April something

I am not sure of the date. Barely know the day of the week. Been so busy. Had an interview in NPR this morning that I forgot!! It’s been rescheduled for Wednesday. Then I had a G-CAPP Executive Committee call this afternoon and forgot that, too. Busy planning and preparing for a party that Richard and I are hosting for fabled music man, Clive Davis, rehearsing my DVDs which tape next week and finishing a new chapter in my book… Something I hadn’t envisioned but my wonderful editor, Kate Medina, sort of re-conceptualized the book, making it more interesting to people—men and women-who aren’t yet in their third acts but need to start thinking and planning for when they arrive there. Don’t get me wrong, it is still about how to age successfully but she has me starting earlier. I didn’t want to write this chapter but had a break through over the weekend and wrote the whole thing and I’m excited about it. Part of me couldn’t quite believe it was Easter and I didn’t even don my traditional full bunny suit (white clown makeup with broom straws glued on for whiskers for the face…everything else covered in [fake] bunny fur.) NO Easter egg hunt…my grandchildren don’t arrive till tomorrow for spring break. Took a long bubble bath last night while I was writing this blog.

I’m in dark glasses cause I lost my reading glasses at Carnegie Hall last week (was it really??) and sat on my lighter sunglasses yesterday so dark was all I had/have to read with. Do you, like me, find that these sorts of things—forgetting, losing, sitting on stuff, locking keys in cars— when you’re doing too much? Urghhhh

Did Larry King just now to promote World Fitness Day May 1st at the Georgia Dome. I was able to announce the new news: LUDACRIS will appear that day and perform live!!! He’s a friend. So will the Pointer Sisters. Anita Pointer is a friend as well. AND, Jason Sellards, lead singer and song writer of Scissor Sisters will come on stage to warm up with me to their song “Comfortably Numb.” He’s becoming a friend. As another friend, Peggy Siegel, just emailed me to say “All that fun and music…The event sounds like Woodstock without the drugs and the rain.” In the words of Sarah Palin, “You betcha!”

It was fun doing Larry again. I’ve known him so long (don’t forget he worked for my ex husband for years—CNN founder Ted Turner and visited us on Ted’s ranches many times.)

I got back to Richard’s in time to watch horn player, Lee Thornburg, laying down a new track on a song “I’ve got The World on a String” that Rod Stewart sings on the album that he and Richard are working on. I walked into the “pub” where Richard does his recording in time to hear Lee ask Richard if he should “ Play the root on the bone” and I knew I was in unfamiliar territory, a new world with its own language. I like being brought into new worlds. Rod was here when I left to do Larry’s show…looking superb, I have to say. And the album is amazing.

Lee Thornburg with engineer Jeff Phurrough behind him in Richard's "pub."

So that’s that. Tomorrow is the day for the grandkids. I have so missed them.

See You Next Time…

Pink Jersey

My on-line store is finally up. I’m selling these t-shirts, totes and clutches to benefit my non-profit, The Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention. I see it as a way to turn what was an awful incident (I was unjustly accused of drug smuggling and put in jail as a way for the Nixon administration to slander me) into a beneficial one.

You might wonder why, at age 71, I am launching my first blog. Well, good friends of mine (Rosie and Lily) have been avid bloggers for a long time and I’ve noticed that what they offer is interesting and provoking. Provoking is good—provoking ideas, thoughts, laughs, compassion and just plain fun. I like to provoke. I have interesting friends, an amazingly diverse and interesting life and family, great photos. There’s a lot to get into on a blog.

So—I had breakfast in Atlanta in the beginning of January with my friend, Matt Arnett. Matt really wanted me to meet a friend of his whose kids go to the same school as my grandchildren because he thought this tech-savy friend might be able to help my Georgia-based Non-profit, The Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention improve its website. (More about that another time). Actually, we never even got around to G-CAPP because I got so inspired to start my own blog. Matt, James (that’s his name—James Andrews) and James’s wife Sherrelle Kirkland-Andrews, pointed out to me that there’s such malarkey floating around the net about me. Why not begin to tell my own story, my thoughts, and activities (past, present and future) rather than letting others—sometimes hostile others—try to put out their own spin on me. That’s part of it. But the idea also occurred to me that I was about to launch into a new adventure in this third act of mine and that it might be interesting to bring people along with me.

The adventure is that I am returning to Broadway for the first time in 45 years. Why not try, with this blog, to convey what it’s like… day by day…the excitement, scariness, the highs and lows.

So, although I’ve just gone online today, I have, in fact, been blogging for three weeks now and you can follow all the posts from the beginning by clicking here.

Today, during lunch break, I took my dog, Tulea, for a walk and it really hit me how much I miss my dad. When he returned from his stint in the Navy after WWII he went straight to Broadway to star in “Mr. Roberts.” He played that role every day for four years, never missing a performance! It was not customary in those days—the 40s and 50s—for movie stars to go back and forth from Hollywood to Broadway. But theatre was Dad’s great love. My brother and I grew up knowing and respecting this about him. He loved the immediacy of playing before a live audience. The instant feedback. He was meticulous, always doing exactly the same things, the same moves, the same inflections, every night. I have heard this from so many of his fellow actors.

Now that I am doing theater again after a huge absence, I can’t help but wish he was still here with me–to see. Not that he would give me advice. That wasn’t his style. But I wish he knew that I’ve come back to his place of love.

There have been days during these weeks of rehearsals when I seem incapable of doing the same thing over and over…even twice, never mind for 4 years! I wonder how he was able to do it. I want to please him…still. Do we ever get over this need to please the parent we were closest to?

* * * * * * * *

Moises Kaufman, the writer and director, has us doing run throughs more frequently now and it helps so much to experience the sweep of the play. We begin tech rehearsals in the actual theatre—the Eugene O’Neill–next week (gulp!) so we are starting to fine tune and lock in the blocking.

I love watching the other actors in their scenes. So funny, so touching, so outrageous! I like how we are melding together as a unit, all watching out for each other. Colin (Hanks) has had a cold for several days and last night he had to fly to Las Vegas to perform a scene he did with the actors in the TV series “Mad Men.” We’re all worried about him and he left with all of us bombarding him with special remedies for stopping colds.

I couldn’t resist taking this picture of Don Amendolia who plays Diabelli, the music publisher whose small waltz is the inspiration for Beethoven’s great opus, 33 Variations. That’s him behind the paper, sleeping with Tulea during a break.

Susan Kellerman, who plays the librarian in charge of the Beethoven archive, is insisting that I grant them all visiting rights with Tulea when the play is over. “Over”! What a concept.

Tomorrow I have an early costume fitting so I’m off to bed.

See you next time.