by Diane Keaton
The move to Santa Ana was my prelude to adolescence. Not only was I going to be a young woman; Dad started telling me how pretty I’d be and how some boy would love me all up, and wouldn’t that be fun? I didn’t want any boy loving me, not at all, not for a second. I began to formulate how much better it would be if a lot of people loved me instead of one confusing, hard-to-understand boy. This barely realized notion, among others, unwittingly helped drive me toward acting. Many of Dad’s messages became justifications for seeking an audience in lieu of intimacy. Intimacy, like drinking and smoking, was something you had to watch out for. Intimacy meant only one person loved you, not thousands, not millions. It made me think of Mom on that stage at the Ambassador Hotel and Dad’s unhappiness about having to share her with others.
We found our way to better conversations after I won a debate at Willard Junior High School. Thus began many nightly discourses over solutions to family problems and local politics. Dad was a Republican. He argued for lower taxes and better behavior. Mom, a determined Democrat, believed in higher taxation and more leniency with us kids. I chose to argue in her defense. What happened in the heat of our deliberations became a determining factor in my future. The more intense things became, the better I argued my point. Following my impulses did something wildly exciting; it triggered thought. Fighting for something within the safety of a formal context became my path to personal expression, but, more important, it gave me the opportunity to know Dad in a different way. He was a great debater. And fun too. It wasn’t the subject or the content of our deliberations; it was the shared experience that meant so much. I couldn’t care less if I lost. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was a turning point in my relationship with my dad. I was learning how to navigate something new: Dad’s mind.
C-Minus
In my fourteenth year, Mom handed me “My Diary” after a parent-teacher meeting in the eighth grade. It was her way of addressing my C-minus in English. I had been put in the so-called dumbbell section, with bilingual Mexican girls, bad boys, and drifty dreamy types like me. Bound together by a lack of skills, the buxom Mexican girls and I became friends. They took prepubescent, big-personality Diane under their wing. They were kind and generous and a great audience to my pratfalls. After three years in remedial English, I still didn’t know a conjunction from a preposition or a proper noun from a common noun. In those days there were no alternative teaching methods to help kids like us. I had a lot of feelings, but I didn’t understand what we were being taught. Were we even being taught? I don’t think so. I think we were being “dumped.” Mom was not a stickler for homework. She was more comfortable addressing my aspirations. For example, it was her idea to black out my teeth when I auditioned for the talent show with “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth.” When I was a Melodette, she advised me to approach Mr. Anderson, our choirmaster, about singing duets like “Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better” before trying to convince him I could handle “When the Red Red Robin Comes Bob Bob Bobbin’ Along” as a solo. Mom encouraged all of my performing-based activities, but that parent-teacher meeting must have convinced her that “My Diary” would help teach me to respect the power of words.
Dear Diary,
I wish I had a boyfriend. Boys are never going to like me because I’m flat. Well, maybe one boy might, but I’m not sure. There’s Joe Gibbins, but he got caught sniffing glue today. Man. That’s really getting bad. I hope I never know another boy who does that. Not ever.
I wish I could sing like Megan. She gets to take lessons with Kenny Akin. And she gets all the solos too. Of course everyone thinks she’s neat. I’m going to ask Mom to let me take vocal lessons with Kenny Akin too. He puts on a lot of shows in Orange County.
Dear Diary,
Today, I went downtown with Virginia Odenath and Pat Amthor. All they did was talk to each other. Plus Pat told Virginia I like Larry Blair. I cannot stand one thing about her or her big fat mouth. And then of course Virginia couldn’t wait to tell me Larry likes Genene Seeton. Well, he can just have her. Not only that, some person predicted the world will end tomorrow, and I got a D on my Algebra test.
One good thing though, Mom said yes to the lessons. So, I’ll be singing with Megan at last. This is so neat.
Dear Diary,
I just don’t think it’s fair that Kenny Akin never lets me have a chance at a solo. I’m just a nothing around there. That’s for sure. Maybe my time hasn’t come yet. Oh well.
Dear Diary,
Today I found out that Megan is adopted, and her sister went insane and tried to kill herself. It was so sad. Why would anyone want to die? I wish no one ever had to die in the first place. It’s too scary. I pray to God that in heaven everyone is happy and can’t remember what it’s like to wish they wanted to kill themselves like Megan’s sister.
Dear Diary,
I finally got the nerve to ask a boy to the Girls Ask Boys dance. And he said he would go with me. Isn’t that neat? He’s in the popular crowd. He’s scads of fun. He always calls me “stupid.” Guess who it is? Ronnie McNeeley. I can’t wait to tell Mahala Hoien, my new best friend. His shirt size is 18. This is just about the neatest thing ever. The girls are supposed to make the boys a shirt that matches their blouse. Isn’t that just so cool?
Dear Diary,
The worst thing of all was the Girls Ask Boys dance. I thought it would be a blast. But it wasn’t. Ronnie acted like he was too good for me. He even asked Pat Amthor to dance instead of me. And he had the nerve to leave before the whole thing was over. I dispise (spell) him. He should have at least danced with me once. It’s awful. Boys just don’t like me. I’m not pretty enough.
Dear Diary,
For Christmas Kenny put on a production called Amahl and the Night Visitors. Megan was the lead. Boy, does everybody primp over her or what? For instance, Judy says, “Megan, are you cold?” Virginia says, “Megan, here, take my coat.” Meanwhile, I’m freezing. Do you think they’d offer me their coat?
Kenny had a long talk with me today and said that he would be using me a lot next year. And that someday I’d be a great comedian. Har de har.
Kenny Akin
Kenny Akin was known as “Mr. Music of Orange County.” He looked like a six-foot-four version of Howdy Doody without Buffalo Bob pulling the strings. Even though I couldn’t process the meaning of my student-teacher relationship with this larger-than-life character, I must have instinctively known he was a means to an end. Besides producing and directing Kismet, Oklahoma!, and Babes in Toyland, Kenny Akin managed his own voice-and-dramatics studio and portrayed leading tenor roles in numerous productions from Los Angeles to San Bernardino County. Kenny’s protégée, Megan, and I were both thirteen, but Megan was poised and attractive and had an all-out killer voice. No getting around it: Kenny thought Megan was as close to perfection as a person could be. In his eyes I was one thing only—WRONG.
Thank God he never bought into my brand of appeal. His rejection gave me the will to persist long enough to find a loophole that would force him to give me a chance. As always, my loophole was Mom. Over a cup of coffee at the kitchen counter, I told her how Kenny gave all the big parts to Megan. Mom didn’t say anything; she just shook her head. But I know for a fact she had a little chat with Mr. Akin, because a few days later I saw them through a crack in his study door. All I can say is Dorothy Deanne Keaton Hall could be very convincing when it came to her children.
After Mother’s chat, I was assigned bit parts that led to Raggedy Ann in Babes in Toyland. I must have scored big, because Kenny started to take me more seriously. That’s when I started to take him less seriously. It wasn’t long before I told Mother I didn’t want to study with Kenny anymore. I’d learned all I needed to know from him. I couldn’t articulate my thoughts, but with enough experience under my belt, I’d learned how to hold my own at least long enough to find my way to an audience. The audience would decide my fate, not Mr. Kenny Akin. I always thought I’d be crushed by people who didn’t b
uy into me. But I wasn’t. There would be many Kenny Akinses who found themselves stuck with me whether they liked it or not.
Applause
There was no discussion with my parents on the night I sang “Mata Hari” in our Santa Ana High School production of the musical Little Mary Sunshine. Under the direction of our drama teacher, Mr. Robert Leasing, the production was worthy of Broadway—at least, that’s what it was like for me. I was Nancy Twinkle, the second lead, who loves to flirt with men. Little did I know that her big song, “Mata Hari,” would be a showstopper. I ran around the stage singing about the famous spy “who would spy and get her data by doing this and that-a,” ending with a grand finale featuring me sliding down a rope into the orchestra pit. That was when I heard the explosion. It was applause. When Mom and Dad found me backstage, their faces were beaming. Dad had tears in his eyes. I’d never seen him so excited. More than excited—surprised. That’s what it was. I could tell he was startled by his awkward daughter—the one who’d flunked algebra, smashed into his new Ford station wagon with the old Buick station wagon, and spent a half hour in the bathroom using up a whole can of Helene Curtis hairspray. For one thrilling moment I was his Seabiscuit, Audrey Hepburn, and Wonder Woman rolled into one. I was Amelia Earhart flying across the Atlantic. I was his heroine.
Later, Dad would boast about my career, but it was “Mata Hari” that became our watershed moment. There were no words. It was all—every timeless second—encapsulated in his piercing light-blue eyes. The ones Mom fell in love with. There was no going back.
PART TWO
3
MANHATTAN
The Neighborhood Playhouse
I don’t remember getting on the plane that took me three thousand miles away from home when I was nineteen. I don’t remember what I was wearing or what the flight was like. I don’t remember kissing my family goodbye. I remember the bus ride to the city. I remember the YWCA. It was on the West Side. I remember checking in to a tiny room. I remember sitting on the stoop, watching people rush past buildings. I was in the city of my dreams. Every New Year’s Eve I’d sat in front of our twenty-one-inch Philco Predicta television set and watched the ball drop in Times Square. New York was wall-to-wall mile-high buildings. It was the opposite of dinky Santa Ana or even Los Angeles. It was Times Square, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and the Chrysler Building too. But most of all it was New Year’s Eve. It was hundreds of thousands—no, millions—of people gathered together to celebrate the ringing in of a new year. I wanted to stand with them too, right there, right in front of the Broadhurst Theatre, where hits like Pal Joey, Auntie Mame, and The World of Suzie Wong played to packed houses. New York was movies too, movies like Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It was Audrey Hepburn with the endless cigarette holder dangling from her perfect mouth. New York was my destiny; I was going to study at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. I was going to be an actress. And I was ready. That’s when the doorman came over and told me not to sit in front of the Y. That’s all I remember: the city, the room, how ready I was, and “Don’t sit on the stoop.”
At the Neighborhood Playhouse, it was Sandy Meisner. He wore a camel’s hair coat. He smoked and everyone said he was homosexual, even though he’d been married. I’d never heard of a married man who was gay but looked straight. He was mesmerizing and mean and the first grown man I ever thought of as sexy. I loved the ashes that were as long as the cigarette that dangled from his mouth. I loved how they fell onto his camel’s hair coat. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He was the most exotic man I’d ever seen.
In Mr. Meisner’s acting class, there were no accolades. Things didn’t go like that. To Sandy, acting was about reproducing honest emotional reactions. He felt that the actor’s job was to prepare for an “experiment that would take place onstage.” His approach was designed “to eliminate all intellectuality from the actor’s instrument and to make him a spontaneous responder,” which could be learned by practicing the Repetition Game. It went like this. A partner—let’s say Cricket Cohen—would make an observation about me. “Diane, you have brown hair.” I listened and repeated the sentence she spoke. “I have brown hair.” Observing some aspect of my hair, Cricket might say, “Your brown hair is also straight and thin.” I would respond with something like, “Yes, my hair is straight and thin.” She would embellish, adding, “Very thin.” I would reply, “You’re right, it is thin, very thin, but not curly like yours.” The implication being, “You got a problem, asshole?” She would respond, “At least my hair is not too thin.” Meaning something to the effect of, “Lay off, bitch. Go back to Santa Ana where you belong.” And on and on, until we both ended up expressing a variety of emotions based on our reactions to each other’s behavior. I took to the Repetition Game like a fish to water.
Sandy Meisner also introduced us to the world of playing with our feelings, especially the embarrassing ones. I learned to use my suppressed anger to good effect. I could cry on a dime, explode, forgive, fall in love, fall out, all in a matter of moments. My weakness? I was “too general.” At the end of the second year, he cast me as Barbara Allen in Dark of the Moon. Rehearsals were fraught with anxiety. One day I entered stage right, singing, “A witch boy from the mountain came, a-pinin’ to be human, for he had seen the fairest gal, a gal named Barbara Allen.” Meisner yelled as only he could, “Why are you traipsing around like you’re Doris fucking Day?”
Sandy taught us to respond to our partner’s behavior. End of discussion. He forced us to hang in with the truth of the moment. No questions. He made observing and listening a prelude to expression. Point-blank. He was simple and direct. Without embellishing, he gave us the freedom to chart the complex terrain of human behavior within the safety of his guidance. It made playing with fire fun. I loved exploring the shared moment, as long as Sandy was watching. There was one cardinal rule: “Respond to your partner first, and think later.” If you broke that rule, he would start laying on the one-liners. “There’s no such thing as nothing.” “In the theater, silence is an absence of words, but never an absence of meaning.” “May I say as the world’s oldest living teacher, ‘Fuck polite!’ ” More than anything, Sandy Meisner helped me learn to appreciate the darker side of human behavior. I always had a knack for sensing it but not yet the courage to delve into such dangerous, illuminating territory.
The First Year
Dear Family,
The Rehearsal Club is on 53rd Street, right down the block from the Museum of Modern Art. I wish you could see it. It’s an old brownstone. All I can think of is how lucky I am to be rooming with Pam, who is also a new student at the Neighborhood Playhouse. Thank you so much for helping me out. I feel safe, and there’s a lot of other young women who live here, like Sandy Duncan, who is my age but already works professionally, I think as a dancer. All us gals share a phone down the hall. The Rockettes hog it. They have more money, I guess, or maybe they’re just lonely. I don’t know. They work hard, and look hard too. Probably because of all that makeup they wear. I wouldn’t want to be a Rockette for all the money in the world.
School is intense. From 9–5 every day. Wow! I’m very pleased to be working with my partner, Cricket Cohen. She’s excellent to play off of. We practice all the time, and we seem to be doing well. I hope so anyway.
By now, Dorrie’s either a Willard Junior High School cheerleader or not. I hope she got it. Why isn’t Randy dating anyone yet? What’s happening with Robin besides the fact she gave up flag twirling for homework? Wow! Oh, well, I’ve got to study my lines for this scene from Clifford Odets’s Waiting for Lefty. Keep sending photographs. I miss you all. Love, Diane
Hey, Everyone,
Can’t get to sleep tonight. I feel like I’ve had 5 or 6 cups of black coffee. I got the money you sent. Thank God. Only one more month of the Rehearsal Club, and Pam. I don’t think I should say it like that; I mean, sharing a room has been a real learning experience. I just can’t wait to get home for summer. I’m really ne
rvous about whether I’ll get asked back for the second year. What if I don’t?
I’m here sitting in class doing nothing because my partner, Bernie, hasn’t learned his lines. What a waste of time. Bernie is so annoying. If Mr. Meisner thinks our scene is lousy, it’s going to hurt my chances for next year. He already got rid of Laura, who happened to be really amazing. Do you think I should ask for a new partner? Or would that make me a creep? If I lay into Bernie, it’s not going to do any good. And anyway, he’s completely nuts.
How is everyone? What’s new? Has Domino still got too many fleas? Is Randy shaving yet? How are the pimples on Robin’s forehead? And what about Dorrie Bell? Everything still fit as a fiddle?
Take care,
Love, Diane
The Second Year
Dear Mom,
I can’t stand it. The second year is so much harder. Mr. Meisner is really pushing us to expand into interpretation. I don’t know how to create a character. I understand the repetition exercise, but being someone else? And everyone’s so much more competitive this year. Nobody is sloughing off. It makes me nervous. Meisner keeps telling us we have to be more specific. As you know, that’s the area I have the most trouble. We’re performing singing scenes for the 1st year soon. You’ll never guess what I’m doing. MR. SNOW from Carousel. Again? I’m sick of Mr. Snow. In acting class we’re doing Restoration scenes, which is by far beyond me.
See you in a month. I can’t wait to come home for Christmas.
Much love,
