My Extraordinary Ordinary Life

by Sissy Spacek

  Of course, I eventually realized that I had my own private stockpile of experiences, that cigar box of secrets (which by now was a trunkful) I could draw on to bring life to my characters. And in mining them for insight, I discovered the beginnings of a simple theory that would guide my work: To be an actor, you have to live a life. If you want your work to be real, you have to be a real person yourself. I began to understand that the art forms that excited me most were those that illuminated the human condition, explored our shared experience, and connected us in some way. What I loved most about performing music was the way the audience was right there with me, feeling what I was feeling. It reminded me of the way twilight feels, shimmery and soft, when the day and the night blend together and envelop you. With music, I could conjure up that magic hour whenever I wanted. And now I could see how acting could create that same kind of connection by weaving my own life and experiences into what I was doing.

  One of the most intriguing exercises I learned from my short time at the Strasberg Institute is using “sense memory” to create the emotional state of the character. It’s a pretty simple technique. If your character is happy, you focus on a sensation that has brought you happiness: the taste of a fresh peach, or the feel of warm sunshine on your skin at the beach. Every actor uses something different to help conjure certain emotions. I’ve learned a great deal about process from other actors. When I worked with Diane Keaton, she listened to music. Jessica Lange used scents. When I was working with Anne Bancroft on ’Night, Mother, I noticed that she would pull a small, folded-up piece of paper out of her pocket just before an emotional scene. She would quietly read whatever she had written there, then carefully refold the note and tuck it away. I’ve always been fascinated by the processes of different actors, and I’ve observed that women are much more willing to share them than men. Male actors tend to keep their process secret, like a favorite fishing hole.

  As much as I got out of my time at the Strasberg Institute, I can’t claim to be a “trained” Method actor. I didn’t even stay long enough to graduate from exercise classes to scene work. And because I had never worked before I studied there, I had no idea how I would use what I learned. When I did start working and was able to apply those simple techniques, I realized just how amazing they are. But, honestly, I think I learned as much about acting on my way to and from the Institute as I did in class. The sketchy characters I saw along 14th Street late at night gave me enough material for a lifetime.

  I lived with Meryl Feldman in the 19th Street apartment for almost two years. When she moved out to live with Kenny Laguna, Alice Passman moved in. Alice worked in the fashion district and was going to night school to become a speech therapist until she met me and my friends. She ended up working for Alice Cooper and going to acting school.

  Unfortunately, Meryl’s wonderful furniture moved out with her. But Alice and I filled the place up with things we would find left out in the trash on Park Avenue, like an old church pew and abandoned table lamps. Ours was the original shabby chic apartment.

  Alice was a wonderful girl with a great pair of legs. If you walked into a party with her and she had on her favorite miniskirt, you became suddenly invisible. She was also very smart and funny. One of her dates was a friend of Woody Allen’s. They were having dinner one night when Woody joined them. Afterward, they wanted to get some dessert, but everywhere they stopped, people kept bothering Woody for autographs. So Alice offered to take them back to our apartment so they could have some peace.

  I was in my pajamas when Alice called to tell me someone was coming over.

  “Oh, Alice, I’m already asleep,” I moaned.

  “It’s Woody Allen.”

  “No problem! Just give me a minute.”

  I joined them for coffee, expecting to be entertained by the famous comedian. But Woody was quiet and serious, and all he talked about was the recent breakup with his ex-wife. Alice and I looked at each other, wondering: When is he going to start being funny?

  I couldn’t take it any longer, and I began to crack jokes and tell funny stories. I noticed Woody checking his watch. Alice tells me I was charming, but I wonder if I didn’t scare Woody off. As it turned out, Alice played a bit part in Annie Hall after she turned to acting. And I get to tell the story of the night I was funnier than Woody Allen.

  Because I was represented by Bill Treusch, I got a lot of auditions. One was for a Broadway musical called Terre Haute High, about a space station filled with young people from all parts of the country. It was being produced by the same people who created the hit show Hair. I tried out for it, even though the auditions called for singing and dancing. I was not a trained singer, and I’d never taken anything other than tap dancing lessons when I was a kid. But for some reason the director and the producers thought I was the find of the century, and they cast me in the lead. Now all they had to do was finance the show.

  Terre Haute High was a very expensive production because it had such a large cast and required elaborate, space-age sets. To try to raise money, the producers would take me along on their rounds to potential investors. I was thrilled to be introduced as “our star” and then perform my signature song, a soaring number about a phone call to home from space. It was a wonderful song, and the show would have been great, but the producers never could mount enough financing. And so my budding Broadway career went down in flames along with the imaginary space station.

  But before I had time to dust myself off from the experience, another opportunity came my way. This time it would take me to Hollywood.

  PHOTO SECTION I

  AA Spacek and Mary Cervenka Spacek were first generation Americans who raised their family in the Czech community of Granger, Texas.

  The Spacek family: Sam, Thelma, Momsy, Pops, Eddie (my dad), and Rose.

  AA (“Pops”) and Mary Spacek (“Momsy”) outside their Granger home in a rare snowstorm.

  AA with his sister Albina and his fiancée, Mary Cervenka (left).

  AA Spacek and frequent houseguest, Lyndon Johnson, who nicknamed him “Double A.”

  My dad checking the cotton crop in his white linen pants and two-toned shoes.

  My dad at eighteen in Granger, contemplating his future at Texas Tech.

  In college, my father, Edwin A. Spacek (above) played the banjo in a dance band. When he met my mother they were on a double date, and he was with the other girl. But when he heard my mother’s voice he thought, That’s the girl I’m going to marry! Two weeks later they were engaged.

  I inherited my strawberry blond hair from my grandmother. After T. Holl moved the family to the wild Rio Grande Valley, where bandits roamed the border, Elizabeth insisted they get a house in town.

  T. Holl and Elizabeth with four of their five children (my mother is the baby).

  My grandfather, Thomas Holliday “T. Holl” Spilman, married Elizabeth Holliday, the granddaughter of his namesake.

  That’s my mother, Virginia, with my grandfather in front of their “in town” house in Mission, Texas.

  They lived out their lives in threadbare gentility.

  My mother in grade school in Mission. I think she looks like Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird.

  Here she is a teenager with Screenland magazine.

  Virginia Spilman, known as “Gin,” must have dreamed of the life she helped me live.

  My aunt Arlette and my mother in the 1940s. When I was very young, Arlette and I had a standoff over a plate of Christmas cookies. I won.

  An all-American family in the 1950s. Little did we know then that tragedy would change all of our lives.

  Here I’m checking to see if a stick of gum I’d put in Robbie’s pocket for safekeeping is still safe.

  Mother loved to dress us in sailor suits. Years later I tried out for Carrie in a sailor dress she made for me in seventh grade.

  Ed, Robbie, and me in front of our house in Quitman, Texas. It must be Sunday because I’m wearing shoes.

  Sunday school Christmas party. My mother t
aught all of our Sunday school classes. Her most important lesson: “God is love.” Those are little Bibles hanging on the tree; a circus is painted on the floor.

  My brothers and me after a squirrel hunt with some friends in Granger, Texas. I had to be tough to keep up with the boys. But if I couldn’t be tough, at least I had to be quiet.

  Me and Robbie just hanging out. When he was a newborn, Robbie looked so deeply into my mother’s eyes that it almost frightened her. He was a soulful boy.

  My brothers Ed and Robbie right before I came along.

  Robbie was a talented athlete and track star who qualified for the Texas State Meet in Austin. As an eight-year-old he begged my dad to let him out of the car so he could catch a jackrabbit he saw running down the side of the road. My dad laughed, but decided to let him try. Robbie caught the rabbit.

  My brothers and I were very close growing up, despite the fact that I was a girl. I tried kissing my elbow for years because my uncle Sam told me that if I did, I’d turn into a boy. That’s me and Robbie in 1953.

  Ed and Robbie in 1966 at Arlette and Wade’s home in Austin, Texas, right before the big race that Robbie couldn’t run. The next day Robbie was admitted to MD Anderson Hospital in Houston.

  PHOTO SECTION II

  After Carrie came out I was everywhere—even on the cover of Newsweek. A reporter came to Quitman, Texas, to interview my parents. When the article came out, my dad bought up all the magazines in town—if anyone else wanted to read it, they had to come to our house.

  Some of the characters that I found inside me. When I was younger I always wanted to play someone my own age; now I’m finally getting to. You’ve got to watch what you wish for.

  Jessica Lange, Diane Keaton, and I had a great time being sisters in Crimes of the Heart. We shared a house on the set where three-year-old Schuyler gave Diane first aid with her new play doctor kit.

  With Jack Lemmon, who played my father-in-law in Missing. Jack could be telling a joke, stop, play a dramatic scene, and then finish his joke. He told me to “just act” and forget the “Method.”

  I worked with Tommy Lee Jones on Coal Miner’s Daughter, and then in 1995 he directed me in The Good Old Boys. Here he is telling me all the reasons I shouldn’t be galloping sidesaddle across “Cemetery Field.”

  Lee Marvin unexpectedly took off from the set of Prime Cut with me in the back of the car wearing nothing but a horse blanket. What a sight I must have been walking into the hotel lobby.

  Richard Farnsworth and me in Iowa for The Straight Story. Richard was nominated for an Oscar; I cut my hair and wore prosthetic teeth to play his daughter.

  Me as Loretta Lynn with Ernest Tubb at the Ryman Auditorium.

  With Brian De Palma on the set of Carrie. I’m wearing the sailor dress my mom made for me in the seventh grade.

  The kite scene in Raggedy Man with (left to right) Carey Clyde Leebo Hollis, Henry Thomas, and Eric Roberts. I was channeling my mother in this scene.

  Loretta and me after I won the Oscar for Coal Miner’s Daughter. She believes we were sisters in a past life. For two years Loretta told everybody that I was going to play her in the movie. I wasn’t so sure … until I met her.

  Here I am on the set of Heart Beat with John Heard and Nick Nolte. David Lynch painted the artwork for this scene and played the artist.

  I always liked tuxedos more than gowns.

  Me and my girlfriends Janit and Monica. I got that Hawaiian shirt in a thrift store.

  I’ve always loved Jack’s gap-toothed smile.

  Me in Beirut, dressed rather inappropriately, during our honeymoon.

  Jack and me on our first visit to Cannes. The next time we came back I was eight months pregnant.

  Jack and Five a few years before we met.

  This was taken in Quitman on Sissy Spacek Day, 1980. The whole town came out to celebrate.

  On the set of Phantom of the Paradise with Five.

  Jack, Five, and David Lynch at art school in Philadelphia. David was making short films; Jack was building large sculptures.

  Schuyler had a great time in Texas while I worked on The Good Old Boys with Tommy Lee Jones and Sam Shepard.

  Schuyler played the lead in Annie in her school play. Soon kids were running past me to get her autograph.

  Schuyler in the hunt field.

  Little Bit taking Schuyler for a ride around the farm while our dog River follows along behind.

  Schuyler singing at Joe’s Pub in New York City.

  Schuyler at the barn on her ninth birthday.

  Madison’s affinity for animals started early. It’s a good thing we live on a farm.

  Little girl, big horse.

  Madison helped teach her friend Natasha how to ride a bike.

  Madison has always been an insatiable reader … who loves to draw and paint and build things, like her dad.

  Madison sits under one of her many creations.

  Madison and Jack hiking in Telluride, Colorado.

  My mother: my confidante and favorite traveling companion.

  Our daughters came along at just the right time in my life.

  My father in his Coal Miner’s Daughter cap going off to fish. He loved getting out on the lake.

  Jack and me on the farm with our dog Patch and our cat BB.

  Our dog family on the farm. Rigby visits from California and Maude visits from Texas. Nigel thinks he’s a dog.

  … CALIFORNIA …

  … 9 …

  The appointment books I’ve saved from my New York years are filled with hopeful, handwritten entries: a meeting with John Huston on East 61st Street to discuss his next film, Fat City; an appointment for “Breck shampoo”; a few hours set aside to do “test shots in the park.” I did not get the part in John Huston’s film, and I no longer remember what the test shots were for, or whether the Breck booking was for a TV commercial or a print ad. Several times I wrote “THE JOHNNY CARSON SHOW” in capital letters, underlined and circled, across the top of a page. I had gotten an audition with the Tonight Show producer, and I was thrilled when they booked me as a musical guest. But each time I was scheduled to go on, I came down with some sort of ailment—a sore throat, stomachache, swollen glands. Appearing on that show might have been the biggest big break in my musical career, but it never came to be.

  By now I had pretty much given up on the idea of becoming the next Joni Mitchell. Yet I still carried at least one guitar with me to every audition, even when I was trying out for dramatic roles. It was no different in the spring of 1971, when I met with a young director named Michael Ritchie to discuss a part in his film Prime Cut. During our interview I told him that I was a singer-songwriter, and he asked me if I could write a song about any topic he named.

  “Sure,” I said.

  He looked over at his drink, sitting on the table, with a cherry stem sticking out of the top.

  “Okay. How about maraschino cherries?”

  “That’ll do,” I said, pulling out my twelve-string. “Why don’t we write it together?”

  We worked for the next few hours and came up with a pretty fabulous song. Actually it’s one of my favorites, “The Maraschino Red Blues”:

  Put one more cherry in my ginger ale,

  Smoke another coffin nail,

  Oh sweet, sweet cherry number four,

  I ain’t coming back here no more....

  By the time we were finished, Michael wanted me for his film. I was up for the part of Poppy, an orphan waif who is rescued from white slavery by Nick Devlin, a mob enforcer played by Lee Marvin. My character was supposed to be young and scared, and I was young and scared, so I guess you could call it typecasting. There was only one more hurdle: The studio wanted to fly me out to Los Angeles for a screen test.

  I had only been to LA once before, for a brief visit, and I was still thrilled by how everything seemed so green and shiny and new. At the end of a long New York winter I was astonished by the sunshine and palm trees; even the grass on the freeway median strip
looked lush and green. I landed at LAX with one suitcase and two guitars, wearing a flowing skirt and tapestry boots—the cool, funky-girl look I had perfected in New York. But I blew my cover as soon as I arrived in Studio City and started jumping up and down when I saw Mary Tyler Moore strolling across the street.