Recipes for Life (5 page)

Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

3 cups whole milk

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Cook macaroni in a pot of boiling salted water, until tender but still firm to the bite. Drain and rinse with cold water. Place half of the cooled macaroni in a 15½ x 10½-inch baking dish. Cover with half the cheese, and dot with half the butter. Salt and pepper the entire layer and repeat. Again, the cheese should cover the macaroni completely—even the corners.

On the stovetop, heat milk to scalding hot, but not boiling. Slowly pour over the mac and cheese combination.

Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until all the milk is absorbed. (I place a sheet of foil on the bottom of the oven in case the milk boils over in the oven.) Serve warm.

Note: This recipe makes a lot but leftovers freeze well. Leftovers can be cut into squares sized to individual portions and stored in freezer bags.

L
OOKING BACK
I realize how incredibly fortunate I was to have been one of the last contract players at one of the most historically rich studios: MGM. However, like so many things in life that end wonderfully, the road leading there was seriously bumpy.

I’d been working intermittently, doing small parts, since I was fifteen, so at nineteen, I was thrilled to land the lead in a pilot called
Buttons
. The hairdresser decided my dishwater blonde hair needed to be darker and that I’d look better with a permanent. Trusting that a professional would know what was best for me, I, of course, was shocked and horrified that night, when half my hair was clogging the shower drain. I ended up wearing a Debbie Reynolds–style red wig and the pilot was never picked up.

What appeared to be a disaster was an incredible opportunity. MGM decided to put me under contract around that time and sent me to Sidney Guileroff, who was one of the top hair stylists in Hollywood. Sidney changed my life forever, by making me a blonde.

My first movie,
Twilight of Honor
, was with Richard Chamberlain. (Richard and I dated off and on over the years. I also guest-starred on
Dr. Kildare
.) In the film, I played a young girl who had just lost her father. In my only scene in the film, I had to throw myself onto the casket as it was being lowered into the ground and sob. We shot the burial scene from many different angles all day.

I remember thinking that acting was going to be tougher than I thought. This was not something my high school drama class had prepared me for. The good news was that MGM had a wonderful drama coach! I trusted Vincent Chase completely, and he really understood
me and my fear of getting up in front of people and performing. We had quite a laugh forty-five years later when he surprised me in Los Angeles by coming to see
Legends
, the play I was starring in with Joan Collins. Certainly it was not a moment Vincent or I would have bet on.

Being at MGM was amazing. I also studied with Gertrude Fogler, a diction coach, in a little cottage on the lot. All the young stars of the thirties and forties, like Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, had studied there with her. She had me read
The Little Prince
in French to slow me down because the studio said I spoke too fast.

During those magical days I spent on the lot, you could still see some of the greatest stars of all time and watch them on the set. In fact, the very first time I ever saw Barbara Stanwyck, she was filming with Elvis Presley. At the time, I never imagined I would soon be working with her and that she would become so very important in my life.

S
HORTLY AFTER FILMING
Beach Blanket Bingo
, my agent sent me to audition for a movie called
The Glory Guys
. It was being produced by Levy-Gardner-Laven, so I was very excited. I remember thinking how great it would be to get another movie. Two in a row—I’d look like a real professional!

The director, Arnold Laven, invited me in to read for the part. When I finished, he just stared at me in silence. “That was the worse reading I’ve ever heard,” he said.

Sugar Kane was my name, and singing was NOT my game.

So much for looking like a professional. I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could, so I sheepishly thanked him and started for the door.
But he stopped me before I could escape. “We’re doing another project and I think you have the right qualities for it,” he told me.

The other project was
The Big Valley
—thank God for second chances.

I still had to test for the role of Audra, the daughter of Victoria Barkley, who would be played by Barbara Stanwyck. It came down to three actresses. Ironically, I was paired with a young man that I’d met a year before at a friend’s home, the very first day he’d arrived in Los Angeles with his wife and baby. We ended up doing the screen test together and were thrilled that we both got hired. His name was Lee Majors.

Lee and Me.

I’
VE HAD THE
privilege of meeting a lot of celebrities. I was even part of the remarkable
Night of a Hundred Stars
. But few in Hollywood history were bigger or brighter than Barbara Stanwyck, known as Missy to her friends and crew.

She was one of a kind—tiny but mighty. She believed in having protein for breakfast, preferably steak. When she decided I needed more energy, she’d order a steak for me, too. If that failed to get me moving fast enough, Missy would have us hop on our bikes and ride over to the studio doctor to get vitamin B12 shots, which usually happened at least twice a week.

One day Missy burst into my dressing room and, in that powerful manner she was so famous for, said, “Audra, I am going to teach you how to be in this business. You’ve got to do two things, show up on time and know your lines.” She took me under her wing and became my guiding light for many years.

Aside from the obvious gifts Missy gave me, I also got so much from just watching her. She was as respected within Hollywood for her outstanding work ethic as for her incredible talent. She set the example that I have lived by and I know for a fact that I was often hired simply because producers knew they could count on me. One of the best examples of this was when Kenny Rogers was looking for a costar for the
Gambler
sequel. He told my agent that he would only work with someone known to be very professional . . . which must have been true, since you better believe I didn’t get the part for my singing talent!

Mom and the kids.

It was Missy who taught me it was okay, even fun, to do my own stunts. I remember the first time the director approached me on
The Big Valley
to ask me if I would mind not using my stunt double for an upcoming scene because Missy was going to do it herself. If neither of us used a double, they could film us closer and make it much more exciting. I didn’t even question what the stunt would be—I just figured if Missy was doing it, it couldn’t be
too
dangerous. (I later learned that she did a film called
Forty Guns
where she was thrown from her horse, with her foot caught in a stirrup, and dragged. There’s no actress, before or since, who has been filmed doing this stunt. God I loved this woman!)

Missy and I always made sure we had our own stuntwomen on the set and that they were paid whether they worked or not. Obviously I would never have dared to do anything that required great skill. Throughout my career, I have watched the talented stuntmen and stuntwomen in awe. But like Missy, I became passionate about doing them, and when a new script would come in, we’d huddle together to see if we’d get to escape a burning building or battle our way through a band of bad guys. After that first stunt together, Missy and I did as many as we could. It was just one more thing we enjoyed doing together and it brought us even closer.