by Jennie Garth
After that first day, I felt like I was working on the moon. Here we were, all of us huddled up on this giant, cavernous, cold soundstage with construction going on all around us, while the crew began to build whatever sets were needed for that week. There was the hum of these giant overhead fluorescent lights that cast a strange green glow over all of us. The director and his assistant and script supervisor all huddled in front of the set, watching us closely and offering guidance here and there.
It was strange doing that walk-through, telling jokes one after another—but no one was laughing; only the stage crickets were chirping. That was because everyone was too busy working away on their own piece of the puzzle, and at that early point in the week, it was still a long way from coming together. The goal was to have the whole thing up and running pretty smoothly by the end of the second day of rehearsals. Then, the producers and writers would all come back and watch a run-through of the entire show. For this, the stage was suddenly awash in pretty warm light, and there was laughter everywhere. It felt kind of like doing a play, but instead of being in seats, the audience was standing two feet from you, arms folded, eyes glued to the clipboards in their hands, pencils at the ready. It was pretty intense actually, and it took some time for me to adjust to how “out there” all of this was, how you could be running your lines, and then one of the dozens of people milling around you might cough or laugh or take a call, and you’d have to block it out and keep going. You learned pretty quickly that you had to take an extra breath after you delivered a joke, so that the laughter could kick in. The crew around us would always laugh at those moments, but in this mechanical “ha-ha” way. It was strange. It was messy. It was so, so different from the controlled, closed set of 90210. It was fun. But it was also scary as hell stepping out there in those lights, putting yourself in front of all those people, and really throwing caution to the wind. To do comedy you have to really go for it! To be fully willing to look like a big boob, to be okay trying anything just to get that laugh. This took me really getting over myself; I had to be comfortable being vulnerable like that, and to be ready to fail, and to try again and again. I can remember during the first live taping, with the studio audience sitting expectantly in their stadium-style chairs, I wasn’t letting go; I wasn’t fully committing to being as ridiculous as necessary. The executive producer and cocreator of the show, Wil Calhoun, took me aside and pleaded with me to trust him; he told me he wouldn’t let me fail, and that I had to step outside my comfort zone. His commitment to me and the intense honesty I felt in that moment sort of fired me up. I felt safe to go back out there onstage and give it more than I ever knew I could.
I learned how to “hold for the laugh.” You know, that fake sitcom laughter that bursts forth whenever a joke is told. It was canned, of course, and if the joke was big, the laugh track was loud and a little more sustained. If the joke was small, they’d roll out more of a chuckle. There was a rhythm to this hilarity that revealed itself to me pretty quickly, and once I got into the groove, I realized there was some wisdom in learning to hold for the laugh. It kind of made things . . . nicer. So next time you’re in a group and you say something clever, remember to hold for the laugh. And think of me.
Spending five days a week on a soundstage with an ensemble makes for fast and fond bonding. Everything was close by: our dressing rooms, and the commissary where we usually ate lunch together. I grew to like being the older one, and felt real motherly, big-sisterly affection for sweet Amanda, who was so real and down-to-earth and so normal and bubbly and excited by life. It was refreshing to be around her energy. She took pleasure in having her hair curled just so, or she’d be excited about a cool new nail polish. She wasn’t at all vapid or shallow; she was alive and young and exactly the way she was supposed to be. Especially given that she had lived most of her life so deeply embedded in the microcosm of the entertainment industry. She’d starred in her own show, on Nickelodeon, since she was about ten years old. Many, many adults made a living because of her, and knowing this always raised the red flag for me. I’d been there, too, but I was older than she was now when I’d started. I couldn’t imagine what all that pressure would do to a preteen psyche. But, of course, at least outwardly it didn’t affect her; she’d dance around with abandon when her favorite song came on the radio, and you could tell she just needed to expel all that pent-up teen energy. The director and whoever else was rehearsing with her would step back and let her do her thing for a few minutes, or if the mood struck, we’d join her and laugh and soak up all of her youthfulness. Free. Uncomplicated. Easy. That’s how I would describe Amanda. I can honestly credit her with changing my perspective on teenagers. She made me love young people in a whole new way, to really see them and embrace and respect their blossoming individuality, rather than being afraid of or put off by it. And now with my Luca, who just turned sixteen, I am able to really look at her and love every moment of who she is—all because of Amanda. She taught me to notice what I like about you—even when it’s crazy, angsty, dramatic teenage stuff.
I loved my four years on that show. Everyone was incredibly gracious and supportive of me while I learned the ropes, and especially during that very first season, when I was not only the newbie, but I was pregnant. I will never forget how wonderful Peter Roth was when I broke the news to him, right after the upfronts and the news that the show had been picked up. He couldn’t have been more gracious and supportive, and fortunately for all of us, though Lola turned out to be a pretty good-size baby, she was a really compact bump, so hiding her wasn’t that difficult. Plus, the costumers on the show were both moms and so they “got it,” and they happily and very artfully concealed my, ahem, girth. I was on my feet most of the workday now, and when I started to get puffy, swollen ankles, Rebecca, the coolest assistant director you could ever hope to work with, would push me around the set in a chair on casters, just to give me a few moments off my feet. As my pregnancy progressed, the writers just seemed to naturally write more of the pratfalls and physical comedy for the other actors, and I spent more and more scenes leaning against the kitchen counter or sitting and reading, usually with a newspaper, which is the best bump cover-up going. There was only ever one pregnancy “incident,” and it involved me, a rug, and a wooden springboard.
We were shooting in front of a live audience, and in this one scene, Amanda would vault over the couch by launching herself from a springboard that was hidden under a rug behind the living room couch. Well, before Amanda could launch herself, I waddled in on cue, my character, Val, scolding her character, Holly, about something or other, and I proceeded to trip right over the rigged-up carpet and went down like a 747 with engine failure. Everything went silent while I rolled over and scrambled back up to my feet. I was fine. The baby was fine. But it sure scared the hell out of everybody, especially the studio audience.
Coincidentally, just like with Luca’s birth, Lola was due right at the end of that first-season shooting schedule. We wrapped right before Thanksgiving, and she came on December 6, 2002. Wow! To think: By the time she was born, Lola Ray had already traveled across the country by train and starred on a sitcom! Her life was off to a great start, and she came out so fat and round and perfect, with a red birthmark on her forehead that would get redder whenever she cried, which was close to never. She was (and still is) the absolute spitting image of my dad: blond and robust and utterly lovable. And thank God, because her big sister, Luca, who had been an only child for a good five years before Lola was born, and who hadn’t been that excited about becoming a big sister, adored her. Life was good!
What I Like About You was a fantastic work experience. It allowed me to work “in town” and be with my growing family, and I felt truly liberated doing comedy. I loved my colleagues, especially Amanda, and I loved freeing up that part of me that never saw the light of day on 90210. It definitely helped me stretch and grow, not just as an actress, but as a mother, a woman, a person. It was simply a really great gig.
RV’IN
G
I’ve got a deep, deep love of all things RV. It probably started with my dad’s old crappy camper collection. When I was a kid, from time to time he’d pull into the driveway behind the wheel of yet another dilapidated used recreational vehicle, the wild look of satisfaction from another successful acquisition gleaming in his eye. He loved nothing better than cramming all six of us into his old blue Ford pickup truck and hitting the open road. He and my mom would ride up in the cab, and all of us kids would be in the back of the pickup having a free-for-all under the camper cap that was haphazardly mounted above us. Pillows were swinging, potato chips were flying, game cards were being thrown down. My parents would say the best part of the vacation was the driving, because it was the one time they’d get some peace and quiet and be able to spend some time alone together. I guess they couldn’t hear all the screaming and racket that was going on in the back.
Spending long family trips trapped in that tiny camper with my older sisters made me want to re-create this experience for my own kids. I bought my first RV and introduced Luca to RV life when I set up our home away from home in an RV on the 90210 lot so I could bring Luca to work with me. But Peter had the RV bug, too, and so we started renting them, not sure whether we would ever feel brave enough to make the huge investment in the kind of tricked-out rig we lusted after. But after Fiona, our youngest, was born, we bought our own forty-foot diesel pusher with four slide-outs, and we parked it right out in front of our big hoity-toity house in Toluca Lake, which is one of the tonier enclaves of LA. Man, our neighbors were not happy with that thing—but I was. I had it loaded up with every creature comfort, every imaginable thing we would ever need. It was locked and loaded! This was the dream; now we could just hop in and hit the road whenever we wanted to.
Now, Peter is a guy who loves his cars, but being from New York . . . I’m trying to figure out how to say this as diplomatically as possible: He is a terrible driver. I mean, just being in the passenger seat of a Toyota Camry with him can be a harrowing experience. Being in a giant motor home with him at the wheel is an experience like no other. I would have to literally sit on my hands to keep myself from gesticulating wildly, like a crazy driver’s ed teacher who thinks that somehow she can actually drive if she waves her hands spastically in the air. My anxiety around his driving got so bad that I would take my anxiety medication before we’d hit the road, and we even went to couples’ therapy for this very issue, as my backseat driving—my inability to keep my mouth shut while he took turns too fast or tailgated the cars ahead of us—would cause a bit too much friction in our marriage.
So while I was biting my tongue, we’d be driving along, and all the drivers around us would be cursing and flipping Peter off, and I remember Luca saying, “Why are all the people yelling at us, Daddy? And why are they putting their fingers up?” And Peter and I would just smile and he’d say, “Oh, those are my friends and they’re just saying hello!” And he’d give them all a big wave back and shout, “Hello!” and we’d just barrel on down the road, terrorizing everyone within miles. It was in those moments—when I would be struggling and stewing and Peter would be silly and devil-may-care and he’d make me laugh and then it just didn’t seem like we were going to die—that I’d relax. We always got there in one piece. We never had an accident. And every time we took a trip, he’d be the lovable doofus dad at the wheel, like Chevy Chase in Vacation. So with the help of a few shrinks, and the realization that his goofy, slightly dangerous driving humor was actually good for me, I learned to mostly let go and let him have his way behind the wheel.
We were one of those families who liked to go off the beaten path and find a KOA site somewhere in the middle of nowhere, where we could park and set up our home away from home. Most of the memories we made on these trips were fond ones, but one time there was a dumping incident that, when I think about it, still makes me shudder. I don’t have any recollection of what state we were in, and maybe that’s a good thing, because if I did, I might never go back there.
I do know, though, that we were in our big-ass fancy rig, making a cross-country trek, and whenever we’d pull into some ragtag RV overnight site, we’d get a lot of attention. Usually, because people would come over to check out the rig, they’d figure out pretty quickly that we were celebrity types from Hollywood, and the buzz would race through the campground. There would be whispers at the swing sets, or long glances when I went to the general store to pick up toilet paper and toothpaste. People would go quiet when we’d approach a fire pit after dark, eager to roast a few wieners and marshmallows for ourselves, too. The more the hullabaloo, the shyer I’d become, and before you knew it, I was hiding out behind our little RV curtains, busying myself at the miniature sink while Peter and the girls were out and about. In the end, I didn’t really mind much, as I actually enjoy cleaning and cooking, but I would sometimes finish all my work and sit and stare out the window and wonder what kind of fun they were having out there. At those moments, I felt like a total campground weirdo.
At the end of this visit, we made our usual stop at the “dump station,” which is where you go to empty the gray and black water from your holding tanks. The gray water is the sink and shower water; the black water is the toilet water. If you’ve seen the movie RV with Robin Williams, you have a better understanding of this whole dump situation, and how complicated and gross it can be. Being the decent man that he is, Peter always took on this unpleasant task. After this one stop, I’m not exactly sure what happened, but apparently he didn’t quite get the hose hooked up tight enough to our tanks or something, and there was some kind of backup or spill, and instead of going into the septic tank, our black water ran all over the concrete area just in front of the general store. The on-site manager came running out and I slid open the window to see what the hell was going on. There was Peter, dancing all around, his giant rubber gloves no longer helpful at this point, and he just flashed a huge smile at this livid guy and said, “I do not know what the hell my wife ate last night!” The guy stopped, looked at Peter, then looked up at the window and saw me, the mysterious “famous” lady from slot seventeen, looking back at him. Then he seemed to figure out that I apparently was the one who’d caused this calamity. I swear, if I didn’t love Peter so much, I would have killed him then, and many other times, when he would set me up like that.
Just this last year, since the split with Peter, I took the girls on a cross-country trip. My brother Chuck joined us for some of the journey, and my assistant Liz met up with us for a few days, too. I think I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it on my own, that I didn’t need a man to continue this “family” tradition. And I did it. I did all the driving. All the cooking. All the navigating. And all the dumping.
We had a great time and visited lots of friends and family.
But if I’m being honest with myself—which is the point of this whole thing, isn’t it?—I did miss having Peter along. His sense of adventure, coupled with his devil-may-care attitude, always kept me on my toes. Always snapped me back into the present and out of myself.
As a result of the divorce, we sold the RV and everything in it. Someone recently asked me if I thought I’d ever get another one. I honestly don’t have an answer to that question. I guess time will tell, but for now I sure do have a lot of great RV memories.
SO YOU THINK I CAN DANCE?
In the spring of 2006, I was having the time of my life. What I Like About You had wrapped after four seasons about a year before. The timing of the show’s end was perfect, momentous even, because it meant that I could just relax for once and enjoy my pregnancy. That’s right: I got pregnant for the third time just as the show wrapped. For the first time in three pregnancies I didn’t have to show up at work and worry about how well my bump would be hidden, or contend with the poor wardrobe people who would be dreading dressing my ballooning body. I cannot overstate what a huge relief this was. I was able to spend my pregnancy eating whatever I wanted. I could finally let it all hang
out. It was awesome.
Fiona came along in the fall of 2006, and with her arrival, I found myself just sinking into an indescribably joyful and contented state of family bliss. Life was quiet in a way that I found so fantastic, because it was actually anything but quiet: It was filled with squealing and laughing and lots of running of little feet (our girls were active!). I had three little ducklings—two of whom were in constant motion and one of whom was not yet walking, but eager to keep up with her older sisters. Talk about girl power. We were rockin’ it at our house. And I was loving it.
The quiet I’m talking about came from the fact that I was on a work hiatus for the first time in a long, long time. There were no meetings, no long days on set. No hair and makeup. And I was so content in my little family bubble. It was pretty great.
But then . . . as it tends to do . . .
The phone rang.
In good conscience, I can’t blame this one on Mr. Showbiz, though I wish I could, of course. No, this one I have to blame on those crafty producers from Dancing with the Stars, who have the uncanny ability to track down sedentary celebrities who have recently fallen completely off the radar—and I was, at that point, definitely one of those. It was nice that they called, but in all honesty, I did not want to be found. And I definitely did not want to dance—I just wanted to sleep (as any mother of three under the age of ten would; maybe there’s a show in that concept—Sleeping In with the Stars?).
But once I started talking to them, I knew I was in trouble. I’m one who never shies away from any professional challenge that rattles my comfort zone, so the idea of dancing in front of a live audience totally intrigued me in a completely horrifying way. This assignment would be the opposite experience of acting on a closed sound stage; in fact, it wouldn’t be about acting at all. This meant training six to eight hours a day, putting on ballroom dancing shoes and a custom-sewn BeDazzled gown, and strutting your stuff—on a stage, live, in front of lots and lots and lots of people. I mean, what could possibly be better, right?