three
My mother made sure there were no limits when I was growing up. Life was like a rolling field for as far as you could see: all open spaces rising into hills that descended into a lush valley, and so on for eternity. Her philosophy could be encapsulated in a single word: yes.
Bad news needn’t intrude on her reality. She wanted her life to be a big flower garden, and she wanted mine to be even bigger and more beautiful. When I was a baby, she stayed up at night and ironed the lace on my underpants, the frilly ones that went over my diapers. Later, after we moved to Studio City, she decorated my bedroom as if it were out of a children’s picture book, with a canopy bed whose fabric matched the room’s delicate red rose wallpaper. It was perfect.
We got along well, much better than she got along with her own mother, with whom she had always had a contentious relationship, beginning when my mother was a very little girl and my grandmother was trying to feed her cereal, but she wouldn’t open her mouth. After repeated attempts, my grandmother gave up and dumped the whole bowl over my mom’s head. My mom laughed as she told me that and other, similar stories. Tossing her head back, she said, “It’s because we’re all Tauruses.”
Indeed, my mom had a temper and could fly off the handle pretty quickly, but it was never unbearable, and she was pretty much the center of my universe, and in turn I was her quick-learning, quick-thinking protégé, especially as I got more into work. I was six going on seven when my curly red pigtails and slightly buck teeth began to charm one director after another, even if I had to lie (which I did, if it meant I got the job; I was often rewarded for my deceptions). Along with the lessons I’d learned from my mom and my own instincts, I was downright lethal at an audition.
I racked up a ridiculous number of commercials—Crest, Clorox, Butterball turkey, McDonald’s, and many others. I continued to say whatever I thought would play well at the audition to the casting agents, and I never thought twice about it.
It was always the same group of girls at the auditions, there with their moms, who would do little corkscrew curls on their daughters as they waited. My mom picked me up from school and took me to auditions no matter what condition I was in that day. If I had food on my face or dirt under my horribly bitten nails, that’s what the director and casting agent saw. I did have my interview outfit, though—a pair of overalls, a plaid shirt, and Keds. My hair was always in pigtails, too.
Dozens of girls would come in for each audition, and the group would be cut down to the same handful of girls. Typically that small group included Jodie Foster, Kristy McNichol, Dawn Lyn, and me, and one of us always got the job. It reached a point where I would walk into an audition and see the other girls and their moms turn to one another and groan, “Oh, she’s here.”
My mother was an unusual stage mom. She didn’t help me read lines, make me change my clothes, or tell me to clean up. In the early 1970s, the country was rife with change and upheaval, and she understood how it was playing out in the world of commercials and TV. Casting agents, directors, and their clients wanted a new kind of American family, one more realistic than the perfectly coiffed people of the fifties and early sixties, and my mom realized that with my buck teeth, freckles, and one ear that stuck out farther than the other, in other words my imperfections—as well as my bitten fingernails and dirty knees—I fit the bill perfectly.
We were also a showbiz family. Between my mother, father, and grandfather, everyone in Hollywood seemed to be a friend, pseudo-relative, or acquaintance. Not much happened in town that didn’t get discussed and analyzed as if it affected us personally, or as if we were part of it, too, which I suppose we were.
Even before I was old enough to understand who was who and what was what, I was absorbing information. I felt like a normal kid, but all around me, it was always showtime. The switch was flipped, the lights came on, and people did their thing. I was encouraged to show off whatever talent I had. My parents’ friends provided the best entertainment right in our living room, and I squealed with laughter when my grandfather showed me off to my “Uncle Danny” (Danny Thomas), and when I entered my teens, my “Uncle Miltie” (Milton Berle) dubbed me “baby Ann-Margret.”
In the late sixties and early seventies, my grandfather was the head writer for the Dean Martin Show, and I used to visit him on the set. I didn’t know that my “Uncle Dean” was a superstar until many years later. To me, Uncle Dean was the slow-talking, very handsome man who had a great big tray of candy in his dressing room, which I loved since we didn’t have candy in our house. I knew as long as I sat on Uncle Dean’s lap and didn’t get too close to my mom, whose hands were like Venus flytraps, I could eat as much candy as I wanted.
My first television show was a Dean Martin Christmas special. My grandfather put me in a number with a group of kids whose parents were in the cast and crew, and we sang a song with Dennis Weaver. It was preceded by a bit in which Dennis explained how the song was supposed to go. He listed how we would all play the instruments we had, and I realized he had made a mistake. Without hesitation I corrected him loudly, declaring, “No! The whistle first!” The audience and Dennis laughed and I was hooked. Funny followed my grandfather wherever he went, as if his sense of humor was an extra appendage, and quite often he was around others equally funny, and I was lucky enough to frequently be along for the ride. Like the time when I was a little older and already on Little House and he took me to an NBC affiliates function, where, at one point, he pulled me away from the action and said, “Listen, I want to introduce you to someone.”
The intonation of his voice when he said the word “someone” led me to believe this was someone special, but I couldn’t imagine who could be more special than the man I’d only just met, Chuck Barris. So I was kind of grumpy as my grandfather escorted me into a back room and shut the door, closing us off from the din from the larger gathering. Across from us was a little old man in a beret with his back to us. My grandfather said, “Groucho,” and the man turned around. I was stunned. It was Groucho Marx.
It was like encountering Abraham Lincoln, or Batman (hey, I was a sucker for Batman; still am, though I prefer my Batman in the form of Christian Bale these days), someone so legendary he couldn’t possibly be real, except he was—and he was only a few feet away from me. He stood about five feet four inches tall, wore a gray suit with a turtleneck, and held a cigar. It was like seeing Leonard Bernstein with his baton or Claude Monet with his brush. Having grown up watching Marx Brothers movies, I recognized Groucho immediately, and I asked God to please not let me turn into a blithering idiot. I saw Groucho’s face brighten when he saw my grandfather.
“Hey, Hesch!” he said.
Hesch. Only my grandfather’s most intimate friends called him Hesch. I had no idea they were close. They hugged and then my grandfather said, “Groucho, I’d like you to meet my granddaughter, Melissa.”
Groucho stuck out his hand and said, “It’s nice to meet you. My daughter’s name is Melinda.”
“No, no, no,” I said. “My name is Melissa.”
He feigned bewilderment at my response.
“Well, what do you want me to do?” he said. “Change my daughter’s name?”
His lightning-fast quip took me aback momentarily. I thought I’d said something that caused him to snap at me. Then I realized it was a joke and I relaxed. Later, in fact, we went back into the party and I danced with him for a little while.
That was the first time I understood my grandpa was kind of a big deal. Everyone knew him—well, everyone of a certain generation. And the power of this fact remained undiminished for decades. Many years later, I would go with my friend Katie Wagner to see Frank Sinatra perform in New York. Afterward, Katie took me backstage. She knew the great singer through her father, Robert Wagner, and she wanted to say hello. Normally I’m shy about introducing myself to people, but he went around the room saying hi and shaking hands, and when my turn came, I said, “It’s nice to meet you. I think you know my grandfather.”
Given all that statement conveyed, he sort of rolled his eyes and dutifully asked, “Who’s your grandfather?”
“Harry Crane,” I said.
He paused.
“Hesch? You’re Hesch’s grandkid?” He turned to some of his cronies. “Hey, everyone, this is Hesch’s…”
Being Hesch’s granddaughter provided entrée to Hollywood royalty, but my most special memories are from when I was younger and had Papa Harry all to myself. Like on Sundays when we went to Du-par’s coffee shop, where I always ordered pancakes and afterward we made up our own games, using whatever was on the table as playing pieces, shouting moves, arguing strategy, and drawing crowds of onlookers who tried to figure out the rules. It was just as fun when we stayed home and I fixed him lunch. I remember one time asking if he wanted some fruit for dessert, and I rattled off the choices.
“I’ll just take an orange,” he said.
“Do you want me to peel it?” I asked.
“No thanks,” he said, “I’ll just step on it.”
Laughter gives a household great resiliency, and I needed every ounce as I grew up. At eight, I made my first foray into prime-time TV, landing a part on the long-running CBS classic Gunsmoke as the child of dirt-poor farmers whose lives are made even worse when Marshal Dillon shows up at the house and arrests my father. It was an intensely emotional scene made memorable by the way my on-screen mother, Katherine Helmond, worked herself into a tearful state and then kept herself in the moment in between takes.
I’ve never forgotten how she put herself into a corner and squatted down in her big prairie skirt, with her elbows on her knees and head in her hands, closing herself off from the chatter and joking that went on as setups were changed. I watched her, trying to figure out what she was doing. Then, when we returned to work, she was back in the scene, tears streaming out of her eyes. I got it—and now I do something similar if I have a difficult scene. I go into “the Dungeon,” my private vault of difficult memories and emotions.
My next job was playing the daughter of a heart attack victim on Emergency, NBC’s popular hour-long drama about a team of paramedics. I was thrilled. I was a fan of the show (it was a toss-up between that and S.W.A.T. as my favorites), and I had huge crushes on both of the stars, Kevin Tighe and Randy Mantooth. In my scene, I ran after the guys as they carried my daddy out on a gurney and wailed, “Daddy! Daddy! Bring my daddy back!” As I reached out for him, Kevin caught me in his arms and I cried into his shoulder.
I thought I was incredibly good, and my mother raved about my brilliance and depth of emotion. I remember the whole family talking about my work as if I were an eight-year-old Colleen Dewhurst, and to be sure, it was a seminal moment that boosted my confidence and let me truly envision myself as an actor, not just a child getting work on TV.
I’ve gone back and watched that show, excited to see this moment that had proved to everyone around me that I was ready to join the pantheon of great child actors, like my idols Shirley Temple and Margaret O’Brien. My God! It was just awful. All whiny child actor horseshit. I was terrible. Seriously, rent it sometime. What dreck!
Then came a lull in the action when I did a few commercials but no episodic work. In hindsight, the dry spell may have been due to the whiny crap that I was dishing out. My mother was fine with that; she preferred commercials or the occasional guest spot because I didn’t have to miss more than a day or two of school. I attended a good private school in Sherman Oaks and wore a uniform every day. I was expected to bring home good grades and was reminded that after-school dance lessons were a privilege.
Despite being a disciplinarian, my mom pulled out all the stops for holidays. On Easter, we hunted for eggs and paraded in our bonnets. Even though we were Jewish, friends and family came over every year to help us decorate our Christmas tree, and then on Christmas Day my mother hosted a gigantic dinner, complete with presents and singing amid the piles of endless food.
My mother was equally exuberant when it came to planning my birthday parties. She arranged pony rides, clowns, and performers. One year there was a revival of the movie Gone with the Wind, and she let me take all of my friends to the theater so I could see it on the big screen, which was amazing. My other favorite movies were The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Cinderella, and any film with Shirley Temple or Dracula.
My taste in TV ranged from kids shows like Wonderama, Zoom, and The Electric Company to The Ed Sullivan Show and The Muppet Show. I also liked The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, Batman, I Love Lucy, and Marcus Welby, M.D. What I’m trying to get at is for all the natural ham in me, there was no cheese. I wasn’t one of those show kids who always needed to be in the spotlight. As Michael Landon would later tell people, I was unspoiled and real, more interested in catching bugs than acting.
My mom, still a young woman after splitting from my dad, maintained an active social life, and though I don’t remember her dating, my recollection is that at some point when I was around nine years old she went on a cruise to Mexico (my dad stayed with my brother and me) and shortly thereafter she married Harold Abeles, a prominent attorney. They had a reception at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Harold’s daughter, Patrice, the older of his two children, who was my brother’s age, and I wore matching powder blue dresses and bows in our hair. Harold’s children—he also had a son, Joey—lived with his ex-wife.
Per my mother, it was all very much a done deal and not discussed beyond the formal rollout—This is Harold, who is very special to me. He’s going to be your new stepfather and he’s going to live with us. No questions were invited, no complaints were entertained. As with my parents’ split, my mother assured us life wouldn’t be any different than before.
But it was.
My mother and I were almost joined at the hip. Suddenly Harold came between us and I felt lost and displaced. It was hard for me to accept anyone, especially another man coming in and taking my father’s place, no matter how many times Harold tried to allay my fears. The fact was Harold moved in with us, into the house that belonged to me and my brother and my mommy and, most of all, my daddy. Not only that, he brought with him his two German shepherds, Lady and Hank.
The dogs alone were more family than I bargained for. On day two, Hank attacked my beagle, Saulie, my best pal, and brutally ripped him up. Though Saulie was rushed to the vet and sewn back together, he was never the same.
Then Harold indulged an interest in archery. He was one of those people who develop passions, buy all the accessories, then move on. So he bought a target that was attached to a large bale of hay and put it in the backyard. Once everything was set up, he never used it. Saulie ate some of the straw that was leaking from the target’s canvas covering. It blocked his intestines, and he died.
I blamed my stepdad, but I wasn’t able to articulate it, to scream or rant at him or at anyone else, nothing beyond the normal grieving I was permitted after losing my dog: cry, get over it, and move on. I wasn’t able to use Saulie’s accidental death as a key to unlocking the anger and sadness I felt over my parents’ split and Harold’s arrival. No, I was expected and in fact told to accept my new instant family. My mother made it clear that everyone had to get along, that was the way it was going to be. I could cry over Saulie for a little while, but that was it.
As such, the porcelain doll stuffed her emotions away, which she was adept at doing, and quickly pulled herself together. Life continued. Thinking back, I didn’t even know I was upset. If I so much as frowned, my mother would ask what reason I had to be sad or upset. Why? Tell me! God bless her and her fairy dust. According to her, there was never a reason—look how lucky I was! Look at all I had and did! I bought into that program hook, line, and sinker.
Talk about showtime. Things might have been awful, but we acted like they were great. When we went to a fancy event, my brother, stepsister, and I wore matching outfits (Joey was too young to attend). All of us looked fantastic together. When we ran into people we knew, we told them that we were wonderful and things couldn’t be better. Back at home, though, Harold fought with his ex. They had a messy divorce and warred constantly in front of their kids. Joey was too little to be impacted, but Patrice, poor Tricie, was a mess.
Not that I was much better. I sucked my thumb in private for way too many years and wet my bed well into my twelfth year, though no one wanted to acknowledge I might be a little old for that sort of thing, or talked about why I desperately tried to hold things inside me till I finally lost control. Nope, things were perfect.
In any case, I preferred my drama on-screen, and soon enough I set my sights on something special: a remake of the movie Miracle on 34th Street. My audition went well. It was a job I really wanted, really cared about, talked and dreamed about. One of my other childhood idols, Natalie Wood, had been in it and I so wanted that part. When I didn’t get it I was crestfallen. I wanted to talk about it with my dad, so I headed to the garage where he built furniture. It was filled with tools, wood, and various projects he had going; sawdust carpeted the floor, and it had a sweet smell that to this day I still associate with him. This hobby taught me that even though entertaining was his passion, there was more to his life. It gave me an appreciation for simple things, those that left one with a great sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. Maybe even greater than any standing ovation.
I spilled my guts and quite a few tears as he listened while he worked. My father probably realized I was crying about more than losing a part—there was the upheaval at home following Harold’s arrival and also the painful loss of Saulie—because after I finished, he looked up and said, “You know, Missy-do”—that was his nickname for me—“this only means something better is going to come along.”
I was much, much older when I realized that that advice, or at least the way I remembered him saying it, reminded me of something I’d read about a Buddhist monk who explained that bad things happen in order to open the door for something good to happen. In other words, bad things were kind of like the reverse side of the karmic tapestry, one half of the yin and yang of fate—where there’s good, there’s also going to be bad; where there’s a kiss, there’s also going to be a tear. My dad, as a former acrobat, one whose circus-performer parents died in an accident, knew about conflicting forces and balance.
But I was too young to understand anything like that, so I shook my head in disagreement.
“How could something better come along?” I asked. “This is the best thing ever. It’s my favorite movie ever. What could be better?”
He shrugged and kissed the top of my head.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But something better will come along. I promise.”