She said, “You need to move forward. You’ve been stuck in the past. You’ve told that story for so long. But you’re ready to transition. All you need to do is tell a new story.”
What she said made sense to me. It was time for me to become who I was destined to be.
I want to have a production company. I want to create television. That’s what I really want to do.
As soon as I’d gotten out of the hospital we’d gone to other networks to see if we could find a new home for Tori & Dean. We were open to repackaging the show or moving in a different direction. But we got a unanimous response across the board: We love Tori and Dean and the family, but the show has been part of Oxygen’s brand. We don’t want to take on someone else’s show.
Then I spoke to Maggie, the producer who had brought me in on The Mistle-Tones. She had been my network executive at VH1 for the show So noTORIous. While we were filming The Mistle-Tones, she said that we should do something else together.
Maggie knew I wanted to do a half-hour sitcom. She approached ABC Family with the idea of doing a Kate & Allie–type show. They weren’t crazy about that, but she floated the idea I’d had of a TV Movie of the Week called Mystery Mom. They loved the idea of combining a two-star female comedy with mysteries.
Maggie and I talked about a few different ideas. That night I got into bed. I was lying there, expecting to sleep, when all of a sudden all our ideas came together and I saw the vision for the show. I grabbed my iPhone off the bedside table and went to the Notes app. I wrote down the whole pitch.
The idea was that there were two female actors who had been the stars of a hit TV series in the nineties, a Cagney & Lacey–type show. After the show ended, their careers had stalled. One of them became a reality star, and one moved to suburbia and started a family. (Guess which one I play?) Then a huge murder goes down in their town, a mob thing. The only eyewitness is a crazy man who is obsessed with reruns of the crime show the women were once on. He has a confused understanding of reality. When the detectives are questioning him, he says that he’ll tell them what happened, but only if he can tell it to the two characters from the show, who he thinks are actual crime-solvers. The detectives track the two women down and bring them back together. They get sucked into the crime, end up solving it, and decide to open a real private-investigation agency.
When I told Maggie the pitch, she loved it. We tweaked it a bit together. When we were both happy with it, we wrote up the treatment and sent it—now called Mystery Girls—to ABC Family. The feedback was that they loved what they read but wanted to hear a pitch. We set up a meeting with me, Maggie, my agent Ruthanne, and the heads of development at ABC Family.
Then Hurricane Sandy hit. The day before our pitch, Maggie called. She was stuck in New York, but she could phone into the meeting. Then, the morning of the meeting, Ruthanne called. She was at the ER with pneumonia. She was okay, but she clearly wouldn’t make it to the meeting. It would be just me and the network, with Maggie on the phone. I’d sold my Mompreneurs pitch from a hospital bed on serious painkillers, but I’d never gone into a network meeting to pitch all by myself. When Ruthanne heard that Maggie wasn’t in town, she said, “Let’s reschedule.”
I was about to agree to cancel, which nobody would have questioned, but then I changed my mind. Something told me to go through with it. I had spent two and a half months in a hospital bed, much of it alone, teaching myself to have hope. Now I summoned that confidence.
I went to the meeting. It was me, Maggie on the phone, and three executives from ABC Family. I had come up with the idea for this show in bed, in twenty minutes max. I pitched it. They practically bought it on the spot. Patti was right. I was Aaron Spelling’s daughter. Tori Spelling. I could almost say it proudly.
One Last Bad Thing
It felt like our family was finally all together, in one piece. It was our first Christmas with all five kids (Liam, Stella, Hattie, Finn, and Jack). For the past two years we’d gone to Lake Arrowhead, but now the house we’d rented there was out of our price range, so we stayed home.
Money was tight. I know that sounds odd, coming from a Spelling, but the loss of Tori & Dean couldn’t have come at a worse time financially. My real estate compulsion had put us in serious debt. I’d worked so hard and earned so much, but I had nothing to show for it. Once I was Googling myself to find an article I’d heard was published. I typed “tori spelling” into the search field and a bunch of options came up. One of them was “tori spelling net worth.” Curious, I clicked on it. Google thought I was worth fifteen million dollars. Fifteen million dollars! I didn’t have one million. We had some income here and there but no savings apart from our retirement accounts.
I have a terrible habit of going into denial about my finances. I think that if I don’t deal with it, then it’s not real. But another part of me has always used the desperateness of my situation for motivation. When the coffers drain, I spring into action, chasing down more work. When I get hungry, I make things happen. But this time, when we’d just come through the two moves and I needed work more than ever, Tori & Dean was canceled. I was stuck in a hospital bed. The bills had piled up.
If I was ever going to rein in my spending, it wasn’t going to happen at Christmas. I went overboard, as usual. I liked to handpick personal presents for our whole list, and it was a long list. Every year we bought presents for our families; our publicist; our agencies; our business managers and the people who work for them; our lawyers and their assistants; key people at my companies, our affiliates, and the stores where our merchandise was sold; World of Wonder; the InvenTORI staff; the babysitters, nanny, assistants, and housekeeper; my friends and their children; and Patsy’s family, who were going to be with us for the holidays this year. Even though I picked out some of the presents from InvenTORI, it was still madness. We didn’t start shopping for our own children until two days before Christmas, which found us running around Toys “R” Us like lunatics.
Christmas itself was nice. My mother, the Guncles, and Scout’s mother, Grandma Jacquie, joined us and Patsy’s family. Dean had seen a special on Italian Christmas dinners and he wanted to go Italian this year. I thought that sounded delicious, but it wasn’t until the eleventh hour that we discovered we had different visions for the meal. Dean had neglected to mention that in the special he’d seen, it was an all-fish Christmas Eve dinner. But our dinner was to be served on Christmas Day. Who wanted to eat seven fish courses on Christmas Day? My fantasy involved mac and cheese, lasagna, and stuffed manicotti served family-style. We couldn’t come to an agreement, so on the day before Christmas, Dean drove to the Santa Monica fish market to get fresh octopus, crab, squid, and a whole branzino. Meanwhile I started cooking up my multiple dishes of classic Italian comfort food. We made way too much food, as always, but it was pretty festive. Things turned out fine. I love Christmas. I live for it. But afterward I was exhausted. It was just too much.
Staying home from Lake Arrowhead left the kids feeling disappointed that we hadn’t had any snow for Christmas this year. They kept saying, “It isn’t a real Christmas without snow.” I posted that on Twitter, my way of hinting for some resort to offer us a deal, but nobody bit, so right after Christmas I started trolling the Internet.
I did extensive research. One day I was on the computer from nine to six, as if finding a vacation condo was my full-time job. But once I’d had an idea, no matter how harebrained it might be, I was incapable of letting it go. We had to see snow for New Year’s.
There were seven of us, plus Patsy to help with Finn, plus our part-time nanny, Laura, to help with the other three kids, especially Hattie. That way we’d be able to take Stella and Liam skiing. There was no way we could fly anywhere with so many people. Besides, I hate flying. We were definitely going to drive.
First I looked at Mammoth Mountain, which was only four and a half hours away, but I was too late to the game. Everything was booked, everywhere. I e-mailed my friend Jenny for advice. She told me she a
nd her family had been to the Ritz-Carlton in Tahoe and loved it, but it too was booked. I finally found a three-bedroom condo in Squaw Valley. It wasn’t the Ritz, but it would have to do. It was an eight-hour drive. We would leave the next day. Dean was totally game.
We left at six thirty in the morning. Dean used his motorcycle lift—the jack he uses to get his motorcycles to the track—to strap all of our suitcases and two kids’ cots on top of the car, and we were off.
The eight-hour trip took us twelve hours, what with all those kids needing to stop to eat. And stop to pee. By the time we arrived in Tahoe, it was snowing and freezing cold, but the kids were happy.
I didn’t really care about being in luxury accommodations. Who needed the Ritz? Not me. I just wanted the kids to enjoy the snow.
I lie. I totally care about luxury accommodations! The condo we were staying in had a bed that was hard and low to the ground. The TV reception was poor and we only got five channels. There was a full-service kitchen, but it only had one lonely wineglass (though, to be fair, guest services had dropped off a cardboard courtesy box with a bottle of water and five wineglasses in it).
The real kicker (and yes, I know how this sounds) was that there was no room service. With four constantly hungry little mouths, plus Jack, our growing teenager, we couldn’t rely on restaurants. Morning and night we would be continually running out into the cold for food. Sure, you could argue, we had two nannies. But the fact of the matter was that I didn’t usually leave the kids with the nannies. We all went everywhere together.
When I did The Mistle-Tones in Utah, we’d gone to Deer Valley and stayed at the St. Regis. This place was perfectly functional, but it was no St. Regis. After staying at the St. Regis and looking at the Ritz-Carlton website, well, it was going to be hard for me to stay here in the condo. Hadn’t our family moved enough times in an attempt to satisfy me? I vowed to keep my mouth shut and enjoy the vacation.
The next day we planned to ski with Jack, Liam, and Stella. While I was filming in Utah, Liam and Stella had gone to ski school, but they had complained about everything. They were cold. Their hats were itchy. Their boots hurt. This time we decided they’d do better if they were with us. I remembered with a twinge of envy that the Ritz-Carlton advertised that one could “ski in, ski out” straight from the lodge. Not so in Squaw Valley. We waited until Hattie woke up from her first nap. Then we all went to the village for lunch. Hattie, who was just one, was wearing Stella’s old hand-me-down cold-weather gear, which was all size two. Her mittens kept falling off, and everything else was too big. So of course we had to buy her a whole new outfit. It wasn’t until Hattie’s second nap that we finally headed to the ski-rental shop.
We needed boots, helmets, skis, and poles for the four who planned to ski (the three oldest kids and Dean). There was a line for each piece of equipment, and everyone had to be fitted for everything. Once we had all this stuff, we would have had to lug it up to the base of the mountain, but by the time we were done with the rentals, the lifts were already closing. We’d missed the whole day. I wasn’t supposed to carry anything, so Dean somehow carted four sets of equipment back to our condo for the night.
When we woke up the next morning, after our second night at the condo, I couldn’t help myself. The words came out of my mouth as if I were possessed. I said to Dean, “Oh, babe, if the Ritz had something available, we could finish our trip there.”
Dean said, “I knew it. As soon as we walked in I could tell this wouldn’t work for you.”
I said, “That makes me feel bad; I’m not that girl.” But I was. Then I said, “It’s not my fault I’m an uptown girl stuck in a midtown life.” I was raised in opulence. My standards are ridiculously high. We can’t afford that lifestyle, but when you grow up silver spoon it’s hard to go plastic.
Dean said, “Well, let’s look into it. I’ll feel bad knowing you’re unhappy.” My husband, my enabler.
“It’s just that I had a vision. I saw myself sitting on a cozy couch in front of a roaring fire drinking a cabernet while you all went skiing. The Ritz has that. I can’t get it out of my head.” Dean called the Ritz to see if they had anything available, but nothing had changed. They were still booked. Actually, something had changed. Now I was hell-bent on getting out of this place.
Then I remembered. When Jenny and her family had gone to Tahoe and they had stayed at the Ritz, it was the Ritz in Northstar. It wasn’t even in Squaw Valley. It was in an entirely different village in Tahoe. Maybe the problem was that we weren’t in the right village! Now, in my fantasies, Northstar became the Holy Grail. It had everything that Squaw Valley lacked. Luxury hotels with room service. Family-friendly restaurants galore. Ski lifts right in town. I started Googling.
I soon discovered that the Hyatt had ski-in, ski-out residences in Northstar. And, amazingly, they had room for us. Yes! These were “residences,” so we still wouldn’t have room service, but at least the accommodations would be a little fancier. And we could go to the restaurant at the Ritz, which was right next door. I could fulfill my cabernet fantasy.
We called down to the concierge. There had been nothing wrong with our accommodations. I was the problem. We made the excuse that the baby was sick and we had to leave. The concierge said, “Oh, you’re going home?”
I couldn’t lie. I said, “Well, we’re stopping at our friends’ place in Northstar first.” The Hyatt. My new best friends.
The Hyatt condos were really nice. When our refrigerator in Malibu broke, I’d learned that I might never be able to afford a place with Viking appliances again. When I walked in and saw that there were Viking appliances at the Hyatt, I was happy. Simple pleasures.
When we woke up the next day, in Northstar, it was the third day of our ski vacation. Dean had successfully transported all the equipment from mountain to condo to condo, so we’d already accomplished the hassle of a ski vacation, but we had yet to ski. But the Hyatt was “ski in, ski out!” We were golden.
Dean and the big kids were going to ski. Patsy, Laura, the babies, and I were going to lounge at the Ritz, and at least one of us was going to have at least one glass of cabernet. The skiers would meet us for lunch.
We bundled up all the kids (which was an I Love Lucy chocolate-factory scene all of its own) and went outside. The Hyatt had something called the “boot valet,” where the skiers in our party would leave their boots while they were out on the mountain. It was there that Dean found out we needed lift tickets—which were only available down at the village. Dean went to buy them while we all waited at the boot valet for what seemed like an hour.
There were signs guiding us to “ski in, ski out.” Lots of signs. They eventually led us to a gondola, which took us to the Ritz, where the ski in, ski out actually went down. That was the Hyatt’s “ski in, ski out.” The Ritz. This little jaunt might have been an easy detour for a normal family, but we had the two babies in a double stroller, two little children, and four sets of ski equipment. For us it was a major hike.
Patsy had never been skiing before. When she saw the gondola, she said, “It doesn’t stop!” In a frantic, stroller-jamming jumble of poles and limbs, we hurled ourselves into two gondolas and up to the Ritz.
At last the skiers went off. Patsy, Laura, and I went into the bar lounge with the two babies. We found a booth near the fireplace and unbundled everyone, making a pile of hats, mittens, scarves, and parkas. I could already taste my soup and glass of wine. I ordered the corn chowder. They were out of corn chowder. Did they have any other soup? No, they had no soup. This was the Ritz! I had no place to go from here. I ordered the cheese plate instead of the soup. Who cared? They had wine. That was all that mattered.
The waiter brought our order, but before I took the first sip, a fire alarm went off. A fire! At the Ritz! We had to get the babies out of there! At first, the waiter reassured us, saying, “Don’t worry about it. Just stay seated.” The fire—the intentional one in the fireplace—was so warm and pretty . . . but the piercing fir
e alarm blared on. All the faith I’d put in the Ritz started to drain out of me.
Two minutes later we were evacuated. Leaving our lunch behind (at least I had no soup to get cold), we put all of our clothes back on and hurried outside. Ritz staff ran back and forth. Our dedicated waiter did show up with my wine on a silver tray, and I snuck little sips as the fire alarm screamed and the babies cried. We waited. When we filed back in at last, I said to Patsy, “Everything is going wrong on this trip. Not really bad things, just one little thing after another.” I had no idea how bad it was going to get.
WE’D NEGLECTED TO book a restaurant for New Year’s Eve. Even though we were eating early for the kids, everything was booked. The only place that still had room for a party our size was a local sushi restaurant. We all got dressed up. Stella and Hattie wore matching velvet Harajuku dresses from Target with vintage sequined berets. Finn was in a Little Maven onesie tux. And Liam wore skinny velvet pants and a blazer with a festive sweater underneath. We wheeled the double stroller through the snow to the restaurant. You know you’re in trouble when your sushi restaurant doubles as a sports bar, complete with big-screen TVs on the walls. It was loud and chaotic. The kids were about to fall apart. We sped through our meal, but I managed to down two bottles of sake (they’re so small!). By the time we came out of the restaurant, I was feeling a little festive and hoping to put an end to the nightmares of 2012.
With two kids done with diapers, someone always has to go to the bathroom. While Dean and Jack saw the rest of the group back to our hotel, Liam, Stella, and I made our way through the packed village streets, trying to find a public bathroom. As we came out of the bathroom, we saw that there was an ice-skating rink in the middle of town. Perfect! What a picturesque, magical way to end the night, my recovery be damned! We’d all rent skates. It would be unforgettable.
Spelling It Like It Is Page 17
