There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me (14 page)

As I remember it, the night after Mom called the labor board, she and I returned to our hotel room to find the lock had been broken and the door left ajar. In my adjoining bedroom, written in Mom’s red lipstick on the mirror over the dresser, were the words:
This is to let you know what we can do!

The next day, when we picked up the room phone we heard clicking on the line. Mom said she feared the lines were being tapped. I had no idea what that meant, and when she explained that somebody might be listening to our conversations, I immediately thought only of my potential romantic life. I became terrified my calls to the Bodack boys back home would be listened to. Naïvely, I didn’t know there was anything else to fear.

Mom had befriended the cleaning lady in this hotel and showed her the writing on the mirror. The woman said that there was clearly something going on in the producer’s room because she would find blood splatters and needles in the garbage baskets. Outwardly, Mom seemed unruffled, and I continued to work the long hours. Mom had a plan, though. Mafia or no mafia, drugs or no drugs, she was going to do something about it. Whoever was causing trouble didn’t know my mother.

But the opposition was ready to play dangerously dirty. One day my mother took the same hotel cleaning lady out to lunch for her
birthday. Mom drove to meet her on her day off from the hotel. They went to a restaurant off a highway a bit away from town and had a celebratory birthday lunch. After the conclusion of lunch, both women got into their cars and began the drive back. My mom was driving a rental, and as she entered the highway, she lost control of the car. The brakes failed and she swerved and was only able to slow the car on a truck incline. Mom told me that within seconds, a patrol car’s lights began flashing and a cop was out of his car approaching my mom. There was no doubt that Mom drank during lunch, but it was a sad (and unfortunately true) fact that my mother was capable of driving drunk and avoiding being pulled over for being beyond her limit. There was something suspicious about her losing control of the vehicle and how quickly the cops arrived. It was as if the cops had been waiting for her and they weren’t the only parties involved. Something seemed suspicious about all of it. Man was arrested on the spot for drunk driving and was taken to a holding cell at the police station.

From the cell Mom called her lawyer in New York City immediately. Being a tough broad who could fight, Mom and her lawyer came up with a plan to deal with how we were being treated. She had only a lucky nickel she kept in her Levi’s minipocket but decided to save it for now. She decided to call a friend from the set and reverse the charges, asking the friend to tell me that she was fine but that she would not see me tonight. Mom then used the actual nickel to call my French tutor, who was also on set, to come and bail her out.

All I remember is this friend telling me to come directly to her room in the hotel after work and not to tell anybody where I was going. It all seemed kind of exciting to me and I played along. In the room I spoke to Mom on a phone that had evidently not been tapped. She told me that some people were not happy with the fact that Mommy had had lunch with the black cleaning lady and that something strange had happened to her car. She said laws were different
down in New Orleans and it would all be OK. She insisted I not let anybody know where I was but to report to work as usual the next day. Now, she was not wrong about the racial tension in New Orleans at the time, but something quite big was going down and she wanted to spare me the truth.

Mom was going back to New York for a few days. I loved Mom’s friend and welcomed a sleepover. I had no idea what was really going on. At one point I remember somebody banging on the hotel door. I hid in the tub and Mom’s friend opened the door. Someone—it may have been Tony Wade—asked if she had seen me. She calmly replied no. I remained undetected, had some room service, and went to bed.

The next morning, at call time, I went down to the lobby as usual. The moment I got off the elevator, Tony was waiting for me. He quickly hustled me into the stairwell, and on the cold, gray metal stairs, he very seriously looked me in the eye and said: “Your mother has been in a very serious accident. There was a lot of blood and you may never see her again.”

Somehow I knew it was time to be defiant again. Head slightly cocked, with a slightly curious scowl on my forehead, I said, “Oh, that’s funny because I spoke to her and she sounded fine, so if you’ll excuse me, I have to get to work.”

I don’t know if I was channeling Violet at that moment, but I didn’t like Tony Wade anyway, and I loved knowing I was doing what my mom needed and that we were a team. I was unflappable and enjoyed being a good soldier.

I continued filming while Mom remained in New York for a few days. During this time she managed to get a mechanic friend to come check out her vehicle. He deduced that the brakes on my mother’s car had undoubtedly been manually cut, and that the whole thing was a setup.

After Mom returned from New York, things changed for me. First of all, we moved out of the St. Charles Hotel and into the Fairmont
Hotel, which was a beautiful old hotel in the downtown area of New Orleans. It was safe and quiet, and because we were separated from the rest of the crew, it meant fewer parties. It was, however, closer to Igor’s and therefore easier for my mother to stop in for a nip more often. I tried to look on the bright side by justifying that it was also easier for me to find Mom on those nights she went missing for a bit. It was a beautiful, fancy hotel, and I honestly don’t think Mom picked it for its proximity to booze, but I wouldn’t put it past her.

Suddenly I wasn’t working such long hours and I had more breaks on set in which to study. Things got so much better for me that I remember frequently feeling guilty. I even felt kind of like I was missing out by not working the same hours as everyone else. I loved being with these people, even if it meant all day and night. They had become my family. Even when we were waiting on the light or moving locations, I wanted to play games with them and enjoy our inside jokes. Sometimes it was sticking a
KICK ME
sign on a big gaffer’s back, or doing arts and crafts with the wardrobe people, but it felt like home. I loved the actresses and would entertain them on the big porch of the white house by singing Barbra Streisand’s “Queen Bee.” The girls loved it, and Mom loved that they loved me. One day I wasn’t called in until later in the day, but I got up and ready to go anyway. My mom said I did not have to go in.

“Oh, but I have to, Mama.”

“Why?”

“Because I am their bubble.”

I found out later that Mom had been able to alert the proper people and fix the situation legally, so I would actually get the benefits that I was meant to by being a member of SAG. I remember a welfare worker–type person being brought in and the tone on set changing. Production was on alert and no longer allowed to abuse the rules as they had been for almost three months.

The production company was less than overjoyed by this new
state of affairs and I am sure it made my mother even more unpopular with Polly and Tony. But it worked. Thankfully for everyone, we only had about a month’s worth of filming left for completion of the movie, and I don’t remember these rules adding any days to the schedule.

I enjoyed my new freedom, but not fully. It was too much of a change and I felt isolated. I kind of wanted to let the crew bend the rules at times, and I’d beg the teacher to let me stay on set to finish an uncompleted sequence, but she rarely complied. We all wanted to get this movie finished.

Finally, the wrap was upon us. The last day of filming was surreal. This had been my first starring role in a film. I loved the feeling of being part of a film family and I had grown very attached to everyone involved. I was even, in a way, attached to Polly and Tony. Something happens when you share an experience with people. A bond is created, and whether it’s a positive or negative experience, connection is made. Because of my youth and maturity I bonded easily.

The day we shot our last shot, the cast and crew erupted with applause and hugs. It was the applause of collective relief. Four months of hard work, tears, pain, fear, insecurities, and rough conditions. We had survived together. We had created something we all felt was important.

At the wrap party, back at the St. Charles Hotel, my mom asked me what I wanted as a wrap gift. I said I wanted to cut my hair all off. I wanted a haircut partially because my hair had been destroyed during the making of the film with irons and teasing and techniques that were used to make it look frizzy and of the era. My main reason, however, was that I thought that if I chopped off all my hair, they would not be able to call me the next day and say we had reshoots or a scene had been added. As sad as I was that it was over, I was so relieved that I did not have to actually film anymore. I wanted to make sure that I would be unable to, if called. My mom gave me money then and there and said I could go do what I wanted.

“Surprise me,” she said.

I was thrilled with that freedom and went to a local salon. I told the woman to cut it all off and she gave me a shapeless bob. I really didn’t care what my hair looked like. To me it was liberating to be able to turn my head from left to right and have my hair swing back and forth past each shoulder. I was excited about how light and released I felt. This was a seeming act of rebellion and I felt freed. I would not follow up this act in any way for decades.

Two days after we wrapped, Mom and I boarded a plane to New York. I cried the entire plane ride “home.” I instantly missed everyone and felt I had not said good-bye to everyone enough. It felt like a death. I had never felt more disoriented or homesick in my life. I was confused by my feelings but knew they were quite real. Going back into the real world and my real life would be like reentering Earth’s atmosphere after going to outer space.

Once in New York City I couldn’t shake my depression. Mom tried to comfort me by saying we would keep in touch with people, but somehow I knew that would not be the case. I felt drained and tired and a bit confused. Together, Mom and I made the decision that we were done. I would not be filming any more movies. The entire experience, and the toll it took to endure and then readapt to real life, was too much to take.

Chapter Six

Fuck ’Em If They Can’t Handle It

O
nce I returned to New York it was time to go back to school. This year I was starting junior high in a brand-new school. I had only attended schools so far on the Upper East Side. I had gone to the Everett School through the second grade until it closed. From third through sixth grade I went to the Lenox School. It was an all-girls school and would stay that way until 1974. It was a wonderful school and academically superior to my next school.

Mom, however, did not want me to continue at an all-girls school because she said she believed it was important for girls and boys to be friends and not socially intimidated by one another. I adored Lenox and still have a friend I hold dear to my heart from those years. But Mom insisted. The natural progression for me—especially because my dad was paying my tuition—was for me to go to a Spence, Brearley, or Chapin, all legendary and traditional girls’ schools, but Mom wanted me to have a coed education. So after wrapping
Pretty Baby
and right after returning to New York
,
I enrolled at the New Lincoln
School. New Lincoln was a coed school known for its diversity. I remained there and floundered for two years. We had no uniforms and the curriculum was characteristic of the seventies.

Going to a new school was both a relief and in ways frightful. The frightful part came first in the form of a pair of gauchos. Because I was attending a school that did not require uniforms, a first for me, I needed practically an entirely new wardrobe. Mom took me shopping and we picked out clothes that would be fitting for a school in England. She took me to thrift shops for my clothes and proceeded to amass a wardrobe of wool vests, tweed jackets, corduroy gauchos, plaid skirts, white shirts, and of all things . . . dickies! She might as well have included a cabby hat.

I followed her lead, as usual, and got excited about looking smart and stylish for my first day of school. I chose the gauchos and a white shirt and vest, finished off with penny loafers. I walked proudly into my first day of seventh grade in an outfit straight out of the musical
Newsies
. I took one look at the jeans-clad, ripped-T-shirt-wearing hippie kids and wanted to run. I couldn’t believe Mom let me go to this school dressed like I should have been on a street corner yelling out headlines. I was so embarrassed and mad that when I got home I said I looked stupid and that everybody made fun of me, and I refused to wear any of the clothes Mom bought me ever again. She didn’t fight me and even bought me the Frye boots I eventually begged for and wore almost every day. I’d tuck my blue jeans into my Frye boots and I finally fit in.

During this time Mom and I began putting together a book called
The Brooke Book
, which consisted of photos of me, my writings and poetry, and various tidbits about my mother’s prized baby girl. She worked on the book with her longtime friend John Holland, who was a hairdresser in the city. I loved John and laughed a lot with him. He and Mom believed I was “special” and that a book about me would
actually sell. They worked on it a while, found a publisher, Pocket Books, and planned to release it around the time
Pretty Baby
hit the theatres.