Melissa Explains It All: Tales from My Abnormally Normal Life

by Melissa Joan Hart

  As for Salem’s voice, Nick Bakay, one of Sabrina’s talented writers and still a good friend, did the honors. During the first few seasons, he recorded the voice live on set and later, he left us to work on The King of Queens (as a writer, not a talking animal) and did his voice-overs in a studio. When he was on set, his cat scenes were the highlight of my day—especially when he ad-libbed lines, like when a live cat went off-script. One time, a cat was supposed to sit patiently on a counter next to deviled eggs, but it got up to take a sniff instead. Blooper aside, Nick stayed in character and offered an unexpected, “Yum, eggs!” that reduced us to tears and made it to our gag reel.

  * * *

  By our fifth season, Sabrina and I were getting older, and we couldn’t arrest our development any longer. The writers sent Sabrina to college and aged up the show by adding roommates—Soleil Moon Frye as an edgy and rebellious feminist, Elisa Donovan as a shallow ditz, and Trevor Lissauer as a sci-fi-obsessed nerd. Great timing, too—when we moved to the WB in our sixth season, we fit right in with its young-adult-centered shows like Dawson’s Creek and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s not unusual for a series to change networks—for instance, Buffy later went from the WB to UPN, and Scrubs from NBC to ABC—though it usually happens when one network feels the show’s losing steam and another thinks it still has legs. But ABC had offered us only one more season and the WB gave us two. More episodes meant longer job security for the cast and crew, plus more syndication, which was a financial perk for those who owned a piece of the show. We were lucky that a lot of our faithful audience followed us to the WB and liked the new angle and fresh blood.

  One night at a bar in L.A. before we began working together, I ran into Soleil Moon Frye for the first time in about seven years. She and I had bumped into each other at auditions at various points along our career paths, and once at the Young Hollywood Awards in 1992, but this time, our relationship stuck. After that, we went to the gym, parties, and premieres together. When the new characters were being introduced to the show, I made sure the casting director and producers saw Soleil for the part of Roxie. When she got it, I was thrilled to have yet another good friend on set with me every day. Soleil fit right in with our loud, goofy, and laid-back crew. She caught the giggles when someone flubbed their lines and got carried away with physical comedy moments, which left bruises of love all over my shoulders. It was also nice to lean on her emotionally if I was having a hard day, and to joke around between takes.

  Nearly all the girls on set, including Soleil, hung out at my trailer during lunch and breaks. It was on the Paramount lot, right next to an area called “the tank”: a deep blue basin with a tall wall painted to look like a fluffy blue and white sky. The tank was mostly used as a parking lot, but when it wasn’t packed with cars, producers filled it with water for scenes that took place on an ocean. Not only did I have “beachfront property,” but the set designers gave me a wooden picnic table with an umbrella and laid Astroturf on the cement to create a small oasis. The girls spent so much time here between scenes that we started a book club and read everything from The Red Tent to the Harry Potter books. We carved pumpkins at Halloween and snuck cigs on late-night shoots in our dreamy sanctuary. For privacy, the set people erected a lattice covered with fake roses at each end of my trailer. Too bad it didn’t prevent a pervert from stealing my worn G-strings from the trash outside my trailer and selling them on eBay. I never wore butt floss before Sabrina, but Kimi would go bananas if she caught me with panty lines. Sometimes after a long day, I’d be so anxious to get them off that I’d just throw them in the garbage, never imagining they could end up on the black market. It didn’t last long. Once Paramount caught wind of this, they and the FBI launched a sting operation to find the criminal and busted him when he came in for a fake interview to work at the studio. If we’d caught the shakedown on film, it would’ve been a good story line for that Dateline show: To Crotch a Predator.

  When I wasn’t with the ladies at my souped-up trailer park, I spent a lot of time with my TV aunties. I felt very close to Beth Broderick (Aunt Zelda), who liked to flash me her ta-tas as a joke, and Caroline Rhea (Aunt Hilda), who kept us laughing with tales about her ex-boyfriends and Irish gym teacher. Caroline was also a stand-up comic, so the cast and crew doubled as a sounding board for her material—no two-drink minimum required. I still use some of her best lines, like when she’d say she had “diarrhea of the mouth.” Sometimes she told people her name was Caroline Joan Hart, and she’d go berserk when they pronounced “Caroline” with a short “i,” as if the “e” didn’t draw it out. Beth and Caroline also gave me invaluable advice, mainly having to do with men, and the importance of wearing a bra, which I ignored at the time but after having three kids, am now putting to use. One lesson that still resonates with me was about when to bite your tongue. When I was twenty years old, I rushed to the polls to “rock the vote,” since MTV had beaten this into my head since I was twelve. I wore my “I Voted” sticker proudly to set on that Super Tuesday, feeling pleased with my civic duty. But when the aunties asked who I voted for, and I proudly told them Bob Dole, good grief if they didn’t spend the next few hours heatedly explaining why he wasn’t the best guy for the job. Once they stopped their yammering and we got on with rehearsal, some of the Republican crew pulled me aside and whispered, “Way to go.” After that incident, I chose my political audience carefully, especially as a young red elephant in Hollywood.

  * * *

  Sabrina was full of talented recurring actors and guest stars. Among my favorites were Mary Gross, Alimi Ballard, and Paul Feig, who played Mr. Pool, Sabrina’s overly enthusiastic science teacher, and went on to create Freaks and Geeks and direct The Office and movies like Bridesmaids. Phil Fondacaro was also priceless as Roland, a little person who lived in the Other Realm, was obsessed with Sabrina, and often stole her away from her aunts. He and I had some laughs while shooting the Rapunzel episode, where I was dressed in traditional princess gear with the long locks. We had to hold hands running through a meadow. Off the clock, Phil partied hard, and I often bumped into him in L.A., usually at the Playboy Mansion with “this annoying guy” he’d say was renting his guest house—Verne Troyer, aka Mini Me from Austin Powers. I was always impressed with how regularly Verne scored with the Playmates in those dimly lit mansion bathrooms. Martin Mull, who played the principal, Mr. Kraft, was my all-time favorite regular. He was already well known for his huge body of work and later became the luncheonette boss on Roseanne. He has an inspiring life and a love of art, and he once told me he always said yes to a job because he was afraid it could be his last, which I understood. Whether we were at his art studio or chatting on set about his balanced outlook on life, I always felt inspired by his passion for cultivating new interests, which encouraged me to feed mine. He was funny as hell, too.

  Sabrina had its share of big-name guest stars, like Loni Anderson, Barbara Eden, Raquel Welch, and the cast of Laugh-In; I even got to tap dance with Dick Van Dyke (I wasn’t half bad). Friends like Garry Marshall, Donald Faison, and Brian Austin Green also came by for an episode here and there, and once I met my future husband, Mark, the lead singer of the group Course of Nature, I made sure we invited his band to perform in an episode, and we took photos of them for the walls of the music magazine office where Sabrina worked during the seventh season.

  As a music head myself, I was stoked when we brought on guest stars from this world—among them Paula Abdul, Davy Jones from The Monkees, Randy Travis, Hanson, Avril Lavigne, 10,000 Maniacs, Violent Femmes, Coolio, Goo Goo Dolls, and Debbie Harry. One fan favorite was Britney Spears. She and I had a big year in 1999, doing a lot of press together to promote my movie/her song Drive Me Crazy. On Sabrina, she also appeared as a “gift” from Sabrina’s dad while Sabrina was visiting his apartment in the Eiffel Tower. For five minutes of TV time, I got to dance like a spaz with Britney. But B had nothing on the Backstreet Boys, who gave a mini concert on the show when they drank from a magic bottle that
Sabrina left behind to give her friends a boost at the school talent show. I remember Nick Carter’s eighteenth birthday fell on a shoot day, and when he asked me to join him for some birthday fun, I offered him my eighteen-year-old sis Lizzie instead. (I already had James, remember?) Three years later, Nick and I would end up in a lip-locking session in Sydney, Australia, while I was there producing a film; my sisters started uncontrollably screeching when they saw him kiss me good-bye in the elevator—so embarrassing.

  * * *

  Every day, Mom busted her ass with Sabrina business while trying to get other Hartbreak projects going on the side to expand our brand beyond the witch. We explored independent films, reality TV shows, and even a possible hair-care line, but the show was the most powerful force of all. Video games, a top-selling Scholastic book series, dolls, and even a Sabrina ice-cream pop kept the checks coming. In 1999, we also shot a cartoon series called Sabrina: The Animated Series, with my sister Emily as the voice of a young Sabrina, and me as both her aunts. Mom was incredibly hands-on and proved she was more than just a fluffy stage mom who got credit as producer per her kid’s contract. She belonged at the helm of the show. Mom was the heart and soul of Sabrina and its franchises, and she protected the brand and character like her own children.

  While shooting Sabrina, I passed on a lot of feature films, especially those in the emerging horror genre, like I Know What You Did Last Summer and Urban Legend. Wearing a revealing shirt while screaming “What are you waiting for?!?!” to some man with a hook wasn’t the meaty part I was after. So I held out, and during summer hiatuses, I went back to NYU for some credits. In 1998, my mom hinted to the network about how much I wanted to shoot a juicy Roman Holiday–themed movie on location, which somehow turned into me doing Sabrina Goes to Rome. This wasn’t the film I had in mind, but I was loyal to Sabrina and to ABC, and I did relish the idea of living like a local in Italy for a few months. To sweeten the deal, ABC hired a lot of my friends and even my boyfriend, James, to act in the movie, and they brought along my closest crew, including Eryn for makeup, Kimi for wardrobe, and Colleen to do my hair. Some of the Salem puppets came, too, though the live one we got from an Italian wrangler was pretty scrappy; he looked like the sick, balding, scruffy alley cat cousin of our fluffy real thing. A year later, I got the travel bug again and it was off to Australia to shoot Sabrina, Down Under.

  No travel memory, however, compares to when ’N Sync, who did a cameo on the show in 1999, asked me to join them in Turks and Caicos at the end of their 2001 summer tour. I knew JC Chasez and Justin Timberlake from when they worked on The Mickey Mouse Club in Florida, and Joey Fatone from when he worked as a performer at Universal Studios for the character Wolfie in Beetlejuice’s GraveYard Review. But it was on Sabrina that I became buddies with the rest of the band. In the Caribbean, we had a great time sipping fruity drinks and partying with some other celebrities like Tori Spelling and Olympic medalist Tara Lipinski. The boys took off for the States on September 10, while the rest of us hung back to worship the sun a little longer. The next day, planes hijacked by terrorists struck the Pentagon and New York City’s Twin Towers.

  I was worried about being so far away from my family, since nobody was sure how the United States would react to the attack by the time I’d get back home. For five days, I manically searched the sky for a passenger plane, to see if the airspace had been cleared to fly home. I understood the phrase “island fever.” After a lot of phone calls, Mom was able to send a private jet to get me and a friend, and though it was a seven-seater, nobody else wanted to hitch a ride, no matter how much I tried to convince them. They wanted to wait for a commercial plane, but I knew that with only me and my friend aboard this one, there wouldn’t be any terrorists to sabotage our flight.

  Once we touched down on U.S. soil, I kissed the ground, and in homage to my country and the victims of this tragedy, I wore red, white, and blue for at least one scene in every episode for the rest of Sabrina’s season. If you catch my USA necklace, flag belt buckle, or any other patriotic wardrobe choices in a show, you’ll know it’s a season six episode. Four months later, I’d present an American Music Award to ’N Sync, and it would be the first time I’d seen the boys since 9/11. When they stepped on the stage, before accepting the award, they quickly hugged me and asked if I was okay after all that had happened. They apologized for not taking me with them on the tenth, as if they could have known what would happen the next day.

  I always try to see the good in a situation and give people the benefit of the doubt, but when it comes to work, I hope for the best but expect the worst. Hollywood can be so fickle. Each time Sabrina was renewed, I was ecstatic but also stunned, so when I heard our seventh season was our last, I handled it well. In March of 2003, our director called, “It’s a wrap!” on our final show, and it was time to party. The cast, crew, and I took lots of pictures and shouted our favorite Sabrina-esque inside jokes so loudly that we scared the hell out of one of Cathy’s trained cats. It clawed her arms and then scurried away, and she later found it cowering under a sofa. At the end of the night, my besties Eryn, Kimi, Maureen, our script supervisor, a few others, and I took a last tour of the stage. We thanked it for the memories and chose our souvenirs. I took a pine bookshelf and iron coatrack that we used on the kitchen set, which I still have, along with the papier-mâché bust of a woman that was in Sabrina’s living room. It now sits on my dresser and holds my necklaces. As a parting gift to everyone, the crew wrote “Hart #1” on the back of my favorite jacket, a reliable gray fleece we called “Bear” that kept me warm on early and late-night shoots. They hung it from the rafters, illuminated by a single spotlight. It was hard not to look back.

  Chapter 11

  JUST SAY “WHY NOT?”

  Los Angeles in the ’90s—I can’t think of a better place for the young, rich, and recognizable to stir up trouble, except maybe Seattle. (Then again, the Pacific Northwest is really into coffee and nature, and who needs to be that caffeinated to stare at trees?) So once I landed ABC’s Sabrina, I really cut loose for the first time. I was in my twenties, free from the stifling expectations of my youth, and anxious to define life on my own terms. Which is to say, I was ready to party.

  When in Hollywood, right?

  My boyfriend James, who I met during my first semester at NYU, always knew how to have a good time. At my nineteenth birthday party, he earned a rep for rolling the best doobies, and when we moved to L.A., he graduated to the role of my perfect partner in crime. We got an apartment together in the Valley, not far from the house where Mom, Leslie, and my five siblings were living. When I told him one night while folding laundry that I hoped to make my twenty-first birthday one to remember, he was anxious to help me cut the cake and keep the shots flowing.

  I decided I’d get completely hammered for the first time and—spoiler alert—keep going until I yacked. (Yep, I like being organized and in control so much that I even planned my first big drunken escapade.) I mentioned this idea to James, and he was on board. Since my own star was rising, I also wanted to celebrate this milestone the way that I’d read other celebs rang in their birthdays—in style. I rented a dark little bar on Sunset Boulevard that had pool tables, three bars inside and out, and a movie theater where we played only Quentin Tarantino movies all night.

  After People magazine finished taking pictures and I’d cut the cake with James, I realized the party was almost over and I was barely buzzed. I bellied up to the bar and did a few double shots of tequila with the crew of Sabrina, then a shot of Jägermeister, then back to tequila … until two hours and eighteen shots later, my head was in the toilet. After I clogged it three times with my black Jäger-puke and the bar owner kicked me out, my friends and I piled into a limo. I urged the driver to take the freeway so I didn’t upchuck even more from the infamous twists and turns of Laurel Canyon. I hung my head out the window like a Shih Tzu desperate for fresh air, and James held back my hair. I had alcohol poisoning for about two days after, even though
James put me on a plane the next afternoon for Vancouver to shoot the NBC TV movie Silencing Mary. At least all that barfing gave me the dehydrated, gaunt, flat-belly look that so many actresses covet.

  James and I began to build a glamorous life together—just call us “Jamelissa.” First, I bought us an amazing house. It was a three-bedroom Spanish colonial with wrought-iron balconies, two fireplaces, a pool with a waterfall, a hot tub, and a fully stocked bar in the rec room downstairs. The house was on Wonder View Drive in the Hollywood Hills and every room overlooked the San Fernando Valley. (Three years later, I took MTV Cribs on a tour of my abode to show off the “Witch’s Brew” sign that I stole from the Sabrina set and hung over my bar, a paper towel roll made from a Sabrina doll, Shirley Temple–autographed sheet music for “On the Good Ship Lollipop,” and a movie poster for the classic Audrey Hepburn film Sabrina. The episode is still on YouTube, if you want to check it out.) By moving into my first major investment together, James and I now had a place to entertain our growing circle of West Coast buddies after premieres and star-studded events. We enjoyed being around our friends just as much as being alone, so we asked Parker, the PA from the Sabrina set, to live with us. We adopted a beautiful, pregnant Dalmatian, named her Pele, and kept one of her puppies, named Haleakala. I began collecting art—Rembrandt and Erte, mostly. James had encouraged me to get a car with real horsepower, so I leased a red convertible BMW. We spent a lot of time driving stick through the Hollywood Hills, and beating the speed limit once I got the hang of it. Thanks to Sabrina’s popularity, I was quickly becoming a Hollywood cliché, and I had all the sexy trappings to show for it.