Rita Will

by Rita Mae Brown

  I hope the 1997 Oscars woke them up. Talk about egg on your face. The independents walked away with everything.

  Even if the studios are committed to profit and profit only, the question has to become, how much profit? Why can’t the studios go back to the old system and make the blockbuster as well as a few modestly budgeted movies that are about real people?

  A studio executive has a responsibility to the shareholders. Actually, if I am hired to work on a picture, I feel I have a responsibility as well. People are risking their money on “my” project. I want a good return. Again, how much profit? If I can take a $15 million film and when all the costs are toted up deliver a $10 million net profit to the studio, I have done my job and so has everyone else on the project.

  Budgets are so bloated, people are forgetting how to be creative. Often, having to find a less expensive way to accomplish a result brings out creativity. Just shoving more money at a director is lazy and is also financially irresponsible to those same shareholders.

  As for the salaries of the heads of the studios, they’re bigger than the gross national product of Peru—or so it seems. If they can deliver, I suppose they’re worth it, but I wonder what kind of signal it sends throughout the business. There is a point when people, in and out of the business, recoil in disgust.

  I’ve been fortunate, though, to work with some good, good people. I count Alvin Cooperman at the top of the list. He’s blue-chip. Norman Lear taught me a lot. We’d fight and make up and I think, on looking back, that the sparks made us both more creative. He knows story, he knows production and action, but above all, Norman knows network politics. Watching him schmooze with an executive ought to be part of a university course.

  An actor who helped me as a writer was Jason Robards. He goes to the text. When we shot a new adaptation of The Long Hot Summer he’d sit down at a picnic table with me and he’d meticulously examine the text.

  “I hate Faulkner,” he’d grumble. “Can’t understand a word of it.”

  “This isn’t really Faulkner,” I’d parry.

  “It’s based on his short stories.”

  “This is to Faulkner as military music is to music.”

  Then he’d laugh that rolling, Irish laugh of his and he’d set to work.

  But then, Jason Robards is of the theater. He is classically trained. He’s also one of the greatest actors of his generation. What a body of work he has created.

  The Long Hot Summer let me watch good actors and great actors develop their characters. Dennis Turner, who rewrote part two (no, I didn’t mind a bit—he did a good job), wasn’t called on the set. I was. We worked our asses off.

  Don Johnson had to carry the show, even though he was thrown against Jason Robards, Ava Gardner and the extraordinary Judith Ivey. Everyone wrote off Cybill Shepherd, thinking she was there for beauty. She fooled them.

  As it turned out, Don Johnson did carry the show. He had a lot more inside him than the network thought he did—and there was more than one executive waiting for him to fail, since he was a pain (in their estimation) on Miami Vice. If he was a pain, get him better scripts. If actors are really working and growing, they don’t have time to bitch and moan.

  Stars bitch and moan. Actors act.

  Cybill blossomed during this shoot. She was scared to death initially. I liked her immediately. She’s southern, after all. But as she opened up her character I grew to respect her.

  Romances? No. I had a crush on the assistant director but he paid me no mind at all.

  Mother gave me a harsh piece of advice when I was young. It’s crude but I pass it along because it’s the God’s honest truth: “Don’t shit where you eat.”

  I have never and will never sleep with anyone I work with on any project. After the project, hey, fair and clear. I never did, though, because we’re all gypsies and we’re moving on to the next project.

  This might be a steamier read if I could pretend I’ve had wild sex with stars or they’re my nearest and dearest friends. But it’s not true. I’m a farm girl. I take the money and put up fencing or buy more land. I hardly qualify as an interesting person by Hollywood standards. I’m not on the party A-list and wouldn’t be able to attend if I were.

  The strangest episode I observed involved Roseanne and Tom Arnold, who were married at the time. They hired me to adapt Graced Land by Laura Kalpakian. It’s a well-written book, peeling away welfare fraud to reveal the fraudulent emotional life of the main character. In the wrong hands this would be plowing through mud. She wrote a light, funny novel and made it work.

  Roseanne was perfect for the lead. A lot of my friends regaled me with horror stories from the set of her TV show. I did as I usually do: I listened and kept my own counsel.

  I met Roseanne and Tom in their trailer on the back lot. We hit it off. She had a good grasp of her character and he understood his character, too.

  Tom can’t sit still, so as Roseanne and I discussed the story he was like a kangaroo. He’d jump up. He’d sit down. He’d jump up. He’d go outside. A very masculine fellow. I understood why she was attracted to him.

  The first thing I noticed about Roseanne is that she trusts no one. She trusted me to get her a good script but I doubt she would ever trust me as a person. Her experiences in this world have left her wary. She wants to trust people but something pulls her back.

  I’m not sure she trusted Tom but she loved him. She’s a passionate woman who needs male attention. He doted on her when I was with them.

  Each time we discussed the script, I was impressed with Roseanne’s understanding of the subtext of the story. The politics of the piece touched her. I was crazy about working with her. She made it easy. Her staff also was very good. And the network executive, Phillipe Perebinossoff, gave me the best set of notes I have ever gotten from a network executive. (Usually network notes are pretty poor. The execs may understand structure but not character. No one understands pace, I swear.)

  The other great thing about Phillipe is that he wouldn’t give in to Roseanne. She needed a strong hand. She was acting in her first movie of the week, her husband wanted to codirect (the network nixed that), he was costarring opposite her and she was starring in the hottest show on television. It was too much and, while Phillipe was sensitive to her desire to control everything, he wasn’t going to let her overload.

  Living in Virginia, I missed out on the daily politics of the show. Halfway through the second draft Phillipe was pulled off and a new executive put in charge. I never mets her. I can’t say anything about her, good or ill.

  But I sure can tell you what happened to the show. ABC hired Bill Bixby to direct. He was a good director but he wasn’t right for this piece.

  The opening scene sets the lead. The heroine’s husband left her five years ago for a younger woman. Joyce, the lead character, is obsessed with Elvis Presley. She’s a con artist and, to add to the irony, her ex-husband occasionally comes back and sleeps with her. He’s cheating with his wife, as it were. It’s too delicious.

  Bill Bixby called me up. “What’s going on in this scene?”

  I explained.

  “Does he fuck her?” His exact words. Obviously, Bill wasn’t southern.

  “Uh, yes, he does.”

  “She can’t fuck him. The audience will lose sympathy for her right away.”

  How wrong he was. That opening scene established what was good about Joyce, and what was delusional and deceitful. She still loved him and she made good on it in bed. Ninety-nine women out of a hundred, seeing that, will feel sympathy for Joyce and fear that he’ll hurt her all over again. The hundredth woman will write an irate letter to ABC declaring we’ve all gone to hell in a handbasket. The candyasses tend to listen to the hundredth all too often.

  Why Roseanne allowed that to happen I don’t know. I wasn’t on the set. Either she was tired of fighting or they convinced her this was the better way. The opening scene was changed. Joyce didn’t sleep with her ex-husband.

  Why would
anyone involved with The Woman Who Loved Elvis (ABC changed the name) undermine its star that way? Did the network, sick of dealing with her, decide to get even? That would be colossally stupid. Was Tom so worried about his role that Roseanne put her energies into him and forgot to protect her own character?

  When the show was aired it did quite well and Tom gave a good performance; it was his springboard. Roseanne gave a credible performance but not the one she intended to give. Her character’s teeth were pulled. No fangs. The supporting cast was quite good. I was beside myself when I watched the rush cut, however. No fool, I didn’t call Roseanne or the network. Done is done.

  I will always believe she was betrayed. Roseanne has a peculiar acting range. Her stage work is that of a stand-up comedienne. That means she’s going to have problems with her timing in films because film requires a vastly different timing than a live audience. She won’t have a problem understanding character and she will flourish with good people around her. I don’t know if she wants a cinematic career or a long-form television career. Her series has been phenomenally successful. But if she wants to grow as an actor, she can. There’s a lot inside.

  Actors, like horses, have different speeds, different abilities, different temperaments.

  I love them. I love working with them. I’ve seen some of the best onstage. Helen Hayes, Maggie Smith, Janet Susman in London, Glenda Jackson in London, Colin Blakely (I miss him), Linda Lavin, Jason Robards, James Earl Jones, Vanessa Redgrave, Derek Jacobi and Timothy Piggott-Smith are the ones who spring immediately to mind.

  I prefer watching actors on the stage. I get a much better sense of their abilities. In film a great director, a great editor can save an actor’s ass. On the stage they live or die alone.

  The greatest piece of television acting I ever saw was Dame Peggy Ashcroft’s Barbie Batchelor in The Jewel in the Crown. Nothing prepares you for the scope of her performance. Get her old films on video and watch her give performance after performance of splendor.

  A favorite piece of film acting that most of you might toss off as too light is Sir Alec Guinness in Captain’s Paradise. How funny, believable and subtle.

  I could go on and on about actors. I feel for them because they’re badly treated until they get to the top and then they can still be badly treated because producers and directors prey on their insecurities.

  Cherish them. They give all they can give and are dependent on others for the work. I can walk away and say, “The hell with you,” and write another novel. An actor has to wait for the script and the call. Therein lies their conundrum.

  Oh, the bravest actor I ever saw was Richard Chamberlain. When he walked away from Dr. Kildare to learn his craft on the stage in London, he was much derided in the press. But he was right. The best place for an actor to learn is on the stage. When he came back he performed the title role in Richard II and he was good. Richard II can so easily be played as a tragic fool or a swishy queen. Chamberlain got him just right. Richard II never truly understood power. He was enchanted with the image.

  As I was wrapping up with The Woman Who Loved Elvis a female walked into my life who was more bullying, uncooperative and self-absorbed than any star. Peggy Sue was a holy horror.

  81

  Between a Rock and a Hard Place

  Half Percheron, half Heinz 57, Peggy Sue was four years old in 1991. The only reason anyone put up with her was that she was very talented. She can jump the moon but you’ve got to keep squeezing or you’ll take the jump and she won’t.

  Gordon Reistrup worked with me then and with Peggy Sue, too. I’ve been fortunate in my assistants over the years, most of them leaving me for greener pastures. Rebecca Brown is now a published author. Claudia Garthwaite bought her own small publishing company, then sold it later at a nice profit. Gordon worked for me for five years, leaving to devote himself full-time to a magazine he started the last year he worked for me.

  But Gordon was a twofer. He could bang away on the computer, edit and ride extremely well. To him fell the unenviable task of civilizing Peggy.

  To him also fell the unenviable but often funny task of coping with Judy Nelson.

  Over the years I’d see Martina about once a year. Both of us were on the road a great deal, rarely in the same town at the same time. If we were, I’d make an effort to see her and Judy Nelson, her partner.

  The first time I met Judy, in 1984, I was taken aback. How often do you meet a woman whose hair can be ruined by a ceiling fan? Loud, flashy and extremely controlling, she seemed to be everything Martina ever wanted in a woman. She’d organize the day, pack the suitcases, intrude into every aspect of Martina’s life and look good doing it. Martina was blissfully happy in the beginning. I sure as shooting wasn’t going to say a word.

  I’d seen the lovers before me and enough of the lovers after me to shut up. I’d do the same for any friend. When the fairy dust is in their eyes, why spoil it for someone?

  As Dad used to say, “Marry in haste. Repent in leisure.” Life will teach us soon enough.

  Ambitious with no appreciable talent, Judy’s talent was her Maid of Cotton looks. She tried to make room for love but vanity got there first.

  Martina didn’t seem to notice because she was freed from the nattering daily chores that drive us all crazy. She could play tennis—and play, period. In exchange she heaped mountains of jewelry on Judy, shared houses in Texas and Colorado and bought hers and hers Porsches.

  A few snags created drama. Judy’s ex-husband. Dr. Ed Nelson, for one. He didn’t want their two sons living in a lesbian household. Judy’s parents, Frances and Sargent Hill, took care of the boys, who were then in grade school. As the years passed, Ed softened somewhat. A new wife certainly brightened his picture. Then, too, the boys were doing fine. Not once did they try on dresses or whatever it is straight people fear will happen to children in gay homes. (The statistics bear out that nothing happens. Kids are kids. Anyone who thinks they can truly control their children has a screw loose.)

  All this cost money. Martina’s money.

  But once a routine was established she was happy.

  Martina is a woman who has to be in love, and therein lies the problem. “Look before you leap” is not part of her operating procedure.

  But who among us hasn’t made that mistake once or twice? Good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment.

  As the years rolled on, Judy’s iron grip tightened. Not only did she love Martina, she actively loved her every second. There was no escape from the magnitude of her devotion, nor from the constant stream of orders and demands.

  That Martina happily submitted to this obsessive and controlling relationship is a measure of how desperately she didn’t want to be responsible. Let Judy do it.

  And Judy did.

  The two women made a video that defined the disposition of material goods in the event of one partner’s death. Simply put, it was a visual will. Not so simply put, it was a testimony to the seriousness of their commitment. This proved extremely troublesome later.

  Judy knew Martina’s history well enough to be worried. She kept on good terms with Martina’s exes, even agreeing to enter promotional or business relationships with a few. They never could get their hands out of Martina’s pockets. Judy, rightly so, made sure they took only so much.

  That Martina would allow this kind of hanging on unnerved me. She started traveling with a retinue of coaches, cooks, gofers and God knows who else. They may have made her feel important and they may have provided some services sometimes, but the scale of the operation was really unnecessary. It all looked like money down the drain to this farmer.

  Added to that was the compulsive spending of Judy and Martina, too, although I think Martina could have had some sense knocked into her on that issue if anyone had cared to staunch the hemorrhage of funds. She usually blames the other person for the spending sprees.

  To be fair, poverty has marked me. I’m far from a miser and I can make foolish purc
hases, too. But their spending bordered on the neurotic. Of course, one of the few times a woman has naked power is when she purchases.

  Judy needs to be the center of attention as much as Martina does but Martina had a great gift. She deserved the attention so long as she kept it in perspective.

  I sometimes wish that Martina could have knocked around more. She lived in a state of protracted adolescence without the hard knocks of adolescence. She’d played tennis throughout her young years, her career controlled by the Communist state of Czechoslovakia. She missed that leveling experience of American high school and she missed the concept of citizenship in a democratic country. It wasn’t that Martina hadn’t had an eventful life, but up to the point of the split with Judy it was a life shielded from emotional development. It’s nearly impossible for athletes to grow emotionally at the same pace as their generation.

  For the seven and a half years that they were together, 1984 to 1991, Martina wouldn’t contribute to any gay causes nor work for them. She hadn’t the time. Occasionally I’d ask for help for the Lambda Legal Defense Fund or for someone fighting to keep her kids. I even asked her to give to the Gay Games, which I thought for certain would be up her alley. She never would, saying it would jeopardize Judy’s custody of her sons. Well, paper bags of cash are often given to political candidates’ campaign people. I suggested she could do the same to help people in desperate trouble. Few outcast groups are as despised or as vulnerable as gay people. Other people will band together to protect themselves. Gay people often avoid it for fear of being associated with other gays.

  I don’t think she would have been exposed. I don’t think the boys would have been jeopardized.

  Martina would argue with me. “Why should I be the sacrificial lamb?”