David Craig always said that most directors, or whoever was sitting in the casting chair, rarely looked for the best actor to play the part, but instead waited for the actual character to walk through the door. Only when an actor has created a vast and diverse enough body of work, with enough recognition attached, will they be given the opportunity to play a character unlike the very person that they appear to be. And even then, it’s rare.
With that in mind, I knew my task. I had to be Mary Tate Farnsworth, not Sally Field reading for the role. They had to think that the work I had done in The Flying Nun and Gidget must have been one hell of an acting job, because in reality, I was exactly like Mary Tate with her “come here and fuck me” attitude. I had to undo what they thought they knew of me, had to prepare for the audition knowing that it would begin the minute I walked into Dianne Crittenden’s office. And that’s what I did. Wearing a pair of threadbare hip-hugger jeans and a red crop top, I nonchalantly sauntered into Dianne’s small room, stopping briefly to shake hands and flash her a quick smile. Hard to miss were the stacks of head shots scattered across her desk, photos of actresses with their résumés attached on the back, reminding me yet again that I didn’t have any eight-by-ten glossies to hand out. But for God’s sake, I never went on any auditions, so what was the point?
I flopped into one of the two chairs against the opposite wall, slouching down until my butt almost hung off the seat, then began mindlessly snapping and unsnapping the top of my jeans. As I waited, fiddling with my pants, Dianne went in and out several times to inquire about the delay, always smiling at me with a little nod of acknowledgment. When she left the room for the fourth or fifth time, I knew that things were not running smoothly and I began to suspect that Dianne had put my name on the list without telling anyone else. Then, from the other room, the mumbled blur of a conversation got louder and more emphatic than it had been since I’d arrived, which by now was almost an hour before. I could hear a man—whom I assumed to be Rafelson—spewing aggravation, punctuating the end of a sentence with what I thought was my name. And when I realized that they were definitely talking about me, my pounding heart slowed. Using my newly acquired acting skills, I allowed my anger to fuel and not overwhelm me. I had a job to do and if I’d been a gun, I would have been locked and loaded.
When the door abruptly swung open and Bob Rafelson—wearing goofy-looking aviator-like glasses—stood in its frame, I didn’t sit up. Like holding the reins of a bolting horse, I pulled back on the fury vibrating through me, remaining aloof as if I’d been waiting for a bus and this simply wasn’t it. He invited me to follow him into his window-lined office, where I entered to shake hands with Charles Gaines, who had adapted the screenplay from his own novel and who would be my scene partner, playing the Jeff Bridges character. Dianne, who had insisted over much objection that I be allowed to audition, quietly slipped in behind us to sit on the sofa toward the back of the room.
I was directed to one of the two chairs across from Bob’s desk, where he now sat with his feet over the empty top. It’s not that Bob was rude, or cruel. He wasn’t. He was only distracted and perfunctory, like he was going through the motions as quickly as possible, which meant—thankfully—there was not much chatter before he nodded to begin. With script in hand, I said my first line of dialogue looking directly at Charles, who was sitting in the chair next to me. When he dribbled out a flat response, his eyes never leaving the page, I realized he was either the world’s worst actor or he didn’t give a shit… or both. I waited, without saying anything, staring right at Charles, who never looked up at me. With deliberate calmness, I held my script in the air, let it drop to the ground, then moved to the writer, who became completely befuddled as I tossed his screenplay to the side and straddled him. Now I had his full attention and with a titillated smirk he stuttered, “I don’t know the words.” Slowly lowering myself onto his lap, I replied, “Yes you do. If not, fake it.” The scene continued, but it was not the scene they’d heard twenty times before. Nor was the second one they asked me to read. And when I sensed they had run out of material, I grabbed my script, looked Rafelson in his now smug-less face, thanked him, then left the room and the building.
The following week, I answered the phone one afternoon, barely hearing it through the grind of the cement mixer outside and the bickering little boys inside. It was Jolene, Rafelson’s secretary, or assistant in today’s world. After she gave me a quick greeting and asked me to “hold on for Bob,” I steadied myself, lowered my energy, and waited. He laughed when he came on the line, saying, “Well, we’ve now read every actress in this town and I can’t believe that you were the best. It must be because you’ve had more experience auditioning than anyone else.” I paused before telling him I’d not read for anyone since 1964. He went on to inform me that they’d honed it down to five girls, saying that none of the other actresses had read as well, but they all had the look he wanted: long legs and long hair. My hair had grown out several times over the years, but then I’d cut it off again, so no. My hair was not long and my legs were never going to be long, no matter what I did.
But even with my shortcomings, I had my first callback since I began in the business eleven years earlier, and when I sat in Dianne’s cubicle this time, I waited only a few minutes before being summoned into Bob’s glass office. Charles was now sitting with Dianne on the back sofa and Jeff Bridges was sitting in the chair across from Bob. Wonderfully alive, totally available Jeff, tall and quick to laugh, focused and fearless—I adored him the minute our eyes connected. I can’t translate into words what it was like, that time with Jeff. Instantly we met in a hypnotic out-of-body world, a place where there is no space between impulse and action, no guard gate at the crossings between strangers and intimates. It felt as if we were breathing through the same air hose.
I don’t know how many scenes we worked on. Actually, “played with” might be a better way to describe it, because that’s what it felt like—the two of us, toying with each other, curious and experimental in an easy sensual way, a place I could never find in my real life. Or was this my real life? Was I there for twenty minutes or four hours? I don’t know. But eventually I was driving home, feeling I’d done the work I set out to do.
Two days later, Rafelson called, perplexed. He was having a hard time owning the idea that he’d be hiring the Flying Nun (what a surprise) and it was driving him crazy. Plus he was leaving the next morning for Birmingham, Alabama, to scout locations for the film. He asked if I would come to his house that evening for one more meeting, and even though an alert went off in my head, I tucked it away with all the other pieces of me that didn’t belong to M. T. Farnsworth.
Jeff and me in a scene with wonderful Helena Kallianiotes.
Around this time, another recurring dream kept haunting me. This one stays with me through the years and even though it no longer visits me in the night, I can’t leave the images behind. Much of the dream would change, but there was always a staircase and I was always at the bottom of it, looking up, paralyzed with fear. It’s dark and I can see the curtains at the top billowing in and out, sheer and ghostlike, a breathing thing waiting at the top of the stairs. I’m standing there, surrounded by little children, all grabbing my shirt, clinging to my legs, while my arms are around them, gathering them to me, protecting them. But I don’t turn and run. I don’t look for a way out. I know I must go up the stairs to survive and, more important, for the children to survive. There’s no other choice. And as I take the first step, from somewhere deep in my body comes a voice, guttural and primal: “I will not be conquered. I will not be conquered.” With every ounce of life, I roar, “I will not be conquered.”