Both of Us (6 page)

Yes, I could have settled, but for me this wasn’t about money; it was about not getting taken. I end up having to sue my insurance agent because all my legal fees should have been covered by my homeowner’s policy, but he never filed the claim. Welcome to the world of celebrity. Sadly, it will
be only the first chapter of what will become a long, winding story of animosity between the press and me. I’ve been told I should have handled the media differently over the years. I never commented when asked if I had something to say because I didn’t believe they’d quote me accurately. I thought I’d just be feeding the machine. A one-day story would turn into a week’s worth of stories. And as my parents were fond of saying, “Today’s headlines will line tomorrow’s birdcages.” Wisdom will come too late, but I didn’t know that then.

It seems drama follows Farrah and me almost everywhere we go during that summer of 1982 in New York. One afternoon we’re walking past the Russian Tea Room near Carnegie Hall, on Fifty-seventh Street, and a producer I know, Lester Persky, comes out of the restaurant, insisting that Farrah and I join him for tea. I’d met Lester through Andy Warhol and liked him. Several years later, he’ll executive produce one of Farrah’s most successful made-for-TV movies,
Poor Little Rich Girl
, about heiress Barbara Hutton. We agree to join him, and when we get to the table, the last person in the world I would want to see is sitting there: Diana Ross. We had a brief fling years earlier and unfortunately things did not end smoothly. The moment Diana spots us she bursts into tears and runs into the ladies’ room. And she doesn’t come out. Farrah is sympathetic and I don’t have to explain. Farrah and I had had that conversation.
She’d asked around about me. She was neither shocked nor surprised that there had been beautiful women in my life before her and a few hearts were broken. “I never expected you to be celibate,” Farrah said. “That would have shocked me. But I sure was relieved to learn you have a reputation for never cheating. I can’t tell you who told me. She’s a good friend of yours. She said not to worry. And I trust her.” To this day, I don’t know who my fairy godmother was.

L
ong before I met Farrah, Diana Ross and I were signed to costar in
The Bodyguard
. John Boorman, who made
Deliverance
, was the director. Diana was difficult and opinionated. All she did was complain about the script. We went through three screenplays. It would have been one thing if none of the scripts were good, but they were excellent. I eventually got fed up with her imperiousness and we never did do the picture. More than a decade later it would be made into a box office smash with Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston. And yes, Diana and I did have a brief fling during preproduction for the film. But she killed whatever spark there was between us when she put on her diva act. I remember taking her to the airport one day. I had a Rolls-Royce at the time, and we ran out of gas. I made her help me push the car to a gas station. I thought that was funny, this big star pushing a Rolls-Royce down Century Boulevard, cars whizzing past us. She didn’t. I read her autobiography. I wasn’t in it.

Farrah and I would travel back and forth to New York often in those early days. There are stirrings of trouble to come in our relationship, but like any couple in the grasp of romance, we ignore the clues. We make a special trip for Andy Warhol. I had met him several years earlier at a barrestaurant popular with the downtown New York avant-garde crowd, Max’s Kansas City, and to my surprise, we hit it off even though Andy was a man of few words, to say the least. I introduce Farrah to him at his legendary studio, the Factory. ABC’s
20/20
is doing a story on him and they want to film him manufacturing a portrait of a pop star. Andy asks if I’d do him a favor and persuade Farrah to pose. I tell him I will if in turn, as a kind of payment, he gives me two copies of the portrait. He’s happy to agree. One of those copies Farrah wills to the University of Texas, her alma mater. The other still hangs over my bed in Malibu. I’m currently in a dispute with the University of Texas over its ownership. We bring Tatum with us to Andy’s studio, one of our many attempts to win her over. So we’re at the Factory and Farrah’s in this little dressing room area getting ready. All Andy needs from her is a series of Polaroids. She’s taking forever so I open the door and she’s upset at being interrupted. Righteous anger. Still, her response rubs me the wrong way. We’re staying at the Pierre, and on the cab ride back I’m silent. I don’t even go into the hotel with her and Tatum. I take a walk around the block to calm down. I didn’t like being talked to as if I were a minion, especially when I’d organized the whole thing.

When I get to the hotel room, Farrah’s drinking a bottle of soda, and suddenly I become convinced that she’s going to hurl it right at my face. I knock it out of her hand. She’s stunned. Her eyes well with tears. I storm out. Immediately afterward I feel terrible. Joanna used to do things like that, dangerous things. I had seen those weapons before. I was gun-shy. And so I overreacted, dramatically. Adding to my mortification, I ask Tatum to fix it for me, which surprisingly she does, smoothing things over with Farrah. I now realize just how severely being married to Joanna had affected me. Farrah also carried a lot of emotional baggage from her years with Lee Majors. We would both continue to be haunted by our marital histories.

Farrah’s divorce is finalized in 1982, and as the weeks turn into months, we ease into the rhythms and routines of living together as a couple. She is living in the Antelo house. I sell my Beverly Hills home on the old John Barrymore estate to George Harrison’s manager. And Farrah and I split our time between her house on Antelo and mine on Malibu Beach, with occasional romantic sojourns to my place in Big Sur, which I’ll also sell several years later. Ted Turner will buy it. Whenever I see Jane Fonda, she always talks about how much she liked the Jacuzzi there. Farrah and I spent many wonderful nights in that Jacuzzi.

At this point, Tatum is living in her own apartment. I recognize now that at seventeen she was too young to have that degree of independence. It’s one of my life’s greatest regrets
that I didn’t establish stricter boundaries with my children. I was one of those fathers who placed too much value on being a friend to his kids and not enough on being a parent. How I wish someone had sat me down and warned me about the consequences of Malibu-style domesticity. Farrah would try but I could be one stubborn SOB, and all of us would pay the price.

The first deposit on that bill comes due in the new year. Griffin’s behavior is growing more unpredictable and his demeanor more surly and secretive. He’s also experimenting with drugs and alcohol, and I begin to fear the worst. Tatum will be next. She’s always had a self-destructive rebellious streak, resenting any kind of authority or discipline from shoplifting laws to schoolteachers. During a brief stint in boarding school, she was nearly expelled for stealing jewelry from other students. She was eight. And her need for attention and affection is bottomless. It worries me. But at this point, she’s distanced herself from Farrah and me, and my main concern is getting Griffin back on track. My other son, Patrick, thankfully seems to be doing okay. I have to give my second wife Leigh Taylor-Young credit. Though I may not understand her New Age philosophies and bohemian sensibilities, she’s always been one hell of a mother, and it shows because of all my kids, Patrick is the one who was able to sidestep the temptations.

Though concerns about Griffin and Tatum are weighing heavily on Farrah and me, we also have careers that require
constant attention, and if you take a breather in this industry, someone can knock you out of the game. As another Easter approaches, Farrah receives a call from the producers of
Extremities
, the hit off-Broadway play about a woman who turns the tables on her rapist. They’re interested in having her replace Susan Sarandon. I take Farrah to New York, it’s a rough play, a lot of work for an actress, and I notice that Susan is all banged up from the fight scenes. Farrah elbows me and says, “I can do this.” So we return to Los Angeles and start preparing her for the role, learning the lines, practicing the dialogue, and blocking the scenes. We haven’t made any commitment yet to the producers. I want to be sure she’s ready. I know so much attention will be paid to Farrah that I don’t want anything to go wrong, especially in New York, where the theater world can be uncompromising.

So picture this. I’m scrunched inside my fireplace in my bedroom in Malibu because Farrah and I are rehearsing that famous scene in which the rapist is trapped in the hearth. Farrah is deep in character. She’s glowering at me and hurling obscenities, lost in the reality of the character she’s portraying. Meanwhile the phone is ringing. Sue Mengers, who will soon be managing Farrah, keeps calling to tell me she can’t keep the producers at bay much longer. I reach for the receiver, and I hear this huge grunt coming out of Farrah as she pulls a log out of the stack and lunges at me. I duck and press the phone to my ear. “She’s ready,” I tell Sue.
“Messenger the contracts.” That was the thing about Farrah. She was fearless, hungry to take on the hardest roles. Beneath that big blond mane of hers was a steely will and courage to spare. She would come to need it in ways neither of us could have imagined on that afternoon of rough magic, me covered in soot, marveling at my girl, who was about to show everyone what she was made of.

While Farrah is in New York rehearsing for
Extremities
, I’m back in LA filming the comedy drama
Irreconcilable Differences
with Shelley Long and Drew Barrymore. Sharon Stone is in it too, one of her first movies. One day she asks me if I’ll run off to Las Vegas and marry her. I tell her, “Can we do the honeymoon first?” I always liked Sharon. A graceful and determined woman, she was fun to work with. Director Charles Shyer was easy to work with too. He was nothing like Stanley Kubrick, whom I worked with on
Barry Lyndon
. Stanley’s directorial method was to film a scene fifty times or more. He never explained why after, say, forty-one takes the next do over was needed. I once said to him after repeating a scene so many times I’d forgotten my name as well as my lines, “Stanley, you act my part in the scene. I’ll watch and then imitate you.” I was sincere. He thought I was trying to be funny and perceived it as insolence. My best guess is that he wanted to fatigue the actors and see what became of their performance when they were exhausted. In spite of being one of those worn-down actors, Stanley and I shared a mutual respect.

Stanley was less extravagant as a producer. He would continually review the schedule and the budget for
Barry Lyndon
, the two documents that Stanley the director often ignored. But in his role as producer, Stanley was acutely aware of costs. He’d count the rolls of toilet paper and ration them; only so many would be available per day.

During the production of
Irreconcilable Differences
, I was staying at Farrah’s house on Antelo. I come home one night and see Griffin pulling out of the garage, his car loaded with Farrah’s belongings, end tables, antique lamps, knickknacks. He can’t even see out the back window. I run up to the driver’s side and yank open the door. “What the hell are you doing?” I say. “Put it all back!” He makes a smart-ass remark and then gets out of the car. He’s violent and irrational. He’s got this empty look in his eyes. I can feel years of resentment radiating off his skin. He swings at me. I block. Then he dives and knocks both my feet out from under me. I hit the pavement elbows first. I get up. He comes at me again, this time following me into the house. We fight and knock over the curio cabinet. I fall into the broken glass, cutting my elbows and knees. “What are you doing,” I keep yelling at him. “Stop!” Some nineteen-year-old sons think they can take their dads, and he wasn’t going to stop until he did. He again goes for my legs, this time tripping me. I don’t remember hitting him in the mouth. But by then, my survival instinct had taken over.

Twenty minutes later we’re on our hands and knees together,
searching for his lost teeth. That night, I hold my child in my arms while he sleeps, wondering how this once sweet boy, who comforted me when I gave up the lead in
The Champ
because he hadn’t been cast as the son, could be the same young man who hours before was primed to maim me.

I call Farrah to let her know what happened. I hated dragging her into my messes with my kids. But she had become the person whose judgment I relied on most, the only one who could give me a sense of balance when chaos was threatening to spill over me. She doesn’t complain about the damage to the interior of her beautiful home. She just listens with compassion and understanding. A little less than two years later, after our son Redmond is born, I’m sure she must have recalled that conversation—me out of my mind with anger and sadness, she, exhausted from rehearsals, desperately trying to calm me—and wondered,
What have I brought this innocent new life into?

The next morning I have to go back to work. I must shoot a scene shirtless that day, and in the film, if you look closely enough, you can see the evidence of the previous night’s brawl on my arms, which are decorated with cuts and bruises. Making matters worse, while I’m on set, Griffin calls his mother. She picks him up and brings him straight to a photographer. She sells the story to
People
, and the celebrity magazines feast. Soon after, I send Griffin to Habilitate for rehab. He’ll stay for a year.

During that time,
People
will run another piece, this
time a feature on Griffin, and to my surprise, their coverage of me is okay. Early in my career, the press treated me fairly. I got good reviews for good performances, poor reviews for poor performances, and press interest in the women I dated was more respectful than salacious. It was my lack of parenting skills that inspired their ire.

Whenever
Irreconcilable Differences
runs on cable I’m reminded of this shameful episode with my child. The debacle will further sour my relationship with Tatum, who thinks I’ve turned my back on her brother by sending him to Habilitate. I can’t make her understand that the opposite is true. This is one of the foremost drug rehabilitation facilities in the Western world, and besides, it’s located in idyllic Hawaii.