Read My Lips (18 page)

It was April 1971, and the Academy Awards were fast approaching. I hadn’t for one minute taken Bob Altman seriously when he predicted that I would be nominated for an Academy Award for my performance as Hot Lips. When he turned out to be right, I was over the moon.

About two weeks before the big night a writer friend invited Rick and me to join him in Puerta Vallarta for a minivacation. His wife wasn’t free to join him, and he wanted some company. Before leaving for Mexico I went in to get fitted for my dress for the Oscars.

Studio costume designer Donald Lee Feld, aka “Donfeld,” who had worked with me on the film
April Fools,
had kindly offered to design my Oscar-night dress for me. That’s how we did it in those days: costume designers from the studios usually made award
ceremony dresses, if they weren’t simply bought off the rack at a boutique. It was not a time when nominees attended shows in Paris and New York, eyeing outfits by Versace, Marchesa, Dior, and Armani hoping to spot something for the big night. The great costume designer Edith Head was good enough for Grace Kelly, after all. And almost nobody borrowed $2 million worth of jewels for the ceremony and had to be shadowed by a security detail the entire evening. You wore what you had, or if there was any borrowing to be done, it was from a friend who had better bling than you did.

My old friend Donfeld, who himself had already been nominated twice for an Academy Award, for
Days of Wine and Roses
and
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They
? (he would go on to be nominated twice more) and who was sought after by the likes of Bette Davis and Ingrid Bergman, was certainly more than good enough for me. I was lucky he offered. The dress he created for me was beautiful: a sumptuous, champagne-colored velvet-and-chiffon gown, with long sleeves and a softly plunging laced neckline, bounded by bronze and gold bugle beading. My fitting went just fine, and Rick and I were off to Mexico.

On the agenda for our jaunt was a different kind of side trip: we were all going to take peyote, because my husband had taken it before and claimed to have seen God. Well, that sounded like a plan. As soon as we arrived in Puerto Vallarta, I went into town and bought a long, flowing diaphanous white gown. If I was going to see God, I wanted to make sure I was appropriately dressed.

The house where we were staying was lovely. Rick and I were given the guest room—and waterbed—on the lower level. Every room in the house, it seemed, opened to the outdoors. There were verandas in every direction, some of them looking out onto lush flowers and greenery whereas others opened out onto a view of the Pacific Ocean. Perfect. Serene. God, here we come.

Not so fast.

When I finally got a look at the peyote, I thought it looked like a wooden button. Rick, our host, and I all dropped it together. I
have no idea exactly when it began to kick in, but I do remember one thing very clearly: I
hated
it. I wasn’t tripping or relaxing; I was wildly speeding, and there appeared to be no stopping anytime soon. Maybe all the diet drugs I’d taken over the years had burnt out my nervous system by this point, but for whatever reason I felt like I was going to jump out of my skin. Not only did I not see God; I was ready to take myself to the emergency room.

Finally the three of us began to come down—me, only a little. “Please, let’s go downstairs,” I said to Rick. “I can’t stand the way I feel.”

Rick agreed. I had no idea what time of day or night it was, but we told our host that we were turning in. He didn’t argue. I think it was obvious I needed to lie down. As we talked, I stared at the man’s nostrils. They were huge, like caverns—he had been shoveling in coke. Just before we made our way downstairs, our friend handed us a comic book and a portable tape recorder.

“Play this,” he said.

When Rick and I got to our room, I took a closer look at what he’d given us. It was an S&M comic book. I didn’t even know they made those. The two of us got into the waterbed, and I prayed to the God I never saw that I would be able to get some sleep. (Note to self: in the future, avoid waterbeds when tripping on peyote.) As we lay awake, Rick decided to turn on the tape recorder. There was no music, just sounds. Percussion? Maybe. But there was something . . . different.

“Oh,” Rick finally said. “Snare drums . . .”

We listened some more.

“Honey, those aren’t snare drums,” I said.

They weren’t. The rat-tat-tat we were hearing was actually the sound of someone beating someone else with a whip. Our host had provided us with a soundtrack to go along with our comic book.

Snare drums
. . . it still makes me laugh.

That was one of those moments when I loved Rick, even though we were often at each other’s throats.

I did manage to sleep. The next day when we awoke, we said nothing to our friend of what we’d heard the night before. We all piled into an open-topped Jeep and drove through the bush until we arrived at the most pristine, untouched, breathtaking beach. We got out on the beach and just walked.

In the distance we saw a dark shape on the sand. As we got closer, we saw that it was a dead horse, lying there on its side, its clouded eyes staring at nothing. There were no flies, and I wondered if the poor animal had just died. I was fascinated, but I couldn’t bear to look too closely.

Moving on, we soon found a good spot for a dip. Tearing off our clothes, we ran into the clear greenish-blue water. That was by far the best part of my short trip. But by then the peyote, the S&M mood music, and the dead horse had gotten to me. I couldn’t wait to get back to Los Angeles.

I went to see Don for my final fitting. Whipping out his measuring tape, he quickly discovered that I had lost weight while I was away. I actually couldn’t remember if I’d eaten anything the whole time I was in Mexico.

“I’m taking it in,” Don said, marking the gown. “If you have any problems the night of the Oscars, a seamstress friend of mine is on the second floor. Go see her.”

The night of the Academy Awards I was to get dressed onsite at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Los Angeles County Music Center, which was only about two years old at the time. I was not only nominated, a thrill in itself, but I was also presenting an award. Even better—making the night near perfect—I was going to get to sing. Sing!

Rick was the one who pushed me to tell the Academy that I sing. I didn’t think they’d believe me. But, lo and behold, Quincy Jones was the musical director for the Academy Awards that year, and he knew me.

I had worked with Quincy about a year before on
The Music of Antonio Carlos Jobim: Music from the Adventurers.
My friend
Morgan Ames, by then established in the music business, had helped me land the job. Quincy had done the arrangement for the album, featuring the Ray Brown Orchestra.

Harold Robbins, the author of the best-selling book,
The Adventurers,
had adapted it to film. Harold was working with Quincy on the movie’s soundtrack and asked to direct my track personally. What Harold wanted me to do was moan.

Harold’s directions from the booth were hilarious, in that he was so serious.

“Okay, Sally, let’s try a vaginal orgasm . . . No, no, no! . . . That’s more clitoral. We have a clitoral orgasm already. All right, let’s go again . . .”

Although I didn’t really know there were two kinds of orgasms, I took direction quite well. Harold and Quincy were pleased. On the
Adventurers
soundtrack my credit reads: “Coming and Going (Vocal Inspiration: Sally Kellerman).”

And hey—that hilarious gig led to my singing spot on the Oscars. I was to perform “Thank You Very Much” from
Scrooge,
along with Petula Clark, Burt Lancaster, and Ricardo Montalban. Nothing could have made me happier.

The big day came. As show time approached, I went to get dressed so that I could walk out one door of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, drive around the block, and walk in another. I slipped on the gown. I looked down. The “V” was no longer plunging softly. It skirted my breasts. On the outside.

I was totally bare chested.

Rick walked in to find me in a panic.

“Rick, look at my dress!”

“Great!”

Something must have gone wrong. Either Donfeld overcompensated when he took in the dress, or I had gained back some of the weight I’d lost—or a bit of both.

I had only two hours until red-carpet time. Then I remembered: the seamstress! Racing around the building, I finally found her.
She pulled and tugged and stretched what she could of the fabric. Thanks to a needle, some thread, double-sided tape, and sheer dumb luck, she finally got the dress up over my nipples. Barely.

Rick and I made the drive around the block and stopped in front of the Pavilion. Now it was time to make my red-carpet entrance. The media lay in wait, with flashbulbs erupting outside the tinted glass of the limousine. I was a nervous wreck, not because of all the attention—I liked that part—but because of the dress.

“I can’t get out of the car!” I said to Rick.

“Well, you have to,” he told me.

I sat for a few minutes, paralyzed. One false move, and I knew I would lose what little fabric was clinging for dear life to my boobs. At last, I braved it. I took a deep breath, froze every muscle in my body, and stepped out into the throng. When you’re in the middle of such frenzy, all you can see is who’s next to you and what’s straight in front of you. You recognize some people, but most appear as a blur. Cameras flash, and people call your name. It’s disorienting. So it wasn’t until later, when I saw an aerial shot of Rick and me standing in a sea of photographers and reporters, that I got an idea of just how insane and exciting the entire scene really was. And how low cut that gown was.

My first wardrobe test of the evening was my stint as a presenter. NFL-great-turned-actor Jim Brown and I were presenting the Oscar for what was then referred to as “Short Subjects.” Onstage I moved like I was in a full body cast, terrified I would lift right out of the dress. When I turned to hand over the Oscar, I moved like someone spun me a quarter-turn on a pedestal—but nary a nipple slip.

My musical number, “Thank You Very Much,” was a blast. To my huge relief I sang in a backless black halter that made no threat of leaving my body. What a thrill to be onstage, doing what I loved with such amazing performers. I was so happy I forgot for a minute I was nominated. Then someone ran back and said, “Sally, get in your seat. Your category is up.” I raced back into the audience, sat down, and waited.

It may sound like a cliché when someone who’s up for an Academy Award says, “It’s an honor just to be nominated,” but it really is an incredible honor. Yes, it’s true that the coolest thing is doing the work, being on the set, having a part you can sink your teeth into, and having 5
A.M.
burritos and doughnuts at craft services or hanging out in the makeup trailer. But being nominated is amazing because it’s your peers’ acknowledgment of your work. That’s humbling!

It was fun that people I had started out with in the business were nominated that year too. Jack Nicholson and Carole Eastman were nominated for
Five Easy Pieces
—Jack for his lead role and Carole for writing the screenplay. Jeff Corey had launched all three of our careers in his garage fifteen years earlier.

Bob Altman had already won best director at Cannes, and
M*A*S*H
had gotten the Golden Globe for best motion picture (musical or comedy). People today talk about how the Golden Globes are so much more fun than the Oscars—looser and more easygoing. Alcohol is served, so people get relaxed. But believe me: today’s Globes seem uptight and formal in comparison to the ceremonies back then. Why? Because back then they weren’t televised. Without the unforgiving eye of the camera, people really cut loose. I had also been nominated for a Golden Globe, along with Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland. For that show I didn’t bother having a gown specially made; I just dug into my closet for something I’d probably bought on Sunset.

M*A*S*H
was nominated for five Academy Awards: best editing, best picture, best director, best adapted screenplay, and best supporting actress—me. Back then you didn’t “campaign” for a film or an actor as you do today. The most campaigning you’d ever see was one ad in
Variety
and an appearance on Merv Griffin. Today you can’t get away with less than a full military assault. For an Oscar voter—which I am—the blitz can have the opposite of its intended effect. I can start to doubt my love for a film by the time I’ve had a hundred ads for it shoved down my throat. (But, of course, not if it was
my
film.)

My friend Gig Young from
The Rogues
was presenting the Oscar for my category. That was fitting, as he’d inspired me with the advice, “In comedy, you have to play for something.” I sat up straight and listened as the nominees were announced, all too aware that a camera would broadcast my every expression.

Helen Hayes, for
Airport . . .

Karen Black, for
Five Easy Pieces . . .

Lee Grant for
The Landlord . . .

Sally Kellerman, for
M*A*S*H* . . .

Maureen Stapleton for
Airport . . .

People ask if you prepare your speech ahead of time. I had had an Academy Award speech nailed and ready to go since I was seven years old. Of course, my speech has changed over the years. But was I ready? Yes.

I would have loved to have accepted an award from my friend Gig. But from the stage I heard:
And the Oscar goes to . . . Helen Hayes.