When Mommie Dearest was published, I did not rush out to buy it. In fact, I have never read any more than couple of pages that were marked in a copy that my Mother sent me. They were the pages where Christina recalled some of the events of our friendship in the Brentwood School days. She referred to me simply as “Judy.”
With the benefit of 40 years that have passed, during which I also have become a parent, I think back in amazement, sadness and even horror that my dear friend, almost lost to me forever, did not ever have the assurance so basic to most children as to be taken for granted: that their parents were there for them. Christina was used. She was a prop that served a particular role that her “Mother” played at one time. When the play was canceled or the movie was over, there was no further need for the role. And the prop was discarded.
Judy Clayton Hopkins Yoho, Ph.D.
PART II
CHAPTER 13
About four months after I started in the middle of sixth grade, leaving all my friends behind one-half grade and, before I’d really had a chance to make any new friends among my classmates, mother transferred me to Chadwick School in Palos Verdes.
Again, in keeping with all the other major changes of my school life, this transfer took place over the weekend. There wasn’t any long discussion about it either. On Friday mother asked me what I’d think of going away to boarding school and two days later on Sunday she packed me up and drove me there.
I didn’t have much chance to think about whether or not I’d like boarding school and I didn’t have any chance to say goodbye to my teachers and friends or to Judy. The whole thing just sprang out of thin air. It wasn’t a punishment because things had been going unusually well for me at home. I had no idea that I’d never live at home again on a regular basis. I was ten years old.
I hadn’t the vaguest idea where we were going but we seemed to drive for a long time, at first along the ocean and then out into the country. After about an hour mother started looking for the school sign along the pepper tree lined country road. Finally the blue and white sign appeared and we drove up a long hill with fields on either side of the road. When we stopped it was in front of a small house known as The Cottage. The housemother came out to greet us with a friendly smile. The Cottage was really a dormitory for elementary school girls. The housemother showed us to the room I was to share with three other girls and introduced me to my future roommates. This was such a totally new experience for me that I became very shy and hardly said a word. With all the changes happening so rapidly, I was beginning to be unsure of myself. I didn’t seem to have time to adjust to one change before another was upon me. As I looked around the room at the strange girls who were staring curiously at me and then at the two sets of bunk beds we were all to share, I wasn’t very sure that I was going to like boarding school. It was no surprise to me that I had been assigned one of the top bunks, since I was the newest arrival. Everyone was quite polite to mother and to me and the housemother seemed like a nice lady.
Then it was time for mother to leave. I was overcome with a sense of panic. I burst into tears and clung to her as though to prevent her from leaving. She held me for a moment and then very firmly made me let go of her. She tried to reassure me that I’d make new friends here and that I’d like the school. Nothing seemed to stop the waterfall of tears. I couldn’t believe that she was really going to make me stay in this strange place where everybody else already knew one another. I wanted to go home with her and forget about boarding school. She said no. That was impossible. All the arrangements have been made and I was to stay and try to make the best of it. I’d be coming home in two weeks … my mind sort of wandered away from her at this point. Two weeks! That sounded like an eternity to me. The school policy was to let the students go home every other weekend. Two weeks. I wondered if I’d make it. I was still crying when she drove away.
The housemother came out to the driveway and put her arm around me. She gently guided me back into the cottage and helped me get my things unpacked. She took me around and introduced me to some of the other girls. By then it was time for dinner. We all walked up to the dining room together and that was the first time I saw some of the rest of the school. Chadwick School sat perched on top of a hill like it’s own little community. The buildings were mostly white structures that fit neatly into their country surroundings. The dining room was a large separate building divided into the main dining room, the “porch” where the elementary students ate and the big kitchen presided over by John, the cook.
Everyone had assigned tables and one of the girls from my cottage showed me to mine. Food was served family style and there was a faculty member assigned to each table. The food wasn’t bad, though all the kids joked about it and dinner went rapidly. I just couldn’t quite believe that this was where I was going to live now and every time I started to think about it tears welled up in my eyes. I didn’t say much during dinner.
The next day I walked with one of the girls up to the elementary school classrooms in a separate area of their own called the Village. There I met my teacher, Miss Collins, and the rest of my class. The first thing that surprised me was that there were only about a dozen of us in the whole class. Coming from public school I was used to more people in the room. The other thing that surprised me was that Miss Collins taught everything but French. Even though we stayed mostly in the same homeroom in public school, different people came in to teach different subjects. But here at boarding school, we spent the whole day with Miss Collins who was also the principal of the elementary school. During the very first day it became obvious that something was sadly lacking in my math background. This class was doing fractions and I’d never heard of them. I couldn’t follow what was going on and when it came my turn to go to the blackboard, I had to tell her that I’d never had fractions in my other school. Except for giving my name to the class earlier, that was about the first thing I’d said. Miss Collins said she’d work with me after school that day and not to worry about it. The rest of the class looked at me like I was a dunce.
Even though I was quite a way behind these students, Miss Collins did work with me enough so that in a relatively short time I was getting good grades again. Math was a continual struggle but somehow I managed to get through it.
I didn’t particularly like boarding school and was continually homesick. On the weekends when I went home I would cry all the way back to school. I began to notice that my brother and sisters had developed a way of life that didn’t really include me anymore because I wasn’t there most of the time. Sometimes when I went home there were new servants I didn’t know and often mother had a new boyfriend. Often on the weekends there were parties and I had to help with the preparations. Sometimes mother got in extra help and when she didn’t I would play bartender.
By and large, the end of my sixth grade went smoothly and even though I ended up with decent grades, I didn’t particularly want to return to boarding school the next year.
That summer I turned eleven. In many ways I was still just a little girl, but because I was big for my age and already stood at just over five feet tall, mother took some precautions and tried to tell me about the physical changes my body would soon be going through. She recognized that my breasts were beginning to develop but refused to let me wear a bra like the other girls. She said it wasn’t good for you to wrap your body up so tightly when you were young, that it would weaken the muscles and hinder the natural development. Then she tried to explain about menstruation. I listened attentively and nodded my head but although I understood the words I didn’t really comprehend the full impact of our conversation.
The majority of the summer was peaceful because mother wasn’t home at all. She went to Lake Louise in Canada with Uncle Vincent, one of her directors. I liked Uncle Vincent even though we’d had one awful run-in with each other.
One night months ago I was sitting downstairs watching television by myself when I heard a noise coming from the office which was two rooms away. At first
it was just some loud voices and I didn’t think anything particularly unusual about that. I think I was watching an old Hopalong Cassidy movie and the sound of the TV drowned out most of the argument. But in a few minutes, I heard what sounded like screaming and my heart leaped into my throat. It sounded like my mother screaming.
I dashed through the door and toward the office. When I ran into the room all I saw was Uncle Vincent hitting Mother. She was sort of sprawled across an armchair and looked like she was trying to defend herself.
Without stopping to think about much of anything, I flew at Uncle Vincent and started pounding on him with my fists trying to kick him and screaming at him to let go of my mother. She was crying by this time and I was crying too, but out of shock more than anything else. I’d heard other fights she’d had with men but I’d never actually seen one of them. Until Uncle Vincent could manage to get a grip on both of my arms and hold me away from him I continued to beat at him while mother cowered in the chair. We were all yelling at once and it’s a wonder we didn’t have the entire household as an audience.
In a matter of minutes it was all over. Mother was still crying but told Uncle Vincent that he’d better leave. I walked to the door and rather imperiously told him to get out immediately. After he’d left and the door was securely locked I went to mother and tried to find out if she’d been hurt. I wanted to call the doctor, but she refused. She didn’t seem to be bruised and I helped her upstairs.
As coincidence would have it, a few days later was my piano recital. I didn’t like piano that much but this year the recital was to be at our house and mother had prepared a lovely party. The real reason I didn’t like piano was that I knew I didn’t play very well. I had no real instinct for music and each step was a struggle. Years before when I was just beginning and mother was very much the proud parent, she invited Helen Hayes to listen to one of my little pieces. Dutifully, I went to the grand piano and played. Aunt Helen said something like “Very nice, dear,” to me but to my mother she shook her head and said, “Joan, I’m afraid she plays like an iron butterfly.” Mother was not daunted by the evaluation, however, and insisted that I continue to take lessons and practice for many more years.
So, by the time of this recital, I was competent but not talented. However, since I was to be the hostess, the timing was unfortunate. Mother informed me the morning of the recital that she had invited Uncle Vincent and it would be rude to not let him come because of the minor incident a few days earlier.
I stared at her totally appalled. It was unthinkable to me that she should ever want to see such a person again, let alone invite him to my recital. I also thought it showed very little concern for my feelings, but I didn’t say so. Then she landed the final blow. She said that no matter how I felt I had to be polite to him and that she’d appreciate it if I would also apologize.
Apologize? I said no … flat out … I wouldn’t apologize because I hadn’t done anything wrong. She replied that no matter what I thought it would be necessary for me to say I was sorry.
I was sorry, all right, but evidently for the wrong things. I was sorry that she’d invited him, I was sorry I had to have this stupid piano recital, I was sorry that I had to play hostess and I was very sorry that I didn’t just let him beat her up or do whatever it was that happened during these fights she’d been having with men since I was about seven years old. Then I wouldn’t have to be humiliated by apologizing for something I didn’t do. Then and there I decided that it was the last time I’d try to intervene even if it sounded to me like someone was trying to murder her. There was something I just didn’t understand about these situations and it was better for me if I just left it that way.
But all that had happened some time before. After I apologized, the subject was never mentioned again. It seemed ironic to me that 20 years later when I was an actress myself, Uncle Vincent was one of the few people from my childhood who actually helped me and hired me to do a part on one of the television shows he was then directing.
Near the end of August, that summer I turned eleven, I was in my bathroom changing clothes and getting ready to take a shower. I notice a spot on my pants and when I took them off I saw blood all over me. I stood staring at myself transfixed for a moment. Then I let out a shriek like a wounded animal and ran half naked down the hall into the nursery where Mrs. Howe was supervising my sisters’ bath.
By the time I found Mrs. Howe I was screaming and crying, “I’m bleeding … I’m bleeding … what’s the matter with me?!” Mrs. Howe tried to calm me down and explain to me but I was sobbing inconsolably. I was sure something dreadful had mysteriously happened to me and I was going to bleed to death while everybody sat around talking. No one but me seemed in the least bit upset and that made me furious. How could Mrs. Howe take my disastrous condition so calmly? I was bleeding. Bleeding meant you had been hurt. Bleeding meant you needed care and attention but all I was getting was a lot of words I still couldn’t completely understand.
Mrs. Howe took me back to my room saying something about not wanting to upset my sisters and found me some kotex and one of those ugly elastic belts. She told me I was to put all that paraphernalia on after I’d taken my shower. I was still in a state of shock.
After she left me alone, I burst into a renewed fit of despair and threw myself on the floor where I kicked my feet and pounded my fists and had a good old fashioned temper tantrum all by myself.
I couldn’t understand why my mother smiled when she found out. I couldn’t see anything so wonderful about “’becoming a woman.” I tried everything to make my feelings understood. I fainted and took to my bed; I got terrible cramps and took to my bed; I got headaches and took to my bed. I hated not being allowed to go swimming, not being allowed to play kickball or climb trees. I hated the bleeding and all the messy stuff that went with trying to cope with it. I was convinced that the doctor could have done something about it but no matter how much I pleaded no one would do anything except get that weird smile on their face.
And so I stomped my feet and pounded my fists and sobbed my heart out to no avail because puberty and my “period” were inevitably upon me.
The most embarrassing part of all was that my mother insisted on telling anybody that would listen. It was like she thought of it as some kind of accomplishment. I would blush crimson whenever the story about becoming a “lady” started.
So I was doubly mortified when she took me back to boarding school in September and told practically the entire dorm about my period. I didn’t even have it any more and still she told the housemother and my new roommate, Delores. I tried not to notice while she was telling everybody and started unpacking. They all got those same funny smiles on their faces and I failed to see the humor.
During these next few months at Chadwick I began to appreciate that I was in a different and rather special school. My seventh grade class was a bit larger than it had been the previous year and I was no longer the “new” person. I had made some friends and liked my classes. But those were not the major differences I came to realize.
The first thing that dawned on me after I moved into the main girls’ dorm was that the rules were not nearly as strict as the ones under which I lived at home. We all were given weekly chore assignments like sorting laundry or cleaning the bathrooms and hallways on Saturday and working one of the three meals in the dining room. But these assignments rotated every week and we worked in teams. Compared with the work I had to do at home, this seemed easy to me even though some of the girls complained. None of the duties took more than an hour and most of them much less. There was a merit system as well and for certain serious infractions of the rules a faculty member could give you demerits. But there was even some leeway on that if you hadn’t been in trouble and had earned enough merits to counteract the report. The only real penalty was extra work if you got over a certain number of demerits within a time period or at worst you couldn’t go home for the weekend. To me the system seemed fair, logical and not very diff
icult to live with. I already knew how to most of the work and never had much of a problem with it.
The second difference that set Chadwick apart from the world I’d known in public school was the other students. Most of them, I soon discovered, were from backgrounds similar to mine. By that I mean that a good number of them were from families who were involved in the motion picture business in one way or another. Many of them were also from what used to be called “broken homes”. In some cases, keeping the family tree straight was something of a full time job. We used to have a terrible joke that circulated among us that went something like:
Kid #1: “How do you like your new father?”
Kid #2: “I like him a lot.”
Kid #1: “Yeah, I liked him too. We had him last year.”
The nice thing about being at Chadwick was that you didn’t have to start at ground zero with the inevitable “What’s it like to be a movie star’s daughter” routine. I felt a sense of companionship and understanding here that I hadn’t expected.
Most of the teachers lived on campus and we all got to know one another like a family. There were only about 150 students in the school and the classes were still small.
Commander and Mrs. Chadwick who ran the school were already in their early sixties when I met them but they were of pioneer stock and two more energetic people you could not have imagined.
Commander had been in the Navy and was only referred to by his rank, as though it was his first name and last name all in one. Margaret Lee Chadwick was the daughter of a Utah minister and had been the first woman to go to Stanford on a scholarship. They were both remarkable people and ran their school with love, dedication and hard work.
Mommie Dearest Page 13
