I experienced a breakthrough in my psychological health when I got into a big argument with a makeup-artist friend named Sherry. It marked the first time a friend asked me to sit down and work through a problem rather than allow me or them to storm off. She was in therapy too—for an eating disorder. We both used the tools therapy had given us and processed our issues with each other. This was an important moment because it also showed how I was attracting more positive and adult people in my life. When I went to my next therapy session, I was proud to tell Rachel how I had worked through a disagreement with a friend in a healthy way.
Therapy is a bumpy bitch, but it continues to unfold if you stick with it. I was starting to understand more of who I was taking into the audition rooms with me, and it allowed my career to grow. I stopped being so arrogant. I was dismissing the Diva, ripping off the mask to show my true self. But it sho’ wa’nt easy.
TWELVE
KICKING DOWN DOORS
The artificial glitz of Hollywood is the least of living in Los Angeles. God spread her glory in this city, being generous with the bling of palms, golden sunshine, crashing ocean, and nearby mountains. And of course the purple jacaranda trees in May. Despite my moments of sadness, madness, and ambition, I aligned myself with nature like never before.
Mother Nature had a surprise for me. The violent shaking started around 4:30 a.m. on January 17, 1994. Tai chi and yoga had taught me to go limp in these kinds of situations. I was still sleeping on the low futon-style bed, so I had nothing to fall from, but I was thrown over the thing like a rag doll.
This was not my first earthquake, but it was the strongest I’d ever felt. The shaking seemed to go on forever. When it finally did stop, I was relieved to be in one piece, unhurt. I reached down and found the clothes I had dropped next to the bed the night before. There were matches in my pants pocket, and, foolishly, I did something you should not do in the aftermath of an earthquake—light a match. This could ignite any gas that had been released into the air. In the few seconds the match was aglow, I could see the ceiling had dropped a little and was about to crash onto my bed. Everything was broken and scattered about, and I felt the cool January air coming through the broken windows. I blew out the match, and in complete darkness, blindly felt my way toward the living room. My upright Yamaha piano had fallen over and there was a wall in my way, but somehow I squeezed through. My phone rang. It was my brother, Larry, calling from Missouri. He was heading out early for his job teaching at Jennings High School when news of the quake came over the radio. “Larry, it’s bad. It’s real bad. Don’t tell Mama. I’m okay, but it’s so fucking bad,” I whispered to him because the silence in the moment was so great around me, I felt compelled to keep my own voice low. Mother Nature had just kicked our ass.
I called Rachel. She lived just down the street. I was relieved to hear that she was fine. The phone went dead. I went outside into the corridor that opened onto a courtyard. Across the way lived an eighty-year-old couple. I went to check on them. They were shaken, of course, but alive. They had a flashlight, which I asked for “so I can help these other people.” I was now hearing screams for help. I went to open one neighbor’s door only to find it was stuck.
Without hesitation, I yelled, “Stand back from the door!” It was as if my entire molecular structure suddenly recalled the moves I learned at the karate dojo when I lived with Miguel and his mom. I unleashed a powerful forward snap kick, which knocked open the door. A couple crawled out. I repeated the kick five more times that night. It was like I was in a Bruce Lee movie. Adrenaline or some force greater activated inside me.
I found my neighbor Tina underneath two curio cabinets that had collapsed over her head, forming a steeple in midair. Shards of glass stuck out from the cabinets, one just inches from Tina’s neck. I said, “Don’t move, Tina.” I put the flashlight in my mouth and oh so carefully moved the shard away from her throat. Some young men appeared, and I asked them to help move the cabinets so she could get free while I went off to the next apartment.
In the midst of kicking down doors, I paused to look up. I saw stars in the sky like I’d never seen before. In the absence of electric lights, I saw the Milky Way in all its splendor. I said a prayer of thanks. Everybody in our complex had helped each other and made it out safely. We stood in the street together, crying, praying. When the sun came up, we learned the enormity of the disaster—the quake measured 6.7 on the Richter scale and fifty-two people died. I figured our building would be condemned, and a few days later, documents posted on the front door made it official—FEMA would be placing us in temporary housing.
Just a few weeks after the earthquake, I was asked to step in for disco queen Donna Summer at a fundraising concert for AIDS Project Los Angeles. The AIDS crisis was rampaging, and Hollywood royalty came out in droves that night. Whitney Houston, Elizabeth Taylor, Jennifer Holliday, Madonna, and countless more stars were there to honor entertainment idols whose lives were taken by the epidemic, including Rock Hudson, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Freddie Mercury.
Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman directed the show. My performance recognized Paul Jabara, the brilliant composer who wrote disco hits like “Last Dance,” “It’s Raining Men,” and the duet “Enough Is Enough,” which was a huge success for Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer.
When I took the stage accompanied by a sixty-piece orchestra, three back-up singers, and a half-dozen dancers, I could see two of my biggest idols, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barbra Streisand, sitting next to each other in the fifth row center. As one might expect, my performance was highly energetic and highly irreverent—my first words were “They couldn’t get the bitch,” referring to the fact that I was singing Donna’s songs!
When I got to the part in the Jabara medley where I would sing Barbra Streisand’s verse in “Enough Is Enough,” I deliberately missed a note. Walking to the front of the stage to address Ms. Streisand, I said, “Barbra, can you help me with this note, honey?” When I saw Barbra and Hillary turn to one another and laugh, my life was complete (and I got the first standing ovation of the night!).
At the after-party, Barbs came over to me (alright, I pushed my way through so I could stand next to her). Now, everybody knows Barbra Streisand is a germaphobe, so when she placed her hand on my cheek, I was deeply touched. She said, “You are so special.” Wow, I had been dubbed by the queen herself and never washed my face again.
Seriously, though, I must have been really “special” that night, because it just so happened that Rachel was at the show and after-party. At our next session she told me she wanted me to begin taking “add-on” medication to reign-in my manic behaviors.