I thought about proposing to The View the idea—stalking Streisand segments. Unlike McGreevey, this was the sort of stuff that would have really had meaning for me.
I wanted to ask about a stalking Streisand segment, but on the other hand, I was feeling a “what’s the point” exhaustion. I could hear them saying no; it was out of bounds for them. And it was just around this time, the time of wanting to suggest a Streisand segment and feeling so pessimistic about their response—well, just at this time I felt things start to shift a little in myself. One of my concerns was losing balance, caving in to the crowd, becoming an emblem or an icon to even myself. Starting to see myself as I was seen, which is larger than life, and therefore dead; celebrity culture can kill you. I would learn this later all over again, and in the worst way, when Anna Nicole Smith died. In some awful way, her death was not a surprise. It was a confirmation of things I already knew.
But I’m ahead of myself here. Anna Nicole Smith was still very much alive. And the pace of my life started to pick up dramatically. As I slipped back into celebrity land, the tasks multiplied a thousandfold, and the letters addressed to me but having nothing to do with the real me—the mother me, the married me, the friend me—the letters addressed to the celebrity me began to pour in again, asking for money, for help, for salvation. I had gone for four years living alone, and now my mailbox was overflowing and people were telling me I was fantastic, the funniest, the happiest, the brightest, the est-est of the ests; people were talking about my comeback as though I were not a person but a sport, and when enough people speak of you, and see you, in a certain way, you can become that which they think, or speak, or see. How to best explain this? It is a shift that happens in the head, and that very few celebrities will ever really speak about—the inflation of self, the pride. One begins to believe in the specialness, and a dangerous sense of entitlement takes over. It feels shameful to speak of, and I do not do it easily. The drunkenness is not from alcohol or morphine; it’s from the steady stream of praise pouring in.
How did it manifest? In just the subtlest ways, like the inability, or unwillingness, to wait in line. The need to get my groceries, my tickets, my gasoline, my art supplies, immediately. Let me put it this way. Life is full of red lights and stop signs. When celebrity addiction starts, you become impatient with, even angry at those necessary obstacles. You think you could run a red light, or two. And then you do.
And there were other signs as well. I took The View job in part so I could have balance in my life, not be swallowed up by the demands of a career. Because the show was over by noon, I figured I would be able to pick my children up from school. During my years off screen, I picked my kids up all the time. I stood at the curb with all the other mothers, and made friends. At first, everyone was shy, but as time ticked on, and the years passed by, the other mothers began to forget I was Rosie O’Donnell and they came to think of me as Ro, another woman picking up her children at the end of the day. I loved those moments with the other mothers, worrying about grades, or who was misbehaving, or what the third grade teacher did. Sharon became a good friend. We worked out together. We discussed this and that. We waited in the dampness and the drizzle. We waited in the slush and the snow. We watched each other greet our hearts at 3:00 p.m. every afternoon, swooping the child up, each reunion as rich as the first one, this ritual important. I didn’t want to lose it.
But as September slipped by, and as autumn tilted toward a creeping coldness, I began to miss the pickups, because I got too busy. There were meetings in the city, there were fund-raising events or phone calls or crises or I was just too damned exhausted to get the car going, to weather the weather outside. First I missed one afternoon pickup; then by early October I missed two or three a week. I craved time alone, time where words were not necessary. I spent whatever slivers of free time I had in my craft room, which overlooks the Tappan Zee Bridge, jeweled with lights that come on ever earlier as the darkness settles like a dust cloth over the town of Nyack. High up the hill, I could hear the car leaving, and I could hear it coming back, the sound of my kids as they tumbled from its heated interior and raced toward the main house. Go up there and greet them, Ro. Sometimes I did. Other times, though, I did not.
The time for filming the first Streisand concert was coming closer. And I knew I was going to make this movie regardless of The View’s interest in its creation as a possible segment. “What would we get out of it,” I could just hear them ask, because they might not know the obvious. Ratings, guys, ratings. But they didn’t understand much about how to get ratings. In all likelihood, they’d decide the story had no place on their show, but that didn’t mean the documentary itself needed to die.
Kelli, however, didn’t want me to do the Streisand documentary. She thought it was a bad idea. I was already booked to the gills, and now I was planning on jetting from city to city, red-eyeing it back to Manhattan in time for live Views every day at 11:00 a.m.? Barbara Walters from the start saw my love of Streisand as more of a silly obsession than anything else. Other people simply thought that logistically I couldn’t film every concert while maintaining my career commitments. I knew what I needed to do though. I knew filming Streisand was not a further departure from myself; it was, instead, a possible route of return. Therefore, it seemed obvious to me. I had to do this, as a mother, as an artist, as a person.
Jen Le Beau and I gathered our gear. We talked.
We planned. “A love letter,” I said to Jen. “Streisand needs to know the impact she has had on this nation.” The more we talked, the clearer our goals became to us. A love letter, yes, but then more. By documenting Streisand’s fans, by capturing their words on camera, their faces on film, we thought we could weave together a portrait of this country in its highest hopes and deepest dedications.
As I said, time in celebrity land blurs and blends. Days flip past like cameras clicking—next shot. Next shot. Next shot! I got familiar with the new routine, the early a.m. awakenings, the dressing room without a bathroom; I became a night pooper, and that started to seem normal. Or, if not normal, then just the way it was. A familiar distance wedged itself between me and Kel—a distance born of busyness, and impatience, and the occasional entitlement that comes from relapse. I remembered something Parker had said to me a long time ago, during my first show, when he was young. I was dressed to go out—some charity event, a fund-raiser for my foundation. Kel was coming with me. She was glittery; I was coiffed; the babysitter had arrived. “We’re going to make money to take care of some sick kids,” I told Parker. “Why,” he said. “Why don’t you just stay home and take care of us?”
Why indeed?
My four years away were perhaps at their core an acknowledgment of his question’s validity—not an answer but a simple, humble nod. During my four years away from fame, the guilt had gone for a while, and so the blade had dulled. Now the guilt was back, and so were the sharp edges.
My children started to seem further away. What working parent has not had this experience—hearing what a child says but failing to actually listen? Or the experience of brushing your girl’s straw-blond hair without once considering its color, or the way it pours over your palms.
My art began to feel dry to me, my yellows muddied. I wondered: How could we make The View better? What would the ratings tomorrow be? I watched those ratings go up, and I watched the trees turn colors, and I saw the real yellow was there, in the season and out of reach. Viv, my youngest, brought a leaf in from the yard. It was perfect, saffron and see-through, the veins raised in delicate ridges, the stem cool and pale.
And I dreamt. I dreamt deeply but without serenity or rest. I dreamt long lists of dry facts: DOBs and DODs and IFBs and ABCs. Sometimes Elisabeth was in my dreams, but I could never remember how, or where, or why. I’d get that feeling, though, that weird inner tug you get when you see someone or something and suddenly recall a fragment of a dream from the night before, or the year before; who knows when? She was in a crosswalk, or sayi
ng her times tables, 9x2, 5x3. Even in my dreams she stayed inside the lines. What would she think if she knew who I really was, if she knew the plain mundane facts of my mundane life that is nevertheless probably so different from hers: tummy mummies, Aunt Minnie, Chelsea’s silver keys, the waffle house. Yes, no question we were different, but even in this strong brittle girl I saw something.
I invited her to my house that first fall of my being on The View, as the ratings were going up and my private life was coming down; I asked her to come over. And she did. And it was one of those beautiful blue September days when she showed up with her handsome football husband and perfect porcelain baby, and what I saw in her face was something like shock. Here was my house, pretty, pale yellow, with a tasteful round window made of stained glass, and four well-kept children who know their manners and have respect. Elisabeth came over and saw me in my suburban kitchen, and on my suburban deck. She saw that my daughter Chelsea has two blond braids, and my other daughter, Vivi, wears her hair in a close neat cap. She saw my boys play with Nick, a pooch so fat and friendly that he drags his nubbed tongue across your palm giving kisses. Elisabeth saw our family. I can’t recall a thing we said when her family visited ours. Except this. “Your children are so well behaved.” I had impressed her as a mother. This was a connection—for sure.
Elisabeth Hasselbeck was the captain and MVP of her division one softball team at Boston College. Who gets to be captain of a softball team as good as the one she was on in college? It’s the rare woman, that’s who. You have to be a leader. You have to want to win. Show me that girl. That’s what I was saying to Elisabeth right from the start. Put down your IFB and pitch me a curve like I know you can. Stop with your sound bites and your predigested politics and think on your own two feet. I said to her, “You should throw a ball from the top of the set all the way across at the targets to win prizes for the audience.” Imagine that. What a segment that would be. In some weird way, I figured The View would be successful if I could just get Elisabeth to throw that damned ball.
Set it fly. There it goes. Look up. It’s padded, white, sutured with stitches; fat but still aloft, the ball arcs through the air, on the air, above the audience.
Waiting, watching—confetti! I asked for a monthly “Hasselbeck Hurl” to show her off, to remind her of herself.
It never happened.
I don’t know why.
Blog 9/23/06
i hate rainy days
i would not survive seattle
gloom descends
necessary
it feels like a job
not my whole life
gratitude
earned
again . . . the press screams
my name in bold
skip good or bad
distraction
a gay one showed up
surrogate perfect girls in photos
from long island
my age 2
no matter how much i opened
he could not see in
took the easy way out
gay flag and all
jim mcgreeveys hands were shaking
in the green room
humanity trumps celebrity
grace enters for all
quitting aol
as my face appears
way 2 often
with a survey underneath
believe what u feel
u know
inside
what is real
CHAPTER 8
Talking about Barbra
Q&A with Rosie O’Donnell,
Producer Jen Le Beau, and
Interviewer Lauren Slater
ROSIE: Streisand is a direct connection to the light. She transmits on a frequency that comes in very clearly to nearly all of the population that samples her. Her channel comes in true and strong. She was broadband at a time when most people were dial-up.
LAUREN: And your mom loved Barbra Streisand?
R: Completely.
L: What would your mom think of you, if she were alive, and could see all that you have become?
R: I wonder about that. I think about it. If my mother had lived, I don’t think I would have been able to accomplish all that I have.
L: Why?
R: I don’t know. I do know that in many ways I am a child of Streisand’s. I mean, she’s only twenty years older than me. She was born April 24, 1942. I was born in 1962. My generation, we were all raised on her. Metaphorically we were nursed on her music, her essence and her individuality. She was the role model and an inspiration, a once-in-lifetime talent.
L: So what did you actually do to make this documentary?
R: The film is a tribute to her. It’s a long love letter. It’s a gift to her about the effect she’s had on the culture and consciousness of so many people . . . My producer, Jen Le Beau, and I got into a car with our equipment and drove to Philly for opening night. Jen rigged the SUV with cameras. And we drove down.
JEN: On the way down we had a little movie marathon. We watched A Star Is Born.
R: We sat in the front row with her husband, Jim Brolan, and Donna Karan—
J: We were in the family section.
R: And the music started, the orchestra, the “Funny Girl” overture began. Barbra came out.
J: And Barbra’s first words were “Rosie, I think I hear you.” Ro and I looked at each other and her face went white.
R: What I felt, impossible to say.
J: And then Barbra sang “Funny Girl.” When she was done she looked down at Rosie and said, “I think that was for you.” And Ro burst into tears. It was truly incredible.
L: And did you guys go backstage after the show?
R: I decided not to go backstage at this point. I needed time.
L: So what happened?
R: We went home. I had a show in the a.m.
J: The ride back, from Philly to New York, was great. We talked. Ro kept saying, “So this is the part in the movie where the copter crashes and the music swells. Because real life can’t be this good. Something bad is going to happen to me now.”
L: I don’t get it.
R: I can’t help but feel I must be dying. Because I’ve gotten so much, been so lucky. If my life were an actual movie, it would be too, too flat almost, too much. I mean, my life is in some ways a story about a girl whose dreams came true. Because I spent my whole childhood dreaming of fame, of meeting Barbra, of being on Broadway, and it all happened. How weird is that? If my life were a screenplay, it would be a flop. The author would have to remedy the problem of too-muchness, of pure comedy, by inserting some tragedy to balance it all out. So here I am, just waiting for the tragedy to hit. If I were a screenwriter authoring my own life, the story would be this: girl from Rhonda Lane dreams of fame, dreams of Streisand, grows up, gets fame, gets Streisand, goes to Streisand concert, sits in front row, Streisand personally addresses her, the climax comes, and then—something tragic’s gotta happen or the movie will fall flat—so then the girl from Rhonda Lane gets some incurable disease and is gone. This would have to be the ending of the screenplay.
On a less dramatic level, I wonder. I always wonder: am I worthy? Why am I in the company of people like this?
L: It’s a dream come true, and that can be scary, in a knock-on-wood sort of way.
R: Yeah. Exactly. There’s a moment in your mind where you’re just like, “What the hell.” But the strange thing is, even when all your dreams come true, you can keep making more.
L: So what are your dreams now?
R: In my dream version, we’d finish the film, and then I’d fly out to L.A. I’d drive to her house and I’d sit down and I’d bring her the chocolate cake that she loves from the bakery in Brooklyn, and we’d sit down and watch the film and she’d think it was fantastic. But that’s a dream. And it’s a ways away. Right now we have a lot of very good raw material, but it’s still being shaped.
L: Has she seen any of it?
J: Just a six-minute
trailer. But she liked it!
R: Right. And that’s huge. Because first there was a question of whether or not she would even allow us to do this documentary, this tribute, and then she did allow us. And then there was the question of whether she would watch it. And she did. I didn’t go backstage after Philly, but I did go backstage after the New York City concert. And I handed her team the disc.
J: And then we waited.
R: Nerve-racking.
J: Very.
R: And finally, some time after Philly, we got the call. The call from her manager, Marty, who said she’d seen the footage on the plane, and loved it, and it was a go. October 24.
J: We thought it would be fun to get to Chicago real quick. So right after The View ended, on October 8, we flew down. We set up a tailgate party. We wanted to know what people say, and think, and feel, and do, when they hang out before a Streisand concert. So we put a button on Ro’s blog: “Send us an e-mail and tell us if you’re going to the concert and what Streisand means to you.” From these e-mails we picked eighty-five or so people, and organized a party at a little restaurant around the corner from the concert. The party was a blast. Really special people there. We had a barbecue.
R: And then we went to the concert. When we went down to Philly, I had just started The View, and we went down, just me and Jen in our car. But Chicago happened in November. By then I’d been on air for well over a month. It was a whole different experience.
Celebrity Detox Page 7