View From Hotel

I’m here for various events on behalf of my non-profit, The Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, and to see my daughter and grandkids. It’s been rainy and cold but still, as always, Atlanta is a warm and friendly place and I love being back and seeing so many friends and colleagues

That's Margaret Mitchell's house down there, seen from my Atlanta hotel window. Mitchell wrote "Gone With the Wind" and her home is an historic monument

Kris Spain, a business woman who is on our board of directors, opened her home to forty women who came to hear me speak about our work and my new book, “Prime Time.”

A nice dog lover offered to hold Tulea (yes, I brought her with me!) while I spoke. There was even a woman who had a coton de Tulear from the same breeder in Montreal that I bought Tulea from. I think they’re cousins in fact! What a small world.

Yesterday we had a similar luncheon with 20 women at Ginny Brewer’s home and it was a very moving event for me. There were a number of women I hadn’t seen in a long time, women I had gotten to know quite well before I moved away. Some had been to my ranch and fished with me in times gone by. As I spoke of my own experiences with love and divorce and learning through pain, I saw tears of recognition and realized that in the almost three years that I’ve been away, many of their lives have changed as well. Marriages have ended and the scary questions of “what do I do now? Who am I now? Will anyone ever love me again,” are very present in their lives just as they have been in mine in years past. One thing we all had in common was the realization of the importance of our women friends. What would we do without each other? I reminded them how lucky women are to have such intimate relationships to get us through. This is something that is much harder for men. Yes, men have their buddies and they talk about sports and cars and whatever, but intimacy, the sharing of deep emotions and empathy comes harder for most men.

We had a wonderful board of directors dinner last night but I could feel myself getting sick. In fact, after coming all this way, I wasn’t able to attend our board meeting today. I’m feeling better now, though and pretty certain I’ll be able to bring my grandchildren to see “Cavalia” tomorrow, the show with horses and then have dinner with my daughter and son-in-law, and take everyone to see “Hugo.” I’ve already seen it and absolutely loved it—but not in 3-D– so that’s what we’ll do tomorrow night. Then I’m going to my ranch to try and finish up my new books about adolescent sexuality and, relationships.

At "Cavalia" in Atlanta with my grandkids. Amazing space. Space age big top!

Approaching the big tent in mid town Atlanta to see Cavalia's new show, Odysseo

The poster

I thought it was even better than the first Cavalia. Not only were there the amazing horses (many breeds, not just the white Arabs shown here though they are my favorite), but extraordinary acrobats, eleven of them from Guinea—all cousins I was told—and a vast, panoramic set that became the steppes of Russia, the plains of Africa, melting snow, many settings that had richness and texture.

After Cavalia, I took my grandkids to meet my daughter and son-in-law to have dinner at the Buckhead diner and then we saw "Hugo" in 3-D which was a hit with everyone. The lead boy, Hugo, reminds me of my grandson, Malcolm.

Roshi Joan Halifax, me and Mary Catherine Bateson

The next morning I was on a panel with Roshi Joan Halifax and Mary Catherine Bateson at the Legacy of Wisdom Project. The mission of the project is “making wisdom the central operating principle of aging.” Other participants included Ram Dass, Harry Moody, Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi. I was worried because 1) I was tired and 2) I’m not especially wise. But, as is always the case when I am in the company of the truly wise Joan and Mary Catherine, interesting things come to the fore.

Following that, I rushed to hop a Delta flight to Atlanta with Gabby Sidibe. While I had met her at the screening of “Precious” that opened the New York film Festival and crossed paths at some gala functions, I had not really had a chance to talk with her. One of the things I wanted to ask her was if she gets recognized often. I didn’t need to. People definitely recognize her. They spoke to her, passed notes to her. Clearly she has had an impact, especially on young women. I discovered in her, a 27 year old woman who, at age 22, knew she had to make a decision to either accept who she was and be strong or die. She chose strong and rarely have I met someone her age who is, as the French say, so ‘bien dans sa peau…Well in her skin. She exudes a wisdom and confidence. She laughed and told me that people often say to her, “How wonderful that you have followed your dream!” “But my dream was never to be an actor. I just went on the audition [for Precious] cause a friend said I should. My dream has been to be a psychologist.” When asked about fame and how that has affected her, she got big laughs when she replied, “You have no idea how hard it is to buy tampons when you’re famous!” In other words, it bugs her and it’s not why she is doing her acting—for now.

Pat Mitchell, Me, Gabby Sidibe and Michele Ozumba

She was coming with me to Atlanta to participate in a dialogue with me and 2 other young actors with the Alliance Theatre that followed a screening of the documentary “Jane”, made in 1962 by D.A. Pennybaker. It has been a painful thing for me to watch because I was so voiceless and disembodied as I went through rehearsals and out-of-town tryouts of a play that lasted 2 nights on Broadway. I decided to show it as a fundraiser for my non-profit G-CAPP because part of what we do is try to help girls keep their voices at adolescence, when many, if not most, lose theirs…well, not lose…their voices go underground so they will fit in, be ‘popular’, acceptable, ‘good girls.’ This is more common with middle class white girls than with african-american girls who ,from early on and often from their mothers, learn that, to survive, they need to maintain strong voices.

It was a successful evening, that included a meaningful conversation with the audience, moderated by Susan Booth, artistic director of the Alliance Theatre. At the party afterwards, people said how moving they found it and how much they had learned. They especially commented on how amazing Gabby is…”what wisdom!,” exclaimed one man.

Gabby spent the night with me in my loft (strange to be back as all my personal things have moved out) and I spent the day in my office looking for photo and film archival stuff for the enhanced eBooks of both my memoirs and my new book, “Prime Time”, which comes out Sept 20th. I’m excited. I was interviewed two days ago by the first person outside of Random House (i.e. no dog in the race and, hence, not obliged to make any comments) who said she “devoured” my book and thinks it has everything “from A to Z” that anyone would want to know about approaching and living into the aging process. Actually, I think so too, but then I’m prejudiced!

Tonight we had a farewell party for Michele Ozumba who has been CEO/President of GCAPP for many years, the Policy Director and a board member before that. I’ve known and worked with Michele since 1995 when she was head of Maternal and Child Health for the state. It was a moving ceremony at the home of Drs Robert and Cheryl Franklin. He is President of Morehouse College and Cheryl is an OBGYN and Board chair of GCAPP since I’ve moved to L.A. On Friday I come back to Atlanta to join other members of the selection committee to interview candidates for our CEO position and then Easter with my Grandkids at Ted’s farm outside Atlanta.

Tomorrow we have a board meeting and then I fly to Tallahassee for a fundraising event to support the Thomasville Community Resource Center which I helped build in the 90s. It will be a wonderful experience, I know. It’s been quite awhile since I’ve been down there and I will get to visit the TCRC Center, witness all they are doing for the children in that community and see old friends. I will read from my memoirs, about the making of “On Golden Pond,” and then dialogue with the audience.

I leave early Wednesday morning to go back to New York to, again, dialogue with Gabby after a screening of “Jane,” this time to benefit the Women’s Media Center and this time, moderated by Co-founder Gloria Steinem.

In others words, this is my fundraising week. It will all continue to be exhilarating and a learning experience.

Richard and I took friends to see God of Carnage at the Ahmanson last night. I had seen it in New York. The play, starring Jeff Daniels, James Gandolfini, Marcia Gay Harden and Hope Davis, was playing when I was there with my play and I loved it so much that I wanted Richard to see it too. Two years ago, the play won the Tony ( beating my “33 Variations”) and Marcia Gay beat me for the Tony for Best Actress.

This same cast was at the Ahmanson last night and just as good. It felt funny, bittersweet, to be coming back to that theatre, this time in the audience, not on the stage. I realized I miss that experience.

We all went to dinner afterward ( except James) and had a fun time talking about L.A. Audiences (generous, grateful) doing a play the second time (like me, they feel they are still growing in their roles and life in the 2-year interim has taught them things that have deepened their understanding of their roles.

Richard went to U of Michigan and, as you may know, Jeff lives near Detroit and is deeply committed to helping that challenged city and state. So he and Richard had a Lot to talk about. We made plans to get together to see his theatre when we go there next October for a UofM home football game.

Right now I am in the airport waiting for my plane to Seattle to be repaired so I can get to the Seattle hotel in time to get some sleep before my appearance tomorrow, a speech, on behalf of the YMCA. I have not made a public speech in a long time. I enjoy doing it when it’s for a good cause and about something I know about. This YMCA has programs for teens and I can give many speeches about teens. In fact, my next books are about teens (and parents of teens). Then I will hook up with Richard in NY for a few days.

Sunday I am part of a conference called “Legacy of Wisdom” in which I participate with truly wise people such as Roshi (Zen priest) Joan Halifax and Mary Catherine Bateson (author, social anthropologist, daughter of Margaret Mead).

Then I go to Atlanta with Gabby Sidibe (star of “Precious”) for an unusual fundraiser to benefit the non-profit I founded 16 years ago, the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention. We will show a documentary made In 1962 by acclaimed filmmaker D.A. Pennybaker called “Jane”. It shows me rehearsing a new play for Broadway, taking in to various cities in out-of-town tryouts and then opening on Broadway to terrible reviews and closing 2 nights later. It is very painful for me to watch how disempowered and disembodied I was. As I said to someone awhile back, “I feel lucky to have concrete proof of how far I’ve come. Not everyone has that.” it is hard to believe, watching the documentary, that the sad, anxious young woman in the doc became me. After the screening, Gabby and I will dialogue about how the arts can empower and how young people can claim their voices. Some young actors from Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre will also participate.

I will have a screening of the same documentary with Gabby in New York next Wednesday to benefit the Women’s Media Center. That night at the Paley Center, Gloria Steinem will be the moderator.

I’ll come back to Atlanta after that through Easter. It will be wonderful to see my grandkids again and I am bringing my bunny suit…a full suit. I paint my face clown white and glue broom straws on my checks as whiskers. That I will take pictures of for sure!! We’ll have an awesome Easter Egg hunt at one of Ted’s properties outside of Atlanta which he has graciously let us use.

I am not sure of the date. Barely know the day of the week. Been so busy. Had an interview in NPR this morning that I forgot!! It’s been rescheduled for Wednesday. Then I had a G-CAPP Executive Committee call this afternoon and forgot that, too. Busy planning and preparing for a party that Richard and I are hosting for fabled music man, Clive Davis, rehearsing my DVDs which tape next week and finishing a new chapter in my book… Something I hadn’t envisioned but my wonderful editor, Kate Medina, sort of re-conceptualized the book, making it more interesting to people—men and women-who aren’t yet in their third acts but need to start thinking and planning for when they arrive there. Don’t get me wrong, it is still about how to age successfully but she has me starting earlier. I didn’t want to write this chapter but had a break through over the weekend and wrote the whole thing and I’m excited about it. Part of me couldn’t quite believe it was Easter and I didn’t even don my traditional full bunny suit (white clown makeup with broom straws glued on for whiskers for the face…everything else covered in [fake] bunny fur.) NO Easter egg hunt…my grandchildren don’t arrive till tomorrow for spring break. Took a long bubble bath last night while I was writing this blog.

I’m in dark glasses cause I lost my reading glasses at Carnegie Hall last week (was it really??) and sat on my lighter sunglasses yesterday so dark was all I had/have to read with. Do you, like me, find that these sorts of things—forgetting, losing, sitting on stuff, locking keys in cars— when you’re doing too much? Urghhhh

Did Larry King just now to promote World Fitness Day May 1st at the Georgia Dome. I was able to announce the new news: LUDACRIS will appear that day and perform live!!! He’s a friend. So will the Pointer Sisters. Anita Pointer is a friend as well. AND, Jason Sellards, lead singer and song writer of Scissor Sisters will come on stage to warm up with me to their song “Comfortably Numb.” He’s becoming a friend. As another friend, Peggy Siegel, just emailed me to say “All that fun and music…The event sounds like Woodstock without the drugs and the rain.” In the words of Sarah Palin, “You betcha!”

It was fun doing Larry again. I’ve known him so long (don’t forget he worked for my ex husband for years—CNN founder Ted Turner and visited us on Ted’s ranches many times.)

I got back to Richard’s in time to watch horn player, Lee Thornburg, laying down a new track on a song “I’ve got The World on a String” that Rod Stewart sings on the album that he and Richard are working on. I walked into the “pub” where Richard does his recording in time to hear Lee ask Richard if he should “ Play the root on the bone” and I knew I was in unfamiliar territory, a new world with its own language. I like being brought into new worlds. Rod was here when I left to do Larry’s show…looking superb, I have to say. And the album is amazing.

Lee Thornburg with engineer Jeff Phurrough behind him in Richard's "pub."

So that’s that. Tomorrow is the day for the grandkids. I have so missed them.

See You Next Time…

Pink Jersey

My on-line store is finally up. I’m selling these t-shirts, totes and clutches to benefit my non-profit, The Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention. I see it as a way to turn what was an awful incident (I was unjustly accused of drug smuggling and put in jail as a way for the Nixon administration to slander me) into a beneficial one.

So—I had breakfast in Atlanta in the beginning of January with my friend, Matt Arnett. Matt really wanted me to meet a friend of his whose kids go to the same school as my grandchildren because he thought this tech-savy friend might be able to help my Georgia-based Non-profit, The Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention improve its website. (More about that another time). Actually, we never even got around to G-CAPP because I got so inspired to start my own blog. Matt, James (that’s his name—James Andrews) and James’s wife Sherrelle Kirkland-Andrews, pointed out to me that there’s such malarkey floating around the net about me. Why not begin to tell my own story, my thoughts, and activities (past, present and future) rather than letting others—sometimes hostile others—try to put out their own spin on me. That’s part of it. But the idea also occurred to me that I was about to launch into a new adventure in this third act of mine and that it might be interesting to bring people along with me.

The adventure is that I am returning to Broadway for the first time in 45 years. Why not try, with this blog, to convey what it’s like… day by day…the excitement, scariness, the highs and lows.

So, although I’ve just gone online today, I have, in fact, been blogging for three weeks now and you can follow all the posts from the beginning by clicking here.

Today, during lunch break, I took my dog, Tulea, for a walk and it really hit me how much I miss my dad. When he returned from his stint in the Navy after WWII he went straight to Broadway to star in “Mr. Roberts.” He played that role every day for four years, never missing a performance! It was not customary in those days—the 40s and 50s—for movie stars to go back and forth from Hollywood to Broadway. But theatre was Dad’s great love. My brother and I grew up knowing and respecting this about him. He loved the immediacy of playing before a live audience. The instant feedback. He was meticulous, always doing exactly the same things, the same moves, the same inflections, every night. I have heard this from so many of his fellow actors.

Now that I am doing theater again after a huge absence, I can’t help but wish he was still here with me–to see. Not that he would give me advice. That wasn’t his style. But I wish he knew that I’ve come back to his place of love.

There have been days during these weeks of rehearsals when I seem incapable of doing the same thing over and over…even twice, never mind for 4 years! I wonder how he was able to do it. I want to please him…still. Do we ever get over this need to please the parent we were closest to?

* * * * * * * *

Moises Kaufman, the writer and director, has us doing run throughs more frequently now and it helps so much to experience the sweep of the play. We begin tech rehearsals in the actual theatre—the Eugene O’Neill–next week (gulp!) so we are starting to fine tune and lock in the blocking.

I love watching the other actors in their scenes. So funny, so touching, so outrageous! I like how we are melding together as a unit, all watching out for each other. Colin (Hanks) has had a cold for several days and last night he had to fly to Las Vegas to perform a scene he did with the actors in the TV series “Mad Men.” We’re all worried about him and he left with all of us bombarding him with special remedies for stopping colds.

I couldn’t resist taking this picture of Don Amendolia who plays Diabelli, the music publisher whose small waltz is the inspiration for Beethoven’s great opus, 33 Variations. That’s him behind the paper, sleeping with Tulea during a break.

Susan Kellerman, who plays the librarian in charge of the Beethoven archive, is insisting that I grant them all visiting rights with Tulea when the play is over. “Over”! What a concept.

Tomorrow I have an early costume fitting so I’m off to bed.

See you next time.