Also, Rachel and I agreed I needed a focus outside of work and myself. Most entertainers spend a lot of time either being the center of attention or seeking to be the center of attention. We can lose perspective, thinking everything is about us. Fortunately, I had a strong circle of support around me; friends like Jeffrey Gunter and Kiki Shepard, Ron Glass, and, of course, Roxanne, helped me to stay on track. Plus, my cousin WiLetta Harmon had moved to LA from Kinloch and she was a steady, loving force.
While I was filming Panther with Kadeem Hardison, I arrived on set one day and Dick Gregory was there. What a wonderful surprise! Dick was a giant in the realms of social justice and entertainment, and like me, he’s from Kinloch. I was eager to speak with him about nutrition. About ten years earlier, Dick had created the Slim-Safe Bahamian Diet in response to the appalling health status of African Americans. The diet became a sensation in the black community because it reflected our culture and traditions around food. My conversation with Dick was a timely reminder of the importance of eating right for my mind and my body.
During the summer I went on a study tour of Egypt with acclaimed Egyptologist professor Asa Hilliard. Dr. Hilliard, who also was known as Nana Baffour Amankwatia III, provided an Afrocentric perspective on the history of this once-great empire. As we visited the Great Pyramid of Giza and the open markets in Cairo and viewed two-thousand-year-old ceiling paintings in the Temple of Karnak, Dr. Hilliard demonstrated that the roots of modern civilization lie in Africa, not Greece or Rome.
While we were in Cairo, I scheduled a massage. The masseuse was a young, and of course fine, Egyptian man. He truly worked out my knots. He was so good that I scheduled a follow-up massage, fully intending to fuck him. But I was conflicted. Rachel and I recently had talked about how others can’t rescue you, so I tried to work through the situation by writing about it in my journal. After a couple of drinks, I called Rachel to talk me out of it.
“Jenifer, it’s three a.m. in Los Angeles!”
“I’m sorry, Rachel. But I’m going to have sex with this man.”
“NO, you’re not.”
She hung up. Rachel was not suffering my foolishness, and I didn’t fuck the masseuse.
I returned to the States, only to learn from my answering machine that four friends had died from AIDS while I was away. I called my eternally wise acting teacher, Janet Alhanti, and said, “What do I do with this? How do you mourn four friends at once?” She said, “You live it. You just have to live it.”
I was dealing with so much loss and so many abandonment issues that I couldn’t comfortably be alone. I would hang out with the Boat or my gypsy friends as much as possible. I spent a lot of time with Michael Peters who had moved to Los Angeles. We had gone together to Joshua Tree National Park, where the Mojave and Colorado deserts meet. Amid the beauty of Joshua Tree, Michael told me he’d been suffering with HIV/AIDS for quite some time. To come home from Egypt and hear he’d made his transition was almost too much to bear. We celebrated him like the king of dance that he was.
At dinner one night with Marta Kauffman and Michael Skloff, the conversation of course turned to Friends, the sitcom Marta and her partner, David Crane, had created. Michael wrote the opening theme music and my friend Allee Willis wrote the lyrics—“I’ll be there for you!” Naturally, I asked, “Is there anybody black on it?” That’s how I became the first black person on Friends. I played Paula, a chef working in a restaurant with Courteney Cox’s character.
I was taking my medications regularly. There were side effects, including dry mouth and a loss of sexual appetite, which was a blessing. So much for my sex addiction. My psychiatrist worked with me to adjust the dosage. It took patience, patience, patience to get the medication right. Don’t walk into a doctor’s office and think they’re going to fix your shit overnight. You can’t take a cocktail of pills and know immediately what the results are going to be. I feel fortunate that psychiatric medicines have become sophisticated enough that doctors can customize various kinds of drugs and dosages for each person. Please remember: I’m not pushing drug treatment. I am telling you my story, my song.
The best effect of the meds was that when the phone rang with bad news, I wasn’t going to fall apart emotionally. My responses were no longer as extreme. No matter what big issue or catastrophe loomed, I could say, “bring it, feel it” and move forward like an adult. I was better able to listen and be present and aware of the world around me.
I have learned that medication works best when you create a calm atmosphere for yourself. You have to slow your roll; give yourself quiet time and stop to smell the roses thorns and all.
At the New York premiere of the film Waiting to Exhale, Lela Rochon sat on one side of me and Loretta Devine was on the other. Whitney was behind me on the right, sitting next to Angela, behind me on the left. I was surrounded by friends who starred in the film—the film that I had not gotten a part in. I came home insanely depressed but then felt very proud of myself because I actually got out of bed, grabbed my journal, and sat with my feelings as Rachel had suggested. Must’ve worked because I had a great time on The Preacher’s Wife set the next day. Whitney and I took to each other like eggs and bacon.
Lordy, we laughed, sang, and acted a fool together! I loved Whitney, not only for her extraordinary talents, but for her warmth and humor.
The Preacher’s Wife was shot mostly in Yonkers, New York, during terrible winter weather. One morning, I sat in the chilly hair-and-makeup trailer preparing for a scene with Whitney. Just as the stylist finished teasing my hair to the roof, I was notified that Whitney had phoned and would not be appearing for work that day. Therefore, I would have to shoot a different scene that required a completely different hairdo. I was furious. The stylist would have to wash and restyle my hair. I was already cold and the small heater in the trailer would never get the area warm enough for me to sit there with wet hair. After a miserable hour of shivering while my hair was redone, I called Whitney’s private number.
“Hello?”
“Hi baby, it’s Jenifer.”
“Oh Mama, I can’t come to work today. There is too much snow!”
“But you should have called two hours ago! I had to sit in that freezing-ass trailer with a wet head because you called so late. I probably caught my death of cold!”
“But we couldn’t even get the car down the driveway.”
“Listen little girl. This ain’t no concert tour. This is making movies. This is teamwork. This is not the Whitney show! You have to think about the people who you are working with!”
“Please Mama, I won’t do it no more. It won’t happen again. Please don’t be mad, Mama.”