by Jennie Garth
LEAVING ARIZONA
My nondescript life in Arizona went on. I honestly wish I could remember more of this time, but it’s one of those periods in my life that I’ve just kind of blocked out because it was such a time of crushing loneliness for me.
My mother told Randy she’d look into finding me an acting coach, which she did right away through the John Casablancas Modeling and Career Center, where I’d gotten my modeling card. Randy sent audition materials to me, and I began working with a woman named Jean Fowler, a Phoenix-based acting coach. Jean would videotape me reading and send the tapes to Randy, who would then call from LA and offer feedback on my work. Then he would call and encourage my mom to encourage me. To say that Randy was encouraging, if you ask my mother, is an understatement: She would describe him as having been persistent. He said that I had “something,” and he clearly did not want whatever that something was to go to waste. And so in between going to school, taking dance lessons, and working at a clothing shop in the mall called On the Move, I was beginning to learn the basics of television acting 101.
My parents were supportive of me and my acting classes, and my mom was now in regular contact with Mr. Showbiz, who wanted to know when I was going to come out to LA.
I think I was fifteen when my mom and I did go out there for a quick visit. We wanted to see the sights: Rodeo Drive, Universal Studios, the beach, and, especially for me, the ocean. We met with Randy and we ran around like tourists and then we came home. We kept sending my acting tapes to Randy, and then one day, at the start of my junior year, I told my mom and dad that I was ready to make the leap: I wanted to go to LA and give it a shot. But here’s the truth of what was going on: I was miserable. I was a good student, but I was lonely as hell. I felt directionless, like I was fading away in that hot Arizona sun, and I didn’t want to just die in those bright but dreary suburbs. I wanted something more. So we talked about this as a family, and the first order of business was getting my dad out to LA to meet Randy and find out what his intentions toward me were, what he had in mind when he talked about my working in Hollywood.
Well, my dad really liked Randy, and he felt that he was a good and honorable man and that he clearly wouldn’t steer me wrong. The only problem my dad had with the idea of my moving out to LA was LA itself: He just didn’t like it. At all. And he said that under no circumstances was he willing to move there.
My mom had saved some money, enough, she told me, if I knew I really wanted this, for us to go out there together and try it out for twelve months. That was it: She’d give it one year. At the end of that time, we would come home. I think she needed to frame it this way for both of us, so that it didn’t feel like we were just jumping off a cliff. I understood the wisdom in this, and I, too, felt the only way I could do it was to think of it as “just giving it a try.” Plus, we would be leaving my dad behind, and that, certainly, could never, ever be permanent.
My dad was pretty well planted by now, up there on his little parcel of land, surrounded by our animals. And my sisters Wendy and Lisa were still living near there, so my mom and I felt comfortable leaving him, knowing he was in good hands. Plus, California was just one state over, and the plane ride between Phoenix and LA was a short hop of an hour. With all of our ducks in a row, my mom and I decided to move to LA and see if I could make a go of it.
I was just sixteen when we landed in LA, and the first thing we did was go to North Hollywood High, so that I could enroll in school. Well, I walked into that place, which was tough and big, and I knew, without a doubt, that I would get my blonde butt kicked back to Arizona if I were to go there, so before I was even out the door with the enrollment forms in hand, I was in tears. By the time I got back to the car, I was a sobbing mess. I couldn’t do it. There was no way that I could be the new girl, not again. I had done a masterful job of making it look easy when I was a few years younger, but in all honesty, trying to make friends and fit in had nearly done me in. I knew private school wasn’t an option, since my mom and I would be living on a pretty slim shoestring as it was. We sort of went through the motions of looking into some of the alternative educational options available to working kids in LA, but in the end, we decided that I’d take my high school equivalency exam, and so I went to a high school downtown on a Saturday, took a test, and that was it: a couple of weeks later, a “diploma” with my name on it came in the mail, and at least as far as the state of California was concerned, I was now a high school graduate.
I was so, so lucky, because right away I got to work. This was back in the days before GPS or Google Maps, and so my mother would drive and I rode in the passenger seat, a gigantic paperback book called the Thomas Guide open on my lap. The Thomas Guide was an encyclopedic collection of very detailed street maps, and while my mother drove, I navigated us around LA. We had no clue where we were going most of the time, and we’d usually get there just in the nick of time, and my mother would pull up to wherever the audition was, drop me off, and then wait in the car while I did my thing. Then I’d hop back into the car and pick up the Thomas Guide, and we’d wind our way back to our tiny apartment. I waitressed during the day and took acting classes at night, and I went to a lot of auditions and got a lot of callbacks, and within four months I had my first acting gig, a onetime guest part on the hit sitcom Growing Pains. My role was that of the bimbo, the girl who just shows up in a short skirt wearing lots of lip gloss. I had one speaking line, and I had to say it from the backseat of a convertible when the car I was in pulled up alongside the boy stars of the show. My line, if I recall correctly, sounds much racier now than it did when I was a goofy sixteen-year-old. It was “Sticky, sticky, sticky.” And it was said in response to something like one of the boys spilling a soda on himself. I remember, even then, feeling like this bit part was slightly degrading, but I did it, knowing that it would add to my résumé in important ways. Mercifully, this was one of the only times I had to play the truly dumb blonde.
I was now a working actor, and because of this, I needed to file for legal emancipation, so I could work a full day, collect a grown-up paycheck and pay my grown-up taxes.
So I filed the petition for emancipation, and I became an adult in the eyes of the state of California, at least on paper; it’s pretty amazing what a little paperwork can do for you, isn’t it?
And then I got my SAG (Screen Actors Guild) card and so I was able to get health benefits, and pretty soon I had my first major part on a new show.
Now that I was actually getting a steady paycheck, I rented my first apartment in Sherman Oaks, and my mom and I moved in there. She was shuttling back and forth between LA and my dad in Arizona, and I was either working or hanging out on my own. I was super lucky to make one really great, lifelong friend, a young actress named Patrice, whose day job was managing our apartment complex. Patrice lived downstairs from me, and almost immediately we started doing things for each other, like checking in to see if the other needed anything at the grocery store, or, when my acting work began to pick up, Patrice would look after my little dog, Sasha. To kill time and keep the loneliness at bay, I began baking—a lot. I’d make cookies or cupcakes, and as soon as they were ready, I’d bring some down to Patrice. Patrice had grown up in LA, and so she had that relaxed, easy vibe of someone who knows where she is; I loved this about her. Plus, she’s also from the blonde tribe, and so we had that in common. We were like Ethel and Lucy, just walking into each other’s places and helping ourselves to whatever was in the fridge, or racing up and down the stairs to share news that needed immediate sharing. Plus, we could be stupid and silly and hilarious together. We are still close, so very close that I feel like her kids are my kids and my kids are hers: We’ve definitely got that “it takes a village” thing down. As I write this, I’m getting ready to travel across the country for Patrice’s wedding, a special moment I wouldn’t miss for anything in the world.
After just a few short months in LA, I felt more settled, more alive, more real, and definitely more produc
tive than I ever had in Arizona. Maybe this was going to work out. Maybe, just maybe, this was where I was meant to be.
I MISS GOING TO SWITZERLAND
When I first came to Hollywood, where everything was new and exciting, my mind developed a very clever technique for dealing with all of the industry stress and pressure that my young and naive sixteen-year-old self found herself steeped in. I affectionately thought of this little mental trick as “going to Switzerland.”
Here I was, a kid who had dropped out of high school and was barely old enough to drive, but I had a manager and an agent. I was running all around LA to auditions, which led to high-stress callbacks, and I had bills of my own that had to be paid, and schedules that had to be kept.
All of this was utterly new to me; it was all about head down full immersion, about observing and listening and not letting the overwhelming newness of it get to me. But I think I was really overwhelmed by it all.
So I would be in, say, a meeting with a director or a casting agent or someone else important in the business, and the stakes would seem incredibly, unimaginably high, especially to my young, very excitable mind, and then—poof!—without warning or any effort on my part, smack in the middle of a very crucial point in the meeting, I’d go on a little mental vacation to this incredibly serene, yet barren place that I immediately thought of as Switzerland. In the spirit of full disclosure, I have to say that I have never, to this day, visited the real country of Switzerland, and I have no doubt that it is nothing at all like the Switzerland in my mind, because my Switzerland certainly did not have any Alps; in fact, I don’t know if my Switzerland even had an outdoors. Let me explain:
My “Switzerland” was a dream version of an all-white room that had no doors, no windows, no furniture, nothing. It was a safe place. A bright and warm place. It was an empty space devoid of judgment, stress, pressure, words, or sound. My mind would just simply drift off to this magical land, and when it did, I would feel awash in a deep sense of calm. I loved it there.
But there was one problem. “Switzerland” was very, very far away from Hollywood—and whatever conversation I was actually involved in would get a little . . . awkward. Just as I would be drifting off comfortably, I’d hear the other person’s voice from afar, calling me back to his or her world, and so just as quickly as I’d departed for Switzerland, I’d be arriving back in the real world, the person in front of me looking at me quizzically, waiting for me to pick up my piece of the conversation and reply. The following exchange was typical back then:
Important person: “Jennie? Are you with me?”
Me: “Oh. Sorry. I was in Switzerland. Where were we?”
Yes, people would look at me like I was crazy, but only for a split second, because all of this would transpire in the blink of an eye: I would check out for a quick, restorative retreat in my winter-white mental ashram, while whoever I was speaking with would carry on for both of us. Then I’d pop back in, somehow pick up my end of the thread, and we’d be back on track.
I mean, this wasn’t some kind of I Dream of Jeannie trick, where I’d cross my arms, nod my head, and teleport, though, come to think of it, I really wish I could visit Jeannie’s plush little harem bottle; that seems like a pretty sweet place to take a little mental vacation, too. The problem was, I had no control over when I’d be packing my bags and heading overseas.
So, more often than I’d like to admit, I’d find myself traveling “abroad” just when someone was saying something crucially important. I would be off in another time zone, so to speak, and though I’d be able to hear a voice reaching out from the nether regions of my mind, there would always be a slight delay in my ability to respond, so more times than I care to admit, I’d have to ask someone powerful to repeat what he or she had just said. Mr. Showbiz can certainly attest to this, and, during those early years, he became adept at covering for me by chiming in when he saw that I was zoning out.
The benefits of going off to Switzerland were not just internal. There is a lot of humility in learning to say, “Would you mind repeating that?” especially in a town where everyone talks fast and wants an answer now. It’s pretty hard to believe that I’ve had any kind of career at all, given that this is such a now town, and now has never, ever been my strong suit.
The truth is, I’m one of those people who needs a moment, or ten, or maybe a week to process things, especially whatever it is you just said. There’s a noticeable delay for me between when I hear your words and when they actually sink in and register in my brain, and unfortunately that delay usually causes me a lot of embarrassment, and causes the person I’m with unnecessary stress. Maybe it’s a blonde thing. I don’t know, but it’s a bit like the sign that used to be up in the London Tube stations that warned you to mind the gap. This is the mantra of my life.
I spend a lot of time minding my gap.
And here’s the thing with my gap: When I used to get stressed out, it got bigger, and bigger, and . . . eventually I would just tumble into it and fall through it and find myself plunked down in my own private Switzerland. Yay!
But this doesn’t happen anymore.
I just don’t go to Switzerland anymore. And I don’t know why. For a good solid five or six years very early in my life, throughout my relationships with various boyfriends, two husbands, my work colleagues, my family—and even Mr. Showbiz—I would just go off to Switzerland all the time. But one day, it just stopped. My mind just stopped going there. It’s not like I went to therapy to figure out how to jump-start this mental flatlining. On the contrary: I liked going to Switzerland, and I was really, really sad when my mind just stopped taking me there.
To this day I miss it. I do. I miss my winter-white brain vacations. A lot.
Maybe it’s no coincidence, then, that my bedroom is all white: the furniture, the bedding, the walls. It’s all soothing, blank white. I even recently finished a painting . . . of nothing. It’s just all white.
Maybe this means that I haven’t left Switzerland after all.
I WAS A TEENAGE TV STAR
Being on a successful television series like Beverly Hills, 90210 seems like a dream come true, right? In so many ways, it truly is. First of all, it is really good money—money on a level that I just didn’t understand when I was just a teenager. But I did understand that it took a ton of financial pressure off of my family, and this felt good. All of a sudden I was able to buy things for the people I loved, to send presents and treat people to dinners. I was able to support myself and become financially independent at a young age. So there was that.
And then there is the piece of getting to work with and learn from incredibly talented people, in many different fields. The crews who run a successful television show? They just may be the hardest-working, most patient people on the planet. There are the studio executives, who all have brains that move at the speed of sound. And then there are the other actors, who have also lucked out and now find themselves doing what they love. For a girl who was so miserable in high school, I can’t imagine a better scenario.
And the best part of being an actress? Bringing joy to others. Making people laugh. Being able to move people, to help them escape, even for an hour or so, their own problems in life. Honestly, that part is and always has been better than even the generous paycheck.
But, of course, as with any success, there are downsides too. Success, and in particular celebrity, seems to come out of nowhere, and it hits you hard, like a runaway train. One day you’re just a normal girl from the Midwest; the next, you are on the cover of a magazine and people are stopping you on the street and shaking your hand and asking for autographs. It is just, hands down, the weirdest thing you can imagine, and it can mess you up if you don’t put it into perspective pretty quickly.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. When I landed the role of Kelly Taylor on Beverly Hills, 90210, I had been in LA just shy of a year. I had a little tiny bit of television work under my belt, but not much. Just enough that some good things had s
tarted happening for me: As I mentioned, I got my SAG card—and so health insurance—after uttering that one line on camera in an episode of Growing Pains. I’d also been in a TV movie for Disney called Teen Angel Returns, which, crazily enough, starred a little-known Canadian actor named Jason Priestley, who would soon become my costar on 90210.
But before all that happened, my first lucky break came when I was hired to play Barbara Eden’s daughter in a new series called A Brand New Life, which also starred the dashing Don Murray.
For a kid like me from rural Illinois, working with these legendary actors was such a stroke of great good luck. Don had been an acclaimed actor for a very long time, but the one movie he’d done that just cemented his standing as a legend for me was Bus Stop. He starred alongside Marilyn Monroe, a woman I have always had mad respect for. Of course, there’s the blondeness and the slightly similar experience of having come up from modest means, but I mean, come on: her power, her fierce intelligence, her ability to hold up in an often completely unforgiving man’s world. I had stars in my eyes when I met Don, because I really did hope that some of that Monroe magic would rub off on me, simply because of my proximity to him. I guess I was hoping for some kind of “six degrees of Kevin Bacon” magic to happen, and that somehow I’d be transformed. A girl can dream, right?
And then there was the incomparable Barbara Eden. I mean, she was Jeannie, for God’s sake! She knew I was new to all of this acting business, and so she took me under her wing and taught me about being professional and prepared. I sat on set and watched her like a hawk, I mean literally studied her every move. From Barbara I learned about set etiquette, and how to hit your mark every time. She taught me how powerful yet soft a woman could be in this industry. She was incredibly kind and mentoring, and I remember being devastated when the show was canceled after only seven episodes, because over those few short months, I’d grown incredibly fond of and close to Barbara and Don and the rest of the cast and crew, all of whom had become my work family. I knew that, without being able to see them every day, I would be somewhat lost and adrift in this big, strange city, and I dreaded it.