The Varnished Untruth (23 page)

Right from the start, I really adored Jamie and Cara, but I was conscious that I was a rather wacky stepmum. I do know I was caring and nurturing, though – they really brought out that side of me, as did Billy. And Daisy, of course. But notes would go to school teachers on my stationery, which contained a cartoon of a couple sitting at home in their living room. The woman says to the man: ‘Shouldn’t you be out having your name linked with Pamela Stephenson?’

Then there was the pretty constant doorstepping by freelance journalists and others. Billy had developed all kinds of anti-pap strategies, none of them very successful. He once thumped one with a long French loaf he was bringing home for tea, although after that we didn’t really feel like eating it. But that did put a whole new spin on the club sandwich.

Instead of edible weaponry, I preferred to use wigs and costumes to disguise myself as, say, an elderly lady. I enjoyed walking right past packs of newshounds without arousing any suspicion whatsoever. Once or twice we both donned Arab robes to be anonymous while attending a public event – the Alternative Miss World for example. We really craved privacy, especially early on, because we didn’t want Cara and Jamie to be confronted with pictures of us together that might have unkind captions attached. After Billy and I both appeared in the Secret Policeman’s Ball comedy concert, I attempted to put the paparazzi off the scent by exiting the theatre with Eric Clapton, but that didn’t work and they were soon badgering Billy for a picture. It’s never wise to confront a Glaswegian. ‘You better put some Vaseline on that camera,’ Billy warned one photographer, ‘’cos it’s going up your arse.’ Another time he smashed a man’s camera and there was a subsequent court case and the forking out of cash to replace the broken equipment. Things got to the point where I had to have a conversation with Billy about trying to be calm and avoid conflict. But, understandably, he became particularly incensed by press intrusion when the children were present. We both particularly resented the fact that Cara and Jamie had been accosted by journalists while walking around their village in Scotland.

When Daisy arrived, Cara and Jamie cooed over her too, and my concerns about whether I was up to creating a happy ‘blended family’ began to evaporate. Billy and I were finally starting to settle down – as far as that was possible for two comedians. Frankly, being a two-comedian family was a lot less useful than having matching Hondas. But Cara and Jamie travelled with one or both of us whenever necessary, and they particularly seemed to love coming to New York when I was engaged for a season as a cast member on
Saturday Night Live
. Now I was trying to be a good mum, while at the same time about to do the toughest job of my entire career.
Saturday Night Live
, or
SNL
as it’s known, was the most famous and popular TV sketch comedy show in the United States at that time. It was a little like
Not The Nine O’Clock News
, except that it was broadcast live by NBC in front of a studio audience in Studio 8H on floors 8 and 9 of ‘30 Rock’ – the GE Building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan. It had – and still has – a kind of cult following; if having thirty-six million viewers per week could ever be considered cultish. When I joined the show in 1984 it had already been on air for ten years and had produced major film stars, such as Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase and John Belushi. Back then, the show was already legendary, but it’s still popular and has now spanned three decades.

Each episode is hosted by a famous guest (during my season these included Jesse Jackson, Tina Turner, Ringo Starr and Eddie Murphy) and a major band. Yet
SNL
has struggled to stay on the air for so long – it’s had a volatile history of producer, writer and cast changes. When I came on the scene, its creator Lorne Michaels had departed, and the show had been sliding downhill to terrible reviews under Jean Doumanian. She was fired after a performer (Charles Rocket) said ‘Fuck’ on live TV, and Dick Ebersol took over. For the new season, he brought in some established stars: Billy Crystal and Martin Short joined Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Mary Gross, Jim Belushi, Rich Hall, Gary Kroeger and me, and we did our best to turn the show into a hit once more. We were successful.

But with the pressure of a live show every week, very little time to prepare and rehearse, we were all under enormous stress. Each cast member was given an office on the 17th floor. Mine was a lovely corner one that I put to good use as a feeding station for Daisy. I needed a refuge. In those days,
SNL
had a drug culture. In light of this, the late John Belushi’s untimely demise became very understandable to me. Mood-altering substances came up to the 17th floor in pizza boxes, then doors would be closed to anyone who was not part of the ‘inner sanctum’. Yet again, I was an outsider, and not only because I didn’t take drugs. Being female was not the issue – Julia and Mary were also in the cast, and America already had a strong legacy of funny women. No, I was culturally an outsider. I knew little about American society and history – at that time I felt I barely spoke the same language. One of the most humiliating early moments was being cast as an electoral officer during the presidential elections and having to post coloured flags on different states as they were called out. Where on earth was Arkansas, and why was it pronounced as if it had a ‘w’ on the end? If only I’d taken Geography at school instead of Latin!

This was not a team as
NTNON
had been, with producers working hard to create cohesion. Rather, people seemed to be deliberately pitted against each other. Just being a cast member did not mean one automatically made it into the show each week. If you did not find a place in a sketch – or write one yourself – you could be going home after the first readthrough. The competition was intense – and not just between performers. Writers were jostling to place their sketches, too, and they favoured writing for the established American stars because they were less likely to be bumped. I began to write as much as possible, but realized that firstly, I was ill-equipped to come up with American satire, and secondly, I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t. If I wrote a sketch that made it into the show, that might be perceived as an affront to the writing team, who might then fail to write for me the following week. If I did not write for myself, others might not either and I’d be out of the show. It was brutal.

Again, you found yourself in a situation where not only were you an outsider, but you were risking rejection in a very intense manner . . .

No kidding. And, there was no rest. As a mother of a new baby, I found that particularly difficult. I mean, I was actually relieved to be away from the UK – in a place where I was not so well known – but it was a bit like ‘out of the frying pan, into the fire’. As soon as Saturday’s show was over, we had to start trying to come up with material for the coming week. By the end of Tuesday, all written work was supposed to be in, and there was a terrifying read-through for around fifty people on Wednesdays. Then selected sketches were rehearsed and blocked. After Saturday’s dress rehearsal nearly half the planned sketches were cut, and then the live show kicked off at 11pm with what was known as a ‘cold opening’, where one of the performers would break character in the middle of the first sketch and announce into camera: ‘Live from New York, it’s
Saturday Night
!’

I remember being absolutely bewildered, terrified, frantic and desperate during that season, and I’m not even sure how I survived it. Especially without Billy being around. I remember looking down at the street from my office window on the 17th floor and thinking, ‘I understand why stressed Manhattan executives often decide to jump.’

You became . . . suicidal?

I thought about it. But Daisy always grounded me. I had to stay strong for her. I decided that the only way I could survive – professionally – was to find a niche for myself into which no one else could fit. That niche turned out to be rock parodies. I took on Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Billy Idol – thankfully, my efforts were so well received I remember the co-producer saying to me, ‘So, you gonna put another nail in rock ’n’ roll’s coffin again this week?’

I created a toothy, unintelligible British character with red hair and buck teeth that Americans found hilarious because it supported their impression of weird Britishness, and I played a huge range of American characters, from Lauren Bacall to Nancy Reagan, but the process of the show always seemed unwieldy and terrifyingly haphazard. There was really no time to learn lines – most people read them off cue cards on the night – which seemed amateurish to me. How I missed having a decent rehearsal period – not to mention the far superior BBC makeup and costume department!

I even managed to do some of my more outrageous material on American television, such as a series of sketches wearing giant, moving breasts . . .

Breasts yet again . . . ?

I know, I know, but these were funny. In the first sketch, I spoke directly to the camera and introduced the men of America to my chest, pointing out the various features. Since this was American television, I had to refer to my nipples as the ‘twiddly bits on the end’; although Billy Crystal, in the same episode, was allowed to say ‘nipples’ in his opening monologue. Different rules for boys and girls? Ahhh! (I spent a considerable amount of time negotiating with the censors at various points during that run.) But, anyway, in that first sketch I introduced my body and attested to my normality but soon, my left fake breast began to move up and down. People shrieked. Then it started jiggling fast and, eventually, it took control of me, whirling me round and finally flipping me right over my desk. It was a nice piece of physical comedy that was well received and lead to follow-up sketches. In fact, I was shocked to learn that, many years later, Britney Spears did something very similar when she hosted the show – probably wearing my ‘moving tit contraption’ that I’d left behind in the wardrobe department (you can see her bit on YouTube). Or perhaps hers were digitally animated, which sadly wasn’t an option in my day!

Pamela I’m sorry to be so . . . Freudian, but I can’t help pointing out that breasts – the shape, size, deflation, humour and baring of them – is an omnipresent theme in your life. Put that together with your deeply troubling mother issues and, well, you know where I’m going with this . . . ?

Once again, doctor, your brilliance astounds me. If breasts represent my relationship with my mother, my
SNL
tits sketch was a dynamic re-enactment of maternal control. OMG – what about that time I held a seance with them? Was I unconsciously harbouring thoughts of matricide?

Probably . . .

Oh man. And I made such a big deal of it when Billy had his nipples pierced on Father’s Day!

Saturday Night Live
became a hit show again, and that was gratifying for everyone who worked on it. But it was shockingly stressful and, as a new mother, my focus really had to be on Daisy and the rest of my family. I lived between Rockefeller Plaza and my small apartment on 71st Street. Billy commuted between London and New York, and Jamie and Cara flew out whenever school breaks allowed it. Everyone was relieved when the season ended and we settled back to life in London.

Amy was born in July 1986, and Scarlett turned up two years later. It was a happy time. To my surprise, I discovered that I really loved being a mum. It was as if I now had the opportunity to be the kind of mother I would have wanted for myself.

Billy and I enjoyed entertaining and loved getting together with pals, first at the Fish Factory, then in Bray, and finally in Winkfield, after we moved out of London. It was good to have a place where the kids had more room to roam around the garden. We painted the walls in mad colours and filled the place with rock ’n’ roll art. We had front gates designed to look like the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and the walls of our dining room were painted to resemble the grassy stripes of a freshly mowed lawn. We even had a bed with a built-in alarm clock that triggered small aeroplanes zooming round it to the tune of ‘Those Magnificent Men’. Oh yes, we were a zany duo.

But it was lovely to be able to spy a fox out of our bedroom window and have picnics on the lawn. Once novelist Kathy Lette turned up and we all had high tea dressed up in crazy frocks I’d worn for various performing events – frothy ball gowns in funky prints, marrying leopard with tartan and lace. Strangely enough, that look recently came into fashion, but back then it was an affront. It appealed to the fashion disaster in me.

When it comes to appropriate dressing, I so rarely get it right. My excuse is, I never gleaned a sense of style early on. Or rather, the sense of style I acquired in the Australian ‘sticks’ was decidedly drip-dry. I remember the first time I received an outfit that I really liked. It was not one of my mother’s pretty home-made creations that matched my sisters’, but something I actually chose. It was a mauve-and-white gingham check skirt-and-blouse ensemble with a little frill around the arm hole. I was given a white cardigan to match, and I simply could not believe I’d been allowed to have pearly white shoes with a tiny high heel. I must have been just fourteen. This outfit was for some special occasion – I can’t remember what, but it was probably a school or church fellowship outing, or possibly a football match. I remember that the night before I was so excited I couldn’t sleep. I had hung the outfit on my door with the shoes lying beneath it, so I could gaze at it from my bed.

We didn’t have money for nice clothes then but, as soon as I began to earn my own money – first at the Boronia Park petrol garage on Saturday mornings and eventually in the restaurants, bars and nightclubs in town – I began to invest a large portion of my earnings on acquiring pretty things to wear. It was cheap, high-street stuff but I noticed it gave me confidence. Many years later, when I met Joanna Lumley on the set of
The New Avengers
, she and I began chatting about clothing. ‘I often buy ordinary, cheap clothes,’ she said, ‘saying to myself, “I know I can make that look good.”’ This really impressed me. Now I realize she knew a lot about fashion because she’d been a model, and she could recognize high-street items that were barely discernible from designer clothes and put them together so they looked chic. But, at the time, I was mystified. ‘What does that mean?’ I wondered. ‘Isn’t it enough just to buy something off the peg in High Street Kensington and wear it? How would you go about doing something special to it to make it “look good”?’