Cinema Retro columnist Tom Lisanti has paired with actress Gail Gerber to write her fascinating autobiography that details her experiences in Hollywood as a young starlet in the 1960s as well as her career as a writer and Terry Southern's longtime companion. The book, Trippin' With Terry Southern, is due out in June. Here is an excerpt:
Hollywood,
summer of 1964. I had been living in California
for almost a year now and still felt like a fish out of water. Growing up in Canada where I studied ballet
from the time I was a small child, Los Angeles was mystifying to me with its
palm trees, bright sunlight forever contrasting with the deep shade, and its
superficial inhabitants. But I readily
admit I was sort of a snob myself and didn’t know much about the actors or
directors I came in contact with. Petite blondes like Sandra Dee were the
reigning young actresses of the time but I couldn’t tell a Sandra Dee from a
Tuesday Weld from a Connie Stevens. They
were all one big yellow-haired blur to me.Â
And forget about pop music—the minute The Beach Boys or Connie Francis
would come on the radio I’d reach for the dial in a mad rush so as not to hear
their insipid songs. The dance and jazz
worlds were where my interests and background lay.Â
Arriving
in town with my unwarranted bias and without knowing a soul, I had done pretty
well for myself, or so I thought, in a short period of time. I had a leading role in a play, two featured
movie roles albeit in teenage B-movies, and had done a few guest TV shots. I knew it wasn’t solely my acting talent that
was landing me roles. I was a pretty
blonde with a shapely figure that looked good in a bikini and wasn’t afraid to
show it off, which helped me tremendously.Â
It didn’t bother me in the bit, unlike actresses who I regularly came in
contact with, that wanted to be known for their talent rather than their looks.
In
August 1964 I found myself back on the MGM lot, after working there previously
in the Elvis Presley musical Girl Happy,
auditioning for a cameo role as an airport information girl in a big major
production. I was very excited. The movie was The Loved One based on the novel by Evelyn Waugh and directed by
Tony Richardson who was the hot
director at this time. Part of that
British “New Wave†of directors in the late Fifties, Richardson directed such
well-received movies as Look Back in
Anger (1958), A Taste of Honey
(1961), The Loneliness of the Long
Distance Runner (1962) and the hit bawdy comedy Tom Jones (1963). The Loved One was his second U.S.
production.
I
interviewed with associate producer Neil Hartley, the boyfriend of Richardson
who was bi-sexual though married to actress Vanessa Redgrave since 1962. Folks in Hollywood used to joke that Tony
only wed Vanessa because he could fit into her clothes. It seemed that every aspiring young actress
auditioned for the part but they gave it to platinum blonde bombshell Jayne
Mansfield whose career was on the down slope.Â
This didn’t help as her scene was left on the cutting room floor and
didn’t make it into the final print. As
a sort of consolation for not getting that role, I was hired to appear as one
of the decorative background cosmeticians working at the funeral parlor with
the film’s leading lady, Anjanette Comer. Little did I know that this would forever
change my life.
The Loved One
starred Robert Morse, who looked adorable with his shaggy Beatles haircut, as
the young British poet named Dennis Barlow newly arrived in Hollywood to visit his
upper crust uncle (John Gielgud) who shortly thereafter commits suicide when he
is unceremoniously fired from the movie studio he has worked at for over thirty
years. Barlow then is given the
responsibility of the burial arrangements and is led by his uncle’s pompous
friend (Robert Morley) to the ornate Whispering Glades funeral parlor foundered
by the Blessed Reverned Glenworthy (Jonanthan Winters). He falls in love with one of the cosmeticians
named Aimee Thanatogenos (Comer) a strange girl who fantasizes about death and
lives in a condemned house on stilts in the Hollywood Hills. But their blossoming romance is complicated
by head embalmer Mr. Joyboy (Rod Steiger), a rival for the charms of Miss
Thanatogenous and Barlow’s humiliating job at a pet cemetery, which he tries to
keep a secret. When all the men in Aimee’s life let her down—Barlow’s
occupation is revealed, Joyboy deserts her, Glenworthy proves to be a lecherous
phony, and the Guru Brahmin (Lionel Stander), whom she writes to for advice
turns out to be a drunkard—she commits suicide by embalming herself.
A
number of actors make cameo appearances including James Coburn as a customs
inspector, Tab Hunter as a tour guide, Roddy McDowall as a movie studio
executive, Liberace as a coffin salesman, and most hilariously Milton Berle and
Margaret Leighton as a battling Beverly Hills couple whose dog has died.
My
scenes were set at Whispering Glades Funeral Parlor, which took weeks to shoot,
and were filmed on location in the extensive gardens and interiors of a lavish
estate called Greystone located on Sunset Boulevard. It was the former residence of
multimillionaire Edward Laurence Doheny II.Â
I worked mainly with Anjanette Comer, Rod Steiger, and Pamela
Curran. Anjanette never spoke to me or
any of the other girls playing small roles.Â
Since she had the leading role, I think she thought we were beneath her
and not worth her time. She was also busy learning her lines.
I
remember hanging around doing nothing my first day on the set. On the second day it seemed it was going to
be a repeat of the day before. I was
sitting around earning more money than I ever did as a ballet dancer so I
really couldn’t complain. There was a
whole bunch of us getting paid just to show up.Â
I was all decked out in the same costume as Anjanette, a tight
form-fitting white dress with a matching veil, but with absolutely nothing to
do but to just sit there and wait in the hot August sun. I spotted a nice shady chair in a quiet spot
and made a beeline for it, thinking I could pass the time over there.  A crew guy saw my lightning move and said,
“That one’s a dancer.â€Â Terry Southern overheard
and saw me. He came over and introduced
himself as the film’s screenwriter. He
was very slim at this time and was wearing his trademark dark sunglasses with a
cup of coffee in one hand and his script in the other. I thought, “Oh, great. Another old guy is
hitting on me.â€Â
Amy Adams follows her Oscar-nominated performance in Doubt with the starring role in Sunshine Cleaning.
“There
is dignity in all work.†True enough, whoever penned that famous phrase, even
if he never had to meet Perez Hilton. What would make an interesting addendum,
though, is that finding that dignity
is a story worth telling. Example: Whatever happened to the former high school
cheerleading captain who dated the quarterback? You remember Rose? She’s now a
single mom working as a housecleaner and having an affair with a married cop.
So
is the jumping-off point for Sunshine Cleaning,
a new dramatic comedy starring Amy Adams (Doubt,
Junebug) as Rose Lorkowski and Emily
Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada) as her
sister Norah.
Rose
tells herself the maid work is just a transitional phase while she gets her
real estate license. Norah is still living at home with their father, Joe (Alan
Arkin), a salesman with a long history of ill-fated get-rich schemes.
Desperate
to get her troubled son into a better school, Rose persuades Norah to partner
with her in the more lucrative niche market of crime scene clean-up. After
passing the gag-test initiation rite of their first rookie job (a finger shot
off in a domestic dispute case) the sisters find themselves elbow-deep in the
gory aftermath of suicides, murders and other forensic horror-scenes.
Naming
her new business Sunshine Cleaning and tackling it with the same, cheery zeal
as her former cheerleader self, Rose quickly learns the rules and ropes of her
unlikely new market. (For instance, there are products out there specially
formulated for cleaning up a “decomp.â€) Norah dutifully labors alongside her
sister, not exactly grateful for the new job, but not exactly complaining
either.
While
the sisters realize a reparative bond is forming between them, they also
realize that they are approaching this traditionally macho,
are-you-tough-enough job in a radical new way: as women. Screenwriter Megan
Holley (in her first produced screenplay) drives the point home in one touching
scene in which the sisters are called to the home of an elderly woman whose
husband has just committed suicide. Rose, sensing the newly widowed woman’s
shock and confusion, sits with her on her front porch, silently holding her
hand. She won’t allow herself to cry, even as the widow allows herself finally
to break down.
Rose’s
odd new life is building to a personal epiphany, and when it comes, it occurs
in the one place she had hoped to redeem herself on the most superficial of
levels – at a baby shower attended by her former high school classmates. It’s
one of the film’s best scenes, and also shows off the impressive depth of
understanding Amy Adams brings to her roles.
“I
also really could identify with wanting to be more than you are,†said Adams of her role, “in a different place that you were
born into, to sort of elevate your status in the world. That’s something I
think a lot of people identify with.â€
Set
in the arid, chain store landscape of Albuquerque,
(although the screenwriter originally placed the story in Baltimore), director Christine Jeffs makes
the most of the Southwestern city’s locations, aided by cinematographer John
Toon.
Aside
from a few too many nakedly sentimental subplots cued with emotive, acoustic
guitar (a tiresome indie convention) which, if cut, might have kept the story
leaner and more on its true, emotional track, Sunshine Cleaning is a welcome take on a real, “purpose-driven
life.â€
Sunshine Cleaning opens in theaters
on March 27th.