I had first met Kim in 1989 on the set of My Stepmother Is an Alien, a comedy she was shooting with Dan Aykroyd, while I was on the Fox lot to meet with Jim Cameron about a role in The Abyss. Her personal costumer, Linda Henrikson, thought that Kim, after a divorce from her first husband and relatively brief relationships with Prince and the producer Peter Guber, among others, was ready to meet someone. When I called Linda, whom I had worked with on Beetlejuice, and said I would be around for a visit, she arranged things, and the next thing I knew, I was in front of Kim as she was asking me, “You’re the guy in the boat movie, right?” referring to Hunt. I didn’t see her again for a few months, when we started the Neil Simon film. There was a playful side to Kim that prevailed in the early days. Wry one minute and awkward the next, with her angular features framed by her signature corona of blonde hair, Kim is a creature, an object like a leopard or an orchid or a magnificent mountain lake. At times, her attempts to dress down and disguise herself in public were laughable. Kim is Kim, from five feet away or five hundred, on the red carpet or in the grocery line.
If you’ve never been sued in a civil court in this country, particularly in California, you’re really missing something. Civil trials, like the ones I have observed in Los Angeles, provide you with insight into the darkest corners of human malice, greed, corruption, and cowardice. They’re like a hockey brawl, Bush v. Gore, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest all rolled into one. You see judges posing with a mock certainty and air of control when, in reality, they are pawns in a game controlled by big law firms seeking profits.
Well before I set foot in a family law court, I had attended much of Kim’s trial in 1993, when she was sued for breach of contract by the producers of a film. In the fall of 1992, while I was shooting Malice in LA and western Massachusetts, Kim had signed with a new agent, an old guard character named Guy McElwaine. As agents often do, he wanted to sweep aside as many of her pending commitments as possible, as he would not get a commission on those deals. Boxing Helena was such a project, and Guy told Kim that he would extricate her from it. Additionally, the script explicitly called for nudity and sexual contact that required Kim’s approval, none of which had been spelled out to her satisfactorily by the director. Other actresses had been approached about the role before Kim, and Madonna had actually been hired for a time before walking away with little fuss. However, when Kim decided to leave, the producers, feeling powerless and thwarted, were determined to make an example of her. They sued her, and the case went to trial in early 1993.
During pretrial preparation, Kim rehearsed mock cross-examinations with her lawyer Howard Weitzman. Sometimes, she would come home in tears for fear of what lay ahead. Jake Bloom, who in addition to being an agent also one of Kim’s lawyers, told her to settle the case. Hollywood is a place where the pay scales are so out of proportion that Bloom’s suggestion made perfect sense to everyone involved. “Give them a million to walk away,” Bloom spouted. “That’s definitely better than getting in front of a jury.” He was, in hindsight, wise on that front. But Kim would hear none of it. The idea of handing over a large sum of money to these producers while she was certain that she was right was out of the question.
When the producers appeared in court, it was plain to see that they would likely earn more money in that courtroom than they ever would in their careers. The director, Jennifer Lynch, the daughter of David Lynch, had apparently inherited his unruly hairstyle but none of his talent. Lynch parlayed her unkempt appearance and inarticulate demeanor into an image of herself as the victim of “Big Hollywood” and its bullying tactics. Her producer, Carl Mazzocone, a soft-spoken, obese man, also dialed up the victimhood in order to lobby a jury that ultimately was more than inclined to side with the have-nots.
The plaintiffs’ attorney was Patricia Glaser. I have written about Glaser before, but perhaps that characterization could use a finer point: in the courtroom, she was like a creature out of Jurassic Park, in appearance, body language, and demeanor. Glaser is one of the most contemptible people I have ever encountered, a cartoon rendering of the rapacious litigator, representing everything that I believe is exploitative and unfair about our civil system. Her opening salvo was, “Now, we all know what it feels like for the pretty girl in school to get everything she wants.” Glaser, not the pretty girl, wanted to take Kim down in some schoolyard-style Betty-vs.-Veronica dynamic straight out of Archie comics. Naturally, she won.
Kim had dressed herself with great care every day before heading to court, in order to avoid appearing too extravagant. Some mornings, sitting on the edge of the bed, wondering what to wear or not wear in order to project the “right” image to a jury of strangers, she would quietly start sobbing. It was heartbreaking.
The case proceeded for several days without any clear cause for alarm until it was announced that Kim’s agents, who were co-litigants in the complaint, would be dismissed from the case. Thus, the entire burden of any potential verdict and subsequent award would fall on her alone. The judge further ruled that the jury would not be informed that the deep-pocketed codefendant was now out. The jury should level its judgment for damages blindly, without regard for Kim’s financial position.
Everyone in the courtroom twisted the truth or outright lied. On one telephone call during the pretrial period, one of Kim’s lawyers spit at her, “They’re going to lie! So you have to lie if you want to win!” But she didn’t lie. Not once. In the end, they handed her a bill for $8.9 million. She filed for bankruptcy in the hope that the verdict would be reversed on appeal. As was widely reported at the time, the judge, a disgrace to the bench named Judith Chirlin, strode across the courtroom and hugged the two plaintiffs in full view of the jury. In September of the following year, the verdict was thrown out due to Chirlin’s improper instructions to the jury. However, the damage to Kim’s reputation was done.
During the trial, I didn’t work and stayed in LA to attend the proceedings. During that time, Walter Hill, the great screenwriter and director, approached me about a remake of Peckinpah’s The Getaway, which he wanted to direct using his original script. The producer, Larry Gordon, wanted Sharon Stone to play the female lead, if only for the financing she would bring. I asked him if Kim, who desperately needed to go back to work to take her mind off of her troubles, could play the part. Gordon agreed, but only after slashing the budget considerably. With less money on hand to shoot, Walter walked away and Roger Donaldson stepped in.
Quite often, when evaluating actors and their creative choices, the public fails to see them as husbands, wives, mothers, and fathers. Entertainment writers and critics in particular, who are assumed to actually know something about the business, never seem to understand that performers want to alternately stay home or get away from home, to do something heavy and dramatic or something light and fun, to dig into a performance and give everything they’ve got or just pick up a paycheck. With The Getaway, I just wanted to be with Kim. I wanted her to get back on her feet and shake off the effects of the trial. We went off to Arizona and shot all over the state. Beginning in Phoenix, living at the great old Biltmore Hotel, we made our way to Prescott, Jerome, Sedona, and then finished down in Yuma, where on one shooting day the temperature hit 126 degrees.
We brought with us our movie family: hair and makeup, wardrobe and stunts, stand-ins and assistants who formed the personal crew we had assembled over several years of moviemaking. On the first day of shooting, Kim was compelled to sign papers declaring bankruptcy in response to the verdict. However, my overall idea worked, as in the ensuing weeks, she genuinely seemed to relax and enjoy working.
The first thing critics do when you remake a film like Peckinpah’s is to make a negative comparison to the original. Just like with Brando and Streetcar a year earlier, not once did I ever consider I could top Steve McQueen in the movie-star department. McQueen became an icon by perhaps doing less than any film star in history. His acting was so casual that at times it barely registered on-screen. His voice, his line readings, his whole demeanor seemed like he was a few moments away from a siesta. And yet it worked. Stage acting is about doing half a dozen things, all at the same time, and doing them well. Movie stardom is about doing two, maybe three things on camera, but doing them to perfection. Stars like McQueen taught me that sometimes the trick is to do nothing at all.
On the last day of production, at the very hotel where the cast and crew were staying, Kim and I ambled around the pool, shooting a scene where Doc McCoy and his wife, Carol, are reunited after his prison term in a Mexican hellhole. When they called “Cut!” on the last take, Kim pushed me in the pool. Everyone laughed and then much of the crew jumped in after me. That night, we held a party at the hotel bar. Everyone showed up and got drunk, and Kim and I could finally share a smile about how the two spoiled monsters in Susan Lyne’s Premiere magazine article managed to shoot a picture where everyone had a good time. All the more reason it was so hard to go back to LA to face Kim’s ongoing problems.
Going home meant facing a mountain of appellate and bankruptcy court filings. I wanted to continue the feeling of hope and positivity that the Arizona trip had fostered, even slightly. So I went to Tiffany’s in Beverly Hills and bought Kim a ring. One afternoon, I sat in our backyard with Kim’s sister Ashley and her husband, Joe. Joe was a quiet, shy Southerner and one of the most decent and easygoing guys I’ve ever met. I had told Joe and Ashley of my plan. Neither of them endorsed it and for different reasons. Ashley knew Kim was cursed in her romantic relationships. Joe joked that it was the men who married into the family who were cursed. I brought up the subject of marriage to Kim infrequently. When I did, I sensed alternately that she was enthusiastic or that I was putting a saddle on a wild horse. I thought my idea of getting married was a chance to start over, albeit through that most traditional of commitments. Ashley just looked at me sweetly and sympathetically, as if to say, “One can never tell with Kim.”
Undaunted, I drove Kim to Taft High School at the foot of the hills along Ventura Boulevard, where we would often run on the track. As we walked along the track, there were kids playing soccer while others jogged past us. Did she see the proposal coming? I couldn’t tell. When I asked her to marry me, believing at that moment that, united, we could face her mounting difficulties, she seemed genuinely confused. She didn’t say yes. She didn’t say no. She was, to say the least, overwhelmed by all the turns her life had taken.
Choosing to propose directly on the heels of the court case was, in hindsight, bad timing. My tendency to want to fix everything, and my belief that I can, got the better of me. Was this poor kid from Massapequa now prepared to make someone else’s troubles disappear by supplying the necessary funding? Was I confusing pity with love? Nonetheless, we were married in August of that year. About a hundred friends and family members came. The wedding was held at the home of a friend in East Hampton, on the beach. Naturally, I made all of the arrangements.
The term “fugue state” best describes the remainder of 1993 and all of 1994. Kim almost never worked. When I went on location, she was less inclined than ever to visit me. It seemed like the only laughs we had, the only closeness I actually detected, was during the big Northridge earthquake in January of 1994. The earthquake was the quintessential California rite of passage for me. There were long lines everywhere as San Fernando Valley homeowners struggled to stock up on everything from groceries to gasoline. I’ll never forget these seemingly insignificant, flimsy metal straps that held a hot water heater in place and how I scoured the Valley to buy one. One afternoon, when all the gas lines had been turned off in our neighborhood, ruling out the possibility of cooking at home, I found us a hot meal from a local Italian restaurant that had a generator. When I walked in with the food, it was a scene out of one of those movies where the survivors of a plane crash are rescued in the snowy mountains. I was the hero just by showing up with pasta and a salad.
I went to New Orleans in 1994 to shoot Heaven’s Prisoners with the wonderful Mary Stuart Masterson, who, as Kim seemed to recede more and more, I probably fell in love with while we were shooting. Teri Hatcher, by no means anyone’s first choice for the role of Eric Roberts’s wife, turned out to be tough and brave. (I always enjoy when an actor comes to set and ends up changing your mind about them.) Kim came down once, for a weekend, then flew back to LA to figure out how to get out of the hole she was in. When I was home, appellate lawyers and bankruptcy lawyers called the house regularly, pleading for direction regarding Kim’s case. Kim wouldn’t take their calls, so the responsibility fell to me. Two or three times a week, lawyers asked me for certain direction or approvals, most of which meant more money in fees. Although, eventually, Kim’s verdict was reversed on appeal, the path to that ruling was agonizing.
On New Year’s Day 1995, on the front page of the Sunday business section, the New York Times ran an article entitled “The Basinger Bankruptcy Bomb” about powerful people who had sidestepped significant debt through strategic bankruptcy filings. In it, Kim was portrayed as a capricious, irresponsible woman who flagrantly exploited bankruptcy law, living extravagantly in spite of a pile of bills she refused to pay. (Remember, the verdict was ultimately overturned, providing a textbook example of the kind of case that bankruptcy protection was designed for.) The writer of the article, private investigators later uncovered, lived in Texas, had never come to New York, and had never seen my home in New York or Kim’s home in LA, both of which she described as either “lavish” or a “mansion.” She was wrong on both counts.
After reading the article, Kim vibrated with anger. She spent the day on the phone with her lawyers, wondering what she had to do to catch a break from all of the misrepresentations of both the case and her in the press. That very evening, we were scheduled to fly to Lima and then on to the Peruvian rain forest to shoot a documentary for Turner Broadcasting, but Kim declared that the trip was off. Just the slightest criticism in the press could set her off, and this piece was unfair and inaccurate in several ways, so much so that her attorneys wrote a rebuttal that the Times printed a week later. As we headed to the airport, Kim was brimming over with embarrassment and indignation.
I spent the morning screaming at Kim’s lawyers about how I wanted to kill the Times reporter, perhaps also sensing that all of this wasn’t very good for me either. Kim only sat and glared at me. Yet, somehow, we managed to get in the car and head to the airport to shoot the film, which was about the illegal exportation of exotic birds. The trip up the Tambopata River to the Tambopata Research Center, slightly west of the Bolivian border, was an awkward, uncomfortable experience. The week we spent in mosquito-netted lean-tos with the legendary documentarian Robert Drew, his wife, Anne, and our crew was not what I had envisioned. Our time away from the noise and vulgarity of the US media, however, turned out to be the thing we needed to begin to breathe again.
Once we were back in LA, I decided that we needed to get out of town again, if only for a weekend, to rest and try to reconnect. Marriage is a fragile and, presumably, valuable object. Even as we deliberately smash it on the ground, we are compelled to sweep up all of the pieces and attempt to put it back together. Also, I feared divorce, as I equated it with a deep, personal failure. We drove up to the San Ysidro Ranch for a weekend. Soon after we got back, Kim discovered she was pregnant.
During the first three years Kim and I were together, I had completely cut myself off from thoughts of having a family. With Kim, she led and you followed regarding any important, life-changing decisions. After we were married and throughout her legal battles, any limited talk about children was weighed against how it would stall her career revival. For me, the idea of forgoing a family was difficult. I recall one moment when, watching a man carry his sleeping child through an airport, I said to myself, “I’ll never have children.” I sighed, shoved down those feelings, and boarded a plane to go to work.
Then our daughter, Ireland, was born. The moment that your first child arrives is a transcendent one. And, regardless of the state of our marriage, Ireland’s birth inspired Kim and me to set aside whatever doubts or fears we had and allow the day to be the remarkable event it truly was. Ireland was a healthy, beautiful baby. Like any husband, I spent that day dedicated to providing whatever assistance I could to my wife. But for most of it, I was simply overwhelmed by the arrival of my daughter. At one point, I tried to recall how I imagined this day would play out. This child, this person, is finally arriving; what would she be like? I would stare at Ireland, mesmerized, and say to her tiny being, “My God, it’s you! I wondered who would show up and it’s you!” After sleeping in the chair next to Kim’s hospital bed that first night, I went home to shower. In our bedroom, I lit a candle and thanked God for Ireland and prayed for the health of mother and child. I have lighted a candle or, for lack of one, a match, every night since. Twenty-one years. If I was on a red-eye, heading home to New York, I lit the candle when I arrived home in the early morning. If I’ve missed a night, I am unaware of it, as there’s surely the chance I passed out here and there. But, I don’t think so. Every night, for twenty-one years, I go to sleep and say, “I love you, Ireland.”
When Ireland was an infant, Kim designed a thank-you card for the many thoughtful people who had sent along gifts. The card was perhaps one of the more powerful insights into Kim I had ever come across. On the cover was a naïve illustration that showed a bare tree colored in a muted matte gray. Stuck in one of the high branches was a bright pink ribbon blowing in the wind. There it was, I thought. There was the meaning of Ireland’s arrival in Kim’s life: our child as the only sign of hope, of light, to come into Kim’s world.
My friend Ronnie once said that I had loved Kim the iconoclast who didn’t care what anyone thought. “Little did you know that included you, too,” he quipped. I had felt that I was losing at this game for some time. Everyone wants to believe that they are capable of making someone they love happy, be they a spouse, lover, sibling, or child. I believed that kind of union, that happiness, was my destiny. When you finally face the bitter reality that they will never be happy in the relationship because they are incapable of being happy anywhere, with anyone, you implode. You are powerless.
Love is an object that we hold in our hands. It is visible and it is ours to share. Sometimes, the person you love withholds theirs from you. But it is still there, hidden behind their back, kept from your view. Until one day, the one you love stands in front of you with both of their hands at their sides and their hands are empty. There is nothing there anymore. Nothing. After Ireland was born, all of the love Kim had went to her child. And every moment we were together after that, the emptiness that resulted moved us toward the inevitable.