Morgan said it was because he was shy and didn’t know what to say. I believed him, of course, but have since wondered if he didn’t have a special talent for reading into people that he applied to me.
Morgan drove a Ferrari. Although I had always thought guys who drove those sleek sports cars were creepy, Morgan looked appropriate in his car, just like he did in his finely tailored suits. It fit without pretension or attitude. He enjoyed himself and lived with a sense of fun, panache, and style.
And why not? He was Hollywood royalty, which I thought was funny but also something far beyond my sense of self-worth. When I told my mother about Morgan, she nearly gasped and made his world seem even more fantastic and out of my league by recalling how years earlier she and her mother had stood outside movie premieres and gaped at Morgan’s parents as they walked the red carpet. She had read about the birth of Morgan and his sister, Portland, in celebrity gossip magazines.
In fact, my mother knew more than I did about Morgan’s family. Married at sixteen, Pamela fell in love with James Mason when they worked together on a film, leading her to divorce her first husband and remarry in 1940. They moved to Los Angeles, with their dozen cats, in the mid-forties. In 1964, roughly twenty years later, the Masons divorced and pursued separate careers. In addition to raising her two children, Pamela hosted several daytime TV talk shows and wrote advice books, including Marriage Is the First Step Toward Divorce, a title that was perfectly Pamela.
Within a few days of our meeting, Morgan introduced me to her. I was intimidated just driving up to her home, a mansion that was on the grounds of the old Buster Keaton estate. It was on Pamela Drive, no less. Because he had told her that he was serious about me, I was more nervous meeting her than I was about singing to fifty thousand people. I was, in fact, petrified as we walked into the house.
I desperately wanted her to approve of me, which I thought was unlikely. On top of all my insecurities, I had been warned that she hadn’t liked most of the girls Morgan had brought to the house. I thought she would see right through me, take Morgan aside, and tell him to send me back in a taxi.
But I was wrong. For whatever reason she liked me. I wasn’t comfortable around her for years, but I think she saw in me a kindred spirit—or at least a spirit, something even I couldn’t always see.
Of course, Pamela had plenty of spirit, sass, class—everything and then some.
She liked to say that she had dropped out of school at age nine and thus avoided the confusion an education produces. Her 1996 obituary in the New York Times said she began “her day by telephoning Hollywood friends for the latest news.” The latter half was correct. Pamela didn’t begin her day as much as she woke up in time for the night. She came downstairs around five P.M., perfectly coiffed, in her wig and diamonds and dressed to kill. She was just in time for cocktail hour and a party.
More often than not, she was the one throwing the party. By the time I met her, she was more famous as a hostess than anything else. She had parties almost every night, which was how Morgan had grown up. I came in toward the tail end of that run and met scads of amazing people. Over the years, I met George Burns (he was charming), Stewart Granger (boisterous and handsome), Dick Van Dyke (I talked to him about Mary Poppins, whose songs I sang as a little girl), Glenn Ford (a lovely man), Gregory Peck (wonderful), Milton Berle, Robert Wagner, Anthony Perkins, Berry Berenson, and Walter Matthau, who was always seated next to me at dinners. Every time I saw that I was next to him, I thought, Oh God, not him again. He was so cranky that making conversation was a chore. But I was young, naïve, and limited in what I had to say, and now I realize how lucky I was to have known him.
I used to stare at Esther Williams, whose beauty was luminous, and Anne Francis, who starred in Forbidden Planet, was one of the most gorgeous women I had ever seen. These women were wonderfully fun companions on these weird, boozy, and loud nights. Best of all, at the end of the evening, I got to slip my arm through Morgan’s and go home confident that he was the one.
In early January 1985, Paula finally got an eyeful of what it meant to be a Go-Go when we traveled to Rio for the largest modern-day rock festival ever. It was a ten-day event that included Queen, AC/DC, Ozzy Osbourne, Rod Stewart, the B-52’s, Iron Maiden, Yes, the Scorpions, and more than a dozen other acts. After checking into the hotel, I noticed that all the action was at the pool area. It overflowed with rock stars, wives, girlfriends, and groupies.
For a moment I got the sense I was looking at the parking lot outside the Rainbow, except these really were rock stars, not wannabe rockers. We joined the crowd, though I wished we hadn’t when I saw someone from our management team blow his nose in the pool and then wash his hands in the water. I was mortified.
Another person from our management made it known that he had brought his son to Rio and planned to buy him a hooker for his sixteenth birthday in case anyone had some recommendations. I’m sure he received plenty of them. Rod Stewart organized a fancy, expensive dinner party one night and invited all of the Go-Go’s because, as we were told, he wanted to meet us.
It was almost too fabulous for all of us to comprehend that this rock icon wanted to fete us. There was just one small problem. I told the girls not to be mad at me, but I was going to be a little late to the party because I wanted to venture out in the city to find cheap coke. They didn’t think it was a wise move. On checking in, we had been warned that it wasn’t safe to go beyond the hotel grounds, but I had heard cocaine was only $5 per gram compared to the $100-a-gram cost in L.A., and that was too much of a lure.
So as the other girls got ready for Rod’s dinner, I hopped in a taxi and gave the Portuguese-speaking driver simple instructions: “Cocaine, por favor.”
He gave me a puzzled look in the rearview mirror.
“Coca,” I said. “I want coca.”
He sped away from the hotel and through the city until we were far away from the nice hotels and cruising through the underbelly of the city’s dangerous and impoverished ghettos. I didn’t know whether I should press my face to the window and stare or hide myself in the back, a young, white American traveling where she had no business.
I had no idea where we were or where my driver was headed, but enough time passed without us making any progress that I told the driver to turn around and take me back to the hotel. I didn’t want to miss Rod’s party. I wasn’t too late when I finally walked into his party. I mingled for a while, getting introduced to members of Rod’s band and various music industry people when I started talking with the daughter of a prominent local politician.
I told her that I had explored the city a bit in a taxi, which amused her for a moment—until she heard my description of the city, realized I had been in the slums, and asked where I had been going. I paused to consider whether to tell her the truth, which I decided to do after something about her made me think she already knew. Indeed, she gave me a funny look, then leaned close and told me she was tight with some major dealers. A moment later, she escorted me downstairs, put me in a cab, and said something to the driver—the address, I presumed—and I was off.
The driver stopped in front of a modern condominium building near Ipanema Beach and communicated that he would wait while I went inside. I have no idea if he knew what I was doing there, but I hoped and prayed he would wait while I went inside and, as instructed, up to the penthouse. I gave a hesitant knock on the door, and waited. No one answered. I knocked again. This time the door opened a bit, and a dark-haired man looked at me. It was not a friendly, welcoming look.
I mentioned the name of the girl I had met at the party and explained she said it was okay for me to come. Before I finished, he opened the door and I stepped in. I assumed he already knew why I was there, and he did. From what I saw as I glanced around, I realized there was only one reason anyone would be there. There was coke everywhere. It was stacked in bricks, and there were several tables where some guys sat in front of scales, dividing piles of coke into smaller amounts.
I couldn’t tell who was in charge and didn’t want to look around because I immediately saw a couple of guys holding guns and knew better than to see more than I had to. In fact, I had a very strong feeling that I shouldn’t have ever gone into that place, and I would have excused myself and left if a guy hadn’t stepped forward and in broken English asked what I wanted.
What I wanted was not to get shot. But I didn’t say that. Actually, I didn’t say anything. I was too scared.
“How much do you want?” the guy asked again.
“A gram,” I said.
He glared at me with disdain and disbelief.
“We don’t sell grams,” he said.
I decided it was best not to explain that I had heard you could get grams for five dollars, and that’s why I was there. I thought about how much I should buy. I didn’t feel like asking what the minimum amount was they did sell. Apparently he didn’t feel like waiting for me to figure out something to say. He asked if I wanted half an ounce.
I said okay and paid whatever he said it cost, which wasn’t much given the amount I was taking away with me.
I wanted to hug the cabdriver for waiting when I saw his car still out front. I was thrilled when we pulled in front of the hotel, and I gave the driver a generous tip. I stood in the lobby for a moment and took several deep breaths. If only Morgan knew, I thought.
Thank God he didn’t.
I went up to my room and took the coke out of my purse. I couldn’t wait to look at this package that could have cost me my life. I opened it and saw more coke than I had ever seen. I set it on the coffee table. It was like a little white mountain. I couldn’t believe it.
I did several lines and thought it was the purest, smoothest coke I’d ever put up my nose. Seconds later, I felt a strong, familiar jolt that erased the scare of men with guns and put me in a better frame of mind. I packed up the coke, put it in a dresser drawer, and went back up to Rod’s soiree, which went on for a little while longer. Then I brought the girls back to my room, where we put on some music and continued the party.
My room had a wraparound balcony; half faced the ocean and the other half looked back into the hotel’s other rooms and pool area. As we partied, we darted in and out onto the balcony, where we smoked cigarettes, danced, and waved to other people, including Rod and some of his band, who were on his balcony. We gestured for them to come over to our room. They said no, but communicated for us to bring our festive selves to their room.
We did, and we proceeded to stay up all night. As the sun came up, Rod was irritated that he had not gotten any sleep because he had a show that night. He said he had never stayed up all night, never, which I found hard to believe, considering his reputation. But that’s what he said as he cleared everyone from his penthouse, explaining like an old fussbudget that he still wanted to try to catch a few hours of shut-eye.
We took the party down to the pool, where we ordered cocktails and smoked cigarettes. We weren’t the only rockers who had stayed up all night; the place was buzzing, and buzzed, even as the morning sun bathed the hotel in new light. We saw people open their drapes, others head off to the gym, and every so often we looked up toward Rod’s penthouse suite and saw him pacing back and forth on his balcony.
“I can’t sleep,” he yelled down at me.
I couldn’t tell if he was really upset or playing up his annoyance. He seemed upset to me.
“I have a show,” he continued. “I need my rest. What am I going to do?”
That night, the thirteenth, we played the first of our two shows. We went on after Nina Hagen and before Rod. Thanks to the live TV broadcast, we played in front of an audience estimated at ninety million. Afterward, we were sweaty and spent, and intending to go back to the hotel and clean up—that is until Rod sent for me, along with Kathy, and insisted we sit on the side of the stage as he performed. He wanted to, he said, be able to look over at me and see that I felt as tired and miserable as him.
I said it would be my pleasure—and it was. I wasn’t so jaded that I didn’t appreciate that I was having this time with a guy whose music I had sung when I was growing up.
In the meantime, Charlotte was partying so hard that she got kicked out of Ozzy Osbourne’s dressing room. It was a story that became legendary among rockers, and years later Charlotte, who got sober, famously remarked, “How bad do you have to be to get kicked out of Ozzy’s dressing room?”
Personal problems aside, we had another problem that was bigger than all of us. The Go-Go’s just wasn’t fun anymore. I had felt it when we had rehearsed in November and December for Rio, and I knew it when we finally went onstage that first night. I didn’t feel any more spirit either on the eighteenth when we played our second show, which found us between two incredibly enthusiastic, inspired bands—the B-52’s, whose set included guests Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz from the Talking Heads, and the closing act, Queen, who, with Freddie Mercury out front, dazzled the worldwide audience.
By comparison, I felt like the Go-Go’s played without a heartbeat. One thing about rock and roll—you can have the best songs in the world, but if you don’t bring passion to the stage you might as well not show up. We came to that realization. It just took a little time.
fifteen
MAD ABOUT YOU
CHARLOTTE STAYED behind in Rio to fool around with a nice young Brazilian boy she had met. She wanted one last fling before she checked into rehab, which she did promptly upon returning to L.A. Around that same time, I saw photos in a magazine of myself from Rio; in them, my eyes were listless, dull, and elsewhere. I wish that I had noticed. I visited Charlotte a few times in rehab and thought I was getting away with something she had taken too far. I might have been farther gone than she.
Sometime toward the end of February, Morgan figured out the truth about me. I had been going back and forth at night between his condo and my dealer while he slept. I would buy the coke, come back, sit in the living room and get high, and then smoke cigarettes on the balcony.
I don’t know what I was thinking.
Clearly, I wasn’t thinking.
I was gone. Subconsciously, I was begging to be found out.
One morning Morgan woke up and came into the living room. He saw me seated on the couch, bending over something. As soon as I heard him, I shoved it under the couch. He saw me, though, and asked, “What are you doing?”
Instead of waiting for me to answer, he reached down and pulled out a mound of coke that I had piled up on a magazine. He took it out on the balcony and with a look of utter disgust dumped it over the side. I was busted, so completely busted. I hadn’t moved. It was like I was waiting for him to do something.
“I’m sorry,” I said, dissolving into tears. “I’m sorry.”
He was upset and didn’t know what to do. Neither did I. As his initial burst of anger and my shock dissipated, we shared a look of helplessness and desperation. He loved me, and I loved him, and it was just such a pathetic, disappointing, awful moment. The way Morgan looked at me, I don’t know if anyone in my whole life had ever seen me as nakedly honest, vulnerable, and in pain as he was seeing me right then.
I needed him to hold me as I regrouped and we regained our equilibrium not just that day but going forward. He never gave me an ultimatum; I simply knew that I had to get sober. And that’s what I did—sort of.
As any recovering addict knows, you can’t be “sort of” sober. It’s all or nothing. But I devised my own plan. I didn’t want to check into rehab; I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing my dirty laundry unfurled in the press. In retrospect, it shouldn’t have been a big deal. If I was going to admit I had a problem, it shouldn’t have mattered if I admitted it to one person or a million. What did matter, though, was admitting the whole and honest truth to myself, and I couldn’t do that.
I thought I was taking the right steps when I confessed to Morgan and then sought out Charlotte, who was recently out of rehab and attending meetings. She was extremely understanding and helpfu
l. With her help and encouragement, I stopped doing coke right away. She took me to twelve-step meetings and I began attending Cocaine Anonymous meetings on my own, too. But I concocted or rationalized my own version of the program, one where I could drink, pop pills, and do hallucinogens—anything except cocaine. That was my one rule: no coke.
I was proud of my progress. Once I told someone who had a number of years of sobriety under his belt that I was in “the program,” a euphemism for being sober and attending twelve-step meetings. He asked if I attended meetings. I said, “Sometimes.” Skeptical, he asked who my sponsor was. I said that I was sponsoring myself. Seeing that I was serious, he shook his head slightly, an almost imperceptible acknowledgment that I didn’t get it, and said, “Okay, good luck.”
Though I was deluded about my self-styled sobriety, I did straighten up considerably by giving up cocaine. In March and April, I went back to work with the Go-Go’s. The five of us rehearsed with the intention of making a new album. We tried to come up with our own songs and we worked through songs outside writers had submitted. The record company wanted more creative control over the band’s next steps. We didn’t like it, but we didn’t have any better ideas.
Frustrated at every turn and no good at communicating with one another, the band devolved into factions, with Charlotte and me pitted against Kathy and Gina, and Paula left uncomfortably alone on the periphery as we fought during rehearsals. The demos we recorded sounded terrible. I went home to Morgan at night and said what I didn’t dare say in front of the other girls: The band had lost its creative center. It no longer felt like the Go-Go’s.
I talked about it endlessly with Morgan, who advised me to think it through carefully and listen to my instincts. He also told me not to procrastinate and let a bad situation grow worse, because I would miss other opportunities.
Lips Unsealed Page 14
