Read My Lips (28 page)

Mackenzie Phillips, who was just a teenager then, was also a joy to work with on that movie. But I would love the chance to redo that character. Unfortunately, that’s not how the movie business works.

“A
NEW BROOM SWEEPS CLEAN.”
T
HAT’S WHAT MY BELOVED
manager Stuart used to tell me when we wanted to make some kind of change. Time to move on. Shake things up.

Get on with your life.

By now I had gotten to the point that I rang Stuart about ten times a day. He was so fabulous to me. I had come to rely on him for absolutely everything. People either loved him or hated him, but few would deny that Stuart was boundless in his energy for me.

He was my constant champion. When I was with the agent Jack Gilardi at ICM, Stuart would physically go into Jack’s office and sit on his desk in the middle of the day, no matter who was in there. If the phone rang, Stuart would chime in, “Is that for Sally?” God knows how many jobs I got simply because someone was trying to get Stuart Cohen out of the office.

So one morning I rang Stuart up, full of energy and optimism. Ready for change, ready to reinvent myself in Hollywood.

“You know what I’m going to do?” I said. “I’m going to write a letter to everyone I’ve offended in this town.”

Stuart laughed. “That’ll be a long list.”

I got off the phone, so pleased with myself. I was ready for change, ready to sweep everything clean. It wasn’t long before the phone rang again. This time it was Rudi.

“Hello, am I speaking with the kinder, more benevolent Sally Kellerman?” Rudi asked. “The one who is going to write everyone in town and make amends?”

I laughed and said, “You got her!” Stuart had clearly passed along my ingenious plan.

“Well, that sounds great, but the only thing is that when you called, you forgot to wish Stuart a happy birthday.”

Oh my God! I forgot Stuart’s fiftieth birthday!!!!

I hung up in a panic. Stuart had been talking about his birthday for the longest time—how he was going to have a huge party and invite everyone he’d ever known, friends and enemies alike. Apparently he hadn’t pulled that together. Now I had to add Stuart—my darling Stuart, my champion—to the long list of people I had offended.

David “my fake cousin” Bennett was visiting me from New York and had brought along some leftover furs from his shop. I raced upstairs to rouse him.

“David! David!” I yelled. “It’s Stuart’s birthday, and I totally forgot! What can I give him?”

“I have a brand new shaving mug!” David said, trying to help.

“Perfect!”

That was something. I threw a stodgy mink stole on over my famous pink nightgown and out the door we flew, me with a head of snarled, ratty hair and no makeup. We tore through town until we reached Stuart’s high-rise.

Stuart opened the door and howled with delight at the sight of me. Bob Esty had come by with a bottle of champagne. None of us really drank that much, but we spent two or three hours just enjoying ourselves. It was perfect. David and I wished Stuart a happy birthday and said good-bye. Later that day, when I talked to him again on the phone, he said he had been invited to a party. I was very happy to hear that. I was so self-centered, worrying what
I
was doing, that it never entered my mind that I and all the other clients who loved Stuart could’ve thrown him a party. But Stuart didn’t keep score. He didn’t care. He was too busy enjoying life.

I, of course, was crying to him about something, possibly my love life. The more I fretted about my life, my work, my future, the more Stuart started to laugh.

“Are you laughing at me?!” I asked.

“No, no . . . I’m laughing with you,” he said, chuckling.

I loved his laugh, so warm and sweet. When the phone rang the very next morning, I heard the voice of my darling Luana.

“Stuart’s dead,” she said.

At first I couldn’t process what she had said. It was so blunt, so matter of fact. I didn’t believe it, didn’t know how to make sense of what I was hearing. I refused to believe what Luana, my closest friend, had told me.

When I got off the phone with Luana, I called over to Stuart’s house, to the office—everywhere I could think of—to confirm what I had just heard. What I kept saying sounds so cliché:
But I was just talking to him . . . But I just saw him and he was fine. . . .

When the truth finally sunk in, I went into my room, crawled into my narrow walk-in closet, and sat on the floor. I wanted to hide, to get away from light and sun and anything that would remind me of life and joy and the world outside that had now changed forever. I sat huddled in my closet for hours. The loss of Stuart was unbearably gut wrenching.

Our relationship wasn’t just about business. We had traveled together, which was so much fun. He would tell me never to worry about Claire, that he would always be there for the two of us. I had confided in him about everything from my family to my love life as well as my career.
Stuart, what do I do? Stuart, what should I say? Stuart, what do you think
? Stuart was like my father in many ways, but with a manner that was capable of softening every blow, of taking the sting out of everything. I can still hear him saying, “You shouldn’t worry, Sally. It’ll all work out.” And you know what? It does.

To think that life—especially such a precious life, one that touched so many others—could be over in two minutes. It was more than my mind could process.

“If only she knew she could have everything,” Stuart had once said about me. He wanted me to have as much faith in myself as he did. He stuck by me, never giving up on me, even when I was difficult, scattered, calling yet again for a shoulder to cry on. Forgetting his last birthday.

Stuart is still with me in so many ways. I still think of him whenever I see a powder-blue Volkswagen convertible with a black top, his old car.

I cherish a letter he wrote me:

My darling Sally . . . I just wanted to put into words how proud I am of you. What a real delight you have become both in life and on the stage . . . Your love means so much to me. You constantly amaze me with both your personal and professional growth. You have inspired me as a friend
.

My imagination is really going to be limitless and boundless in your behalf because of who you are as a talent and a person
.

I love you
,

Stuart

PS: Remember your love for all will take you over the hurdles
.

Well, Stuart, my love, this hurdle felt insurmountable.

I
N THE AFTERMATH OF
S
TUART’S DEATH
I
BEGAN TO LOOK AT
my own life with fresh eyes. One thing I had to examine was my relationship with Chuck. I loved Chuck and had a wonderful time with him, and he had been so incredibly supportive of my relationship with Claire. But deep down I knew that something was not quite right. We split up.

But career-wise, I didn’t exactly start things off with a bang. My first picture without Stuart was
The Big Bus,
a disaster-film parody about a nuclear-powered bus. I had said no to the real disaster film,
The Poseidon Adventure,
but jumped on board the nuke bus. Go figure.

Anyway, during
The Big Bus
shoot, I would be off someplace by myself crying, hoping no one would notice. One day Ruth Gordon walked by and heard my sobs. Now, Ruth was someone whom I not only admired professionally—five Oscar nominations with one win just a few years earlier for her role as the creepy yet kind upstairs neighbor and satanic cult matriarch in
Rosemary’s Baby
—but I also admired her personally. She and Bud Cort had made the wonderful
Harold and Maude
together, and Bud had introduced me to her. I have never forgotten her Academy Award acceptance speech when she won the Oscar at the age of
seventy-two, a good fifty years after her first film. “I can’t tell you how encouraging a thing like this is,” she told the Academy. Brilliant. I think of that line to this day. It still inspires me as I continue to rack up the years.

So when Ruth, who at the time was almost eighty, heard me crying, she stuck her head in the trailer.

“You know the difference between you and Garbo?” she asked.

“No.” I answered.

“Confidence,” she said, and kept right on walking.

Next up, I walked out on a film in which I was to star opposite Lee Marvin. I was getting a very nice six-figure salary (millions were not the norm for starring roles back then). Not the best career move for sure, but I was still feeling bereft without Stuart and needed to be with people I loved, whom I knew loved me.

So I flew to Canada to be with Bob and Kathryn Altman. Bob was working on a film there called
Quintet
, starring Paul Newman. As we talked, Bob asked me if I wanted a part in his then-protégé Alan Rudolph’s upcoming film,
Welcome to LA.

“I’m producing,” he said. “There’s a part for you. It pays fifteen thousand.”

I immediately called Jack Gilardi at ICM, my agent at the time. I told him I wasn’t doing the Lee Marvin picture. He pointed out not only that had I already agreed to do the film and was reneging on my contractual obligation but also the more obvious fact that I would be taking a huge cut in pay.

I didn’t care. “I’m not doing the movie,” I said flatly. It didn’t matter how many people I hung up. I wanted what I wanted, but looking back at that behavior now sure doesn’t feel good, even if I was in pain. I was determined to be with Bob and Kathryn, and that was that. Gilardi never mentioned the switch again, he is a great agent and a mensch, and even though it’s 30 years later, I still owe him a deep apology.

Luckily, in those days lawsuits for breach of contract didn’t go that far. In Hollywood today, well, it is a much different story. When Kim Basinger stepped away from
Boxing Helena
—violating
what was called an informal commitment—she got slapped with about $9 million in damages, and she ended up losing her little town in Georgia. I guess my bad behavior got in just under the wire.

But then, of course, I’ve never had a town. I was lucky I still had my house.

Altman and Rudolph were shooting
Welcome to LA
in Los Angeles, and in it I played a real estate agent. I was excited about the character and had a great idea for my look, inspired by an outfit I’d seen on one of my neighbors: I would wear a bright red suit and put a big shock of white in the middle of my blond hair. But when I arrived on the set, wardrobe pulled out some nondescript suit and a pale pink blouse with a big, droopy bow. But I didn’t want to be a prima donna. Because I didn’t want Bob to think I was going to make trouble, I vowed not to complain about anything. “Just perfect!” I said. “That’ll be great!”

Thus, my character turned out just like the blouse: droopy.

On the set of
Welcome to LA,
I had the joy of meeting the oh-so-lovely and adorable Sissy Spacek. Sissy played my topless housekeeper and was a sheer delight. Memories of her Texas drawl still bring a smile to my face.

“Hey kid,” she’d say to me. “You should git some painter’s pants jist like mine.”

I absolutely
adored
her. Sissy has a unique talent. I always love seeing her in films like
The Help
and thinking back on all the interesting choices she’s made throughout her career, from
Carrie
to
Coal Miner’s Daughter
. And she’s been married for decades to an incredibly talented art director, Jack Fisk.

The film turned out great and was praised by Jack Kroll of Newsweek as an “extraordinary debut” for Alan Rudolph, hailing the rest of us for our “sharp, distilled performances.”