Stacy, Woodstock, and the Humpback Whales
Farewell to Tarwathie
Adieu Mormond Hill
And the dear land of Crimmond, I bid thee farewell.
—Traditional, “Farewell to Tarwathie”
AT last, at the end of May, I came to a decision about Stephen. I could not take the roller-coaster ride of emotions that characterized our affair. We got rock and roll, we got rhythm, and then we got the blues. Stephen was driven by something I could not see and did not understand. I was driven by something that, apparently, was opposite. Clearly, that ride was almost over.
At the first rehearsal of Peer Gynt, I met Stacy Keach. He was handsome, a man in the prime of his life, buoyant, full of energy, sparking with ideas. He met me head-on with that smile of his and lifted me up from the place I had been with Stephen—despairing and sorry, sad and full of regret. I seemed to wake up.
In the Ibsen story I play the woman who waits, true and faithful, for Peer Gynt, the gadabout and free spirit who is off roaming the world to find himself. These days, we’d put Solveig into a twelve-step program for co-dependency, and sooner rather than later! Of course, Ibsen and Grieg didn’t see things that way. The romantic songs and the setup for romance—first in the rehearsal hall, where we danced in loving awe around each another, and then in the park, with its birds and water and light—were the perfect conditions for love.
I had invited Stacy to dinner at my apartment, and very quickly we began our affair. When he took me in his arms I felt the friction in my life ease. He was brilliant and creative, but solid, too, with his feet on the ground. We both were involved with other people, but felt at once that something important had happened between us.
Stacy Keach is a courtly man, two years older than me. He had been born in Savannah, Georgia, and always called himself “junior,” to distinguish himself from his father, Stacy senior, a director and drama teacher who earned a name for himself in Hollywood radio and movies. Stacy graduated from UC Berkeley in 1963, attended the Yale School of Drama, and earned a Fulbright scholarship to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in England.
He had already established himself in the world of New York theater by the time we met. He had worked with Morgan Freeman in George Tabori’s The Niggerlovers in 1967. It was Morgan Freeman’s first acting job, and Morgan always said he learned more about acting from Stacy than from anyone. Stacy had played Lyndon Johnson in the Barbara Garson play MacBird, a satire about the president we all loved to hate, alongside William Devane and Rue McClanahan. The play was an early stepping-stone in the careers of all of these actors, who were all friends of Stacy’s. Stacy loved theater and theater people. He would introduce me to many of the actors in the New York community: Jane Alexander, James Earl Jones, Rene Auberjonois, and Sam Waterston, as well as Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, and the great Jason Robards.
Stacy was a man in the full bloom of his early career, handsome, lively and generous, levelheaded and ambitious, a man of great charm, both on and off the stage.
I felt that I could talk to Stacy, be his friend, and find solace with him. Our love felt complete, imbued with respect and genuine caring.
And I thought: “Here is the man who is going to solve all my problems.” On the white horse, of course!
I really did the best I could to be the partner he might have wanted. I would wait, follow, adhere, and love him from afar, from close up, from wherever I was. It was the real thing. Again.
We rehearsed Peer Gynt throughout May and into June, then opened in Central Park in July in that greenery-filled fantasy conjured in the Delacorte Theater. And I sang John Morris’ songs, which had sold me on doing the show in the first place.
AND where was Stephen? I hadn’t heard from him for a month after our last unsettling talk about our broken love affair, but I knew he was rehearsing for his tour with David and Graham, putting in the hard work that would ensure fame and fortune after the phenomenally successful release of the new Crosby, Stills and Nash album.
When I met Stacy, I was beginning the last mad charge into hell, the final descent into alcoholic oblivion. Yet everyone still said, even those who knew me best, “You don’t look like an alcoholic! You’re too successful, too put together!”
We had not really had any closure, Stephen and I, and perhaps that was best. Every time we tried to find some adult way to end things, we ended up hurting each other. I was drinking, and I would do what I wanted. Someday we would speak again, and perhaps find a way to be friends. I hoped so. Meanwhile, at least that June, Stephen was still hoping and writing crazy, love-filled, disjointed letters. One night in New York I came back from rehearsal and dinner with Stacy to find Stephen hovering near the entrance to my apartment building. He apologized but said we had to talk. I was determined not to. I was unkind. I was in my own world. I had moved on. I did not understand that one couldn’t just speed past the wreckage of the heart free of pain and regret. There was a price to all this bungling of relationships, and eventually I would have to pay, as everyone must.
Peer Gynt closed on August 15, 1969, the weekend that history was being made in Bethel, New York, at Max Yasgur’s farm at Woodstock. I had not been invited to sing, and so I missed the debut of “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” sung by Crosby, Stills and Nash. Instead, I headed to Williamstown to see a production of The Cherry Orchard with Olympia Dukakis, who had played Anitra in Peer Gynt. Stacy, my sister Holly, another friend, and I rented a car and drove first to Yasgur’s farm, which was on the way to Williamstown. There we paused to say hello to Bill Graham at the production office on the highway outside the festival grounds. He invited me to go to the stage in the helicopter to watch the festival up close. I thought about all those artists who had been invited to Woodstock—from Richie Havens to Joan Baez to Crosby, Stills and Nash—and said thanks but no thanks.
We proceeded to Williamstown, where Olympia was brilliant, and certainly didn’t think we had missed anything by not joining the mud and the crowds at Yasgur’s farm!
ON the way home, I finally thought of a way to get the sound of humpback whales into the world.
I had been given a tape made in Bermuda by the biologist and environmentalist Roger Payne. He had come backstage during one of my performances of Peer Gynt and presented me with the first recording ever of the singing humpback whales. He asked me to think of something to do with these great half-ton leviathans, to find a way to make their songs known to the world.
In a way, it was not far from the kinds of requests many songwriters had made of me over the years. Driving back from Williamstown to New York, I knew what I would do. I would sing a traditional whaling song, “Farewell to Tarwathie,” a cappella, in duet with these magnificent creatures. It would be the first time humpback whales were heard by most of the world.
I said, over and over, the mantra I had said in California as the black and white killer whales leapt through the Pacific: “Nam myoho renge kyo.”
I HAVE always thought that some angel of fate intervened to make sure I was not there when Stephen, David, and Graham played “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” for the first time at Woodstock. It would not have been right for me to be there, singing or not.
And then in September 1969, I heard “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” for the second time, on the radio, riding in a cab in New York City. It sounded nothing like the solo version Stephen had played me months before. This was different. I leaned forward and asked the driver to turn up the sound and then, sitting back as the city poured by the cab’s windows, I was moved to tears all over again.
The driver looked at me strangely as I managed to get the door open and literally staggered from that cab after paying my fare. I was sober, stone cold sober, and very much in shock.
The song would rock the country and the world into a new place where rock and folk came together. The gorgeous harmonies of David, Stephen, and Graham, along with Stephen’s shimmering guitar work merging with insistent rhythms, created a truly new sound. Hearing it the first time was a totally dazzling experience. “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” was the single that would spearhead a fresh new sound in popular music, and I knew after I heard it that first time I would have a hard time getting over it—the affair, the breakup, what the song meant about my addiction to the therapists who told me it was not in my best interests to commit to anyone. I am not blaming them; I was the one who threw the dice and then backed away from the table. Stephen knew exactly what he was doing; he was that smart and that gifted. In a way it was his revenge, served hot, and it was magnificent.
MY love affair with Stacy was just beginning to blossom. We continued through that autumn to spend all our time together when I was not on the road. Clark and Stacy bonded and became close friends. We got iguanas and made trips to the park and the zoo. For Christmas that year, Stacy gave me a husky puppy, Smokey, a little black and white fluff ball with a red ribbon around his neck. We had the perfect holiday.
Stacy moved in with me, and we soon realized we were going to need a new apartment.
Our hearts were entwined, our lives as well. And our good fortune in finding each other was clear as a bell to both of us.