Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
The president of ABC, Fred Silverman, had been looking for a young woman for a new show they were doing. As I would hear it later, Fred said in a production meeting, “I’ve got the girl—I see her on The Tonight Show all the time.” The show was Three’s Company.
It was December 1977. Alan and I were returning from a Christmas holiday in Eleuthera, an island in the Bahamas. Bruce was staying with his father and paternal grandparents. It was the first time Bruce and I had not spent Christmas Day together in his life, but he loved being with his dad, and I knew he would have a good time with all of them. They were fun-loving and irreverent. I always liked my ex-in-laws.
To get home, we were to take an island puddle-jumper to Miami and then a large commercial jet. It was the only way to get off the island. But on the day we were scheduled to leave, the weather suddenly turned dark and ominous. I looked out our window, and the weather was getting increasingly bad, so much so that we considered not flying out that night because of it. The plane was small, a ten-seat commercial Fairchild. We decided to watch the faces of the people disembarking, those who had just flown through the weather. To our relief, they were smiling and laughing; just looking at their faces convinced us it was going to be okay. (After takeoff, I realized they had likely been smiling and laughing from nervous relief.) Twenty minutes into the flight, we were sorry we had made the decision to fly. It became so turbulent that the pilot, who was a few feet in front of us and visible, started screaming into the microphone, “Put your heads between your knees! Put your heads between your knees!”
Oh my god, are we going to crash? Two native ladies sitting opposite us started wailing, “Lord, we’re gonna die. Lord, we’re gonna die.” Gulp. I looked at Alan and told him how much I loved him; he told me we were over the Bermuda Triangle. (His little joke. Thanks, Alan!) I thought of Bruce and agonized. What will his life be without his mother?
I became filled with fear at what crashing would feel like. What would it be like in the black ice-cold ocean water? We gripped onto each other, stopping all blood flow with our fear. Baggage from overhead compartments was flying everywhere—that alone could have killed someone. I now get what all the stringent regulations concerning carry-ons are all about. I peeked outside the plane window and could see only dark black angry clouds. Tossing and turning, it felt like we were going to flip upside down. Our plane felt so little and vulnerable. It seemed to take an eternity. Screaming…crying people…would it ever stop? Oh, god help us!
Then as quickly as it had started, we were in clear air, and it all calmed down. And now we were starting our descent to Miami International as though nothing had happened. We landed on the tarmac, and now we were the ones laughing and smiling. A new line of passengers were getting ready to board. I wanted to stop and tell them, but I was frantic to call Bruce. When I reached him, my panic did not match his calm. I was crying and telling him how much I missed him and loved him. He said calmly, “I love you too, Mom.” Like, Geez.
The next day, safely back in our apartment in Los Angeles, my new L.A. agent called, screaming excitedly, “You have an audition for a show called Three’s Company, and they seem really interested in you.” Her decibel level was completely different from my blasé former agent.
I was still so shook up from the prior night’s flight that I didn’t take it too seriously. I had been on countless auditions at this point, and not much had happened. And she was the excitable type, so I took it with a grain of salt. Calmly, I got ready to go to ABC headquarters for a show I knew nothing about.
Once I was inside the interview room, there was a somber vibe. I stood in front of a group of men who were staring at me intently. I tried to make jokes, but no one laughed. They just kept staring. They asked me to read a few lines with an actress I would come to know in the future as Joyce DeWitt; she clearly already had a job on the show. Many of the men in the room were the show’s producers; the rest were the head honchos at ABC, including its president, Fred Silverman. I didn’t know which one he was at that time. After I read, and after they finished staring at me, they thanked me.
I drove off the lot thinking, Just another interview.
When I got home, the phone was ringing. My agent was screaming so loudly I couldn’t make out what she was saying.
“Stop, stop!” I said. “Calm down. What are you saying?!”
“YOU GOT THE PART of Chrissy Snow on Three’s Company! It is expected to be the biggest hit of the season. It’s going to air on Tuesday nights after Laverne & Shirley, the hottest, most successful night of the TV week, and the hottest show on the air. It’s a midseason pickup. But if your show gets good ratings, then next season will be twenty-six episodes!”
I held the receiver in shock.
“Oh, and your starting pay is thirty-five hundred dollars— a week!”
“Oh my god! Oh my god!” was all I could say over and over.
I’d gotten a great gig—a series. It was beyond my wildest dreams. And they were going to pay me! What a thrill!
My agent told me I was to show up the next day at nine a.m. for the first table reading, whatever that was. (I later learned it is literally a reading around a table.)
That first morning I walked euphorically into ABC to meet everyone involved with the show. I just couldn’t believe what had happened. I even had my own parking spot in front of the studio. I felt giddy.
I was introduced to John Ritter and reintroduced to Joyce DeWitt, and then the producers formally introduced themselves, as did the production team. Everyone was much nicer than they had been in the original interview. The atmosphere was charged. It was as though everyone had a feeling that we were about to be a part of something big.
They were all pros. John Ritter was instantly likable: fun, funny, upbeat, outgoing, and confident. It was clear the producers and crew loved him already. He was the star of their show. Joyce DeWitt, who I had met at the audition, was very friendly, very nice, and very professional. I liked her. She had been scouted by ABC from the UCLA drama department and signed to a contract. This was rarely done, but it assures the network that when the right project comes up, it will have first access. For this privilege, she was most likely getting a monthly paycheck. I was third billed, and frankly I would have taken any deal I was offered. I was thinking only of the incredible opportunity to be on a prime-time network TV show. Remember, this was before cable and there were only three options: ABC, CBS, and NBC.
I felt so out of my element that on that first day I blurted out to everyone listening that I was so excited to be there and then stated (stupidly), “I’ve never had any formal acting training, so I’m here to learn.” The reaction was silence. It was me being honest, but something I probably shouldn’t have said. This was big-time TV. This wasn’t school or a place to learn. By the time you got here, you needed to know your stuff. What I hadn’t realized was what I brought to the table was my credits; I was “that girl from The Tonight Show.” I now had a number-one book on the market. I had cachet as a “kind of” celebrity. I brought value to the show. In fact, I was the only one at that moment who had any visibility. But of course, I didn’t see it that way, although thankfully soon I would. What a year!
I saw Three’s Company as my shot, maybe the only shot I would ever get. Our first season was only a six-week pickup. Would six weeks be enough for me to make a mark? If the show didn’t succeed, how could I use this opportunity to keep my career moving onward and upward? I had no management and no “real” agent to speak of—mine had never really been an agent before, and frankly, shortly in, it was clear she was out of her element. Alan was now away half the month in Vancouver shooting his daily afternoon talk show, The Alan Hamel Show. For the first time in my life, I had something tangible to use as a springboard to garner more work. How could I do that?
Back then, Farrah Fawcett was the hottest celebrity on TV. She was the star of the megahit Charlie’s Angels. Her publicist was Jay Bernstein, a flamboyant, showbiz “star-maker,” as he referred to himself. He had a cultivated look: perfectly trimmed goatee, professionally shaped and dyed eyebrows, and mirrored sunglasses, and he carried a cane for effect (which had a hidden sword inside). I decided to take a chance and call him to see if he would agree to meet with me. Normally, anyone who has just landed a top spot on a prime-time network sitcom would feel secure enough to know that a meeting request would be received with enthusiasm, but for me it took some courage. I was a newcomer to celebrity, so calling Jay Bernstein was a gutsy thing for me to do. If my tone on the phone call was a bit desperate, it was because that was how I felt.
I met with Jay and explained to him that I saw this show as a springboard for my future career if enough people could be made aware of me being on it. I told him I admired the way he had crafted Farrah’s career, and then I made him my pitch:
“I will give you all the money I am making from the first six weeks’ pickup, if you will make sure that no matter what happens, success or cancellation, you get my name out there so that everyone will know who I am.”
He sat there quietly listening to me. I looked around his office, a shrine to Farrah, with magazine covers on every inch of his walls, interrupted intermittently by photos of Farrah and her then husband, Lee Majors, star of The Six Million Dollar Man.
“How much are you being paid?” he asked.
I told him, “They are giving me thirty-five hundred dollars a week.” It’s not that I didn’t need the money—I did, desperately. But I was rolling the dice and believed I had no other way to intrigue him to take me on. It was worth giving up my paychecks if he could pull this off.
Finally Jay spoke. “Well, the first thing we have to do is make sure on season two you get paid a whole lot more than this. But yes, I will take you on. I can do this.”
I left his office triumphant. It was a ballsy, creative thing to do, and I felt proud that I had had the idea and pulled it off. Astonishingly, I had gotten to national TV without Alan or Jay and no real agent. My excitable agent was so new at it that she had never had a client before me and had never put together a deal. It was a difficult conversation, but I explained to her that I needed to hire Jay and I would be sure she was compensated with her percentage. She was disappointed, but to her credit she took it well; I have always been grateful to her for that. It was incredible that I even found myself in this position of landing a part on a show destined to be a hit. It’s virtually impossible to land a hit TV show without proper representation. The people who got me jobs in San Francisco were not managing or culling my career; back then, I was simply and occasionally useful to my kind-of agent to fill a void in a commercial or a backdrop scene in a film.
Years later Jay told me he didn’t think I was particularly pretty, and he had no idea if I had any talent, but he had not seen that kind of drive and enthusiasm since he handled Sammy Davis Jr.
The first day, Mickey Ross, one of the show’s producers, decided to take me under his wing. Mickey was an old vaudevillian with perfect comedic timing and writing skills that came from that disappearing old school of Jewish comedy writers. They were the funniest of them all. (For examples from today, think Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld.) Mickey had been head writer for Norman Lear’s All in the Family starring Carroll O’Connor. He also co-created and wrote The Jeffersons. This guy was no slouch, so lucky me that he took me on. I got private tutoring from the best. It wasn’t simply altruism on his part—it was business. Before this show, the producers—Don Nicholl, Mickey Ross, and Bernie West—had always worked under the tutelage and ownership of Norman Lear. Three’s Company was their first big solo shot, and they couldn’t afford to have a weak link. I looked right, but I needed major direction at first.
I’ve thought a lot about the generation of children whose parents escaped from or perished in the Holocaust. Why were many of the best comedy writers of that era Jewish? I think it was a sink-or-swim mentality. You saw the humor in life, or else the horrific memories would do you in. The funny part of Mickey was threaded through with a definite underbelly of anger. At the time, I thought of him as old, but good-looking old. It strikes me as funny today that back then he looked a lot like my sexy, gorgeous husband looks today. I digress.
The weekly schedule was five days of rehearsals, eight to ten hours daily, then fittings, photo shoots, press and interviews, and on Friday night there we were, shooting the show. From day one, Mickey worked with me like a coach. His direction was astute, and he taught me simply to believe everything I was saying. In a way, it was like when I was a kid playing house, always my favorite game: pretend, and then act accordingly. What Mickey was teaching me felt similar. Sometimes in life you know what you know. A child of an alcoholic learns to size up people and situations. It comes from being adaptable, from having to figure out What mood is Daddy in tonight? which is code for Who do I have to be so he won’t be angry at me? It’s fake; it’s uncomfortable at the core; but it’s survival. Little did I know that it would be an advantage for me in this remarkable position of being on a hit TV show, so I watched, I observed, I listened, I sized up the situation and the scene. I was fascinated and soaked it all in.
I also got to watch the genius of John Ritter, a physical comic rivaled only by the great Dick Van Dyke. His pratfalls were choreographed like a dance; he could flip over the sofa the same way, time after time. I marveled at his extraordinary talent, and I was aware of greatness at work. On the show, he and I found magic together; our scenes were like a Ping-Pong game; he banged it across the table, and I banged it back. It was thrilling to work with someone with this enormous talent. He made me better.
Between Mickey coaching off stage and John’s physical ability and perfect comic timing, I was learning from the best. No acting school, no comedy school on the planet, could have taught me what I was learning daily and with such intensity.
I loved it. I loved the rehearsals. I loved the excitement. I loved that I was getting paid to have fun (even if I had to give it away to Jay, it was worth it). Bruce was enrolled in the public school near our house. I was feeling the pull of needing to be home to be a good mother but also the pull of the show demanding so much of my time—the plight of all working mothers.
I’m a sponge when I want to know something. I know when I’m seeing or experiencing the good stuff, whether it’s food, an outfit, a song, or a comedy routine and its perfect setup. I know it when I see it, and because I learned early on to be adaptable, I can repeat it once I’ve seen it done right. With Mickey’s guidance, I found the character of Chrissy Snow and morphed into her; I was her for those moments.
It was quite exhilarating to know something so completely. I knew when a line was wrong for the character, and I began to protect her fiercely. The writers felt the same way and enjoyed writing for her. We all knew what she would and would not do. I created her moral code: she never lied and would never hurt anyone or anything, for any reason. She was childlike, a woman/child, and she allowed me to have the childhood I had never had growing up. The TV apartment that the three of us lived in was safe and protected. I enjoyed being her immensely.
The first show aired in March 1977, and it was a hit. The Tuesday-night lineup of Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, and Three’s Company was a powerhouse. At that time people memorized TV schedules. There was no TiVo or even the ability to tape a show off air. The show exploded from the very first week, and clearly from the sky-high ratings, Tuesday night on ABC was the night. We were a home run, and it kept up week after week.
Jay Bernstein was doing his job. He was a master at public relations, running all my press interviews, sitting on the sidelines looking menacing, interrupting if it wasn’t going my way. His look was intimidating, and every interviewer knew that one wrong move, and Jay would pull the interview. I felt uncomfortable when he behaved this way, but I had asked him to take me on, and he was doing his job, and I did not want to screw things up.
Where you come from is not where you must stay, but it doesn’t just happen. You have to go for it; work for it. Fix yourself to move forward.
I suspected, but didn’t know for sure until years later, that at the beginning he used me as leverage so that the publications that interviewed me could then get to Farrah. But soon I was getting the interviews on my own because of the show’s enormous success. By the time the show was in its third week, we got an order for the next season. Wow. And by the end of the first year, our ratings had surpassed Charlie’s Angels.
The show’s success changed everything. I had just about emerged from the fog of my past and was leaving behind the low self-esteem that had chased me up till then. Good riddance. I felt triumphant and realized that where you come from is not where you must stay, but it doesn’t just happen. You have to go for it; work for it. Fix yourself to move forward.
The money I initially gave to Jay was the best investment I ever made in myself. His massive PR campaign made me the most in-demand star that year for television specials with everyone from John Wayne to Paul Anka to Red Skelton. I even worked with Minnie Mouse in an animated special called Totally Minnie, where I danced and interacted with this cartoon icon. This was the first time Leslie, Alan’s daughter, designed my costume. I also worked with Merv Griffin, and we became friends from my frequent appearances on his show, a friendship that remained through the years. I was also meeting greats like Bob Hope and Fred Astaire and Frank Sinatra. By the end of the first year, I was working so much I could hardly breathe, and I was thrilled to be doing so.
In year two, my salary was raised some, and for the first time in my life, real money was coming in. I was no longer in debt. It was the greatest feeling, second only to the pride I felt at having done this on my own. My paycheck was a result of my hard work. For years I used my life experience as a model in raising Bruce and for whatever influence I had with Alan’s children. I did not want to make our kids feel entitled by giving them money they hadn’t earned. I wanted them to have summer jobs and after-school jobs and feel the thrill of having accomplished on their own.
Too many Hollywood kids are handed luxurious lives and money they didn’t earn, and cars they didn’t buy. They develop a feeling of entitlement because they have successful parents, as though their parents’ success is their own. It rarely works out well. The media and social media are filled with reports of children of celebrities who become drug addicts or are arrested, their mug shots available for all to see, for behavior that shows they felt themselves to be above the law.
This success I had never envisioned was a long time in coming. It started all the way back in high school as Adelaide in Guys and Dolls when Walter Winchell singled me out. I got a part here, a part there, a local commercial, a modeling job. It was all part of the journey, the stepping-stones to the big one. I also didn’t yet understand that stardom lasts only a moment, but Alan did. He was still doing the show in Canada but was becoming increasingly restless leaving me to fend for myself. It was important to him to see the long range, to have a vision of what this could become down the road.
“I’m not going to return to my show next year,” he announced one day. “You’re so hot right now, and we should make the most of it. I see a much bigger picture. Jay is a master public relations genius—he and I can work together. You need management, not just PR,” he explained. “There are huge business opportunities. You should be a respected brand. Your character is iconic. Chrissy Snow has become the most lovable character on TV. I’m excited about what we can do together.”
“How can you do that?” I asked incredulously. “You’ll miss doing your show. You’re so great at it. Everyone loves your show, it’s number one, and you are so famous in Canada!” I protested.
“My heart isn’t in it. I keep thinking about you and worrying about you. You can make the right moves right now or very wrong ones. I’ve been in this business my whole life. I’ve been on TV and radio for twenty-five years. What’s happening to you happens rarely. You’ve captured the nation. This needs protecting and managing. You say yes to everyone. If you keep doing that, you’ll lose your specialness. Don’t worry about me. I’ve talked to just about everyone on TV I ever want to talk to. It excites me to see what we can do with you as a business and a franchise.”
Sometimes I felt that I wasn’t doing a good job with any of it. I was so overwhelmed. What woman hasn’t felt the same?
We were all adjusting and adapting to this new reality. Bruce had gone from having 100 percent of me to 50 percent, and now this explosive career was taking away even more. I was trying my best to keep him protected, while giving my all to the other facets I was dealing with. It stretched me a lot. Sometimes I felt that I wasn’t doing a good job with any of it. I was so overwhelmed. What woman hasn’t felt the same?
I had now been in love with Alan Hamel for almost ten years. Ten years! Ironically, Mrs. Kilgore, my therapist, had told me in the beginning, “He’s not going to be ready to marry you for ten years.”
I was invited to be a guest on The Dinah Shore Show, the most popular daytime talk show on television. Dinah’s other guests that day were Burt Reynolds and Jane Fonda, both pushing their latest movies. They were the hottest movie stars in the business, and I was the hottest TV star. When I was a kid, the first TV show I had ever watched in color was Dinah’s, and here I was sitting next to her. I blurted out one of my unedited observations about Dinah and Burt, who were having a not-so-secret love affair, and Dinah, who was serving cake, shoved it in my face good-naturedly. The close-up of me was a cake face. We all laughed hysterically. The show was raucous and hilarious. Burt Reynolds was darling and funny. Both Alan and I liked him.
After the show, Alan and I decided to continue the merriment and go out to dinner at our favorite restaurant, Le Restaurant. It was located on Melrose Place, which is famous now but was then a quiet little street in the heart of Hollywood. It was an elegant, intimate, expensive place with incredible French cuisine. I was high from just having been on such a fun show and cavorting with its high-profile movie stars.
We slid into the moss-green-velvet-lined booth for two. The atmosphere was soft and hushed. Our table was lit by candles in pink glass, making our complexions look perfect. The plush velvet created a luxurious feeling; in the background was a piano player who was present but not intrusive. He knew his job was to relax the patrons and add to the romantic atmosphere. The waiters were polished and dressed in tuxedos, reminding me of one of our first dates at Fleur de Lys in San Francisco ten years before.
We talked about Three’s Company, and we marveled at what had happened to us, how this show had reshaped our lives and those of our children. Alan had been a celebrity for most of his adult life, but now I was a major American celebrity, and we were treated royally everywhere we went. It was hard not to enjoy the attention.
Alan ordered a bottle of Dom Pérignon. I never got blasé about it. Not then and not to this day. It was a thrill to experience expensive champagne. The glasses were fine crystal, Baccarat, and perfectly chilled. It tasted so good. We had one glass, then two, before we even got around to ordering delicious rack of lamb with mint sauce.
We were holding hands under the table. I loved him so much. That had never changed from the day we met.
Suddenly he got very quiet. “I want to marry you,” he said. His deep, sexy voice was intense.
I felt the room go still. It felt like we were underwater, filtered, like we were the only two who existed. My eyes filled with tears. The moment I had dreamed of was finally here.
“Will you be my wife?” he asked as he searched my eyes.
I put my arms around him and whispered in his ear, “Yes. Oh my god, yes,” I said, ecstatic.