Let's Just Say It Wasn't Pretty

by Diane Keaton

  Let’s Just Say It Wasn’t Pretty is a work of nonfiction.

  Some names and identifying details have been changed.

  Copyright © 2014 by Diane Keaton

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint and division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  RANDOM HOUSE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

  Permissions acknowledgments can be found on this page.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Keaton, Diane.

  Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty / Diane Keaton.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-0-8129-9426-1

  eBook ISBN 978-0-8129-9427-8

  Signed edition ISBN 978-0-8129-9629-6

  1. Keaton, Diane. 2. Motion picture actors and actresses—United States—Biography. 3. Body image in women. 4. Beauty, Personal. I. Title.

  PN2287.K44A3 2014

  791.4302′8092—dc23 2013048959

  [B]

  www.atrandom.com

  Jacket design: Emily Harwood Blass

  Front-jacket photograph: Ruven Afanador

  v3.1

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  INTRODUCTION: WRONG IS RIGHT

  PRISONERS ON MY WALL

  CORRECTIONS

  BAD HAIR DAYS

  THE EYES HAVE IT

  TURTLENECKS AND TIES, BIKINIS AND BRAS

  WHAT IS BEAUTY?

  SIZE TEN

  THE DREAM OR THE NEIGHBORHOOD?

  OLD IS GOLD

  IN ONE EAR AND OUT THE OTHER

  HEALING HUMOR

  IN LOVE WITH THE NIGHT

  Dedication

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  I’ve always loved independent women, outspoken women, eccentric women, funny women, flawed women. When someone says about a woman, “I’m sorry, that’s just wrong,” I tend to think she must be doing something right. Take Diana Vreeland, the legendary editor in chief of Vogue. Vreeland was many things, but a classic beauty wasn’t one of them. Her mother called her “my ugly little monster.” Guess what? That didn’t get in her way. Vreeland paraded around with a head of glossy pitch-black hair until the day she died, at age eighty-five. She defied every rule of aging gracefully. She thrived in the big-time world of Beauty, yet was not enslaved by it. Diana conjured a world where “you’ve gotta have style. It helps you get down the stairs. It helps you get up in the morning. It’s a way of life. Without it you’re nobody.”

  I respect women who aren’t afraid to push the envelope, women who are inappropriate, women who do what you aren’t supposed to. Women like Katharine Hepburn. Didn’t she wear pants under a Chairman Mao tunic to the Academy Awards? No gown? No jewels? No stylist? No posing on the red carpet? Outrageous! And what about twenty-seven-year-old Lena Dunham, who has redefined what a star can look like. I think she’s one of the most beautiful women on TV. Her HBO series Girls has hit a raw nerve with some reviewers. “One reason that Girls is unsettling is that it is an acerbic, deadpan reminder that human nature doesn’t change,” wrote Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times. “As funny and creative as her show may be,” wrote Robert Bianco in USA Today, “there’s little doubt Girls will be too explicit, too New York–specific, and too young-and-female-centric to appeal to everyone.” That’s the point: Why try to appeal to everyone?

  I have a soft spot for women like Phyllis Diller. Remember her running after the garbage truck as it pulled away from the curb, yelling, “Am I too late for the trash?” “No,” said the driver. “Jump right in!” I admire women like Joan Rivers, even though I can’t count how many times she’s hauled me before her Fashion Police. Look, it’s hard not to love a woman who can laugh about the fact that an animated show once featured her as a vagina that had received too much plastic surgery. Joan, Phyllis, and Totie Fields were among the first to openly discuss their multiple cosmetic surgeries. It takes strength to fess up to your imperfections. People have asked me why I’ve never had work done. The truth is I respect women who have had work done just as much as I respect those who haven’t. We’re all just trying to get through the day.

  In my early twenties I used to torture Woody with my insecurities: Would I ever be cast in a great movie? Would my slightly-but-definitely-noticeable crooked nose keep me from getting work? Looking back, I don’t know how Woody put up with me. For a year and a half the only job I’d been cast in was the recurring role of a young woman running around in a tracksuit uttering “Hour After Hour won’t wear off till the day is over.” That’s right, no one would hire me, except to sell underarm deodorant. I asked Woody if he thought I was crazy to keep flying to California to audition for films like Anthony Newley’s Summertree only to lose out to actresses like Brenda Vaccaro. And even if I landed one of those roles, would I ever have a career? Woody told me I didn’t have to worry. You’re funny, he said, and funny is money. I looked at him and thought, Is this guy nuts? Funny women told jokes. I wouldn’t know a joke if it hit me in the face. Funny women knew where the punch line came. I was always fumbling for the right thing to say. Funny women like Joan Davis from I Married Joan had a great career playing fall-down clowns with names like Flossy Duff. Funny women were comedic geniuses like Carol Burnett, or Ruth Buzzi of Laugh-In, who made herself look pretty awful with her most inspired character, Gladys Ormphby, an ugly spinster whose hair was pulled into a bun secured by a hairnet knotted in the middle of her forehead. Not exactly what you’d call attractive. Joan, Carol, and Ruth took funny to the edge of a cliff and they weren’t afraid to fall off. That’s when I understood what Woody was talking about. It’s why Phyllis Diller worked into her nineties and Joan Rivers is still a force to be reckoned with. It’s why I love funny women. They make funny beautiful.

  Speaking of fearless and original, what about Lady Gaga, who has worn outfits that look like a chicken nugget and a feather duster? Love that. And Rihanna, the black Madonna, who reinvents her style and image with every album. To me, the most beautiful women are independent women like Angelina Jolie, Anna Magnani, fierce and sassy Jennifer Lawrence, Georgia O’Keeffe alone in the desert, Laurie Simmons (Lena Dunham’s mother), Cindy Sherman front and center in her photographs, Barbra Streisand with her untouched nose, strong Kathryn Bigelow, defiant Kate Moss, Grace Coddington and her orange hair, Louise Brooks and her black bob, Françoise Hardy, unstoppable Hillary Clinton, brilliant Tina Fey, fearless Joan Didion, and and and and … each found her place in the world. Each has her own style, her own voice, her own independence, her own stamp, her own method, her own wrong that she’s made right.

  Just yesterday Dexter, my eighteen-year-old daughter, found a story online called “Top 10 Female Celebrities Who Are Ugly No Matter What Hollywood Says” by someone named Valdez_Addiction.

  “Mom. Mom. Come over here.” I ran to the computer and there was a picture of Number One, Angelina Jolie, with this assessment: “She looks like Skeletor from He-Man. Sorry Brad, you could have done much better than this stick figure.” Valdez_Addiction slammed Number Four, Reese Witherspoon, with this: “What can I say about this genetic mistake that you can’t already see? Between that chin and that forehead that she finally realized she needed to cover, I’m still amazed she even has a career much less being voted beautiful by people magazine.” Dexter kept scrolling, and there was the fifth-ugliest female celebrity no matter what Hollywood says, Diane Keaton.

  How this chick got a lead role in anything is beyond me. And I know what you’re thinking. It’s not because she’s old as dirt an
d they still try to give her sexy roles. She’s even ugly in the Godfather when she was young.

  Old as dirt. Wow. I went to my bathroom and looked in the mirror. “Let it go, Diane. No wallowing in self-pity. You have a family. You have a brother and two sisters. You have a daughter and a son. You have work. You have friends. You can feel. You can think, up to a point. Your legs walk, your arms swing. You can see. Seeing is believing. Seeing is the gift that keeps giving. It’s much more engaging than being seen. That’s the bottom line, Diane.… Get over yourself. Listen to your friend Daniel Wolf’s advice—want what you have.”

  Daniel’s not wrong, but he’s not entirely right. It isn’t quite that simple. I wish it were, but beauty is more complicated than that. Let’s get real: Does anyone know a woman over fifty who hasn’t taken a long hard look in the mirror and recited some version of this not so pretty monologue? “Diane, I’ve got some bad news. No matter what you do, no matter how much Restylane and Botox, no matter how many face-lifts and arm lifts and body lifts (good idea, why not get the whole package taken care of in one fell swoop and call it a day); no matter how many brow lifts, thigh lifts, breast lifts, breast reductions, breast augmentations, tummy tucks, nose jobs, eye jobs, cheek implants, or chin implants; no matter how many chemical peels, laser skin resurfacings, spider vein treatments, permanent makeup applications (permanent sounds good), liposuctions, hair replacements, dermal filler polylactic acid treatments, dermal filler PMMA treatments, dermal filler polyalkylimide treatments (that’s a lot of dermals), calcium hydroxylapatite (whatever that is), etc., etc.… Are you listening? No matter what you do you will still be a sixty-seven-year-old woman on the downhill slide.”

  So, what is beauty if it isn’t Angelina Jolie and Reese Witherspoon? Why do we try to pin it down by categorizing it as absolute? Why limit it at all? Why is classic beauty the gold standard? Why is gold the gold standard? And what is “classic”? What’s precious about precious stones? Why are diamonds a girl’s best friend? Don’t tell me what beauty is before I know it for myself.

  These old-as-dirt days have one advantage: I’ve learned to see beauty where I never saw it before. But only because my expectations are more realistic. My favorite part of my body is my eyes. Not because of their color and God knows not because of their shape, but because of what they see. When I was in my twenties and thirties I wanted my appearance to be more interesting than the beauty that surrounded me. It was a fool’s folly.

  On my fifteenth birthday my dad told me I was becoming a pretty young lady. Mom said I had a pretty smile. One of my teachers complimented me on my pretty new dress. I was old enough to understand that pretty was a poor cousin to beautiful. Pretty was the stuff of being friendly but not being friends. Pretty was the right dress from Bullocks department store, not a beatnik tunic with black tights and a beret. Pretty was Sandra Dee, easy and light. Pretty fades. Beautiful was Natalie Wood, deep like the ocean. I knew this because on the cliffs of Laguna Beach I cried from the sheer wonder of what I saw. Beautiful makes you come back for more. It makes you ask questions. It’s vast, unknowable, and magnificent. That’s part of its power. It makes you think about the experience it’s giving you. That’s when I knew what I wanted. I’ve been chasing it ever since.

  If we’re lucky we have a long time to consider what beauty means. One thing I know, there is no beauty without pain. Beauty flourishes on sorrow. It’s enriched by the knowledge that life is fleeting, sometimes cruel, and often ends without resolution. That’s what makes beauty deep. Marilyn Monroe’s insecurity explains her continuing appeal. It wasn’t just her pretty face. It was the depth of her sad experience. Without living through the journey from orphan to goddess with a breathless voice, would she have become a legend? In the complexity of her suffering lies the universality of her appeal. How did Picasso come to see the scope of Marie-Thérèse’s riveting head and shape it? I’ll tell you how: through loving her, living with her, and seeing her as both ugly and magnificent. Because of his sculptures, Marie-Thérèse emerged as a symbol of unsightly, frightening, even hideous but also, I have to say, complete beauty.

  When I was growing up I had a hard time doing much of anything right. Dad was always harping, “Diane, how many times do I have to tell you, don’t stand in front of the open refrigerator, you’re wasting electricity.” Or “Diane, use your noggin. That’s what happens when you forget your lunchbox in the car. You don’t get lunch.” And every single night at the dinner table: “For God’s sake, Diane, keep your mouth closed when you chew.” There was always something interfering with getting things right: a question (the wrong kind), a hesitancy, and always, always the mangling of my sentences, the stammers, the ums, the you-knows, the oh-wells, the I-don’t-knows. I was inept, inexact, and imprecise. I would never have believed you if you had told me that this ineptness would help me later on, but somehow it did and I made my way.

  Mom, on the other hand, taught me there was beauty in the imperfect. She would jot down words of wisdom and leave them on my desk. Things like “You don’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.” “Walk in power.” “Find a reason to love yourself every day.” “Only you can decide if things are right or wrong.” “Buy yourself a gift for just being you.” “Honor yourself, Diane. You deserve it.” “Laugh at your friend Leona for making fun of your face.” When I was a senior at Santa Ana High School, these words of wisdom, while well intended, seemed stupid. Walk in power? Laugh because someone tells you you’re ugly? Please. “Only you can decide if things are wrong or right”? Okay, but how?

  Look, I get how Valdez and others might see me: the woman hiding under her hat to be seen. I know it might sound disingenuous at best and whiny at worst to complain about what I find in the mirror. But I’d be lying if I told you my mornings don’t start with self-doubt, and you wouldn’t believe me anyway. Besides, when I think about beauty I mean something much bigger than a face in the mirror or a photograph of an undeniably gorgeous woman or even some Internet story about Hollywood’s ten ugliest female celebrities. I’m talking about that overwhelming feeling you get when you stand on a cliff and look out at the ocean. I’m talking about Phyllis Diller chasing the garbage truck or Joan Rivers getting in the first laugh about herself.

  Or Katharine Hepburn in her tunic on the red carpet. Or Lady Gaga in her egg. Or Diana Vreeland’s wise words about style helping you get down the stairs. I’m talking about finding whatever works for you to get out the door every day. I’m talking about the flaws that eventually take on a life of their own. The ineptness that makes you who you are. I’m talking about women who make us see beauty where we never saw it; women who turn wrong into right.

  As I throw my coat on the chair, I see Alexander Gardner’s 1865 portrait of Abraham Lincoln hanging on my living room wall. My first impression of President Lincoln came from a book I checked out of the Bushnell Way Elementary School library, Abe Lincoln: Log Cabin to White House, by Sterling North. In it President Lincoln fought to free the slaves. He was a great man who paid the ultimate price. Mr. North described President Lincoln as unsightly, even homely. To a ten-year-old girl, that meant President Lincoln was ugly. I didn’t understand how an ugly man could become the president of the United States. Gardner’s photograph, taken just days before Lincoln was shot in Ford’s Theatre, contradicts North’s description of a man who got shortchanged in the looks department.

  Dominated by a pair of eyes set in darkness, Lincoln’s face is magnificent. His left eye, engaged by what it sees, looks out with endless empathy, while his right eye tells a story that is harder to comprehend. The bottom half of his face, framed by two deep lines, singles out his prominent nose, but it’s those eyes, particularly the left eye, the caring eye, the engaged eye, that is so compelling. Or is it? As my own eyes drift across Lincoln’s wide forehead, I look back into the right eye, the one drawn toward reflection, and you know what I see? I see the darkness of a great calling.

  Did President Lincoln’s face become magnificent becau
se he accepted a grave responsibility that would lead to a tragic end? Or was it the angle of Mr. Gardner’s pose, the light, the patina? Was it good luck or a fortunate mistake? After living with Mr. Lincoln’s portrait for several years, I’ve come to this conclusion: his beauty, like the hidden cast of his right eye, became identifiable only after I included “unsightly” as a possible way of describing a beautiful face.

  Sharing wall space with Abraham Lincoln are forty-seven other portraits of men I’ve collected over twenty-five years. I call them my prisoners. There’s Robert Mapplethorpe’s portrait of the artist Francesco Clemente, who presents his hands from under a black coat. There’s Marion Robert Morrison’s face before he became John Wayne. On the bottom left, Tony Ward is painted with mud. His hands frame his eyes. Maybe he’s sick of looking out from under the dirt. Maybe he doesn’t want to be painted into a shadow; maybe he’s tired of being Herb Ritts’s favorite model. The face of the Russian revolutionary and poet Vladimir Mayakovsky stares out in shaved-head resistance. He brings up longings. I’d carry his coattails. I’d be his lackey. Next to the kitchen door, Elvis Presley is sticking his tongue into a young woman’s mouth. I never understood why he made millions of girls cry until I saw Albert Wertheimer’s Kiss in an ad for Sam Shepard’s play Fool for Love.

  Which brings up Sam Shepard, who is framed dead center among the other prisoners on my wall. I was thirty-one when I went to a matinee of Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven at Cinema 1 on Third Avenue between Fifty-ninth and Sixtieth Streets in Manhattan. The movie seemed to glide through a brilliantly lit travelogue until Sam Shepard walked onto the screen and took my breath away. His face bore the imprint of the West in all its barren splendor. For years, I followed Sam’s life from the safety of distance, a fan’s distance. He was the playwright of Buried Child and True West. He worked with Bob Dylan. He was married. He fell out of marriage, and into love with Jessica Lange. He wrote, “When you’re looking for someone, you’re looking for some aspect of yourself, even if you don’t know it. What we’re searching for is what we lack.” And that’s the way it was. Some aspect of him was an aspect in me, an aspect I hadn’t developed, something I lacked. Or so I thought.