Prairie Tale: A Memoir

by Melissa Gilbert

  At any rate, Little Miss Can’t Do Anything on Her Own decided to leave a few days early. I schlepped my luggage and all the crap I’d bought across Europe and found my way from our hotel, through the canals, and to the airport and caught a flight to New York, where I fell into Rob’s arms and spent the next three weeks as a raving heterosexual.

  When I got home, my mom told me about a cute girl she had met at Warren’s PR firm, Rogers & Cowan. She was Robert Wagner’s daughter, Katie. My mom thought we would make great friends. Knowing I didn’t have many close girlfriends, she suggested I give her a call. I sloughed off her recommendation just because it came from her. At almost twenty-one years old, I didn’t want my mother picking my friends or making play dates for me.

  A few days later, though, I found myself with tickets to a Genesis concert and no one to go with me. Rob was out of town, Emilio didn’t want to go because Peter Gabriel had left the band and Emilio insisted that Genesis wasn’t Genesis without Peter. Rob’s brother, Chad, my backup date, was busy. I thought what the hell, and I called Rogers & Cowan and got Katie on the phone.

  “I don’t know you and you don’t know me,” I said. “But I have great seats for a Genesis concert tonight. I also have a limo. Want to go?”

  She said yes and from that moment forward we were joined at the hip. We were the same astrological sign, Taurus, born just three days apart. She shopped the way I did, with gusto and power. We favored Fred Segal and the boutiques on Sunset Plaza, where her mom had a store. We would go to New York for three-day shopping sprees at the B stores—Barney’s, Bendel’s, and Bergdorf’s. Best of all, she didn’t go gaga over Rob, as had some previous girlfriends. She was unfazed by him.

  I adored her father, an amazing man who was exactly the way you would think he would be. At her house, we would come in late from a night of partying, find her dad in the kitchen, and sit with him till four in the morning as he told the most mesmerizing stories about everyone in Hollywood. This was twenty years before he had published his own memoir, and the stories about his affair with Barbara Stanwyck and his life with Natalie Wood, as well as Katie’s mom were still private and precious.

  By the time I met Katie, I had figured out L.A.’s late-night scene and knew the hot restaurants, clubs, and exclusive haunts. Celebrity was the best ticket in town. Whether I was with Rob or Katie or the three of us were out together, the door at the private back entrance of any club would open and we would be ushered directly into the VIP area, or the VVIP area if they had one. Air kisses and drinks followed.

  On Friday nights, we went to Helena’s, a dinner club in an industrial part of Silverlake that stood out only for the Rolls-Royces, Ferraris, and Mercedes parked in front. There wasn’t any sign. You had to know where it was, and then to get in you had to know its owner, Helena Kallianiotes, a former belly dancer turned actress who opened the place as a hangout for her famous friends.

  On opening night, Jack Nicholson gave Anjelica Huston a baby elephant. Goldie Hawn turned forty there. Sean Penn and Madonna used it as a haven from paparazzi. Beatty held court at a favorite table. So did Michael Douglas. It was quite a pickup joint. Then Helena started poetry night, which was hilarious. Ally and Judd got up and read poems they had written. I never had the balls to try.

  One night, I was at Spago for dinner with Rob, Andrew McCarthy, and Rob’s agent, Michael Black (one of the most viciously funny men in Hollywood, and one of my favorite people). At the time, Wolfgang Puck’s gourmet pizzeria on the Sunset Strip was Hollywood’s nighttime commissary. Being there was like an A-list party with surprise guests. Indeed, as Wolfgang brought over special appetizer pizzas, I heard someone scream, “Michael!”

  It was kind of amazing how the familiar voice pierced the dense hum of conversation from all the way across the restaurant. I turned and saw Liza Minnelli flying over to our table. She kissed Michael, sat down between Andrew and me, ordered a greyhound, and stepped into our little party as if she’d been there from the start.

  Then Michael Jackson walked in. He came straight to our table and sat down just as dinner was served. Wolfgang kept sending over food, and everyone talked—except for Michael Jackson. Other than his kiss-kiss with Liza, he didn’t say a word. Nothing.

  We finished dinner and were nearly through dessert when we began talking about what to do next and where we should go. Ideas were tossed around. All the options were nixed and everyone ran out of ideas at the same time. The table fell silent. And that’s when Michael finally spoke the only words he would say the entire evening.

  “You can come to my house,” he said. “I got a llama.”

  The already strange evening got stranger when Liza suggested going to Sammy’s. I thought she was talking about a club I’d never heard of. She laughed at me (“You’re so silly,” she said) and explained she meant Sammy Davis Jr.’s house. Andrew, Michael Black, Rob, Liza, and I bid good-bye to Michael Jackson, who didn’t want to go, and caravanned to Sammy’s house in Beverly Hills, where I’d learn Sammy was friends with my grandfather (surprise, surprise) and see a wigless Liza (the woman had six hairs on her head!). Eventually we ended the night at Michael Black’s apartment, where suddenly Andrew and Liza started making out. That was it for me. I said to Rob, “What is Android (our nickname for him) doing?” Rob said he didn’t have a clue, but agreed with me that it was definitely time for us to get the heck out of there. So we said our good-byes and drove home laughing uncontrollably as we recounted the crazy events of the evening.

  Life was terribly fun. It was still basically pre-AIDS, back when it was only just whispered about as that gay cancer, and things were still fairly wild and permissive. We were in the midst of the Reagan era, and those of us earning good paychecks were not being overly taxed in any way, shape, or form, so people had oodles of money to toss around. There was the sense that all of us were at one of the great parties in human history.

  It is important to note that around this time my brother, Jonathan, completely cut himself off from the family. He turned eighteen and simply disappeared. Though he would turn up a couple of times over several years, I have only seen him three times in the last two decades. Surprisingly, I am at peace with it. Though my heart does ache for my mother: I would learn later on what it means to let go of a son.

  Rob and I wanted to work together. After years of looking for a project, we thought we found it when, in September 1985, he was cast in About Last Night and I was asked to do a screen test with him. Ed Zwick, who was directing this dark-humored relationship story based on the David Mamet play Sexual Perversity in Chicago, set up the test in New York. Though I heard the test was strong, Demi Moore got the job. Ed was honest and straightforward with me about his decision.

  “Casting is casting,” he said, “and the studio wants what the studio wants, and beyond all that, just look at the two of them. Even you have to admit they look good together.” I gotta admit, they did.

  Rob soothed my sore feelings by taking me to see Bruce Springs-teen, who was on the last leg of his monumental Born in the U.S.A. tour, and then he went off to Chicago to make About Last Night. I visited a couple times before starting my next project, the TV movie Choices, which explored the issues surrounding abortion. The picture shot in Montreal with Jacqueline Bisset and George C. Scott, who was every bit the intimidating, ferocious, opinionated, unbelievably talented George C. of legend. For whatever reason, though, we took a shine to each other instantly. Somehow he would know when I was walking by his trailer. He would lean out the door and say, “Kid, come here.”

  The first time that happened, I entered tentatively.

  “Hi. What’s up?”

  “Have a drink with me,” he said.

  “George, it’s the middle of the day,” I said. “You’re working. So am I.”

  “Oh, what’s wrong with you, you pussy,” he said. “Have a drink with me.”

  I hesitated for a minute and then thought to myself, How many times in my life is the opportunity gonna present
itself? He poured a couple of Bloody Marys, and from then on, that became our thing. He was hilarious—and apparently very thirsty.

  George was a completely no-nonsense guy. He didn’t like all the petty bullshit that was often part of the acting scene, and I think we hit it off because he saw the same no-BS attitude in me. One day we were covering a scene with Jackie, who was a lovely woman and ungodly beautiful. As much as I struggled with my own looks, it dawned on me that being so beautiful must be a huge mind-fuck. You know that inevitably it will go away. And if that’s all you’re known for, you’re screwed.

  Jackie didn’t fall into that one-dimensional category, but she took extraspecial care when it came to her looks. As she got ready for this scene, she had someone behind her with a mirror and someone in front of her with a mirror so she could check her hair from all angles. She had her own stylist, too. George and I were off camera, watching and waiting as she brushed her hair. Suddenly he put his face next to my ear and, in a gravelly voice I can still hear today, he said, “If I ever hear that you’re standing on some film set with a bunch of mirrors around your head, I will come there and I will fuck you up.”

  “Really, Mr. Scott?” I asked.

  “Yes, I will,” he replied. “I promise.”

  “Then I guarantee I will never, ever do that,” I said.

  “Good.” He laughed. “We’ll drink to that later.”

  George played my father, a retired judge, who objected when my character got pregnant and wanted an abortion. Then, in an unexpected twist, he had to decide whether he wanted to be a father again at his age when his wife (Jackie) announced she, too, was carrying a child. The movie was actually pretty controversial for its time. Our most dramatic scene was when I told him that I wanted to terminate my pregnancy. He was supposed to roar, “No abortion,” and then we were to have a heated father-daughter argument.

  We rehearsed it several times, trying to keep something in reserve for the close-ups. Then we shot the master, and after I delivered the big news, George turned to me, crossed his arms, and stepped forward so that he was looking down his nose at me. His gaze was an intense fire ready to explode in my face. But rather than yell, as I expected him to do, he harnessed that rage and passion and instead calmly and slowly said, “No. Abortion.”

  It was like getting bitch-slapped across the face by George S. Patton. Startled, I totally went up. I forgot everything I was supposed to say. After a long pause, he asked, “Are you going to say your line?” I shook my head no.

  “I can’t do it, you Pattoned me!” I said in a meek, embarrassed voice.

  I was relieved when he laughed. I assumed I wasn’t the first actor who’d been handcuffed by his prodigious talent.

  Looking back, I realize there was often someone on a project who was a sort of father figure to me, whether it was Mike, Dick Farnsworth, or George, and I loved hearing George call me kid. Later, whenever our paths would cross or if he saw my mom, he’d ask, “How’s the kid? What’s going on with the kid?”

  In turn, I was able to boast to Rob and the guys that you haven’t lived until you’ve gotten absolutely plowed with George C. Scott—something none of them, despite their movie-star stature, could say. I also told another story that wouldn’t have happened to any of them. At the end of Choices, we went to New York City to shoot some exterior scenes. One night I took a few people from the crew out to a club, either Limelight or Area, and I was in the VVIP area when Andy Warhol sidled up to me.

  He looked straight at me. I’d been in close proximity to him at various clubs over the years. He knew full well who I was. As soon as I smiled at him, though, he took a few steps back and whispered in the ear of a pretty man who was part of his little entourage. The guy stepped forward and whispered in my ear, “Andy wants to know if there are any famous people here tonight.”

  I turned toward this well-dressed little homunculus, aghast at the insult he had just delivered with a blithe ignorance.

  “Tell Andy to eat my shorts,” I said.

  The guy seemed stunned.

  “Okay,” I said. “You don’t have to tell him to eat my shorts.”

  He smiled, relieved.

  “Just tell him to fuck off,” I said.

  My identity suffered another kind of crisis when I got back home only to find Rob wanted to break up. It was a new year, and after finishing About Last Night, he wanted to see other people. It was awful, heartbreaking, and inevitable. Despite getting along, our separate projects had caused us to spend too much time apart. I cried and wondered how I was going to get through it. At nearly twenty-two, I resigned myself to life with my cats and my beagle, Sidney, the only living creatures who understood me.

  But I had people around who pulled me out of bed, picked me up, got me dressed, and dragged me out. Especially Katie. She was the one who kept me on life support when I wanted to pull the plug. She responded with pithy answers when I cried, “What am I going to do now?” She ignored me when I wailed that I was never going to get through the heartache. She kept me out of the house and social when I argued with her and everyone else that my life was over and I was better off spending the rest of my life under the covers in sweats and a T-shirt. And she was right when she promised that if I got my ass out of bed and got dressed, a new door would open.

  sixteen

  WAIT A MINUTE, WHO’S THE PRINCESS IN THIS LOVE STORY?

  In May 1986, NBC celebrated its sixty-fifth anniversary with a black-tie photo session, for which they gathered together the stars of its biggest shows from past and present. I took my sister, who enjoyed seeing all the stars. Numerous people said they couldn’t believe that I’d finally grown up, but Don Johnson wasn’t among them. The Miami Vice star hit on me the whole afternoon.

  Not that I minded being the object of his attention when the room was practically overflowing with beautiful women in gowns cut much lower than mine. It was exciting, but I also knew nothing was going to come of it because if anyone in the world was dangerous to women, he was. Even with very little knowledge about Don and even less experience, I knew guys like him were unhealthy for women wanting to preserve their wits and sanity.

  I was in my dressing room with Sara after the shoot when Don banged through the door, pushed me against the wall, and planted a kiss on my mouth. Not a polite good-bye, nice-to-meet-you kiss, it was the kind of kiss you felt in your toes. It lasted long enough that I had time to look at Sara with one eye and see her mouth hanging open. Don finally stepped back and looked me directly in the eye with a puckish half smile on his face.

  “I’m going to call you,” he said.

  Then he left.

  I exhaled as if I had been holding my breath for two days. The whole thing freaked me out. At the same time, I had to admit that more than my curiosity was aroused. Then he called and invited me to dinner with a group of his friends. I put myself together for the evening and arrived at Sonny Bono’s restaurant on Melrose, not sure what to expect, but promising myself I would do nothing more daring than order dessert. Don seated me next to him at a large, round table, and things were fine until Patty D’Arbanville walked in amid a trail of spinning heads.

  They had been in a long relationship and had a son together, though I didn’t know if they were still together, married, or what. All I knew was that she was one of those unattainably glamorous women. A total knockout way beyond my league and one tough dame. Once she sat down, I felt like I was intruding on something and the rest of the night seemed awkward. It didn’t help that I felt like I was a child who’d mistakenly gotten seated at the grown-ups’ table.

  For a couple weeks afterward, I fielded calls from Don, who wanted me to visit him in Miami. He showed tremendous persistence. I considered going but ultimately, I chose to preserve my own well-being.

  Instead, I hooked up with a different Hollywood bad boy, Billy Idol, who I met one night at Tramps when Katie and I were seated at the far end of his table in the VIP section. My first thought was wow, he is gorgeous. We star
ted out shouting at each other over the loud music pulsing through the club. Then I moved to his end of the table. As I settled in, I thought if Don Johnson was a bad idea, this was beyond crazy.

  However, as we talked, he impressed me as a sweet, gentle, and soft-spoken charmer. He wanted to know all about Michael Landon and he asked what it was like to grow up on television. At the end of the night, we exchanged numbers and a few days later he called and asked me out. We went on several dates, and of course the second we showed up anyplace, we were met by paparazzi. The tabloids had a field day trying to figure us out. In the public eye, we were the ultimate odd couple (though not to my mom, who liked Billy a lot—then again, she really had no idea what I was up to at the time). He even called me Priscilla, likening us to the pairing of bad-boy Elvis and his oh-so-sweet wife.

  I never had any doubt it was more of an adventure than a long-term arrangement. When he returned to town after a brief trip abroad, he threw a party in his suite at the Bel Age Hotel and I saw serious drug use and people out of control. I stayed until the following afternoon, but afterward I was bothered by the glimpse of darkness I saw that night. The turning point was when Billy took me to Rick James’s house, which was the scariest place I’d ever been. I felt a bad vibe as soon as I walked in. Twenty minutes later, I made him take me home.

  After that, I began to pull back from Billy. That I was even with him shocked the hell out of people, including myself. But I didn’t want to get involved any further and then have to disentangle myself from something I sensed could turn ugly fast.

  I also grew wary of living too fast and loose. AIDS was making headlines as a fierce and mysterious killer mostly of gay men, but no one really knew anything about the disease except there wasn’t a cure.

  I came of age right before AIDS, when people were obsessed with California cuisine, parachute pants, and partying all night at clubs. Everyone shared coke straws and glasses. People still hopped from bed to bed. No one talked about condoms or protected sex. The only time I heard anyone talk about losing their life from sex was when some guy half-jokingly expressed concern about the possibility of picking up a psycho stalker who might slit his throat.