Marlowe paused the story to tend to her baby, who had become fussy. She looked in her bag for a bottle and slipped the rubber nipple into his mouth. “I was aware that my contract forbade me to alter my appearance in any way without permission from NBC. On some level I knew I was deliberately sabotaging myself and my career, but I wasn’t really conscious of it at the time. I got up in the morning and didn’t have to worry about washing and drying my hair—I just leapt out of bed and went on my way. I had a simple face buried under all that hair, pretty but more androgynous than I’d ever realized. I was almost unrecognizable, even to myself.”
Marlowe left Rome to travel the hill towns of Tuscany and Umbria. While she was browsing an open-air market in San Gimignano, an American tourist somehow recognized her, pointed his camera at her, and snapped. Marlowe was startled by the clicking sound of the shutter opening and closing, as loud as a clap of thunder. She dropped the bunch of grapes she was holding and ran to her hotel, racing through the medieval streets. In her hotel room she shut the curtains and took deep, steady breaths. For the rest of the afternoon she remained in the darkened room.
In the late 1990s, before the Web ruled the world, the news cycle was slower—two weeks passed before the photo surfaced in the media. the National Enquirer ran it under the headline WHAT WAS SHE THINKING? In the photo, Marlowe was at the market in San Gimignano, standing in front of the fruit stand with her shorn hair and twenty-five extra pounds. Entertainment Tonight and the New York Daily made Marlowe’s transformation their top story. The producers of Ellie called an urgent meeting in L.A., but Marlowe found out about what was happening only when she called her mother from a payphone to say hello. “What have you done?” her mother shrieked, shattering the peace of an afternoon in Cortona. Birds in the Piazza della Repubblica took flight.
Marlowe knew she had to go home and face the consequences. On her last afternoon in Rome, she returned to her favorite church near the Pantheon, Santa Maria sopra Minerva. She sat there for an hour, mentally preparing for what was to come. Before she left the church she took the braid out of her backpack. There was a statue of Mary, surrounded by pots of flowers, with votive candles flickering at her feet. Marlowe nestled the braid among the candles that were the hopes and prayers of fellow travelers, and then she walked away, leaving a piece of herself behind.
The next day, Marlowe was greeted by paparazzi at LAX. The studio sent two bodyguards to meet her at the airport, as well as a dark car with tinted windows. Photos of her with her short hair were on the covers of celebrity magazines; Barbara Walters mentioned it on 20/20; a late-night talk show host made jokes about it, holding up a picture and saying, “Who’s this fat lesbian who’s eaten Marlowe Buchanan?”
“The whole country thought I was ugly, which was a horrible feeling. It was a miracle no one found me hanging from a rope,” Marlowe said. “You’re probably too young to remember. When people I knew in L.A. saw me, they gasped. My family didn’t want to speak to me. Even my agent wouldn’t talk to me. ‘My twins are starting Columbia in the fall. Do you have any fucking clue how much Columbia costs?’ She was furious.”
The head of NBC’s entertainment division cut short a trip to Cape Cod and flew to L.A. Marlowe was put on a crash diet. Losing the twenty-five pounds was easy; she was under so much stress, she couldn’t eat. But her hair was a different matter. The producers decided to tape a scene of the show with Marlowe wearing a wig, but test audiences gave it low ratings. They filmed new episodes without the wig, but the ratings sank and so did the show.
“I never knew why Ellie went off the air,” I said. “I loved the show, but then you just—”
“Disappeared,” she said.
NBC executives scheduled a meeting with Marlowe to tell her the show was canceled. “In the conference room I met with three balding men, all named Stu, and a woman named Sharlene. They laid out photos of me with my shorn hair. One of the Stus leaned across the table and said, ‘We’re sorry, Marlowe, but since you cut your hair, women don’t want to be you, men don’t want to fuck you. The show is canceled.’ I can still see his face,” Marlowe said, imitating the gravity of his expression. “I started laughing. How could I not? They probably thought I was having a nervous breakdown. Sharlene leaned forward and said, ‘Unless you figure out a way to up your fuckability quotient, your career in Hollywood is finished.’ Can you imagine? She was serious! She had an MBA! I just kept laughing. Suddenly it all seemed like such bullshit. I’d been paraded in front of the cameras since the age of six like a trained monkey whoring for attention and cash. That day was the end of it. I never wanted to forget it, hence the tattoo. It was the best day of my life.” Marlowe slapped her arm where the writing was, then the baby copied her, slapping her in the same place.
“But how could . . .” I hesitated, afraid of offending her.
“How could that be the best day of my life? When a bunch of executives in a conference room told me I was unfuckable?”
I nodded. She drank the rest of her coffee and set the cup down on the table with a clatter.
“Stick with me, kid,” she said, and winked.