Mary Beth and I had gone to a Gloria Steinem luncheon where one of the speakers was Marie Balter, a schizophrenic woman who had been raised in a dark Dickensian home in Boston and spent most of her life in mental institutions. She met a fellow patient, fell in love, and battled her demons to get well and to marry him. It became our biggest hit, a TV movie called Nobody’s Child.
Who was the cinematographer? Only Sven Nykvist, Ingmar Bergman’s longtime collaborator. Sven and me, Sven and little Lyova Haskell Rosenthal. Sven made my heart melt. We flew hand in hand like a Chagall painting, my feet off the ground, lovers in heart, art, and soul. Sven told me Bergman had seen Tell Me a Riddle and really liked it. My mouth falls open as I write it. Bergman. Of course I tried to copy him in Riddle; he must have recognized that.
I was watching a very good play on television. The actress in it was doing very beautiful interior work as a shy, retiring woman. She looked familiar and I waited for the credits. It was an unrecognizable Marlo Thomas.
I called a friend, who gave me her number. I said, “I will never underestimate anyone’s talent again,” and offered her the part of Marie Balter. She was superb. She went to Boston to spend time with Marie. She went to the mental institution. With Sandra Seacat, her acting coach, Marlo worked on Marie for months, plunging into the schizophrenic experience. The sound, the movement, the walk. On the morning that Marie is allowed to go out the front doors of this Gothic mental hospital, where we were filming, it started to softly snow. A miracle. Marlo opened the big doors into a wonderland of beautiful whiteness. She put her hands out to receive this blessing on her face, her hair, her mouth. Her joy. And Sven Nykvist, the great Bergman’s cinematographer, was there to preserve the moment.
Marlo won the Emmy; I won the Directors Guild Award for TV Director. Directors voted for me! I was a fellow director. I’d earned their respect.
• • •
I was directing Nobody’s Child when my Aunt Fremo was dying. I was in Vancouver; she was in New York. I could have made it. The truth was I didn’t want to see Fremo die. I couldn’t see Fremo die. I didn’t want her pain to be my last image of her, to carry always in my head and heart. I didn’t fly back for her funeral, either. I didn’t want to see her in a coffin. She was buried in the clothes I suggested she would like, her long leopard-print silk pajamas. With a final slash of red lipstick on her lips.