Read My Lips (13 page)

We spent a month in Philadelphia followed by a month in Boston before returning to Broadway. We were sold out in both places, a year in advance on Broadway. But despite the buzz, the play had its troubles. Abe Burrows, the director, had adapted the
book himself from Truman Capote’s novella. But David decided he wanted the play to have more grit, so he replaced Abe with playwright Edward Albee, and Abe promptly quit as the director. David then hired Joe Anthony to replace Abe while Edward Albee rewrote the play from start to finish.

In the end
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
was memorable but unfortunately a flop: it closed after four nights of previews, despite an amazing performance from Mary Tyler Moore.

I was not happy in New York, and what I wanted more than anything was to get into films.

Instead, I returned to Los Angeles for more television.
Hawaii Five-O
—shot in Hawaii, gotta love that—and
The Rogues
with the lovely David Niven, whom I adored, as well as Charles Boyer and Gig Young, who became my friend. I guest starred in the pilot for a new show called
Star Trek.
When I arrived on set, I saw Leonard Nimoy. Oh boy, I was crazy about him, after knowing him for years. Bill Shatner was a delight—so casually funny. I didn’t know what the heck was going on on that set, though. It seemed to be just a lot of standing around in awful outfits, waiting for machines to blink. My episode was actually the
second
pilot for the show, which true Trekkies are quick to point out. It was the first that featured Bill and Leonard, and I am still constantly recognized as Dr. Elizabeth Dehner. (If you sneeze on
Star Trek,
Trekkies know who you are.) To this day I happily attend conventions.
Star Trek
: the gift that keeps on giving.

These roles were all nice but not what I wanted. I hoped Stuart was telling the truth. I hoped he really could get me in the movies.

I
ALSO HOPED THAT, NOW THAT
I
WAS HOME IN
LA,
MY LOVE
life would take off.

Friends set me up with writer David Rayfiel, who had recently split from Maureen Stapleton, an actress who would go on to be nominated for four academy awards, winning for her supporting
role in Warren Beatty’s
Reds.
Right away, I thought, that would be wrong, dating someone who had just gotten out of a relationship. My friends warned me that he liked to get up at five and be in bed by nine. I, however, liked to stay up until five and get up at nine. So when he called, I said, “Listen, why don’t you come by around four? That way you can get to bed on time.”

The next day I returned from taking the dog to the vet—running late, as usual—and standing on my porch was this tall, handsome man with a gift in one hand and a jacket slung over his arm. I was dumbstruck. Later, as we talked, he showed me a photo of his home in the Adirondacks, and I felt myself falling fast. It was beautiful, it all seemed so romantic, so picture perfect—but then again, I was only looking at his pictures. When he asked me where I’d like to go to dinner one night, I heard myself mumble, “I’d go anywhere with you.” After he left, I stood in the doorway of my latest apartment, a fourplex. My neighbor walked up and said, “What’s the matter with you? You look like you’re in love.” And indeed I was.

My first proper date with David was breakfast on the beach in Malibu, which back then was a quick half-hour, traffic-free drive from West Hollywood. It was one of those dates that lasted all day: breakfast turned into a walk, then a visit to a market, followed by a picnic lunch on a massive rock high above the ocean, which was fenced off by a chain-link fence. After sneaking past the fencing, David and I climbed up on the rock and laid out our lunch. I looked down over the jagged edge and said, “Boy, I sure wouldn’t want to fall in there.”

Then, as we say in the movies, “cut to” David opening a bottle of wine as a huge wave knocks me over and halfway down the rock. David grabbed my arm with one hand as he held a broken wine bottle in the other. The surf tore off my bathing suit top, and I had blood shooting out of my arm.

David managed to drag me up, and we sat huddled together, trying to stop the bleeding. We went to a drugstore to get a bandage, which David assured me would help close up the wound.
The last thing I remember him saying to me was, “And don’t get it wet.” Two months later I had to go to the doctor to remove the keloid that had formed. I guess I must have gotten it wet.

When David left town, I moved on to other guys, but no one took his place in my mind. I was obsessed. He sent me letters, gifts, and candy—just enough to keep me hoping, to keep me hooked. When he came back to LA, I told him I was seeing someone else, which made him want to see me again.

And so it continued: LA, Adirondacks, absence, gifts. Around and around we went. Dribs and drabs of a relationship, mere breadcrumbs.

One day I decided I’d had enough. We were in love, weren’t we? I spoke to David’s closest friend, actor Walter Matthau. I told him I was crazy about David, but he was always either coming from or going to the Adirondacks, always just out of reach. Walter told me in no uncertain terms: “If you want David, you’ll have to go up and get him.”

So I called David and announced, “I’m coming to see you! Uh, remind me. How do I get there?”

David didn’t take me seriously. “Well, telling you how to get here would be like sending bombs to Vietnam when you don’t believe in the war.”

“Well, I’m coming, anyway,” I said. “I’ll find it myself.”

“Sally,” David said, suddenly serious. “I’ve got someone else here.”

I laughed. “Good, she can make us dinner when I arrive.”

Another woman? Impossible. Our own relationship had been fairly chaste.

I flew to New York. I got on a bus that twisted and turned along rainy country roads and finally ended up at a muddy bus stop. Luckily for me, there was a taxi stand there, and I gave the cabbie David’s address.

When the cab reached the house, I looked down through its streaky taxi window. Sure enough, I saw a woman sitting in David’s living room knitting. Knitting. It was all too much for me.

As I got out of the car, David appeared.

“Kellerman, you are extravagant,” he said, impressed by my grand gesture.

By the way, the woman did cook dinner for us. That night, we all slept in separate beds, and the next morning David drove me back to the bus stop. As he put me on a bus back to New York, he told me that I was part of a very small group of people who he cared about.
Oh boy,
I thought. I’d dragged myself across country on a plane, a bus, and a muddy taxi to be in his “small group”?

David later told me that the knitter, the woman who cooked dinner for us, had taught him how to love. By then I was truly happy for him. I don’t think that, at that time, either one of us knew how. Not really.

I went back to LA with my tail between my legs, longing. I longed to break out of television and into films. I longed for David. I wondered if I’d ever achieve either: success in life or love. All around me people were moving on with their lives. Jack had married Sandra. I would occasionally hang out at their place or we’d go see Luana in a play.

My sister had taken a big step as well. Diana had left her husband, Ian, and was now living with a woman named Gloria. I knew that Diana was struggling with her sexuality, but learned Ian had had affairs as well, with other women. Gloria, a very talented clarinetist and conductor, had met Diana when she began teaching her recorder. My mother had rung me up to fill me in on the situation. I don’t know how much of a shock it was for her and my father. We didn’t really discuss it—that wasn’t my family’s style. But it certainly wasn’t a shock for me.

Diana soon brought Gloria out to my apartment to meet me. Diana seemed so free, so much herself. I couldn’t imagine what it had been like for her to live a lie for so long. That didn’t mean her new life was easy. Quite the contrary.

Sometimes Diana would come over sobbing. What were they going to do about her daughter, Claire? Diana didn’t want Claire shuttling back and forth between Ian’s place in Santa Monica and
Diana and Gloria’s place in Topanga Canyon. Diana thought that would be too confusing for Claire. Besides, it was hard enough for Diana and Gloria to deal with intolerance. Diana certainly didn’t want her daughter to have to grow up with it. She thought it would be best for Claire if only one of them—either Diana or Ian—kept Claire. The other parent would not see her until she turned eighteen. It was soon decided that that person would be Ian.

I didn’t fully understand that decision at the time, but I also recognized that I had never had to deal with the situation of being judged so harshly by society for who you were. It was their choice, and they had made it. I began to feel a much stronger pull toward my niece, though I didn’t know what to do about it beyond visit with her whenever I could and help Ian out in any way possible. I had no idea yet the amazing impact Claire would have on the rest of my life. But that’s how change usually is: it doesn’t announce itself; it doesn’t let you know when you’re witnessing a moment that’s going to affect you forever. You just have to pay attention. Things are changing all around you all the time.

Even my city was changing. I remember being on the Universal set of
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.
The assistant director yelled, “Quiet on the set!” which means not a breath. Not a sound. I waited for action. But that’s not what I heard next. Instead it was:
And on your right, you can see . . .

“CUT CUT!!!”

We all looked up. It was a bus. A Universal Studios tour bus. One of the first. But I didn’t think anything of it at the time, never imagined that the tour bus would be joined by an entire city, an outdoor mall, and amusement park rides.

Just beyond Universal lot was my Valley, my orange groves. Everything was changing. Everyone was moving on.

So why did I feel so stuck?

O
VER MY YEARS AS AN ACTRESS, EVEN A STRUGGLING ONE,
I have gotten to experience a lot of things that I would otherwise have never had the chance to try. Robert Altman gave me the opportunity to do something I had never dreamed possible: be a cheerleader.

Unfortunately, before that could happen, I had to do something I had never wanted to do: get completely naked on film.

I was desperate to be in the movies. I had done small parts in a few films, but nothing of any real note. I had thought my big break was coming in 1965, when I did
The Third Day
with Roddy McDowell and George Peppard. In it I played a young mistress and wrote George Peppard dirty letters and got killed in a car accident. I danced around in front of a fireplace in a midriff top, thinking, for the first time ever, that I actually looked good. I really believed
The Third Day
was going to be my rocketship to stardom.

It wasn’t.

I was finally thin, and nobody cared.

Back to TV I went. I had a promising turn in a pilot,
Higher and Higher,
playing the title character Liz Higher with a supporting
cast that included Robert Forster, Alan Alda, and Dustin Hoffman. The show wasn’t picked up as a series, but Robert became a lifelong friend. Then, a few years after
Third Day,
I landed a small part in the film
The Boston Strangler
with Tony Curtis. I like to think of myself as the romantic lead in that film, as I played the only one of the women who actually survived the strangler’s attack. But again, a rocketship to stardom it was not.

More TV. And voice-overs. From the 1960s on, voice-over work was a mainstay of my life. I still remember my very first commercial, for a feminine deodorant spray that used to be all the rage:

I’ve grown up . . .

I’m a woman . . .

And now that I am, I’m glad there’s FDS.

(Pause)

He’s home!

Oh, how clean we women have to be. Where, I wonder, are the ads saying, “Hey fellas, let’s get down there and really give your boys a good scrub.”

No matter how long you’ve done voice-overs, you have to audition for every job. It’s as if the producers of these things are thinking, “Well, sure, you may be able to say ‘Sears,’ but can you say ‘Maytag’? You might be able to say, ‘Revlon,’ but are you sure you can say ‘Clairol?’” Still, it’s a great gig.

Finally I got another film role, in
The April Fools.
Again, the part was small, but the film featured Jack Lemmon and Catherine Deneuve, both of whom I admired. I even had one scene with Jack Lemmon. I was excited just to rehearse it with him. Then I found out it was his wife’s birthday. Would I mind terribly running the scene with the script supervisor? “Of course not,” I replied. What was there to say?