I Blame Dennis Hopper (9 page)

I had no formal training—well, that's not exactly true. I had stood in front of the television and watched Fred Astaire dance … a lot. I also loved Ruby Keeler … a lot. And … there was Liza Minnelli. I did my best to sound like Liza Minnelli, who was my favorite performer. If someone had asked me at age fifteen who I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have said, “I want to be Liza Minnelli.” She could sing; she could dance; she was sexy in an offbeat way. I wanted to be Liza Minnelli in
Cabaret
—putting the plot of the movie aside—wearing the bowler hat and the stockings and belting “Maybe This Time,” just as she had. My love affair with Liza was solidified when my grandfather took me to see her onstage in
Chicago
. She replaced Gwen Verdon, and I was lucky enough to see her in her prime in that great show. I also wanted to be her in
New York, New York,
which, putting the plot aside
again
, is like an old MGM musical—with domestic abuse—but I loved it. So I not only admired Liza Minnelli; I thought I could do a good enough impression of her to actually get myself into the Hartford Stage Company's inner-city youth group.

The audition was approaching, and I couldn't decide between two songs. Liza Minnelli's version of “The Man I Love,” which I learned off of the
New York, New York
soundtrack album, which was completely inappropriate, or “Maybe This Time,” which I had learned off the
Cabaret
album, which was also completely inappropriate—but I thought I could “act” it. I decided on “Maybe This Time,” because I felt it depicted both my desire and my desperation to be a performer. Stop reading and play the song right now. You'll see what I mean. I was fifteen and delusional and living in a bedroom that was a movie set … so there's also that.

I'm not sure what would have happened if there had been a power outage in our house, or if the needle had broken on the record player. For weeks I practiced, again and again. I had mastered every nuance of Liza Minnelli's singing “Maybe This Time.” I would put the record on, and there in my black-and-white-and-silver room, I would belt out the lyrics with such sincerity that I would actually reduce myself to tears. The song had that much meaning for me. It was my anthem: “It's got to happen / Happen sometime /Maybe this time I'll win.”

I could actually see the folks at the Hartford Stage Company as I sang. They would stand up and cheer. Then, while I collected myself, I would imagine how humble I would be when they told me, “You have the part … you have
any
part … you can have
all
the parts you want! We have never seen anything like you, kid. You're the next Liza Minnelli!” The only thing that ruined it was my mother's yelling up, “Dinner is ready; have you fed the dog yet? And could you please stop playing that record?”

The day of the audition came, and Liza—I mean I—was very nervous. I listened to the record one last time. My mom was getting the car keys, and then … disaster. As we were getting ready to go, my father showed up. His girlfriend had dropped him off at our house to pick up some antique plates that he and my mom had been fighting over. So, now, for reasons that are still unclear to me, my mother agreed to give him the plates, and then give him a ride back to his girlfriend's house with the plates, before my big audition.

I couldn't believe this was happening. My mother was in the kitchen stacking plates for my father and his new girlfriend, and I was going to miss the audition. And the consequences were a little larger than just missing a movie. I suggested that my father stay behind with his plates and that maybe his girlfriend could come pick him up, but those thoughts—which I articulated very clearly—were ignored, and the three of us got into the car. My mother, trying to keep the peace or just gain mileage on her car, decided it would be easier to drive me forty-five minutes to the audition, then drive my father back thirty minutes to his girlfriend's house, then turn around and drive back the forty-five minutes to pick me up when I was finished.

I don't want to ruin the surprise, but no sooner had we got into the car than the arguing began. “It's your fault … No it's your fault!” It's always been very important in our family to assign blame. Once we straighten out whose fault something is, we can move on. The fight escalated to pretty bad pretty quickly. The drive to the audition was like a moving Edward Albee play, my parents hurling insults at each other like a “best of” from every terrible fight they had ever had. I was in the backseat just trying to block them out, by silently singing, “Maybe this time…”

I kept on going.

“Everybody loves a winner, so nobody loved me / ‘Lady Peaceful,' ‘Lady Happy,' that's what I long to be…” I did this for forty-five minutes. It was not easy, but it kept me from screaming “What is the matter with you people? Your daughter is trying to do something with her life. Can we stop talking about plates?”

People ask me about movie acting. It's all concentration. Concentration in the midst of chaos. Maybe that's where I learned it—with my eyes closed, trying to keep a tune and lyrics in my head when it seemed that everything in the universe was pitted against me. All I heard in my mind was, I know this song; I love singing this song; I know this is going to be great. We pulled up in front of the theater, and I felt as if I had emerged from a blackout. I got out of the backseat, and my father cheerfully said, “Good luck,” as if we had been on a nice family drive in the country. The way he said it made me think he wanted me to fail. And all of a sudden I felt like I was going to fail. I quickly started to hum to myself, “Maybe this time…”

I didn't look back at my parents. I thought, All I have to do is to keep walking. Do not turn around. They will be gone by the time you get inside.

I signed in, and it was pretty intimidating. There were hundreds of kids—mainly black and Hispanic—warming up, stretching, vocalizing, sounding and looking pretty experienced. My first instinct was to run away, but I knew my mother was already on her way to my father's girlfriend's house, so that was no longer an option. I tried to find my inner strength, but the trip had worn me down, and I felt exhausted and defeated before I had even begun.

I got my number and waited. First up was dancing. If you didn't pass the dancing, you wouldn't even get to the singing. For the first round, we were given some choreography, and I was completely lost. One dancer, a tall slim black kid, was a standout, clearly the best in the group. He was a ballet dancer and had already been in some professional productions. In an act of mercy I appreciate to this day, he pulled me aside and taught me all the steps until I had the dance down cold. With his help I made all the dancing cuts and was part of the remaining fifty kids. His name was Michael, further proof that he was an angel. My name was called for the next round, which was singing, and I smiled at my new friend.

I entered the room, and there was a long table with a lot of folks sitting behind it. The director introduced himself. He asked me a few questions about my training, and I mentioned the Camelot, hoping that he had heard of it. He hadn't.

“What will you be singing?” he asked.

Secret weapon. I grandly handed my music to the piano player and then stepped to the center of the room and said, “Maybe This Time.”

There was some very pleasant smiling and nodding at my choice, and then everyone sat back to listen.

Now, the application had stated that we were supposed to bring our sheet music for the accompanist to play, but no one had actually ever
played
the sheet music of “Maybe This Time” for me. I had assumed that the sheet music was the same as the record. The piano player started to play, and he was about an octave higher than the record from which I had learned the song. I'm singing, and he's playing something much higher than what I'm singing. I gave him a sideways look of panic, and he started banging out the higher notes louder as if I was signaling to him that what was wrong was that I couldn't
hear
him. I tried to follow him, going up and down the scale of “Maybe This Time” searching for the right notes. It was pitiful. He stopped abruptly and said very pointedly, “You are singing in the wrong key.”

And I turned right around and stared defiantly at him and said, “I'm singing in the
right
key. I'm singing in the key of Liza, and
you're
in the wrong key!”

My first—and thankfully huge—showbiz laugh brought the house down. But I have to say, I wasn't joking. I hadn't known that there
was
any other way to sing that song than in the key of Liza.

The director sat up straight in his chair—clearly I had his attention—and started exchanging looks with everyone behind the table as if to say, “The kid's got moxie, but now what?” The music director hopped up and said, “I have an idea.” He walked across the room and asked the piano player to get up and exchanged places with him. Then he asked me to sing the first line of the song, which I did.

He smiled at me and said, “You're in C, by the way.”

I was terrified but I didn't show it. I just nodded, like, Yeah, key of Liza, like I told you!

Then he said, “I'll tell you what. Why don't you just sing, and I will follow you.”

That sounded good to me!

I can't explain what that music director saw in me, probably blind terror, but his faith in me gave me confidence. I had been given a second chance, and I wasn't going to blow it. I started to sing, and I could feel everyone in the room pulling for me to succeed. Suddenly, all the pent-up emotion from the drive with my parents, the feelings of how much I really needed to get into this company, how much I couldn't fail, started to kick in. Fueled by all this, the song built, and my emotions built with it, and I sang “Maybe This Time” to within an inch of its life.

Well, at least as good as I had learned it on the record. I'm not sure if they were applauding for me, or for Liza Minnelli, but by the end of the song I had the entire group behind that table clapping and cheering for me. Just as I had fantasized back in my black-and-white-and-silver room.

I came out of the rehearsal hall, and my new friend Michael was waiting for me, asking me, “How did you do? You were in there forever!” I was grinning from ear to ear.

“Pretty good,” I said humbly. “I did pretty good.” He just started laughing. “You were so worried,” he said. Three weeks later we would be rehearsing the musical
Two Gentlemen of Verona
together. I had made it into the company and was living with my pretend inner-city family, the Murrays.

Beautiful, tall, and slim Michael was the best dancer in the company, and we remained friends until I moved to New York a few years later. Sadly, he was fired during the third summer of the program for arriving ten minutes late for rehearsal. It was a very tough lesson, but I learned a lot about discipline from that moment.

I was quiet on the ride home from the audition, trying not to worry about what would have happened if I hadn't got through “Maybe This Time” but also thinking, I am an actor. For real now, not just in my black-and-white-and-silver room. I knew, in that strange way you just know, that I was becoming a professional performer.

I've always stumbled toward success. I'm like a marathon runner who trips on the finishing line but manages to skid across in spite of herself. I called my grandfather to tell him I had my first professional gig. He couldn't have been happier for me.

I was in the Hartford Stage Youth Theatre for three summers, starring in
Two Gentlemen of Verona
and two other musicals,
On the Town
and
The Boys from Syracuse
. It was a racially integrated company, way ahead of its time. Arts funding at its best. It was there that I learned everything about the theater. The first thing being, of course, what sheet music was! But I also learned the joy, the discipline, the hard work of performing. It was also my first taste of how a brand—in this case, an insurance company—could support the arts, as we were completely subsidized. I used this positive experience when I pitched a branded entertainment series to IKEA called
Easy to Assemble
many years later.

In 2012, I was working with Turner Classic Movies at its annual TCM Classic Film Festival. The opening-night film was
Cabaret
. It was, of course, amazing to see it on the big screen and to have all the stars, including Liza Minnelli, in attendance. At the after-party one of the TCM hosts, my good friend Ben Mankiewicz, came up to me and said, “Liza Minnelli would like to meet you.”

I thought he was teasing me.

But he assured me that no, he wasn't. “She asked to meet you,” he said.

She was of course so very gracious and kind. I mean she's Liza! We spoke about
Cabaret
and some of her other films that I had admired. While we were talking, someone came up and snapped our picture. It was only later, after looking at the photograph of us together, that I realized the impact that she had had on my life. Without Liza Minnelli, I would have never made it through that audition, and that's a fact. We look up to movie stars. We believe in them, because they are larger than life, and it makes us believe in ourselves when no one else does. At least that's how I felt, all alone in my room singing “Maybe This Time.” Who knows what would have happened if I had sung it in the “right” key? What's the “right” key, anyway? Without mistakes you never learn anything, and this was a happy mistake. Always be yourself and always sing in the key of Liza!

 

CHAPTER FIVE

Chance Encounters