I'll Scream Later (No Series) (6 page)

T
URNING POINTS ARE
so much easier to see when you look back on your life. For me
The Wizard of Oz
was one of them.

I had started going to the Center on Deafness and the Arts when I was around seven for the after-school and weekend arts programs that Dr. Scherer was developing in addition to the other clinical and diagnostic work she was doing.

Dr. Scherer had realized in working with Deaf children that they were never really asked to think. They were told what to do and what to think—it was a literal and simplistic world primarily concerned with communicating the basics.

But Dr. Pat, which we all called her, believed that nurturing creative instincts could make a difference on many fronts, from encouraging more complex thought to addressing the balance problems many Deaf children have through the use of dance. She was going against tradition, and at the beginning there was little support for her work.

What I remember is Dr. Pat telling me the center was going to put on a play of
The Wizard of Oz.

“Do you think you’d like to be Dorothy?” she asked.

“I am Dorothy,” I told her emphatically. And so I was.

I’d seen the movie and knew the story, and I imagined at first it would be like the skits that I’d seen at summer camp. But Dr. Pat had something far more ambitious in mind and says, “We worked from the book and came up with a script—one with words and one with signs. We would explain the story and act out whatever we had to so the kids understood not just the story, but all the shades of meaning.

“It took us a solid year to produce the play. We asked the kids
to bring their own creative ideas that we could incorporate into the play. And we added dance. People in the community were saying we were doing things that didn’t make sense for us to be doing for Deaf children. I didn’t agree.”

Hollywood, here I come

I worked hard on my performance, learning my lines, practicing at home. The script that they’d created for us was about forty-five pages long—a lot for seven-year-olds to absorb—but I wanted to get everything right and no one had to push me to work on it. Dr. Pat used to tease me that whether it was a rehearsal or a performance, I would always ask her, “Is it perfect?” I was always setting a high bar when something was important to me.

Years later after
Children of a Lesser God
was released, I bumped into Dr. Pat in a Chicago drugstore. We hugged and I asked her, “Was it perfect?”

She smiled and said, “Yes, Marlee, it was.”

W
HILE WE WORKED
on learning to sign the entire
Wizard of Oz,
our parents made costumes and sets. Finally we were ready to begin our run. Programs were sent out, and on opening night the theater was packed.

The play was a hit, and I knew this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. My mother was glad I was happy, but she was anything but a stage mother. In fact, Dr. Pat had to keep convincing her that it was important to keep me involved in theater.

Dr. Pat says, “Marlee was unbelievable as Dorothy, and I started telling her mother that she was really a gifted child in theater. Throughout our relationship, I would tell Libby that, and she would say, ‘No, she’s just cute.’ And she was cute, but Marlee commanded that stage.”

My mother remembers that in the performance something fell out of my basket, and she noticed how casually I reached down and retrieved it without missing a beat. “It was just so natural the way she did it, as if being up there was the most natural thing in the world.”

The center in time created a mini-museum of memorable productions, and they have a Marlee Matlin exhibit with my blue-and-white gingham dress that I wore when I was Dorothy. I still get a kick out of it every time I see it.

After
The Wizard of Oz,
there would be
Pinnochio, Peter Pan, Mary Poppins,
every year a new production, and every year I got the lead role, which sometimes caused tensions with my friend Liz, who also had dreams of being an actress. The last time we would be considered for the same role was for the stage production of
Children of a Lesser God
, Liz auditioned the day before I did but was told she was too blond. I’m sure that was a difficult loss for her, particularly given what it ultimately meant for my career.

My family was great, always there at the productions to support me. Other friends would occasionally come, too. I remember how excited I was when Bob Michels, my handsome neighbor, the one I hoped would fall madly in love with me, came to see me perform “What I Did for Love,” from
A Chorus Line.

Both my brothers would come, even though Marc was by then a teenager and Eric was in college. Eric would come with his girlfriend, Gloria, and says, “When Marlee started acting, she always was the top person in the show. Everyone else, their performance was very overstated—like they were making up for a lack of sound with exaggerated movements. Marlee was never like that, she just performed.”

I began to seriously dream of acting for the rest of my life. The center had an essay contest, and I’ve saved the one I wrote—it was the winning essay—to this day:

Because it’s never too early to start work on some of these skills, even then I would always take the time to give autographs—grateful that anyone wanted one.

Then my very own personal wizard would come into my life—and his name was Henry.

W
HEN
I
WAS
twelve,
Happy Days
was ruling prime time and Henry Winkler as the Fonz was ruling the show. The series had such an incredible international reach that for years he was the most recognized American in the world.

In December of that year, he and his wife, Stacey, were in Chicago for a film Henry was involved in, and Dr. Pat called his agent and asked if they would stop by the center for its annual Creative Arts Festival. Deaf kids from all over the country were in town competing in various art forms through the weekend, and Henry agreed to come for a day.

I was part of a troupe at the center called Traveling Hands, which signed songs. Besides signing as a group, each of us had a solo, and Dr. Pat asked me to do the solo that day.

Henry says, “We saw this little twelve-year-old Marlee come up, and I think she did ‘Free to Be You and Me,’ and she danced to it. But it was so powerful, and not because ‘Oh, isn’t that cute, a Deaf girl dancing to music she can’t hear.’ It was powerful because this human being, whether she could hear or not, she was born to do this. Her power, her commitment, her ability, that intangible whatever that is that makes a star, was radiating off her like heat waves. Stacey and I just simultaneously started to cry.”

Stacey says, “Marlee just transformed everything, like she had magic, she was electric, a life force like if you touched her, you would get a shock.”

After the performance the couple came backstage to meet me, but before they could, my mom pulled Henry aside.

What happened next was the beginning of the cold war be
tween my mother and Henry that continues to this day. My mother feels Henry has cast her as the villain in my story, and I know my closeness to Henry and his family has been hard for her to take.

The Traveling Hands

But looking back on that day, my mom was convinced that my dreams of being an actress would only end in a life of disappointment and rejection. To her, it just wasn’t a viable job option. She wanted me to get an education—not just first, but instead of pursuing acting. She says, “I didn’t look at acting as a profession. I really didn’t have those kinds of dreams for Marlee. I just took each thing as it came.”

She tried to enlist Henry in a bid to lower my expectations—what would be better than a reality check from the Fonz?

Henry listened politely, then said, “You know, I can’t do that, because what I saw was so big that I can’t tell this human being not to do it.”

That moment still makes my mother crazy angry. “He’s telling the mother of a Deaf child that she can be a movie star. I made that one comment and he will never let me live it down.”

As a mother, I can appreciate her sentiment, and like my mother I certainly want my children to get a solid education; but I hope when I am asked that sort of question, I never fail to encourage my kids to dream big.

Meanwhile, I was all business—peppering Henry with questions about the industry I was sure I would be a part of one day.

“Henry came to me after that show and told me Marlee has what it takes to become a professional,” Dr. Pat remembers. “He said, ‘When she finishes school and if she decides to do this, I will be there for her!’”

Even today, this story feels more like a scene out of a movie than real life. Henry was true to his word. Over the years I would write letters to him, just to remind him that I did really want to be an actress. He was always gracious, writing me back, even when I added a PS one time asking him to tell Scott Baio to send me his picture!

A couple of times when I visited my California relatives, I got in touch with Henry. He would always make time to meet with me at his office at Paramount. In 1980, I wrote to him saying:

Even with the threat of a “long talk about my future,” Henry made time to see me.

As he always has, he encouraged me to keep going after my dream.

I remember during his visit to the Center on Deafness in 1978 when one of the kids asked him what he would do if he lost his hearing, Henry said, “I would hope that I have the same courage in my body that you have to be in the theater. Just because you can’t
hear doesn’t stop you. It wouldn’t stop the Fonz.” It was endearing, honest, gracious, and quintessential Henry.

When I dropped him a note in the spring of 1985 to let him know I had gotten my first professional acting job—a small role in the Chicago stage production of
Children of a Lesser God
—he and Stacey sent me roses and good wishes on opening night.

Over the years he would become my most trusted counselor. My Yoda. After I was starting to have a more public profile, one that was followed in the press, he sent me a note with this sage advice: “I know you’ve been under a lot of stress lately but, sweetie-pie, it is very important for you to deal with your stress privately and not publicly. People will understand for a while and then turn off.”

Brutally honest, Henry has always been willing to tell me things I didn’t necessarily want to hear.

I think the only project I took on without discussing it first with Henry was
Dancing with the Stars,
which I knew in my gut was not only something I just had to do, but that Henry would absolutely approve. And he did.

But it was more than Henry. Stacey would embrace me, too. In 1987 when I moved to Los Angeles, they let me crash in their pool house for a weekend, and I didn’t move out until about two years later. Their kids would become like family. I finally got to be the oldest. I became very much a part of the fabric of the house. I’d even call if I was going to be late or not make it to dinner, which is more than I did at home when I was growing up.

All my boyfriends during that time, and I was dating a lot when I lived at the Winklers, had to pass muster with them first.

“Marlee would never answer the door, either Henry or I would get it,” Stacey recalls. “All of these guys, John Stamos, Rob Lowe, Craig Sheffer…There was a different guy every few weeks. And we would meet them first. Then Marlee would come down the stairs, with that beautiful smile.”

Carla Hacken—now a top executive at Fox 2000 where she develops and produces movies—still remembers having to meet Henry before I would sign with her in 1988. Carla says, “I had just gone to ICM, I was the youngest motion-picture talent agent ever at
that time, and they gave me some clients, but I was pursing Marlee because I wanted to sign her. She told me I needed to come to the house because Henry wanted to meet me. I was like, ‘Okay, great, I’ll go meet the Fonz.’ So I went to Henry Winker’s house in the Valley. Marlee came to the door and said, ‘Oh, hi, hi, hi. Okay, now Henry’s going to talk to you.’ I thought, ‘What?’

Meeting Henry Winkler

“And he called me into his library and he sat me down—we were in club chairs across from each other—and he grilled me. He grilled me! But in a nice Henry Winkler way. ‘Where are you from? Where did you go to school?’ And I thought,
Oh my God, he’s interviewing me for Marlee.
”

Henry and I would sit around the kitchen table in the evenings and talk about the business, what kind of roles to go after and how—it was like a master class on the ins and outs of Hollywood.

From Stacey I would learn about decorum and sophistication, she always has style and elegance as she moves through the world.

But, as with family, my two-year sojourn at the Winklers wasn’t without its bumps. Stacey basically had to send a hazmat team in to clean my room a couple of times when it reached toxic levels, and there would be disagreements along the way, but she was always there for me. I also loved being with their three kids—Jed, Zoe, and Max. My California siblings! That’s about how Stacey saw it, too.

“Marlee was feisty and she was murder, very headstrong, it was like I had another child,” Stacey recalls. “If you didn’t say what she wanted to hear, she could get very angry and very stubborn. She would act as if she hadn’t heard me, but I quickly figured out all I had to do was run around in front of her and hold on to her shoulders. I didn’t know how to sign, but we never had trouble communicating. I’ve always felt parental about her and I always will.”

When I met the man I would marry, he, of course, had to meet Henry and Stacey, too. When we married in 1993, the wedding was in their beautiful front yard.

I hold both Henry and Stacey close in my heart. Their willingness to embrace a twelve-year-old from Chicago whom they stumbled across in a talent show one frigid December day still amazes me.