by Sissy Spacek
Our farm is in the shadow of the Southwest Mountains, one of the oldest mountain ranges in America, where we ride along the same trails that Thomas Jefferson had traveled, and rest in the shade of the same majestic trees. One of them is a massive oak so old I can only imagine all it has seen. When I run my hand along its rough bark, I think of how deep its roots have grown to keep it standing through all the windstorms and heavy snows it’s endured over the years. I feel rooted like that tree in this soil.
In summer, I wear my biggest hat and walk beneath stately linden trees that line our road, sent by boat from Europe a hundred years ago so ladies in their buggies would have shade on their way to and from the train station. Soon the leaves will turn deep auburn and gold, and winter will come again and sing its lonesome song. I’ll bundle up against the cold and go to ground, like the fox that makes his home here. Then before I know it, spring will come and blooms will peek through thawing earth and new green will grace the hills. And it will start all over again.
I’ve walked and jogged thousands of miles up and down this road, and I never seem to tire of it. Most days, the dogs and Nigel, the cat that thinks he’s a dog, follow me on my walks with sticks and bones, chasing one another around, happy for the daily ritual. I see something new every day—a piece of fool’s gold glinting in the gravel, a blue damselfly skimming across the pond, a perfect heart-shaped leaf. I count my blessings.
… Acknowledgments …
Thanks to my husband, Jack Flsk, for helping me through every stage of this book. Our life together proves the old adage: Always marry your best friend.
Thanks to Schuyler for filling my life with music, and for her grace, her sparkle, and her wonderful cooking.
Thanks to Madison, for her creative mind and tender heart, and for taking us on an amazing trip through Texas.
To my brother, Ed Spacek, who inherited all of our parents’ best qualities, thank you for helping me remember clearly and for being such a wonderful brother.
To Mary Fisk, the hub of the wheel, thank you for keeping things running smoothly.
Thanks to Maryanne Vollers, for turning this book into an adventure. Your talent is inspiring and your work ethic exhausting. Thanks for keeping me on the straight and narrow. I am lucky to have worked with such a dear friend.
To Courtney Kivowitz, Steve Tellez, and Jim Stein, for steering a steady ship.
Thanks to the folks at Hyperion: Elisabeth Dyssegaard, Kerri Kolen, Kiki Koroshetz, Samantha O’Brien, Leslie Wells, and Sarah Landis.
And thanks to Weiman Seid for absolutely everything. I don’t know what I would do without you.
Thanks to these friends and relatives for sharing their memories and filling in the holes in my own:
Terrence Malick, David Lynch, Bill Paxton, Brian De Palma, Pat Torn Alexander, Janit Baldwin, Kathy Holliday Browne, Rose Byrd, Jack Carone, Susan Merritt Cummings, Sean Daniel, David Fender, Jane McKnight Fender, Dan Johnson, Mary Kalergis, Michel Kicq, Sue Kramer, Kenny Laguna, Meryl Laguna, Alberta Mahanes, Stephanie Mansfield, Ulna McWhorter, Hugh Motley, Winkie Motley, Cindy Owen, Andy Pearce, Clint Perkins, Monica Podell, Ed Pressman, Sr. Elizabeth Rieb-schlaeger, Aggie Rives, Barclay Rives, Jane Robinson, Alice Passman Schwartz, Judy Simpson, Stephen Spacek, Arlette Spilman, EJ Strmiska, Leah Rae Strmiska, Dr. Beverly Waddleton, Jan Spacek York, and the staffs of the Quitman Public Library and the Wood County courthouse.
For their love and support on the home front: Diane Bloom, Nanette Derkac, Sarah DuPont, Colleen Gibbons, Julann Griffin, Mary Kalergis, Aggie Rives.
Thanks to my friend Helen Bartlett for “planting the seed” for this book and for the wonderful notes when I finally got it written. And to my friend Lynne Brubaker, who dropped everything to produce the fabulous cover photograph.
Thanks to Bill Campbell and Jamie Meyer for helping with the photo inserts, and to Gene Bright, Lynne Brubaker, Joseph Burchfield, Aldo Filiberto, Sue Kramer, Barbara Colley Locke, Jean Pagliuso, Monica Podell, Douglas Randall, the Riker Brothers, the Spacek Family Reunion, and Pamela Wise.
Thanks to those who believed in me when it mattered:
Rip Torn, Geraldine Page, Bill Treusch, Rick Nicita, and Marion Dougherty.
Thanks to all my family, in this world and the next.
And thanks to a lifetime of four-legged friends.
Above all, thanks to Mother and Daddy, Robbie and Ed, and Schuyler, Madison, and Jack, who helped make this extraordinary, ordinary life possible.
Credits
Illustrations
All illustrations by Jack Fisk, except as follows:
Sissy Spacek: box radio (chapter 5); Jack (chapter 10); sailor dress (chapter 11); and Patch (chapter 16)
Virginia Madison Fisk: Cassidy (chapter 16)
Photo Section I
All photographs: Spacek Family Collection
Photo Section II
Photo 2 (upper left): Photo by Sam Emerson / Feb. 2009
Photo 3 (upper center):3 WOMEN © 1977 Twentieth Century Fox. All Rights Reserved.
Photo 5 (middle left): Courtesy of Miramax
Photo 6 (middle center): HEART BEAT © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Photo 7 (middle right): Courtesy of Dream Works II Distribution Co., LLC
Photo 8 (lower left): Courtesy of MGM Media Licensing. CARRIE © 1976 METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER STUDIOS INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Photo 9 (lower center): Courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing, LLC All Rights Reserved.
Photo 10 (lower right): BADLANDS © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Photo 11: Michael Ochs Archives/Moviepix/Getty Images
Photo 12: Courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing, LLC All Rights Reserved.
Photo 13: Photograph from “The Good Old Boys” provided by TNT Originals, Inc.
Photo 16: Courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing, LLC All Rights Reserved.
Photo 17: Courtesy of MGM Media Licensing. CARRIE © 1976 METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER STUDIOS INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Photo 18: Courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Photo 19: Associated Press
Photo 20: HEART BEAT © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Photo 21: Courtesy of Jean Pagliuso
Photo 22: Spacek Family Collection
Photo 23: Spacek Family Collection
Photo 24: Spacek Family Collection
Photo 25: Spacek Family Collection
Photo 26: Courtesy of Douglas Randall
Photo 27 : Spacek Family Collection
Photo 28: Spacek Family Collection
Photo 29: Courtesy of Joseph Burchfield
Photo 30: Spacek Family Collection
Photo 31: Spacek Family Collection
Photo 32: Spacek Family Collection
Photo 33: Spacek Family Collection
Photo 34 : Courtesy of The Riker Brothers
Photo 35: Brian Killian/Getty Images
Photo 36: Spacek Family Collection
Photo 37: Spacek Family Collection
Photo 38: Spacek Family Collection
Photo 39: Spacek Family Collection
Photo 40: Spacek Family Collection
Photo 41: Courtesy of Aldo Filiberto
Photo 42: Spacek Family Collection
Photo 43: Courtesy of Sue Kramer
Photo 44: Spacek Family Collection
Photo 45: Courtesy of The Riker Brothers
Photo 46: Spacek Family Collection
Photo 47: Courtesy of Lynne Brubaker
Photo 48: Spacek Family Collection
For all photographs not credited, every effort has been made to trace and contact copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to correct any mistakes or omissions in future editions.
Copyright
With thanks to Terrence Malick and Edward R. Pressman for permission to reprint lines from Badlands, © 1973 Edward R. Pressman Productions, Inc.
Illustration and photo
credits, in “Credits” section, constitute a continuation of this copyright page.
Copyright © 2012 Sissy Spacek
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information address Hyperion, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011
The Library of Congress has catalogued the original print edition of this book as follows:
Spacek, Sissy.
My extraordinary ordinary life / Sissy Spacek with Maryanne Vollers. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-4013-2436-0
1. Spacek, Sissy. 2. Motion picture actors and actresses—United States—Biography. I. Vollers, Maryanne. II. Title.
PN2287.S663A3 2012
791.4302"8092—dc23
[B]
2011047858
eBook Edition ISBN: 978-1-4013-0427-0
Hyperion books are available for special promotions and premiums. For details contact the HarperCollins Special Markets Department in the New York office at 212-207-7528, fax 212-207-7222, or email [email protected].
Cover photograph © Lynne Brubaker
First eBook Edition
Original hardcover edition printed in the United States of America.
www.HyperionBooks.com
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
TEXAS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
NEW YORK
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
PHOTO SECTION I
PHOTO SECTION II
CALIFORNIA
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
VIRGINIA
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
Acknowledgments
Credits
Copyright
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
TEXAS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
NEW YORK
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
PHOTO SECTION I
PHOTO SECTION II
CALIFORNIA
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
VIRGINIA
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
Acknowledgments
Credits
Copyright
