The Legs Are the Last to Go (29 page)

My shows had never been intimate. Just the opposite, actually. Now I had to come up with a script that was conversational, confessional, and entertaining. Larry found a talented writer, Stuart Ross, the creator of the hit show
Forever Plaid
. But when I sat down with him for the first time, things didn't click. It took time and patience to find each other. Then he had an idea.

“Why don't we look you up on eBay?” he asked.

So we went onto my computer, and with his touch of a button, my life flashed before my eyes. Posters from movies. Issues of magazines with me on the cover, including
Good Housekeeping,
which made me laugh because I never was and never will be a domestic goddess. Vinyl albums. A canceled check from Samuel Goldwyn. A tabloid headline that said
DIAHANN WARNS DORIS DAY THAT NO MAN IS WORTH CRAWLING AFTER NO MATTER HOW LONELY IT GETS
. Another old tabloid with a cover suggesting that Vic had Mafia ties and, by marriage, so did I. Julia lunch boxes, paper dolls, and Barbies. DVDs
of me on
Sonny and Cher
and
The Flip Wilson Show
. Photos of me and Joan Collins on
Dynasty
with those big-shouldered Nolan Miller gowns.

A landfill of detritus! My life had been reduced to this?

Not at all, Stuart assured me. But it was a start for putting together a show.

He got me to tell stories, the kind I'd never told before. Such as the time when my love life was at its lowest, and I booked a suite at the Plaza with the intention of doing myself in. First, I got my hair styled and trotted over to Bergdorf's to buy a stunning nightgown with matching lace-and-satin peignoir. When I got to the hotel (with three sleeping pills and a bottle of Cristal in my Louis Vuitton overnight case), I was informed that a mistake had been made and I could not have the suite until the following day. I was offered a room instead by the service elevator. A room by the service elevator? I wouldn't be caught dead (literally) in anything less than a suite! I was frantic. In my typically controlling way, I had it all planned and now it was falling apart. So I called a friend. She rushed over and we had dinner and polished off the champagne and ended up laughing until dawn. And the next day, I put my whole life back together.

Stuart was also tickled when I told him that I'd been proposed to twice at the Regency, where my show would be playing. Here's what we came up with: “I had two previous engagements here, one on the third floor, one on the eleventh. So when I was asked to consider this engagement tonight, my first impulse was to ask, ‘How many carats?'”

We Googled. We giggled. We went riffling through my
life. And as we did, something very interesting began happening over and over again. I found that despite my tendency in the past to take every single thing so seriously, and to consider myself something of a victim as I inspected every crevice of my psyche, I was laughing.

And I was overjoyed when Bob Mackie made me the sweetest little dress for my return to the New York stage. I told him I wanted something understated. For once in my life, I didn't want to hear people talking about my dress after a show as if it were the star, not me. Plus, he needed to come up with something modest in size, a dress that would not take up an entire room. That way, I would not ruin people's hairdos as I threaded my way past them through the back of the little cabaret space to get onto the stamp-size stage. The dress Bob made was diminutive in size and demure in look, like a schoolgirl dress—black and white with a Peter Pan collar. And, oh yes, there were also thousands of tiny little glittering beads that sparkled like the skyline. The dress cost thirteen thousand dollars. It went very well with my “Give Me the Simple Life” medley, I have to say.

On opening night, nervous as I'd ever been, I stepped onto that stage in front of my first New York audience in forty years. And I looked straight down onto the smiling face of none other than my friend Harry Belafonte. I could hear people breathing in that small room. Their proximity was indeed unsettling. But the band sounded great and I sang well, and when I told my first joke and heard the laughter, it was better than anything I'd heard in years. Frightened as I was to talk about my life, my loves, my ups and downs, it turned out that being honest and intimate, admitting to the big regrets and owning up to my
funny foibles, forced me to face myself as a performer in ways I'd never tried before.

And I am not being disingenuous when I tell you that I was shocked by the generosity of the
New York Times
review. Not only was my singing described as “erupting as if from a volcano.” I was called “an astonishingly youthful” seventy-year-old grandmother. Fortunately it was only the
show
that was referred to as “historic,” and not me. But actually, let's face it—I am historic. There is hardly a place I haven't been that doesn't have history for me. And everywhere I travel, there is someone to see.

And this new solo show of mine, something I had resisted because I was always a lady who needed things big…well, it's turning into a big fat blessing for me. It's years after that
New York Times
review and presenters in venues from all over the country still call and invite me to come tell my stories, sing a song, do my thing. How can I say no?

Last November, Michael Feinstein invited me to be part of a show at a large theater in the Palm Springs area. I was delighted. I spent the previous week rehearsing in Los Angeles, primping and preparing and getting everything just so in order to give a flawless performance. I needed to be in shape for the stage—in fighting form. The theater was a thousand-seat house—a good size for the old girl. And although it was supposed to be Michael's evening, he was gracious enough to offer to share equal billing with me. That's more than I can say for some men I've performed with in my lifetime!

On the afternoon of the show, I arrived and walked onstage to rehearse with the band and with Michael. That's when I felt
my throat going completely hoarse. That tickle I had been trying to brush off the day before was now manifesting itself as a full-blown, song-eating sore throat, a showstopper—but not in a good way.

My manager, Brian, didn't miss a beat and called a local doctor. Then I excused myself from rehearsal with little drama—as if I were just going to use the powder room—and I was whisked out of that theater and into a nearby doctor's office, where I was rigged up to a machine that blew something into my lungs…cortisone, I guess; don't ask me—I don't even know how to send e-mails…and then whisked right back. It was kind of dramatic, a performing-arts emergency. But Brian had seen it all before. Peggy Lee, whom he had managed years ago, traveled with her own machinery for just such emergencies. And the result was that her lungs were always strong and her audiences always happy. That's what it is always,
always
about for me and any performer worth her paycheck: making an audience happy by doing what makes you happy. It's the greatest luxury in the world to be able to call that work.

Back at the theater (which, I was told, I had headlined when it opened in 1986) I got on the stage with Michael. The band started playing, and was sounding great. We rehearsed “I Wish I Were in Love Again” and “Who's Sorry Now?” and a few other feisty hits that make love sound more like war than romance. (Later in the evening, I dedicated them “to all my husbands.”) I went through each song with Michael as best I could. But there was no doubt that my throat was not in any shape for a good concert.

“Oh, Michael,” I apologized. “I have a terrible frog in my throat.”

“Well then, you might as well enjoy it,” he replied.

And you know what? That's just what I did. Well, why not?

As I told the audience later, after Michael was kind enough to introduce me as “essential” to them, I thought I'd be dead by now. And besides, sore throat or not, I got to wear false eyelashes and a big blue gown to work—a getup that most women would be able to wear only on a red carpet or to a gala. Best of all, I was working with my friend and singing the songs I loved so dearly. I love working. It keeps me in touch with what makes me happy.

At my age, I revel in every performance even with a frog in the throat. It's surprising to find I can still be such a little trouper at seventy-two. But I'm not alone in this. Everywhere I go, I find women my age having a ball just rolling with the punches.

I mean, look at the change in the conversations we have these days about menopause. There are jokes about it on television, on talk shows and sitcoms and commercials. For women, it's wonderful to be out of the closet with this little affliction. It was actually a word nobody wanted to hear for years. Menopause meant that you were unattractive and that everything was on its last legs. So even the mention of the word would provoke people to say, “Oh, don't say that.” But I just love the fact that we are owning our bodies now, and that you can be at dinner with a friend who starts fanning herself with her hand and she can just say, “Oh, give me a second, I'm having a senior moment!” We are free enough to fan our faces
in solidarity and enjoy it. I love it! It isn't just good for senior women, it's good for all women. How far we've come! Jay Leno now makes jokes about women who have to wear little pads because their bladders aren't as strong as they used to be. Maybe it's a little more vulgar than is appropriate. But it's absolutely funny and true.

Not long ago, we shot the cover of this book. In my typical fashion, I had spent a great deal of time preparing for the shoot. Greg, my favorite photographer in the world, was on board. And a dozen designer dresses had been sent over from Saks. They all fit as if they'd been designed just for me. But guess what? When I tried them on again the day before the shoot, I realized they were too tight. I had blossomed a full size since I'd last checked. How did that happen? I'd been exercising. I'd been watching my diet. It might have been my estrogen having its way with my body—something women of my age rarely talk about. The breasts get bigger without your permission, and like everything else we have to face when we hit our senior years, it can be a real roller coaster. Or perhaps I should say a Thanksgiving Day parade. I felt as big on top as a balloon in every outfit I had specifically chosen for that shoot. I don't know why I hadn't been prepared. These days I always travel to my shows with gowns in several sizes. I never know what size will fit me and I don't want to take any chances. So in addition to all the other things I have to worry about when preparing to perform, it's imperative I provide myself with enough wardrobe options to deal with a body that seems to have a mind of its own.

I remember, several years ago, being in the dressing room of the couture floor of Saks in Beverly Hills, a place I always
enjoy, and the salesgirl pulled clothes for me in what her records showed was my size, and what I thought was my size, too. So why was I having trouble with all the buttons and zippers?

“What's wrong?” I asked as I struggled.

That's when my girlfriend said very quietly, “They're too small, Diahann.”

“What do you mean they're too small? Eight is my size.”

“But they're too small, Diahann. Would you please give yourself a break and let her bring them in the next size or maybe even the next size after that?”

I told her I had been working like a dog to keep in shape. And I asked her what it was she was trying to tell me by suggesting I get things two sizes bigger.

“I'm telling you that your body has changed,” she said.

“Not that much, it's not possible,” I said.

“Yes.” She sighed. “It changes that much. All the fat glands have changed and the weight is redistributed in your body, and it's not really within your control anymore, so you just have to go along with it.”

I stood on that gorgeous couture floor at Saks with my thoughts running in every direction. Finally I asked, “Does this mean I won't be able to wear couture anymore?” The salesgirl looked down, then fled from the dressing room, as if from the scene of a crime. And my friend told me, “If you go up to a size fourteen, I think you're going to be in trouble with couture.” What a dire possibility that was!

Well, I have not gone to a size fourteen. I am holding at twelve as best I can. But I suppose if I do get up to fourteen, I can always take my favorite gowns and have them copied. I do
have my ways of making anything work when it comes to clothes.

So why had I let myself get into this position with the clothes for my photo shoot? My body was rebelling on me at the worst possible time.

I did what any self-respecting and terribly vain Beverly Hills lady would do in such an emergency. I bought an over-the-counter water pill and took it before going to bed the night before the shoot. Within an hour, I was sweating like a racehorse. The water pill was definitely working and the weight was coming off. I was up and down, in and out of bed, all night, sweating, bathing, then finding I could squeeze into outfits that would have nothing to do with me just hours before. I lost four pounds by dawn. But when I woke up later, all the weight was back—as if, in the words of the great Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, we never said good-bye. I didn't find that out until I arrived at the shoot and could not fit into anything. My bosom was busting out all over (as Oscar Hammerstein once wrote). What a disaster. Had it been any other time but now, my golden years, it would have been cause to stop the music and call everything off. But at this shoot, with all that camera equipment and all those people expecting me to shine, I found myself determined to make it work, just as I had a few months before when my throat deserted me in Palm Springs. Well, what are you going to do? You have to learn at my age that you can only fight your body and your metabolism so much. If you don't come to terms with that, what fun are you going to have on your last years on earth?