Both of Us (7 page)

When Farrah opens in
Extremities
, I can’t be there because I’m still shooting
Irreconcilable Differences
. Though it couldn’t be helped, it still bothers me that I wasn’t by her side opening night. And what an opening night it was! When I telephone Farrah, she says that a man in the audience, who we later discover had been stalking her, rushed the stage, angry that she’d never signed his poster. “What did you do?” I ask. “They dragged him away and we started the scene over.” She’s telling me all this as if it were just a glitch. I’m amazed by this girl. Most actresses I know would have been rattled by something like that. There would come a time in her life when that sanguinity would abandon her, but that’s all in the future. Now she’s still the Farrah I fell in
love with, the one I’ve never stopped loving. After the scare with the crazy fan, the producers hire two security guards, one for each side of the stage, to make sure nothing like that happens again. It’s a clockwork production from that night on. Farrah receives rave reviews and packs the house every performance. She is an actress now.

Once I wrap on
Irreconcilable Differences
, I hurry to New York to stay with Farrah. She’s at her most radiant, soaking up the long overdue respect from an industry that had once considered her only that blonde in the bathing suit from
Charlie’s Angels
. It’s wonderful to be spending time in New York together. Though we’re not night owls, every once in a while we’ll go dancing at Studio 54. We went there out of curiosity. Bianca Jagger had her birthday bash there in ’77 or ’78. I knew the building. It’s where Johnny Carson’s show was broadcast. Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager converted it from a theater. The space was huge. I used to think that if Farrah wandered away, it could take all weekend to find her. We always danced. Farrah could float across the floor. I should have let her lead. There were a number of songs we claimed as our own and always got up to move to them. More than thirty years later I can still remember the words to Donna Summer’s “Last Dance.” Farrah and I also spent a lot of time in the balcony, where there were tables and a great view. Above the balcony was terra incognita. The third floor housed the infamous rubber room, so named because it could be hosed down after all the open sex and drugs. I
was intrigued. Farrah had less than no interest so we never went up there. Not quite never. I peeked once: it was like something out of a Brueghel painting. We never had to use the main entrance. There was a VIP door around the back where we’d invariably meet people we knew: Andy and Liza, Michael Jackson and Liz Taylor. I think Salvador Dali was there one night with someone who strongly resembled Elton John. When owner Steve Rubell is charged with tax evasion, most of his friends desert him. Farrah and I take him out to a very public dinner.

Though Farrah’s schedule is demanding, when she does get time off, we sometimes go to Montauk, the most distant Hampton, and stay with Andy Warhol. Farrah loves the beach and the sun. I enjoy Andy, as odd as he sometimes is. He acts as if he adores Farrah so they get on famously. And she loves art. Andy’s place has five classic clapboard houses designed by Stanford White. He bought it in partnership with Paul Morrissey, director of many of Andy’s early avant-garde firms. (They paid $225,000; the compound was recently on sale for $50 million.) The Rolling Stones took breaks from their tours and rehearsed their albums there in the seventies. It was comfortable and refreshing, with an astonishing view of the sand dunes and the ocean, and the company was never less than invigorating. Bianca Jagger without Mick, Yves Saint Laurent opening clams in the kitchen, the fashion designer Halston dishing the divas, and, of course, the neighbors: Edward Albee, Bobby De Niro,
and Paul Simon. For reasons I never understood, Dick Cavett insisted on playing Frisbee sans clothing. Maybe he was working up an appetite.

It was there I learned that even the famous can be impressed by the somewhat more famous, as certain people never ceased mentioning that they were there that memorable weekend Liz or Liza or John Lennon visited. The first time we go we encounter Bianca. Farrah never warms up to her. She ran with a more cultured, artistic group than we knew in LA. Farrah felt threatened by her, though she had no reason to be and my behavior was as proper as an English butler’s. Maybe it was because Bianca was always topless, and Farrah knew she and I were once lovers. Bianca and I remained friends and I still think of her that way even though we haven’t spoken in ten years.

Later that year Farrah does another made-for-TV movie,
The Red-Light Sting
, in San Francisco with Beau Bridges. I visit her on set and even manage to squeeze in a quick trip to see my son Patrick, who’s living in Carmel and attending the Stevenson School.
The Red-Light Sting
is a fourteen-day shoot for which Farrah has an A-list payday. Though the movie itself is forgettable, it’s important to her in that she’s finally starting to know what it feels like to have money and a career without someone taking a cut. The three decades Farrah and I are together; I honor her need to remain in control of her own finances. We maintain separate bank accounts, and of course I’m traditional in that I pay
for whatever she’ll allow me to—dinner, travel, presents—but when it comes to her income, I respect her privacy and her independence. Though Farrah and I would argue about a lot during the turbulent years of our relationship, one subject we rarely had words over was money. It is said that statistically the two biggest issues that destroy marriages are money and kids. Perhaps God gave us a break on the former because he knew the latter would be so sad.

The 1983 holidays are a welcome respite, though I miss Tatum and continue to worry about Griffin. Farrah and I fly to Hawaii to see him at Habilitate, and while he seems to be trying hard to turn his life around, it’s as if he’s been severed from his own soul, and like the headless horseman, he’s trying to find the top of him and put it back on.

I immerse myself in loving my girl and working with her to further develop her craft. Inspiration strikes from a surprising source. Farrah has a subscription to
Texas Monthly
. One morning over coffee, I’m scanning the latest issue and there’s a piece on Candy Barr, the famous stripper who had an affair with the notorious Mickey Cohen and performed in Jack Ruby’s Dallas nightclub. She shot her second husband, a crime for which she served three years in prison. I’d always been intrigued by her story. A star in burlesque, when she was sixteen years old, she appeared in the most famous stag film of all time,
Smart Alec
, aka
Smart Aleck
. It’s a memorable performance for those of us men who saw it in our youth. It ranks right up there with Rita Hayworth
in
Gilda
. Years later, history would remember Candy Barr as an unlikely feminist. I point out the article to Farrah and suggest that this would be a perfect vehicle for her. There are some striking similarities between the two of them, both having had to overcome implacable misconceptions. Farrah’s excited by the idea and we go to San Antonio to meet Candy. She’s a tougher broad than I thought she would be and Farrah is fascinated by her. In fact, when we return home, Farrah insists that we watch
Smart Alec
together. She’s never asked to watch a porn movie before and I must admit I’m excited. We were both self-conscious for the entire eleven minutes but not embarrassed. And I can tell you that Candy Barr had nothing on Farrah. We were still glowing when we woke up the next morning.

We enter into a development deal with Atlantic Pictures. We already have one enthusiastic investor who once saw Farrah dance and thinks she would be perfect for the burlesque scenes. It’s my first time playing producer and I want to get it right, so I hire George Axelrod to write the script. He’d written
Bus Stop
and
The Seven Year Itch
for Marilyn Monroe,
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
with Audrey Hepburn,
The Manchurian Candidate;
his credits read like a graduate course at the USC film school. Unfortunately, George and I disagree vehemently on the screenplay. I want to tell the story of Candy Barr as a young woman, and he insists on writing the story of her as an old woman. The project is stillborn. The experience gives me new appreciation
for the responsibilities and challenges of being a producer. Putting all those elements together ain’t easy. Could it have been a great start vehicle for Farrah? Might it have begun a new career for me as a producer/director?

S
pring 1984 arrives, and with it big news. Farrah is pregnant. I’m surprised and delighted. Though I know she had always wanted children, it’s not something we ever discussed. While I’m overjoyed, she’s veiled, ambiguous. My problems with Griffin and Tatum have taken their toll. She’s afraid to bring another O’Neal into the world. That fear has been simmering for years and we’ve avoided talking about it. We avoid it again now. As the months pass, the slow expansion of her belly will ease her fears. But that first trimester will prove challenging.

T
he pregnancy proves more difficult than we anticipate. Morning sickness saps Farrah’s energy. I spend many hours holding her head over the toilet. Farrah and I attend birthing classes together, a new experience for me. I’m the modern father-to-be, rubbing cream on my girl’s tummy, massaging her calves, and tending to her needs. I’ve been an expectant father before, but I never loved Joanna or Leigh the same way I love Farrah. The traditionalist in me says that Farrah and I should make things legal now, but with three failed marriages between us, there’s another part that says why change something that’s working? After the baby is born, Farrah will ask me to marry her. I’ll foolishly sidestep the question and she won’t press me.

After Redmond’s birth, she begins the made-for-TV movie
The Burning Bed
. It’s based on the true story of a battered wife who after being brutally raped by her husband kills him in his sleep by setting the bed on fire. Though her recent run off-Broadway with
Extremities
was a success, theater doesn’t have the same reach as television. All during the production of
The Burning Bed
I could feel it. This would be the one. I watch Farrah abandon herself to
the role. There’s a courtroom scene in which her character is on the witness stand describing how her husband let her puppy freeze to death. Farrah is crying and mucous is running from her nose. This is Farrah Fawcett at her best, her considerable skills fully realized. Her risky performance will astound both the public and the industry. Reviewers will comment that they’d never seen anybody that disheveled look so beautiful.
The Burning Bed
is huge. It isn’t just a successful movie. It makes the editorial pages for revealing a dirty secret in America: the judges and the lawyers, the policemen and the politicians, the doctors and the investment bankers, the men considered part of society’s elite who beat their wives and then get away with it, hiding behind their badges and their gavels and their thousand-dollar suits.
The Burning Bed
exposes them. It sparks new legislation against domestic violence and becomes part of the women’s rights agenda. And when it airs, the ratings are historic. The network’s publicity department sends Farrah thick binders full of scrapbook-worthy reviews. Farrah is asked to speak on behalf of battered women and does a series of interviews and events in support of the anti–domestic violence movement.

Farrah is nominated for an Emmy, but she doesn’t win. She didn’t expect to win so she didn’t prepare a speech. Her satisfaction has come from knowing she played the part well. Farrah doesn’t need public affirmation the way I do. Joanne Woodward gets the Emmy that year for
Do You Remember Love
, portraying a professor suffering from Alzheimer’s. In
truth, Farrah’s performance was more nuanced. I remember sitting with Farrah that night at the awards ceremony, squeezing her hand, both of us listening to the list of nominees being called. I was so sure she’d win. When they announce Joanne Woodward’s name, it’s a kick in the chest. She’s not even there to accept. “Let’s go, honey,” I tell her. “I’ve got to get out of this place.” I start to rise, and Farrah gently touches my forearm and gives me this wan smile. “No, that wouldn’t be fair to Joanne,” she whispers. It’s always bothered me when the media depicted Farrah as unsophisticated. They couldn’t have been more wrong. Farrah is also nominated for a Golden Globe for
The Burning Bed
, but you know who wins one? Paul Le Mat, who played the part of the guy who beats her. He wins while she carries the movie, although Paul is excellent.

That night we skipped the Emmy parties and drove back to Malibu. We took a bottle of Cristal Rose with us down to the beach, sat on the sand, and watched the moon rise over Catalina Island, and for once thought about how fortunate we were.

On the family front, the situation with Tatum is tentative at best. She reminds me of a jungle cat, graceful, commanding, and yet always wary. She started dating tennis bad boy John McEnroe a couple of years before. It will not be a match made in heaven. She managed to steer clear of addiction all those years living with her mother and brother, not to mention having a father who didn’t always set the
best example where drugs and alcohol were concerned, and then she falls for a famous athlete who you’d think would be squeaky clean, and instead they do drugs together.