the role of Steve, the sound booth tech. It was exciting and gratifying to prepare for the Great White Way presentation. The play was truly Tony’s baby. My husband had nurture
d and financed and maneuvered all four productions of Looped into being. We’d covered a lot of ground in a year and a half. Now we were ready for Broadway. That New Year’s Eve (2009-2010), Tony and I left our hotel to go out and watch the ball drop. It was freezing cold, we kissed and celebrated. I realized the last time I’d been in Times Square for New Year’s was with Barbara Monte and a pack of high school friends in 1955. New York City keeps on rollin’ along!

  When we went to New York to rehearse, an extraordinary and beautiful thing happened. I had instantly bonded with Artie Siccardi, our technical director, who has since received a Lifetime Achievement Tony Award for his consistently spectacular work on Broadway shows. One day I mentioned that my friend Nicole Barth had sent him her regards. Artie, a very tall, attractive, genuine New Yorker and a guy Rhoda really would have gone for, smiled the sweetest smile and said, “Oh, Nicole! I remember her. She’s married, in real estate sales, and lives on Long Island.”

  “No,” I said. “She’s single, in theater ticket sales, and lives in Manhattan.”

  “No kidding,” Artie said. “Give me her number.”

  Artie and Nicole had worked on a show together forty years earlier. That day Artie called Nicole, and they met for drinks. They’ve been together ever since. I love stuff like this!

  On Sunday, March 14, 2010, Looped opened in New York City at the Lyceum Theatre, a gorgeous Beaux Arts building on West Forty-fifth Street. Declared a landmark theater, the Lyceum, built in 1903—the year after Tallulah was born—is the oldest continually operating legitimate theater on Broadway, small but elegant, with elaborate marble staircases and a charming history. The impresario who built the theater had a peephole installed so he could watch the actors onstage and wave a handkerchief at his actress wife if she was overacting. Maybe Tony should do that! The Lyceum’s vintage glamour was perfect for Tallulah. The only trouble was the location, rather sequestered, east of Broadway close to Sixth Avenue, away from the madness, the excitement, and the foot traffic that was the heart of the theater district.