It was 2002, my children were in school now, and I was getting restless. I wanted to act again.
I had joined the Theatre Artists Workshop of Westport back in the 1990s, and when we moved back from Houston, I was eager to get back into the swing of things. The workshop had been founded by a group of theater professionals who lived in the area as a safe place for actors and writers to flex their muscles and try out new stuff. Many stage and film luminaries—Keir Dullea, Lee Richardson, Theodore Bikel, Morton DaCosta, Phoebe Brand, Ring Lardner Jr., James Noble, Brett Somers—would show up at the weekly Monday night meeting to view the work and give feedback.
I loved the supportive, nurturing atmosphere there. It inspired me to take lots of new chances. I acted in all kinds of classic plays: The Seagull, The Three Sisters, A Doll’s House, Anna Christie, The Beauty Queen of Lenane, The Glass Menagerie—parts I’d always wanted to play, when I was just at the age where I could still pull them off. I never went topless, though; those glory days were over.
My favorite was A Moon for the Misbegotten. Josie Hogan was such a departure for me. She was an earthy, ballsy character, with a thick, wide peasant body, where I was slight and unassuming. It took me a long time to find her, and once she took possession of me, I couldn’t get rid of her. I would walk around the house burly and heavy-footed, and sit with my legs splayed wide. My kids would notice and tease me all the time. “Uh-oh, Josie’s making dinner tonight!”
It felt great to be working regularly as an actress again, and my confidence was growing exponentially with each performance—so much so that, in the fall of 2005, when I was appearing in the workshop’s annual one-act festival, I made the supremely courageous gesture of inviting Mom. She was visiting the East Coast at the time, and I persuaded her to come see the last Sunday matinee performance.
I was nervous about performing in front of her. Over the past ten years, our relationship had downshifted from a roller-coaster ride of highs and lows to a pleasant cruise on a neutral plane. I was no longer active in the entertainment world, and that removed the edge of competitiveness that had always charged the air between us. In her eyes, I was now the settled suburban mom, and she was the grandmother, “Ganny,” who would drop in from time to time to bring gifts and offer homely advice. She didn’t see me as an actress anymore.
Just a year earlier, she’d brought me to a party in New York at some important person’s duplex apartment, and there were all these celebrities there: Mike Nichols, Diane Sawyer, Jane Seymour, and Nora Ephron. I thought, Nora Ephron! I loved her and had been dying to meet her.
Now, it’s not all that easy to strike up a chat at one of these high-powered cocktail parties, because anyone you might want to talk to is usually busy trying to find someone else more important to talk to. So the whole night, I waited for the serendipitous moment when I could just happen to run into Nora and start a witty conversation. Finally, that moment arrived: here she was, right next to me! Before I could say a word, though, Mom popped up at my side like a malevolent genie.
“Nora, I want you to meet my daughter, Sachi.” Hooray, she had given me just the introduction I needed. She could have left it at that, but no, she had to add, in a patronizing voice, “Sachi wants to be an actress. She just started taking acting classes. Isn’t that great?”
Nora smiled indulgently, offered a few words of encouragement, and moved on. I’d been effectively torpedoed. Mom knew damn well that I’d been a professional actor for thirty years, but now, in front of this elegant, sophisticated icon, she’d made it sound as if I were some bored suburban housewife with a few spare hours on her hands.
In fact, this is probably how Mom saw me. I’d removed myself from the arena; I was no longer a gladiator. She hadn’t seen me onstage in more than ten years, and when she showed up at the workshop, I don’t think she was expecting me to be anything more than community-theater adequate.
So we were both caught by pleasant surprise when she wound up loving the show. She was laughing her head off in the audience, letting loose with her familiar full-throated cackle. A little too loudly, of course—I could tell she was enjoying the sound of her own voice—but I didn’t care. Those laughs were for me.
Afterward, as we drove back to the house, she was gushing with superlatives: “You know, Sach, you owned that stage. You were wonderful. What can I say? You’re a great actress. You really are.”
I listened warily, waiting for the other shoe to drop, the deflating “But” that would send my spirits into free fall. It never came. She was actually sincere. It was a mirror of that moment at Denny’s after The Lulu Plays, when I felt I’d finally broken through to her as a fellow artist. Was she confirming that earlier appraisal, the one that had left me sky-high with hope, or was this another false start? I wanted to believe her; I wanted to be exhilarated by the possibilities of rebooting my career with her firmly in my corner. So I did.
This developed into a golden period for us as mother and daughter. We stayed in close touch; we talked on the phone all the time. We were even going to spend Christmas together. A family Christmas with Mom! What could be better?
Well, it got better. A week before Christmas, she called me up all excited: “Honey, I have the best Christmas present for you! This is perfect! Perfect!”
Now I was excited. My mom was getting me the perfect Christmas present! What could it be? In the back of my mind I thought, A script! She has a screenplay with parts for both of us. We’re going to act together!
No, I couldn’t think about that. It was probably a beautiful piece of jewelry, or a first edition of a book, or something like that. Whatever it was, I would absolutely love it.
On Christmas Day, Mom was at our doorstep—and with her was a tall, thin gentleman with a goatee. “Sachi, this is Casper DeVries.”
The gentleman nodded. “Hello,” he said in a vaguely European voice.
“He’s your Christmas present,” Mom said, bursting with glee. “Merry Christmas!” She gave me a big hug.
“Merry Christmas,” I replied with a little bit of confusion, then lowered my voice to ask, “He’s my present?”
Mom nodded eagerly. “He’s going to read you!”
I didn’t get it. “What do you mean?”
A trace of exasperation flitted across her face. “Casper DeVries. The world-famous psychic. He has a TV show.”
Mr. DeVries leaned in. “I have several TV shows.”
This was quite true. Casper DeVries had a cable show called Reaching Out, where he reconnected people with their dead relatives, and he’d done a couple of miniseries about life on the Other Side. He was also a consultant on a network show about psychic mediums. Mom couldn’t have found a more perfect soul mate if she’d robbed a grave.
I still didn’t get it. I took Mom aside. “So this is the big present? He’s going to read me?”
“He’s going to tell you everything.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to be told everything, especially on Christmas Day, but when I thought about it, I decided it was the perfect present, coming from Mom. It was certainly personal.
We had time before dinner, so we all repaired to the living room—me, Frank, Mom, the kids—and sat in a semicircle. Mr. DeVries was in a chair with his back to the fire, which imparted to him a mystical orange aura. He started going into a trance.
His eyes were closed, his hands gripped the arms of the chair, and he made odd guttural sounds, as if speaking in tongues.
“Aghhh…Ooo…Ogggh…Uuuu…”
We waited patiently for a spirit to grab him. Eventually he threw his head back and began channeling someone. His voice dropped a few octaves.
“Uggh…Aaaagghh…”
“Who are you?” Mom asked boldly.
“Obadiah,” he answered. Or somebody answered.
Ah. Mom nodded with familiarity. Obadiah was the spirit of a former slave; he had visited her many times before, with the help of various channelers.
I remember one time encountering Obadiah myself. Kevin Ryerson, another well-known psychic, used to channel him a lot. Ryerson was big on trance-channeling, and he was apparently the one who first informed Mom about her past life in Atlantis and so forth. The scene is re-created by the two of them in the movie version of Out on a Limb.
That episode goes back to when I was still with David. We were over at the Malibu house with Ryerson and my mom, and they were having a channeling session. Ryerson went into a trance, and “Obadiah” started speaking through him. I don’t remember what came out during the channeling, but I recall that Mom had lost her gold watch with a diamond-encrusted rim and she mentioned it during the session. She had searched all over the house and just couldn’t find it. She kept rubbing her wrist throughout the session, lamenting her loss.
“That’s too bad,” Obadiah said. “We’ll have to do something about that.” I remember thinking it funny that somebody who’d suffered through the horrors of slavery would give a hoot in hell about a missing gold watch.
After the session was over, I was in the kitchen making dinner; David was with me. Mom was out taking a walk on the beach.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kevin Ryerson step into the kitchen and hover by the doorway. He reached into his pocket and very discreetly (but not discreetly enough) took out the diamond-encrusted gold watch, put it on the kitchen counter, and then stealthily withdrew before anyone could see him.
I saw him, though, and David saw him.
We both gathered over the watch and stared at it. What should we do? Should we bust Ryerson? Tell Mom the truth? Would she believe us? Probably not. She was so invested in her beliefs, and they made her so happy, that we made an agreement not to say a word. Why dash her dreams?
When Mom came back and walked into the kitchen, she screamed, “Oh my God! There it is! My watch! He found it for me! Thank you, Obadiah!”
All I could think was, Oh, Mom. You’re such a little kid sometimes.
I was not as susceptible. I had seen the man behind the curtain too many times, and that’s why I greeted Obadiah’s emergence now in my living room with a healthy degree of skepticism.
DeVries was now completely in the grip of his visiting spirit. Mom, an old hand at these channeling sessions, took the reins. “Who’s with you, Obadiah?”
“Steve is here…”
Mom looked at me, and mouthed “your father,” which I’d already deduced. Who else but Dad would be showing up in my living room?
“Does he have a message for us?”
“He wants you to know that he loves you, and he apologizes.”
“Anything else?”
“He wants to thank you for hanging his picture in the bedroom…”
I was startled by that one. It was true—a photo of Dad was hanging in an upstairs bedroom. How could DeVries or Obadiah have known that? I looked over at Mom, who nodded sagely.
Mom started asking the spirit some searching questions about the nature of the universe, and her place in it:
“What is the path for me?” she asked with deep earnestness.
“You are an explorer…You are a star voyager…Many will scorn you, but you must be strong and follow your vision wheresoever it may lead.”
Dad’s language had taken on a very biblical syntax. Or maybe it wasn’t Dad anymore. Obadiah indicated that someone else was present, an elderly woman. “It must be your grandmother,” Mom said.
Whoever it was, I was getting antsy. This was supposed to be my present. “Can I ask something, please?” Mom shrugged and, with a roll of her eyes, sat back. By this time I had completely bought in to the Other Side, and I was itching to ask my big question.
“What’s going to happen with my career? Will I ever make it as an actress?”
DeVries rocked back and forth, and started shaking, as he received the message. “Mmm…Ahhhmmm…Mustn’t ride on mother’s coattails, must we?”
“Huh?”
“Mmmm…Ahhhh.…Acting classes are in order…”
Acting classes? I looked over at my mother. Now she was slumped in the corner of the couch, watching like a spider, and emanating evil energy.
But back to DeVries: he was trembling, getting excited. A great vision was coming to him: “Yes, I see…Sharp objects…Knives! Pots! Copper pots!…Cooking! A COOKING SHOW!”
A cooking show. I should be doing a cooking show. That was the message that Grandma was sending from the dead.
I couldn’t look at Mom now, or anyone. I felt something very hot spreading in the pit of my stomach, then rising very quickly through my various internal organs, up, up, until it was scorching my cheeks. It was as if my head had been dipped in acid.
I was so pissed off. I realized that Mom had set this whole phony business up. Why? Maybe because she was afraid I would start acting again, and she was going to dissuade me through any means, normal or paranormal.
I also realized that if I didn’t leave the room immediately, my head was going to explode. I rushed into the kitchen and promptly dissolved into a hysterical mess.
They could hear me sobbing from the living room. Frank suggested to Mom that maybe she should go in and see how I was.
Mom waved him off. “Ahh, she’ll be fine.”
Instead, Mr. DeVries, who had emerged from his “trance,” came into the kitchen to comfort me. A mistake on his part.
“You lying son-of-a-bitch!” I screamed at him. “You know not a word of that was true! Cooking show, my ass! You’re nothing but a fucking phony!”
“Sachi, listen to me, please,” he said, trying to quiet me. “I really am a psychic—”
“Ha!”
“—and I know that you’re a fine actress.”
“Right.”
“In fact, I see you winning an Academy Award someday.”
“Really?” He was starting to win me back.
“But your mother made me tell that story.”
“She made you?”
He shrugged. “It’s what she wanted. I couldn’t say no.”
I discovered later that Mom and DeVries had been staying—in separate rooms—the last few days at the Homestead Inn, where she would have had plenty of time to feed him his lines, and tell him all about Dad and cooking and that fucking Obadiah.
It took me a while, but I managed to pull myself together. We still had to get through Christmas dinner, after all. I went back to the living room, full of false cheer, as merry as any elf. Mom, who’d gone to such great lengths to puncture my ego, would have none of it; she took me aside: “Look, I can tell you’re upset. You should be. Mediocrity is not an easy thing to accept.”
“I’m not upset,” I told her. “Because he’s wrong, that’s all. Even the best psychics can be wrong.”
“He’s wrong? Oh, really? He has a TV show, and he’s wrong?” Mom was furious. She couldn’t stand that I wasn’t buying into her bullshit. She’d really wanted to put the last nail in the coffin of my acting aspirations, and her plan had been a big fat flop.
Dinner was very forced. I wanted to feed them both and get them out of my house as soon as possible, so I pulled the meal together in record time—and it was, by the way, fabulous; I really was a good cook. Grandma’d got that right. The crosscurrents of tension at the table were excruciating. I was on to Mom, and she knew I was on to her. Meanwhile, DeVries was nervous that I would tell Mom what he’d told me. We ate in nerve-racking silence. Then they left. I was never so happy to see my mother make an exit in my life.
Unfortunately, we’d made a plan to have breakfast at the house the next day, before they flew back. After the channeling fiasco, I assumed they would pass on that invitation. But no, the next morning Mom and DeVries were both at the door, waiting to be fed. I couldn’t bear to look at them. “I don’t have time to make breakfast this morning,” I told them. “Sorry.”
Mom looked a little stunned. I think it was the first time in my life I’d ever been cold to her. I didn’t even want her to hug me. We said a very icy goodbye.
• • •
THE deep freeze was on for about a month. Then, one day in early 2006, out of the blue, Mom called. “Sach, I have some exciting news. Are you sitting down?”
“Yeah.” I was not sitting down. I couldn’t imagine what news she could have that required my sitting down for, unless she was going to tell me that Paul had finally returned from the Pleiades.
“I’m doing a new movie up in Canada. It’s called Closing the Ring.”
“Good for you,” I said flatly. So nice to hear that her career was moving right along.
Mom didn’t pick up on my sarcasm or chose to ignore it, because she went on brightly: “And there’s a role for you! You’re playing my daughter. Is that perfect casting or what?”
My ears pricked up. Wait a minute—a role for me? What was she talking about? Now I sat down. “I’m playing your daughter? You mean, I already have the part?”
Mom laughed. “Of course not. You have to audition, like anyone else. But do a good job, and I’m sure Dickie will take our long-standing friendship under consideration.”
“Dickie?”
“Lord Attenborough.”
My heart leapt. “I’m auditioning for Richard Attenborough?” This was developing into something serious. It had been a long time since The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom, and now of course Lord Attenborough was an Oscar-winning director and a major producer, but if he still remembered me as little “Poppy,” there was a better-than-even chance I could get this part.
It seemed too good to be true, and that’s why I became suspicious. “Why?”
“What do you mean, ‘why’? Why not? You want to be an actress, don’t you?” Still, even Mom could sense there was a hollowness to this argument. The question I was asking was, why now, after all these years?
“Look,” Mom said with a sigh, “it’s very simple: I want to help you out. I want to make things right. Other mothers help their daughters, why shouldn’t I?” Before I could answer this, she moved on. “They’re going to fly you up to Toronto this weekend to do a screen test. Can you make it?”
I was still a little befuddled. “Sure, I guess…I’m just…surprised.”
“Well, don’t be surprised. You’re a talented actress; you deserve a break.”
I started to choke up. “Mom—thank you. I promise you, I’ll do whatever I can to make you look good. I’ll be totally prepared. I’ll give it everything I’ve got. You’re taking a big risk, but I’m going to make it work!”
Mom tried to put it in perspective. “Well, remember, they’re looking for a twenty-six-year-old, and a name, so don’t get your hopes up.”
I was fifty years old and no name at all, but that didn’t stop me. “I don’t care,” I said. “Even if I don’t get the part, I’m just happy that this is bringing us back together. It means so much on a personal level. This makes up for everything.”
Some of this was pure actor-speak. Of course I did care; I desperately wanted the part. Finally, a chance to act with my mother, in a big film, with a famous director—it was a dream setup, and I couldn’t let it slip away.
The script was sent to me, and it was indeed a terrific role. Mom and I would have some great scenes together. I wanted this part, and I was going to get it. I studied and studied, and sent on my head shot and my reel. That weekend, I flew up to Toronto and met with Lord Attenborough. “Poppy!” he greeted me in his charming English voice. He was still a delightful man, and I could see that his affection for me was still strong.
My confidence was high as I did the screen test. The makeup artist did some work on my eyes to make me look young, and she had me put a scarf around my neck to hide some wrinkles—I was supposed to be twenty-six, after all.
The test went beautifully. I really nailed it. There are times when you just know. Everyone was buzzing with compliments. When I got back to Connecticut, there was a personal message on my voice mail: “Oh, Poppy, you did a marvelous job on the screen test. You’ll be wonderful as Marie.”
So there it was! I had the part! Now, admittedly there was one little snag to be worked out with immigration: according to Canadian work rules, the film could hire only a certain number of American actors, and it had already reached its quota; Mom was taking up the last spot. We’d have to find a way to skirt the rules before they could officially offer me the role, but that wouldn’t be a problem—not with Shirley MacLaine and Lord Richard Attenborough on the case.
With the shoot coming up, I realized I’d better get my eyes done. I couldn’t count on the makeup people to help me every day. I flew out to L.A. and was treated by the same doctor who’d done my breasts, Dr. Norman Leaf. Dr. Leaf was a plastic surgeon to the stars, he did great work, and he was a genuinely nice man.
After the surgery, I went to Dr. Leaf’s recuperation facility. There were all kinds of well-preserved women and men milling about with small bandages on their noses, their chins, their you-name-its. Quite a few of them were celebrities: no big stars, but lots of solid middle-ground performers trying to hold the line against time.
Mom came to visit while I was there. She brought me a nice sweatsuit. I couldn’t actually see it; I had to keep my eyes closed. My head was reclined, and I held ice on my eyelids as we chatted. We talked a bit about the film. I told her how excited I was.
“Tell me, Sachi,” she said thoughtfully. “What if you don’t get the part? What are you going to do?”
“I am going to get it, Mom. You know that.”
“But what if you don’t? What are you going to do?”
“Don’t worry, Mom. The part is mine.”
We talked a bit more, and then Mom asked me again, “But what if you don’t get the part? What if something goes wrong? What are you going to do?” She must have asked me that five separate times. I didn’t know what she was so worried about. I already had the part.
My eyes took only two weeks to heal, and I looked great. I was all set for Canada!
But not so fast. Someone was still making a stink about immigration. Too many Americans in the movie! Mom said not to worry; she was calling all her bigwig friends. Lord Attenborough even rang up Tony Blair a couple of times. The wheels were in motion.
Plus, Mom had a nuclear option up her sleeve: “I know. I’ll become a Canadian citizen. My mother was Canadian. And then you can take my spot.”
I didn’t like that idea. “I don’t want you to change your citizenship for me.”
Mom accepted my objection pretty easily. “Well, don’t say I didn’t offer.”
More time went by, and we didn’t seem to be making any progress on the immigration front. So Frank got in touch with his good friend Ed Cox, the son-in-law of Richard Nixon. Ed had connections with the Canadian government, and he was happy to help out. He didn’t seem to think it was a problem at all. “Don’t worry,” he told Frank. “This is a walk in the park, we’ll get her in.”
Frank called Mom to give her the good news. I was in the room with him when he called her, and I could hear Mom’s animated reaction through the receiver. “How dare you go over my head?” she was shouting. “Stay the fuck out of this! Leave well enough alone! I’m handling it! It’s being handled!”
Frank hung up and looked at me bewildered. What was that all about?
So he told Ed Cox to back off; it was being handled.
The production start date drew closer and closer, and I was still waiting in Connecticut. A marvelous cast had been assembled: Christopher Plummer, Mischa Barton, Pete Postlethwaite, Brenda Fricker, and Mom. I was champing at the bit to get started. What was taking so long?
Finally I called Jack Gilardi, Mom’s agent at ICM. “Have you heard anything about Closing the Ring? Did they clear things up yet?”
“Oh yeah. They went with somebody else,” he said matter-of-factly.
“What? Somebody else?”
“Yeah. What’s her name? Neve Campbell.”
“Neve Campbell? Neve Campbell is playing Marie? When did this happen?”
Two weeks ago? Why didn’t anyone tell me? What the hell was going on? “But—what happened? I thought Mom was handling it.”
“Well…” I could almost hear him shrugging with indifference.
“But I had the role. It was mine.”
“I guess you didn’t.” He could not have been more dismissive. Of course, Jack was Mom’s agent, not mine. I knew he didn’t really give a shit about me, but he didn’t need to make it so obvious.
I called Mom right away. “Did you know that I didn’t get the part? They cast Neve Campbell instead?”
“Oh, yes. I heard that. She’s Canadian, you know. It made things much easier.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Mom paused. “Well, you know how it is. Nobody wants to give bad news in Hollywood.”
“You’re not Hollywood. You’re my mom!”
“Well, look, at least you know I tried,” she said defensively. “I really did.” That was true, and that was the important thing, really.
“And don’t worry, sweetheart,” she promised, “next time we’ll find a project for the two of us, in America, and we’ll be in charge. Nothing will go wrong.”
I also got a call from Lord Attenborough, who apologized profusely for the way things had turned out. “So sorry, Poppy. I did everything I could. It breaks my heart. Closing the Ring just won’t be the same without you.”
They made it without me anyway. It was not a great movie, and it went straight to video—but that was small consolation.
I called Mom during the shoot. I’d become so invested in the movie, I had to hear how it was going, even though I knew it would only make me feel terrible.
“Oh, it’s going so well, sweetheart,” Mom enthused. “It’s wonderful being up here with Dickie. Christopher Plummer is so good. And Neve Campbell is fine. But you know,” she added ruefully, “she’s not you. She’s not you.”