Let's Just Say It Wasn't Pretty (5 page)

Once we hit Costa Mesa, Dexter took the Bristol exit in search of gas. As she sped up to make the light, I reminded her that it’s best to slow down before approaching an intersection. My words fell on deaf ears, and Dexter ran her first red light. “It was still yellow before I hit the middle, Mom.”

“Listen to me, Dexter. I’ll say it again: it’s unwise to speed up at an intersection. Okay?! Are you listening to me?”

Silence. I looked over in exasperation and noticed a head of hair so thick it hid her ears. I’ve never seen her hair part around her ears like mine does. There was a period in the 1980s when I wore a variety of berets to hide my Spock ears because, let’s face it, my ears were, and remain, just one more of my many disappointments.

Back to wigs. First there was the one I wore in
The Godfather
. Robert Evans, the head of production at Paramount Pictures, thought I was too “kooky”-looking for the role of Kay Corleone, so Dick Smith, a.k.a. the Godfather of Makeup, turned me into a WASP with a canary-yellow wig ten times larger than my head. Twenty years later I played Bessie, the caregiver sister in
Marvin’s Room
, opposite Meryl Streep. Bessie is diagnosed with leukemia, undergoes chemo, and loses all her hair. Throughout most of the two-month shoot, I wore a wig donated from a local candy striper volunteer organization. Jerry Zaks, our director, was enchanted by its authenticity. To me, it was sort of a throwback to Jim Rado’s shoulder-length tresses. Only this one was a brunette nightmare from hell. I tried to convince Jerry to give me a chance to wear a hair-hat wig on occasion. Sound strange, a wig sewn into a hat? Not to me. I figured Bessie would look good in a hat. Jerry would have none of it, pointing out that Bessie was not vain. He also
added that Bessie was not Diane. Shrugging him off, I continued to press my point, until the day we shot a makeup and hair test for the bald cap I had to wear toward the end of the shoot. As soon as I saw my hairless head, I begged Jerry to please let me keep wearing my candy striper James Rado shoulder-length brown synthetic, almost attractive wig. That is, until the day Meryl told me we both looked like shit. Frankly, I was relieved that she included herself.

The last wig I ever wore, both on- and offscreen, was a curly shag in the practically straight-to-video movie I made with Dax Shepard called
Smother
. Enough said.

As Dexter and I sat in the car at the Chevron gas station, I breathed a sigh of relief. We were two females, one mother, the other daughter. Yes, Dexter had run a red light, but we all make mistakes in the process of learning something new. In the peace of the moment, I mentioned my dream. Dex nodded and, after her quiet way of gathering thoughts, responded with a hair dream of her own: “Okay, Mom, I’m looking through my hair, and it starts falling out in clumps. My head has bloody sores, and blisters, and even holes in the flesh. Every time I look, it’s worse than before. It was so creepy. I kept trying to find you and Duke to help. But you were nowhere to be found.”

“Wow, Dex, I bet you’re glad it’s not a reoccurring dream.”

“But it is. That’s the horrible part, Mom. It is.”

I told her that the meaning of dreams is hard to unravel. I told her that she of all people will never have to worry about blisters and sores on her gorgeous hair. Ever. Her hair is perfect. And I was telling the truth.

Woody used to dream of hair loss. Not now. He’s done very well retaining what hair he has. Warren used to pontificate on the subject for hours, insisting that hairdressers were worth their weight in gold. According to him, hair was, in fact, 60 percent of good looks. This philosophy must have at least partially inspired him to produce and star in the box office blockbuster
Shampoo
. With hair on his mind, you can imagine how taxing it must have been for him to select the hairstylist for his Oscar-winning movie
Reds
. His pick? Barry Richardson, who did Julie Christie’s hair in
McCabe and Mrs. Miller
. Barry was a hairdresser genius, but in truth
Reds
was more hat movie than hair movie. I wore a variety of broad-brimmed hats, several variations on the beret, a number of cloches, and, in one pivotal scene, a peasant scarf tied at the back of my neck. It was all so perfect. I couldn’t have been happier. During the weekends I roamed through London’s Portobello Road, my favorite flea market. One Sunday, I found a high-crowned black hat with a wide fur trim wrapped around its circumference. I put it on, and, oh yeah, let’s just say I bought it on the spot. Later that afternoon, a man with long curlicues dangling on both sides of his face walked past me
wearing the identical hat. Shaking his head, he glared at me in an unfriendly manner. When I got back to the hotel, I looked at the label written in Yiddish. Duh. It was what’s called a shtreimel. Shtreimel hats are worn exclusively by married male Hasidic Jews, not thirtysomething female actresses. What the hell was I thinking?

And what was I thinking when I tried to seduce Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer into letting me wear a couple of hats after I was cast opposite Steve Martin in
Father of the Bride
? Nancy reminded me that it was 1991, not 1976. I was playing the mother of the bride, she said, not Annie Hall. During those fifteen years, I let my hair grow halfway to my waist. Nancy let it be known I needed to get a haircut. So I did.

I got back, though. Every day at lunch I would don my bowler hat and join Steve, Marty Short, Kimberly Williams, and Steve’s wife at the time, Victoria Tennant, for a plate of spaghetti and some good times. After a couple of weeks Victoria said, “Is every day a bad hair day, Diane?”

I wanted to respond with my own personal philosophy:
Victoria, my hair is my hat. And my hat is my hair
. But of course I said nothing.

Sometimes I wish I was joined at the hip to a great hairstylist like Frida Aradottir or Jill Crosby, who did my hair for the cover of
Ladies’ Home Journal
. It’s a shame insecurity doesn’t bring out my best behavior, but it was a cover, so I felt
justified in having a little chat with Jill before the shoot. I began with the bad news.
Ladies’ Home Journal
would not, repeat not, let me wear a hat on the cover. I told Jill I was worried about my hair. It needed more volume. I told her that no matter what the editors might say, I wanted it in my face. All of it. I told her the “truth” she already knew in spades: my hair, euphemistically speaking, was unreliable, capricious, erratic, and faithless. I wondered what she could do to help remedy these problems. On cue, Jill got the extensions out of her bag.

As an expert, Jill wanted to set me straight as well. Number 1: if you glue extensions to the top of your head, they will pull off what little hair you have. Number 2: extensions can be seen for the fake hair they are, unless placed in the right location. And Number 3: if you set the extensions as high as possible on either side, it will give the hair on top a better chance to appear full, messy fabulous, and in your face, because as with most things, a foundation is essential.

The cover couldn’t have come out better, especially since Brigitte Lacombe, the photographer, doesn’t care about hairdos. She cares about the moment. So much so, she may have overlooked the obvious. My left eye was covered by hair, while my right eye was hidden behind blue-tinted glasses. Another bonus of more hair? Less face.

I will say this: the disadvantage of wearing extensions
outweighs the advantages. The painful ordeal of removing them takes much longer than putting them in, and they hurt. They really hurt. There are aesthetic problems as well. Extension hair is chunkier, and always superior to the less prevalent, real hair. Plus, the good hair (formerly growing out of someone else’s head) won’t do what the “bad” hair (mine) insists upon. The whole thing is an endlessly time-consuming folly. Oh, and to make matters worse, it turned out Jill didn’t want to be attached to my hip.

At six-thirty Dex parked the Rover in the lot next to the pier where we saw the registration booth. As we walked toward the gathering swimmers, I had the great misfortune to come across my reflection in the window of Johnny Rockets. The news was not good. My hair
is
thinning! And it’s not my imagination, nor am I in the middle of a dream I can’t remember. It’s a fact. I’m losing my hair.

Not to complain, but why me? Why not my sister Dorrie, or my other sister, Robin? Why do all the women in my life have to deliberately flaunt their gorgeous locks? In the beginning it was Mom, with her shoulder-length chestnut-colored hair, which I loved to touch. Then it was Robin, who still has a massive mop. Then Dorrie, whose hair is even thicker than Robin’s and more unruly. My business partner, Stephanie, has an ungodly mane. It was the first thing
I noticed when I interviewed her for the position, not long after I’d finished filming
Something’s Gotta Give
. While she rattled on about her qualifications, all I could think was, Do I really want a brown-haired, brown-eyed junior Cindy Crawford flaunting her blown-out hair in my face five days a week? Do I need to be reminded of my wispy flyaway strands as her fingers shake out her cascading locks, day after day? Forget it. Then I tried to imagine what her hair would look like on my head. One word came to mind: good. That’s what it would have looked like … g-o-o-d.

Then there was Dexter. Sure enough, as she grew, her hair grew, too. Now it’s even more abundant than Stephanie’s. Why do I have to be surrounded by women whose hair seems to swish past me as if they’re frolicking in a Prell shampoo commercial? The only relief comes when they bitch about, I don’t know, a bad cut. Once, Dorrie went temporarily nuts after she gave herself a Jane Fonda shag trim. I tried not to enjoy her pain. But come on, give a woman a break. Goddamnit.

Look, bottom line: I’d like to wish good thoughts for everyone who’s made me feel self-conscious and miserable about my hair. I’d like to stop complaining, and stop comparing. I’d like to be less envious. I’d like to change. I’d even like to put a smile on my face and be grateful for what I have. All I ask for
is this: no disappearing hair follicles, no alopecia, no female pattern baldness. That’s all I want. Nothing more. That’s it.

So, what exactly is hair? I looked it up on my iPhone while Dexter was getting ready for her swim. Hair is protein that grows from skin follicles at the rate of about half an inch per month. Each hair continues to grow for two to six years, then rests, then falls out. Soon enough, a new hair begins growing in its place. Female pattern baldness occurs when hair falls out and normal new hair does not grow in its place.

Okay? Then there are the signs of impending baldness. What are they? Well, hair thins mainly on the crown of the scalp. It usually starts widening through the center. Symptoms of female pattern baldness include strange hair growth on the face or in the belly button. Another symptom of female pattern baldness can be the enlargement of the clitoris. Does that mean I’m going to have to look at my clitoris to know if I have female pattern baldness? Count me out.

Let’s say I am balding. What are some solutions, besides wigs and extensions (which, in reality, can only be used if you actually have hair)? There is transplantation, or plugs, as we used to call them. Dr. Norman Orentreich performed the first transplant surgery in 1952. He coined the term “donor dominance” to explain the basic principles. When hair is relocated, it continues to display the same characteristics
of hair from the donor site; in other words, it grows. The downside of Orentreich’s technique was that unfortunately, the new hair created an unnatural “corn row” or “doll’s hair” look. As I was reading, it dawned on me that I knew Dr. Orentreich. In fact, Woody had used his shampoo to stave off baldness, and it worked. I called the Orentreich Medical Group in New York. A friendly receptionist told me that Norman Orentreich had retired. His son David was running the practice, but unfortunately she was not at liberty to sell me the shampoo since I was not one of his patients. I called Woody, and a week later the shampoo arrived. From Woody Allen, c/o Stephanie Heaton for Diane Keaton. It’s been a year since I started using Dr. Orentreich’s shampoo. I still have hair, but the jury remains out.

Dexter was now in the ocean, swimming through the surf with a Team Santa Monica bathing cap on her beautiful head. She wasn’t worrying about her hair. She was swimming nearly two and a half miles. Imagine that. Amazing. I pulled myself together but not long enough to stop myself from thinking about the only other hair-loss prevention left. Rogaine.

But it turns out that Rogaine can be absorbed through the skin and cause side effects, some of which include unwanted weight gain, hairy face, difficulty breathing, and other symptoms that require calling your doctor. That’s when I thought, Oh my God. Forget the labels, the various signs, the definitions,
the causes, and the preventions. Face it: every day is a bad hair day and always will be.

The day before the swim, I went to see my agent, Harvard Law School graduate Nancy Josephson, at her office at the William Morris Endeavor talent agency. I was determined to wear my hair as a hat, not a hat as my hair. Still, I wanted to be prepared for the worst, so I tossed one of my hats in the car. Earlier, I’d looked in the magnifying mirror and given myself a little heart-to-heart: “Diane, you’re not allowed to wear the hat today, and here’s why: at this point in your highly privileged life, your hair doesn’t matter to anyone but you. Sorry, but you’re fast becoming a caricature of yourself. How long do you think you can hide under the brim of a hat? How long?” I got in the car and turned on
Morning Edition
. I was doing just fine, but as I got closer to WME I started feeling anxious and pulled over. “Diane, you know what?” I told myself. “You lack character. There’s no validity to your pronouncements. You are not allowed to wear the hat to see Nancy Josephson today. Do you understand? It’s final. Your charade is over. Show a little gumption. It’s pathetic. You’re sixty-six years old, and your attitude is not cute.”

At Wilshire and Santa Monica, I couldn’t take it any longer, and put the hat on. Wasn’t it Randy Newman who said, “You Can Leave Your Hat On”? And if Randy said to leave it on, who was I to disagree? At Wilshire and Camden, I
took it off. At Camden and Brighton, I put it back on. In the underground parking lot I was so disappointed in myself, I threw the hat in the backseat of the car and told it to go shove itself. Because really, truly, my hair is of no consequence in the scheme of things. DONE!