My Mother Was Nuts (19 page)

Penny playing in the snow on the way from Salzburg to Siena in 1981
Tracy Reiner

M
Y FIRST BIG NIGHT
out was the premiere for
1941
. It was December 1979. I went with Danny Aykroyd, John Belushi, and his wife, Judy. The four of us raided the wardrobe department at Paramount for period outfits and then, as long as we were there, we borrowed an antique car. When we rolled up to the theater, John hollered at me to turn away from the window. He wanted to be recognized before me.

I was happy to stay out of the spotlight. With the holidays approaching, I was still nursing the pain from splitting with Rob and was not in a great state of mind. Carrie Fisher suggested spending Christmas in Switzerland. I thought that was a good idea. We put together a group that included Tracy, Phil Mishkin’s daughter, Heidi, and
Saturday Night Live
writer Michael O’Donoghue, and flew to Geneva. I was amazed at what was possible when I said yes.

After recovering from jet lag in Lausanne, we went on to Gstaad, the famous ski resort in the Alps known as a playground for the rich. On our first day there, we turned it into a playground by taking mushrooms and then going to lunch at a restaurant, where seeing turtle soup on the menu triggered fits of uncontrollable laughter.

After lunch, we decided to go skiing. It made no difference that Carrie was the only one who actually knew how to ski. The rest of us were gung-ho. Tracy and Heidi took off on the bunny slope; that was the last we saw of them for a while. But Michael and I had a problem. We couldn’t even get on the T-bars—thin metal bars that you’re supposed to lean on as they take you up the mountain. We would hold on, aim our butts, and go flying backward, head over heels onto the snowy ground, where we’d stay for another ten minutes, paralyzed by hysterical laughter.

Everyone there was annoyed. They didn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor. Several people tried showing us the correct way to get on. “Make like you’re an ironing board. Be very straight and stiff.” This actually inspired an episode of
Laverne & Shirley
titled “The Ski Show,” where we found it impossible to get on the ski lift. Once Michael and I eventually got to the top, the rest was anticlimactic. We snowplowed back down the mountain. Was that it?

The whole thing was ridiculous.
Let’s learn to ski in the Alps. And we’ll do it on mushrooms
.

From Gstaad, we traveled to Zermatt, the village next to the Matter-horn. Inspired by the storybook scenery, we bought a Christmas tree. Don’t ask. We had so much luggage, and now we had to carry around the tree. Michael also got sick. Undeterred, we toured the village’s streets in a horse-drawn buggy with our tree sticking out the back.

Before we left Zermatt, my attorney Gary Hendler called. He had been speaking with another client, Arnon Milchan, a wealthy Israeli entrepreneur who was getting into the movie business, and mentioned that we were on our way to Paris. Arnon, who became one of the most successful independent producers in movie history, offered us his home outside of Paris. He insisted it would be nicer than a hotel—and it was.

Arnon’s driver met us at the train station in Paris at 2 a.m. and drove us and our thirty pieces of luggage to Arnon’s country estate. We had no idea where we were headed. We drove forever into the
middle of the French countryside, which was pitch-black. All we heard was the sound of the tires on the gravel roads. I don’t know how the driver navigated.

Finally, we pulled up in front of Arnon’s house. Inside, we picked bedrooms and went to sleep. When I woke up the next day, I found myself in a gorgeous home decorated tastefully with what I’m sure was expensive art, including a sculpture made out of coins. After making it to the kitchen, I looked out the window and saw Tracy riding across the yard on a horse. Beyond her was a lake. I could have been looking at a painting of a French landscape.

In another room I found Michael trying to decapitate R2D2. Somehow Arnon had gotten ahold of what appeared to be the real astromech droid from
Star Wars
. When the real Princess Leia appeared with her morning coffee, I laughed at the surreal intersection of reality and make-believe. It was clear that what passed for normal life could no longer be considered normal.

Carrie and I went hiking through the woods without realizing we were among hunters who could have shot us. On New Year’s Eve, we went into Paris to celebrate and got a little lost. I don’t even know where we went. Playwright Israel Horovitz, who I’d gone out with for five seconds years earlier, was living there at the time. He found us and took us to his apartment. I don’t think we were his wife’s idea of a fun night. We were a little wacked.

In 1980, I received my third and last nomination for a Golden Globe as the Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy. I didn’t win. I never win those things. But that’s not the story I want to tell. I needed a date for the event. I called Steven Spielberg, whose marriage, like mine, had recently ended. We had cried on each other’s shoulders. Why not party together, too? When he picked me up, he referred to himself as “the big-time director escort service.”

After the Globes ceremony, we went to John Belushi’s birthday party. John had rented Candice Bergen’s home. Inside, the first person we saw was Michael O’Donoghue, who was wearing a button that
said:
Born 1949/Died 1941
. It was a reference to John’s latest movie, then considered a flop. I cringed, as it was also Steven’s movie. But Steven had a sense of humor about it.

He needed one at this party. People were out of control. At one point, I walked into the bathroom as a famous British rocker and another guy were cooking up cocaine and inhaling the smoke. Freebasing. I had never seen that before.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Oh, hey Penny,” the rocker said. “How are you doing?”

“I’m doing pretty good,” I said, watching them fix up all their little things. “So what does that do?”

“Makes it way more intense,” the other guy said.

I tried one hit and immediately knew freebasing wasn’t for me. My neck and chest froze. I left the bathroom with my upper body temporarily paralyzed. That was fun?

Later that evening, Hunter Thompson kicked me. I had no idea who he was. He was in the kitchen, trying to smoke opium. I watched as he sucked the life out of what looked like a Tootsie Roll. It seemed like a lot of effort, almost funny—until he leapt up from the table and kicked me.

“What the fuck is your story?” I said.

He cursed me out with a string of colorful words that caused me to stop and stare even more intensely, not out of fear or anger but rather amazement at his vocabulary. That was when someone mentioned that he was the famous gonzo journalist and warned it was best not to rile him up any more because he carried a gun and didn’t hesitate to pull it out and start shooting.

At the end of the night, I thanked Steven for getting me home safely.

I stayed on the move. I met Carrie in Chicago, where we hung out with John Belushi and Danny Aykroyd. They were shooting
The Blues Brothers
movie. One night Carrie, Judy Belushi, and I took acid. It
was my first time taking LSD; same with Carrie. It seemed like the thing to do. We played pool for hours and took pictures of ourselves with a Polaroid camera at a hole-in-the-wall bar that the guys called the Blues Bar. We thought the cops there were extras from the movie and so made no effort to hide our silliness; but they turned out to be real police officers.

After several hours, Carrie and I went back to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and gave ourselves facials. Laughing at everything we saw, we rode up and down on the hotel’s elevator, lying on the floor so we could stare up at the pretty deco ceiling. I can’t say how long we did that, but it was a while. Only once did the elevator stop and the doors open, and then Eric Idle, of all people, stepped in. We laughed too hard to even say hello. He understood.

I broke the spell by going out to get some more Polaroid film. Being outside in the lights and around other people wasn’t so good for me. I went back to my room and had an anxiety attack. Danny tried talking me through it. He put on some heavy metal music. That didn’t help. Upset, I called my brother, who didn’t know from acid. His drug of choice was still Benadryl.

But Carrie and I were supposed to fly to Albuquerque the next day and play baseball in a
Happy Days
charity event, and I felt an overwhelming need to tell him that I was freaking out on acid and might have gotten too high. I didn’t know what to do or how long it was going to last—hopefully not forever.

“Is anyone there?” my brother asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “But not at the moment. I’m in my room. Carrie’s here, though.”

“Well, I think you just need to go through it,” he said.

He was right. I got to Albuquerque and saw him on the baseball field. He rubbed my back.

“So tell me, that was fun for you?” he asked.

Fun enough.

Undeterred, I dropped acid again the next time I was in New York. I was with Carrie and Paul, and we were shopping for folk art. Before leaving Paul’s apartment, Carrie and I took acid once more. There was a reason behind our madness: It was fun. I’m not going to apologize. We laughed our asses off. It added a touch of adventure and unpredictability that we enjoyed. The only fallout in this case was transportation. We changed limo drivers fifteen times. At the tiniest hint of something out of the ordinary, we called for a new car and driver.

A little paranoia was nothing. In fact, we took it in stride when Carrie accidentally lit her fur coat on fire instead of her cigarette. By that afternoon, we had ditched the folk art and gone in search of the city’s best marzipan. When we finally staggered back into Paul’s apartment, I remembered that I had a date with Artie. I had forgotten all about it, as happens when you’re on acid all day.

We were supposed to double-date with Stephen Bishop and Karen Allen. I called Artie and told him to pick me up at Paul’s.

“I can’t just come over to Paul’s,” he said.

“Why not?” I asked.

I knew nothing about their long history together other than that they had made some of the most popular and enduring music of the ’60s and ’70s, including “The Sound of Silence” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” I wasn’t aware of their very complicated, touchy relationship. They had known each other since grade school. Sometimes they were friends. Sometimes they weren’t. I didn’t know they would sometimes go years without speaking to each other. I had more than enough of my own issues.

Eventually, Artie explained why he couldn’t just come over to Paul’s. He had to be invited, he said.
Invited schmited
, I said. I didn’t care. I couldn’t follow what he was saying. I had been tripping, and as a result, I couldn’t leave Paul’s by myself. Finally, he understood and agreed to pick me up.

Once he was there, everything seemed fine. He and Paul were friendly to each other. I gave Artie a tab of acid. “Here, join me.”

We invited Carrie and Paul to come to dinner, too. They declined. I offered to bring them something back if they wanted. Looking back, it was funny. Here I was, totally ignorant of one of the most strained partnerships in pop music history, arranging a social date with these two guys who have wanted nothing to do with each other for God only knew how long.

Outside, Artie and I got into a cab, and now, thanks to the acid, we were glued to each other. We walked in the restaurant, but couldn’t find Stephen and Karen. After fifteen minutes, we realized that we were in the wrong restaurant. We were supposed to be in the one next door. So we went there, had a nice time, and went back to Paul’s, where the good times continued. As conversation flowed, I innocently said, “Why don’t you guys sing something?”

After an awkward silence, Paul and Artie shrugged. I guess they couldn’t think of a reason why not or just didn’t want to go into years of slights and bickering in front of Carrie and me. Paul got up and walked slowly to his guitar closet. Then he and Artie carefully searched the room for a spot with the best echo, the best sound, and they started to sing. They played oldies in lieu of their own songs, but it was, quite frankly, the most thrilling night of my life.