Mehran was remarkably persistent. He, his boyfriend Jeremy, and I all had the same therapist. I don’t know why the two of them had the same therapist—that doesn’t seem ideal—but I know why I did. Because one year for Christmas, Jeremy gave me two presents: a tank top that said DONNA MARTIN IS DEAD and a gift certificate to their therapist. If that isn’t true friendship, I don’t know what is. Anyway, even our therapist was telling Mehran he had to shut up and let me go through it. But Mehran wouldn’t stop. He kept saying, “Who cares about the wedding? If you’re not sure, don’t do it.”
He was so fixated on this whole he-isn’t-right-for-you thing that it became kind of a joke. Mehran and I started envisioning grand scenarios of how I would escape the wedding if I changed my mind. Mehran would say, “Just look over at me and give the cue. I’ll pull out my walkie-talkie, a helicopter will appear out of nowhere, and a ladder will unfurl. Halfway down the ladder will be a butler with two glasses of Veuve. We’ll climb up and escape to the south of France, where we’ll lounge on the beach until the scandal dies down.” (Later, for my show So NoTORIous, I came up with a whole episode where each of the main characters envisions a great escape out of the wedding. You see each escape through a different character’s eyes. The last character is Mimi. In her fantasy she’s a Great Dane. The camera runs and pants toward me and my ill-chosen groom. Great Dane Mimi knocks him down and swoops me away. But So NoTORIous wasn’t on the air long enough to get to any wedding episode.)
My maid of honor, Jenny, took things a little more seriously than Mehran. Jenny is always very practical and down-to-earth. A week before the wedding she (unbeknownst to me) called Mehran and said, “Stop it. You know Tori. She’s not going to cancel the wedding. It’s too late. At this point she’s going to have to figure out for herself that he’s not right for her.”
Mehran and I joked about the great wedding escape, but in a way what happened with his boyfriend—my dearest friend Jeremy—had something to do with why I went through with it. A year earlier, when I was almost thirty and Jeremy was twenty-eight, he died of sudden heart failure.
One night he and Mehran went to pick up food from Chin Chin at Sunset Plaza. They drove over a bump. Jeremy grabbed his heart, said, “That was a big one,” and started having a seizure. Mehran called 911. While all this was happening, I was coming home from watching a friend’s music performance. I’m not a phone person. I never answer my cell phone or check my voice mail—the mailbox is almost always full and not accepting new messages. Sometimes I just clear it all without listening to the ninety or so messages that have accumulated. But that night for some reason I checked my voice mail. The most recent message was Mehran, and he was crying. He said, “Jeremy’s been rushed to Cedars. He had a heart attack.”
I went straight to Cedars Sinai (a big hospital in West Hollywood). Mehran pulled up at the same time. They put us in a waiting room. Eventually a doctor came in and started asking us questions in a dispassionate tone. Finally Mehran interrupted to ask, “Is he going to be okay?” The doctor said matter-of-factly, “No, he’s passed.”
My first instinct was to care for Mehran, to pull myself together for him. That night Mehran came to my apartment. Charlie moved into the guest room, and Mehran stayed with me. Every morning when I woke up, the first thing I heard was Mehran sobbing. We did a shiva even though Mehran and Jeremy weren’t Jewish, having people over throughout the day and night for seven days.
Charlie was wonderful during that time. He was so gentle and caring. Not only did he sacrifice his place in our bed to Mehran, but he gave us time together, picked up food for us, and tried as best he could to be quietly helpful and supportive. I knew he’d take care of me like that forever. It made a huge impact. I was in this for keeps. And today was the day I said so to the world.
Okay, now back to the walk down the aisle. As I walked out of the Manor, I realized that there were helicopters buzzing constantly overhead. Wow, maybe Mehran really did have an escape plan for me. Later I’d find out that there were helicopters filming and news crews trying to interview people as they walked into the wedding as if it were a red-carpet event. Throughout the ceremony you could barely hear anything over the helicopters. The rabbi and the minister did their bit. Bride and groom kissed. I still felt like I was in a play. Not a dream, a play, where I was the bride and the vows made me shaky and excited and the kiss made my heart flutter. Did my heart flutter? No. But I was so in the character of the bride that I almost believed it did.
The string quartet played a funky, upbeat version of “I Got You Babe” as we recessed up the aisle. I know it sounds cold, but it was Charlie’s choice. It meant nothing to me.
After the ceremony was a second cocktail hour, this one poolside. In the center of the pool was a topiary shaped into an intertwined C and V (for Charles and Victoria—our real names). It was the same intertwined symbol that appeared on our wedding invitation. Candles floated in the pool and adorned the patio. Under the gazebo there was an old-fashioned champagne fountain. The champagne wasn’t served in traditional flutes. Instead, we had it in champagne saucers. There were more hors d’oeuvres and a bar with a sushi chef making rolls and sushi. (It was practically my wedding to Mehran—he and I planned the whole thing.)
Charlie and I didn’t go to this cocktail party either. Instead, they took us up to one of my parents’ rooms. It was supposed to be an intimate time where we could have some hors d’oeuvres and champagne while looking out the windows at all our wedding guests below. There was a makeup station—a mirror surrounded by lightbulbs—and people touched up my makeup and hair. Then one of the two photographers decided that the light was absolutely perfect for some black-and-white movie-star photos of me. So he started shooting me in various retro poses, alone, while Charlie waited. So much for our moment of intimacy and reflection. Not that I was dying to stare into his eyes. Nor did the nonconfrontational part of me want to go down and talk to strangers—half of the guests below. (Did I mention that Ed McMahon was at my wedding? Ed McMahon was at my wedding. I have no idea why, except that he once gave my father a tacky fish-themed windmill that was my father’s pride and joy.) Also in attendance: Jackie Collins, Paul Anka, Bob Newhart, and Don Rickles.
After cocktails the guests walked to a big white tent in the middle of the back lawn for dinner and dancing. The tent took up nearly the entire lawn. It had chandeliers and huge floral arrangements. Wolfgang Puck catered the wedding—the Spago Wolfgang Puck, not the airport chain Wolfgang Puck. Mehran and I had handpicked everything for the tables: the napkins, the napkin holders, the glasses, the silverware, the chair cushions. There was antique lace draped over the tables. Outside the tent was a lounge area with a martini bar and all-white furniture—couches and armchairs—and white rugs. We had those fancy port-a-potties you can get for weddings, and guests could also use the pool house bathroom. There was a big band—maybe twelve people?—that started by playing jazz. Then, as the night went on, it progressed to fun karaoke rock that people could dance to.
Charlie and I were introduced and came onto the white dance floor for our first dance. We’d taken six dance lessons to choreograph and perfect our performance. The band kicked in with our song, Harry Connick Jr. singing “More” by Andy Williams, and we started. Charlie was totally screwing it up from the very beginning. I started whispering into his ear, telling him he was doing it wrong and trying to get him back on track. Charlie whispered back, “Relax, who cares?” But I cared. It was a big show. I was trying to impress everyone there. It wasn’t about me. It was about them. Did they like the party I planned? Was this a beautiful, memorable, moving wedding? Was I a perfect bride? I don’t know who that bride was: Ordinarily, I don’t care about appearances. At any rate, our dance went down the tubes. We were so out of rhythm that we stopped and I said, “Oops, take two!” Everyone laughed and we tried again.
During dinner there was a guy we’d flown in from Vegas to sing Sinatra crooner songs. He sounded just like him. Then, when he fi
nished up, my mother took the microphone to announce for all the guests to hear that she had a big surprise for me and Charlie. She’d hired Michael Feinstein, the famous singer and pianist of Great American Songbook fame, to fly in from New York to sing for us. I have no idea how much people like that cost, but my best guess would be a hundred thousand dollars. After all the cuts and budgeting, after telling friends they couldn’t bring their husbands, here was Michael Feinstein, who anyone in my generation would agree is very appealing to her generation. That was our big gift. For him to play for her friends.
As it turned out, Charlie’s dad was a real Michael Feinstein fan (like I said: her generation). He was so blown away that during the performance he came up to my mother to say thank you. She said, “Well, if you love him so much, why don’t you go and listen to him.” Charlie’s poor, harmless dad.
During dinner there were toasts. At one point my parents came up to the microphone. My father, who was sort of out of it, said something like, “And I don’t care what people always say, my dear wife does nothing wrong.” I had no idea what he was talking about.
My mother grabbed the mike away from my father and commenced her own speech. Teary-eyed, she called me her “princess,” something she’d never called me before. She welcomed Charlie’s family to ours. It was hard to believe that what came out of her mouth was sincere. From the moment Charlie asked her and my father for their blessing, there hadn’t been a single moment where I felt like she cared about my life with this man, about my happiness, about who I was or what this night might mean. There had been no hugs and kisses. Yes, we’d had our moment the night before, but it had been booze-lubricated. As she spoke, I realized that I couldn’t forget everything that had gone on between us throughout the six months of planning the wedding and on the day of the wedding itself. Whatever hope I’d had that this celebration and the process leading up to it could bring us closer was completely gone. The damage was irreversible. I felt hollow. There was no question in my mind that my mother’s wedding toast was for the benefit of the friends (and celebrities I’d never met) she’d invited to my wedding.
We didn’t go around to tables the way some brides and grooms do (and the way my mom and Mark did together). I honestly didn’t know half the people there. What was I going to say? Hi, Ed McMahon. Nice to meet you. Thanks for coming to my wedding. It means so much to me that you could bear witness. Oh, and would you mind going up to the mike and saying, “Heeeeeeeere’s Tori”? I don’t think so. Afterward my mom said people were disappointed that I hadn’t made the rounds. Even so, plenty of the people I’d never met came up to me. Some told me about their wedding experiences. Some said they were happy for me. It was all so stilted and formal. There was no way I could enjoy myself talking to strangers like that. But then at some point Jenny, excellent maid of honor that she was, grabbed me, sat me down, and started feeding me and handing me drinks. Then I started to loosen up.
Dinner finished, and the party kicked in. The photographer was hired until midnight, but the party went until one a.m. When they asked if it was okay to work overtime, I said yes. It cost an extra nine hundred dollars. (My mother sent me the bill.) And in spite of, or because of, the two cocktail parties and the martini bar, we ran out of alcohol, so they had to dig into my parents’ wine cellar. (My mother didn’t charge me for that.) When people come to Aaron Spelling’s daughter’s wedding, they apparently expect to booze it up.
I spent the last part of the wedding talking to my friends—Jennie, Tiffani, Jason, and Ian from my 90210 days were there—and on the dance floor. While I danced, Charlie was with his family and friends. He was my new husband, but we didn’t have a single real moment together, no chance to look at each other and connect. We were both so busy the whole wedding. Or so I thought. Now I think it was me, that I didn’t make room for that connection and didn’t want to notice that it was missing. When the time came to go home, I didn’t want to leave my friends. Charlie had to pull me off the dance floor.
As our guests waited for their cars at the valet, they were served cookies and shot glasses of milk. But Charlie and I were driven to the Bel-Air. On the way Charlie said he was sorry he’d pulled me away but it was our wedding night and he refused to be one of those couples who stayed too long, got drunk, and didn’t have sex on their wedding night. Our suite back at the Bel-Air had been cleaned up after all the bridesmaid prep. Now it was rigged out with chocolate, champagne, and music playing. There were rose petals everywhere. I was really excited to discover that there were gardenias floating in the tub (since my mother didn’t want them at the wedding), so I took a bath and luxuriated there, drinking champagne by myself, delaying consummation as long as I could.
The next day was the Fourth of July brunch at the Bel-Air. As planned, it was a casual barbecue. My mom showed up with Mark. She seemed perfectly fine, pleased with how the wedding had gone and happy to be there. Eye of the storm—I should have known.
The wedding planner called my cell phone right before the brunch. She said the hotel didn’t take credit cards over the phone. They needed to see my mother’s credit card in person to charge us for the two-bedroom bungalow that I’d stayed in. It was an expensive bungalow. I shared it on Friday with all the bridesmaids and Mehran. Plus, my wedding party had food and champagne as we were getting ready. Then I stayed there Saturday and Sunday nights with Charlie. The suite was thirty-five hundred dollars per night, and the total bill came to over ten thousand dollars. (I know: gasp. It’s a really expensive hotel.) The wedding planner told me to ask my mother to stop by the hotel office with the card. Uh-oh. I knew how this was going to go. The wedding planner wouldn’t have booked the suite without my mother’s approval, but based on her financial withdrawal from the brunch, that approval wasn’t exactly reliable. Now the wedding planner was having me do her dirty work. She was probably just as scared as I was.
It was the day after my wedding. I didn’t want to deal. So I asked my brother to do it. In short order Randy came back and said, “She says she wasn’t told about this.” She knew. Of course she knew. We’d talked about it. She’d had catered food delivered to Charlie’s wedding party but not mine because she knew we were charging it to the room where she knew we were staying and which she knew we couldn’t afford.
My brother didn’t want to get in the middle. I was forced to go over to her. I was shaking, but I walked up to her calmly and drew her aside. I kept my voice low. The brunch was in full swing now, and I didn’t want anyone to know there were money conflicts. At Aaron Spelling’s daughter’s wedding! Again, my mother said, “Well, I wasn’t told about this.” I told her it was in the budget, but she claimed not to know about it. I was so frustrated, I started to cry. I said, “Fine, Mom. I will pay for it. But I can’t afford it right now. Can you pay for it and I will pay you back?” “No,” she said, “and you’re embarrassing me. Keep your voice down.” Then she said, “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me right now.” I didn’t know how to respond to that.
Then Mark swooped in as he did so well. He handed me his credit card and said, “Take this to the front desk. I’ll sort it out with your mother.” Apparently, after I left, she burst into tears. She turned to Mark and said, “I have to leave. I can’t be here any longer. Take me out of here.”
I retreated to the bathroom crying hysterically. The night before had been wonderful. It seemed worth all the months of struggle with my mother. But this erased all of it. Our relationship was in pieces. I thought she’d treated me horribly. She probably thought she’d given me an expensive wedding and I didn’t appreciate it. What had gone so terribly wrong?
It was over. I was married. To Charlie. There was no wedding drama left to distract me from the reality of my relationship. The next day we left on our honeymoon. I called home once but my mother wouldn’t come to the phone. My father said, “She’s busy packing for a trip to Vegas, but you have a great honeymoon.”
Right when I came back from the honeymoon is when I decided to
do So NoTORIous.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Joke’s on Me
Beverly Hills, 90210 was long past. I’d pitched shows where I was meant to star as a publicist or a radio host or a dolphin-trainer. I’d done several pilots that hadn’t gone anywhere. I was always playing someone poor: a poor waitress, a poor shoe sales-woman, or a poor dogwalker. In one of the pilots I pull a quarter out of the couch and say, “Now maybe I can afford to pay rent!” It got a big laugh from the studio audience, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t my delivery of the line so much as the notion of Tori Spelling hunting for spare change.
I still hadn’t lived down my own name. When I did talk shows, they’d always ask about my parents’ mansion and being Aaron Spelling’s daughter before they asked about whatever project I was there to promote. My heart would sink. I’d walk out as an actress, and in a moment I’d be back to everything I was trying to escape. At first I tried to answer their questions accurately. I’d say, “Well, technically, I didn’t grow up in the mansion. We didn’t move there until…” But as I became more seasoned, I just laughed it off, saying, “I still haven’t seen every room” or “Once I was lost for three weeks before they found me.” Then I’d move on to talking about my project.
One night I was at dinner with my agent, and she said, “You have amazing stories. You should just do a TV show based on your life. That’s what people want to see.” It reminded me of the advice Keenen Ivory Wayans had given me on Scary Movie 2—to give people what they expected of me at the same time that I showed them who I really was. I’d been in Scream 2 making fun of myself. I was finally ready to go whole hog. I was tired of trying to get away from being Tori Spelling. I figured, if that’s what everyone wants, they can have it. Forget that dream of being Meryl Streep. I was ready to give them me. Tori Spelling. I started to pitch a scripted comedy loosely based on my life after 90210. It was called So NoTORIous.
Stori Telling Page 13