You Gotta Get Bigger Dreams: My Life in Stories and Pictures

by Alan Cumming

  There was one Oscar tradition, though, that never buckled, either to terrorist attack or financial fluctuation, and that was the party thrown by the now late and lamented Ed Limato, the Daddy of International Creative Management, at his Beverly Hills schloss. And this was where it all started to get surreal for me. Firstly, I was pushed off balance by a woman in her eagerness to get onto the dance floor, and was further thrown by the realization that the shover was none other than Diana Ross AND that the song she was so desperate to dance to was one of her own! Talk about being in the middle of a chain reaction.

  As I watched Elton John chatting with Shirley MacLaine by the buffet table, I was reminded again of Christmas, and of distant aunts and uncles making small talk while the children (and in this case Aunt Diana) jigged merrily nearby. And just as at family gatherings gossip and intergenerational advice are passed back and forth, so it was at Ed’s party that I found out that the best way to deal with ludicrously uncomfortable high-heeled ladies’ shoes is to throw them in the ice box for a few hours, so when you put them on and hit the red carpet, your bunions will be numbed and your feet will never swell. On returning home there is, of course, the slight risk that reaching into said ice box for a nightcap of Ketel One will result in impalement by a pair of forgotten Manolo Blahniks, but I think it is worth it, don’t you?

  The next day at the Independent Spirit Awards (a kind of anti-Oscars that kind of celebrate kind of non-studio films and feel a bit like naughty children having a garage party and cocking a snook at their parents’ excesses, kind of), I made another discovery, that I had inadvertently joined a secret Hollywood coven and was bound to so many others by a secret that dare not speak its name: hair extensions. I had them put in for the TV pilot, and my sudden mane of sleek shoulder-length hair was the source of a lot of speculation as well as illicit confession from Hollywood’s finest that they too did not rely totally on what God gave them. Kate Beckinsale and Christina Ricci both fingered my proffered roots knowingly, feeling the little nubs of plastic at my scalp and motioning to their own. And get this, the lady who put mine in (it took eleven hours—that’s more than twice the length of the Oscar ceremony, and many more times as mind-numbing) told me she had once done Sandra Bullock’s. I now know the price Sandra pays for that girl-next-door demeanour.

  However, later that night at the annual Miramax party and cabaret—think of your boss forcing you to perform sketches at your Christmas party in front of all your colleagues, then think your boss is Harvey Weinstein and you are Neve Campbell or Uma Thurman and your colleagues are everyone who has been in a Hollywood film in the last ten years—my new extensions held no sway with the security men, worried that the overcapacity throngs who were reveling atop the Skybar’s covered pool were about to gain the attention of the fire marshals in attendance and shut the whole thing down. Can you imagine?

  I was saved, however, by the appearance of Sharon Stone, her then husband, and an elderly couple who I first thought were agents I had met once but who I soon realized, as Sharon grabbed my hand and pulled me into the party, were elderly relations of hers.

  “Hold on to them, Alan,” Sharon shouted over the din. I think she said they were her step-grandparents or her in-laws or something, but all I know is that one of my hands was being gripped by Sharon Stone and the other was clasped to an older lady very precious to Sharon, and I must not let go. We were taken, amid the cacophony of the amplified onstage skits and the screaming drinkers, to a little curtain behind which the sketches were being prepared and where Harvey Weinstein, then the boss of Miramax, was holding a clipboard and looking for all the world like a harried father desperately tying to control the backstage chaos at an end-of-term school concert. I didn’t know what was going on. It was all too noisy and I was worried about losing the grip of Sharon’s in-law or granny, and I can hear Sharon telling Harvey no, she doesn’t feel comfortable taking part in a skit, and before I know it, she is gesturing toward me and then I feel Harvey’s slightly lecherous glare at seeing fresh blood, and I am prized away from Granny, forced into a raincoat, given a trolley bag, a microphone, and a piece of paper and thrown onto the makeshift stage to portray Maggie Smith from Gosford Park in a sketch with Hugh Jackman as Ian McKellen in Lord of the Rings. Then it all starts to get very blurry. I had never met Hugh at that point in time, or indeed any of the other actors onstage with me. I had never read the lines I was reading before. I had no idea what was going on. I had been in the party perhaps ninety seconds. It doesn’t get much more surreal than this.

  Actually, I lied, it does. The next night I watched the televised Oscar ceremony at the Vanity Fair dinner. Joan Collins told me Barbra Streisand is terrified of cosmetic surgery and had had absolutely nothing done; Oprah and I chatted about the cultural implications of the Best Actor and Actress prizes going to African Americans; J-Lo told me how nervous she had been; Diana Ross pushed me aside on her way to the dance floor again; Maggie Smith asked me if I remembered having met her! (I didn’t mention I had impersonated her the night before.) I ate cookies with Josh Hartnett’s face on them, and I spent the moment of silence standing beside Jackie Collins, who hadn’t been paying attention to the TV screens transmitting the ceremony and wondered (in a whisper, thank goodness) why everyone had stopped talking.

  Sometime in the early hours, there was an electrical fault and the party was plunged into darkness. Everyone panicked that it was a terrorist attack. I was chatting to Glenn Close at the time and I remember having to quell an overpowering urge to goose her. It was time to go.

  I braved the paparazzi, and miraculously found my driver. As I disappeared into the night, I had that familiar, bittersweet feeling of being relieved that Christmas comes but once a year.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  THANKS MOSTLY to all my friends, loved ones and randoms who let me shoot them, knowingly or not. This book is a slice of the delicious pie that is my life and I am so grateful you are all ingredients. It wouldn’t exist without the good humor and patience of Charles Miers, Anthony Petrillose, and Caitlin Leffel at Rizzoli, Richard Pandiscio and Bill Loccisano from Pandiscio Co., and my supermodel agent Luke Janklow. Thank you all for indulging my idiosyncratic methods and terminology. I am now fully versed in landscape and portrait! Finally much, much thanks for everything to Jimmy Wilson, my faithful assistant and hipster butler …

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALAN CUMMING is the author of two books: Tommy’s Tale: A Novel of Sex, Confusion, and Happy Endings and the #1 New York Times best-selling memoir Not My Father’s Son. He has also had an exhibition of his photographs, Alan Cumming Snaps! His day job is acting, and most recently he was seen on TV as Eli Gold in the CBS drama The Good Wife, on Broadway in his Tony Award–winning role as the Master of Ceremonies in Cabaret, and in concert, touring the world with his cabaret show, Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs, which was also released as a live album. Alan is also a loudmouth—sorry, activist—who believes that knowledge is power and equality is a right, not a privilege. To find out every single thing he’s ever done, visit www.alancumming.com, and to find out what he’s doing on a daily basis follow @alancumming on Twitter and @alancummingsnaps on Instagram.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Contents

  To the Left, To the Left

  Lustrous Pinnacle

  Crocs

  Page Six

  Travels with Honey

  Grant

  Snow Man

  Pool Boy

  After Dark

  Murray (King of the) Hill

  Jesus Take the Wheel

  Travis and His Friend

  22nd Street

  Chest Peace

  Summer Knee Jerk

  Glenn Close’s Back

  Iris Apfel’s Hand

  Body Parts

  Fleshbot

  I Am Writing This Because Gore Vidal Told Me To

  Secrets and Lies

  Did
dy

  Fashion Feet Forward

  Natalie Merchant’s Shoes

  Getting to Nomi

  You Gotta Get Bigger Dreams!

  Kylie

  Kitten

  Iman

  Head Down, Eyes Up

  Shona and Kerry

  Leon

  Life Is a Game

  Self-Portrait, Marrakech

  Caitlin’s Kitchen

  Mandatory Selfies

  Yes!

  Priests Texting

  Sweet Liza

  Welcome to Action Movies

  I Once Sang at the Hollywood Bowl

  Jet Lag

  First Class Dream

  Awards

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author