A Little Bit Wicked (19 page)

New Year’s Eve, sold-out house in San Francisco. I’m standing in front of Symphony Hall at about ten minutes before eight when a well-dressed couple step up to me. The man says, “We’re big fans of yours.” I assume they think I’m somebody else but thank them for the compliment anyway. Then the woman asks, “What’s it like seeing your girlfriend perform live?”—which is when I realized that I hadn’t. I’d watched tapes of the
Kristin
series, I’d seen her in the PBS production of
Candide
and of course
The Music Man,
but I still hadn’t seen her perform live. I went inside and sat down in my seat.

On the first day of the first week of Playwriting 101 we learn what that’s called: the Fatal Error. Because by the end of the concert I knew two things that I didn’t know two hours earlier: (1) I’d never been in love before, and (2) I was now.

Kris’s manager, the hilarious Dannielle Thomas, came to my seat at the end of the third and final encore and took me back to Kristin’s dressing room, which was stuffed with dozens of vases of flowers from friends, fam
ily, agents, and fans. (Somewhere in there were the ones I’d sent.) I saw her and took her to a quieter corner of the room. When I put my hand on her arm, I saw that it was shaking a little. (My hand, not her arm—she was fine.)

I said, “Kristin, that was unbelievable. There’s nobody like you. I’m so proud of you.”

It came out sounding like this: “Grrrglplelmphfranglerhmphhh…God.” Pause. “I mean it.”

I was in trouble deep now because I needed to make her fall in love with me, and just being me wasn’t going to do the trick. Most guys need to show off for the girls they like, and certainly when, like me, they have an ego the size of Butte, Montana. It’s not likely I’m going to score the winning touchdown in the Fiesta Bowl, land an F-16 on the deck of the
USS Nimitz,
or perform a miracle. But I’m an above-average writer, so my only hope was to be able to write something that would do to her what she’d just done to me.

I’d made my Broadway playwriting debut at twenty-eight with
A Few Good Men,
which was a hit, and I’d followed that six months later with an off-Broadway flop and I hadn’t written a new play since. But I had an idea for a new one. The true story of a kind of epic battle that took place between Philo Farnsworth, who invented television, and David Sarnoff, who was the young president of RCA at the time. (Note to the men: if you want to really turn a girl’s head, write a play about U.S. patent law in the 1930s.) It took two years to research and write the play, and after a brief, scaled-down workshop production at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, commercial producers were attached for a move to New York. The Broadway production would be capitalized at $4 million. The most expensive pickup line in history.

Kristin and I have had our ups and downs, and while the ups more than make up for them, the downs have been sad. We’d broken up by the time
The Farnsworth Invention
opened on Broadway in the fall of 2007.

And I have no idea if we’ll be together or not on the day this book is published. But for certain I know I’ll always love her, I’ll always miss her if she’s not there, and I’ll always be trying to show off for her.

Is it too late for me to take up ski jumping?

Aaron Sorkin
June 11, 2008
Los Angeles

I
t irks the daylights out of me when I see it printed or blogged in a “romantically linked with Hungadunga Hungadunga” sort of way that Aaron dumped me because I went on
The 700 Club
. As if he’s really that sanctimonious, and I’m really that…dumpable. (I mean, really, what man in his right mind dumps a woman with a singing, weather-predicting hoo hoo? What else am I supposed to do, dispense Gummi Bears?) The notion persists because during an “on-again” period, Aaron was developing his show
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
and asked if it would be all right with me if he borrowed certain elements from my life, including my
700 Club
debacle (which I’ll get to in a moment) and other events surrounding the release of my second album with Sony Classical. Some time had passed. The welts had settled to a sting. So I said, “Go for it.”

Aaron was on fire for this show, which everyone (including him)
assumed would be a hit. He’d get up at night and pace and make notes, then lie down next to me again, coiled like a spring, trying not to wake me but fairly vibrating with creative energy as lines and ideas struck him like a tuning fork.

“I spent a lot of time and big chunks of my flesh on
Studio 60,
” he says now, and he’s raw about it, wound tight the moment it comes up in conversation. If someone calls it
Studio 60 on Sunset Strip,
he stolidly reminds them, “There’s a
the
in there. It’s
Studio 60 on
the
Sunset Strip
.” That’s how much he cared—still cares—about each word down to the smallest article. In any artistic endeavor, it’s personal. You put yourself out there in a big way. Some bigger than others.

Studio 60
was a backstage drama about a
Saturday Night Live
–type comedy-sketch show. The protagonist is the show’s embattled head writer, Matt Albie, who is still in love with his former girlfriend Harriet Hayes, one of the stars of the show within the show. Harriet is that rarest of mermaids, a devout, dyed-in-the-wool, “gimme that old-time religion” Christian in Hollywood. There’s a big difference between “based on” and “inspired by,” but Harriet’s life does borrow heavily on the details of mine in many of the same big and small ways that the Kristin Yancey character did. There’s no Hum Dum Ditty, but Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, is in there. (I guess it has that says-it-all quality without being quite as blatantly South-sploitative as “Marry Your Cousin, Arkansas” or “Squeal Like a Pig, Kentucky.”) There’s pageant stuff, a baseball-player beau, a scantily clad photo shoot, theatre things, and I don’t remember what all.

Harriet is a great character, but Aaron is quick to remind people (and I’m just as quick to agree), she’s not me.

Like Harriet, I’m comfortable saying, “I don’t know.” In fact, I’m keeping a list of “Questions for God When I Meet Him” (a list that gained a few inches after I was on the
700 Club
). I don’t recall being pinned with a Junior Deputy Jesus badge that authorizes me to police what others do in this life or the next; Harriet is likewise unwilling to judge. But unlike Harriet, I’m not on the fence about certain old-
school fundamentalist beliefs. I do not believe that Jews automatically go to hell or that being gay is a sin. I’m not a strict constructionist where the Bible is concerned. It’s like my grandma used to say: “I eat the fish without choking on the bones.”

Harriet is far more serious than I am, more of an intellectual, less of a happy-go-plucky, hey-darlin’ power shopper.

Once when Aaron and I were bantering back and forth, he made some unanswerable point, and I said, “Honey, I’m so tired of debating. Either accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior, make me laugh, or get the f#%k out.”

It feels like a soaring personal victory to crack up someone as smart and funny as Aaron Sorkin, and that cracked him up big-time, probably because it’s pretty rare for me to drop an F-bomb. (I keep it on reserve to maximize effect.)

In the show, one of Harriet’s castmates needles her about praying before the show, and she says, “You know what, Rook? When you start making a contribution to this show, you can talk to me any way you want, but you had two lines tonight, and you stepped on one of ’em, so until you either accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior or make somebody laugh, why don’t you talk to somebody else?”

Obviously, the line had to be work-safe and Sanitized for Your Protection, but the flippant spirit of what I said got buried in scathing…osity…ness. I don’t do much scathing. Not a big scather. So that line pretty well illustrates the Kristin-to-Harriet correlation. As righteously tight-lipped as she needs to be for dramatic effect, she’s grown staunch and a bit angry after years of being constantly challenged about her beliefs while she is consistently respectful of the beliefs of others. Good scripts are all about conflict, and Harriet’s got the spirit and vocabulary for effective smack-down. I, on the other hand, enjoy a good fight about as much as I enjoy a good intestinal parasite. Jesus told us to extend our peace to others, and if they don’t accept it, to keep that peace within ourselves. I try to do that.

Sarah Paulson, the actress cast in the role, is a knockout and ter
rifically talented, but Harriet was supposed to be a big Broadway musical star with a concert and recording career, and Sarah doesn’t really sing. (I love that she knows this about herself and celebrates her other gifts, which are formidable and include the uncanny ability to whinny like a dolphin.) Her wit is dry and sly, while mine is
Animal Crackers
and sight gags.

Aaron and his producing partner, Tommy Schlamme, originally thought about casting me in the role of Harriet, but understandably they had concerns about how that was going to work personally, professionally, and creatively. Meanwhile, I wasn’t crazy about the idea of being the boss’s girlfriend. That doesn’t even play well on a sitcom. I said I’d have to think about it. A week or so later, we were lying in bed reading, and Aaron said, “Just to let you know—we’ve moved on.”

I looked up from the script I was studying. “What?”

“Since you rejected the idea of playing Harriet. We moved on.”

“I didn’t reject it, Aaron. You guys never made me an actual offer.”

“Kris, there’s nobody I’d rather have in that role. You’d be funny and terrific, and I would love spending long days and nights in the trenches with you, but it needed a conversation before we could offer—”

“I was supposed to come in and sell myself to you and Tommy?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Aaron, I’m not going to
audition
to play
myself
on TV.”

“I wasn’t asking you to audition
or
to play yourself! I just wanted to talk about how this was going to work.”

“Well, either way, it’s good that you’ve moved on.”

“Well…we did,” he said, his nose back in some obnoxiously thick book.

“Good.” I returned to my script. “Keep on movin’, pal.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You said something.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, I believe you did.”

Cue the word-tornado.

We broke up again a short time later, but not over that. It’s just this dance we do. Aaron did what he always does when I break up with him: he got me back. And I did what I always do when he gets me back: I broke up with him again. Once I broke up with him twice in less than twenty-four hours. Seriously. I broke up with him because I thought he lied to me about something, but then I discovered I was mistaken, so I called him to deactivate the breakup and apologize for wrongly accusing him. But he wasn’t as gracious about it as I thought he should be, so I stewed on that for a while, called him back, and said we were through.

(Oh, shut up. Ya think I don’t know?)

We’re like the
Green Eggs and Ham
of breakers-up: in a box. With a fox. On a train. In the rain. Down at Mel’s. On our cells. Over a martini. In a Lamborghini. But never once did
The 700 Club
have beans to do with it. The real issues of our relationship are private. He didn’t write about them on that show, and I’m not writing about them here. Suffice it to say that Aaron and I don’t struggle over TV; we have far more important things to be petty and vicious about. On
Studio 60,
however, the Matt character does dump the Harriet character, directly or indirectly, because he finds her appearance on a right-wing Christian television show unconscionable.

“It was three minutes,” Aaron said in dismay. “Three minutes out of twenty-two hours of television.”

But because we live in Sound Bite Nation, celebrity gossip scroungers drew their own conclusions, and the story stuck to the soles of our shoes like a wad of Super Bubble.

We were “off-again” by the time the first episode of
Studio 60
was aired, which made me horribly sad because it left him alone as the
show foundered and sank, and while most ill-fated shows are allowed to slip quietly beneath the surface—well, this was the great Aaron Sorkin. It’s like Jesus said in the Gospel of Luke, “From the one to whom much has been given, much more will be required.”
Studio 60
wasn’t initially a flop, but Aaron was supposed to deliver another
West Wing
. When that didn’t happen, the
not!
vortex opened up, and bloggers swarmed like bandicoots. As detractors descended, the fun factor evaporated, and the lifeblood drained from the creative heart of the show.
Studio 60
was canceled after a single season, and Aaron took a horse-whipping. It broke my heart that I wasn’t there to hold his hand, the way he’d held mine when I took my horse-whipping over
The 700 Club
.

My first album for Sony Classical was
Let Yourself Go,
a collection of Broadway show tunes with the Coffee Club Orchestra. Best band in town, for my money, honey. Peter Gelb was running the record label at the time, and producer Paul Cremo brought me in and hooked up the six-record deal. (I called them the disciples of music, St. Peter and St. Paul.) Rob Fisher, whom I knew from City Center Encores! was brought in to conduct because he knows my voice so well. We wanted some original material that stayed in that 1930s vibe, so Dick Scanlon and Jeanine Tesori wrote “The Girl in 14G”, which riffs on a real-life experience from my first New York apartment. A guy who played cello lived directly below me, and a warbling soprano was directly above. When we all practiced, we’d bang on the ceiling or floor, trying to get the others to shut up. “I’ll Tell the Man in the Street” was my homage to Barbra Streisand. Of course, I had to do “My Funny Valentine” for Ms. Birdwell. Kurt Weill’s wordy “I’m a Stranger Here Myself” brought a tasty little acting challenge. Jason Alexander, whom I knew from when he and Marc Kudisch did
Bye Bye Birdie
, joined me on “Hangin’ Around with You.” The last song we recorded was Gershwin’s “On a Turquoise Cloud.” Incredibly hard, long,
high,
and re
quires a squinch more finesse than I was able to summon at the end of a grueling four-day recording blitz. So it’s not perfect. But it’s close. The whole project was a joy from start to finish.

When it came time to do the second album, I wanted to draw from the music that started me singing. Sandi Patty, Amy Grant, a few traditional spiritual songs, and some all-purpose feel-good numbers that weren’t Christian or “inspirational” per se but expressed my goodwill toward the weary world in an inclusive, Miss Congeniality, I’d-like-to-buy-the-world-a-Coke sort of way. The furthest thing from my mind was to stir up any sort of controversy. Saints Peter and Paul were not entirely on board with this idea, but I felt strongly about responding to the strife and war in the world with this gesture of peace and hope.

The CD was a joy to plan and record; every song was filled with love, including the funny little bonus track, “Taylor, the Latte Boy.” I dedicated the first song, “It Will Be Me,” to my dear pals Denny Downs and Erin Dilly. “There Will Never Be Another” is my shout-out to Amy Grant, who inspired me so. “Upon This Rock” is a kick-butt, uplifting Gaither number. “Poor, Wayfaring Stranger” took me all the way back to my grandma’s lap. And “Abide in Me” eloquently states what faith—for me—is all about:
If you abide in me, then I’ll abide in you, my words in your heart. Child, believe that when you seek my face and make me your first love, then all the rest will be taken care of.

I thought I’d seen the worst of what any promotional junket could throw at me when I was doing the rounds promoting my TV show. I found myself on
Politically Incorrect
with Bill Maher, mired in a series of tortured topics: Charlton Heston–caliber gun control, the use of
Vogue
fashion models to illustrate a book of Bible stories, and whether Andrea Yates—the tragically mentally ill mother who drowned her children—should be put to death. I was the token Christian on the panel. The other guests were a model, a Texas senator, and a stand-up comic who was about as hilarious as that
Dr. G
episode about inexpli
cable itching. Thinking back on it, I’m reminded of a great line Aaron later gave to Christine Lahti in
Studio 60:
“It’s like seasickness. You think you’re going to die. Everyone else just thinks it’s funny.”

The promotional junket for the CD included all the usual suspects—Letterman, Leno, the daytime talkers. That’s all good. But the PR genius’s pièce de résistance was booking me to appear on
The 700 Club
. I wasn’t familiar with the show (no handheld coroner-cam), but I was told that these were my people: folks who love music and love the Lord.

“Kris, don’t do it,” Aaron told me. “That is a bad idea.”

“Don’t be silly.” I waved him off. “It’s a nice Christian show. They won’t be mean.”

“No, but—have you ever seen
The 700 Club
?”

“No,” I said. “Have you?”

“No.”

“Well, then you’re hardly qualified to tell me what to think about it.”