When the show became more popular, so did we. We were dragged to appearances on weekends. I was just trying to keep up. My parents were also new at being the parent of a kid in show business, and besides being there for my brothers and sister, they wanted to help me with my added obligations. My dad tried to help us with our homework, but he was a tough teacher. He would sit with us at the kitchen table and diligently explain science or math until we understood. I was a different type of learner than he was and it frustrated him because I couldn’t understand it the way he explained it. I really tried his patience once when I couldn’t get a concept having to do with fractions. Finally he filled several glasses and started pouring water back and forth so I could visualize the equations. I hated his disapproval and would usually end up crying with frustration.
MERV AND THE CHRISTMAS KIDS
Later that year, Eric and I were “Christmas Kids” on the Merv Griffin and the Christmas Kids special. Yes, the little Irish-Catholic girl and the nice Jewish boy were asked to read the classic poem “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” trading off verses. Here was another time I tried my daddy’s patience.
I can barely read this poem aloud today, let alone when I was twelve. I just couldn’t get it. Didn’t understand what it was about. My dad took on the job, as he assumed he should, to help me memorize it, but I struggled. I had a mental block against it.
I didn’t understand the poem and what the hell a celluloid duck was and why it mattered, anyway. This was new to me. Learning lines for a character who was my age was very different from learning a world-class poem and trying to perform it with the class it deserved. I was out of my league, with no training to speak of. No one took the time to explain it to me, and the more I tried to learn it, the more blocked I got. My friends were going out that night and I wanted to go with them. My dad said, “You can not go anywhere until you memorize the poem. When you can recite it to me, then you can go.”
I was so pressured and angry about my mental prison; my emotions shut me in more. While I sat in my room staring at this nonsense, my dad would come in and say, “Okay, now, do the poem.” He took the script away to make sure I was word perfect. I stumbled and couldn’t get it all out. He shut me in my room again and forbade me to leave until I learned it perfectly.
I was frustrated about the unfairness of it all. I hated my dad for that. He was so strict and disapproving of me. The more I tried, the less I retained. I missed the time to go with my friends and take a break from the stupid duck of a poem, which made me more frustrated. My dad was not sympathetic at all. He yelled at me and I was banished to my room until I learned the poem.
My father was tough in that way. Unyielding. He believed practice made perfect. He worked hard and long hours to get things done, so why shouldn’t I? He was hard on us to teach us lessons he felt important. His anger at me only fueled my insecurities and reach for perfection. When he was angry, he closed me off. With his silence, I felt utterly unlovable. I thought he’d love me more if I was perfect, which, to me, meant do it his way.
My father understood the incredible opportunity I’d been given. He had so little when he was growing up, he didn’t want me to lose any part of the gifts. I didn’t see any of this. I just felt the pressure to hold and keep it all, which made me come to a breaking point. While it was difficult at the time, and took many years of therapy to sort through, I know my work ethic, high standards, get-it-done attitude, and competence came from those difficult times with him.
“Doing Merv” became another drama for me—a terrifying situation where I thought I had to be flawless, but my gray cloud informed me I wasn’t. I knew I was no good and was faking it.
What happened when I got to the set not knowing the poem by heart? I was scared to reveal my failure to memorize the poem, and I had a stomachache all through the taping of the opening number. I wore a red-and-white-striped dress—yes, like a candy cane.
Eric and I were to open a door and step onto the winter set, complete with snow. Fake snow, that is. The music played, our cue came, and we opened the door, revealing our bright faces amazed at the scene. The plastic “snow” floated down and one flake landed right in my eye. I tried to cover and not ruin the shot, but it hurt and I couldn’t see. Just one more thing added to my mixed bag of nerves. I knew the dreaded poem would be worse than a snowflake in the eye.
Eric and I took our marks and they gave us the go-ahead; a teleprompter was set up. We read every word as they rolled by, no memorization required. Why didn’t someone tell me I didn’t have to memorize every line? So much fighting for no reason.
Recently I found the original script in a folder with Merv’s smiling face embossed in red on the cover. A letter from the producer referred to the “enclosed Merv album,” in which side two, track five, contained the poem, which might “help with the reading.” What? What album? Why had my dad never played me track five? Maybe I could have had a clue. I don’t know if the company forgot to send it, and my dad felt he couldn’t ask, or what—but, boy, that sure would have helped!
Eric and I were paired together a lot. We traveled on a tour to promote the show, four cities in four days. We visited children’s hospitals every day. Burn units, cancer wards. Eric was strong and had a great sense of what was right. We cheerfully signed pictures and visited with the kids; then we would be off to the next city. On the way to the airport, I was sad because I knew a lot of those kids would never leave the hospital. Eric always looked at the positive. He reminded me how the kids were happy to see us, and as hard as it was, it was a good thing we were there. He, too, was raised with the importance of mitzvah, giving back. Eric’s a mensch and I learned a lot from him.
DINAH AND THE TOADS
One day, someone on the set asked what I was wearing for “doing Dinah.” I panicked. I didn’t know what “doing Dinah” was. I asked my mother, but she was so excited, all she said was, “Oh, honey, yes, you’re doing Dinah, but what will you wear? We’ll have to get you an outfit.”
She took me to a store called Stardusters, of all things, that catered to mothers and their shopping needs. While she sat in a nice chair, I was put in a fitting room and dressed by a clerk, then paraded out to model for her. I hated the place—they didn’t have anything hip to wear—but my mother liked the whole charade. I felt like a fourteen-year-old doll being dressed up and taken out for display. But I had to have something to wear to “do Dinah.”
Everyone talked about it as the date grew closer. I didn’t want to admit to anyone I didn’t know—again—what was going on, so I kept my mouth shut, listening to that familiar music reminding me to dance. Before I knew it, we were on our way and the pressure was on.
But what’s a “Dinah”? Help!
We arrived at the studio, and production assistants showed us to a green room. As the moments ticked closer, I felt the familiar cloud of the unknown darken inside me. Eventually a man came and led me away from my parents. I dutifully followed him, and we walked down the hallway and stopped behind a big black curtain. He looked at me and said, “When you hear your name, go out to the couch and sit down.”
I knew this was important, so I better figure it out…and fast. He patted me on the back and said, “Go! Go to Dinah.” Someone pulled the curtains apart and I could see onto the stage.
Oh! Dinah’s a person! We were being interviewed on one of television’s most popular talk shows. You must have already figured it out—it was Dinah! Since I was either in school or on the set every day, I’d never heard of the woman introducing me to the audience. I was relieved to see that Ellen Corby was already out there on the couch.
Dinah Shore was as nice as can be. I took my place next to Ellen, and Dinah flashed her beautiful smile. Then, with five innocent words, she said something that would plague me for years. “I hear you collect frogs.”
Oh no, no, I thought. I don’t collect frogs. My mind raced. What do I say? I can’t lie…can I? On TV? Can I contradict Dinah in front of America?
Ellen Corby was famous for collecting ladybugs. One day, she asked me what I liked. I said frogs, because I liked to draw them, and I drew a pretty good frog in my day. The next thing I know, Grandma started to give me frogs. She liked collections, and it was a good hobby, I guess. So for the show prep, she told the Dinah people she started my frog collection with me.
What could I do? I sat there and thought, I’m “doing Dinah” and all I get to talk about is frogs? Why am I being asked such a stupid question? So I did what any good Catholic girl would do, I lied. I lied to protect Grandma, the show, and Dinah. I said I liked frogs very much.
After Dinah! was aired, people sent me frogs…lots of frogs. For years, people thought I collected frogs, and because of that, I guess I did. I had ceramic, cloth, plastic, and crystal ones; large, small, whimsical—every kind of frog that people could make or buy and mail to me. I kept them all in my room, until I moved out many years later. Letting that frog collection go was a step toward living in my own truth and my own desires, not what I thought others expected of me.
Years later, I found out Ellen urged Eric to start an owl collection. He laughingly said it took years to get rid of all those owls.
BEATING THE BRADYS…NEVER!
Eric and I did an episode of Celebrity Bowling and lost to Bobby and Cindy Brady (Mike Lookinland and Susan Olsen). My dad took me bowling in preparation, but I’ll spare you (no pun intended, really!) the gory details of my dad helping me train for that gig. Here was another mountain I didn’t have time to climb before we taped.
Eric and I were a team, and Mike and Susan were the other team. We lost horribly, and it was just humiliating. I saw Mike Lookinland—like, a million years later—and the first thing he said to me was “Hey, remember when we beat you in bowling?”
WOULD MAN SEE IF…
When Mrs. Deeney retired, we went through a few teachers before a more permanent replacement could be found. I heard many teachers who were approached declined. They didn’t want to deal with the pressures—or was it just the extra work—from the production company that often wanted to work us overtime. Our life required a balance of work and school; then factoring in our varying ages and diverse curriculums proved a challenge for a teacher.
We finally found a teacher who rocked our world. He was new to the studio system, plus he had the energy and creativity to deal with all our needs. Glen Woodmansee was a breath of fresh air, and he became one of my favorite teachers. He had long hair and wore a three-piece green suit to work on his first day. I think he was trying to look professional, but we told him he could lose the suit and we’d still have respect for him. He did, and we were off to the races.
Glen was incredibly smart and a little mysterious. He drove an old VW van with a piece of wood he’d wired on as the back bumper. I thought that was wild. I wondered if he was a hippie, a surfer, or an alternative thinker.
He was not a hippie, but he was brilliant and accepting. He loved taking classes himself; at one time, he carried twenty units at UCLA, while teaching us full-time. I was amazed. He showed me college was something you could always do; and education just keeps on, no matter how old you are.
Glen was also a scuba instructor. When I was sixteen, Jon and I took his incredible class, and we were certified by NAUI and PADI. We did our beach dive near Malibu at Zuma Beach, with a clambake afterward on the beach.
We took our certification dive off Catalina Island. The Garibaldi fish swam right up to my mask. The feeling of being able to breathe underwater is still amazing to me. I still dive whenever I travel in the tropics.
Glen counted down the days until lobster season, and told us funny stories about trying to lure them onto his dinner plate. For me, being underwater was a privilege. I didn’t want to upset it in any way, and I would never take anything.
Whenever I dive, I hear the lyrics from America’s “Horse with No Name.” The lyric “The ocean is a desert with its life underground” reminds me exactly how true that is. It looked like the desert with water added. The peace of the sea life made me feel invisible in a foreign land. So different for me, I felt like a pioneer, given a privilege that lasted as long as the air in my oxygen tank allowed.
In those days of unease, it grounded me to be part of nature and escape to the quiet peace under the sea. There was unfounded calm in buoyancy, floating with the tide, the sound of my own breath, the regulator releasing my old breaths to the surface to rejoin the air that sustains. The stillness of it took me to a place I would later recall in meditations. Return to nature, then you’ll see, how fun it is to be set free, I wrote in my poem book. I still return to nature when I feel off my path. Water, air, and fire return me to myself.
I BEG TO DIFFER
When I was in high school, my own school required biology lab, including dissecting a frog. It wasn’t a requirement for the other cast kids, but I had to have it to graduate. During a hiatus, my mother drove me to the studio to get special permission from the producers, and ask them to cover the expense of the frog dissection.
I was nervous because I had to take this class or not graduate from my school. I thought my mom was going into the meeting also, but when the assistant came for us, she only asked for me. Mom nudged me to go in. I had no idea I was going to do this alone. I felt abandoned and unprepared; I didn’t understand why I had to beg for a class.
The lights were dim in the office, shutting out the bright California sunshine. Two overstuffed leather chairs sat across from the executive producer’s massive desk. He motioned for me to sit. I did, but I looked at the empty chair and wished someone were there with me.
“So, Mary Beth, why are you here today?” He knew why I was there, and this game made me uneasy and angry, but I explained why I needed biology. It was like playing Monopoly when the other player owns all the real estate you land on:
“Can I have Park Place?” she squeaked.
“You cannot pass go. You cannot collect one hundred dollars. Go to jail! No ‘get out of jail for free’ here.”
It felt horrible. To me, all our negotiations with the company were like that. Every year, I hated contract negotiations, and now this.
“The other kids didn’t have a biology lab.”
“Yes, but my school is different,” I squeaked. “May I graduate from high school, please?”
“No!” the big voice of authority rang out in my head.
In the end, I did take biology. Kami and David were part of the lab experience when I dissected the frog. I did graduate from high school, but to this day, I don’t play Monopoly.
BROOM DANCE
Whenever I was going through troubled times, Glen would just let me rip. One day, I’d had it with a math problem. We had a knife in the classroom for cutting fruit, and I picked up the weapon and aimed all my frustration and anger at the math book. I eyed Glen, and he calmly watched as I got closer to my victim. Algebra was going down, unless he interceded, but he patiently waited, passively giving me his okay. I stabbed the textbook right through its linear equations.
I felt a bit crazy, but once I started to let it out, a deep rage took over. Glen stepped in and created a safe way for me to vent. He made a dartboard out of the book’s cover and pasted some of the torturous problems on it as a target.
It was more than frustration toward an assignment. The pressure to be on top of all of my activities oozed from me, making me feel like I was about to burst at the seams. I couldn’t seem to fit it all in. By this time, I was on the cheerleading squad at my high school, played on their volleyball team, and maintained a 4.0. Add to this the worries about my weight and—oh yeah—the work. Oh, that.
Glen’s acceptance of my need to vent my frustrations made me feel safe to be me, to be weird and angry, and he was one of the first people I didn’t feel judged by. I could let my pent-up energy and frustrations, growing pains, teenage angst, and hormones scatter around the schoolroom. Yet, I knew there were boundaries, that I was safe.
A natural outlet for me was to dance. One day, in one of my more spirited exhibitions, I began a kooky tap dance around the classroom. Glen, as usual, sat calmly watching me—I think he even had a bit of a smile on his lips, and that did it. I took off from there. I grabbed a broom, and “Fred Astaire” and I impromptu danced. I incorporated desks and anything in my way. The door was open and I tapped my way down the stairs, then back up, stomping, jumping, and pounding until I was exhausted.
Kami was there and thought it was funny. And it was. At some point, my outburst played out, the anger vanished, and I was ready for schoolwork. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was learning to give in to my feelings, instead of avoiding them. Since then, I’ve often tapped into my creativity to escape the tornadoes of my emotions safely. Glen’s acceptance of a very confused little Mary chipped a crack in the iceberg, and I began to embrace the weird me and find a way back to self.
WALTON’S MOUNTAIN NEWS
One of the most fun times for me was when a new kid arrived on the lot. Finally someone else to play with. Set hopping became a favorite pastime. When the dramatic series Apple’s Way came along, we went over to hang with Patti Cohoon (Cathy Apple) and Vince Van Patten (Paul Apple).
Since I was new to the industry, it was so cool to meet people and get to know them outside the image. When Eight Is Enough filmed a few soundstages over, we’d borrow bikes and go visit. Willie Aames (Tommy Bradford) came over to our schoolroom and we all hung out. Willie was into photography, and Glen had set up a darkroom and taught us photography so we could learn how to shoot and develop photos for our newspaper.
Then Willie suddenly became a huge teen idol. It cracked me up. Here was this guy who had lunch with us, developed photos with us, and was shorter than I was. But he became a teen heartthrob. Girls were crazy about him. When we went to an event, he couldn’t walk to his car without being mobbed. Willie and I once had to run from a gang of screaming girls. We hid until we could jump in the car and lose them. It was weird to think of my friend that way. To me, he was just Willie, even a little geeky. Oh, the power of fan magazines!
The same thing happened with Vince Van Patten. Vince was a reserved and not-too-talkative guy, who had a grape-colored MG. I saw the Van Pattens recently and we still joke and laugh about that car. But the girls went wild. For me, it was a lesson in who people really were as opposed to who people thought they were. While Richard had his girl followers, my Walton brothers never became heartthrobs; so what Vince and Willie went through was comical to me.
Glen was always finding new things. He was terrific at teaching us using hands-on activities. One project I’ll never forget was the Waltons’ Mountain News. Ironic, since John-Boy would soon write the Blue Ridge Chronicle. We wrote articles, interviewed crew members, and wrote poems. We drew pictures for the cover art, and Glen helped us publish our “paper.” We usually printed one near a holiday. Halloween was our favorite. Bats are so fun and easy to draw.
We even invited kids working on nearby sets to write articles and stories. Some of the Eight Is Enough kids have bylines in one or two issues. I still have a few of these treasured editions. And while I don’t think she had enough time in her schedule to contribute to our paper, we met another friend on the lot I’ll never forget.
One day, we heard the beautiful actress Brooke Shields was filming Just You and Me, Kid on a nearby stage. Kami and I went over to her school trailer, knocked on the door, and asked her if she wanted to write an article. We left one of our past issues for her to read. I’ve wondered if she and her tutor thought we were crazy or just intrusive, but we really wanted all the studio lot kids to be a part of our paper, no matter how famous.
Years later, Brooke and I were on Circus of the Stars together. We worked really hard to learn the acts. Brooke did an incredible performance, hanging by her ankle upside down on a rope, elegantly working “the web.” When she finished her routine, she asked the rest of us, “How did I do?”
Everyone told her, “It was beautiful. You looked great.”
Then she said, “But how did I do?”
“Oh, it was so pretty. The costume looked great, and so did you.”
And she asked yet again, “But how did it look? Was my toe pointed enough?”
“You were beautiful.”
Not what she was asking. I understood she really wanted to know how the routine was, not how pretty people thought she was. So I told her she did a really good job, and yes, that toe could have been more pointed, but it was a solid performance.
She seemed relieved, and was so sweet and unassuming. Her mom seemed to trust me and we hung out all weekend. I understood her on the beauty vs. performance comparison. I realized I was not alone in wanting to perform well.
After raising all of us, Glen went on to teach kids on other shows. He continued the newspaper when he moved over to tutor on Full House. Glen sent me a few editions of their papers. I was glad to see the tradition continue.
PORCELAIN TEARS
As I grew, my insecurities got the best of me. I wanted to be what everyone wanted me to be, so I did what I was told. If someone didn’t like me, I would work harder. I needed approval from everyone so desperately, I would mold myself, trying to fit what they expected me to be so I could feel accepted.
I felt so much pressure, I wanted to escape. I wanted happy. I read Harlequin romances every day, wishing for romance and a happy ending. Unlike most of my friends, I didn’t have a boyfriend and had not been asked out. I sat at home on prom and homecoming nights and cried, wishing I were pretty so someone would like me.
My brother Michael saw me slipping into myself and tried to get me to stop reading and just talk, but I would have none of it. I wanted to hide. He took my book away from me once. You would have thought he cut off my air supply. I panicked and scrambled desperately to get the book back.
When I was thirteen, I developed a severe case of insomnia. I played the part of “Little Mary Sunshine” during the day, and when I was alone at night, I became depressed, hormonal, and stressed. I fell into a pattern of worry, fear, and sadness. Often I stayed up all night. I went to the bathroom and started the shower. I would lie in the tub and cry. Alone, I felt it was safe to let it all out. Over the years, I shed many tears onto the porcelain, hidden from the world, secret. Until one day, my body betrayed me and I developed a rash.
It was a red, itchy rash on my scalp. I pretended nothing was wrong, but my parents took me to a local dermatologist, who diagnosed seborrhea dermatitis. He gave us a prescription, but he expressed curiosity about the possible underlying causes of this condition.
He wondered if I was under any stress, and without even asking me, my parents answered, “No, nothing unusual.”
Did I speak up? No.
Did my parents really think my life was “usual”? No, they thought it was a dream come true. Did they think I was coping? I hid it well, I guess. Years later, a doctor described me as “stoic.” I was taken aback. I’m an emotional person, so I would never describe myself that way. I washed my feelings down the drain, thinking I had tricked them all.
I find it ironic that I only developed the rash on my scalp, not on my face or arms or anywhere else. Outwardly, I was still perfect. Could I have somehow willed the rash not to be where it would be visible on camera or obvious to the world? I only allowed imperfection where it didn’t hold up production.
I managed to keep the rash in place, but I couldn’t convince my body to fall into a peaceful sleep. So my father—God love his Irish ways—offered me gin gimlets at night. “Here, drink this,” he’d say. “It’ll help you sleep.”
“Larry, you’re gonna make that girl an alcoholic,” I remember my mother saying.
My brother Michael—God love his hippie ways—knocked on my window one night. He climbed in carrying a lovely cloisonné pipe filled with pot. He said, “Forget the gimlet, try this.”
So I became a pot smoker, and finally started to sleep. I reveled in the blissful escape, the relaxation. I reconnected with myself. I was lucky. I had some kind of shut-off mechanism, and I could set boundaries on my smoking. It wasn’t a party drug for me. I was young, only in middle school.
Michael and his friends would take me to a beautiful place outside to walk, hike, and enjoy nature. I really connected with the outdoors during that time, and I feel it grounded me and gave me the escape I needed. I could calm down, get out of my head, and—in a beautiful canyon—enjoy the trees, rocks, and mountains. I never worked stoned; I was too disciplined for that. I knew my responsibilities. I did, though, finish a few term papers in a smoky haze.
My dad caught me once and we had a huge fight. By now, I was in the ninth grade. He grounded me and threatened to limit my time with friends and take away my privileges. I threatened to move out. We came to an impasse right in the middle of the Northridge Mall. I walked away in a dramatic huff and didn’t speak to him for days.
While I was asserting my independence, the fight was still unsettling. I felt horribly guilty and knew I had hurt my father. I never told my dad, but I stopped smoking pot that day. He never asked or followed through on his threats, and we never spoke of it again. It’s unfinished business. There were so many things left unspoken between us before he died.
I put so much pressure on myself to get it right, to be perfect for everyone. From my desire to be a good cheerleader and make it to every game so I wouldn’t let the team down, to being a good actress, to earning good grades and fulfilling all of my activities. I had to be the good daughter to get my parents’ approval; I didn’t have time to get sick, but I often did.
I really wanted to be “normal,” but the show didn’t leave much room for that. Even though I was busy working all day, as I said before, I had tried out for the cheerleading squad for my high school and was busy with that in the evenings after work. My dad was so dedicated to my having that experience; he came to work and waited while I changed into my uniform, then drove me to the games.
When we performed our “hello” cheer for the other team, I was often recognized, and it ruined the whole thing for me. I just wanted to be a regular girl. It was embarrassing when people called out my character’s name, or, even worse, my famous brother’s name. I wanted to fit in, but instead I felt like a sore thumb. So much for being “normal.”
I yelled at the games and stressed my vocal cords, and I was also susceptible to colds. I remember I couldn’t breathe on the set once, so they called in the studio doctor and he gave me a shot of adrenaline to clear up my lungs. I finished the scene. Then I was sent home with a fever and another prescription. I would often work until I got so sick, I needed a few days off to recover. I would push myself and work until I dropped from exhaustion. When I was about fifteen, I started to have stomach issues. I kept it to myself, thinking it was because of nerves. I didn’t want to bring any attention to myself. I thought it would go away.
TEEN BEAT
There were some gigs I really enjoyed, though. It was the Tiger Beat magazine era and all the heartthrobs were in the articles and on the covers. We started to be in them as well. I started going to parties with Willie Aames, Vince Van Patten, Valerie Bertinelli, Melissa Gilbert, Lance Kerwin, and other kids who were on shows.
I even went on an arranged “date” with Leif Garrett. I had never met him. Imagine my surprise when we got a call from his manager “asking” me out! We went to an awards show in a limo. It was wild. I wasn’t allowed to date yet, but I was allowed to get in a limo with Leif that night. Anything for publicity, I guess.
The Tiger Beat parties were fun. It was like seeing all your TV friends. I met Jimmy Van Patten, Vince’s brother. He was a good guy and became my “date” for many public events. Because he was from a Hollywood family and knew the business, I could take him anywhere. He usually knew more people than I did. I took him to a CBS affiliate dinner, and when they whisked me away to do something, he was fine. Jimmy also satisfied the press’s curiosity about what boy I might be dating.
Scott Baio was another kid magazines made into a heartthrob. I didn’t get to know him until we did Circus of the Stars together. Ours was an aerial act thirty feet up called “Pirates in the Sky.” It was a terribly disappointing experience for me.
My inner daredevil and dance background made me crave doing Circus, as we all called it. Judy did Circus; everyone did. I wanted to as well. It was a great show and I was excited when Bob Stivers asked me to perform.
The shows had great costumes, with sequins, feathers, and elaborate trimmings. My first wardrobe fitting was to take my measurements. I went to work dieting after that session. They made the costumes on a sewing dummy expanded to your measurements. When I returned for my next fitting, the costumer looked at the rather square dummy and said, “I hope you’ve lost weight.” Holding the skimpy costume up, it looked like a cube. More like Fred Flintstone than glamorous circus performer. Was my body that square? Someone said, “The body that would fill out this costume might not look so good in it.” My starvation had paid off, and when the costume had to be taken in inches, the costumer was relieved. To tell the truth, so was I, one hurdle down.
I drove myself out to Bob Yerkes’s house in the Valley, where he had a training yard. Scott’s dad, Mario, was there checking out the rigging. Anyway, we started learning the act on the ground first. Two men who performed for the professional circus were there to train us. Mario looked at the rig and didn’t know if he wanted Scott doing it. He said, “Get the girl up there and let’s see how it goes.” So I got up on the rig and was fine. I am a natural monkey, as my mom used to tell me. I climbed the jungle gym in our backyard before I could walk, and I scared my mother half to death. This was not too tough for me. Mario still seemed unsure about Scott on the apparatus. The trepidation transferred to us all and it went downhill from there.
I still don’t fully understand how something so fun could get so weird, but I do know Scott and I never connected. One of the reasons was because we each trained separately with our professionals; so when we were alone, it was scary and a little odd. I tried to be encouraging, but I think Scott felt really nervous and pressured. I tried to joke and tease him into relaxing, but he pulled away and the act suffered.
During a rehearsal, he made a verbal call I was supposed to make. I wasn’t ready. So when he called for the rig to be moved, it hit me in the head, and the anchor rope pulled across my wrist, burning me. I was mad and hurt, and, of course, didn’t say anything. I felt unsafe with him as my partner and the act suffered, which can be dangerous thirty feet in the air. I made one last attempt to lighten things up and joke around when we got to Vegas, but Scott was into his own thing. I was disappointed but not surprised when it didn’t go well for the taping. I felt like Brooke did when she finished her act for Circus, but I knew better than to ask how it went. As a trained dancer, I knew I could do better and felt embarrassed at how it turned out. I was so used to a family atmosphere when I worked, I innocently expected all other sets to be the same. Lesson learned: not all actors are committed to the ensemble; found out more than once later on that was true.
The fashion shoots, Tiger Beat photo sessions, and commercials were a mixture of fun and famished fatigue. I dieted to look good in the clothes. I loved to work away from the show, to do something different and wear modern clothes.
One gig, a Sea Breeze ad, was so much fun I remember it well. The theme was “Clean is a Feeling,” and I was familiar with the product because our makeup man used it as a staple on the set. My guardian, Cori, and I went to Laguna Beach and stayed in the Surf and Sand Resort so we could be at the location early in the morning. The chilly morning air, the sea gulls, and the sand were so different from the normal days’ filming, and I was excited to be having an adventure, even if it was for just one day.
I thought I’d left Erin behind for just a little while, but even on the Sea Breeze ad I couldn’t get away from Erin. They brought out a piece of my wardrobe from the show. Yuck, not that one! Clean is a feeling, not an old, dirty dress. They arranged it to look like I was on the Waltons’ set, and I wore the dress in the shoot. Very clever, I’ll give them that. I also sat in a chair with my name on it. That was nice since we kids didn’t have chairs with our names on them. (I am grateful Michael Learned changed that for us one Christmas a few years later.)
I rode a horse through a freshly mown grass field, the salty ocean breezes blowing through my hair. Back and forth, take after take, the gelding’s legs cantered, I felt so free and was having a great time. I was a good rider. Besides all those hours riding Blue, the Waltons’ mule, on the backlot, my dad took us horseback riding a lot. Then my allergies kicked in. That grass and hay thing again. If it was just the horse, crew, and Cori, it wouldn’t have been a big deal. But still to come? I had to shoot a dinner scene with a male model playing my date in the ad. The glamour, the attention…the tissues.
So with the grass and horse dander, and hard work, I got sick again. I remember Cori driving me back up to L.A. I was bundled up, shivering. I looked up, and all the windows on my side of the car were steamed up with the heat from my fever. I spent the next few days in bed.
MILK, MAALOX, AND DONNATAL
After I recovered from the allergies, a new crack began to open in my façade. I could no longer hide some stomach pains I’d begun having. Cori took good care of me and when the pain got worse, she noticed. Off to the doctor I went. It was right before the airing of one of my first expanded storylines for an episode.
Diagnosis: I had the beginnings of an ulcer. The doctor prescribed Donnatal, and told me to drink milk and Maalox. He put me on a restricted diet so my stomach could heal.
When I returned to the soundstage, I saw Claire Whitaker and Rod Peterson, our producers, approaching me with a carton of milk and a big box of crackers. Something was up. Claire handed me the box of saltines.
“Here, Mary Beth, eat these,” she told me, watching my face.
“What? Why?” I could see the worry in her face.
“Your episode’s preempted, but only in California because of a political debate. The rest of the country will see it.”
I didn’t get to see my special episode. I ate the saltines, instead. I should have known politics were in my future somehow.
CAN YOU FIT IN…
So here’s the truth. During this time, I started yo-yo dieting. In the episode where I was “the Jefferson County Cutie,” remember when Ben takes a picture of Erin in short shorts and a tie top with midriff showing and submits it to a newspaper contest? Knowing I was going to do that photo shoot for the picture, I starved myself. In a photograph of me at the time, I’m sucking in my stomach and looking a bit crazed in the eyes as I tried to look thin.
Being called the “pretty one” had been part of my entire body image struggle. Early on, someone had whispered in my ear, “You know, you’re the pretty one, but don’t tell anyone I said that, because it would hurt the other girls’ feelings.” Why would anyone say that? Imagine a grown-up telling a kid that. I wanted to believe it was true, but why would it be a secret? I wasn’t able to separate the fact they were whispering something that sounded nice, but telling me not to repeat it to anyone, which made it bad. The only logical conclusion was that being “pretty” must be a bad thing, not a compliment. Yet, it was something people said to me. Can you say “mixed message”?
Another body image rock I tripped over happened when I had gone in before a new season to get fitted. I was fourteen, and when I got the call for the fitting, the wardrobe woman asked, “So, can you still fit into last season’s clothes, or have you gained more weight?” I knew I wasn’t the same as I was at the end of the last season, so I started another diet.
With that comment etched across my mind, the standard became: “Pretty equals thin.”
This remark sent me into a panic. I couldn’t believe it. If she was wondering, then everyone else must be talking about me. They must think I was fat, too. I wondered, was this an inquiry sent from the producers down to the wardrobe department? Or worse, the network? Were they mad at me? Would they fire me? I went from panic to starving for perfection again.
SARAN WRAP AND M&M’S
I tried so many diets, I can’t remember them all. One season after we wrapped filming, I remember sitting in a hot car with Claire Reynolds, my neighbor, our bodies covered in Saran wrap. We’d seen the infomercial for fat suits that helped you sweat off the pounds. We made our own version. We rolled up the windows to heat the interior of the car and even put on our coats. Somewhere inside me, that safety valve that protected me from really harming myself opened, and while we sat there, puddles of sweat forming, we started to talk about one of my favorite things: warm M&M cookies right out of the oven, usually how I broke a diet.
The more we talked, the more we realized we’d had enough. We went inside, made the cookies, and ate them all. My rebellious side was a saving grace at times. While not the most reliable, it did keep me in some kind of balance.
I followed the Atkins diet for a long time. I was so strict on it, I would not eat anything not on the plan. In a lunch scene one day, our director asked me to take a big bite of an apple. I refused, because it wasn’t “allowed.” He argued that I had to, because it was lunchtime in the script and Erin would eat.
“No,” I said. “Erin’s not eating the apple.”
I was so angry that they had encouraged me to lose weight, and now they were pressuring me to blow my diet. It made no sense to me at all. I was only thinking of being thin, not of my character, or acting, or even what mattered to me the most: to be good on the show. I was stubborn and stood by the diet. Either they wanted me thin or fat. Somebody, somewhere, choose already!
When my bullheadedness spurred me to extreme measures, my teenage resistance kicked in and I would diet—or not—depending on my mood. In the beauty contest episode, they put Erin in a pink crepe dress with lace. It was a period piece out of the wardrobe department, so it couldn’t be altered. I needed to fit into it.
I went on another abusive diet until it was time to shoot the episode. Then, the closer we came to the last shot, the more I ate. Toward the end of the day, I went over to craft services and stood right next to the donuts. I said loudly, “How many scenes do we have left?”
“Three!”
Back to work on the scenes, then it became: “How many shots? Only three more? Well, I think I’ll have a donut.”
And then after every shot, I ate another one, right in front of wardrobe and everybody.
This set up a pattern of unhealthy eating that lasted years. My fad diets included going to a doctor who gave me injections of a hormone to lose weight, and another who overprescribed thyroid medication to speed up my metabolism. I fasted, and then I tried predigested protein drinks. I even tried sticking my fingers down my throat to rid myself of the evil food I loved so much. Extreme measures again—anything to get to be thin, to be accepted. My friends lost weight, but I didn’t. Then I found out they were vomiting six times a day. I’d never tried that and couldn’t bring myself to do it every day, but I did binge and purge, which was a horrible cycle to be pinned under. Once again, I was lucky; my survival mechanism kicked in. I was fortunate I wasn’t successful purging, and I never lost weight this way. It is such a dangerous practice, that years later I had to deal with the emotional aftereffects. I did anything for beauty, praying it would get me approval. After all, wasn’t I the “pretty” one? Wasn’t that my value, what I had to offer?
The stupid thing is that during this time, I wrote a magazine advice column on diet and healthy living for teen girls. Here I was, dispensing advice, and I couldn’t live up to that image without abusing myself. I couldn’t be what they wanted without a diet, a pill, a doctor, shots, or starving myself. Or so I thought.
I hated myself, my body, and my urge to make and eat cookies. I had a rebellious love-hate relationship with food. Since I stuffed my emotions, I started stuffing food for comfort, and to rebel. It created the illusion I had control.
Feeling so beaten by the boulders of body image, I called myself “Hog Body.” I drew a self-portrait: an ugly, lumpy body, with the face of a pig. She is how I felt I looked, how I thought the world saw me. Every time I got dressed, Hog Body was there to remind me how crappy I looked, how fat I was. The voice inside my head would scream at me with distaste and hatred. “See how ‘pretty’ you are now, you fat pig? You look terrible in that, if only you would have stayed on that diet. When are you going to learn, Hog Body?” I berated and punished myself for my body.
When my brother asked me if I wanted to go to the beach with him, I would say “Let me ask Hog Body if she feels like putting on a bathing suit today.” Hog Body became my alter ego for years.
It makes me cry today to think I saw myself that way. I look at pictures of me then, when I let Hog Body run my life, and I can’t believe I felt that way. I still carry her with me at all times, but I have learned to love her and care for her.
Now if I am getting ready for something, and her voice starts nattering at me, I close my eyes, put my hands on her face, and love her. I let her know she was, and is, beautiful inside, and I am so sorry she was hurt back then. Now I embrace her as part of me—my lessons and my journey.