Confessions of a Prairie Bitch

by Alison Arngrim

  By the time he was twelve, he was officially a “teen idol.” He played Barry Lockridge in the Irwin Allen sci-fi cult classic Land of the Giants, released in 1968. Yet another in a series of unhappy orphans, Barry was on his way to a new family, when the suborbital plane he’s on, the Spindrift, crashes on another planet, inhabited by, well, giants. He’s then left to be raised by the crew and passengers of the ship, including Mr. Fitzhugh, the constantly sweating and panting “embezzler on the lam.” Luckily, Barry had his faithful dog, Chipper, with him, resulting in endless scenes of him shouting, “No! Chipper! Chipper, come back!” It was sort of like a warped, sci-fi version of Gilligan’s Island, but without the laughs. Stefan should have been happy then; he was making tons of money and was now world-famous. Yet he still managed to remain in a seemingly permanent state of gloom.

  Living with an official teen idol was very bizarre. Every month he was in one of the magazines or all of them—16, Tiger Beat, Teen Beat—they all seemed to blur into one big mass of teenage girl squeal speak: “Who’s your Fav?” and pages and pages of “Luv,” “Fax,” and “Pix,” all “cos they’re the grooviest!” I did not think my brother or anything he did was remotely “groovy.”

  This didn’t stop the media from dragging me into his “fab” world. I hadn’t worked a day in my life, yet articles began to appear with titles like “Meet Stefan’s Cool Kid Sister!” with pictures of me modeling the latest in cool children’s wear. I even technically have a song-writing credit. My brother and I wrote a song called “Otis the Sheep.” It was sort of an homage to the Lewis Carroll nonsense poem “Jabberwocky” with lots of “cool”-sounding, made-up words. It was perfectly stupid, but by God, they printed it, “lyrics by Stefan and Alison Arngrim.” I was famous, and I hadn’t done a damn thing.

  One day, a fanzine came over to interview the family (“Meet Stefan’s Groovy Family!” “See Stefan’s Groovy Dog!”). The woman who interviewed us was very nice; she even stayed for lunch. Back then, we had the great status symbol of a maid. She was primarily for symbolic effect, since with my neat-freak father around, there just wasn’t that much left to clean. My brother and I must have been unusually well behaved that day, because the maid had baked us a lemon meringue pie. It was fantastic, and of course we served it to the lady from the magazine.

  When the article came out, I was stunned. Not one single word anyone actually said all day was in there. There were lots of other words, all very nice, but all completely made up. I was only six, but I had been at the lunch table. These people in the article didn’t even talk like anyone in my house! They were total strangers! And to top it all off, it included the ridiculous claim that my mother had made the lemon meringue pie. Bewildered, I asked my father, “Why? I don’t understand—we were all there—why not write down what we said? And Mom bake a pie? Everyone knows Mom can’t cook!”

  And that’s when I learned one of the most important lessons of my life—at age five. “That’s what they do in magazines,” explained my father patiently, “they make things up. No one cares if it’s true. So they write whatever they think will make a better story.” This blew my mind at the time, but I’m so glad I learned this warped lesson then, long before I was ever on TV and had to deal with the National Enquirer and TV Guide. It’s good to have your expectations lowered as much as possible before you go into show business.

  We Arngrims arrived in Hollywood just in time for the riots. In the summer of 1966, there was a teeny little rock club on Sunset called Pandora’s Box. Well, not really on Sunset, but on what was actually a traffic island in the middle of the street. It was that teeny. And apparently it was ground zero for the entire L.A. hippie population. As a kid, I was fascinated with it, since it was painted purple and looked like some kind of kid’s playhouse, just sitting there in the middle of the street. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t allowed to go in. Turns out a lot of people didn’t want their kids going in, and the police shut it down one night, resulting in a series of demonstrations and riots, so huge, that they became the basis of the Buffalo Springfield song “For What It’s Worth.” You know, “It’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound? / Everybody look what’s going down.” Yeah, that one. There really were “a thousand people in the street.” Probably quite a bit more than that, actually. At one point, the rioters even turned over a bus.

  We were living up on the fifth floor of the Chateau, giving us the best view of the scene. My parents and their friends gathered on the balconies to drink wine and watch the spectacle. I wasn’t allowed out on the balconies, so I felt quite put out. My mother explained to me that it wasn’t safe because there might be something called “tear gas.” I remember hearing the adults talk and asking my mother, “What’s a riot?” The explanation I was given about people fighting in groups, etc., didn’t make a lot of sense, and I became convinced it was some kind of sporting event. I had visions of organized teams in something like karate robes with wooden poles taking turns hitting one another. It’s not surprising I thought it was all a game from the reaction of the grown-ups on the balcony. They were yelling and laughing: “The peasants are revolting!” “Let them eat cake!”

  But riots weren’t the only thing I could see from our perch in the castle. From my bathroom window, I had a perfect view of a revolving billboard. No, not just any revolving billboard, but a giant Bullwinkle. For also on Sunset were the offices of Jay Ward, the creator of Rocky and Bullwinkle. At the corner of Sunset and Marmont Lane, he had erected a perfect replica of Bullwinkle J. Moose, in a glittering, cut-away showgirl costume, with Rocket J. Squirrel perched on his outstretched hand. Every time I went to the bathroom, I watched Bullwinkle go round and round and round. I thought he had been put there just for me.

  Back then, children were permitted to play in the halls at the Chateau. But they weren’t the only ones roaming aimlessly. Some of the more stoned or spaced out adults could also be found wandering about. One day, I found an old woman in my hallway. She was very well dressed and had an accent. She sounded British, like the people in that annoying Mary Poppins movie. She had a wonderful smile and seemed sort of funny and dotty. As if I had found a stray kitten, I brought her home to my mother and asked if I could keep her.

  She turned out to be the famous music-hall star and actress Beatrice Lillie. No, I couldn’t keep her, as she really did have her own apartment down the hall, but she did officially become my new best friend. I made it clear that she was specifically my friend, and my parents were allowed to play with her only when I was busy.

  We all went to see her in her movie when it opened: Thoroughly Modern Millie, with Julie Andrews, Carol Channing, and Mary Tyler Moore. Bea played Mrs. Meers, the scary old lady with the chopsticks in her hair who kidnaps the girls in the movie by chloroforming them and dumping them into a large wicker basket. I absolutely loved her. She was the villain.

  Bea was delighted to come to my big event as well—my fifth birthday party, held in our apartment in the Castle. She brought me a present. It was in a big box with lots of tissue paper. When I got it open, I pulled out a ceramic sculpture—of what appeared to be a disembodied head. The grown-ups all stared at Bea in horror. She said simply, “Oh, I just never know what to get for children.”

  I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It was a sculpture of what looked like a beautiful dark-eyed East Indian boy. I eventually named it Mowgli, after The Jungle Book character, and kept it on my dresser and stored hats on it. I still consider it one of the top-ten best gifts I’ve ever received.

  I liked surprises, and my childhood was full of them. I never knew who in the way of friends my parents were going to spring on me next. Some of my parents’ pals were more fun than others, some I just barely tolerated, but I couldn’t say any of them were boring. One of my favorite grown-ups was named Christine, whom I befriended when I was about seven. She was an older lady, but I liked her because she didn’t talk to me like I was stupid. Because I was so small for my age, a lot of adu
lts treated me as if I were younger than I was. But Christine wasn’t one of those. She would look me in the eye and listen to what I was saying. She would ask me sensible questions and pay attention to the answers. If I asked her a question, she didn’t laugh and say, “Oh, how cute!” She just answered it like a regular person. In other words, she was capable of holding a normal, intelligent conversation.

  She met my mother through their shared publicist. My mother was at the height of her Casper and Gumby fame, and Christine had a book that she discussed on the lecture circuit and in a nightclub act. She, like my mother, had become quite famous in the late ’50s and early ’60s. Her name was Christine Jorgensen—the recipient of the world’s first “publicly acknowledged” sex-change operation.

  She had at one time been a soldier named George Jorgensen, who one day realized that certain things were just not what they should be. So he went on a quest for medical assistance with what at that time was thought to be a rare condition. He found his way to the doctors in Denmark who were pioneering this new treatment, and several very experimental surgeries later, she returned to America to live out her new life as a woman, in peace and total anonymity.

  Except it didn’t quite work out that way. The press found out, and the 1950s equivalent of today’s rabid paparazzi met her at the airport, where all hell broke loose. The headlines read: “Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty!” and “Operations Transform Bronx Youth!”

  I didn’t have a clue about Christine’s past, but then one day, my parents came to me and said, “We need to talk to you about Auntie Christine.” I was worried and thought maybe she’d been in an accident or something.

  “It’s just that Auntie Christine is famous, and, well, you might hear about this on the news,” my mother said delicately. (I was surprisingly up on current events for the average second grader. A major news junkie, I never missed Walter Cronkite.)

  My parents seemed to be hemming and hawing, which was unusual. Finally, they said, “Auntie Christine used to be a man.”

  “What?” I said and stared at them. I knew they were nuts, but I thought maybe this time they had finally gone the rest of the way around the bend.

  “She used to be a man,” they replied nervously. “She’s a woman now, of course. Uh…you see, she was born a man, and, well, she had an operation…” The whole explanation tumbled out quickly.

  “Oh.” I mean really, what can you say to a story like that? But then my curiosity was piqued. “So wait, you mean people can change? Men can become women, and women can become men?”

  They looked even more nervous. “Uh…well, yes. But it’s very complicated.”

  “So then, if I wanted to, I could become a guy?”

  The furious backpedaling began: “Oh, well, technically, yes. Of course, you’d have to be an adult, and, of course, it’s a major medical procedure; several operations, you know, very expensive.”

  I was ecstatic. “Wow! That is so cool!”

  I hardly think that was the response they expected, but it was cool. This strange thing they were describing with such discomfort was nothing short of a miracle. I knew I was living in what was quickly becoming an age of scientific wonder; I had just recently seen men walk on the surface of the moon, right there on TV in my own living room. And now they were telling me of yet another astounding scientific triumph. This was cause for celebration!

  Of course, I didn’t really grasp the implications of Christine’s sex change. I also wasn’t clear about whether or not one could have multiple operations and just go back and forth, from gender to gender, as one needed. I thought that a person could then, by logical extension, have surgery to become anything: a monkey, a giraffe…a fire engine. But what I did get was the underlying principle: a person was no longer permanently defined by the circumstances of his or her birth. Biology was no longer destiny. I had no real desire to become male at that time, and so far, the female thing has really worked out for me. But all my life, I have known, deep in my heart, that if it didn’t, I knew my options. Because of this realization, I feel that I am, and have always been, a woman by choice.

  As fabulous as this news was, I had no idea what I was supposed to do the next time I saw Christine. It seemed rude to ask. I knew she’d written a book; I figured I’d eventually just go get a copy and read it. But now I couldn’t help staring at her. I’m not sure what I was looking for. A seam running up the back? Bolts in the neck? A zipper? In my cartoon-addled mind, I thought perhaps it would be something like when Bugs Bunny just unzips his head and becomes something else. There were no signs. Whatever the medical technology at the time the procedure was performed in Denmark, they must have really been on to something, or the doctor was having a very good day. I’ve seen pictures of her over the years, and she really did look fabulous.

  This is why I find it odd now, that with all the medical advances in the last forty years, there are still transsexuals who settle for less than top-drawer results. I swear, there’s no pride in workmanship anymore. When asked by a transsexual friend what I think of her new look, I am all too often forced to admit: “I knew Christine Jorgensen, and you, sir, are no Christine Jorgensen.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  KEEPING SECRETS

  OLGA: My grandma says you can tell what’s inside a person by the face they wear.

  MARY: I guess. I never thought of Nellie that way, I mean, being poor and all. It kind of makes me feel sorry for her…almost.

  I’m all for a change of scenery now and then; out with the old, in with the new. But when I was growing up, my parents barely let me unpack my stuffed animals before we were on to the next locale. I’m not really sure why we moved so much, but I think it had something to do with money. Being actors, our family income varied wildly from year to year. And being actors, we were cursed with a constant sense of misplaced optimism. If we came into a little extra money, my father would say, “Oh no, we can’t live here!” and we’d move somewhere much nicer and more expensive. And then, a year to two later, when the money ran out, and no jobs came in, we’d pack up and move to “something more practical.” We sometimes stayed as long as three years, sometimes less than one.

  When I was born, my family lived in Queens, New York, in a two-bedroom in Kew Gardens. We moved when I was a year old to Eighty-third Street and East End Avenue in Manhattan. My dad got a job on Broadway in the show Luther with Albert Finney, so this apartment building was ritzier; it had a doorman. Two years later, we were at the Chateau in Los Angeles.

  Obviously, all our apartments were rentals. My parents did not own a home until Auntie Marion left them hers when she died in 1985. They didn’t own a car until I was a teenager. When we first moved to L.A., their credit rating was so nonexistent they couldn’t even get a charge account at a department store. They had a friend use his card to buy us a TV and paid him back in cash installments.

  Once we moved to L.A., the places we found to live were all deluxe, mind you. After the Chateau, we bounced around the Hollywood Hills and West Hollywood, but my father would not venture so much as “east of Fairfax” (let alone “east of La Brea”—quelle horreur!). We were the snobbiest bunch of broke people you ever met.

  Still, my parents always wanted to be able to say their children lived in a real house, and they finally got their chance. At one point, when our income was particularly high, we moved out of the Chateau to a house literally across the street. Even though it was huge and had a yard full of trees, all my brother and I did was complain that it wasn’t the Chateau. He even got up every morning and walked across the street to use their pool (again, this was the ’60s, and he was an actor, so nobody stopped him). I pressed my nose against the window and sighed, “I used to live in a castle!” My parents missed the laundry service. After a few months of this nonsense, my father asked why in hell we were paying more rent just to carry on like this all day, and we packed up and happily moved back to the Chateau.

  Sadly, we couldn’t stay there forever. We moved into the heart of We
st Hollywood, to Waring Avenue just off La Cienega Boulevard. It was another attempt at a “real house.” It was adorable, with a yard, hardwood floors, a big kitchen, and a breakfast nook. Unfortunately, it only had two bedrooms. My parents put me in one, my brother in the other, and they slept on the pullout sofa in the living room. It’s possible they could have afforded a house with more bedrooms, but it would have meant moving to a slightly cheaper neighborhood. And that was never going to happen. My father would have slept in the bathtub first. For him, it was “location, location, location.” He would rather have an eight-by-eight room in a luxury building than a five-room ranch house in the type of neighborhood he always referred to as a (sharp intake of breath) “bad address.”

  I liked Waring Avenue. I had a good-sized room, and I loved that breakfast nook. There were lots of children in the neighborhood and things to do within walking distance, and I was given pretty much free rein to go where I wished. And back then we had Beverly Park. At La Cienega and Beverly, where the Beverly Center shopping mall sits now, was an amusement park, with roller coasters, a haunted house, the whole bit. Oh, and a fully functioning, active oil well. Well, the whole area was rich in oil, and you couldn’t very well expect them to cap it off because there was an amusement park full of children on the premises, could you? Environmental hazards were not as well understood by the general public then as they are now, so we all thought it was just great to ride the Ferris wheel and watch the pump go up and down, up and down, happily churning up oil and carcinogens all day.

  So Dad’s hanging out with Liberace and trying to “pass,” Mom’s managed to successfully escape from traditional women’s work by becoming a cartoon, my brother is a successful (if somewhat miserable) brooding teen idol, and I’m a cute blond six-year-old. What could possibly go wrong?