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TRICKSTERS AND HUCKSTERS: SHOW BIZ ARCHETYPES
by Addison De Witt
“Magic”
“Mama may have, Papa may have,
But God bless the child that’s got his own.”
Arthur Herzog, Jr. and Billie Holiday, 1941
It’s hard to envy a movie star’s kid – though many do, of course, and there’s the rub. If you’re a child of Hollywood, people assume you’re wealthy and spoiled and have everything handed to you on a silver platter, including an open door into show business itself. And while that’s very often true, it’s a double-edged sword. If you use your connections to make a name for yourself, it’s assumed you’re trading on the fame and talent of someone else. If you make it on your own, it’s assumed you got where you are through nepotism, anyway. For celebrity offspring, every move you make is shadowed by the achievement of your famous parent. For every Jane Fonda or Kate Hudson, there are many, many more who’ve tried and failed. Some buckle under from the pressure and drop out, drink, take drugs, waste away their lives in anger and resentment. Many get as far away from Hollywood as possible and try to live in anonymity, and some succeed very well in living “normal” lives away from the spotlight’s glare.
When Christina Crawford wrote the best-selling tell-all about her mother Joan, the infamous “Mommie Dearest”, a cottage industry in such books emerged and evolved into a successful genre. The theme is often, sadly, the same. That glorious star that’s worshipped by millions was really an egomaniacal tyrant (Joan Crawford, Bette Davis), an abusive father (Bing Crosby), a battered, mob-dating nympho (Lana Turner), an unwed mother (Loretta Young), or a hopeless drug addict (Judy Garland). “But of course I loved her/him more than anything on earth,” is often the tragic lament of the author, who is as captivated by their parent’s star quality as the rest of us. (As any regular reader of this column knows, it is often better to admire your favorite stars from afar, as familiarity frequently breeds contempt – or, at least, disappointment.)
So it was with fascination and some trepidation that I became involved with a movie version of a no-holds-barred memoir written by the daughter of a Hollywood icon. With my new job came the hands-on involvement of the author herself, a woman in her 40’s who has not lived a day of her life unaffected, for good or ill, by the legend and the legacy of her famous mother.
By her own admission, Darla (not her real name) was not well-educated. By her count, she had attended 17 different schools growing up, as her parents’ lives took them from Beverly Hills, to New York, to London, and back again, most of the time with the kids in tow. But while she may not have been book-smart, Darla was definitely canny and street-wise, even if that street was somewhere near the intersection of Sunset and Beverly. (Darla, of course, knew practically everyone who was anyone in show business personally. She was literally incapable of referring to a celebrity without the preface of “my friend”, as in “my friend Whoopi Goldberg”, or “my friend Barry Manilow.” She even placed a caption under a photograph in her book identifying the other woman in the photo as “my friend Princess Diana.”)
With her spotty school record, if Darla had ever had the desire to go to college (and I doubt if she ever did), she certainly wouldn’t have had the grades to get in. In fact, Darla’s life had prepared her for nothing else but being a star herself. She knew no other world or way of life. If she’d at any time ever harbored a desire to, say, become a clothes designer, an interior decorator, a real estate agent – professions that people with access to the rich and famous sometimes fall into – she never mentioned it.
What must have been some kind of encouragement for Darla was that peers like Jamie Lee Curtis and Michael Douglas had become successful in their own right and established careers of great acclaim. For the past 25 years or so, Darla herself had managed to carve out a career as a performer, acting and singing in summer stock and nightclubs, television and movies, national tours and even Broadway. It could safely be said that there was no avenue of show business that Darla hadn’t excelled in. Darla had inherited talent, and had worked hard to develop and polish her obvious skills. The only thing that had eluded her was stardom.
No interview, no publicity, no mention of her name, public or private, had ever omitted what was still the single most relevant piece of information about Darla: That she was the daughter of a star. This was her destiny, for fate had denied her the one ingredient for stardom that, in the end, is more important than any amount of skill or even talent: Magic. Her mother had it. A lot of her very best friends had it. But Darla didn’t have it. And, it seemed to most observers, no matter how hard she tried, no matter how well she sang, no matter how much she wanted to be a star, she never would.
In Kinds of Power, author James Hillman says, “Neither money nor media can confer charisma. It is a grace apart from...outstanding accomplishment, royal blood and oodles of gold...This kind of power is a mystery that does not belong to human persons but enhances them with an otherworldly charm that is best expressed by the term ‘star’.” (pp. 172-173)
One of Darla’s first nightclub gigs, when she was 19 or 20, was in Las Vegas. When she arrived on the Strip, she was distressed to see a sign that advertised, in huge letters: So-and-so’s Daughter! And underneath, in tiny letters, Darla’s name. Still, for most of her career, though she was proud of her mother and never denied being related, Darla had managed to get work primarily based on her own resume and had survived, sometimes just barely, on the fringes of show business. In her early 40’s, however, Darla was hardly immune to the ageism that plagues even the biggest female stars. The work had dried up.
If the inevitable comparison to her mother had hurt Darla in the past, and her attempts to break free from her mother’s shadow and establish her own identity had come to naught, Darla now became determined to fully embrace the legacy that had always dominated her life and wring every possible advantage out of it she could. Against the wishes of other family members, she wrote her memoir, laying bare for the world to see the comic-tragic life of a star’s child. With every breath, Darla prayed that her book would be a success and be made into a movie. And now, perhaps for the first time in her life, her dreams were coming true. For once, finally, the focus was on Darla. No one else could take credit for the book. It was Darla’s own achievement. Darla was the star she had always wanted to be. The Today Show, Larry King, USA Today, Darla was everywhere plugging her book. Sure, all anyone wanted her to talk about was her mother, but the camera was on Darla. And Darla was in heaven.
Through the rollercoaster ride of movie development, Darla held on tightly, refusing to give up hope that the movie would get produced. When the green light finally came, Darla, given the title of Executive Producer, was on the set every minute of the day, hugging the actors, giving encouragement, allowing herself to bathe in the joy and excitement and importance of it all.
Even when Darla was gently informed that the suits would not permit her to play herself in the film, she didn’t let it dampen her enthusiasm for long. In the intervening months, she took the advance she’d gotten and produced a stage show for herself, in which she’d be lavishly costumed and backed by an orchestra, and tour the world performing the songs associated with her mother. If it was good for Natalie Cole, it was good for Darla. When the movie came out, Darla would be ready with her showcase.
But what Darla wanted most, the brass ring, if you will, was to get up on stage at the Shrine Auditorium and, in front of millions of viewers, accept the golden statuette for her movie. For one moment, at least, Darla would have the recognition she had always craved. She remembered so well watching her dear friend Tina Sinatra, who she’d practically grown up with, accept her Emmy for the miniseries she’d produced about her father. And now, it was Darla’s turn. The reviews were pure gold. The movie was a success. As cruel and unpredictable as Hollywood could be, it would not deny her this moment.
The night of the awards, Darla strode the red carpet looking as gorgeous and glamorous as she had ever looked in her life. Most awards-watchers had predicted her victory. Darla knew this was her night.
But, alas, it was not to be. When Darla’s movie didn’t win, she was more than devastated. She was angry. The industry that hadn’t fully appreciated her mother at her peak was now punishing her again. Everyone knew about the politics of the Academy. As Groucho Marx famously said to a star who’d just lost an Oscar, “It was the biggest robbery since Brinks.”
The next day, Darla was not going to go back to being the same old Darla, if she could help it. She’d had a bestselling memoir, and a hit movie. And her one-woman show had bookings in Boca Raton, Florida, Pembroke, North Carolina, and a Princess Cruise to Mexico. In a chance encounter at a Ralphs market in the valley recently, she talked enthusiastically about her plans for producing another movie, now that her first one had been such a success. Yes, Darla finally has an identity all her own: Producer. A job that involves skill and talent, and certainly luck. But no magic required.
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