I’m Over All That Read online

  The money, the adoration, the power over others—it’s all ridiculous. The abuse of artistic freedom is scandalous. The unreal fantasy of it all renders you borderline schizophrenic. And when you get older and the phone stops ringing and you essentially are respected simply for having survived your long haul; when you are happy to do character parts as an extra added attraction in otherwise lackluster films, then you look back over the well-produced phantasmagoria of it all and ask yourself, “Did I behave reasonably well? Did I abuse my power? Did I keep many people waiting? Did I do it for money, for love, for my own personal growth, and to express my own identity?”

  My answer to these questions would be: I couldn’t not live a life of self-expression. That’s probably due to the repression of my middle-class childhood, which ignited in me the need to become different from those other folks down the block. Also, on some level, I knew I was fulfilling the thwarted dreams of both my parents. So does it all come down to family in the final analysis? Do we want to avoid living in the self-denying world that squelched our parents’ dreams?

  The real artists in Hollywoodland dare to explore their fathomless pasts in order to keep looking for who they are. Their frustration, neuroses, and bad behavior are linked directly to deep, deep insecurities, and if they can miraculously touch on a childhood terror that up to now they’ve conveniently covered up, they more than likely will produce a small or monumental masterpiece of art.

  Being involved in other people’s lives is exhausting when you’re in the twilight throes of figuring out your own life. I want to be as clear as I can about my own past and what I want for my future life. I would love to continue to act. It is fun for me and I still love to explore the eccentricity of human beings. I like the familial environment on a film set. I do not like getting up so early in order to shoot by the light of the sun, and I hate the traffic in LA. But I really enjoy the makeup trailer, where all the gossip and inner workings of the film you’re shooting are shared and dissected. I enjoy the craft service table, laden with donuts, snacks, and all manner of treats that soothe your insecurities between takes.

  I don’t, and probably never did, feel all that insecure about anything much. I don’t know why not. I’ve not been good in some movies, but I was satisfied with knowing I had worked hard. As my agent said once, “If what you’ve done doesn’t work, not that many people will see it anyway.”

  An actor’s relationship with his or her agent is a primary one. There are many jokes made about not being able to get your agent on the phone, or about how you go out and get a job for yourself and your agent collects 10 percent. I admit if I have trouble reaching someone on the phone, it is a real problem.

  But that goes for anybody who doesn’t call me back right away.

  I don’t do email. I refuse. I want to hear the tenor of the voice and the spaces in between the words of the person I’m talking to. If I did email, I’d be living in a computer world. I like real world contact.

  How agents with a big roster of clients keep all the projects and castings correct is beyond me. It’s a particular talent for compartmentalization, something akin to what a really good worker behind the counter at Starbucks has. Each of the agent’s clients feels he or she is the only one. We expect the agent to remember each and every detail of our careers as though they’d stewed over these elements like we do. We know the agents play the clients off against each other. We know they’d like each project to be a package deal where only the agency’s clients are involved. Even though show business is really the “Big Knife,” most of our business is run on the strength of personal relationships. People remember each other, for good and for ill. That’s one reason no one ever really wants to tell you the truth. It will come back to haunt you either in revenge, or in future profit and thanks. I have an agent who tells me the truth. Jack Gilardi is personally interested in my continuing to work, which isn’t easy when you are looking for material for a woman my age. We talk every day even if it’s just about things happening out in the world. Jack loves to tease me. He stands about five feet six inches, but he tells everyone he used to be six foot five before working with me. Sometime when we are discussing possible future parts for me, he calls them “roles for old ladies.” He catches himself and rephrases, saying they are looking for “women with maturity.” I believe he deals with me in truth, just as I do with him. But that’s not typical in Hollywood. Come to think of it, he’s my fourth Jack!

  This lack of truth telling has been difficult for me in my twilight years. I see no reason not to tell the truth. It will all become evident at some time later anyway. Truth telling is somehow politically incorrect. Maybe it’s because there’s less time left for me in this life, but I’m innately compelled to tell someone if they are full of crap and not waste any more time about it. Time is ticking away. And timing is everything.

  I feel that I will go on to make many more films. A friend tells me I’m going for the record of old-age working. How peaceful it is not to have to look particularly pretty anymore or to wear a size 6. I am concerned about my weight, but more because of cholesterol and insulin problems than vanity. As long as there is a good Pro-mist filter on the camera and a few chimera lights around, I know I’ll be all right. I’m glad the union requires the studio to provide a driver for actors when we’re working, because in the morning I’m no good at it, and it’s dangerous for me to drive at night now.

  I like watching the parade of new stars. I place bets with friends as to how long each will be around. (Not nice of us, I know.) So much of longevity has nothing to do with looks or talent. It’s something indefinable—like star power. How do you define that? You know it when you see it. I never thought much about how long I would last. I’m like an animal in that respect. I live in the moment. However, one of my problems in life is that I’m ten years ahead of the curve on matters of spiritual science and self-exploration. In social settings, I continually have to work to keep my conversation simple and my investigations a personal matter.

  People identify with other people; they don’t identify with subjects and information unless it relates to them. I have learned this through the publication of my various books. In the beginning of my spiritual questing and wanderings, people identified with me much more than they did after I’d found some answers. When I got specific and began to share the underpinnings of spiritual science (the energy of the chakras, vibrational frequency of healing techniques, principles of karma and reincarnation, and the facts about extraterrestrial presence), it got to be too dense for a lot of people. If I stayed with my own journey as a human being trying to figure out who I was, they could identify. Being an entertainer didn’t help. I remember once a journalist from San Francisco said, “How can we take your spiritual teachings seriously when you wear sequins on the stage?” It took me aback. (Aback so far I still haven’t recovered!) What does my wardrobe have to do with it?

  Then I thought about it. When you’re an actor, a performer, or anybody who knows how to make fiction seem real, you are suspect. When I asked that journalist if he thought I should wear a monk’s robe and make myself ugly in order to be taken more seriously in spiritual matters, he nodded yes. I know that says more about him than me, but there is a “knowing” comment in there somewhere. It’s got to do with my favorite subject—reality. What is it? How do we know if something or someone or some event is real or not? Since reality itself is a matter of perception, how can anyone define one view of reality as a consensus for all? So I’m back to the journey of my own perceptions. How I see something is how that thing is authentic to me.

  I learned after many years in show business that if an expressive artist shares his or her point of view as authentically as possible, it will somehow be identifiable to large masses of people.

  I’m Over Being Under a Big Corporate Conglomerate’s Control

  So often now I hear a great filmmaker say, “Could we get such and such a film financed today?” No. The answer is always no because the days of
old Hollywood moguls who were visionaries, who were eccentrically stubborn and in love with celluloid, are gone. Jack Warner, Hal Wallis, Sol Siegel, and Lew Wasserman must be looking down and weeping for their beloved industry of fantasy and passion. Marketing departments run the industry and it’s all about money now. It’s no longer about passionate self-expression that mirrors humanity back to itself. The good scripts are not at the studios anymore because the development process destroys any original idea. Minor executives and people who should be bankers make copious notes on every screenplay, which is then delivered to the writer, who is ordered to make changes. Because he wants to get his picture made, he agrees. Hence you have studio movies totally unlike the great ones of yesterday.

  Tent-pole pictures (the franchise pictures full of special effects and moving, swirling objects) don’t need to have a plot that works or even makes sense. Studio people seem to have forgotten that having a first, second, and third act is a good structure. They also play to the most dumbed-down members of the audience nowadays. People are so stressed out economically and in their individual lives that they just want to be blindly entertained in a manner that doesn’t make them have to think. Studio pictures are not an artistic contribution from and to our nation anymore. They play into our insecurities and our character defects out of a desire for nothing but profit. That’s because most of the studios are now owned by big corporations. Corporations care about profit more than quality, and it costs about the same to market and distribute a big picture as it does a small one. So if a studio puts aside $300 million for making movies, they would rather do three big ones than twenty small ones of quality. It saves money.

  I’ve had many studio producers tell me they make horror films and other fare that induces fear in the audience’s mind because the lives of audience members are so negative they need to be entertained by something more frightening than their own experience. Is that really a good reason to make a movie? Good scripts are turned down all the time because they might make the audience think too much!

  Every star in Hollywoodland has a dollar figure by his or her name. That’s the amount each person is considered to be worth at the box office. With those dollar figures acting as a price tag, presales of a film are solicited overseas. Each star is worth so much money in Germany, Brazil, South Africa, Japan, etc. It has nothing to do with the star’s talent or the quality of the film being shopped. Based on the box office worth of the stars attached to the film, the film distributors overseas then determine what they will pay to distribute it in their market. The total budget of each film is determined by these pre-sales. I know that I can get more money added to the budget if I’m in a comedy or a musical. Thus, I become typecast if I only listen to the presales definition of what I’m worth. Surprise is eliminated from the formula, because offbeat casting is simply not recognized by the money men.

  There is a deep and sincere underdog respect for filmmakers who make pictures like Slumdog Millionaire, Little Miss Sunshine, The Hurt Locker, The Kids Are All Right, and all those independent films that have budgets next to nothing but are driven by the belief and vision of the filmmaker, who sometimes hocks his home to keep the filming going. The studios don’t like to take risks anymore, but they aren’t alone in that. They seem to be reflecting the fear experienced everywhere in the business community of this country these days.

  I’ve talked to so many distraught writers who have been forced to compromise their original scripts. Studio employees who justify their jobs by making their notes often ruin the authenticity of the piece. The horror of it is that sooner or later the writer will not only compromise but will feel “Oh, it’s not really that bad.” But it is that bad.

  In the old days the studio heads either liked a script or not. Sometimes they would have a note or two, but the writers always knew they could humor them and walk away.

  We’ve been suffering badly in Hollywood for a few years now. People who work “below the line” (technicians, grips, drivers, caterers, cleaning establishment owners, etc.) are going into foreclosure with their homes because hardly any films are being made. Our business is in Big Trouble. It’s so disappointing. Spirit is what fuels the art of making films. Now spirit has been replaced with budget cuts and market sheets. I look back with longing at how it used to be. Those old moguls who ran, ruined, and inspired our lives don’t seem so bad now.

  One of my disappointments with young people I know in film is that they don’t ask me enough serious questions. They should pick my brain about Mike Todd, Hal Wallis, the Warner brothers, Wilder, Wyler, Fosse, Nichols, Hitchcock, etc. They are too focused on the red carpet if they’re actresses, how to seem dangerous and sexy if they’re actors, and how to manipulate everyone else if they’re directors. If I were an up-and-comer sitting with me, I’d put aside all decorum and smother me with questions.

  I can always tell how serious a filmmaker is by how much he knows about the history of Hollywood. Does he or she have any idea about the struggles involved with making the hundred or so greatest films of all time? When we are young, it’s often hard to think of anything but what is happening right in front of or around us. But the true artist can see beyond this limited (and limiting) viewpoint. A great artist, I believe, lives in the past, present, and future all at the same time. That’s one difference between a great artist and a talented craftsman.

  I Am Over Driving at Night Unless It’s a Really Short Trip

  Leaving my car in the garage after the sun goes down has been difficult because I like to be in charge of my nights as well as my days.

  I eat out with friends a lot and that usually happens at night. Sometimes they pick me up, but I don’t like to impose on them. So I usually suggest an early dinnertime so I can come and go while it’s still light. I plead easier parking in daylight.

  Pretty soon I’ll have to give up driving altogether. That’s when I will hire a combination driver, cook, pilot, and well-intentioned friend. Hopefully that private plane will come before too long!

  Get Over Thinking You’re Just One Person

  Probably one of the reasons why reincarnation makes sense to me is because I understand how each one of us is so many people. When we open up and allow our soul’s memory to emerge and express itself, we can be amazed at the talent for multiple personalities we each have. I don’t mean multiple personalities in the sense of a psychological disorder. I mean each of us has had multiple experiences in past lifetimes that equip our souls with memories and intuitions that can’t be explained any other way. How did I know and recognize streets and temples when I first went to India? Why did I find myself speaking Portuguese when I was in Brazil? Each human being can point to any number of similar experiences, specific moments that make them wonder why and how they know what they know.

  Of course, reincarnation is an accepted fact in a large part of the world, particularly in those that were home to the most ancient civilizations (India, Tibet, the Himalayas, China). Most of those areas of the world have not been influenced or taught or programmed by Christianity.

  Even Christian doctrine was not always in opposition to reincarnation, that is until the sixth century AD when Empress Theodora of Byzantium arranged an ecumenical council in Constantinople in the year 553. The Pope himself and many bishops boycotted the meeting because Theodora was planning an eradication of the understanding of soul reembodiment in the Gospels, replacing the idea of reincarnation with that of resurrection. The Greek philosopher Origen taught physical reembodiment in ancient days and, according to many experts, so did Jesus of Nazareth when teaching his disciples. “And who do you say I am?” he asked his disciples in Matthew 16: 15–16. He alluded to the truth that he had been Elias or Elijah previously. There are schools of spiritual study that understand the transfiguration to have been the enactment of several of Jesus’s incarnations—including Adam, Moses, Abraham, Joseph, and even Noah.

  When one understands karma, reincarnation—physical reembodiment of the soul—is paramount. “
What the soul sows, so shall it reap.” This means that every human soul is in control of his or her destiny, depending on what each human needs to work on the next time around. The soul lives on and the learning of self continues.

  Empress Theodora was apparently a fascistic ruler of the first order. She and her husband, Emperor Justinian, wanted to control the destiny of their populace. She had her own intelligence organization and deployed it with great power and cruelty. Gore Vidal once wrote a script about her and educated me about her intentions as empress. She didn’t like the idea of people being responsible for their own destiny. That was to be her role. So she arranged to stack the deck of attendees at the Ecumenical Council in order to strike any and all references to physical reembodiment from the Bible. Sadly, she was successful.

  Having traveled so extensively in India and the Himalayas and Asia, I was more conversant with these points of view than my scientific-minded Christian friends in the West. What they could prove they would believe, but not otherwise.

  When I first began writing in the sixties about having lived before, I was way ahead of the Western curve. Those people who had ventured into these areas of thought were with me, but I infuriated many others who thought it was loopy and I was the object of a fair amount of ridicule. Happily, that disdain has dissipated in the last thirty years as people have caught up with the possibility that reincarnation might be logical. Most of the ridicule didn’t bother me, except for those film and theater critics who loved to review me playing a part as though it was one from a past life I should have turned down. I wondered if they accepted the Dalai Lama’s lessons on physical reembodiment because he wore the correct wardrobe. And today I wonder if the same people who flock to so many yoga classes are those who previously believed I was nuts.