by Diane Keaton
Here’s to the names, all the names, on that long, long, long, long, long list of ordinary women: names like Carolyn Jennings, Stephanie Armstrong, Allison Kreiger Walsh, Kristen Moeller, Lori Henry, Margie Hodgin, Gail Schoenbach, Sharon Pikus, and now Diane Keaton Hall.
6
THE UPHILL CLIMB
VERSUS THE DOWNHILL SLIDE
Grin and Bare It
There was my career. There was Woody. There was Dr. Landau. There was the record of my dreams. There were my obtuse journals with the list of quotations punctuating my concerns. “I used to worry about being like this. Not knowing more. But now, now, I don’t worry anymore.” (Sixty-year-old Coney Island resident) “Please stand a little closer apart.” (Michael Curtiz) “You see someone on the street and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw.” (Diane Arbus) “I wanted to be many things and greatness besides. It was a hopeless task. I never managed to learn to really love another person; only to make the sound of it.” (A suicide note) “Look, you don’t have that much time.” (Walker Evans)
In New York I started making collages again. There was the series called “Grin and Bare It,” with pictures of rotting teeth overlaid with captions like “I never knew teeth could be so interesting” or “This middle-aged patient was presented at the oral surgery clinic with the most pronounced case of black hairy tongue ever examined at our institution” or “Hutchinson’s Teeth is thought to be an oral manifestation of congenital syphilis.” There was the black sketchbook I called “Death Notices.” On each page I cut out a photograph of a person from a magazine, erased their face, stamped “Death Notices” across the surface, and glued a random name underneath. Whew!! Finally there was a spate of little notebooks illustrated with sentences from vintage books I bought at the 26th Street flea market. “I am raving.” “Hurt, hurt, hurt, hurt, hurt.” “Who am I?” “We all die.” “The vicious Cycle of Obesity.” “ ‘Don’t,’ she said, holding her ground. ‘Don’t do that.’ ” What can I say except it’s all too true.
Most of my creative endeavors were nothing more than glorified basket-weaving, another form of insurance against a relapse with a two-pound box of See’s Candies peanut brittle. I don’t think my artistic solutions to psychological problems were the same as Mom’s collage work, journals, and photography. I was lucky because I was young and had more outlets to help overcome my struggles or, at the very least, live with what Dr. Landau termed “anxiety neurosis.” On the West Coast, Mom was sailing into the wind alone.
Every cultural experience came to me by way of Woody Allen, my boyfriend. He took me to the movies, where we saw Ingmar Bergman’s Persona and Luis Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. On Madison Avenue we looked in the windows of Serge Sabarsky’s gallery of German expressionist paintings. We walked to the Museum of Modern Art and saw the Diane Arbus exhibition curated by John Szarkowski. I took a class in drawing and silk screening. I learned to print my photographs. With Dr. Landau, I examined Then versus Now and Now because of Then. She introduced Freud’s “penis envy.” Feminists claimed it labeled women as failed men. We took to discussing envy. It turned out I had a fair share of green to examine before I could understand many of my emotional shortcomings.
I still longed for a mother’s guidance and found an ideal substitute in Landau. She wasn’t the charmed listener Mom was. We didn’t hang out at the kitchen counter and share laughs. But she made all the difference. There was no hand-holding as she tried to hammer in the futility of distorting fantasy into reality by quietly paying attention to my steady stream of talk.
Landau knew the world was populated with OTHERS, not just Diane Hall of Orange County. She was a great rep for all the people in my life. Her goal was to help me come to terms with my grandiose expectations. Landau’s theory that reality was more exciting than fantasies went in one ear and out the other. Choosing the freedom to be uninteresting never quite worked for me. As much as she tried, and she tried hard, I never found a home in the arms of a man either.
I finally moved out of the 82nd Street studio with its bathtub in the kitchen and found a new apartment at 73rd and Third. Being three thousand miles away from Mom helped me deny any guilt I had over abandoning her. I was in a new business, the business of battling my self-inflicted wounds with activities that kept me away from the toilet down the hall. But more than anything there was …
My Career
In 1971 I was cast in Efrem Zimbalist Jr.’s series The F.B.I. Here’s what I remember. Nothing—except the producers checked my background before I was hired, to make sure I wasn’t a criminal.
I also got a guest-starring role in Mike Connors’s big hit series Mannix. My first shot from the episode named “The Color of Murder” was a two-page monologue. As a gun-toting murderess, I had to scream and yell my way down the middle of a huge warehouse with nothing to hold on to until I broke down and confessed. Terrified, I burst into tears and asked to be let go. “Touch” Connors, as he was affectionately referred to from his old days of playing basketball at UCLA with coach John Wooden, asked everyone to leave the set and walked me through the scene as many times as I needed. I fell in love with him. Not every big star is kind enough to take the time with a frightened young actress. Touch is still hanging in at eighty-six with his bride of more than fifty years, Mary Lou.
In 1972 there was my big break—or so I thought—with the movie of Play It Again, Sam. Susan Anspach, who starred opposite Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces, joined the cast. I was fascinated by her mysterious manner, until the day she came up to me and told me to stop smiling so much. It would create more laugh lines.
Here’s what I can’t forget about the first Godfather: Dick Smith, the Academy Award–winning makeup artist; and Al Pacino. It was Dick Smith’s idea to stick a ten-pound blond wig on my head, where it sat throughout the entire movie like a ton of bricks. I hated that wig almost as much as the red lipstick and starched broad-shouldered suits Theadora Van Runkle designed from the period. I didn’t have a clue why I was cast as an elegant WASP. I’m convinced I would have been let go if it weren’t for the fact that Paramount begged Francis Ford Coppola to fire Al, until they were blown away by the rushes of Michael Corleone’s assassination of Captain McCluskey. Somehow I managed to slip under the radar. It wouldn’t have made that much difference if I was replaced or not. I was just a blond-wigged WASP in the Godfather’s world.
I met Al Pacino at O’Neals’ bar near Lincoln Center. He had been named the Most Promising New Broadway Star in the critically acclaimed Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? We were told to get to know each other before we auditioned for The Godfather. I was nervous. The first thing I noticed about Al was his nose. It was long like a cucumber. The second thing I noticed was the kinetic way he moved. He seemed nervous too. I don’t remember talking about the script. I remember his killer Roman nose sitting in the middle of what remains a remarkable face. It was too bad he wasn’t available, but neither was I. Even so, for the next twenty years Al Pacino would be my only recurring “unattainable great.”
In 1973 Woody Allen directed me for the first time. It was Sleeper, and it was a piece of cake until the day Woody decided he wasn’t happy with a scene we were about to shoot. He went into his trailer and came out a half hour later with a new script. His character had become Blanche DuBois from A Streetcar Named Desire and mine was Marlon Brando’s Stanley Kowalski. Marlon Brando? Besides being introduced to Mr. Brando at the reading of The Godfather, the only encounter we shared was when he passed me on the set and said, “Nice tits.” That wasn’t going to help. Then I remembered On the Waterfront and the line “I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.” I repeated it over and over and over before starting to memorize the lines. In the end Woody and I performed our Streetcar parody. But the memory of Terry Malloy’s “I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am” is what remains.
Then There Was The Godfather: Part II
I was
scared as I waited for Francis and Al to rehearse what I now refer to as the “It was an abortion” scene. I told myself I didn’t care about The Godfather or Al Pacino, but I did. Especially about Al Pacino. He was going with Tuesday Weld. Jill Clayburgh was out, or hovering, like so many others. Things had skyrocketed for Al. He had become an iconic, larger-than-life figure on billboards all over town. He was Michael Corleone. He was Serpico. At the time of the rehearsal we weren’t speaking, or, rather, he wasn’t speaking to me. Maybe I said something to hurt his feelings, I don’t remember. In any event, before our supposed altercation, I managed to worm my way into his good graces by teaching him how to drive in the parking lot of the Cal Neva Hotel in Lake Tahoe.
Al was uncomfortable with the location of the brakes, and he couldn’t comprehend the difference between the left- and the right-hand blinking signals. Worse, and far more dangerous, he kept his foot on the gas pedal no matter how many times I told him to press the brake if he wanted to stop. This made for a lot of laughs but a very uncertain ride. In some ways Al reminded me of Randy: He was so sensitive that he was insensitive to his surroundings. I know that sounds like an odd description for the Godfather, but sometimes I swear Al must have been raised by wolves. There were normal things he had no acquaintance with, like the whole idea of enjoying a meal in the company of others. He was more at home eating alone standing up. He did not relate to tables or the conversations people had at them.
We rehearsed the scene as if everything was fine. When Francis got around to shooting it, every take felt completely unexpected, especially Michael Corleone’s slap. That was one of the most compelling things about The Godfather: the appearance of formality that masked the raw violence exploding in scene after scene. Recently I went to a screening and fell in love with Al all over again. The whole package. You know what I came away with? It was better he’d been raised by wolves. It was better he couldn’t drive. It was better he didn’t love me and got mad without an explanation. It was worth it, all of it, just to be in that scene with him, just to feel his face against mine. I was Kay, in a role I never related to yet gave me what little I know of Al Pacino. For me the Godfathers, all three of them, were about one thing—Al. It was as simple as that. As for the role of Kay? What epitomized it? The picture of a woman standing in a hallway waiting for permission to be seen by her husband.
Journal Entry—Dick Smith, 1974
It’s early. They put me in room 404 at the Sheraton in downtown Los Angeles across the street from MacArthur Park. I have a view. I like the room. It has bay windows. Below I can see people come and go; Francis in his limo, Dean Tavoularis in his Mercedes. Only blocks away twenty-four people were killed in a fire last Friday.
I’m sick about the scene. Francis will be up soon. I’m scared. Dick Smith has his makeup brush close to my face. I know I have to stop writing. He insists the actors sit still in the makeup chair. I wonder if he was like this with Marlon Brando. I can smell an orange being eaten by his assistant. I see steam from the water boiling in a pot.
Dick Smith, 2011
Belmont Village, a retirement residence in Burbank, is home to ladies who dine at five-thirty, at least a dozen heroes from World War II, a few youngsters in their sixties, a host of elderly men and women struggling in their late eighties, and now the artist and poet, my brother, John Randolph Hall. On the door to Randy’s one-bedroom apartment is a sign: PLEASE DO NOT ENTER. I’M LEARNING HOW TO THINK. And he is.
Every Saturday Randy and I walk to Foster’s Freeze for a soft vanilla cone. And every Saturday we see Dick Smith sitting in one of the chairs that line the back of the lobby. Dick Smith, the Academy Award–winning makeup artist, lives at Belmont Village too. Last week Randy’s knit cap was pulled low. Mine, a bowler, hit the rim of my glasses. As we got on the elevator, so did Dick Smith. I knew he didn’t like hats, but when he said, “Take that hat off,” I said, “Thank you, Dick, but I’m keeping it on.” That was when he reached over and grabbed Randy’s hat off his head.
Dick never liked hats. It’s hard to understand. But then, it’s hard to understand why Gordon Willis, the cinematographer of all three Godfathers, hated makeup artists like Dick Smith. Make no mistake about it—Dick Smith hated Gordon Willis too. It could be that Randy and I, hidden underneath the security of our hats, brought back his resentment of Gordon Willis, or even of Marlon Brando, the jokester. Maybe Dick Smith’s award-winning prosthetic makeup had been ruined one too many times by Mr. Brando’s notorious antics or the gray fedora he wore when Don Vito Corleone died in his tomato garden.
All I know is, Dick Smith is back and he still hates hats. Marlon Brando came back too. Nine years ago I was walking down a hall at the UCLA Medical Center when I saw him shuffle toward me as he held on to a companion. There was no “Nice tits” this time. He looked at me blank-faced. Dick Smith, in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, looks at me every Saturday. What does he see? An inappropriate woman with an equally inappropriate man walking through the lobby of his home, wearing hats? I know what I see—a home inhabited by a host of unique individuals who will in all likelihood soon enough become part of what Duke refers to as the Sea of White Crosses.
Love and Death
Throughout the filming of Love and Death, Woody wrote to me. I was his endearing oaf. He was my “White Thing.” Although his body was fit and well proportioned, he treated it like it was a strange assortment of disembodied appendages. His feet never touched the ground. He was constantly in the care of one doctor or another. We were quite a couple, one more hidden than the other. We both wore hats in public, and he always held my hand or, rather, gripped it without letting go. People were to be avoided. I had him pegged as a cross between a “White Thing” and the cockroach you couldn’t kill. We shared a love of torturing each other with our failures. He could sling out the insults, but so could I. We thrived on demeaning each other. His insights into my character were dead on and—duh!—hilarious. This bond remains the core of our friendship and, for me, love.
Greetings Worm,
We have enough rehearsal time, but not as much as in L.A. Still, I think Love and Death will be easier than Sleeper as there is not a lot of … falls and spills and water stunts … Our dialogue exchanges should be brisk and lively … but we’ll get into that … so snookums … speak with you soon.
Also finished 1st draft of 2 New Yorker pieces. Hey! My book—Getting Even—is a hit in France. Go figure. You remain a flower—too, too delicate for this harsh world & Dorrie is a flower & your mother is a flower & your father a vegetable & Randy is a flower in his way & Robin is a cat. And I remain a weed.—Will call.
Woody
Greetings Worm,
I am jettisoning some old socks in my travel bag to make room for some idiot’s sunflower seeds. Guess who? You, my pal, are my cross to bear.
So they’re all saying I’m a genius—but you know better, you little hellgrammite. Are you sure they’re not calling me the “White Thing?” “And he changes his underwear to sleep in.” And all the things you call me rather than genius? I am tortured with the most incredible dreams of sexuality that revolve around you and a large 2E BRA that speaks Russian.
That genial wit and good egg, Woody
Lamp-head,-simpleton-oaf—
I have decided to let your family make me rich! It turns out they are wonderful material for a film. A quite serious one, although one of the three sisters is a fool and a clown. (I think you can guess which, ducky!) I didn’t send you a big letter because you’re coming to Paris soon. I wonder if your observations about my family clock them as weirdly as I see yours? Do you have insights into my father & mother? I can imagine. The blind perceiving the blind. Last nite I had a tender dream about me & my mother. First dream of her in years. Wonder why? I wept in the dream & ate my laundry. Just kidding—I ate her boiled chicken which tastes worse.
Love from the fabulous Mister A, a man with healing humour.
Mom and the Downhill Slide, 1975
; I’m sitting in the TV room in my blue, white-trimmed robe with my hair in hot rollers so I can go to my one day a week afternoon job looking acceptable. Why am I a compulsive conformist? Why do I always wear a scarf at my neck? Why am I always sprayed down with a controlled hairstyle? Why do my shoes always match my pants? Why do I always flash the stiff, put-on smile for passersby? Why do I do this? I don’t know. I feel like I’m under a foot of oppression as I take my last sip of coffee and my last drag off the Parliament cigarette. I don’t smoke. Why am I doing this?
Last night was the start of a continuing awkward and permanent silence. Damn it, I have such waves of insecurity. I’m no one to anyone. People look at me and see a midlife woman on the downhill slide. 55 is approaching. My brain is getting thinner. If there’s one thing I don’t want to lose, it’s my ability to think. I feel old and intolerant. It’s like I’m shutting the world out. I don’t like it. I really must not drink so much alcohol.
It all started Easter Sunday. Jack and I went to Mary’s to help her tackle the ordeal of tax returns, which she had refused to pay. As expected, she opened the door and started in on the Damn Government. It took Jack hours of pain & anguish while Mary stood over him justifying her refusal to file a California tax return, even though she’d received several notices about past discrepancies. Jack warned her repeatedly that she’d been playing with fire. Mary wouldn’t listen. “Let them come to the door. I don’t care. I’ll just play dumb. That’s what I’ll do. I’m not afraid.” Jack almost lost it. “Goddamn it, Mother, just let me get on with this. I’m tired & I don’t want any more crap.”