Love, Ellen: A Mother/Daughter Journey (13 page)

Thirteen-year-old Ellen autographed this picture for me, an omen of things to come. What did she know?

Ellen would later look at this photo and comment, “Oh, no, there were no clues.”

The three sisters—Helen, Audrey, Betty—circa 1994 on a trip to an Elderhostel, making the most of our time together.

Ellen and me together at the Emmys. Who’s prouder?

Vance and me enjoying a typical L.A. day.

With my two daughters—all dressed up and heading off to a premier.

Ellen and I visited Cedars-Sinai's Teen Line, where teenage volunteers answer a hotline for troubled teens.

A group of young activists give me a warm welcome.

At one of my first HRC dinners with Dr. Joycelyn Elders.

In London with Sir Ian McKellen.

On a trip to Bermuda—a woman on her own and liking it just fine.

6

I Love You, Mom; I Love You, El

A
T AGE TWENTY
, E
LLEN
shared her secret with me, and gradually it was shared with other family members and close, trusted friends. But to the outer world—coworkers, employers, landlords, casual acquaintances, and later, as she became famous, the public—she still had a secret, one which would last almost twenty years.

Because I shared in that twenty-year secret, I became, in a sense, Ellen’s co-conspirator. At first, I’m sure I must have worried about the wrong people “finding out.” In time, I became adept at avoiding and evading questions from my friends and coworkers, questions about whether she had a boyfriend or whether it would be all right to introduce her to a nice young man. I learned to be careful about my choice of words when I referred to Ellen’s romantic partners, describing them as “friends” or “roommates” or discreetly not mentioning them at all. Once an associate at work asked me point-blank, “Is Ellen gay?” Somehow, I managed not to answer. I probably shrugged it off with a laugh, saying something along the lines of “Well, that’s awfully personal!”

Having to keep any kind of secret can become a terrible burden. But, on the other hand, given my years of early training with Mother’s warnings—“Don’t tell Aunt Ethel”—I really know how to keep secrets. It wasn’t my place to share this information about my daughter. That had to be Ellen’s choice.

So, along with everything else we had survived together, perhaps the secret brought us even closer. Whatever we did or did not share with the outer world, with each other we became very honest and open. El found ways to let me know she loves me a lot just because she does. And I let her know that not only do I love her with all my heart, I also admire her. The life she lived in her growing-up years was not smooth or seamless. And yet, she emerged from adolescence with unusual strength and courage that may have had something to do with her being tough enough to stick it out in a field as difficult as show business.

Of course, in 1978 Ellen’s aspirations were far from being that lofty. Most of her letters and our conversations dealt with the more mundane aspects of day-to-day survival. In early fall of that year, I remember calling her to ask how she was doing with her latest job as a placement counselor in an employment agency, Snellings & Snellings.

“Everything’s wonderful!” she answered proudly, allowing herself to brag a little. “You know, on the board up in our office there’s this chart with everyone’s name and whenever one of us makes a placement we put the amount of the fee up under our name. My list is the longest, and I’m number one in our office now—I have $3,800.78 up so far this month!”

“El, that’s great,” I said, happy to hear her so upbeat.

Ellen went on: “My boss came in the other day—the lady that owns all the Snelling and Snellings in New Orleans—and she said, ‘Boy you’re a hot one, kid!’ Then my other boss at the downtown office called and said, ‘Oh, the superstar!’ I acted cool about it and then she told me that no one has ever made that much in the amount of time I’ve been there.”

I congratulated Ellen on her hard work, and we talked more about the new apartment that she was sharing with a roommate. Her report was glowing. A few days later, she wrote a letter indicating that reality was setting in:

Ellen’s job as an employment counselor lasted a couple of months longer; then it was on to a position as a salesclerk at Dixie Art Supplies. During the short while she was there, she was very enthusiastic about it. In the meantime, I had given her an old lemon-yellow Chevy Vega of mine and an allowance for gas, which eased up the amount of walking and bus-riding she had to do. Still, with food, rent, phone, and utilities, she had to make do with very little. When she needed clothes, she went shopping at secondhand stores—if she could afford even that. In one letter, Ellen described how cool the weather was getting. She jokingly asked if I might knit her some clothes, everything from sweaters and scarves to pants and shoes.

While Ellen’s creative aspirations had not yet come to the forefront, Vance DeGeneres was already making a name for himself. As it turned out, Vance’s two years in the Marine Corps would prove to be beneficial to his whole career. He found the discipline he felt had been lacking and actually did well under the rigors of military life. In fact, when he finished boot camp in San Diego he had been selected as Honor Man.

While he was in the Marines, stationed in Yuma, Arizona, Vance was able to get training as a broadcast journalist and even a part-time position as a weekend sports anchor on KYEL-TV.

During one phone call to Vance, I confided my concerns about Ellen’s struggles at her jobs. Without thinking, I must have said something like, “I feel guilty for not encouraging Ellen more to stick with college. With both of you, Vance, I guess I just didn’t put my foot down enough.” His situation was now different, I acknowledged, because of the job training he was getting in the Marines. But Ellen worried me. A week later he wrote me a long letter—a rare feat for him. He stressed some of the following points:

Well, we all know that Vance was right about the last part.

When his two years were up and he returned to New Orleans, Vance got a job as a DJ at station WQUE, where he had worked part-time in high school. With his deep, resonant voice and quick wit, he was a hit. At the same time, he connected with other musicians and the lead singer Barbara Menendez to form The Cold, one of the hottest bands to come out of New Orleans in the early 1980s. Vance DeGeneres was a local star and rising fast.

Before long, the bug had bitten Ellen. Having a well-connected brother wasn’t going to hurt. Through Vance’s girlfriend, Marcia Kavanaugh, our New Orleans NBC anchor and a member of the local Gridiron Club—the press and broadcasting organization—El was able to land a small singing part in its annual musical satire. That year the show was a musical spoof of
The Tonight Show
—another glimmer of things to come.

Though this was an inauspicious stage debut, Ellen was thrilled, telling me on the phone, “I can’t wait! It’ll be lots of fun and good exposure, too.’’

Exposure for what wasn’t exactly clear yet. But obviously the humdrum nature of her various other “day jobs” was starting to get to Ellen. The list was continuing to grow as El tried her hand in a multitude of positions—waitress, bartender, house painter, car washer, clothing store clerk, a stint doing singing telegrams, law firm gofer, and a job as a gardener that lasted all of three hours (to name only a few).

For a creative person like Ellen, not having an outlet in her work must have taken its toll over time. Some of her day jobs became downright degrading to her. But on an up note, I would say that many of these jobs probably gave El her best training for comedy.

One of her well-worn stories was about the time she was selling vacuum cleaners and working hard to get customers to buy the top-of-the-line cleaner, which cost about a hundred dollars more than the next less expensive model. They were really identical except that the top model had a light in front. One day when Ellen was pitching that cleaner, a woman asked the obvious question, “Why do I need a vacuum with a light on it?”

El thought fast and said, “That’s so you can vacuum at night and not wake people up by turning the lights on.”

The woman must have had a sense of humor. She took the higher-priced model.

O
N MAY
20, 1980, I celebrated my fiftieth birthday by buying myself a violin. B. shook his head, poured himself a drink made of bourbon, water, and Seven-Up that he called a “pres” (short for Presbyterian), and said, “Have you lost your mind?”

Of course I hadn’t lost my mind. I simply was interested in learning to play the violin. The fact that this concept was so foreign to B. should have been a clue that he neither understood nor supported me in being who I was. Shortly after that, we were on a business trip to Chattanooga, Tennessee, and I read that their philharmonic orchestra was playing there. I had to beg B. to take me.

“Eileen Farrell is the soloist,” I said, trying to entice him.

“Isn’t that the old gal used to be married to Frank Sinatra?” he asked.

“No,” I said, “that was Mia Farrow.”

At first B. flatly refused to go. But I wanted to go so badly and was so nervous about driving myself on the icy, snowy roads that he grudgingly agreed to take me—on the condition that he could leave at any time if he didn’t like it. Miraculously, the first violinist, a young red-haired man, was a virtuoso. He played so passionately from the feet up that B. was mesmerized and we stayed through the whole program. Predictably, though, this did not fuel in B. any sudden interest for things cultural.

Oh, well, I rationalized, thinking about my years with Elliott, sharing a love for classical music wasn’t a prerequisite for a successful marriage. And off I went on my own to take violin lessons, becoming proficient enough after a while to play in the Texarkana Civic Orchestra.

I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but after much reexamination of this period in my life I can see that pursuits like the violin were my attempts to address the lack of real fulfillment in my day-to-day existence. All things considered, my world in Atlanta was small, narrow, and not very exciting. The world that Vance and Ellen inhabited was the exact opposite. Perhaps for that reason, I had most of my excitement vicariously, through hearing about their personal and professional ups and downs.

The importance of hearing from them as often as possible inspired a brainstorm one day: I sent both kids a stack of preaddressed, prestamped envelopes. That way, I figured, we could stay in frequent contact and save money on phone calls. With Vance, who was not a dutiful letter writer, I went even further, writing him a note and making a dotted line across the page with the words, “Cut here.” That was where he should write his response. Then I would begin his letter for him by writing, “Dearest Darling Mom.” He had no excuse for not writing back!

Ellen didn’t require as much coaxing. She loved our system and wrote frequently. She didn’t fail to let me know she thought my idea was ingenious, saying to me during one phone conversation, “Mom, did you know you have a daughter who wants to be just like her mother? Except for the violin lessons, maybe.”

No matter how dreary the day was, El knew how to brighten it for me. I loved her response when I asked about her latest stint—she was working double shifts selling season subscriptions to plays at Saenger Theatre.

“Well,” she began with typical optimism, “it’s exhausting but the people are great, so that keeps it fun. “ And then, sounding very worldly, she added, “Oh, you know, theater people—they’re all alike.”

But it was quickly becoming evident that Ellen didn’t want to be behind the scenes, hanging out with theater people and selling subscriptions; she wanted to be out front, center stage. And somehow, the idea of doing a stand-up act was born. Exactly when the idea occurred is hard to pinpoint, but I do know that sometime between August 4 and September 9, 1980, El performed in a benefit at a Catholic girls’ high school and was a hit.

This first success led her to develop an act and to start appearing regularly at a Friday night coffeehouse on the campus of the University of New Orleans. She received some encouraging comments and even a mention in the
Times Picayune.
Ellen cut it out and sent it to me, noting, “And here’s my first newspaper clipping—save it so we can compare the size to the Vegas billboard.”

After I received that note, I drove down to New Orleans and, for the first time, went to see Ellen perform. I went with my cousin Maisie and her husband, Armand. The three of us sat at a table right in front of the stage. Nearby were Elliott and Virginia, along with some old friends I knew from church.

In those days, when she was just starting out, Ellen used a lot of props in her act. (She later learned that it’s better to let the audience imagine the props.) When she strode out to center stage, she had a long branch of ivy sticking out of her sleeve. That got a couple of chuckles, as she said, “I just got out of the hospital and they forgot to take out the IV.” (Groan.)

El continued from there, warming everyone up with that winning twinkle in her eye. All in all, she was wonderful. I’m not sure what I had expected; perhaps I thought this was just going to be another one of Ellen’s passing interests. But after ten minutes of watching her, I was very impressed. This felt different somehow.

Since I’ve never been a big fan of jokes, I was pleased to see that Ellen didn’t tell jokes; instead she told funny stories and played off real or imagined situations. Her delivery, even then, was crisp—with her deadpan, fresh-faced, girl-next-door expression, she made the absurd even more laughable. My only complaint was that a young man seated at the next table kept talking during her act. Today, I would shush him. Then, I just fumed silently.

After the performance, Ellen came out and sat with us, accepting a round of congratulations and praise. After all the others had their say, it was my turn. First, I gave her a big hug and told her how great she was. And then I added, “El, I’ll help you in any way I can.” I knew this was it. She was really on to something.