Dancing In The Light

by Shirley Maclaine

“I collapsed from those damn antibiotics,” I explained dreamily. He put his arm around me.

  “Well, will you be able to go on?”

  “Are you kidding?” I said, almost as though it weren’t me talking. “I’ve never missed a performance in my life and I’m not about to start now.”

  “Well, good,” said Mike. He looked at me closely.

  “I may not be doing it alone, though.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked me expectantly.

  “Well,” I said, “I’ve asked Ramtha and Tom McPherson to come in and help me. They are above me right now. I can feel them. As soon as they hovered close to me, I could move again, otherwise I’d still be in a heap behind that curtain over there.”

  Michael knew all about Ramtha and McPherson.

  “Well, okay,” said Mike, like a football coach before a game. “So we’ll have a little spiritual energizing here, eh? Can Ramtha dance?” he asked with delight.

  “I don’t know, but I know McPherson can be funny. I think Ramtha will be holding me up and McPherson gets to perform.”

  Michael kissed me on the cheek as the overture began. I warmed up with plies and stretching. My energy was fine. With the overture over, I took my place behind the revolving piano and waited for it to turn. My cue came, the piano revealed me, and the spotlight bathed me in number III surprise pink. I stopped a moment. The lights felt different. The sound was off. I couldn’t measure the distance from where I was to the front of the stage. I felt like a foreigner in strange territory. I looked above myself as though to reconfirm that my friends were there. I could feel them say, “It’s all right. Relax. Let us do this. Know that we are here.”

  I had no other choice.

  I began to sing. To me my voice sounded as though it belonged to someone else. The stage under me felt farther away than usual. My familiar reality on the stage I knew so well was being infused with the reality of two other soul energies I knew just as well. It was a remarkably new but “homey” experience.

  Apparently we did a good show. I don’t remember any of it. In fact, according to others, the show was better than usual, I am unhappy to say. I had always liked to do things myself, regardless of the effort it took. I was learning that to sometimes call on help from my spiritual friends was no reflection on my capabilities. In fact, the sooner I gave up my “I am strong in the face of adversity” streak, the better.

  Michael said I took my last bow and then as soon as the curtain came down I collapsed again. The energy of Ramtha and McPherson left me. Michael ran to me and picked me up in his six-feet-four-inch matching arms.

  “I see they had another job to go to right away,” he said, laughing, knowing that I was all right.

  “Were we good together?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said, “but I’m glad they won’t let you become dependent.”

  * * *

  Dominick had watched what happened from the wings. He was a religious man (Catholic) and had been reading my book. Every now and then he would ask me a question about reincarnation or spiritual guidance. He said the Church wasn’t answering enough of his questions. So we’d talk after the show. Michael lifted me back into the car so Dominick could drive me home. I was stretched out on the back seat.

  “How did you perform like that?” he asked hesitantly, almost as though he didn’t want to hear the answer. “I don’t understand.”

  “I had some help,” I answered.

  “Help? From who?” He swallowed hard.

  I sat up and leaned over the back of the front seat. I told him all about Ramtha and McPherson. He didn’t flinch. He seemed to almost understand.

  “So you’re telling me that these Ramtha and McPherson fellas are around all the time if you need them?” There was no sarcasm in his voice.

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s right.”

  “And they used to have bodies and be alive on the earth.” He made a statement instead of asking.

  “Yes.”

  “And they might sometime decide to reincarnate again and have bodies like us.”

  “Yes.”

  He hesitated as we pulled up in front of my building. Then he said, “You know why I believe what you’re saying?”

  “Why.”

  “Because about one month after my brother died, he came one night to visit me. I know he was standing next to my bed explaining that he was all right and I should tell my father not to worry. I asked him why he didn’t tell Dad himself. He said, ‘Because Dad wouldn’t understand. You do.’ ”

  Dominick shook his head with the memory. “And the funny thing is, just that day I was looking at the flowers on our patio and the thought occurred to me, if flowers can come back every time they die, why can’t people? Nature does it all the time. So when my brother came to me that night, I guess I was ready to understand it. Maybe he could help me sometimes, like your friends helped you tonight. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?”

  Dominick’s simple eloquence was so much more to the point than all the metaphysical books I had read.

  “Where can I read more about this, Shirley?” he asked.

  “You don’t need to, Dominick. It’s all inside of you. Just listen to your feelings and trust them. You are unlimited. You just don’t realize it.”

  He shook his head again and said, “Wow. You know, I don’t think my driving you was an accident. I think I needed to just be around and see how you put this stuff into action.”

  Dominick helped me upstairs, suggesting that I use vitamin C rather than antibiotics to get rid of my cold. “And don’t try to do so much yourself,” he chided me. “Let some other people help you, like you did tonight.”

  I was learning that lesson in more ways than I could keep up with.

  I would like to relate two more incidents that occurred with McPherson and Ramtha. First, McPherson.

  Before doing Terms of Endearment, I hadn’t acted in nearly three years. There might have been good scripts around, but I wasn’t getting any.

  Then Steven Spielberg wrote a screenplay called Poltergeist and asked me to play the mother. My dream had been to work with Spielberg because of his metaphysical proclivities. But to me Poltergeist was too violent. It exploited the negative side of the Force and I didn’t want to contribute to negative violence in the marketplace. So, after many meetings and discussions, I told Steven I couldn’t do it, regardless of what a stupid career move it seemed to be. He understood and said he had a film planned that focused on the positive side of the Force about the love of a small boy and an extraterrestrial. But there was no good part in it for me. When he outlined the story to me, I said I thought E.T. would be more successful because it gave people hope and was charming besides. He thanked me and promised we’d work together someday when we could emphasize the positive aspects of spiritual understanding.

  Many of my associates and friends thought I was nuts to turn down Poltergeist, particularly in view of how my career was going at that time. It was hard for me to explain that it went against the grain of my spiritual beliefs, because Out on a Limb hadn’t been published yet.

  In any case, I had another session with McPherson to discuss whether there was any hope for me to get another good part in the near future.

  “First of all,” he said, “you made some Brownie points with us up here in turning down Poltergeist. It’s fine for others to do a film like that, but not for you.”

  “Great,” I said to Tom, “but what about making movies? I mean, when will I get a good part?”

  He chuckled and said, “Well, would two weeks be soon enough?”

  I, of course, didn’t know what he was talking about. There was nothing that I knew of, not even on the horizon.

  “You will receive,” he said, “a very fine script about a mother-and-daughter relationship and the opening shot of the film will be that of a child’s clown.”

  “A mother and daughter?” I asked.

  “Quite right,” he said confidently. “It will be very pop
ular and you will win one of those golden statues for your portrayal.”

  I took what he said with less than a grain of salt. Two weeks later I received a call from a fireball of an agent named Sue Mengers. She said she had read a script about a mother and daughter written by James L. Brooks, a man from television. She said it was considered a risky art film by most of the studios in town, but she thought it was brilliant and just right for me. Would I read it?

  Immediately I thought of Tom McPherson’s prediction, read it the next day, met Jim a week later, and the rest is history.

  There is an additional twist to this story. When, a few weeks later, I discussed Terms of Endearment with Ramtha, he said, “You won’t be doing this film for another year and a half. The time is not ripe yet. The financing will not be there and you are not yet ready. But it is true that when you do do it, you and the film will be greatly rewarded. Have patience. Do not be afraid.”

  The timing worked out exactly as Ramtha had said. Studio after studio walked away from the project believing that it was not at all commercial and insisting that they would not allocate the amount of money Jim needed to shoot it on location in Texas.

  I waited. I turned down everything else that came up in the ensuing time period so that I would be available, trusting that what McPherson and Ramtha had said would come to pass. Finally Paramount agreed to make it one and a half years later.

  And when, at last, we went into production, Ramtha and McPherson were there with me, encouraging me to “become” Aurora Greenway.

  Ramtha also spent a good deal of time with me discussing Out on a Limb. He was unalterably opposed to my projections of negativism in the original manuscript, even when they seemed logical in the light of what was happening on the world scene. I am enough of a pragmatist to have had some fairly hot arguments with him on this issue. Choosing one’s own path in positivity is one thing. Ignoring all common-sense predictions of what one sees around one is another. Ramtha’s view, though, was that prophesies are, all too often, self-fulfilling. To project the worst actually contributes to its happening.

  I, too, eventually came to this view. This has been one of the most profound lessons for me since beginning my metaphysical searching. Fear and negativity are not part of the future. The erasure of fear and negativity are the future. And whatever it takes to eliminate those concepts of consciousness, I will address myself to, not only in relation to global conflict but in relation to my everyday life. I had to eliminate a great deal of fear in myself before I could allow Out on a Limb to be published. And as my life continues to progress I find that the more I eliminate fear, the happier I am. Fear has become a non-reality to me. It is a perception, not a fact. Fear is only what I perceive it to be. Yes, it is still there sometimes, but in “reality” I know it is only there because I allow it.

  Chapter 7

  As time passed, my mother’s condition improved. She was determined to be well enough to attend my closing night.

  True to her prediction, she and Dad arrived at the theater during my next-to-last matinee performance. Sachi came in from California again. Dominick had picked them up at the airport.

  I was performing on stage when I looked to stage left and saw three of the most important people in my life seated on folding chairs watching me from the wings. It was a picture I’ll always remember. Dad and Mother sitting erect, leaning on their canes in front of them for support, and Sachi with her arms around them from behind.

  Their three faces beamed; I could almost hear their thoughts. The grandparents reflecting on what might have been had they not raised a family in traditional fashion and the granddaughter, who sat with stars dancing in her eyes, projecting that being a performer was what she wanted more than anything else.

  There was a cast party in between shows, commemorating the end of our run. The tables were decorated with bowls of cherries and there was yet another carrot cake with “Love and Light” spelled out in sugary letters. Many of the stage crew and ushers brought copies of my book to sign and Danny in the box office had me sign the statement of the house record we had broken.

  Many of the fans who had waited literally every night at the stage door came again for the last time. They brought me gifts and letters which poured out their feelings of appreciation for my advice on thinking positively.

  Danny said ninety percent of the conversations he heard as people left the theater had to do with reminding each other to think positive.

  Mom and Dad and Sachi went out front to see the last performance. Mom and Dad were outfitted with the auxiliary hearing devices provided by the theater.

  Bella and Martin Abzug were there too.

  Before the overture, I did my performing affirmations for the last time. It was true that I was tired from a six-week run, but facing the fact that I would probably never do the show in New York again, I felt an overwhelming sadness that it was over.

  In my red sequined pantsuit I walked one last time to my position behind the piano. As the show began, I looked above me. The light rack had become so comfortingly familiar. The scrim hung on a lead pipe waiting for its cue. The face of each musician (not one of them had missed a performance) smiled back at me. The sweep of the music (the orchestra said it was the most intricate they had ever had to play in a Broadway house) lifted to the rafters. I wondered as I gazed around me how much energy from other performers still lingered hauntingly in those rafters. The magic was probably there for always. In a few hours our props would be physically dismantled and crated away in a truck to make way for the next performer, but the magic of our energy would remain. I understood the show business adage of “lucky” and “unlucky” houses. And what was luck? It was nothing more than being aligned with positive energy. Every theater I had played resonated with those energies. I could almost tangibly feel the vibrations of past performers. The communal experience of performance and appreciation, of jokes and laughter, of tears and identification, of depth-plumbing drama and high-soaring comedy, of thundering ovations and stone-silent attention … all of it still hung quivering with memories in the unseen ethers of every theater. No wonder theaters were houses of magic, engendering star-struck awe. Theaters were where life was re-created to fulfill the fantasies of dreamers. And without dreams, how could life proceed?

  My cue came. The spotlight hit me and I was on for the last time.

  I looked down to the fourth row center. Mom and Dad and Sachi expectantly smiled up at me. I smiled back. No one knew who I was smiling at.

  I felt content and complete.

  I did the show for them.

  When it was over, I took the microphone and went to them in the audience. I asked the audience to please respect their privacy and I introduced them. Then I sang songs to each of them. Tears gently slid down their cheeks as they held hands, This was what live performing was all about. It came from the heart and was completely spontaneous, from the spectator’s as well as the performer’s point of view.

  I made my way back to the stage, thanked everyone for six of the most fulfilling weeks of my life, and asked for the curtain to descend.

  Backstage, the dancers and I turned and applauded each other. The musicians spilled from the bandstand and embraced us. Stagehands wiped dirty palms on their jeans and slapped us on the back as they began to dismantle. The wardrobe girls said the theater would never be the same as they hung our wet costumes. The lighting-booth guys winked the lights backstage on and off to remind us they were still there and would be again. Pictures and autographs were exchanged and I gave out closing-night presents—small diamond pins in the form of initials of everyone’s name.

  When I returned to my dressing room, my family was waiting.

  Daddy looked up at me. His eyes filled with tears. “Well, Monkey,” he said, “I wish I could find the words to describe how beautiful you were on that stage.”

  “Oh, darling,” said Mother, “to realize that something so lovely came from a person who was part of us was thrilling.”

&
nbsp; I had waited a long time for them to say that. The two people who had been responsible for my formative training, my childhood courage, and the struggle for belief in myself now sat proudly in front of me and said that their dreams for me had been realized.

  A few moments later Bella and Martin walked in. I introduced them to Mom and Dad.

  “Well, Mr. Beaty, how did you enjoy your daughter?” asked Bella.

  Daddy’s mischievous twinkle returned to his eyes. “Well,” he said, “first of all, I could hear everything she said. Those earphones out there are humdingers.”

  “Earphones?” asked Bella, not realizing she was walking into one of his traps.

  “Certainly,” said Daddy, “none of my hearing aids ever work. But this one did. You know why?”

  “No, why?” asked Bella.

  “Because it is a Republican hearing aid.”

  “A Republican hearing aid?” she said, ready for battle.

  “Sure,” said Daddy. “If that old cowboy in the White House has one of these, no wonder he always has the right answer.”

  “The right answer?” Bella’s voice was slowly rising.

  “Why sure,” said Daddy, knowing for certain that he had her going.

  I winked at Mother. She shrugged her shoulders in mock embarrassment. “Now Ira,” she said, “you might think that’s funny, but Bella doesn’t—”

  “Sure she does.” Dad wouldn’t quit.

  Bella looked confused, which is not something I’ve seen often. I threw up my hands and went into my inner dressing room to change my clothes. There was no doubt about it. Mom and Dad were the leads in any room they played. The rest of us might just as well accept the fact that we were bit players.

  We left the theater about three hours after the final curtain. I walked out on my dismantled stage and blessed the empty seats in the house. I knew that our energy would mingle and linger with the energies of everyone who had preceded me, and everyone who would follow. Yet for me, as for most performers, there was an inevitable letdown.

  My family watched as, melancholy, I turned away from the work light and into the shadows of the wings for the last time. They sensed that I lived another life when I was out there, a life dreams are made of. Dreams based on hard work and the struggle to overcome the fear of not being accepted. I hadn’t realized how deeply embedded the fear had been in me until later that evening and the following day. Or I should say, I had not understood where and how the fear had developed until I was witness to those same fears still alive in my mother.