Not Young, Still Restless (7 page)

F
or the most part, life was filled with blessings when the 1960s began. I had three beautiful, healthy children, plenty of adoring help from Auntie Mamie and Aunt Elsie, and a steady stream of work I loved, from more episodic television work to the role of a “hooker with a heart of gold” in a wonderful film called
Let No Man Write My Epitaph
with my old friend Shelley Winters. Harry, in the meantime, was spending a lot of time in Rome, partly to set up an Italian branch of the Jaffe Agency and partly to take care of a client, Dolores Hart, who was there filming
Francis of Assisi
with Bradford Dillman and Stuart Whitman, and directed by the great Michael Curtiz.

I don’t remember which one of us suggested it, but somehow, Harry and I headed off to Rome together, a business trip for him and a much-needed vacation for me. I was looking forward to going to the
Francis of Assisi
set and meeting Dolores Hart, who was a beautiful, young up-and-coming star at the time, but Harry informed me when we arrived that it was a closed set—no visitors allowed. (I know. If it was a closed set, what was Harry doing there? But I didn’t push it.) My friend Ethel Levin was living in Rome at the time, and over lunch one day, when I explained that Harry couldn’t join us because he was on the set with Dolores, she gave me a very intense look and said, “Jeanne, I’m telling you this as someone who cares about you—keep an eye on those two.”

It felt like a punch in the stomach. For one thing, it caught me completely off guard. For another thing, while I can’t claim that the thought of Harry being unfaithful had never entered my mind, I’d never had anyone strongly suggest it to my face before. For still another thing, nothing I’d heard about Dolores Hart implied that she would have anything to do with a married man. I didn’t ask Ethel what prompted that warning. I probably wasn’t ready to hear it from anyone but Harry, if at all. It ate at me, especially in my hours alone in our hotel room while he was “working” and “running late,” but I wasn’t about to confront him about it based on nothing more than a comment from a friend.

The coup de grâce of that trip actually didn’t involve Dolores Hart at all. It involved another of Harry’s clients, a handsome actor named Guy Madison, television’s “Wild Bill Hickok,” who also happened to be the former husband of a stunningly beautiful actress named Gail Russell. Guy was in Rome for some reason or other, and Harry and I met him for drinks one night. We were chatting away, having a perfectly enjoyable time, when Guy mentioned that he was looking forward to a trip to Majorca that weekend.

“Majorca, huh?” Harry piped up. “It’s beautiful there. Jeanne, why don’t you go with him?”

It was awkward, it was embarrassing; Guy and I both stared at him with our jaws hanging open. We knew he wasn’t kidding, and since neither Harry nor I drank in those days, we couldn’t use too much alcohol as an excuse. No, stone-cold sober he had just tried to send his wife away for the weekend with another man—and not just any man, but another man who was also a client, for God’s sake. It disgusted me. It also made me think that my friend Ethel probably knew what she was talking about.

“No, Harry, I won’t be going to Majorca this weekend, but thank you for inviting me on Guy’s behalf.” I turned to Guy and added as I stood up, “Guy, I apologize for this. It was lovely seeing you again. Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .”

I went straight to our suite, packed my bags in record time, headed to the airport before Harry got back to the hotel, and flew to Madrid for the second leg of this alleged “vacation.” He arrived two days later, begging and pleading for me to forgive him and please, please not to leave him over a stupid mistake, just under so much stress, will never happen again, loves me and our children so much, blah, blah.

In the end, we flew home together. I don’t know if this is an explanation or an excuse, but I still had my heart, or head, set on admiring him, despite all evidence to the contrary, and I was more determined to be right about him than I was to do the healthy thing and walk away. Someone put it perfectly once in something I read somewhere: “I think I loved you first and knew you later. I wonder if love is strong enough to overcome dislike.”

It took years for me to find out the whole story, and of course not from him. Nothing sexual had ever gone on between Dolores and Harry, it turns out. He tried his damnedest, but she wouldn’t have anything to do with a married man. He assured her that his marriage was over—he was taking me on this one last trip to Rome, and then as soon as we got home, I was well aware that he’d be filing for divorce. He had to handle things delicately, you see, because of my mental problems. If I became too upset, I might become dangerous, either to myself or to him or to our children. Unfortunately for Harry, Dolores considered “almost divorced” to mean “still married,” so while they spent a great deal of time together and seemed fond of each other, their relationship was purely platonic. And to keep the cast and crew of
Francis of Assisi
from passing stories from the set along to me, Harry told them, “Jeanne is giving up her career for the sake of our children, and she resents all the time and attention my work requires, so please don’t upset her by saying a word about my clients or show business in general.”

Dolores Hart, by the way, made four more films and then, in 1963, at the age of twenty-four, she abandoned both show business and secular life to become a nun. She eventually became prioress of the Benedictine Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut. I like to believe Harry Bernsen inspired her decision—if he was any indication of the men she had to look forward to, she would rather run, not walk, to the nearest convent. It’s not remotely true; I just like to believe it.

T
hrough the 1960s and early 1970s, between my healthy, thriving children and my healthy, thriving career, I was so busy and had so much to be grateful for that I chose to assume my marriage was intact. Harry was adamant that he didn’t want to lose our children and me. It never occurred to me to ask him why.

It’s hard to describe the embarrassment of riches in the world of television back then, decades before “reality” TV convinced network executives that actors and writers are foolish wastes of time and money. I had the good fortune to shoot more than seventy prime-time series episodes and a few feature films, and to work with some of the most fascinating actors in the business. There was the incredibly suave Roger Moore (Beau Maverick of the
Maverick
series), who went on to superstardom in seven James Bond movies. (I loved Sean Connery as much as the next person, but let’s face it, Roger Moore wasn’t exactly chopped liver.) There was the wonderful Richard Boone in
Have Gun—Will Travel
, as brilliant an acting teacher as he was a performer. There was the theatrically trained Robert Vaughn in
The Man from U.N.C.L.E
., whose flawless diction was a joy to these theatrically trained ears. There was
The Boston Strangler
star Tony Curtis, whom I so admired for never letting his extraordinary success give him amnesia about his tough, humble childhood in the Bronx. There was the wildly playful Leslie Nielsen in
Bracken’s World
, who was rarely seen without a homemade “fart machine” hidden in the palm of his hand for those inevitably stressful moments on the set. And there was Jack Lord, the original “Book ’em, Danno” man of
Hawaii Five-0
, thanks to whom I inadvertently came to believe that one of the most fundamental doctrines of show business is nothing but a myth.

Jack and I were doing some publicity shots during an episode of his series
Stoney Burke
that involved the two of us in equestrian outfits playing around on top of barrels used in horse shows. The short version of the story (trust me, the long version isn’t especially interesting) is that I fell off one of the barrels and landed on my elbow. I was in a lot of pain but ignored it as best I could to finish that day’s work. The pain didn’t ease up during the night. I finally went to the doctor for X-rays, and what do you know, my elbow was broken. I walked out of my doctor’s office in a cast, still in quite a bit of pain, and, with the help of some wardrobe adjustments involving long puffy sleeves, made it through whatever it was we were shooting. My performance was commendable, all things considered.

It was that “all things considered” part that bothered me and ended up making me a nonbeliever in the timeworn premise “The show must go on.” Every audience member, whether he’s watching television, a stage play, a concert, or a movie, deserves nothing less than 100 percent for the time, effort, and/or money he’s invested. If a performer isn’t capable of offering 100 percent because of illness, injury, personal problems, or just plain irritability, that performer needs to step aside, temporarily or permanently, or the audience is going to be shortchanged. It’s that simple. “The show must go on”? Not
ever
at the expense of the audience, and that I’ll believe until the day I deliver my last line.

B
y the time the early 1970s rolled around, I realized that the one thing I needed more than anything else in this world was a couple of weeks off, as far away from wardrobe and makeup and as close to my kids and lazy mornings on a beach as I could possibly get.

Isn’t it funny how, even in those hours right before your life changes forever, you rarely if ever see it coming?

Chapter Four

Becoming Young and Restless

I
t was early in 1973 when I headed off for a Hawaiian vacation with the kids, each of whom brought a friend. Me and six teenagers. Okay, maybe I needed to rethink my idea of a vacation.

Harry wasn’t with us. Somehow he could always dash off to Europe or anywhere else in the world on a moment’s notice “to take care of a client,” but he couldn’t seem to make time for family vacations that were planned weeks in advance. It irritated me on principle. When I took a long, hard, honest look at it, though, based on our previous trips together—the glamorous wedding junket in Tijuana, for example, or our thrill-packed days in Rome when he tried to unload me on a client so that he could pursue his potential new girlfriend—I had to admit it was a lot more relaxing without him.

One day there was a message waiting for me at our hotel from a man named John Conboy. I knew he was a producer, I knew I’d auditioned for him before, and I knew he’d been very complimentary about my work in several prime-time projects. What I couldn’t imagine was what would possess him to track me down in Oahu. Rather than return his call, I let my agent fill me in.

It seems that John Conboy and a woman named Patricia Wenig were producing a CBS soap opera called
The Young and the Restless
, and John was convinced I’d be perfect for the role of a new character named Katherine Chancellor, the wealthy, powerful, alcoholic, adulterous pillar of Genoa City, Wisconsin, society. Five days a week, one live-to-tape half-hour show per day. They had a three-year contract ready for me to sign, and they needed an answer ASAP.

I can count on less than one hand the number of times in my life when I’ve found myself speechless. This was one of those times. I may have told my agent I’d call him back. I may have just hung up the phone without saying a word. What I definitely didn’t do was give him an answer, since I didn’t have the first clue what that answer was going to be. Suddenly the only thing I could come up with that sounded like a really good idea was to get out of there and give myself time to think before John Conboy had a chance to call again.

“Okay, kids, pack your bags! We’re going to Maui!” I announced, trying to make it sound like a fun surprise rather than the avoidance tactic it really was. I got a few very brief confused looks in response, but in the end I knew I wouldn’t exactly have to drag a group of teenagers kicking and screaming to Maui.

Nor did I have to drag them kicking and screaming when we fled to Kauai a couple of days later after a few messages from John Conboy at our hotel in Maui. (Some of you may be too young to believe this, let alone remember, but there was a time on this planet when cell phones didn’t exist. And frankly—especially when I’m trying to rehearse or have dinner with the top of someone’s head because they’re too busy texting to pay attention—I often yearn for those days.)

I wasn’t as resistant to this soap opera offer as I was simply torn. It was a huge decision for a lot of reasons.

I’d never seen a soap opera before, including this new half-hour daytime drama called
The Young and the Restless
, and I certainly had nothing against them. In fact, I’d even auditioned for one a few years earlier. It was called
Days of Our Lives
, and I read for the role of Julie Olson Williams. (Apparently I wasn’t right for it. A beautiful young actress named Susan Seaforth was. She and her costar Bill Hayes met on the set, fell in love, and are still happily married to this day. Isn’t it refreshing when things work out exactly the way they’re supposed to?)

Still, five days a week, with no hiatus, playing the same character every single day for three years sounded as if it might get very old very quickly. I’d spent the first twenty years of my career successfully going from one project to another, loving the freedom and variety it allowed me. I wasn’t a “name” as far as the American public was concerned, but I’d established a good reputation among producers, directors, and fellow actors, and I worked virtually nonstop while doing my damnedest to make time for my children. The closest I’d come to a steady, long-term job was the role of Grace Douglas for fifteen episodes of
Bracken’s World
from 1969 to 1970. I loved it, and I loved moving on from it to whatever came next. Locking myself in for three years to a brand-new daytime show whose ratings were teetering somewhere between mediocre and poor . . . ? Would anyone in their right mind consider that a wise career move?

On the other hand, there was a lot to be said for steady income, which any actor will tell you is hard to come by, and while Harry’s successful career as an agent seemed to be balancing out his utterly inept career as a producer, he had an uncanny ability, particularly for a man with no apparent vices, to blow through money as quickly as he could earn it and then turn to me to cover the deficit. I couldn’t imagine where all his money was going and why he was perpetually robbing Peter to pay Paul. Or maybe I could imagine, I just wasn’t ready to. Yet.

And maybe three years of investing in this Katherine Chancellor character, who actually sounded kind of interesting, might be a beautifully timed chance to reevaluate my life: where I’d been, where I was at that point in time, where I wanted to go and with whom, if anyone, besides Corbin, Collin, and Caren, who were the core of my life and my heart. It was finally dawning on me that my marriage wasn’t slowly disintegrating—it was the same marriage it had always been. I was just starting to acknowledge the fact that what it had always been wasn’t good enough. In the back of my mind I’m sure I was already anticipating a life without Harry, and what better way to prepare for that than with a full-time job? Besides, these people were asking for only three years. It wasn’t as if I’d still find myself working there when I was eighty or something.

In the end, it was in our hotel room in Kauai that I picked up the phone when John Conboy called and heard myself say, “When do you need me there?”

My jaw hit the floor when he replied, “Eight o’clock tomorrow morning. You’ll tape your first show the next day.”

I started stammering about logistics, reservations, the organizational challenges of getting myself and six teenagers on a plane on such short notice . . .

“Just pack them up and get to the airport,” he said, cutting me off in mid-hysteria, which, trust me, isn’t easy. “I’ll take care of everything else.”

It wasn’t pretty, but the seven of us caught the midnight flight to L.A. We dropped off the kids’ friends at their respective houses and got home at six
A.M.
I showered, dressed, sprinted to my car, and, propelled by no sleep and an overload of adrenaline, arrived at the CBS artists’ entrance with minutes to spare. Rushed and wild-eyed as I was, I remember to this day that as I stepped through those artists’ entrance doors and headed up the endless hallway to the elevator, I genuinely sensed that something important was happening to me and that my life would never be the same as it was just the day before.

Next thing I knew I was sitting with producers John Conboy and Patricia Wenig, reading with my on-screen husband, Phillip Chancellor II, played by John Considine, who was promptly replaced by Donnelly Rhodes. (I never knew why. My current coworkers won’t believe this, but I didn’t consider it my place to ask at the time.) Any concerns I might have had about finding common ground between me and Katherine Chancellor vanished with my very first monologue, a beautifully crafted explanation from Katherine to Phillip that what she wants—
all
she wants—is someone to love her just for who she is, nothing more, nothing less; someone to be a shoulder not for her to lean on from time to time but for her to
count
on . . . Which is to say that, no matter what soap opera craziness the writers had in store for her, I loved and understood the essence of Katherine Chancellor from the moment I stepped into her designer pumps.

Then it was on to the rehearsal hall, where my new castmates gave me a warm, respectful welcome. And let me tell you, even when they’re not in makeup, there’s nothing like facing a roomful of soap actors. As you look from one face to the next, you quickly realize that all the women are beautiful and all the men are handsome, and for a moment or two, no matter what you’re wearing, you wish you’d worn something else and spent more time on your hair. They were all a blur at first—I do remember a sexy, confident little piece of work named Brenda Dickson (aka Jill Foster Abbott) and the warmly gorgeous face of my future best friend, Julianna McCarthy (aka Liz Foster Brooks, and if you think I didn’t make noise when they killed off her character in 2010, you can guess again). Even our director, Bill Glenn, was a knockout. And there were so many of them. I was just starting to wonder if a three-year contract would give me enough time to memorize all their names when a male voice called out from across the room: “Jeanne! Jeanne Cooper!”

I looked to see William Gray Espy running toward me. (He played Snapper Foster then, before he was replaced by David Hasselhoff.) I was so ecstatic to see a familiar face that I met him halfway across the room, and we hugged for what seemed like about a half hour. We’d worked together and become pals a year before, on a Raquel Welch film called
Kansas City Bomber
, and I’ll always be grateful to him for going out of his way to make “the new kid on the block” feel at home on my first overwhelming day at
Y&R
.

It’s hard for actors who are just entering the soap world today to fathom this, but way back when we had several luxuries that have eroded away over the years as budgets have become more of a priority than creativity. We had several rehearsals before scenes were put on tape, and if something went wrong during a scene we actually reshot it until we got it right. Today, short of knocking over a piece of scenery or falling facedown in the middle of an important line of dialogue, we get one take, like it or not, and then it’s on to the next scene. Sets were beautiful back then, exquisitely decorated and appropriate—houses and apartments had bedrooms and dining rooms, businesspeople had well-appointed offices, and formal events were held in breathtaking ballrooms. The Chancellor living room alone cost $175,000, which was a fortune in 1973. These days, on the rare occasions when you see Katherine’s bedroom, you’ll notice it bears an uncanny resemblance to one of the rooms at the Genoa City Athletic Club with the exception of a few pieces of furniture and a change of drapes. The scrambled eggs we used to be served during breakfast scenes might have been cold by the time we got them, but at least they weren’t the plates of crumbled corn bread we’re given now.

All of which is to say that, from the very beginning, it was the hardest work I’d ever done, and I loved it. I loved the process, even the necessity of spending my evenings memorizing pages and pages of dialogue for the next day. I loved being part of a team of actors, writers, directors, producers, hair and makeup and wardrobe artists, and extraordinary crewmen who were unanimously committed to doing it well and doing it right, and part of a network that supported us. (A widespread rumor had it that our big boss, creator and head writer Bill Bell, whom I hadn’t met yet, wanted to pull
Y&R
off the air due to poor ratings. CBS insisted on sticking with us, urging Bill to give the show time and help it build by bringing in this new Katherine character for added edge and controversy, and God bless them for that.)

And perhaps above all, I loved Katherine Chancellor and spending many hours a week giving life to her. She was flawed, no doubt about it. She was desperately fighting to save her marriage to Phillip Chancellor, whom she’d married on the rebound after her first husband, Gary Reynolds, died. Her marriage to Phillip was strained because of the alcohol and the stableboys she turned to for consolation, and before she knew it Phillip had fallen in love and even conceived a child with her younger, ambitious, and all-too-willing paid companion and manicurist Jill Foster, played by that sexy little force field Brenda Dickson I’d noticed on my first day at work.

Those wacky, zany soaps, huh? Where
do
they get such outlandish storylines?

E
very Valentine’s Day for the past seventeen years, Harry had sent me two dozen long-stemmed red roses with a card that read, “I love you more and more every year.” I might have been more touched by the gesture if red roses had been my favorite flower, or if I hadn’t known it was his secretary, not him, who made all the arrangements with the florist to make sure I felt special on such a special day. But I always went through the motions of acting surprised.

On Valentine’s Day 1974, I didn’t have to act surprised. I genuinely was surprised, to the point of feeling a knot forming in the pit of my stomach, when, instead of the usual red roses, two dozen long-stemmed pink roses arrived, with a card that read, “Thank you for all the wonderful time we spend together.” Needless to say, it didn’t sit right with me, and the knot in my stomach continued to grow as I put the roses in a vase. I had a sinking suspicion that I knew exactly what had happened, but on the off chance it was an innocent mix-up at the florist, I picked up the phone, dialed Harry’s secretary, and told her about the pink roses and card that had just been delivered.

I’m sure if she’d had a minute or two to think about it, she would have covered it beautifully. But since I caught her off guard, she told me all I needed to know without saying a word—she just gasped. I thanked her for her help and hung up, sadder, angrier, and much more shocked than I should have been. I stumbled and seethed my way through the rest of the day and said nothing to Harry. Not yet. I didn’t want to start that conversation until I was confident about what I intended the outcome to be, especially when the outcome was likely to have a huge impact on my children’s and my lives. As it turned out, I didn’t have to wait long for that confidence to hit me right between the eyes.

I was in the rehearsal hall first thing the next morning, so grateful to be in a place that had come to feel like my refuge, a place where I was stimulated and challenged and busy and respected and appreciated and surrounded by friends, a place that had nothing at all to do with Harry. With the rare exception of one of my kids, no one ever called me there, let alone at 7:30
A.M.,
until that day.