I was telling him, that night, about how my wife and I were going to take a few days upstate over the weekend. This was a long- scheduled trip. I didn’t really want to go. I had a bad feeling about it. But it was, you know, something we had wanted to do. And why not? The doctors said that everything was probably going to be just fine. There had been some surgery. It had gone pretty well. My dad was going to be released pending the results of a few more tests.
“We’ll be back Sunday night,” I told him. He kind of glared at me. “Well,” he said, “I guess I must be doing better than I thought.” I told him I loved him, gave him a kiss on his stubbly cheek, and got out of there, feeling like a felon leaving the scene of a crime, which, I suppose, I was, although the crime in question is not one that is written in any temporal book. Nonetheless, it’s real. I’m guilty of it. My sentence for it will never be commuted.
That night up in the Catskills somewhere, I could not sleep. I was hot, then cold. Bugs zoomed around my ear. There were way too many crickets. After a while, it started to rain, big, heavy drops that sounded like hailstones on the thin roof of the cottage our friends had loaned us for our getaway. Thunder followed, walking across the sky with great, heavy boots, accompanied by rippling blasts of lightning. In the darkened house, as my wife slept, I rose and paced the strange rooms with a mounting sensation that everything was wrong. Everything. And as that maelstrom raged both inside me and in the world outside and above, I felt my father’s spirit reach out to me across those ninety miles and say to me, as if I heard it in my ear, “Come to me. Please come to me now.” And yet I did not come.
At six a.m. the telephone rang. I had given the number to my mother in case of emergency. I don’t need to tell you what she told me. My dad lived for another week or so, but he never woke up. I sat by his bedside holding his hand, which didn’t feel like his hand at all. It was cold and slightly puffy, where before it had been dry and firm and warm. Not his hand. Not his face either, because the eyes are the windows of the soul, as you know, and his were empty, so empty. I spoke to him, of course. Told him how much I loved him, how much I regretted not being with him when he needed me, how much I regretted all the time we had wasted fighting with each other. He didn’t answer. They tell you that people at the end do hear you, even if it appears they do not. I hope he did hear me. I tell myself that he did, because it makes me feel better, but not really.
When my mom died last summer, nearly twenty-five years after losing the love of her life, I was sitting next to her on the bed, holding her tiny, frail hand in both of mine. I have never felt more clearly that I was in a place where I was meant to be. So maybe I learned a little something between these two great and terrible passings.
WHAT I LEARNED
Certain events in your life present you with a choice for which you get one chance and one chance only to do what should be done. We must seize those moments and hold them close, no matter how difficult they may be, for they are the stuff of which destiny is made.
SALLY KELLERMAN
Actress (Hot Lips, M*A*S*H)
When I was a kid I was a huge fan of Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye.
Then maybe at the beginning of junior high, I went to see Viva Zapata! and my life changed. Marlon Brando was so thrilling and sexy and gorgeous.
With Jean Peters lying in bed in the background, Marlon stood looking out the window wearing only these white Mexican drawstring pajama bottoms. It’s an image I’ll never forget.
I saw every movie he did. I must have seen The Men at least four or five times and The Wild One seven times, and later when I was out of high school I saw Guys and Dolls seven times.
I always felt so chubby and unattractive, and I thought Marlon would understand me, because I read once that he had struggled with weight, even though he was so skinny and gorgeous in all these movies.
I was hanging out with my best friend, Luana Anders. Luana starred in Francis Ford Coppola’s first film, Dementia 13, and later she was in Easy Rider.
Luana and I were in Reform School Girl. She was the star and I was a bit player. I wasn’t exactly making a living in show business at this time.
One day, I was driving down Hollywood Boulevard and I looked over to see this old white car, and who was driving but Marlon Brando. I thought, Oh, no—that can’t possibly be him, because that’s an old beat-up car. I had the idea that a movie star would be driving a big fancy one. But it was him, and oh my God I was over the moon.
Another night I went to the movies. It was pouring down rain. I got out of my car, looked over, and saw Marlon going into the theater. I don’t remember the movie. All I could think of was that I was in the same theater with Marlon Brando. When the movie was over I looked for him, and I thought I saw him, but I wasn’t sure.
One day I told Luana, “I think I’m going to see Marlon tonight,” and she said, “Oh, don’t say that—you’re scaring me, because you probably are.” Sure enough, I went to a restaurant that I had never been to. I don’t remember who took me there. It was a fancy restaurant with red booths. And there he was, sitting at a table with some people. It was more than I could bear. My heart nearly fell out of my chest.
Another night I went to Cosmo Alley because Stan Getz was playing and because I knew that Marlon’s friend Carlo Fiore was the bouncer. I knew Carlo. He was sweet to me, a nice friend. Again, I forget who brought me there, but we walked into the music part of the club, and there was Marlon. Carlo introduced me to him and sat me down beside him. I weighed about 175 pounds and was five foot ten, with short bleached blond hair. Here I was with my big fat face, talking a hundred miles a minute. Marlon was famous for liking quiet Asian and black girls, so I was anything but his type. When the music was over, I didn’t move. He didn’t move. My friend said, “Sally, I’m leaving now.” Without looking I said, “Okay, goodbye.” Pretty soon Marlon looked over at me and said with a smirk, “All right, so what are you—an actress?” To which I responded, “Yes, I am, and I don’t think it’s funny,” and he said, “Well, would you like to go for a ride?” I said, “Yes, I would.”
We went to his car and got in and drove around the block. He went to put his arm around me, and I said, “What are you doing?” He said, “Right. I wouldn’t want to spoil this beautiful friendship.” He turned the car around and dropped me off. I was a virgin. I could never have slept with him. I was just excited to have a little ride with him. I could hardly wait to tell my pal Luana.
There were a couple of other nights I went back to Cosmo Alley and would be sitting there with Marlon and some different people. He was always asking questions: “How old are you, Sally?” “Do you have a boyfriend?” All these questions—I didn’t know what they were because I was so stunned to be in his presence. I was never myself around him.
I pined away for two years after that, trying to get over my crush on Marlon, while I was working as a waitress in a place called Chez Paulette up on the Sunset Strip. It was a hangout for people like Steve McQueen, Warren Beatty, John Cassavetes, and friends like Jack Nicholson, James Coburn, and Robert Blake, and all kinds of producers and directors. I was in heaven.
One night after closing I was wiping off the tables and I looked up and saw Marlon coming in with this tall blond guy. This was around the time he was shooting The Young Lions. They sat down at the other end of the restaurant, and I went on cleaning tables, but my heart had stopped. I went over and said, “Here are your menus.” I didn’t say hello or anything and walked away. When I came back I said, as coolly as I could, “May I take your order?” I took the order and went back to cleaning tables.
It was a small coffeehouse, and I was staying as far away from them as I could. I finally had to do tables closer to where they were sitting. I was doing everything with my back to them. Suddenly, I heard this voice say, “Sally, don’t you remember me, or are you playing it cool?” I whirled around and blurted out, “I’m playing it cool, because every minute I’ve ever spent with you was the worst minute of my whole life
.” He smiled at me and said, “Would you like to come up to the house?” “Yes, I would.” We got in the car with the blond man, and I was like a wooden Indian the whole way up to his house—just so scared and excited. We got up there, and Marlon had to go to the bathroom, so he leaped out of the car and ran into his house, and the blond guy said to me, “It must be wonderful to be so quiet and calm.”
We went inside and wound up sitting on Marlon’s bed—the three of us. I forget much of the conversation, but all I remember is that I said something, and Marlon, being sympathetic, reached over and touched my leg.
I said, “Don’t touch me, because you’ll never touch me as much as I want you to.” I got weepy, and the next thing you know this blond guy was gone and I was alone in the room with Marlon.
Either I looked good or my crying appealed to him, because I knew I was not his type. I spent the whole night in his bed, fending him off because I wanted to be special. He was so mad at me. The next morning he had to get up to go to a meeting, and I said, “Well, you can’t be mad at me because I didn’t sleep with you!” Oy.
WHAT I LEARNED
I was a putz. If a similar opportunity affords itself in my next life—I’m there.
JONATHAN ALTER
Senior Editor, Newsweek
Magazine
Considering the thousands of articles I’ve written over a twenty- five-year career as a journalist, I’ve been lucky: plenty of little errors but no libel suits or big screwups. There is, however, one column I’d very much like to have back—a column that to this day makes me wince at the thought of it. This column was not technically inaccurate, but it was still a mistake—a big mistake—to write it. It was published in Newsweek in late 2001 under the headline “Time to Think About Torture.”
The column began: “In this autumn of anger, even a liberal can find his thoughts turning to . . . torture.” After explaining that no suspects were talking in the investigation into the greatest crime in American history (9/11), the story suggested psychological torture (loud music, sleep deprivation), truth serum, and deportation to less squeamish allies as things to consider to crack the case. I went through how Israel handled terror suspects, the problems of what to do in the so-called ticking time bomb hypothetical (in which a terrorist in custody knows about a bomb but won’t talk), and explained that torture does sometimes work. The column concluded with the thought that “we can’t legalize physical torture. It’s contrary to American values,” but we needed to think about psychological interrogation and letting tough allies do some of the dirty work. The final sentence read: “Nobody said this was going to be pretty.”
After the column came out, the New York Times ran an article about how liberals were reconciling themselves to torture and used my piece as Exhibit A. The fact that I was not advocating physical torture was, of course, lost in the translation. For a time, I clung to this as an excuse. I rationalized that it wasn’t my fault if people ignored my distinction between physical and psychological torture.
We now know that late 2001 was exactly the period when the Pentagon loosened its restrictions on torture, disregarded the Geneva Conventions, and began a policy (also used occasionally during the Clinton administration) of “extraordinary rendition”—deporting terror suspects to be tortured elsewhere. I have no evidence that my column contributed in even a small way to making it easier for the Bush administration to pursue these new policies. But I do know that such policies have been proven wrong morally and are harmful to the war on terrorism.
I’ve now read enough about torture to know that it simply does not work in obtaining credible information from suspects (the stories saying it did have been largely discredited). Tortured suspects talk, but they almost never say anything useful. Worse, by winking at torture, the United States has not just violated important international agreements but turned its back on its own most sacred principles. In purely practical terms, torture at Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay, and other American prisons have made it much harder for the United States to set a humanitarian tone and push for global democracy. At a deeper level, sanctioning torture undermines who we are as a people. Many Americans understood this even in the angry aftermath of September 11. I just wish I had been one of them.
WHAT I LEARNED
When you’re angry about something, whether personal or political, make sure that emotions don’t overwhelm reason. There are times to be intentionally provocative, but not when the result may contribute to hurting people unnecessarily. On sensitive issues, trying to protect oneself with caveats and rhetorical loopholes is foolhardy. Only the larger point comes through, and you are responsible for foreseeing that. Finally, we need to think like terrorists to help figure out where they might strike next, but not to act like them.
SUSAN UNGARO
President, James Beard
Foundation, and Former Editor
in Chief, Family Circle Magazine
It was the New York media trial of 2002. Rosie O’Donnell had shut down her new magazine and the company for which I worked, Gruner & Jahr USA, was suing the television talk show host. I was caught in the middle of the fight, because I had helped her start her magazine, Rosie. At the time, I was the editor in chief of Family Circle, which was also owned by G&J USA. The company asked me to also serve as editorial consultant on the launch of Rosie’s magazine. Things had not gone smoothly, to say the least. I and others ended up being caught in the middle. And so I found myself involved in daylong depositions and pre-trial pressures of being the lead witness on the opening day of the trial. My view of the much-publicized breakup was that both sides had made mistakes, so I was not being viewed all that favorably by my company. Clearly that made me nervous.
The night before the trial, my husband, Colin, was traveling on business and our eight-year-old daughter, Christina, didn’t want to go to sleep. It was past nine-thirty and I felt I needed to reread the 300-plus pages of my deposition before morning. (I had heard that the one thing you don’t want to do on the witness stand is contradict your testimony.) When Christina got out of bed for the third or fourth time, I snapped and crankily told her she had to go to sleep because Mommy had a big day tomorrow in court.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
I showed her the two-inch-thick binder and said I had to read all of it tonight because I was going to court before a judge tomorrow. “And I don’t want to make any mistakes,” I added.
She replied, “Don’t you know, Mommy, all you have to do is tell the truth and you won’t go to jail.”
Her innocent but right-as-rain reply made me smile in spite of my tension. All of a sudden I realized I didn’t have to study my deposition, because I had simply told it like it was. All the office politics had blurred my sense of right and wrong. And so . . . I closed the deposition, took her into her bedroom, lay down beside her, and got a good night’s sleep.
WHAT I LEARNED
My mother always said, “There are three sides to every story: his, hers, and the truth.” It used to bug my brothers and me when we were fighting for Mom to take our side. Yet I had found myself repeating my mother’s words when my three children had quarreled, trying to get my husband or me to take sides. It took my young daughter’s innocent sense of justice to remind me that despite the flurry and stress of office politics, business scandals, and even high courtroom drama, the only true source of being at peace with yourself is to remain true to your values and simply tell the truth (even if it sometimes hurts).
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV
Impresario, Dancer, Director
Well, I’ve made a million mistakes that surprisingly didn’t affect my life on a big scale, but I think the most regrettable moments come from when I’ve been in a position to influence and haven’t extended my arm to someone I felt needed help. It wasn’t always clear what that person needed, but it bothers me that maybe I didn’t do the right thing at the right time.
WHAT I LEARNED
I should look more closely into what’s
in people’s eyes and try to respond better.
WALTER CRONKITE
CBS Anchorman
My biggest mistake was retiring from the anchorman’s chair at the CBS Evening News. In taking that fateful step I was living up to a yearlong resolve that I would retire on my sixty-fifth birthday to enjoy some of the still reasonably certain active years with my children and grandchildren—on the sailboat and the tennis court. I’d take them and my dear wife, Betsy, to the many exotic lands I’d had the privilege of visiting as a foreign correspondent.
WHAT I LEARNED
Had I known I was going to live this long, I might not have stepped down from the anchor desk so soon and missed out on a lot of the dandy stories of this last quarter century. However, I would not change the opportunities and the fun I’ve had with my family and friends, and the folks I’ve met sailing and traveling in these ensuing years.
KATHIE LEE GIFFORD
Entertainer, Playwright
I love you too much to deny you the privilege of making mistakes.”
Sounds funny at first, doesn’t it? But that’s exactly what my daddy used to tell me when I was growing up.
Well, I’m still “growing up” and I’m still making mistakes, and I’m still remembering my daddy and all the wisdom he imparted to me. I’m grateful every day that I had a father who understood how valuable mistakes can be. Because although I’ve had my share of success and good fortune, it has been my mistakes that have taught me the most.
If I Only Knew Then... Page 5