by Jennie Garth
But I kept my head down and my eyes on the prize. I kept myself very busy working as a waitress, going on tons of auditions, and continuing to take acting classes at night. I was, I suppose, living the Hollywood version of being in college, because I was doing what any aspiring young actress needed to do. I had one year, just twelve months, to give it my all, and if things didn’t pan out, I’d likely go back to Arizona—or, even better, Illinois—and get on with my life. All I had at that point was my determination. And, of course, Mr. Showbiz, who always manages to come through just when I need him most.
And this was never truer than when it came to landing me an audition for a new teenage drama that was being cast the year I turned seventeen. There was a ton of buzz surrounding this project, because it was the brainchild of the legendary producer Aaron Spelling, who had produced such television megahits as Charlie’s Angels, The Mod Squad, Dynasty, and The Love Boat, just to name a few. But it had been a while since he’d hit it big. Mr. Spelling was due for a comeback, and I wanted in on it—just like every other kid in town—including, I later learned, my dear friend Patrice.
When the casting call for 90210 went out, Mr. Showbiz did his thing and sent over my head shots, and we heard pretty quickly that these had been thrown out, likely before they’d ever even reached the casting directors. It was clear that only seasoned actors were going to be considered for this project, but Mr. Showbiz, who’d had a long and profitable relationship with Spelling’s team when he was a casting director for ABC in New York, persisted, and somehow managed to finagle a meeting for me with Mr. Spelling himself.
I’ll never forget that day when I walked into the ultra chic Spelling offices, a suite of rooms with thick, luxurious shag carpeting, plush couches, and occasional tables that had candy dishes filled with cigarettes on them.
Mr. Spelling greeted me as though he’d known me my whole life. He was very warm, very wonderful, very huggy. With his infamous hunched-over posture, he spoke to me in a tone of pride and encouragement that immediately set me at ease; then he escorted me into a room full of executives and I read for them. When I was finished, Mr. Spelling smiled and began to say incredibly complimentary things, while the other executives just nodded in agreement. They all stood, we shook hands, and I left. It seemed to be over before it had even started, and I remember just being so nervous when it was all over. I left the conference room, met up with Mr. Showbiz, and as we were leaving the building and making our way across the parking lot, for some inexplicable reason I turned back to look up at Mr. Spelling’s offices and there he was, standing in the window, giving me a big old double thumbs-up. I guessed that meant I’d done all right. To this day I can see still Aaron’s smiling face and those thumbs.
I’ve heard that I was the first person he cast, but who knows? The character I would be playing was a teenager named Kelly Taylor, who was the archetypical mean girl from Beverly Hills. She was rich and spoiled and the polar opposite of me in every way, except that we were both blondes. I couldn’t wait to play her. This had also been the part Patrice read for, and I was pretty stunned when I got it. She was totally excited for me and always has been, and always will be. She’s something special, that one, a true friend.
The first cast read-through was held right at Mr. Spelling’s house—not the gigantic mansion of legend, but the home he lived in before he built what was, for a long time, the biggest house in LA. God, I was so shy, so nervous! I kind of collapsed into one of the huge, overstuffed couches we were all perched on, and I just stared down at the script that I clutched on my lap. I couldn’t help wondering what the hell I was doing there with these other actors—most of whom had a lot more experience than I did. There was Shannen Doherty, of Heathers fame; Ian Ziering, Jason Priestley, Tori Spelling, Gabrielle Carteris, Brian Austin Green, Carol Potter, and James Eckhouse. It was an incredibly heady moment, like being called up to the major leagues right out of high school. It was such a huge, huge day for me.
I sat there on the plush couch just hoping that I wouldn’t screw up. I did not want Mr. Spelling to realize that he’d made a terrible mistake hiring me, that it had all been a misunderstanding, and would I mind getting up and leaving and never coming back? I was so thankful Jason was there, at least one familiar face, and boy, could he make you feel welcome and comfortable, with those eyes and that smile! Everyone else seemed really nice, too. I was nearly crippled with the awful wallflower angst that I’ve battled my whole life. When it hits, I just buckle up and get to work. So that was what I did that first day: Eyes on the page, do your job, get the hell out!
Despite how terrified I was, I got through that first read-through just fine, it seems, because I spent the next decade of my life on the show.
Beverly Hills, 90210 launched on the Fox network in the fall of 1990, when I was eighteen. At first it didn’t get much attention, and there were even murmurings of its possibly being canceled. But then the network executives made an incredibly brilliant decision. Back in the day, summers were when networks would just roll out reruns of their most popular shows and maybe toss a made-for-TV movie or two into the mix, just to keep viewers from thinking they had just packed up and gone on hiatus for the summer (which was what everyone pretty much did). But Fox decided to do a special summer season of Beverly Hills, 90210 and shoot new episodes so that the target demographic—kids who would be home from school all summer with nothing else to do but watch TV—would have something fresh to watch, something written and produced just for them. So we kids from fictional Beverly High also slid into the summer thing, and this one-off original summer season featured our characters on our own “summer break.” Instead of roaming the halls of Beverly High, we were working our summer jobs, hitting the beach, and creating massive amounts of teen relationship drama, Southern California beach–style.
But that’s not all those crafty producers had up their sleeves: They also added a “secret weapon” by bringing on a character named Dylan McKay, a bad boy who would be in town only for the summer, hanging out with his absentee businessman father. Dylan McKay, played by Luke Perry, became an overnight heartthrob. He was so wildly popular that his six-episode story arc was extended and extended and then extended some more, and he soon became a regular, full-time cast member—and one of my very closest friends.
But let’s forget about Dylan for a moment and let me tell you what happened after that “bonus” summer season of the show. What happened is that all hell broke loose! In just a matter of weeks, we went from just being another generic ensemble cast of any old prime-time drama to being . . . superstars. (It helps to emphasize this by whispering it like Molly Shannon as Mary Katherine Gallagher on SNL, the insane Catholic schoolgirl.) I mean, what happened to us was nuts. It was madness! Pandemonium! Insanity! No, really, it was totally ridiculous. And utterly and completely overwhelming.
We were suddenly on the cover of every magazine, and our characters were being talked about as though they were real people. But we were the real people, and I don’t think any of us were prepared for the stardom that was thrust upon us in this way. Thank God we had one another, because we were able to protect each other from the harm this kind of sudden fame can bring with it by staying close and huddling up and focusing on getting the job done. Maintaining our professionalism as a group protected us and kept us all somewhat sane while our lives changed forever. And it bonded us as friends for life.
I remember sometime early in season two, just after that summer season launched us into the stratosphere in terms of ratings and “Q” factor, I was sent by myself to a mall somewhere in Indiana to do an appearance. Somehow the guys who ran security for the mall didn’t get the memo that the show had become a huge hit, and so about ten thousand screaming teenagers showed up and began pushing one another, trying to rush the stage. I watched, dumbfounded, as the body of a girl who had fainted was passed, mosh-pit style, up toward the stage, and then dumped right there in front of me. Mr. Showbiz was standing in the wings, working his phone
, and the next thing I knew, we were surrounded by Indiana state police and I was being hustled off the stage, which, by then, was rocking back and forth. People were falling down, getting stepped on, and screaming. At one point Mr. Showbiz grabbed me by the shirt and we ran through the double doors that were behind the stage.
This kind of intense fan reaction was not something any of us had expected, especially not me. I remember feeling really bad that we’d just bolted and that I’d left all those fans in the lurch, but this was no normal meet and greet: The event made the national news, as a run-of-the-mill mall event that had turned into a riot.
And mind you, this kind of thing began happening to us before there was any kind of social media or any of the other technologies that have since spawned the outrageous (and out-of-control) cult of celebrity voyeurism we now live in. This was the kind of crazy groundswell of popularity that usually happened to rock bands, not a bunch of kids making a television show. Plus, I was really on my own now: my mother, knowing that I was well situated in Los Angeles, began to spend more and more time back in Arizona with my dad.
After that trip to the mall in Indiana, everything in my life was turned upside down. Now I couldn’t go anywhere at all without being approached by strangers who wanted an autograph, a photo, or just to touch me. I had recently bought my first car, a black SUV with tinted windows and bulletproof doors, which was what the dealer told me all the young stars were driving. I had no idea how I was supposed to behave, so I just went along for the ride, doing what I was told to do, trying my best just to enjoy that crazy wave. And thank God for Patrice then, too. We would do something really off the radar, like go to a tiny nail salon for a manicure, and we’d come out, our wet hands held high, and there would be a mob of people there, a pack of paparazzi surrounding my car. Or one time, after dinner, we went to get my car out of valet parking and we literally couldn’t drive off—the paparazzi just made a human wall and stood there. If Patrice hadn’t been there, I don’t know what I would have done.
When all the madness first hit, Mr. Spelling hired bodyguards for all of us, but this security covered us only when we were actually on set. So there I’d be, out in Van Nuys, at work, surrounded by a huge crew of people, all of whom were paid to make me and my fellow cast members look good and be safe. People were hired to shuttle us around, make sure we had enough food and water, even tell us when we could take a bathroom break. I’d be treated like the queen of Siam for twelve hours a day; then we’d wrap and I’d head home, by myself, in my big, black, bulletproof car. Then I’d get to my home, scurry into the house, and stay there, until I had to get up and do it all over again.
This was an incredibly strange way to live, even for someone who’d had a pretty isolated upbringing. I felt comfortable—almost comforted—by all of the workers buzzing around me during the day, but after hours, I’d find myself getting anxious when strangers approached me, and so simple tasks, like going to the grocery store, or the mall, or to get gas, became overwhelming exercises in having to be “on,” when my natural inclination was to shut down and not interact with anyone. I was barely nineteen and began to suffer a level of anxiety that was, at times, nearly paralyzing. When the panic attacks started to kick in, I became even more withdrawn.
To say that my life was schizoid is an understatement: I’d be coddled and pampered and doted on all day; then I’d be on my own, with no one to talk to except dear Patrice. I was young, I was making an obscene amount of money, and I had no clue about any of it. All I knew to do was to keep my head down and work my ass off, because I knew that if I let any of the “star” stuff go to my head, I would be in trouble.
Looking back at those years, from when I was roughly sixteen to twenty, I think it’s fair to say that landing such a plum role pretty much right out of the gate didn’t help me grow up in some crucial ways. It’s taken me a long time (just ask my shrink!) to really look at how that experience shaped me, and how it affected the way I conduct myself in my relationships and, consequently, what I expect from the people around me. I went from being a lonely girl to being taken care of in this weird, over-the-top way. It was trippy! It was traumatizing! And it’s still trippy, and I feel very, very fortunate that it didn’t screw me up more than it did.
The constant attention pushed me even more into my introversion and made me feel really overwhelmed and alone. I started spending even more time on my own, more time away from the real world, if you will. I stopped going to the movies or clothes shopping or doing any of the other things normal young people do. I would wait until well after dark and then go to a twenty-four-hour grocery store, in the hope that I could then shop without being accosted by a well-meaning but overeager fan (or two, or many). I wouldn’t say that I ever stepped over the line into full-blown agoraphobia, but I would say I definitely came close, and I’ve been battling the anxiety that early stardom brought on ever since.
As my public life grew, my private life shrank. Being still new to town, I had very few friends, but with those I did have, I built incredibly intensely loyal friendships. It is worth noting that these few good souls are still my closest friends today. I probably hang on to people tighter than I ought to, because once you’re in with me, you’re in for life. I realize this makes me sound almost stalkerlike, but it’s true: I’m loyal beyond belief, and sometimes certainly beyond reason. Most of my friends—actually all of my closest friends—are not in show business, and of course I have lost a few dear friends along the way. But mostly I’m just very grateful for the people who’ve stood by me, and for how lovingly they’ve helped shape my life, how they’ve helped me to stay grounded when it was pretty close to impossible to do so.
Becoming a teenage TV star is almost too wonderful, too over-the-top everything: It’s exciting, it’s fun, it’s validating, it’s lucrative, and it’s completely life-changing. It can, if you’re not careful or lucky or both, utterly ruin your life. Thank God I, and my beloved castmates, managed to make it out of all that alive.
9021-OH
I loved my job on Beverly Hills, 90210, and yet it wasn’t as glamorous as people thought. For any of you out there who are happily delusional fans of that iconic nineties television show, I’m going to advise you to skip ahead, because I’m not going to pull any punches and I’m going to tell you what making this show was really like. So if you’d prefer not to hear the nitty-gritty, then you can just flip through the pages and meet up with us later on. I might be about to burst some big bubbles. And because I am historically such a people pleaser, I do not want to be the one who kills those 90210 fantasies of yours. However, I am writing about this notorious time in my life, and that means no sugarcoating, no sneakily whisking you, the reader, off to some fictionally enhanced version of the Peach Pit.
First reality check: We cast members—me, Jason, Ian, Luke, Shannen, Brian, Gabrielle—none of us were from Beverly Hills. Only Tori was. But even Tori’s life for that decade of shooting was not at all like the seemingly glamorous one she grew up in. No, our lives were nothing like the lives of the Walsh twins and their gang of friends.
All of those mansions with the pristine lawns that flash through the show’s opening montage? Those were B roll. Stock video of the mansions of Beverly Hills. Instead, picture this: You’re driving down the ugliest industrial street in a town called Van Nuys, fifteen miles and a world away from the chic streets of Beverly Hills. When you get to the end of that street, turn right into a driveway that’s behind a chain-link fence that is topped with curled barbed wire (hey, there’s a lot of pricey film equipment on a soundstage). Once you get through the gate, slow down, so you can find your designated parking spot, which you’ll recognize by the chipped number spray-painted onto one of the concrete parking blocks that neatly divide up the broken asphalt. Remember this number, because it’s not only your parking space number, but it’s how you will be identified on the call sheet, which is the document that is handed out to the cast and crew at the end of a day’s shooting in advance
of the next day’s work.
Oh. And you will be coming here every day for an average of fourteen hours a day, five days a week. For the next . . . ten years.
My number was three, for a good few years. But then . . . I became number two! And eventually, before our long run was over, I did, in fact, become number one. How did this promotion happen, you ask? You move up the call sheet only when someone above you 1) gets fired, 2) quits, or 3) is sent to rehab. You can only imagine how good it felt, then, when I finally made it to number one.
Despite the fact that the number on the call sheet was not a ranking of talent or popularity or importance to the show, I have to say that, once I became number one, things did seem to lean a bit more favorably in my direction.
For instance, my dressing room for most of my years on the show was a dark, windowless cubicle the size of a closet that was next to Ian’s and directly across from the bathrooms. One of the first things I bought for this space was a boom box, so I could drown out the sound of Ian on the phone (he was quite the wheeler-dealer back then and was always excited about one moneymaking scheme or another) and the never-ending flushing sound coming from the toilets across the hall.
I wanted to make this tiny closetlike room feel homey and comfortable, so I squeezed a small futon into the space, and this left about three feet of room to spare. I brought in candles and lots of pillows and blankets (once the futon was in, there wasn’t enough room to accommodate a chair as well). I had the set decorators paint it various colors over the years, and for the first few, it was painted a deep, dark burgundy. Despite how crowded my sanctuary was, I loved having people over (pull up a cushion!), and I ate lunch in there almost every single day. By myself. (This was our only long break of the day, and I badly needed the quiet.) From time to time, I’d put a note on the door that said, “Please be quiet; I am sleeping,” but this was never helpful, because we were, after all, a half dozen kids who were holed up here working very long days. There was a lot of yelling and running up and down that hallway, lots of being chased. Lots of roughhousing and playing. And there were also lots of fights. We were teenagers in a strange grown-up world, our hormones raging and our social lives so restricted that we were, at all times, either best friends or enemies, or both.