Part 7 (1/2)

I indulged in regular therapeutic ma.s.sage to help cope with the stress of the shooting schedule, during which I could feel body and soul coming back together. One day my ma.s.seuse opened her big canvas bag and pulled out a tape called Woman's Spirit Woman's Spirit, a guided meditation with one's female ancestors. Lying on the backseat of my limousine on the way to the studio, I would listen to the tape and imagine myself in a field, holding my mother's hand, who was holding her mother's hand, who was holding her mother's and going back to a time of safety and peace. I was searching for a spiritual anchor, I needed to make G.o.d a holy and forgiving mother.

Despite ma.s.sage, I developed debilitating headaches and a back stiff enough to build condominiums. A friend recommended a chiropractor who was known to make house calls and ”set calls” for actors. When Bruce Oppenheim came to treat me during a late shoot, it was close to midnight and there was hardly room for his table in my trailer. I'd never had chiropractic work, but he had such strong hands and worked so quickly that I didn't have time to get nervous. The disappearance of my headaches made me an instant believer, and his twisted sense of humor made me laugh. I started having ”adjustments” about once a month, and with my skewed sense of boundaries, it didn't seem to matter if I was dating a health-care professional who was treating me. He didn't seem to be troubled by it either.

With the first serious money of my life, I bought a house at the end of a cul-de-sac in the Encino hills, framed by two stone lions. I removed the previous owner's expensive bad taste, and replaced it with my own expensive bad taste. Mother always said, ”All your taste is in your mouth, girl.” Behind sliding gla.s.s doors was a pool lined with small gold tiles that made me feel like I was swimming in liquid gold. Bruce brought me tea and melon in bed at the crack of dawn, then biked with me a dozen miles to the studio. Right before we left, I'd have a can of Mountain Dew plus a cup of coffee, so I felt like I had been shot out of a cannon. A teamster would drive me and the bike back at the end of the day, and Bruce often cooked dinner while I spent a little time with my daughter. He let me know that he'd never really considered having children of his own, but his relations.h.i.+p with seven-year-old Clementine was warm and affectionate. We already felt like a family.

Even though I was bone weary, I well knew the lesson about striking while the iron was hot--and I had lived through some cool-iron times--so I spent a springtime hiatus from Moonlighting Moonlighting doing a television remake of doing a television remake of The Long Hot Summer The Long Hot Summer, based on a short story called ”'The Hamlet” by William Faulkner. I wanted to play the role originated by Joanne Woodward but was p.r.o.nounced ”too pretty” (although hardly prettier than Don Johnson, the hot star of Miami Vice, who was playing the Paul Newman role). Such distinctions seemed unfathomable anyway when they gave the part to Judith Ivey, a lovely-looking actress who was deemed more serious, after making her do four screen tests and telling her she wasn't pretty enough. I was cast as the libidinous daughter-in-law originally played by Lee Remick.

The opulent homestead of the fict.i.tious Varner family in ”Frenchman's Bend, Mississippi” was replicated by the Oak Alley Plantation in Thibodaux, Louisiana. It had an unpaved road lined by stately two-hundred-year-old live oaks draped with Spanish moss, leading up to the white-columned mansion. Its several caretaker cabins with screened porches had been converted to guest houses. A high levee with a gravel road on top separated the house and the river, and I walked there every chance I got.

On a job with such a large ensemble cast, there's lots of time to sit around, which means more time to read. One afternoon while waiting on the screen porch of one of the converted caretakers' cabins, the book I chose would have an enormous impact on the direction of my life. It was Outrageous Acts & Everyday Rebellion Outrageous Acts & Everyday Rebellion by Gloria Steinem. Although I had called myself a feminist for fifteen years, I realized I had not committed a single Outrageous Act in any public way to support women's reproductive freedom or any other civil rights issue. It was also around this time I became aware that Congress had disallowed funding for abortions for poor women. Pregnancy as punishment because you're poor? It was one of those big moments in life when you say, ”Hold on a minute missy, that ain't right!” Determined finally to become part of the solution, I called Ms. magazine and asked to speak to Gloria Steinem, the magazine's founder, whom I had met briefly at a party in Manhattan a few years earlier. She took my call immediately and without wasting time. I asked what I could do to help the cause. by Gloria Steinem. Although I had called myself a feminist for fifteen years, I realized I had not committed a single Outrageous Act in any public way to support women's reproductive freedom or any other civil rights issue. It was also around this time I became aware that Congress had disallowed funding for abortions for poor women. Pregnancy as punishment because you're poor? It was one of those big moments in life when you say, ”Hold on a minute missy, that ain't right!” Determined finally to become part of the solution, I called Ms. magazine and asked to speak to Gloria Steinem, the magazine's founder, whom I had met briefly at a party in Manhattan a few years earlier. She took my call immediately and without wasting time. I asked what I could do to help the cause.

There's a political action committee I'm involved with called Voters for Choice, she began. ”They're in need of a strong morally committed spokesperson. Would you consider that?”

”Yes,” I said without hesitation. I was finally on my way toward exorcising the demon of political inaction and apathy that had been brewing since my childhood when I had been surrounded by the racism of the segregated south. But once I started speaking out there was no stopping me. I marched on Was.h.i.+ngton for reproductive freedom and women's equality, I spoke at fund-raisers for pro-choice candidates like Ann Richards (governor of Texas), Barbara Boxer (senator from California), and Bill Clinton (president of the United States of America). I marched again on Was.h.i.+ngton for gay and lesbian rights, I helped dedicate the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, and was called to testify before a House subcommittee on the U.S. approval for RU-486. To this day, I believe that any excuse to discriminate against any group of human beings violates their civil rights. Regardless of their skin color, religion, s.e.x, or s.e.xual preference, all people must be treated equally. To do otherwise is un-American. Because of my advocacy for these basic civil rights, Gloria Allred, my longtime friend and fighter for feminist issues, asked me to seriously consider running for president of the United States in the year 2000.

But let's go back to the fun and games on the set of The Long The Long Hot Hot Summer Summer. Don Johnson and I were aware of an intense attraction the minute we met. When ten journalists arrived for a press junket wanting to photograph the steamy scenes between us, they were astonished to hear that in the four-hour miniseries, there were none. I told the director and the producer, both separately and together, ”You're crazy if you don't write at least one scene for Don and me.” Unfortunately, it was a.s.sumed that I was trying to pad my part. Just because we were forbidden to explore our flirtation on-screen didn't mean we couldn't follow up on it in private. One night, as I relaxed on the screen porch of my little cabin, I heard a man's voice purr, ”Ohhh, Miss Eula” (my character's name).

I responded, ”Why, Mr. Ben Quick” (Don's character's name). ”What are you doing here?”

”I'd just like to pay my respects, ma'am.”

I opened the screen door a wedge. ''Why don't you come on in and sit a spell.”

We lasted a nanosecond on the porch and then rapidly progressed to my bed. It was like wolfing down a candy bar when you're starving--fast, furious, intense--and it was all over in five minutes. Somehow we never got around to another five minutes, since ”Mr. Quick” moved on to one of the hairdressers, who thereafter acted as if I had bad breath.

The gracious and genial Jason Robards, who was playing the family patriarch, was well loved by the crew, but Don was not a favorite. He told too many of them too often how they could do their jobs better. A palpable tension seemed to arise when he walked on the set and disappeared when he left. Everyone was in awe of Ava Gardner, who was playing the mistress of the domineering Will Varner. We hadn't done our one scene together yet and n.o.body, had bothered to introduce us. One night while we were shooting out in the middle of a swamp, the air-conditioning in my tiny trailer kept breaking down, and I decided to walk over to her trailer to say hi and introduce myself, I had just raised my hand to knock when the door flew open and slammed against the side of her trailer. Fortunately, I had leaped back into the darkness in the nick of time. I froze and watched, unseen in the shadows. Her hair was in rollers, and she was swaying, holding a bottle of white wine by the neck. Suddenly, she began screaming, ”JASONNNNNNNNN!” I hightailed it out of there, but later that five mithe crew was setting up the dramatic fire finale and we were taking our places, I dared to approach her again.

”Ms. Gardner, I am thrilled to be working with you.” It took her a while to focus on me. Then she belched out a slurpy, ”SHADDDUPP!”

The next day around the motel pool, she seemed alert and agreeable, throwing her glorious neck back with a rich and l.u.s.tful laugh I. took one more risk. ”Ms. Gardner,” I said, extending a tentative handshake, ”I'm Cybill Shepherd.”

”Oh, h.e.l.lo!” She beamed, flas.h.i.+ng that profoundly s.e.xy Ava Gardner smile. ”It's so nice to meet you.” The previous night had never happened.

Almost immediately I could tell that The Long Hot Summer The Long Hot Summer was going to be a stinker. In one scene I actually begged not to have a close-up, and they agreed. The miniseries was so bad it was appropriately dismissed as ”irredeemable, paltry and barren” by the was going to be a stinker. In one scene I actually begged not to have a close-up, and they agreed. The miniseries was so bad it was appropriately dismissed as ”irredeemable, paltry and barren” by the Was.h.i.+ngton Post Was.h.i.+ngton Post TV critic Tom Shales, who noted of my performance, ”She seems playfully aware that the movie is garbage.” It was shown on CBS opposite TV critic Tom Shales, who noted of my performance, ”She seems playfully aware that the movie is garbage.” It was shown on CBS opposite Moonlighting Moonlighting. Moonlighting Moonlighting won the time slot. won the time slot.

IN JANUARY 1987 I WAS GETTING DRESSED FOR THE Golden Globe Awards, and my dress didn't fit. There was no mistaking the reason. The stomach pooches out more quickly in a second pregnancy because the muscles have been pregnant before. By the time I scheduled a doctor's appointment, a test was a formality--I was so violently nauseated I couldn't eat. Golden Globe Awards, and my dress didn't fit. There was no mistaking the reason. The stomach pooches out more quickly in a second pregnancy because the muscles have been pregnant before. By the time I scheduled a doctor's appointment, a test was a formality--I was so violently nauseated I couldn't eat.

When the obstetrician got the results back from the lab, she called me. ”Either you're further along in your pregnancy than you thought,” she said, ”or you're having twins.”

I dismissed this possibility, even though my grandmother's sister and their grandmother had had twins.

It was recommended that I see a specialist for an early ultrasound. Two hours before the time of my appointment I was supposed to drink eight gla.s.ses of water (a full bladder lifts the uterus into a good position for a sonogram). I forgot and didn't start chugging on a big bottle of water until I was in the car on the way to the appointment, so when the doctor moved the probe over my abdomen, his face registered concern: he saw two amniotic sacs but he could detect only one heartbeat. I tried not to panic as I lay on the table in an ungainly position, pus.h.i.+ng images of dead babies out of my head, while we waited for the water to do its thing. When the doctor came back to make another pa.s.s, his face brightened. A second heart was beating in syncopated rhythm with its sibling.

When I called Bruce at his office, I started with, ”Honey, I want you to sit down.”

”Why?” he said.

”Just do it,” I insisted. ”We're having twins.” There was no response at first, then a slow ”Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-”

”It could be worse,” I interrupted. ”It could be triplets.”

A twin pregnancy is considered high risk for any woman, let alone one closing in on forty, and I had to see three different OB-GYNs before I found one who didn't make me feel doomed, reading me a riot act list of all the horrible things that could happen. I called Peg Burke, one of the midwives who had attended Clementine's birth eight years earlier.

”The rate of cesareans in Southern California is twenty-five percent,” she said sympathetically. ”Lotsa luck.”

”There's got to be one doctor in Los Angeles who'll give me a chance for a natural delivery,” I said. ”Isn't there a nurse-midwife I can call?”

She suggested Nancy Boles, head of the midwifery program at the University of Southern California Medical School. I told her I understood that I needed to have a doctor present, but I wanted the same kind of midwife ntment rt I'd had when my first child was born.

”Yeah, I know,” she said, the voice of resignation, ”even though I've delivered two thousand sets of twins myself.” I asked her to recommended a doctor, and she mentioned Jeffrey Phelan, who had recently published an article about a technique called ”version,” in which the doctor turns the unborn child into the proper position for birth. He had won Nancy's heart when she heard that he made his male medical students get up in the stirrups to see how their female patients felt during a pelvic exam.

People can be really dumb about a twin pregnancy. No woman who's given birth would ever say chirpily, ”That's the way to do it: get it over with all at once.” Dr. Phelan had a more experienced take. ”I wish twin pregnancies on my enemies,” he told me sympathetically, acknowledging the difficulty of dealing with twice the hormones, twice the heartburn, twice the discomfort, twice the nausea, twice the risk. I was not going to be a radiant bride.

I have a photograph of my mother and stepfather, Mondo (they had married eight years earlier), holding a shotgun at my wedding to Bruce, who made a happy adjustment in his thinking about parenthood. A rabbi p.r.o.nounced us man and wife in the shortest ceremony possible that was still legal. My gown was an antique ceremonial silk kimono, cream-colored with gold and orange fans. It was a wedding gift from my friend Kaori Turner (her mother had worn it), who also procured a black kimono for Bruce and a pink one for Clementine. The dining room of our house had been made into a j.a.panese tearoom, with rice-paper walls and tatami flooring. No shoes, which have always seemed a form of bondage to me, and no rings--I've never been big on jewelry.

Helicopters were circling over the house, trying to get a shot of us or celebrity guests. (There were none, just twenty close friends. My father couldn't be in the same room as my mother, my sister didn't want to travel, and my brother and I weren't talking to each other because we had a dispute about money. The photo exclusive went to David Hume Kennerly, who was one of Bruce's friends and had won a Pulitzer for his Vietnam War coverage and had been the White House photographer during the Ford administration. A tiered white cake with a porcelain bride and groom and two baby carriages followed a steak dinner--ironic, since I had been fired as a spokesperson for the Beef Council because a journalist wrote that I was trying to eat less red meat. My mother, who knew me to lick the steak platter before I washed it, had exclaimed. ”Are they crazy?” and threatened to write the council a letter. But my attorney later told me that the real reason was because I was pregnant before I was married, a highly publicized fact.) I was asleep by seven o'clock. The next morning, I reported back to the set, and Bruce went into his office, working underneath an eight-by-ten glossy of me from my days as his patient, inscribed, ”Dear Bruce, I've seldom had such a laying on of hands. Love and thanks, Cybill.”

My pregnancy further widened the chasm between me and the producers, who reacted as if the news was a thoughtless inconvenience. Other television actresses had been allowed to work real-life pregnancies into plotlines and production schedules. When I suggested a similar approach to Glenn Caron, his response was a tepid, ”Well, you don't leave me much choice.” Despite the fact that I developed gestational diabetes and was forbidden to work during my last trimester, I occasionally went to the studio against doctor's orders. But Glenn continued to act as if I were personally, purposefully s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g him over (and would later claim that my pregnancy had destroyed Moonlighting Moonlighting). He attempted to accommodate the situation by having Maddie meet a short, stocky man on a train and marry him three days later. When I strongly voicd my objection that the character we had created in Maddie would never do such a thing, Glenn said words to the effect of ”Just shut up and do your job, you're not producing this show.”

I had doctor appointments every few days to ensure that the twins, whose welfare was compromised by the diabetes, were healthy and developing on schedule.

Eight-year-old Clementine, who had been begging for siblings, announced that she wanted to be present for their arrival. My midwife put together a slide show of some of her other births to prepare Clem for the noises Mommy would make, the presence of blood, and the fact that I would be in pain. After only two slides, Clementine put up her hand and said, ”I don't want to see anymore, Mommy. Just call me when the babies are cleaned up.''

Soon thereafter, she announced, ”I've changed my mind. I've decided I don't really want a brother and sister.”

”Well, what should we do when they're born?” I asked calmly. ”Should we throw them out the window?”

She frowned. ”n.o.body ever asked me about this, you know,” she said.

A few weeks later, she came to me with a proud plan. ”When we get home from the hospital,” she said brightly, ”I'd like to put the babies in the was.h.i.+ng machine.”

”Really, honey?” I asked. ”Why?”

”Because,” she said, ”I'd like to see them go around and around and around.”

By my third trimester, I was so huge I began to resemble Marlon Brando. I could no longer get up off my futon on the floor, so I had a large platform built at the height of a normal bed. I still had to crawl to the edge and then push myself up. One early morning, I was awakened by an earthquake and in terror I stood straight up and jumped off the platform, running to see if Clementine was okay. She was, but my groin was not. I felt like I was walking around carrying two bowling b.a.l.l.s between my legs. Every night I prayed, ”Please G.o.d, let me get over this pain before I go into labor.”

A few weeks before my October due date, Mother and Mondo drove out to California in a motor home. Every night, we'd sit in the yard taking a moon bath, soaking up the beams and watching the waxing crescent get fatter and brighter. The moon affects all bodies of water, I figured, and my babies were floating in their own private pool. On October 6, 1987, the moon went full at 12:03 A.M. My water broke at 12:08. I listened to a tape of Kathleen Battle singing ”Ave Maria” as Mother, Mondo, Bruce, and I drove to the brand-new California Medical Center downtown..

Molly Ariel and Cyrus Zachariah were born thirteen hours later, both named for their great-grandparents but known by their middle names, with a hyphenated Shepherd-Oppenheim. But those thirteen hours were harrowing.

In transit down the birth ca.n.a.l, Ariel had pushed Zach out of the way (a very determined female from the get-go), and he turned sideways. Something, probably his foot, lodged up under my ribs and felt like it was pulling me apart one bone at a time. At this point, I began begging for drugs and screaming, ”Kill me! Kill me! Cut the babies out!” A few moments later, and before any drugs could be given, Ariel was born (five pounds, eleven ounces) followed by Zachariah (seven pounds, two ounces).

My entourage took over almost a whole floor of the hospital-Bruce, Mother, Mondo, Clementine, Myrtle, the midwife, three nurses, and a bodyguard. (I had forgotten to include the doctor's name on a list of people to be allowed admittance, and he had trouble getting in to see me.) I guess this was the most famous I've ever been. There were two photos on the front page of the New York Daily News Daily News, accompanying the headline: ”ROBERT BORK LOSES/CYBILL'S TWINS DOING GREAT.” This was great news all around. Not only were he twins healthy and happy, but the anti-choice Supreme Court nominee had been defeated. The paparazzi had been waiting at the front door of the hospital since before the babies were born, and everyday the guard caught someone who managed to sneak through with a camera. I knew that the best way to get photographers to stop swarming around me was not to try to run from them, but Bruce was afraid of flashes going off in the sensitive eyes of our newborns. We arranged for his brother to leave the hospital with a nurse in a blond wig, holding two Cabbage Patch dolls, while we attempted a more private exit out back. No one was fooled, and Bruce and I almost crashed into a lamppost when one photographer jumped on the hood of our car--a small risk, he probably considered, since photos of the babies were said to fetch up to $100,000.

Going from one to three children felt like going from one to ten; the effort and responsibility involved in parenthood increases exponentially. Before going back to work, I bought a forty-foot motor home, with plenty of room for the twins and their paraphernalia, including Bruce Willis' gift of a teeter-totter and Glenn Caron's two giant pandas. Beloved Myrtle kept insisting that she could handle the nannying single-handedly (she'd had thirteen children herself), but I didn't want to put that much of a burden on her, and finding capable, trustworthy people for child care is the challenge of every working mother. I hired one woman who seemed to have impeccable credentials, only to discover that she kept a bottle of rum in her purse. Another simply disappeared and was apprehended a few weeks later in Scottsdale, Arizona, wandering nude with pictures of Ariel and Zack in her hand, saying she was looking for her babies.