by Diane Keaton
No matter how many critics hated Heaven, I have to say, I loved every clip and every interview. Spending time trying to make sure I made the smart choice about the right movie to appear in wasn’t nearly as entertaining. But Heaven, Reservations, Still Life, and even Religious Commissions were just that: completely entertaining. I recognize that these projects wouldn’t have seen the light of day if it hadn’t been for my movie-star status. My forays outside the hub of celebrity felt right, almost like home, not really but sort of.
Found
Heaven brought me something else: Al Pacino one more time. We ran into each other outside an editing bay at the film center where he was working on his 16-millimeter film, The Local Stigmatic, while I was finishing up with the hereafter. He was irresistible, as always, and we started palling around, but it was different this time. We were older. He wasn’t the Godfather. I wasn’t Kay Corleone. We were two people plugging away at a couple of independent films. There was a disheveled aspect to Al that was very appealing, almost familial. He invited me to come to his home one Sunday, then another and another. It was always the same. After the softball game with Al as shortstop, the usual cast of characters—Sully Boyer; Mark, Al’s half brother; Adam Strasberg; John Halsey; and Michael Hedges—would drive to his house on the Hudson. The place was filled with activity. Al’s three dogs ran around. Stray actors like William Converse Roberts and Christine Estabrook—in pink shorts with matching tank top—would pop in for a few minutes, while Charlie Laughton, Al’s mentor, and his wife, Penny, discussed the dying role of the theater. Al would join in with thoughts of doing a workshop of Salome or Macbeth. These conversations would go on for hours and hours. Al was consumed by two things: baseball and the theater.
He was an artist. He made me think about the difference between being an artist and being artistic. I knew where I stood. I was artistic. For the first time it didn’t matter. I just wanted him to love me. I’m pretty sure in Al’s mind I was a friend he could talk to. As much as I loved listening, I wanted more, lots of more. Tons. I wanted him to want me as much as I wanted him.
In the middle of this love came Baby Boom. The script, about a woman who is forced to adopt a baby, was laugh-out-loud hilarious (or, as Dexter would say, LOL). Charles Shyer and Nancy Meyers, the writing-directing-producing team, were talented and charming. Nancy and my soon-to-be-dear-friend Susie Becker, the costume designer, made me over. It was great to feel attractive and cute and funny again. I became J. C. Wiatt—snappy, sassy, and ready to go. What great good fortune. Or, as J. C. Wiatt would have said, “I’m back. I am back.” And it wasn’t Heaven that did it.
The Future Isn’t What It Used to Be
When I arrived at the Glendale Adventist Medical Center, Grammy Hall sat on the side of the hospital bed, ready to go home. Her white hair was pushed back with three rusted bobby pins. Her rayon pants outfit, ablaze with orange, red, and yellow flowers, was offset by the geometric pattern of her blouse, also aflame. “Dorrie’s new boyfriend is a Jew. Did you know that, Diane? Also that nurse Holly’s fiancé is an Eyetalian. And that new aide is a Lebanon. I think she’s a sister to Danny Thomas.” “How are you feeling, Gram?” “It seems most of my trouble is in my head. It’s that there gland. There’s poor circulation in my brain, see. They took X-rays of my head. They seem to think I’m in a bad way. Don’t worry, Diane; I lived a long life, too long. I’m not making many future plans, see, ’cause I don’t want to live that long. That’s too long to live to wait for, what … fifteen or twenty dollars?”
I was as close to Mary Hall as she would let me be. And vice versa. She was ninety-four when she died. Back in the fifties, I hadn’t cottoned to Grammy Hall. She didn’t try to paint a pretty picture of the world. Her Christmas presents were awful: a year’s supply of Mission Pack pears delivered to our door every month. Like I cared about pears. It was only when I grew up that I began to respect her.
True, she was unevolved, but she was not a hypocrite. She was 100 percent honest. She was a practicing skeptic, as well as a practicing Catholic. What a contradiction in terms, especially when you consider she didn’t believe in Jesus or heaven. She saw through the pretense and accepted it with a shrug, saying, “It’s a long drawn-out proposition, ain’t it, Diane. Like I always say, it’s the same old sixes or sevens.” She died a devout Catholic. Hey, Gram, I’m with you; why not cover all bases, just in case, on the off chance you might be wrong?
Dorothy at Sixty-three
I am a woman of medium height: once five feet eight, now five seven. I keep my records in this leather-bound journal titled 1980. I have no unpaid bills or financial obligations to meet. My present bank account number is 45572 1470. I have four issue (children). Their birth dates are Jan. 5, 1946, March 21, 1948, March 27, 1951, and April 1, 1953. Their names are Diane, Randy, Robin, and Dorrie. I am married to Jack Newton Hall, a citizen of the United States. His eyes are blue. His hair is graying. He is 6 feet tall. We live on a lot, which measures 30 by 40 feet. It is barely big enough to build a house, but we did, and we love it. We have fire and flood insurance. Neither my husband nor I have life insurance. We each drive a car. My car is a silver Jaguar, license number 1FTU749. Jack drives a Toyota mini van, license number JNH on the front with silver letters on a black background. I have signed my last will and testament. It hereby revokes all other wills or codicils at anytime previously made by me.
I was born in Winfield City, Kansas, in Crowell County. My birth date was October 31, 1921, the year President Harding was sworn into office and Land O’Lakes butter was introduced to the state of New York. My father, Samuel Roy Keaton, a man of medium height, was a sheet metal worker. My mother, Beulah, was a housewife with gray eyes. They had three daughters, Orpha, Martha, and me.
At 63, I have long gray hair. I wash it with Sassoon shampoo. My conditioner is Silkience. I dry it with a Revlon hand held blow dryer. I curl it with Clairol hot rollers. I bathe in HOT water. I brush my teeth with an Oro Flex toothbrush dipped in hydrogen peroxide. My teeth are sound, as is my mind. I try to drink 8 glasses of water each day. I sleep in nighties, under two white blankets with my husband beside me. In the morning I turn on the radio and immediately put on one of four warm robes. There’s the one I bought at Macy’s N.Y. with Diane for 50 dollars. There’s the short one with six snaps down the front that Dorrie got me. There’s the pink peachy robe with oriental flower designs all over it. But my favorite is my much worn purple robe from Saks 5th Ave. It really is a part of me. My feelings are wrapped inside it.
My face and neck are fairly wrinkled now. I am giving myself a great deal of personal care these days. I apply cell rejuvenator at night and skin lifter in the morning, followed by wrinkle straightener in between. I was promised a surprise at the end of 15 days. 90 days later, I see no change. I like to keep my face clean and colored up with red cheek rouge, brown eye pencil, and various shades of lipstick. I seldom forget to apply a hearty dose of cologne to my body.
We have radios everywhere, even a new one in my darkroom that tapes from tapes. A blue radio sits in my bathroom window. Jack and I each have a radio on either side of the bed. Our newest radio sits on the white countertop in our white kitchen. Listening to talk radio is a constant. I take Feldene arthritis medication for my hand and jaw. I swallow one capful of Geritol for my vitamin requirement every morning. I wear glasses for reading; one pair in every room I work in.
I’ve changed in ways beyond my imagination. The lack of physicality has hit with apparent permanency. I sleep more than I did when I was younger. My dreams are evasive when I try to recapture them. I’m content to stay home all day, waiting for Jack and our evening chat with drinks and dinner. I don’t need people around. We don’t have guests over very much. I’ve lost my singing voice; even my speaking voice has gone soft and hoarse. I can’t play the piano anymore. I don’t listen to music. I sit in my darkroom and play solitaire for long periods of time. I spend too much time alone. I get in my car and go out, but I’m always home by 1
o’clock.
After I change into something comfortable I get serious about monitoring the Cove. I watch cars come and go. I see who leaves and where they’re going. I study Champ, Jim Beauchamp’s wonderful golden retriever. His wife Martha ignores Champ. To me she misses the very essence of that brilliant creature.
There are times I feel as if I’m a true artist. At the moment I’m working on a large sheet of white cardboard I’m transforming into a collage. It’s going well, but I tell no one. I have about five completed works framed and ready to go. Two have been accepted in a show at Santa Ana College. I work on the floor of my darkroom, where I spend a lot of time cutting out things I like from the Times. But I always get my housework done first. It’s a habit I can’t break. I make the bed, straighten the bathroom, finish the dishes, adjust the pleated blinds at the windows, plan the evening meal, make a list of things to do for that day, get dressed, and then, only then, do I turn to the work in my workroom. Sometimes I can stick with it and sometimes not. It doesn’t matter because it’s only for me anyway.
I have no grandchildren. I’m not sure at my advanced age that I want any little copies running around. I don’t feel capable of such a responsibility.
My friends are my cats, Perkins and Cyrus. They depend on me for entertainment as well as food and lodging. Being home a lot and having no company but them is an invitation to carry on some interesting conversations. I looked at Perkins in the eye this morning as she was sitting on my bathroom sink, her two lime green eyes locked with mine, and I asked her just what exactly were her goals in life. I was curious. She spends most of the day running from things like footsteps, voices, other cats, people, rain, wind, and radio noise. I wonder how Perkins gets anything worthwhile out of life. Cyrus obeys me when I order him off the counter, but he doesn’t remember to stay off permanently. He does remember to check out the refrigerator whenever the door opens. Finally it’s clear to me that he remembers what he wishes to remember. Quite human.
I read the Los Angeles Times every day, Newsweek magazine weekly, and as much fiction as I can squeeze in. I have an IBM electric typewriter that I use with pleasure. I keep a daily journal. I like books, cats, nice people, good food, bourbon and sometimes gin, writing words, being alone. I LOVE: my husband, my four children, my sisters, my one day at the bookstore, sunsets, the bay in front of our house, my Jaguar, Mary Hall (now), and myself (sometimes). I have weekly visits with a psychiatrist, who is trying to help me see myself in a better light. I have two or three close friends I can talk to openly. Gretchen, Margaret, and Jo. I go months between visits with them. I don’t talk on the phone much. I don’t offer invitations to people, because I fear rejection. I’ve been rejected a number of times. I enjoy working in the darkroom and doing a variety of art projects, with nothing to show for it, of course. I guess I’m a fragmented person. I do nothing really well. I have, at the moment, no motivation.
In Response, Diane at Sixty-three
I’m sixty-three, once five feet seven, now five six. The feelings and thoughts that overwhelmed Dorothy could and do mirror much of what I feel as well. Advanced age? Oh, yeah. Good at anything? I can still memorize lines. Do I fear rejection? I’m an actress. Fragmented? More than most. The difference is—Dorothy at sixty-three was finished raising her four children. At sixty-three, I’m doing what Dorothy did when she was twenty-four.
Yesterday I found Dexter and her new boyfriend of three days, Ben, on video chat. When I confronted her, it was simple: “I’m a video-chat addict, Mom.” A video-chat addict? Does that mean she has an addiction to Facebook as well? How else could she have acquired three hundred fifty friends in less than three weeks? There are so many surprising aspects to Dexter, like how brave she was with Dr. Sherwood, her orthodontist, after he finally recognized that the tissue growing over the screw closing the gap from her missing tooth had to be removed, just as she had told me months ago. When we rushed to the oral surgeon, she never uttered a sound while he extracted the tooth. What a sturdy person; how resilient in the face of pain and fear; how unlike me, her anxious mother.
Then there’s “Duke’s World.” Yesterday I picked him up after school. He barely slammed the car door shut before he launched in on how unfair it is that his friend Jasper, age seven, should have an iPhone when he, eight-year-old Duke, does not. Magnanimously, he offered to buy it with his own money. Knowing he doesn’t have any money made me admire his chutzpah. When I told him I wanted to think about it, he said, “How long?” “For a while.” “When?” “Duke, I’ll tell you later.” “Tomorrow?” “Duke, enough!” “Tomorrow??” I tuned the radio to 102.7, praying Ryan Seacrest would distract him while I looked at the newly abandoned storefronts in Westwood Village and remembered the call I got from Evelyn, a mother from Dexter’s pre-K days who wanted to know if I knew anyone who needed some legal work. Her husband had lost his job. I was trying to think of who I might know, when Ryan Seacrest exceeded my wildest dreams and played Duke’s favorite song, “Apple Bottom Jeans.” I rejoiced in silence for a full three minutes.
When we pulled up to basketball camp at the YMCA, Duke reminded me he’s too big for the booster seat, plus he wanted his usual chocolate mint milk tea warm, not hot, so don’t forget the ice cubes, and did I have any Dubble Bubble sugarless gum? As I pulled away, I took one last look at my boy; God, is he beautiful or what? And then, just as I remembered that Carol Kane was going to spend the night, the phone rang. It was my partner Stephanie Heaton. “L’Oreal might want to sponsor the Lifetime screening of Because I Said So on Mother’s Day.” She also reminded me of the speech I hadn’t memorized for the Unique Lives speaking engagement coming up. I started worrying.
At sixty-three, I have a daughter who insists she won’t swim the 400 IM at the COLA swim meet. She won’t. She can’t. She does. Duke cries about how his SO MEAN MOM never lets him do anything he wants. At sixty-three there’s the morning pill ritual: Dexter’s Migravent, for headaches; my miracle Metanx vitamins; our old dog Red’s five different capsules for Cushing’s disease, among other ailments; Duke’s “Biotic,” as he calls his vitamins; and our fat dog Emmie’s shit-eating pills, which after six months still haven’t done the trick. At sixty-three there’s still a lot of pleasure, like cleaning out Emmie’s earwax and still being allowed to stroke Duke’s head in public. The endless struggle to get Dexter to kiss me at least once a week is worth it. The mountain of hugs and kisses makes things way okay. So does the thrill of still being able to give Duke a piggyback ride. The marvel of watching Dexter’s intricate nightly beauty regimen is the best way to say goodbye to the day. Good times.
At sixty-three, I can’t change into comfortable clothes like Mom and watch the world outside my window. I can’t hurry home in retreat from the stress of human contact, as if solitude will bring peace. I know solitude is no one’s friend, and retreat is not an option. But I take comfort in the fact that Mother and I will always be bound together by the need to communicate. In spite of the pain of anonymity, Dorothy realized her most valued dream. She wrote. And while she wrote she wasn’t criticizing her efforts. She wasn’t worried about rejection. She was engaged. She was giving evidence to the experience of being Dorothy Deanne Keaton Hall.
Dad was always telling me to think. Think ahead. Think. Think, Diane. But it was Mom’s struggles, her conflicts, and her love that made whatever ability I have to think possible. She supported choices that created experiences that expanded my life. As a girl, Mom, like me, had vague grandiose aspirations, but, unlike me, no one helped her expand on them; no one could. It was the poverty of the Depression, not the fabulous fifties. It was Dorothy and Beulah. Then it became Dorothy and Diane.
10
THIS ISN’T SOMETIMES,
THIS IS ALWAYS
Jack Hall’s Right Shoe
In the middle of the Godfather III shoot in Rome, I gave Al an ultimatum: Marry me, or at least commit to the possibility. We broke up, got back together, and went on to spend another year implementing ou
r predictable pattern of breakups. Poor Al, he never wanted it. Poor me, I never stopped insisting. Thinking back on my motives makes me wonder why the rewards of reality kept losing out to the lure of fantasy.
When I look back on my failed romances, I invariably return to the memory of Jack and Dorothy dancing on a hill in Ensenada. Mom kept her mouth shut on the subject of marriage. Maybe she was afraid of revealing the dark side. We never discussed men, or what to expect from them, or how to grapple with disappointment. How could Mother offer up such advice when her own perception of men—I’ve now learned—was nothing if not muddled with contradictions? How could she bring up questions she had no answers for?
I don’t know what she was protecting. Romance maybe, but not love; not real day-to-day ordinary love with its ups and downs and compromises and demands and shortcomings. I have no idea what she thought of Warren and Al. Or of me with them. She adored Woody. He took a real interest in her creative endeavors, especially photography. As for Dad, when I asked him what he thought about men he would say, “Women love bums.” That’s all he could come up with.
