Tip It! (7 page)

Know what my downfall is? [
Besides your love of Bill O’Reilly?
] For all the kinds of food I like, what I can’t resist is chips and dip. That’s been my guilty pleasure for as long as I can remember. A bag of Ruffles—’cause their chip is thicker and it doesn’t fall apart—and an onion dip, or tortilla chips with a nice guacamole or salsa. Then maybe a little sweet after that.

If you listened to Kathy, she’d tell you I eat like a nineteen-year-old frat boy. Look who’s talking! At least I like the food that’s good for me, too! Geez.

1.
MAKE SURE YOU STOCK THE BAR
. Nothing loosens up a party like some cocktails. A nice Tom Collins or an Old-Fashioned with an orange slice is sure to impress and a Hot Toddy or a Brandy Alexander helps make guests sleepy for when you want them to leave.

2.
PUT OUT SOME CHIPS AND DIP, AND SOME CHEESE AND CRACKERS
. You can’t let your guests go hungry. If you’re throwing a party for a special occasion, dust off the ol’ Crock-Pot and whip up some tasty Swedish meatballs. I’d give you the Griffin family recipe but then everyone would be going to your party instead of mine.

3.
FOR ENTERTAINMENT, MAKE SURE YOU KNOW SOMEONE WHO PLAYS PIANO
. Karaoke is for duds. There’s nothing like live entertainment to show folks you’ve got class. Or just get a kick out of your brother-in-law Maurice’s profanity-laced screeds (“A couple of real goddamn nitwits here”) against your politics.

4.
WATCH THE DOOR TO THE BASEMENT FOR LITTLE PUNKS
who want to steal valuable stuff. (See “An Open Letter to the Bastard Who Stole Our Sword,” page 164.)

A
s long as I can remember, I’ve loved movie stars.

Television stars, too, although television came later. [
Are you sure?
]

See, I’m old enough to be able to tell you that I saw, in person, a young . . . no wait, I’ll save it! [
Wow. Making us wait for it. This better be good, Maggie
.] Anyway, it was one of the biggest thrills of my life, I tell ya. Here’s what happened: I was in my third year of high school—this would have been 1937—and one of my older sisters and her husband took me and Irene on a trip to Hollywood over the summer. My brother-in-law knew somebody at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer [
which to us Griffins was synonymous with “I know someone from Mars”
], the biggest studio of the day, and with that connection we got passes to go on the lot.

I couldn’t believe it, we were just roaming around where they made the movies I loved so much! Well, who should come out of nowhere, it seemed, but a pretty young girl skipping along the sidewalk. It was Judy Garland! [
I’ll bet she was “skipping.”
] We stepped aside so she could go by, and Irene and I didn’t say anything because we were too nervous. But we really wanted to say hello. She was so adorable-looking! Her hair was very reddish; I thought it would be more brown. She had makeup on, too, which I guess was for whatever movie she was filming. Once we caught our breath, we thought maybe we’d have a chance to say hello to her, so we ran to try to catch up to her—hoping maybe she’d slow down—but right at the moment we were close enough she turned into an office. [
She probably thought she was running for her life. That’s what “the dolls” will do to ya
.]

Boy, I wish we could have said something! It’s a big regret of mine. She seemed like a nice, innocent girl, just like me. [
Like when I see Angelina Jolie on the street, and I think, “She’s just like me.”
] She and I were nearly the same age. But I’ll bet she was a lot more grown up than I realized.

I got to actually meet one of my favorites—the beautiful Lana Turner, another MGM star—when she came to the army base in Spokane, Washington, where my husband, Johnny, was stationed during World War II. The stars would often come to the bases to entertain the guys—like Kathy did in Iraq and Afghanistan [
me telling pussy jokes in the desert is very different, I just want to make that clear
]—so when Lana came, Johnny said I could come to the base to see her. Well, she came out, stood onstage [
and told pussy jokes?
], and then talked to all the guys, who were just going nuts, clapping and everything. She hung around for pictures and autographs, and then it was time to leave. Her car was there ready to take her away. I was nearby and I said out loud, “Oh darn, I’d love to see her up real close [
and judge her
] and say hello or something.”

Well, her agent was right there, and he turned to me and said, “Come on! You want to meet her?”

Now, you say these things sometimes, then when you get your wish, wouldn’t you know it, you get cold feet. Like I did just then. [
Oh Christ
.]

Suddenly the prospect of actually meeting her seemed too bold. And she was only ten feet away at the most! But see, she was already in her car with her mother. The agent opened the door and said, “This lady would like to say hello.”

“Oh hi, how are you?” I somehow got out. I didn’t know what to say. I probably called her “Lana,” as if I knew her or something! Oh geez . . .

Her people were very nice, and then the agent said, “Lana, come on, how about taking a picture with her?”

Now I was appalled. I thought, that’s so terrible to ask her to get out when she’s already seated in her car, ready to leave! “No, no,” I said. “I just wanted to say hello!”

“No, come on. She’ll take a picture.”

“Honestly, this is fine. Thank you.”

I backed away, the agent gave up, and then she was gone. Readers, I have never been so sorry that I didn’t get that picture. I would give anything to be able to go back and redo that moment. But I’ll be honest with you. You know why I really backed down? I wasn’t sure I wanted to stand next to such a pretty star.

Vanity will get you every time.

“We All Went and Stalked Celebrities”

KATHY:
Ugh. Mom. Depressing. So your life is a case of missed opportunities . . .

MAGGIE:
I know.

K:
And feeling inferior to others.

M:
Now, I did once refuse a picture with Clint Eastwood.

K:
Okay, now you’re just making shit up.

M:
No, no, at the golf tournament. I have pictures of stars from that. But Clint was taking pictures with a lot of the girls there . . .

K:
Probably hot twenty-year-olds. Then you and Dad showed up with golf bags.

M:
He came over and said, “How about if I take a picture with you?”

K:
You are making this up.

M:
I said, “No.” I said, “I’ll tell you what, my husband will take a picture of you alone, and that will be nice.”

K:
Okay. Are you going to tell the Johnny Carson story? Because your Clint moment sounds a lot like that one.

M:
Well, let’s see, we were living in Santa Monica, right across from the Civic Auditorium. And I wanted to walk into downtown.

K:
Mom, get to the point.

M:
All right, all right. Anyway, the stars were giving a big benefit there.

K:
And how did you hear about it? Did you get an invitation in the mail? Come on . . .

M:
Well, I saw it in the paper.

K:
And? What did you do? You . . .

M:
Well, I . . .

K:
You dressed us all up and we all went and stalked celebrities. Why won’t you admit this? When we first moved to California, you would read in the paper or the trades about where celebrities were, what ProAm tournaments or what gala benefits they were going to be at, and you would go and pretend you were attending. And you would stalk celebrities.

M:
We didn’t bother them or anything, Kath. We were respectful. Anyway, I saw all the limos at the Civic Auditorium, and I decided I’d see if I could go into town that way . . .

K:
Illegal. Not appropriate.

M:
. . . to see if I could maybe see somebody . . .

K:
No badge. No pass.

M:
. . . and nobody stopped me! So anyway, I went over there, and I’m near the stage door, and it was great. I saw Rosie Clooney come in, Sammy Davis Jr. . . .

K:
Again, were you invited to this event?

M:
No, of course not. This was earlier in the day. It was their practice. They didn’t care. I was the only one there, anyway.

K:
It’s kind of amazing you haven’t served hard time.

M:
Anyway, Johnny Carson comes out, and he was smoking. He wanted a cigarette, I guess. He was standing maybe ten feet away!

K:
I’m sure the restraining order said fifty feet, but whatever.

M:
I saw him.

K:
Stared at him with a camera, more likely.

M:
I didn’t have a camera.

K:
But you had that trench coat, and that look. That look!

M:
I didn’t take a picture. I took one with my eyes. I was kind of dying to say “Hi!” I would have called him Mr. Carson, too. But see, I knew he was shy, and that he hated parties and people talking to him.

K:
Ma, you weren’t at a party. You had broken into a celebrity event you weren’t invited to. It’s not as if you were “partying” with Johnny Carson.

M:
Anyway, he just finished his cigarette, and he was uncomfortable, I could tell. I was uncomfortable, too. I kept looking the other way, pretending I was waiting for someone.

K:
Mom, this sounds like you’re ex-lovers.

M:
I kept looking at my watch, you know how you do. I didn’t really want to walk away then, but I did. He was enjoying his moment of solitude.

K:
Okay, Mom. Let me stop you, because this is
never
how I heard this story. This is how I heard it. You saw Johnny Carson, who seemed “high and mighty,” like he wanted to get recognized, and you
weren’t going to give him the satisfaction
.

M:
Well, I might have . . .

K:
And for years, Dad would tease you and say, “Oh Mag, how devastated Johnny Carson would be because you wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of recognizing him.” I’ll bet that was the case with Clint Eastwood, too.

M:
Well, that’s probably the truth. Look, I really was uncomfortable.

K:
Do you think that changes your lies?

M:
Oh, don’t you have something better to do?

Although Kathy would like everyone to think we were stalkers, we weren’t. We just liked to go places where celebrities were, and when we moved to Los Angeles, there were so many places like that!

For one thing, if you drive around, you just might see the big trucks that indicate filming is going on. Johnny and I might be headed somewhere in our car and notice the trucks, so we’d pull over and get out and try to see what was being filmed. One time it was an Andy Garcia and Richard Gere movie, and they were just using somebody’s real house to film. We hung around waiting for something to happen, and then suddenly the production called it quits for a while, and before you knew it they were standing around a few feet from us! We just walked by, didn’t talk to them or ask for pictures or anything, and that was pretty exciting. It’s probably a little harder to do that now. You see a lot more cordoned-off sections.

I never asked for autographs. I don’t like that. What the hell am I gonna do with an autograph? Not interested, don’t collect them. I’d much rather get a picture. Darn it, why didn’t I get that nice Lana Turner’s?

It’s tricky figuring out when to approach a celebrity and when not to. When Johnny and I would go to the golf tournaments every year [
that they were not invited to
], there was designated time for the stars to pose with you and give autographs. [
A system designed to gently appease the John and Maggie Griffins of the world.
] But you weren’t supposed to bother them while they were golfing. My husband, being a golfer, understood that and would never have done that in a million years. But if they were walking from tee to tee, they’d get approached. But we never did that. We always waited till they were finished. [
Or you decided they were finished
.] Of course, someone like Jack Lemmon, who always comes across so friendly on television, was never that friendly taking pictures at the golf tournament. [
Kind of like the way I get really pissed at Roger Federer during U.S. Open matches when he never turns and waves at me. What a dick.
] He loved golf too much, and I think he was always worried about how he was playing. As for why I didn’t get a photo with Clint Eastwood at that one tournament, I guess I just wasn’t a fan. [
I hear from Camp Eastwood that this devastating news will be impossible for him to recover from. Stay strong, Clint
.] We got Telly Savalas’s though. Johnny and I loved his TV show,
Kojak.
I know, I know. Which would I like to have more now? But in those situations, you go with who you like. [
Did you really see a subtle dig at Telly Savalas coming? I didn’t
.]

A great place to see stars is the Beverly Hilton hotel, because a lot of the big events and awards shows happen there, like the Golden Globes and the AFI Life Achievement Awards. Johnny and I loved to go there and hang around the lobby [
aka loitering, which I believe is a misdemeanor
], maybe get a drink in their nice bar, and wait until we could see somebody. [
Or see at all, depending on how much they’d been drinking
.] Since they had to come out to go to the bathroom, we’d often catch a glance at them that way. It’s a nice way to see celebrities because they’re all dressed up, looking their best. I saw Princess Grace once, and I nearly fainted. [
Oh Jesus, please don’t tell me I’m going to learn that my mother followed Princess Grace into the john
.]

One night we were there—I forget the occasion [
that we weren’t invited to
]—but there was a break between the dinner part and the ceremonies part [
and clearly a break in security
], so Johnny, Kathy, and I decided to step out for some fresh air. [
Oh crap. I’m an accomplice. I admit it. I was there. And it was frickin’ awesome.
] It was a really beautiful summer night, I recall. Well, who should be stepping out for a stroll, too, but Gene Kelly and his wife! They must have wanted a cigarette break, because they were walking and smoking. We didn’t have a camera with us, but Kathy did, so she went up to this great musical star and said, “Mr. Kelly, can I take a picture of you?” [
I’m such an asshole. Why couldn’t I leave poor Gene Kelly alone?
]

He said, “You can take it, but we’re not gonna stop walking.”

I thought that was fine. Not snotty at all. Kind of like a compromise. He wasn’t going to stop us from taking the picture we wanted, but he wasn’t going to take any extra measure to make it easy for us because he wanted a nice walk with his wife. Kathy had to walk backwards to get it, but she did. I wish I knew where that photo was now. [
Phew. That would have been some embarrassing shit for me.
]

Johnny and I saw Gene Kelly and his wife again when we ate dinner at a favorite restaurant of ours, called Scandia. We didn’t like the table they sat us at, so we requested a different one, and it turned out to be right across from you know who! Of course, we were dyin’ to look at them, so you have to figure out how to be casual and eat and not think about the fact that one of the biggest movie stars ever is right next to you! But see, we would never have bothered them in that situation. They’re trying to have a meal, after all. I think they had pasta. We did, too! [
Going unsaid here is that my mother obviously wanted the table closest to the bathroom, making it easier to trap unsuspecting A-listers into a photo. Even Clint Eastwood has to take a piss.
]