I'll Scream Later (No Series) (4 page)

M
ORTON
G
ROVE
, I
LLINOIS
,
and my street in particular, was a great place to grow up. Our house had five bedrooms and three bathrooms.

Eric and Marc and I shared a bathroom with two sinks and a big mirror. I would take over the bathroom for hours at a time acting out stories in the mirror—that girl could understand everything I said!

Though it drove my brothers crazy, because literally hours would go by, it would be my first training ground for performing. I created sad faces, happy ones, angry ones. I told stories to the girl in the mirror, I learned how every part of the face and body could communicate emotions, feelings.

One of the exercises that my acting coach Jim Carrington would give me on
Children of a Lesser God
was to work on scenes in front of a mirror. When he said that, I knew I was home free—that I could do it.

In many ways I was an ordinary kid. I loved Play-Doh, Barbies, Silly Putty, jumping jacks, and balls that bounced—the higher the better. I especially loved a Mrs. Beasley doll, whose claim to fame was that she could talk. Again and again I would pull the string that made the magical Mrs. Beasley sounds. Even though I couldn’t hear her, I knew she was talking to me.

There were always crayons and coloring books, though I would get frustrated when I couldn’t stay inside the lines. It wasn’t conformity I was seeking but perfection. I wanted the pictures to be beautiful.

Every week my dad would bring home comic books—Archie
comics
Veronica
and
Betty
were my favorites—and candy. I especially loved Marathon bars, a wonderfully chewy chocolate and caramel twist in a bright red wrapper.

Me and Mrs. Beasley

For all the hours I spent inside, I spent more outside, roaming a neighborhood filled with kids. There were football games, roller hockey, baseball, and softball. Bob Michels, who’d turn into a summer crush a few years later, painted the bases on the street every year. Our house and Bob’s, which was across the street, were on an intersection that was a gathering spot for a lot of the neighborhood kids. My house was one of the main hangouts, anyone was definitely welcome there.

Bob says, “Marlee was confident even as a young kid and she always had a very strong personality. She was the kind of person who looks right through you, got who you were. It was always like
she had the upper hand. She was definitely one of the cool kids, someone you wanted to be around.”

I think he’s just trying to make up for breaking my schoolgirl heart.

My brother Marc and I thought our house was like the
Brady Bunch,
and I definitely wanted to be Marcia Brady.

I had a best friend, Cathy, who lived on the street. She wanted to learn how to sign, so I taught her. She’d soon help referee neighborhood disputes when other kids didn’t understand me. It was so great to have someone on my street with whom basic communication was easy, organic, and, best of all, ordinary. I didn’t have to think, just talk. She moved away when I was eleven, and I really missed having her there to talk to.

Every year when the weather warmed up, my parents would set up a plastic pool out back, one with a slide. I remember coming home from school in the spring and getting off the bus and being able to smell the water. I’ll never forget that sweet smell.

My room had wallpaper with strips of flowers, a desk, a black-and-white TV, and a queen-size bed, which was a big deal to me. My brother Marc described it as a “princess room” because all the furniture in it was white. It felt safe, my little bit of territory. Most of the time when I was younger, it was covered in coloring books and crayons and comics and clothes. And when I got older,
Teen Beat
and
Tiger Beat
magazines, with posters of Leif Garrett, Scott Baio, and Shaun Cassidy covering my walls.

But as much as I loved having my own room—and I loved it even more after Eric moved and Marc and I both traded up for bigger, better spaces—I didn’t like being alone. I felt starved for attention, and to get at least some of that need satisfied, that meant being in my parents’ room or the kitchen, the two places in the house where everyone hung out.

We had Apples, a schnauzer, who was old by the time I came along. Apples was a little doll and more than happy to take care of any of my unwanted food under the table at dinnertime. Eric had a German shepherd named Solo, who was the sweetest dog. She disappeared one day when Eric and Gloria took her with them to
visit my uncle Steve. My uncle believed she’d been stolen out of the front yard. We pasted the neighborhood with flyers and pictures of Solo, but to no avail.

I was crushed when we lost her and couldn’t imagine not being able to throw my arms around her and bury my face in her soft fur. One of my favorite childhood photos is of me and Solo—we’re both smiling. Years later I would name my production company Solo One Productions in her memory.

J
UST ABOUT EVERYONE
has a teacher who has such a positive impact that you remember him or her forever. For me it was Jane Endee, now Sister Mary Elizabeth, a marriage and family therapist at the Franciscan Life Center in Meriden, Connecticut. It’s no small irony that one of the greatest influences on this nice Jewish girl was a woman who became a nun!

One of the downsides of putting me in the local school system was that I never knew which school I’d be going to until a few days before classes would begin each year. The district couldn’t afford to set up special-needs classes for every school, so they would change where those students went from year to year.

Though we never moved, I would go to five different schools before I reached high school. But at one of those I got Miss Endee.

While I was in fifth grade, Miss Endee came to our school as a teacher. She was in her senior year at Northwestern University and we were her student-teaching assignment. The classes were small—state law limited the class size to eight kids at the most—so when you had a great teacher, you noticed and remembered. She always found ways to keep us engaged and challenged, and she made me feel as if anything were possible.

She remembers, “They were all outstanding kids in their own way, but what was outstanding about Marlee was her ability to engage. In special ed classes there are lots of observers. With Marlee, there was no difficulty communicating. She was outgoing with just about anybody who came into her life—very bright, very animated. She had an inner spark that always came through. I do think also she was very intuitive even when she was young. She really knew
how to relate to people depending on who they were, she does have that ability to know what a situation calls for, how to respond.”

That instinct would serve me well years later in Hollywood, where much of your future rests with making directors or producers or casting agents or costars feel comfortable that you can do the job.

Miss Endee’s father was an amateur magician and she had him come to the class to do a magic show. What I remember most about that day is that he pulled a rabbit out of a hat, which had all of us absolutely captivated. Later in the act he used rabbits again, but at the end of the show, I only saw one rabbit. I came up to him afterward wanting to know what happened to the other rabbits. I had kept count. He would tell that story for years after.

I had Miss Endee again when I was in high school. As always, she kept us on our toes, expecting that we could excel if we tried. So in 1994 when I was asked by the Walt Disney Company to be a presenter at their annual American Teacher Awards, I asked if Sister Mary Elizabeth could present with me.

She remembers, “It was in Washington, D.C., and covered live. I was a mess. I went there with my parents, and Mother Sean went with me. It was wonderful. Marlee was totally focused on us. And we had those little scripts that were written for us. It was quite an experience.”

Some years later, I was asked to become involved in Target’s Take Charge of Education program, including an ad campaign celebrating the important teachers in our lives. I knew I wanted to be shot with Sister Mary Elizabeth. The company flew her to L.A. for the photo shoot. She still remembers the fun of landing at LAX to find a limo waiting for her, not the sort of transportation a Franciscan nun usually has.

She says, “Oh my gosh, Marlee had hair and makeup for me. They asked me what size I was to get wardrobe. But what I most remember is that Marlee made a point of bringing her two children to the photo shoot so that I could see them. It’s amazing to me to know that I taught her and to see how she has become such an amazing woman and has impacted so many people, what a powerful presence
she is. But for me almost the greater thing is that she has been able to make this wonderful marriage and have these beautiful children.”

It was a wonderful chance for me, in a way, to say thanks to Sister Mary Elizabeth for her part in helping me to believe in myself.

I
WOULDN’T CALL
my parents couch potatoes; they were more like bed potatoes. Some of my earliest memories are of coming home from school and knowing I could find my mom, propped up in that bed, smoking a cigarette and talking on the phone for hours.

My parents had a huge king-size bed, lots of pillows, and everyone would crawl into it and watch TV. Everyone sat and talked in this comfortable room. My dad was always scratching my back or the bottoms of my feet—and I loved it. It was quality time. One of my favorite memories is of my dad cutting up oranges and bringing them to that giant bed. We’d sit there and watch TV and eat the orange slices together—nectar of the gods!

When I was little, we’d always watch
Electric Company
and
Zoom
—I loved them because they were so visual, a lot of singing and dancing. I tried to watch
Sesame Street,
but would get frustrated because I didn’t understand the puppets.

As I got older, my favorite shows were cop shows—high on action and low on dialogue, such as
Mannix
and
Hawaii Five-O
. My dad knew I liked thrillers and we’d look for them together in
TV Guide
. They were always the movies that were playing at 1 or 2 a.m. and he’d promise to wake me. The next morning I’d always ask, “Why didn’t you wake me up?” “I tried,” he’d say, “I tried.” Yeah, right!

TV also began my love of sports—something else I could watch that didn’t need translating. I’d sit there for hours, particularly with my grandfather Eli, my grandmother Ann’s last husband, just watching, not talking.

He’d crack nuts for both of us, and we’d eat and cheer and watch. It was such comfortable silence we shared, it felt natural. If you want to know how deep and unshakable my Chicago roots are, just ask me about sports. All my teams, even to this day, are there—The Bulls, The Cubs, The White Sox, The Bears, The Blackhawks, The Chicago Fire. And, of course, they are The Best.

O
NE OF MY
favorite memories growing up is when we had absolutely nothing planned and my dad would pile us into the car and head out for Chicago. We lived about twenty minutes from the city, and we’d get in that car and just drive and drive for hours.

My dad was the best tour guide, showing us all the sights, telling funny stories. In his own way, he was incredibly entertaining, with a black sense of humor. My brother Marc always tried to make sure I understood as much of what was going on as possible.

I loved being with my family, was starved for attention. Always wanting to talk. I think that’s why it was such a shock for me years later when the Deaf community lashed out when I used my voice to present an Oscar in 1988. I had spent a lifetime talking, it was almost as natural for me as signing.

I also remember trying to deal with the feeling when my family didn’t want to talk to me—it wasn’t that they didn’t want to, it was more that it was never enough for me. I felt hollow, and though I’d try to shrug it off, I know deep down it hurt, just another feeling to try to bury. I sometimes felt they didn’t want to make the extra effort it took to understand me or explain what they were saying. But when they did, I loved it. I’d ask so many questions about anything that popped into my mind. Always talking, always asking questions.

M
OST OF THE
time when I wasn’t in school, unless it was really frigid, which it often was during those Illinois winters, I’d be outside playing with the other neighborhood kids. My parents worried that given all the time we spent playing in the street or crossing it, I would get hurt since I couldn’t hear approaching cars. So they convinced the city to put up a special caution sign: in bright yellow and black, it read
CAUTION
:
DEAF CHILD CROSSING
.

My very own road sign. Sometimes being different came with perks.
Deaf Child Crossing
would become the title of my first children’s book, published in 2002, about the adventures of a young Deaf girl named Megan who lived on Morton Street and was, well, a little like me.