It didn’t amuse me that I was summoned to appear when it was convenient for them and forgotten about when it wasn’t. It didn’t amuse me that mother would catch some ridiculous item in one of the columns that used my name for added readership value, putting me in places I’d never been with people I’d never met and she’d accuse me of being out all the time and not paying attention to school. It didn’t amuse me that she never believed me when I told her the columns were just making these thing up, just like she used to tell me the trade papers made things up. She could never separate what she knew to be standard industry practice with everyone else from what she accused me of doing. She knew the restaurants and clubs got their names in the paper through the columnists. They’d find out who was in town, who wanted publicity and then they pair up the name of the restaurant with the names of the people. Whether it was true or not didn’t matter, because under normal circumstances no one really got hurt by the small lies. It wasn’t considered defamation of character and it was so fleeting in nature that it was forgotten immediately afterwards. No one really paid much attention to any of it except my own mother. She would never believe I had absolutely nothing to do with those stupid newspaper items and would have gladly stopped them if I could.
The irony of the whole thing was that I really wish I had been living such a glamorous, well-fed life! No one knew better than I did how heartily I would have welcomed those dates and that restaurant food. I was really getting nauseous at the sight of Dinty Moore beef stew cans and English muffins, though I started out this winter liking them both very much.
During these holidays I happened to see a Pepsi commercial on television starring mother with just my two sisters. In the commercial, mother said that she was here with her family! I didn’t know anything about that commercial being done, I’d never been asked to be in it, though I thought I was still a member of the family, and the first I knew was when I saw it on TV. I was furious and felt totally insulted by the whole thing. Several of my friends had also seen the commercial and asked why I wasn’t in it too. I had no answer, but I called mother and told her exactly how I felt, asking why I hadn’t been included too, since it was supposed to be a “family” commercial. She was clipped in her reply, but followed our brief conversation with this letter on Plaza Hotel stationery.
January 3, 1958
2 East 70th St.
New York, N.Y.
Christina dear,
Your sweet telegram, wishing us a happy New Year, made us very happy. However, your daddy and I got the sarcasm of “Mr. and Mrs. Alfred N. Steele and Family”, particularly after our conversation when you said you feel excluded, because you were not included in the Pepsi-Cola television commercial.
I am going to explain something, and I want you to read this very carefully. Your father had Kenyon and Eckhardt, the agency, do three commercials for the Mary Martin show - Harpo Marx one, the Hans Conreid one, and another one. The third one came off so badly that your father was ashamed to use it. The agency’s officials got together in a big conference, and Joe Lieb suggested I do the final commercial. Your father hesitated to ask me, since I was not getting paid for it. When I was told about it, I naturally accepted, because I had seen the three commercials and knew they were desperately in need of a final one.
So they sent for Charles Lang, the photographer, and the twins because of one thing (that I am sure you are not cognizant of). Your father is in a family business, Pepsi-Cola is a family drink - the bottlers all feel they are part of the Pepsi-Cola Family. All last year when we toured the States, and even in Africa, the bottlers all greeted us as friends, and said they were so glad to be a part of the “Family”. Even in the “Pepsi-Cola World”, the magazine for Pepsi-Cola, they embrace all bottlers’ wives and families as the Pepsi-Cola Family. So when I said in the commercial, “I am here with my family”, that did not exclude you, because there has been so much publicity that you are now living in your own apartment in New York (and as you know, the commercial was supposedly taken in California). Everyone knows that you are studying drama in New York and that you are on your own. Everyone takes it for granted that children, when they grow up, leave home.
The set designers tried to duplicate the California house the best they could, and everyone (even people who know us and have been in our house in California) thought it was taken in the drawing room in California, and I am sure you did too. As a matter of fact, it was filmed a week beforehand at MPO Studios in New York. If you remember, you came to the Plaza Hotel to see the twins while they were here on the Sunday night of their week-end. We tried to reach you on Thursday, on the Friday of rehearsal, and the Saturday it was filmed, but you had spent that week-end with the Fleuridases, and you were not available. We did not even hear from you until Sunday, and the film had been completed by then.
I want you to know I love you very much. You shouldn’t be sarcastic, you shouldn’t be envious.
I’m so glad that Dr. Nacitgall made you feel better, and that you are off for a merry week-end. In the future, please call him when you feel ill, because penicillin shots are not the only things needed to cure a cold. What Aunt Bettina tells me you actually said was “All he’ll give me is a penicillin shot, and I’ll get immune to them.”
Now get the chip off your shoulder, the lead out of your heart, and the bitterness out of your soul. And have a wonderful 1958, with joy and love and gratitude. Save your vivid imagination for your acting, and not for daily living.
Love,
Mommie
The logic is difficult to follow, but it was not difficult to understand the result. I was eighteen years old. My brother, who was now having his share of difficulties, was just fourteen but he was over six feet tall. My sisters were almost eleven and still being dressed like little girls. It was not hard to see why a commercial for the “Pepsi generation” was better if it featured a glamorous movie star with her two little girls rather than that same movie star with teenagers who already looked like adults!
As for the rest of it, I could imagine just how hard they tried to reach me. We didn’t have an answering service on our phone, but what happened all of a sudden to those hand-delivered notes mother doled out in the past?
From New York mother and daddy went back to Los Angeles to finish the last of the packing and sorting before the house sale was final.
January 6, 1958
Christina dear,
We are sending you a supply of your “Christina” towels and wash cloths, which I am sure you would want in New York.
We sent some things to you yesterday, which included your Sterling silver toilet set. Take good care of them and keep them polished, as they are valuable, and will be a beautiful addition to your bedroom.
We’ll send the linens to you tomorrow.
We love you very much, and will be back in New York next week. God Bless.
“Mommie”
Saying that she loved me and acting as though she loved me were two different things altogether. So, it hurt my feelings terribly, but didn’t really surprise me deep down inside that all I was going to receive out of our house were those things which were monogrammed with my full name on them and totally useless to anyone else. Some towels, a silver dresser set, a few portraits of me as a child, a scrapbook and my baby rocking chair was the sum total out of the entire house. She didn’t even send me my own collection of books or the small personal items such as clocks and knick-knacks out of my room. Everything was either sold at auction or given to charities to sell.
I’m sure the people around the house at the time got things, because that’s the way mother was about giving. If you were right there in front of her, doing what she asked and serving her, she was very generous. But I wasn’t there anymore. So I got some old towels, a dresser set and a baby rocker. Strangers, fans, the servants and charities got the rest.
I knew I’d never see that house or anything in it again, and I was absolutely right. It’s strange how you just sense some things without
any real evidence or information to back it up. The last few days I was in that house I had this overwhelming feeling I’d never see it again, that I’d never be inside it again. That’s why I told Mrs. Howe, just to have a witness. That’s why I took my little tour all my myself, so I’d remember it correctly. Many years later Mrs. Howe told me she’d recalled what I said to her and when the house was put up for sale, she said she got a funny feeling hearing my words echo in her memory.
Mother finally raised my allowance to $200 a month because I simply could not manage on less. I couldn’t manage very well with the new amount, but at least I didn’t have to always borrow from Mickey and eat up all her food. One thing mother was most generous with was theater tickets. She continued to send me two tickets to most of the major Broadway shows and I eagerly went to every one. I always wrote her a note thanking her afterwards. I tried to be grateful in all the genuine ways I could and to let her know I appreciated the kind gestures.
Mother and daddy were always away so much that although I usually had lunch with them during their brief stopovers in the city, I rarely had the chance to sit down and talk to her at any length. Understandably, she was caught up in the new whirlwind of activity and the constant round of bottling plants, openings, sales meetings, board meetings where she was usually the star attraction after the meeting itself, stockholders meetings and all the rest of her activities with Pepsi-Cola. The work was paying off for her, daddy and Pepsi. The stock price was climbing and Pepsi was giving its only major competitor a serious challenge for first place in the soft drink market. She was still big news in small towns across the nation where most of the plants were located. Her normal fan mail letter writing campaign was expanded to include all the Pepsi people she was now meeting. Pepsi allotted her a personal secretary in New York in addition to the secretary she kept on salary in Los Angeles.
January 11, 1958
Tina darling,
I loved your sweet letter, which arrived today. By the time you receive this letter, we will be back in New York, as we are flying there tonight.
The twins are having a small birthday party today - just the Starr girls, Aunt Happy and Uncle Joe Lieb. It doesn’t seem possible that they are almost eleven years old!
I’m so please that you saw Cave Dwellers and Clerambard. Have you seen your Aunt Helen in Time Remembered? It is an enchanting story (“tongue-in-cheek” type), and you would adore it. I’ll get you the tickets-tell me when.
We love you - and please let us know if you have received the towels and various other things I’ve been sending to you.
“Mommie”
By the way Cindy did have quite a problem the night we went to Ole Yellar - she forgot her television and movie glasses - and get violent headaches when she views a movie without them. Thought you would like to know -
Love
“Mommie”
It seems that headaches tended to run in our whole family … for different reasons. For the last two years the twins had been living in Los Angeles, going to boarding school at Marymount in Palos Verdes and coming home on weekends. However, since neither mother nor daddy were in Los Angeles that much, the girls were being taken care of by Mr. and Mrs. Howe who both spent the weekends with the girls. The house in Brentwood was unoccupied most of the time with only a skeleton staff remaining. On weekends, the girls and the Howes would often be the only ones in the house. After the house was sold, mother took an apartment on Fountain and at the end of the year the girls were transferred to an eastern school.
This time when mother and daddy returned to the city for a short stay before taking their vacation in Mexico, I offered to help get things arranged and put away in their new Fifth Avenue apartment. I went over to the apartment after school and on Saturday. I never ceased being amazed at how much there was, how meticulously it had to be arranged, how spotless everything had to be kept. It was a full time job just to keep things so clean. Between answering the mail and constantly cleaning and re-cleaning every single nook and cranny and physical possession, mother could have arranged a complete daily schedule for herself and several servants.
I always felt exhausted when I left her. It wasn’t just the work either. It was something else, something I couldn’t quite define. There was such attention to minor details. Nothing was simple. Every single tiny job or process was an event in and of itself. It was sort of like your whole being depended on how well that little thing was accomplished. I was in a constant state of agitation over whether or not I’d make a mistake, say the wrong thing, do something that would cause me embarrassment. It was exhausting to be there any length of time. It was also freezing cold. I’d always have to bring an extra sweater to wear inside the apartment whether it was winter or summer. Even in the winter time there was never any heat. I used to make hot coffee or tea for myself just to try and stay warm. Mother, on the other hand, looked like she was ready for the beach! She usually wore a loose fitting cotton shift referred to as a “muumuu” without any sleeves and thong sandals. The apartment was kept at a temperature comfortable for her and the rest of us shivered in our sweaters and woolen winter clothes. I’d look at the contrast between her and the rest of us in total amazement. It was as though we were completely different sorts of human beings. She dressed for the beach while we dressed for Alaska! She must have had anti-freeze for blood.
Mother, Daddy and the twins went to Mexico for about two weeks.
January 29, 1958
Tina darling,
I adored your letter, and it was so sweet of you to write so glowingly of our days together and our “chatty visits”. It was such fun working with you, and thank you for your wonderful help.
Your Daddy and I are having a peaceful and heavenly vacation here. We have an enchanting bungalow overlooking the green lawns, waving palm trees, and the blue, blue Pacific in the distance. The waves roll in pretty high, but we do venture forth when the spirit moves us. In fact, we are just “letting our hair down” and completely relaxing, and doing just what we want to do, for the first time in fifteen months of constant working.
We found Tasco a fabulous shopping center, and I’ll tell you all about it when I see you next month. The shops are so quaint and native, and the streets are made of tiny cobblestones. And if you think San Francisco is hilly - just wait till you see the steep hills of Tasco!
We will be in California around February 12th, where I am to make a General Electric television film, then we are flying back to New York on about February 22nd or 23rd, and we’ll see you shortly after that.
All our love to you and Mickey.
“Mommie”
That winter in New York was really cold. We’d already had several blizzards that stopped all traffic in the city for a day or two at a time. The sidewalks were icy and I hated trying to maneuver myself inch by inch across their glassy surface. About once a week, I slipped and fell. I was never really injured, but my pride took a beating. I’d made more friends at Neighborhood Playhouse and spent the majority of my time with them. I didn’t see my room mate much these days. She was busy working and I was busy with school and my new friends. We tried to work things out so that we didn’t collide in the small apartment, but more and more what I wanted and what she wanted were beginning to conflict. New York is so cramped for living space that it amazed me when people were able to get along well so squashed together. Except for the streets and the park there was no where to go to get away from one another. I’d had room mates for years at boarding school, but that was different. In school, we were about the same age, lived on the same schedule and were involved in the same activities. Here in New York Mickey and I had very different lives. She was a night owl and I had to go to bed earlier if I wanted to be even half-awake for school. She had her group of friends and I didn’t like some of them. She didn’t like some of mine either, so there began to be a strain on the space in which we shared our friendship.
Earlier in the fall, I’d met a friend of Eddie’s who was a good deal older
than I, a man named Al Bouzide. Ali, as he was known, had gatherings at his apartment on Sunday afternoons and Eddie invited me to join them. The first Sunday I don’t think I said three sentences. I didn’t know anyone except Eddie and I was still very shy around total strangers. But that wasn’t the entire reason for my silence. I was flabbergasted by the candor with which this group of New Yorkers approached ordinary conversation. I’d never heard people talk about reality, or reality as they perceived it, in such an outspoken way. I was fascinated by just listening to the rapid exchanges and unable to participate because I just never talked like that. I had no experience with life in the terms they addressed it. Most of the people had been friends for years, had known Ali for years and shared the New York experience in common. Most of them were currently in or had been through “analysis” and that formed a mutual basis for understanding one another. I’d only been in New York a few months at that time, had never been closer to “analysis” than the time I told the lady psychiatrist I hated my mother, and had no idea what these people were talking about half the time. But I was a fast study and I guess I didn’t make myself totally obnoxious that first Sunday, so I was invited to become one of the “regulars”. Ali became one of the very best friends I’ve ever had. He was the first adult I’d known who was absolutely straightforward with everyone and yet had a sense of humor that cut through most obstacles he ever encountered. He also had a grasp of the totally outrageous … he poked fun at all the hallowed traditions while using them to his own full advantage. He had no respect for money at all. Money was only useful if it got you a life style that made you feel at ease, if it provided the clothes and restaurants and travel that made life exciting. He never saved a dime and never worried about it either. I adored him from the first moment I met him until his death twenty years later.
Ali was my first introduction to another adult world altogether, to another way of seeing life and dealing with it so that you got what you needed. Those Sundays were my initiation into a way of relating to others based on discussion of individual ideas where you could heatedly disagree with someone else and still remain friends. It was a proving ground for wit and intelligence and quickness. Not everyone agreed with one another by a long shot and at first I was always scared there was going to be a real fight, but that never happened. There were passionate debates on the merits of a play or a review or a political candidate. It was a whole new world out there where people actually discussed what they thought about politics or philosophy, where no one person was always right and everyone else had to bow to their ideas. In that group very few people agreed with one another and that’s exactly what made it interesting. I could hardly believe it. It was just as foreign to me as if I’d been transported to another time zone or a distant planet.
Mommie Dearest Page 38
