Friends: A Love Story

by Angela Bassett

  “You think?”

  I was glad to have him calm, strong and steady. I’m not always the best at handling confrontations. I had been ready to run away. But he said it with such confidence I believed everything was going to work out fine. I went to my mother’s house alone. Her car wasn’t in the driveway but I knocked on the door. She didn’t answer right away but eventually she came to the door.

  “Mama…” I hugged her and showed her my ring. We sat there and talked about how, on what should have been the happiest day of my life, I had been bested, usurped…by the radio! I was a casualty of the ratings war. I learned to never underestimate the power of black radio. I mean, that is how we got our news for a long period of time, wasn’t it? Don’t sell them short!

  That night we all went to dinner. Courtney, being the charmer, won my mother over. They’ve been best friends since. He talks to her every other day—more often than I do.

  Chapter 16

  Tying the Knot

  Now I had a wedding to plan. Oh, that was fun! As a little girl, I’d daydreamed about getting married. I had never planned it out in my mind exactly like some women do—you know, some women know exactly what dress they’re going to wear, what flowers they want, what wedding invitation. I was thinking about things like that for the first time, which made the experience especially enjoyable. Every wedding invitation I received in the mail I replied to saying I would attend. I even went to weddings I wasn’t invited to. I was, indeed, a wedding crasher! At each wedding I’d glean ideas that helped me know what our ceremony would be like.

  One time Courtney and I went to some little resort he’d found up in the Napa Valley. When we arrived, there was a small wedding going on, maybe twenty or thirty people. There were the hills, the mountains, the bride, the groom; it was really picturesque.

  “Ooh, look, Courtney! Let’s peek.”

  We stood in the hotel on a balcony above them, peering into their ceremony. I loved that it was small, beautiful and intimate. I loved that it was outdoors.

  We originally scheduled our wedding for June 1997, but later pushed it back to October to accommodate my work schedule. My sister D’nette and Courtney’s sister both lived out of town, so they couldn’t help me in the same way they would have if they lived in L.A. That was okay. I read all kinds of wedding books, and the idea of planning my own wedding didn’t stress me out. I enjoyed coming up with ideas; it was as if I was being my own director/producer. Why don’t we release some butterflies? “Ooh, that sounds like a cute idea.”

  I wanted our ceremony and the process to clearly express who we were and our belief systems—our love of God, our families and friends, our love of our community and culture. I wanted the people who loved us to participate. I read in one book that a marriage ceremony might include writing a letter to each other’s mothers. We did that. I wrote Mrs. Vance a short note expressing my gratitude for how well she had raised her son and telling her how much I appreciated the wonderful man he’d become. I promised to take care of him from this point on. “Ain’t much finishing of him left to do,” I wrote. But I promised to do my best to help him become an even better man.

  Every wedding I went to I’d take the best and make note of the worst. I went to another ceremony and their cake was divine. I didn’t want a whole lot of desserts; I wanted ours to be one good cake, not dry or tasteless. I chose one that was lemon, raspberry and coconut. I heard a song sung that addressed receiving praise and glory but the glory really belonging to God. I thought that was appropriate for us because of the profession we’re in. God empowers us to do whatever it is that we do. That’s the reason we’re getting the glory. I wanted that song for us. At one ceremony the pastor was wearing a microphone but the bride and groom weren’t. You could hear the pastor’s words but you couldn’t hear the couple’s wedding vows. I made a note to be mindful of that. At another wedding I realized how much a difference it makes when the soloist could really sing. At still another they played Pachelbel, the classical music often played shortly before the bride enters the sanctuary. I realized that it didn’t touch my heart. I’m not European. I don’t want European music, I thought. I wanted jazz music instead—jazz standards. Jazz touches me—Ella Fitzgerald and other music from our African-American idiom. For flowers I chose simple lily of the valley, with its little white bells.

  Given our celebrity, I wanted the wedding to take place somewhere comfortable and safe. We live behind gates, so that would give us added security. We walked the neighborhood looking at homes where we might like the ceremony to take place if their owners were willing to rent them for a day. I was at home napping and the doorbell rang. Lou Rawls lives in my neighborhood. He walked over, offered his home and asked if he could sing at our wedding. Of course I said yes! That was a tremendous blessing.

  I crafted the vows for the preacher to recite, but I didn’t want us to have our own vows. “Oh, you are my lover and my friend.” “Lovers, best friends, soul mates, blah, blah, blah…” I didn’t want that. It seemed corny. A close friend, Donna Denize, is a writer whose work I enjoy and admire. She wanted to write and read us a poem.

  One of Courtney’s friends, stylist Phillip Bloch, helped me identify a gown. I already had a relationship with Escada, and they had offered to make it. I wanted something simple. They drew up a sketch. I liked it. They made my gown. It wasn’t a big production.

  Almost everything proceeded smoothly; however, the plan I came up with for the first dance almost caused our first argument. We took classes because I wanted our dance to be choreographed. You could bring the actual music you wanted to dance to and this guy would come up with steps. I wanted to dance to “At Last” by Lou Rawls and Diane Reeves. When I danced with the instructor, who was a choreographer as well as a professional dancer, he put one hand in the small of my back and gently held my other hand. He led me: go this way, go that way, step back, step up. I was just following; I felt very secure. Well, dancing with Courtney was a little bit different. Since he was the gentleman, he was supposed to lead, but he didn’t have it locked down. So I started leading.

  “Baby! Let me lead,” he told me.

  “Then lead. Come on! You gotta hold on tight.”

  “I am.”

  “You aren’t doing it right. Do it like this.”

  “I can’t because you keep trying to lead.”

  “Well, you’re not doing it right, so someone’s got to lead.”

  “Babe!”

  “Don’t call me baby when you’re upset with me.”

  One day after practice we got in a little fight on the drive home. Next thing I knew, he had pulled the car over to the side of the road, got out, came around my side of the car, opened the door and knelt down as traffic whizzed by us.

  “Baby, what is the problem?” Those big ol’ eyes were looking up at me.

  “I don’t know…”

  “He just don’t know how to teach us, does he?”

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  “Well, forget that. I think we can dance just fine on our own.”

  “Yeah, we’re actors.”

  “You’re an actor, I’m an actor…”

  “And you know how to dance and I know how to dance.”

  “We’ll just act it out on our own.”

  COURTNEY: In the days following our engagement, as we began planning our wedding and life together, Angela and I shared our hopes and dreams about love, marriage and family. One of the things that I set on the table of our marriage from the outset was that divorce was not an option. It was a given that issues and problems would arise in our marriage, as they do in every marriage. There is no such thing as a perfect marriage. I took seriously the symbol of the wedding ring. We would soon be stepping into “the ring” and whatever issues might come up between us, we would take God and the spirit of forgiveness into that ring and work out our differences. I wanted us to step inside the circle and close the circle—we would not step out. Angela agreed. We promised each other we were going to
marry one time and one time only. Since we weren’t going to get divorced, there was no need for any prenuptial agreement.

  During this time I met a physical trainer who trained Olympic athletes, Dr. Frank Little, while shooting Twelve Angry Men. From the outset I believed that Doc, as I came to call him, was heaven sent to guide me during this period. I would be preparing for a role in Space Cowboys, which had some difficult physical requirements. Before long I learned he was also a Christian marriage counselor. I knew Angela and I would be entering that very emotional, volatile first two years of marriage when two individuals are attempting to become one. How that oneness happens is a mystery. And as I came to see, men need to be counseled along that journey. I soon understood that Doc’s real purpose in my life at this time was to help me learn the Bible and become the husband God and Angela needed me to be. Angela already had in mind what kind of man she would respond to. She had told me about her grandfather, the Reverend Slater Stokes, and her uncle Grover. She took me to meet her sisters’ husbands. They were all godly men with a “servant spirit.” Angela’s sister Lynn and brother-in-law, Al, sat us down when I went to visit for the first time. Lynn advised us to keep the focus of our marriage on our relationship as husband and wife. This would be especially important when the children come, she said. “My children would not be here if it wasn’t for my husband.” I hadn’t thought about it that way before. The advice they shared with us had a very powerful impact.

  My parents had instilled a lot of wonderful values in me, but they hadn’t provided the biblical role model of unconditional love and cooperation in a way for me to know that this example that she was describing and showing me is what a true husband does and is. Over the next two or three years Doc and I trained every Monday through Friday. As we worked, he introduced me to biblical principles and taught me how I needed to walk as a Christian man. One of the most important lessons he taught me was “family order.” He taught me that God should come first in both of our lives. For the husband, the wife should be his first thought after God. That was an eye-opening revelation for me. It changed my entire life because it opened the door to accessing the remaining part of that man I had seen in my mind and was trying to be in real life! The key idea that I hadn’t learned yet was the spiritual concept of service.

  Not surprisingly, it didn’t take long before I faced my first challenge in this area. I tagged along with Angela a lot as she organized and structured the wedding. She had a very clear and specific idea in mind and wanted me to go with her as she pulled the event together. At first I found tasting all those beautiful but bland and dry wedding cakes, and tagging along and sitting in on all those meetings with florists and wedding planners, boring and frustrating.

  “What do you want me to do, Angela?”

  “Courtney, I just need you here to help me. Tell me if you like things. I just want you to be here.”

  I didn’t know what that meant; I wanted a specific assignment: go to the store, drop off these invitations, call the musicians—something! Doc helped me understand that my actual assignment was to be at her side as she had asked me. I had no idea that being the “husband” wasn’t always about doing things; sometimes it just required being there and allowing her to be the “wife.” So I followed along, watched, listened, offered my input and learned what she wanted. That turned out to be important. Two weeks before our ceremony, Angela had to leave town to shoot some scenes for Stella, and left me in charge.

  “Courtney, please make sure they do what I’ve asked them to do.”

  “Baby, just tell me what to do.”

  ANGELA: We both agreed to get premarital counseling. I thought it would be good to do because I’d heard the statistics that one in two marriages fall apart. I didn’t want that to happen to me. I’d rather just not get married. I didn’t want to entangle only to have to unentangle. What did Shakespeare say? This knot is too much for me to untie… Well, I didn’t want to tie a knot and then have to untie it. So I thought it would be good if we could talk about some of the issues.

  I had caught glimpses of what a good marriage looked like when I visited my auntie Golden and uncle Grover. I also had my two older sisters, whose husbands, to me, were standard bearers. They were men who could take care of business militarywise, but also walk in the door and be very loving. “Honey, what can I do for you?” They were important role models for me. During our engagement I took Courtney on a family tour so he could meet everyone. I wanted him to see what kind of marriage I had in mind. The mutual respect, the mutual taking care of each other, the not taking each other for granted.

  As actors when you prepare for a role you have to do your research. I was preparing for the role of a married woman. We were preparing to be husband and wife. I wanted him to meet my amazing sisters and brothers-in-law. I wanted us to see how they interact, to bear witness to how they treat each other, to gain whatever insight we could. I especially remember watching Lynn and Al. Al gets up at 4:30 in the morning, exercises, then goes to work. He is bone tired when he gets home at five or six o’clock. Late in the afternoon Lynn would be at home cooking for him. As she prepared the family meal, she’d speak with such pride and such gaiety about her husband, his work, his actions, the things he’d say. She’d laugh, “I’m preparing dinner for Mr. Askew,” just giving him respect in a playful kind of way. Dinner would be ready before he came through the door. What stood out for Courtney was that when Al came home, he greeted her and the family first then said, “Sweetheart, what can I do for you?” Even though he had been up since before dawn, out all day and working hard for hours, he walked in with an attitude to serve her. You might have thought he’d go upstairs, take a bath, read the paper, go into a cave to decompress and not come out for hours. But he didn’t. She’d greet him, of course, then tell him to sit down. When he asked what he could do to help, it made her feel good to tell him, “Absolutely nothing. You sit here. You put your feet up. What would you like to drink?” It was her way of saying, “Thank you for being so thoughtful, but I’ve got it covered.” That’s what I wanted for us.

  Aside from these good examples, I didn’t really know what that kind of marriage looked like from firsthand experience. I hadn’t grown up in a home seeing a mother and father work together. As an actor—a person whose life and job it is to daydream and make believe—I felt it was important for me to have realistic expectations of what marriage should be; rather than my fantasies of being married to one of the Jackson 5. I didn’t want my expectations to be grander or higher than the reality of what was going to happen. We wanted to make sure our expectations were in synch with each other. I didn’t want to be disappointed because I was married and Courtney couldn’t read my mind or because he wasn’t exactly like me. I didn’t want us to take each other for granted. I wanted us to appreciate each other and be grateful and say thank-you no matter how long we were married.

  “Thank you for doing this.”

  “Thank you for doing that.”

  “Thank you for picking me up.”

  “Thank you for washing my car.”

  I want to feel appreciated for the things that I do and want to show him that I appreciate him, too. I knew we’d have to mindful. I’d heard psychologists talk about being careful with children with how you use you “no.” How you shouldn’t “no, no, no” them all the time—“don’t, don’t, don’t.” The admonition loses its power. You want to applaud children, reinforce them positively. I wanted to do that with my husband, as well. Thank him, be grateful, give him positive reinforcement and encouragement. I knew we needed help to get there, so we got it.

  Chapter 17

  Getting in the Groove

  While I was planning my wedding, I was offered the lead role of Stella Payne in How Stella Got Her Groove Back, another Terry McMillan bestseller. I had already worked with Terry, the producer and the studio before, so that was good. The studio selected another male director, Kevin Rodney Sullivan, for this women’s movie. (It’s so hard for women d
irectors, especially sisters.) But I fell in love with him, too. He treated me well and has a wonderful sense of humor.

  Shortly after we met, I asked Kevin what he had in mind for the love scenes depicted in the script. I was pretty fine with doing them, but still needed to know what my director was thinking about how they would be performed. There was going to be some degree of “clothedness” and nakedness in the love scenes, and I wanted Courtney to be fine with it. The last thing I wanted was problems with my fiancé, my husband-to-be. I’m modest in that regard, but I really didn’t want him trippin’.

  “What do you see in your mind?” I asked Kevin. I left the conversation comfortable that the loves scenes would be more sensual than sexual. Sensual worked for me. I knew how to do it: a wrist, a look, the back of the neck, that kind of thing.

  Before we started filming the movie, Kevin asked me to participate in a screen test with the three guys who were auditioning for the part of Winston Shakespeare. A tall brother from England was the oldest of the bunch. Physically, he was beautiful. He was a wonderful, very experienced actor with an impeccable Jamaican accent. But he was very slim about the chest—okay, let’s just call it skinny. If you like your man skinny, he was right up your alley. There were also two American men of about the same stature; medium build, but more muscular. One was very, very fair skinned. He looked so young, like a baby—a little too young, to me. And then there was Taye Diggs, this beautiful chocolate drop. Taye was a young actor; his accent wasn’t as perfect as the brother from England. But he was the cutie, heartbreaker, sweetheart type. Stella was supposed to be a woman’s fantasy. Taye had more of the complete package—acting, looks, personality, physique. All of it!

  We also wanted to identify hairstyles that would work for Stella. We needed looks that were sexy and free for her vacation in Jamaica and ones professional enough for the corporate environment where she worked. My personal hairstylist had asked if he could do my hair for the movie. Since I was allowed to request someone, I said, “Why not? You take care of it, that’s what you do,” and didn’t think about it again. Mistake! I should have said, “Let’s get together every weekend and figure it out together.” It turned out he didn’t braid hair. So in the month we would have had to get it together, he asked someone to sew some big, thick braids onto some fishnet stockings configured into a cap. The contraption was so heavy that when I put it on, my head snapped back. It almost gave me whiplash! Even the white woman in the room who had no clue about black women’s hair was saying, “That don’t look good. That don’t look good at all!” Then there was this wig, which was supposed to be the corporate hair. But Kevin thought it looked like a helmet, not sexy enough. I was a little disappointed in myself because I hadn’t stayed on it like I should have.