Dad was prejudiced against success for fear of failing, and Mother was prejudiced against him for not realizing his talent. Warren and I would “accomplish” for both of them.
I remembered the times I questioned her about the conflict of having a family and a career. She was circumspect about it. “You can do both,” she would say. “You’ll have someone to watch the children anyway.” Her values were permeated with the need to succeed, rather than the fulfillment of family love. There had been no doubt in her mind that we would become people “who would be recognized in the great capitals of the world.” It was her foregone conclusion that we could mix having a family and career easily. On what she based her conclusion, I never knew. But because she was our mother, she must be right. But she wasn’t.
We were still children somewhere in ourselves, and the audiences were now a collective symbol of parents for us. Their approval was what we needed so desperately—to be loved by them because that love wasn’t present enough in our own lives.
These dynamics were often very subtle, but as all children are interested in emotional survival, we played the game of the family interplay in the best way we knew how. We learned the ropes of manipulating our potential talents early on since receiving love seemed to depend on it. But we were never really prepared or even educated to know what loving trust just for the sake of it was like.
Perhaps all show business beings come from backgrounds where love was rewarded in terms of competitive spirit. So many I know were similar in their reactions. We seemed to see ourselves as perpetual children, needing to achieve good report cards from the school of life as we lurched through our creative experiences wearing the uniform of the day, never late, always dependable, with smiling faces, churning stomachs, and literally living for the sought-after love and approval of whomever we challenged to sit in judgment on us. Audiences were, relatively speaking, a pushover in comparison with eagerly sought critical approval.
Perhaps some newspaper and television critics suffered from the same trouble as the performers, were harsh because they had not found the proper channels through which to please their own parents and authority figures, and the frustration tended to make them eloquently and wittily hostile, intent on showing off their own writing talents rather than making an honest evaluation of what they had seen.
I never knew anyone in show business who was free of the anxiety sickness—no one I knew was a professional actor or actress out of pure pleasure, void of the need to please. The arrogant, impossibly temperamental ones were more frightened than anyone. They used the offensive approach to mask their insecurities. Or even more sadly, some resorted to alcohol or drugs to dull the inner gnawing. And traditionally, psychologists and psychiatrists could always do land-office business in Tinseltown.
Some creative artists were openly honest about their fears. Barbra Streisand told me she not only wouldn’t but couldn’t perform live anymore because she was certain she’d forget the lyrics. Sinatra said his fear was that he’d open his mouth and nothing would come out. Liza Minnelli was always nervous that the creative people behind her were more nervous than she. Pavarotti and Domingo tested their voices all day long to reassure themselves that they would be able to even utter a sound at night. Baryshnikov wasn’t sure his ankles would support him. Julie Andrews was afraid she didn’t know how to talk to the audience.
For me, I didn’t trust that the collective magic would be there. I didn’t do any one thing particularly well on the stage, but I knew my energy and ability to make intimate magic worked somehow. So for me, I needed to trust the lights, sound, and music more than most. I couldn’t perform without all of it working in harmony. If one of my people was out because of illness, I fretted that I couldn’t do it without him or her. If the sound was off, it affected my ears, because I was self-conscious of my voice. If a blackout was late at the end of a number, I was sure the effect was distorted to an extreme. If a costume ripped, I was positive the whole dress would fall off—and at times it did.
During a dance number once, the top of my costume came loose exposing everything from my waist up. The spontaneity of such a moment is what audiences love. They adore having been there when something unplanned occurred. So when I rescued the moment by glancing down and saying, “Well, at least you know they’re real,” they cheered. The fact that the wardrobe mistress came out on stage and sewed me in for the rest of the show only added to the delight of the audience that we are not that different from them. Oh yes, it always works somehow, but to anticipate the problems before they occur is the hell of it.
And so during rehearsals we try to account for the future before it happens. To trust that somehow it will work out is not an easy exercise, given that our negative imagination is always worse than the reality.
Only once did reality exceed what one might possibly have imagined, actually to become life-threatening for me. I was playing in Oslo, Norway. Norway is one of three countries in the world that doesn’t have an electrically grounded power system. That means that during an electrical storm, serious damage occurs from live wires.
On the night I opened, it poured rain. Lightning was flashing so dramatically, I felt there was a new Frankenstein being born. The manager of the theater came to tell me that if I used my live microphone, he could assure me that nothing would happen to the microphone equipment despite the increased electricity running through the wires. However, he couldn’t insure me against the loss of my life!
There were over a thousand people sitting out there who had paid $75 per ticket. The theater in which we were performing was a government-financed project. A real scandal would have resulted had I not gone through with my show. So true to my recurring dream, I did what was expected of me. I performed the entire show without a microphone. My voice was shot for a few days, but again I had lived up to my obligation, and the government of Norway remained scandal-free.
So with my new show, I decided I would make the conscious choice to be less anxious. I would take some of my own advice; and, regardless of the programming conditioned in my childhood, I would empower myself to change. Around the third week of rehearsal, I was more balanced with my anxiety. If I didn’t get a step right away, I quietly put it aside, working on it in a corner by myself. If I hadn’t developed the drama in a song, I trusted that it would be there later. I knew I wasn’t a singer anyway. I was an actress who sang. It would take time.
I had three scenes from movies I’d made as part of the show. If the props weren’t ready, I relaxed, assuring myself that I could bring such mechanical problems together later. So in general, I made a pact with myself that I wouldn’t allow urgency or any potential disaster to get the better of me. I was soon to put my pact to the test.
I had been feeling a dull toothache for a few weeks. Nothing to lose sleep over, but still I had learned to always attend to medical questions before departing on a tour.
I went to my dentist, who treated me to a series of tests, which seemed to revolve around the potential of root canal surgery. He recommended a root canal specialist, who told me about a man he treated who could meditate himself into such a comfortable state of being that he needed no anesthetic at all, even for gum surgery.
He had imagined himself on a beach, lounging in brilliant sunshine, the waves lapping gently at his feet. He could hear seagulls, feel the cool water on his toes, and taste the salt on his lips. He said the man was completely involved with the set and setting he had conceived in his imagination and never allowed the pain of the moment of gum surgery to divert him.
At one point, however, the man had interrupted the procedure while he retrieved a dry blanket from his car! The doctor waited while the patient imagined unfolding the clean blanket and once again assumed a languid position under the sky and beside the surf. At the signal, the dentist continued. He told me there was much less blood than usual and the recovery period quicker.
I, in my limited state of evolvement, chose laughing gas.
Since I never t
ake any medication, my entire system felt clobbered when it was over. In fact, I couldn’t really dance again for two days. I was dizzy, light-headed, and couldn’t keep my balance. I didn’t like being out of control. I was glad we had found the right tooth and it was over. That didn’t last long.
Two days later, during my checkup, the doctor said the tooth next to it had a dying nerve too—a second root canal would have to be done. By now I really didn’t have time.
I called a teacher friend, a teacher of metaphysics relating to the body. I was curious what dying roots in teeth meant in terms of consciousness. He said that dying nerves represent old values that are dying. “Root canals are often necessary when people give up their old ways of operating,” he said. Then he asked if I was going through significant changes in my ways of looking at and feeling about my life and work. I hardly knew how to answer. I was in upheaval, not to put too fine a point on it.
He went on to say that venturing into areas with a new point of view was often accompanied by problems with teeth involving gums and nerves. Venturing out required new nerves, therefore, the old needed to die and step aside.
When I went for the second root canal, I told myself it was all happening for a reason—it was part of my growth. It was necessary to allow the old to pass away so as to make room for the new. It was part of a harmony I trusted but couldn’t quite understand.
I didn’t realize it then, but such a point of view was going to have to become second nature to me in order to get through the next seven months.
The night of our first run-through (without costumes and lights) approached. The bandstand was built. The musicians had programmed the music for synthesizers. The dancers were well-trained, and our rundown was complete. We hired the Pepperdine University theater to invite a few hundred people so we could get a reaction to what we had.
The invited guests trickled in; and after greeting them personally, I engaged in chatty conversation with a few friends, evidencing complete relaxation about getting up there on stage in a few minutes.
I bandaged my feet (blisters and such), attached my body mike with its battery pack, did some pliés, and we began.
Another reality occurs when a performer knows he or she has to rise to the occasion of entertaining people who are finally out there. All the years of experienced timing, the ability to ad-lib, how to pace your breath, how to give them a good time, come into play. It happened with me that night. Performance energy is a dimension different than rehearsal energy. It is higher, of course, but it is also more intense and leaves you unaware of anything but the audience. I have performed not knowing I was injured until the show was over.
Reaching down into myself and pulling up all the years of live enjoyment, I put on a good show. The audience loved it. The dancing was full out. I remembered everything. The comedy and drama were fine and, of course, everyone understood the magic would be more enhanced and complete when we had lights and costumes.
When it was over, I took a bow. My father flashed through my mind. Would he have liked it? I hadn’t dropped the baton at the relay race. And I knew that what we had would work for the most part.
A few days later the entire company traveled to San Antonio, Texas. We chose that city for the first tryout, because the theater was available for us to set up our lights and sound and bandstand and have a few previews before we opened. The tour had begun. The real audience was waiting.
I took Mary Hite with me so I wouldn’t shirk my bodywork. Her way of gentle but strength-building workouts had redesigned the alignment of my back and inner hips. I was using orthotics in my shoes, so I walked differently and my lower back, so far, was pain-free.
Gary Catona came too. He had redesigned my voice, because my restricted throat was now opened up. I was stepping out as a brand-new 1990 model of myself! As I was to learn soon, it required a great deal of adjustment.
CHAPTER 8
The Tour
San Antonio is a quaint, cozy city, which has been attractively refurbished under the aegis of Mayor Henry Cisneros. Its relaxed environment was soothing for me. I walked the river (more like a canal); and with our composer, Larry Grossman, and some of the musicians, we ate huevos rancheros and drank Long Island iced tea in the sun like regular civilians.
Each person was dealing with his or her own problems relating to the opening of our show. With a kind of delicate tension under the conversations, people gossiped and chatted with each other, with me, and with the creative team that was responsible for putting it all together. A show on tour is like a traveling family. The members eye each other, have their likes and dislikes, their favorites, and an almost visceral understanding of the pecking order.
There’s an old adage in show business. In any given company it’s good to have somebody to hate. It releases pent-up tension. Usually the focus of anger is either the “star” or the director or some other person in a position of authority. The star often has a drinking or drug or temperamental insecurity problem, making him or her a natural candidate for unexpressed hidden frustrations. Stars either work the company too hard or not enough, are either too in need of attendance or totally aloof. Whatever. If the company’s gossip can revolve around the star, the problem is solved. If not, they go elsewhere.
In my case I had none of the above idiosyncrasies, at least I didn’t evidence any, so the process of focusing frustrations began its natural selection.
Alan, the director, was too nice to be a candidate; and anyway he hung out with people and alternately scolded and cuddled his dog in such an endearing way that the gossip about him centered around his “dog-man” relationship, automatically making the pickin’s slim.
Mike Flowers, company manager, responsible for the stage crew, hotel accommodations, paychecks, and traveling, was—in everyone’s judgment—fair, courteous, kind, and commendably easy to deal with. Except that he was movie-star gorgeous and no one could figure out his personal life, there was nothing to complain about where he was concerned.
I could see the problem in rehearsals. Which one could people focus on? In the absence of a definitive candidate, they turned their feelings on each other.
Camps began to emerge. There were camps within the ranks of the musicians. There were camps among the gypsies, involving a few role players from the wardrobe department.
Pete Menefee, the costume designer, had been with me for fifteen years. He was a retired gypsy and knew the gypsy mentality backwards. “You have the best dancers in the business,” he said correctly. “That means you also have four divas.”
And why not? However, divas can be biting and sometimes cruel with each other. Since they practically live in one another’s laps in their dressing rooms, emotions build from lack of privacy and a wealth of combustible talent. Those with the penetrating wit and self-centered authority prevail. The others fall by the wayside. And yet gypsies are such sensitive, smart, intuitive human entities; in the end, if they deliver on stage, they all survive.
I watched the drama unfold. One of the girls began palling around with one of the guys, sparking entertaining gossip that they were having an affair, which everyone agreed would end as soon as she reached a city where there was really good shopping and he went broke.
A few of the musicians were having trouble with the conductor, who played a significant role in their discontent because he never gave them a downbeat.
The head of wardrobe was a bright young man who teased that he would rather wear my costumes himself than put them on me. Roger’s domain was the basement of every theater where he and “his ladies” sewed, gossiped, repaired, and made decisions as to who would be the recipient of small and big favors. Mike was smart in that he ordered delicious food between rehearsals and made sure that people were happy in their assigned rooms.
As opening night approached, I was pleased that my tensions were not too deep. I actually enjoyed our hotel and the sweet city of San Antonio.
Larry and I had a few meals together at which we discussed o
ur lives and the interplay in the company. I hadn’t realized that he had been through his own camp-clique problems, which he weathered, as indeed all of us had to.
Buz didn’t come with us to San Antonio, because he had a benefit to do at the White House with Barbara Bush and literacy. I didn’t feel it was very literate of him to be missing. We had worked together many times, and Larry and Buz had worked together for twenty years. One of the mysteries of show business people is we never really know one another as well as we think we do. Of course, we’re in the business of game playing. But the game playing is fundamentally competitive. Even with the extraordinary degree of personal honesty and sharing that takes place during the creative process, we are always thrown when one of us acts unpredictably and without understanding.
From my point of view, such was the case with Buz not being there. The show was set for the most part; but without a writer aboard, I felt isolated, even though I’d often make my own changes and rewrites according to the audience reaction. I missed Buz. So did the others. One of our most important “team” members had something more important to do. Buz’s absence, therefore, was good for a day of gossip, but it quickly faded in anticipation of our opening.
I worked with Mary every morning in our hotel suite. My body felt pretty good. My voice was holding its own. And I guess you could say I was ready for the moment when the houselights would dim, anticipation would mount out there in the darkness, and it would be up to me to deliver. Thank goodness my recurring nightmare had three weeks of rehearsal to counteract it.
The musicians took their places on the bandstand. I entered in the dark and found my mark, waited for my cue. Then the musical chord sounded and the spotlight hit me. I was blinded. The audience erupted in applause. I couldn’t see a thing. I had forgotten the impact and the isolation of the spotlight. It shocked me. The applause was loud and long. You’d think I’d been away for a lifetime, instead of only six years. I wondered how their perceptions of me had changed since I was last on stage. Had my books and “New Age” philosophy confused them?
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