It's All In the Playing

by Shirley Maclaine

  “Yeah? Well, that’s not really the reason. I mean, the Church fucked me up so bad that I really don’t worry about that.”

  When John spoke with clarity it was indisputable.

  “Let me think about it all tonight,” he said. “I’ll call you in Malibu eleven A.M. your time.”

  It was another man talking.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.”

  He hung up. I walked to Stan’s office.

  “Listen,” he said. “Good news.”

  “What?”

  “Standards and Practices finally concedes the script is correct. They found a turtle that lived to be two hundred and fifty years old.”

  “Great,” I said. “Can he act?”

  Charles Dance arrived for his first rehearsal with the director, Bob Butler. Up to then, I think Charles thought Colin Higgins was the director. He did not know that in American television the producer is the creative mind. The director just sort of makes it happen.

  Charles sat with a befitting Greek-godlike slouch in slacks and shirt, disturbing his ginger-haired perfection only by not wearing any socks under his businesslike shoes. Butler, in a khaki jacket, glowing with robust health, ruddy complexion, and rugged profile, nevertheless had a nervous scowl on his face. He had never met Charles before. Butler had had little input on casting Charles and John. He was scouting locations, designing sets, assembling the crew, and so on. So he was in the enviable position, should anything go wrong, of saying “What the hell did you pick these guys for?” I couldn’t help but remember that he still thought he was the only sane person in the group.

  His opening speech to Charles, however, was not exactly Shakespeare.

  “As I press forward on this project, Charles,” he said, “I’m sure the big ‘If’ will be the guy in Milwaukee with the beer. Will he say ‘Harriet, come in here and look at this,’ or will he turn the dial? Is he smarter than all of us or should we worry about him at all?”

  Charles blinked several times, stumped as to whether Butler really wanted an answer. I couldn’t resist.

  “All in all, Bob,” I said, “I say, fuck Milwaukee.”

  Charles shifted his position in the swivel chair.

  “Well,” replied Butler, unperturbed, “that’s certainly an option.”

  He grimaced and picked at one of his fingers. “But,” he continued, “collectively, Milwaukee and Harriet is real smart. You can hate them yelling separately in bars and want to hit them over the head when they tell you individually what they think. But I put them together and there’s nobody smarter. So if I’m lookin’ up with a confused look on my face, it’s because I’m thinking about Milwaukee and Harriet. It’s your call. Help.”

  I clamped my hand over my mouth.

  Charles surreptitiously passed me a paper with something written on it. It said: Is this a television dialect?

  I looked blankly ahead of me.

  We proceeded to rehearse. Bob interspersed comments such as: “Well, that scene has zero wiggle in it,” or “Let’s do it again till we can taste the green.” But the best piece of his dialect, which was to become familiar, came when we finished a particularly dramatic scene. Again Bob’s comment was “I’ll sign anything!”

  Charles looked at the director with wary calm, as though he were a restless native. I looked at Butler, remembering that his wife owned a bookstore and hence he knew all about the search for spiritual awareness in the marketplace. Somewhere in between lay the real Bob Butler.

  Charles began to acquaint himself with Century City, ABC, the freeways, and room service at his hotel. We were to begin shooting in London in a week, but he had a few weeks later on in Los Angeles.

  I took the phone call from John Heard the next morning.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I remember the day I left the Gonzaga [a Catholic school in Washington, D.C.] dorm. I was supposed to be in the play that week. I overslept—the alarm didn’t go off. The fathers said whoever did that would be expelled. So, shit, when I finally woke up and knew I was out anyway, I got in this car and went over to W-L for the football game. See, I’m from your neck of the woods.”

  He was right. I had gone to Washington Lee High School in Arlington, Virginia, and except for the age difference would probably have been cheerleading that night.

  “So,” I said, “I guess this is right karma that we meet again.”

  “And I don’t know what time we got back. It was a dark-blue car.”

  “I see.”

  “So,” he continued, “I’m expelled.”

  “Yeah? From what?”

  “I can’t say the dialogue. I mean, I never could see those flower children walking up to people in airports.”

  “Listen, John,” I said, “I know how arch that dialogue can be. That’s why nobody’s done a movie like this before. As long as the sense of it remains the same, you can say it like you want to.”

  “I can rewrite stuff?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said. “You’ve got to make the part your own.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Oh,” he said. “I thought you’d want me to say it like it’s written.”

  “No. It doesn’t have to be.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Look,” I said finally. “Colin and I are coming to New York on our way to London to begin shooting with Charles Dance. Let’s go over the script word-for-word and rewrite it like you want to say it. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Another long pause. “I guess,” he said, “that I’ve said yes, haven’t I?”

  “Yes, John. I guess you have.”

  We hung up.

  I called Stan and told him John was going to be in the picture.

  “Sure,” said Stan. “I’ll believe it when he lands in Peru.”

  When I called my agent Mort, to tell him John was meeting with us in New York, he said, “First you’ll get a phone call saying he can’t get a cab, then a follow-up to say he can’t find the building, then another to ask where’s the elevator. Then the last two will be that he’s in the restaurant across the street and finally that he’s worked his way to the bar and can’t do the part. But stay with it. The guy is good.”

  I was reminded that Mort, bless him, has reason to know about my impatience. But not this time, not this time. Impatient I may be, but also determined and persistent….

  It was 10:40 A.M. in New York City.

  Colin and I had finished our coffee and were waiting for John. He was twenty minutes late.

  “Well, he was forty-five minutes late before,” I said upliftingly.

  The phone rang. It was John.

  “Listen,” he said, “I can’t get a cab.”

  I decided to cut through everything.

  “Where are you—in the bar across the street?”

  As soon as I said it I felt I had been cruel.

  There was a silence on the other end.

  “John,” I continued, “my building is easy to find, you found it before, and the elevator works.”

  “Okay. I’ll be right over.”

  I met John at the door and put my arms around him.

  “I know how nervous you are and how hard this is for you,” I said. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”

  John sighed deeply and tilted his head.

  “Thank you for making it easier.”

  He walked in.

  “I’ve been skiing all weekend. I’m tired. Excuse the four-day growth of beard.”

  He ambled into the living room wearing another oversized shirt.

  “See?” he remarked immediately, patting his stomach. “I’m covering up my bulk again.”

  “I like your bulk.”

  I did. I meant it. John gently placed the script on the coffee table. I could see he had been making notes all over it. He sat down nonchalantly.

  “Yeah. That was some weekend,” he said exasperatingly. “I’m really tired from defying gravity. I like that downhill racing. Beautiful scenery, though. Tho
se trees—real giants … silent snow. God’s country.”

  Colin sipped some cold coffee.

  John continued. “So I didn’t get much of the script read.”

  Colin turned red. Then I realized what was going on. John hadn’t been skiing at all. Why, he wouldn’t know a ski trail from a back alley. He must have seen something in my eye, for he quickly changed the subject.

  “You got somethin’ to eat?” he asked.

  I produced some prepared sandwiches. John picked one up, allowing the lettuce to dangle from the bread as he brought up where Ronald Reagan’s politics fit into karma. As he talked he nibbled casually on the sandwich, then another, until, as though Houdini were in the room, all the sandwiches were gone.

  “So you say Ronald Reagan is in the light?” he said argumentatively.

  I had one for him.

  “Certainly,” I answered. “Look at how positive he is with his personal attitudes. I think that’s why Americans love him.”

  John lit a cigarette, suddenly very controlled. I saw the first hint of lightning violence in him. But his voice was quiet. “How can you say that when he treats the poor with such disdain?”

  John was serious. What he was really trying to ascertain was how genuine I was about my metaphysical-spiritual beliefs. I had told him previously that I didn’t believe in evil, that there was no such thing as Hell, and that everyone involved with unpleasant events makes a soul choice to be so involved for the purpose of learning and growing. So the first scene of my third degree was going to be about the participation of the poor in their own karmic dilemma.

  I stood up by the mantelpiece. John had a built-in bullshit detector. I had long since learned that in discussing these New Age systems of thought, people who were newly exposed to it responded as much to the quality of emotional conviction as they did to the information. John was looking for my Achilles heel, the chink in my belief structure. He had that pure streak in him when it came to performing material about the destiny of mankind. I chose my words carefully because he was asking for a crash course in karmic philosophy and if he didn’t understand, it would be my fault.

  “Look, John,” I began, “I believe that we have all lived thousands and thousands of lifetimes. We chose each one and we’ll choose them in the future. We can choose poverty and the lessons that poverty affords us, or we can choose wealth for the same reasons. Maybe we choose poverty because in a former lifetime we abused wealth and power. Maybe we choose power because we need to learn to wield it humanely. Every person has a soul reason for choosing what he chooses. So, Reagan has chosen power and leadership this time around. Some aspects of it he’s handling well. Others he’s quite insensitive and blind about. But each person who is experiencing the poverty that Reagan is insensitive to, is also participating in their own destiny. And somewhere way underneath on a soul level they know that.”

  John watched and listened with acute awareness and sincerity. He was sifting what I said.

  “Listen,” he said. “What happens to your political activism when you come to the beliefs you have? I mean, if you don’t believe anyone is wrong, who are you against?”

  “I’m not against anybody anymore,” I said. “I’m for stuff now. I’m for helping the poor to help themselves. I’m for a better balance of economics. I’m for South African integration. I’m for believing this world is going to make it instead of against the turmoil that seems to be causing the disintegration of values. See, I don’t believe we’re headed for disaster. I believe we’re headed for transition.”

  John crossed one leg over the other as he hugged his waist.

  “Are you tellin’ me I should just turn the other cheek if someone hits me?”

  “Well, you can use your free will to choose what you wish. Just remember you participated in being hit in the first place.”

  “I want to get slugged?”

  “I don’t know if you want to, per se, but you choose to have the experience. On some level you have agreed to participate. There are no accidents.”

  “So should I ignore someone else’s misfortune?”

  I sat down. I realized he was seeing a glimmer of what I was saying.

  “No,” I said, “I wouldn’t. But that depends too. I mean, if a friend of mine insists on being a coke-head, I’d try to help him to the best of my ability, but, if he continued, I’d finally have to honor his decision to experience self-destruction.”

  “You mean we aren’t our brother’s keeper?”

  “Yes, we are. But we have to also recognize that sometimes they don’t want to be helped.”

  John flashed a smile and then became deadly serious.

  “Your brother is calling one of my girlfriends.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I guess there’s some kind of karmic explanation for that too.”

  He pursed his lips in displeasure.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Well. So should I leave someone in trouble because they’re draggin’ me down? Where’s the love in that?”

  I quickly wrote a scenario in my mind to fit the question. Was Melissa in trouble? Was it an actor friend? Did any of that have to do with his reluctance to film on location? I leaned over and touched his knee. He flinched ever so slightly.

  “I think,” I said, “if you’re a really good friend, you help a person see the best in themselves. If they don’t want to, don’t sacrifice the best in yourself. You hurt both that way.”

  John sighed. “The nuns got me early. I like to suffer.”

  “Well, let’s suffer the script, okay? Colin and I have to go to London tomorrow.”

  “You know,” said John, “a cab driver would never think I’m brilliant. He’d think you’re brilliant.”

  “Why do you say that?” I asked.

  “Because that’s what fame and fortune do.”

  “Do you want to be famous and rich?”

  “No. It doesn’t recognize talent.”

  “Well, I always hear how brilliant you are,” I said.

  “I know, but it’s from people in the business.”

  “Yes. I think you’re right.”

  “The rest of the people think I’m John Hurt or William Hurt. And maybe they’re right.”

  During this non-sequitur mini-philosophy session Colin remained intriguingly impassive. It was as though he was clocking the subtle rhythms and the not-so-subtle game-playing in order to incorporate them in a future script. He registered every detail, every nuance, while at the same time evaluating his own personal response.

  There were no more sandwiches and the coffee was all gone. John asked what books he should read to educate himself. I told him. Then we read the script. He danced around the part, shadow-boxing in and out of the metaphysical dialogue. He said a friend of his had told him that spiritual language was difficult to write, but Colin and I had done a good job. He said he had been fired from a Royal Court production for “fooling around and being inattentive.” When one of his fellow actresses asked if all American actors acted that way, he said, “Fuck … I guess so.” He said that Mike Nichols had told him he was so insecure about a part he was asked to play that Mike felt uncertain about giving it to him. I was amused by John’s attempts to blacken his own character, and totally sympathetic with the self-doubts that underlay his efforts. No actor in the world worthy of the name is free of such fears.

  As the day drew to a close, John, having made his dragonfly comments on his life and work, sometimes to me, sometimes to the air, finally looked straight at Colin. Colin smiled that quiet smile and said nothing.

  John shrugged and said, “Well?”

  Colin smiled again and said simply, “You roly-poly insecure fellas get all the women.”

  John did his secret chuckle.

  “Yeah,” he said finally. “But look, after all the protestation didn’t change one word of dialogue.”

  John got up, hefted the script to his shoulder, and left.

  Colin went to the window. “He’ll be wonderful,” he said, lookin
g at the headlights of the traffic below. “He’s brilliant, he’s infuriating, and he’ll be so unpredictable in the part that no one will get blown by our spiritual ‘know-it-all’ dialogue.”

  “And?” I asked, knowing he wanted to say more.

  “And,” he went on, “we’ll all be a lot older and hopefully a lot wiser about ourselves because of the way he’s going to push our buttons.” Colin turned to me. “He’s going to create an Irish Catholic ‘David’ who spouts spiritual dialogue for the viewers in a way they can understand. It’s no accident that we will all be working together.”

  So there it was—the karma providing the tension for our play within a play. But of course it would be weeks before we got to play with John.

  Colin had the same thought. “It’s going to be a long while before we can work with him,” he said. He sounded doubtful.

  “But we will,” I told him. “We most surely will.”

  Chapter 9

  I arrived in London to an English press that was speculating on whether Charles Dance knew whom he was playing. There were pictures of Charles and me and quotes from my book regarding my “secret affair in the aura of the House of Commons.” I was to meet my British M.P. over again, but this time not only in the hidden confines of the bathroom and the bedroom.

  I returned to the hotel suite with the winding staircase, defective telephone, and bar set up for twenty. I had the engineers alter the current of my sound machine so that I could sleep. That sound machine was and is the key to my productivity whenever I’m away from Malibu. It’s based on the white-sound principle. A turn of the knob produces “rain,” “surf,” and “waterfalls” from a tape recording that rotates constantly. I lie in bed and picture a genuine ocean outside my hotel window, regardless of the truth. It’s called creating my own reality. It has gotten me through Egyptian horn-honking, Manhattan sirens, cable cars in San Francisco, and any number of early-morning celebrations after all-night drinks in the hallways outside my door. It is as precious to me as my passport. Without it I’m afraid I won’t sleep even if there is actually quiet.

  So, with my machine in fine working order, I thought I would have no problem sleeping. That was not the case.