Home Work

by Julie Andrews

  I scheduled my return to L.A. for the end of September, a week after Emma and Clare went back to school, in the hopes of making the most out of the short time my visa allowed me in the States before having to leave the country again. Just before my departure from Gstaad, I received another call from Jen. She relayed to me that Emma and Clare were miserable in L.A. School was not the pleasure it had once been, and they were asking for a change of plan: Clare wanted to return to England, and Emma was asking to move to New York permanently. My heart sank. Although I had long expected this request from Emma, and we had occasionally discussed the possibility, I had not anticipated it happening so soon.

  I asked both girls if they could finish out the school year with us, but Emma, who was now a senior, explained that this was perhaps her last chance to experience living with her father before she went to college. She requested to transfer to Trinity School in Manhattan, where Bridget was also in attendance.

  Blake did not take this news well. Perhaps he saw it as an indictment of him as a stepfather, which in some ways it probably was. He’d always had a hard time expressing his affection and respect for Emma, and he was often resentful of my love for her. He tore into Emma, saying he’d be hard-pressed to forgive her for hurting me in this way. He thought he was speaking for us both, when in fact I understood what the girls felt they needed to do and why. I conveyed this to Emma, but Blake’s confrontation with her was unpleasant, and it resulted in her leaving even earlier than planned.

  The morning of her departure, I gave her a hug and my blessing. I wanted to tell her that she went with my love, and that she must try to listen to her instincts and not be overpowered by internal or external pressures over the next few months. Unfortunately, Blake came downstairs at the last minute. He launched into another diatribe, and it became more important to get her out of the house and away from him as quickly as possible, so she left before I could say all I wanted to. After she’d gone, I simply wept.

  Clare and Jen remained in L.A. for a few more weeks, then headed back to England. It was an acutely painful time.

  Because I had to leave the States again for a while, Blake and I decided to head to Gstaad for a couple of weeks, to spend some time together and attempt some real communication.

  While we were in Gstaad, I wrote:

  Blake and I had a huge talk last night, and I became more aware of how much he knows about himself. He admits to childishness with Emma, competition, manipulation in many areas—and much more.

  My question was: “You know so much, voice so much . . . why do things that are so hurtful?”

  He talked of the “madness” he’d always lived with, the habits he’d learned, and his huge swings back and forth between extreme generosity and petty anger. He claimed that he wasn’t totally aware when he was being hurtful, that it’s never preconceived, just something that comes out on the spur of the moment. He said he’s working hard on it, but his improvement is slow. I must try to be vigilant and, in my turn, not afraid to speak out about what I see. I replied that he must be vigilant about not becoming angry and defensive if I do hit a nerve by speaking out. We talked of drugs, and how they lead to avoidance of feelings. We talked about fear. Then in typical fashion, he turned the conversation around and went on the attack, making me the one who avoided feelings. This time I realized what he was doing, and steered the subject matter back to the two of us. It was 3:15 when we turned out the light.

  We had other meaningful discussions, and when I spoke to Emma on the phone, I was relieved to hear her sounding settled and happy. All too soon it was time to leave, as Blake had to return to L.A. for further promotion on 10, which had opened to favorable reviews, and for preproduction on S.O.B. Just before we had departed for Gstaad, Blake and I had slipped into the back of a cinema in Westwood to observe the audience reaction to 10. The attendees were roaring with laughter and clearly loving the movie, which had been a tonic for us both.

  Rather than stay on by myself in Switzerland, I returned to California with Blake for the few last days allowed to me, to be with Amelia and Joanna. In order to stay out of the country but also be nearer home, we arranged that I would take a quick trip to Mexico on Impulse, which had by now been returned to us, newly refurbished. Blake, Amelia, and Joanna planned to join me for the first leg of the journey, which coincided with the girls’ school break. He would then return with them to L.A. and hopefully come back aboard near the end of the trip.

  The time period coincided with Blake’s and my tenth wedding anniversary, and as I often did for special occasions, I wrote a poem for him as a gift:

  Thoughts for a 10th Anniversary

  In all my years, I’ve never met another one like you.

  You drive me mad, you make me laugh and cry and set me about my ears. You do.

  My mate. My dearest love. Anniversary man.

  Let me capture “essence of Blake.” If I can.

  Black prince. Mercurial knight with a rugged face.

  Too proud. A broken body. Martial arts grace.

  A whirling dervish. A desperado child.

  “Sudden and quick in quarrel.” Open-hearted, wild.

  Tough, yet soppy-soft. You’d like to save us all.

  Generous. Extravagant. Twenty feet tall.

  You “make bold,” you “cut a dash.” Diamonds in your style.

  Noble. Even-handed. Manipulative guile.

  Calculating. Fire eater. When threatened, you attack

  And hammer at the truth until I cannot answer back.

  You tear your hair and lecture on the follies of excess

  And tell me we’d do better if we could live on less.

  I agree. I really see and feel your anxious pain.

  Then you blithely turn around and spend and spend again.

  You twist and turn and tie your soul. The knots are inches thick.

  Guilt and fear. Grief. Remorse. Those toxins make you sick.

  You flirt with death yet embrace life. Shake it by the tail.

  Doing first, thinking later. Making loved ones pale.

  You steal a bit, and wheel and deal to gain the upper hand.

  You heal, and play the doctor. Your bedside manner’s grand.

  Magic touch. Gentle touch. I melt within your arms.

  You seem to know me inside out. I can’t resist your charms.

  So, when all is said and done, this lady’s by your side.

  For the wild fun, the fierce pain, the laughter in the ride.

  And, dearest, when I show you this, I know what you will say.

  “What else?” You’ll grin. “What else—will you write of me today?”

  On our first night aboard Impulse, we anchored in a quiet cove. Blake and I lay in our bunk, enjoying our beautiful boat, feeling profoundly grateful that she was ours again. When we turned out the lights, I became aware of the night sounds.

  “Oh, Blake!” I said. “Listen . . . there’s a bird out there somewhere. Can you hear him calling?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “. . . and the water slapping against the hull?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “This is magical. I love you darling.”

  “I love you, too. G’night.”

  “Good night.”

  There was a pause of about ten seconds. Then I heard a familiar little-boy cough, and in the darkness, Blake began to sing “Red Sails in the Sunset.”

  I exploded with laughter, and he followed with a medley of sea shanties, until, as usual, I wept.

  WE HAD HIRED a new skipper, who seemed qualified. As Blake departed for his return to L.A., he said to the skipper, “Take care of my lady, please.” After Blake and the girls departed, we put to sea and began a leisurely cruise toward Cabo San Lucas, stopping at various ports and harbors along the way.

  I began to suspect that our skipper was taking Blake’s request a bit too seriously. I occasionally received an unbidden peck on the cheek, or pat on the back, and far too much proximity whenever I was up on the bri
dge. One evening at bedtime, there was a tap on my cabin door. The skipper entered, clad in his bathrobe, his hair and beard slightly unkempt. He sat on the edge of my bed.

  “Everything all right?” he asked, patting my thigh.

  The other crew members were in the forward quarters, and my cabin was in the aft section. I don’t recall my exact words, but I firmly dispatched him and kept my door locked from then on. I knew, however, that I needed to take stricter measures to protect myself going forward.

  I attempted to alert Blake via the ship-to-shore radio, but had to speak in code since the skipper was ever present. Telling him a made-up story that was part of a word game we often played with the kids, I secretly spelled out “S-K-I-P-P-E-R-H-O-R-N-Y. H-E-L-P!”Alas, Blake had no clue what I was talking about.

  Upon arrival in Cabo, I went to the nearest hotel to find a landline. When I told Blake of my plight, he became irritated by the inconvenience of it all, which wasn’t exactly what I’d hoped for. But he said he would send Gerry Nutting, my former tour manager who was now a member of our production company, to join me. I was extremely grateful.

  When I told the skipper we were expecting a guest, he was equally irritated. He managed to miss Gerry’s arrival at the airport, and Gerry had to find his way to the boat by himself. I spied him waving from a distance as he approached on a water taxi, and I was inordinately pleased to see him.

  The following day, when Gerry and I tried to reach Blake again, we discovered the ship-to-shore was broken. We had the dinghy brought around so we could head into harbor. But as Gerry descended the ladder steps, the ties gave way and he disappeared into the water up to his chest and had to change his clothing.

  We put out to sea again, this time on a long journey around the tip of the Baja Peninsula, heading for La Paz, where we planned to disembark. I can’t prove it, but I’m sure the skipper must have known that a major storm was in the forecast. Within an hour we were in a full-blown gale. The sea was coming at us from all sides; Impulse reared up and smashed down into wave after massive wave.

  About three and a half hours of hell ensued. The contents of the refrigerator exploded all over the galley floor. Glasses smashed, plants fell over, and furniture slid. At one point, a chair broke free on the aft deck, and Gerry went out to tie it down. The boat listed, and he suddenly slid out of view. Mercifully, he didn’t go overboard, but he collided with a stanchion that left an egg-sized lump on his forehead.

  I worried what the storm might do to our beloved Impulse; it felt like she could splinter apart, but her construction was so solid that she held firm.

  When we finally made it to La Paz, we discovered that our trusty skipper had neglected to reserve a berth for us. We dropped anchor, piled our luggage into the dinghy, and Gerry motored us ashore. He jumped into the water, removed the luggage piece by piece, and carried it aloft until he reached the sand. I rolled up my trousers and waded in after him, soaking my travel outfit.

  Sometime later, Impulse and her crew made it safely back to L.A., at which point the skipper left our employ.

  FOR CHRISTMAS WE returned to Gstaad, where Blake put the final polish on his script for S.O.B., and I attempted to begin my story about the ship’s cat that I’d been planning since the trip to Greece. We also attended to a project that Blake and I had undertaken for the village.

  In winters past, I had noted the rather skimpy illuminated decorations hanging over the town’s main street. I said to Blake, “It’s such a pity that this beautiful spot isn’t lit like a fairyland for the holidays.”

  We conveyed to the village elders our interest in donating lights to line each chalet rooftop along the main street, plus the church steeple and the bridge. Although the tourist bureau knew we were behind the plans, I asked them to keep our involvement under wraps. When the lights were finally being installed, my heart was in my mouth, but happily, the results were gorgeous. Quickly thereafter, shop owners relit their windows to match, and the surrounding homeowners across the valley also began to line their rooftops with similar lights, which remain to this day.

  BLAKE AND I became involved in another cause that year. In the spring, two young lawyers in California had organized an effort to bring much-needed relief supplies—food, water, medicine, shelter—to the Vietnamese “Boat People” (as they were called at the time). They procured the supplies and a plane to deliver the goods, but they lacked the fuel to get the plane off the ground. When Blake and I heard of their efforts, we volunteered to pay for the fuel. The delivery was successful, and Operation California (now Operation USA) was born.

  The young men returned with a list of needs twice as long as the first, and further relief efforts were planned for the refugee camps along the borders of Cambodia and Laos. Tony Adams volunteered to accompany the next flight, which would be the first international relief effort to enter Cambodia since 1975. He returned with truly harrowing stories of mass killing sites, prisons, graves, orphanages, people sick and having breakdowns. The only good news was that the journey had paved the way for further flights and deliveries there.

  I wanted to contribute more. Blake and I agreed to join the board of Operation California, and to host a television special as a fund-raiser early in the New Year. I also began to think about traveling with the organization myself in the not-too-distant future.

  18

  I​T WAS THE start of a new decade—1980—and I knew it was going to be a very busy year. In addition to the fund-raising concert for Operation California, I had agreed to do another Japanese tour in February, and I had asked my mother and Zoë to accompany me. I often invited Mum to join me on such trips—location filming and so on—and most of the time she demurred. This time, to my surprise and delight and for reasons I’m not sure of, she accepted the invitation. It pleased me to know that I would be able to share Japan with her.

  Blake’s film S.O.B., in which I would play the role of the producer’s wife, had been acquired for production. Six years had passed since Blake first wrote the screenplay in Gstaad, and every studio he’d submitted it to had admired it, but passed on it, fearing the characters in the script might be based on them. In fact, no character in the film was entirely based on any one person; although almost all the events in the film were rooted in fact, the characters were amalgams of several different Hollywood people. Finally, Lorimar Pictures had been brave enough to sign on, and shooting was scheduled to begin in March.

  I traveled to New York to visit Emma, whom I hadn’t seen since she left California. I was so looking forward to spending time with her, and when she arrived at my hotel, I was relieved to find that she looked well and happy. She seemed very stimulated by living in New York. Her new school had a phenomenal performing arts program—Emma had joined an a cappella group, and was soon to be acting in the school play. A great piece of the puzzle about her desire to live in New York fell into place for me.

  We spent three special days together, chatting, shopping, and going to the theater. We saw the original production of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, starring Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury, and both agreed it was one of the best musicals we’d ever seen. Several songs had us in tears. (I always weep at Sondheim. It’s the emotion in his music, the sheer brilliance of his lyrics, the essential truths he writes. He makes us see the best and worst in ourselves.) During the song “Not While I’m Around,” Emma held on to my arm, and we both wept quietly. The lyric, about protecting a loved one from harm, had so many overtones for us both. Of course, we later talked of all that had occurred in Los Angeles, and became emotional again, putting everything to rest as best we could. It was wonderful to spend so much concentrated time together, yet also deeply moving. I could hardly bear to say goodbye.

  I flew back to L.A., and the following morning the doorbell rang at 6:30 a.m. It was Lorimar’s production crew, having arrived to begin construction on our beachfront for the set for S.O.B. Blake had elected to build there rather than find a house on location, because there were so many spec
ific requirements. I wondered how I would manage the next few chaotic months.

  At the end of January, I taped the benefit concert for Operation California at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Tony Adams and Blake produced the evening, which was to air on television in February. Because We Care featured an astonishing roster of performers: Alan Alda; Glen Campbell; Natalie Cole; Billy Crystal; Jane Fonda; Robert Goulet; Michael Jackson; Walter Matthau; Dudley Moore; Mary Tyler Moore; the Muppets; Bob Newhart; Peter, Paul and Mary; Frank Sinatra; John Travolta; and Jon Voight, among many others, all of whom donated their services for the evening. Rick Sharp and John Isaacs also gave of their time, doing everyone’s makeup and hair. The event raised more than $1 million for Cambodian relief, and was a marathon to pull off, but the feeling throughout the day was one of great warmth and generosity.

  Two weeks later, I departed for my second Japanese tour. Mum and Zoë were with me, as was Gerry Nutting and many of the musicians from the first tour. My musical director this time around was Alan Ferguson, a colleague and friend of Jack Elliott’s. Blake stayed home to work on preproduction for S.O.B. and to be with Amelia and Joanna.

  Mum seemed so happy to be on the trip. She helped out backstage, and loved hanging out with the musicians and attending the concerts, which for the most part went smoothly. One evening, Mum got swept up by the enthusiasm of the fans waiting outside the auditorium and as we drove away she began waving to everyone like the queen. I guess you can take the girl out of show biz, but you can’t take show biz out of the girl! It was adorable.