by Diane Keaton
And what was I thinking when I tried to seduce Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer into letting me wear a couple of hats after I was cast opposite Steve Martin in Father of the Bride? Nancy reminded me that it was 1991, not 1976. I was playing the mother of the bride, she said, not Annie Hall. During those fifteen years, I let my hair grow halfway to my waist. Nancy let it be known I needed to get a haircut. So I did.
I got back, though. Every day at lunch I would don my bowler hat and join Steve, Marty Short, Kimberly Williams, and Steve’s wife at the time, Victoria Tennant, for a plate of spaghetti and some good times. After a couple of weeks Victoria said, “Is every day a bad hair day, Diane?”
I wanted to respond with my own personal philosophy: Victoria, my hair is my hat. And my hat is my hair. But of course I said nothing.
Sometimes I wish I was joined at the hip to a great hairstylist like Frida Aradottir or Jill Crosby, who did my hair for the cover of Ladies’ Home Journal. It’s a shame insecurity doesn’t bring out my best behavior, but it was a cover, so I felt justified in having a little chat with Jill before the shoot. I began with the bad news. Ladies’ Home Journal would not, repeat not, let me wear a hat on the cover. I told Jill I was worried about my hair. It needed more volume. I told her that no matter what the editors might say, I wanted it in my face. All of it. I told her the “truth” she already knew in spades: my hair, euphemistically speaking, was unreliable, capricious, erratic, and faithless. I wondered what she could do to help remedy these problems. On cue, Jill got the extensions out of her bag.
As an expert, Jill wanted to set me straight as well. Number 1: if you glue extensions to the top of your head, they will pull off what little hair you have. Number 2: extensions can be seen for the fake hair they are, unless placed in the right location. And Number 3: if you set the extensions as high as possible on either side, it will give the hair on top a better chance to appear full, messy fabulous, and in your face, because as with most things, a foundation is essential.
The cover couldn’t have come out better, especially since Brigitte Lacombe, the photographer, doesn’t care about hairdos. She cares about the moment. So much so, she may have overlooked the obvious. My left eye was covered by hair, while my right eye was hidden behind blue-tinted glasses. Another bonus of more hair? Less face.
I will say this: the disadvantage of wearing extensions outweighs the advantages. The painful ordeal of removing them takes much longer than putting them in, and they hurt. They really hurt. There are aesthetic problems as well. Extension hair is chunkier, and always superior to the less prevalent, real hair. Plus, the good hair (formerly growing out of someone else’s head) won’t do what the “bad” hair (mine) insists upon. The whole thing is an endlessly time-consuming folly. Oh, and to make matters worse, it turned out Jill didn’t want to be attached to my hip.
At six-thirty Dex parked the Rover in the lot next to the pier where we saw the registration booth. As we walked toward the gathering swimmers, I had the great misfortune to come across my reflection in the window of Johnny Rockets. The news was not good. My hair is thinning! And it’s not my imagination, nor am I in the middle of a dream I can’t remember. It’s a fact. I’m losing my hair.
Not to complain, but why me? Why not my sister Dorrie, or my other sister, Robin? Why do all the women in my life have to deliberately flaunt their gorgeous locks? In the beginning it was Mom, with her shoulder-length chestnut-colored hair, which I loved to touch. Then it was Robin, who still has a massive mop. Then Dorrie, whose hair is even thicker than Robin’s and more unruly. My business partner, Stephanie, has an ungodly mane. It was the first thing I noticed when I interviewed her for the position, not long after I’d finished filming Something’s Gotta Give. While she rattled on about her qualifications, all I could think was, Do I really want a brown-haired, brown-eyed junior Cindy Crawford flaunting her blown-out hair in my face five days a week? Do I need to be reminded of my wispy flyaway strands as her fingers shake out her cascading locks, day after day? Forget it. Then I tried to imagine what her hair would look like on my head. One word came to mind: good. That’s what it would have looked like … g-o-o-d.
Then there was Dexter. Sure enough, as she grew, her hair grew, too. Now it’s even more abundant than Stephanie’s. Why do I have to be surrounded by women whose hair seems to swish past me as if they’re frolicking in a Prell shampoo commercial? The only relief comes when they bitch about, I don’t know, a bad cut. Once, Dorrie went temporarily nuts after she gave herself a Jane Fonda shag trim. I tried not to enjoy her pain. But come on, give a woman a break. Goddamnit.
Look, bottom line: I’d like to wish good thoughts for everyone who’s made me feel self-conscious and miserable about my hair. I’d like to stop complaining, and stop comparing. I’d like to be less envious. I’d like to change. I’d even like to put a smile on my face and be grateful for what I have. All I ask for is this: no disappearing hair follicles, no alopecia, no female pattern baldness. That’s all I want. Nothing more. That’s it.
So, what exactly is hair? I looked it up on my iPhone while Dexter was getting ready for her swim. Hair is protein that grows from skin follicles at the rate of about half an inch per month. Each hair continues to grow for two to six years, then rests, then falls out. Soon enough, a new hair begins growing in its place. Female pattern baldness occurs when hair falls out and normal new hair does not grow in its place.
Okay? Then there are the signs of impending baldness. What are they? Well, hair thins mainly on the crown of the scalp. It usually starts widening through the center. Symptoms of female pattern baldness include strange hair growth on the face or in the belly button. Another symptom of female pattern baldness can be the enlargement of the clitoris. Does that mean I’m going to have to look at my clitoris to know if I have female pattern baldness? Count me out.
Let’s say I am balding. What are some solutions, besides wigs and extensions (which, in reality, can only be used if you actually have hair)? There is transplantation, or plugs, as we used to call them. Dr. Norman Orentreich performed the first transplant surgery in 1952. He coined the term “donor dominance” to explain the basic principles. When hair is relocated, it continues to display the same characteristics of hair from the donor site; in other words, it grows. The downside of Orentreich’s technique was that unfortunately, the new hair created an unnatural “corn row” or “doll’s hair” look. As I was reading, it dawned on me that I knew Dr. Orentreich. In fact, Woody had used his shampoo to stave off baldness, and it worked. I called the Orentreich Medical Group in New York. A friendly receptionist told me that Norman Orentreich had retired. His son David was running the practice, but unfortunately she was not at liberty to sell me the shampoo since I was not one of his patients. I called Woody, and a week later the shampoo arrived. From Woody Allen, c/o Stephanie Heaton for Diane Keaton. It’s been a year since I started using Dr. Orentreich’s shampoo. I still have hair, but the jury remains out.
Dexter was now in the ocean, swimming through the surf with a Team Santa Monica bathing cap on her beautiful head. She wasn’t worrying about her hair. She was swimming nearly two and a half miles. Imagine that. Amazing. I pulled myself together but not long enough to stop myself from thinking about the only other hair-loss prevention left. Rogaine.
But it turns out that Rogaine can be absorbed through the skin and cause side effects, some of which include unwanted weight gain, hairy face, difficulty breathing, and other symptoms that require calling your doctor. That’s when I thought, Oh my God. Forget the labels, the various signs, the definitions, the causes, and the preventions. Face it: every day is a bad hair day and always will be.
The day before the swim, I went to see my agent, Harvard Law School graduate Nancy Josephson, at her office at the William Morris Endeavor talent agency. I was determined to wear my hair as a hat, not a hat as my hair. Still, I wanted to be prepared for the worst, so I tossed one of my hats in the car. Earlier, I’d looked in the magnifying mirror and given
myself a little heart-to-heart: “Diane, you’re not allowed to wear the hat today, and here’s why: at this point in your highly privileged life, your hair doesn’t matter to anyone but you. Sorry, but you’re fast becoming a caricature of yourself. How long do you think you can hide under the brim of a hat? How long?” I got in the car and turned on Morning Edition. I was doing just fine, but as I got closer to WME I started feeling anxious and pulled over. “Diane, you know what?” I told myself. “You lack character. There’s no validity to your pronouncements. You are not allowed to wear the hat to see Nancy Josephson today. Do you understand? It’s final. Your charade is over. Show a little gumption. It’s pathetic. You’re sixty-six years old, and your attitude is not cute.”
At Wilshire and Santa Monica, I couldn’t take it any longer, and put the hat on. Wasn’t it Randy Newman who said, “You Can Leave Your Hat On”? And if Randy said to leave it on, who was I to disagree? At Wilshire and Camden, I took it off. At Camden and Brighton, I put it back on. In the underground parking lot I was so disappointed in myself, I threw the hat in the backseat of the car and told it to go shove itself. Because really, truly, my hair is of no consequence in the scheme of things. DONE!
I left my car with the valet, walked into the elevator, and immediately ran into Nancy. Just my luck. Just my fucking luck. And of course she was chipper and tall and attractive. “You look good,” she said. I smiled, knowing she didn’t mean it. She hated my hair. When the elevator door opened, I bumped into Adam Venit, one of the agency’s partners. Where was my hat when I needed it? Then Maya Forbes, the writer-producer, and her husband, Woody, came over saying, I don’t know—something positive about my appearance, I think. But of course I can’t remember a compliment, any compliment. It all goes to prove there is no God. But at least I didn’t wear the hat, which was getting a much needed break.
Dex was in the water with 299 other people who weren’t thinking about their hair. They’d been swimming for fifty minutes so far. Hair was not on their minds, I was reflecting, when I suddenly remembered last night’s dream. It all came back as Dexter approached the harbor.…
I was flying over a city with lots of churches. The moon was full. Winged people were flying beneath me. I think I was in heaven. I noticed that I had wings too, only mine were black. I asked an angel for a mirror, and screamed when I saw I had no hair. None.
To dream of flying, says The Dictionary of Dreams, denotes marital calamities. To dream of flying through the heavens passing the moon foretells famine, wars, and trouble of all kinds. To dream that you have black wings portends bitter disappointments. To dream that you’re flying on top of church spires means you will have much to contend against in the way of love, and you will be threatened with a disastrous season of ill health, and, worst of all, the death of someone near to you may follow.
Great! Fine! Forget it. Clearly, there’s no relief. I decided to resign myself to baldness, even though I don’t really know if I am balding. Yes, my hair is thin, but I can’t tell whether I’ve lost enough to have female pattern baldness; nor am I sure there was a problem to begin with. The glaring possibility is that I may have deluded myself. I am an actress, after all. I still have an active imagination, and I’ve succeeded in driving myself to distraction, but over what? Thin hair. Not good enough.
After a fifty-eight-minute swim, Dexter came in fourth. She’d overcome five-foot swells in an ocean littered with jellyfish, seaweed, and a few intervening seals. I watched her struggle out of the water and stumble from the shoreline to the finish line. I forgot about my less than seriously big hair, my lifelong struggle, my disappointment and took in the moment, not the future or the past, just the sheer wonder of standing barefoot on a beach watching my daughter receive her fourth-place ribbon. I thought about my own approaching finish line. The way I see hair goes like this:
I have enough to last a lifetime. Dexter has enough to last three lifetimes or more. Our four-and-a-half-hour excursion to Oceanside and back was not meant to be a recap of my hair dilemmas or to compare Dexter’s, much less anyone else’s, hair with mine. It was not planned to be taken up with envy, the green kind, or wigs, bald caps, hats, and female pattern baldness. But, in my defense, sometimes my mind has a mind of its own.
As I watched Dexter receive her ribbon, her long dirty-blond hair was still wet, still thick, and still perfectly straight. What a beauty, I thought. I had to smile. I couldn’t help myself. What a beauty. I felt my smile grow, not just for her but for all the beautiful hair in the world—Mom’s chestnut mane, and Dorrie’s and Robin’s big hair, and Stephanie Heaton’s blowout, and Stefanie Hart to Hart Powers’s as well, and Cybil Shepherd’s, plus Zooey Deschanel’s, Jessica Alba’s, and Caroline Kennedy’s untamable mass of hair, in fact all those Kennedy gals’, including Maria Shriver’s, and what about the endless Martha Stewart Living covers, documenting Martha’s full head of hair throughout the decades, and Angela Davis’s Afro, and even Natalie Portman’s shaved head in V for Vendetta. How about that for fighting back? What beauties, I thought, each and every one, all and more, in their own way. I had to keep smiling in awe.
If you’re like me, always looking for a way to understand how your father played into who you are, warts and all, it makes sense that you’d look to where he spent much of his life. For me and my father, that’s the ocean.
I found myself sitting on a bench staring at the Pacific with my old dog Emmie and her friend Speed, a hangdog basset hound, both of whom soon took off after a rabbit. It was eight in the morning. I’d already dropped Duke and Dexter off at the bus stop for school. The ocean spread below me, from the Santa Monica Pier, with its Ferris wheel dressed up in Halloween lights, all the way up to the edge of Malibu.
During the last years of his life, Dad lived on Cove Street in Corona del Mar, in a three-bedroom oceanfront board-and-batten cottage with his wife of forty-seven years, Dorothy. When he sat on his deck under a Pottery Barn umbrella, he was separated from the ocean by ten feet of concrete decking atop a weathered seawall. I was separated from the water by a sliding cliff. Dad’s view of the ocean was in his face. Mine was an all-encompassing panorama below me. Dad and I didn’t have too many things in common. Well, that’s not true; we did have one thing in common: the shape of our eyes.
Dad never spoke of my eyes, his eyes, or the nature of what eyes see. He spoke to me, not of me: “Okay, Diane, I want to know what the hell you were thinking when you crashed your mother’s Buick station wagon into my work car, which happens to be property of the city of Santa Ana.” Or: “Diane”—pause—“if you want to hone your math skills, you need to pay attention, for God’s sake.” He pontificated on important life lessons like “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Or: “If you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you get there?” And his ever popular “Diane, I’ve told you a million times, look before you leap.” Staring into Dad’s eyes was like going before God. Even when I wasn’t in trouble they had a Do Not Enter aspect that kept his vulnerability as far away as the horizon line separating the ocean from the sky.
When I was a little girl, Dad’s eyes were blue, bright blue. When I was a big girl, Dad’s eyes had plans. They had ambition. They seemed to look to the future for an answer. When I was in my twenties, Dad’s eyes sloped down from the weight of various skin cancer extractions. I wondered if living with all those scars had an effect on his relationship to the sun. Mom worried that his blue eyes were fading. He needed sunblock. She asked him to please wear dark glasses. At the beach, he would have none of it. When Dad turned fifty, his eyes seemed to have stretched out like the elastic in an old pair of pajama bottoms. Could it be they were falling from the weight of so many responsibilities?
There was no explanation for their shape. One thing for sure, they didn’t come from his mother, Mary, who had prominent lids. Maybe they came from his father, Chester Hall, a barber who was murdered in a union dispute outside Kansas City in the late 1930s. That is, if Chester Hall was
in fact Dad’s father. When Dad turned sixty, his eyes started drooping so fast they touched his cheeks. I doubt he was happy about it, but he was a man, and men didn’t have vanity issues—at least that’s what Dad said. To him, his eyes just were, and that’s all there was to it.
Not so long ago I found a snapshot of Dad at age sixty-seven. I compared it with the photograph of me at the same age pinned on Duke’s bulletin board. While Dad’s eyes look out in truth, mine are hidden behind blue-tinted, black-framed glasses. I’ll say this: I’ve mastered shielding my eyes. But on closer examination, I decided, there was no hiding. Hidden in plain sight was the shape of Dad’s eyes in my own. His eyes were playing havoc with my schemes of deception. My eyes are aging exactly like his.
As soon as Emmie returned from chasing the rabbit, I grabbed her muzzle and gave her a big fat kiss. We both looked out over the magnificent horizon. God, is it beautiful here or what? The good news is, our bluff on Asilomar Street offers an unobstructed view of the ocean five blocks wide. There are no $8 million homes blocking the panorama because the bad news is, the earth underneath us continues to move. The most recent landslide sent part of the bluff falling onto the Aloha Courtyard Trailer Park, thirty-five feet below. Beyond the bench I’m sitting on is a sign that says, “Warning! Hazardous Conditions. Do not enter.” Dad would have said, “Don’t buy near a landslide area. Don’t live in the hills. Don’t marry a bum.” But he was kind enough never to criticize my many attempts to hide the shape of my eyes.
The insults began backstage during a matinee of Woody Allen’s Broadway play Play It Again, Sam. Our stage manager Mick pulled me aside. “Diane, I hope you don’t mind if I ask you something.”