Cybill Disobedience Part 2

Stewart Models demanded three days of work a week to fulfill my contract, so Jim suggested that I start with a single English literature course at Hunter College night school. Books had been my best friends in a chaotic household where people said they were happy but didn't act like it. Books never talked down to me, didn't care what color my hair was and, to this day, are my most treasured possessions. College was an opportunity to devour the cla.s.sics, to live inside them: in Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray The Picture of Dorian Gray, I learned the tragic bargains people make for eternal youth and beauty.

In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad exposed the sinister unexplored and unowned areas of my psyche. In What Maisie Knew What Maisie Knew, Henry James let me into the turbulent world of a girl whose parents, just divorced, compete for her affection and approval, a parallel universe to my own. In The House of Mirth The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton seemed to speak directly to me about a beautiful outsider trying to fit into fas.h.i.+onable New York, recognizing "a new ta of peril." (One book I couldn't relate to was Beowulf Beowulf, written in Old English, which might as well be Old Swahili.) The next semester I enrolled in the College of New Roch.e.l.le, a small progressive Catholic school for women in Westchester County, an hour north of Manhattan, which was more willing to accommodate my full-time work schedule. I spent only one night in the dorm, which seemed to vibrate with stereophonic noise. I tried blasting the opera Carmen Carmen to counteract Grace Slick down the hall and experimented with waxy earplugs that got stuck in my hair, but I had been out in the world too long to put up with the indignities of shared showers and toilets. I had moved out of the Barbizon (I wouldn't last long anywhere that men weren't allowed) to share an apartment with other models, so I made a reverse commute for my cla.s.ses, taking the train up from Grand Central Station. Blessedly, I was excused from taking statistics and was allowed to bypa.s.s the generalized Introduction to Art, proceeding right to History of the Italian Renaissance. It was a highly charged time on campuses across the country, and I voted along with my cla.s.smates for a student strike against the Vietnam War--my first political protest. I was an anomaly: a pa.s.sionate student who didn't care about grades or earning a degree, and I wanted to learn. I was required to think, and it was one of the happiest times in my life. to counteract Grace Slick down the hall and experimented with waxy earplugs that got stuck in my hair, but I had been out in the world too long to put up with the indignities of shared showers and toilets. I had moved out of the Barbizon (I wouldn't last long anywhere that men weren't allowed) to share an apartment with other models, so I made a reverse commute for my cla.s.ses, taking the train up from Grand Central Station. Blessedly, I was excused from taking statistics and was allowed to bypa.s.s the generalized Introduction to Art, proceeding right to History of the Italian Renaissance. It was a highly charged time on campuses across the country, and I voted along with my cla.s.smates for a student strike against the Vietnam War--my first political protest. I was an anomaly: a pa.s.sionate student who didn't care about grades or earning a degree, and I wanted to learn. I was required to think, and it was one of the happiest times in my life.

Feeling like a frog that needed a bigger pond, I enrolled at Was.h.i.+ngton Square College of New York University and switched my major to English literature. Studying art history means reading art criticism, much of which is dry as a bone. At least literary criticism uses the same medium it is commenting on. I wouldn't be studying what other people said about the creative people, but the words of the creative people themselves. Sitting through a Shakespearean play had never been my favorite pastime, but my cla.s.s on his works was a chance to read and discuss the universal Sturm und Drang still pertinent today--hardly a week goes by that I don't refer to the lies and betrayal in the unholy trinity of Oth.e.l.lo, Desdemona, and Iago.

An anthropology course imparted a daring bit of knowledge: somewhere in the world there were women uncovering their b.r.e.a.s.t.s with impunity and covering up their ankles. I knew the stereotype that you could identify a woman's nationality by noticing which part of her body she tried to hide if naked: an American would cover her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, a European would cover her genitals, an Arab would cover her face. Whatever part a woman believed she'd be struck down dead for exposing depended on country, culture, G.o.d, or tribe. The idea that there was nothing inherently right or wrong about nudity would justify one of the most important decisions in my future.

Stewart Cowley's attorney's best friend had a best friend whose best friend was John Bruno, a wealthy restaurateur who raced Ferraris and ran a family-owned steakhouse called the Pen and Pencil. He seemed both suave and down-to-earth to me: ten years older, Italian, born and raised in Manhattan. On one of our first dates he put on a white lab coat and took me into his meat locker, showing how he had inspected the beef himself, stamping it in purple ink with the restaurant's insignia. One night we parked half a block from the restaurant after it closed to spy on employees who were stealing meat. (John said that all employees steal, that part of running the business was figuring out how much he could afford to have stolen and still make a profit.) He loved New York, and I got my feet permanently planted in the granite, in the subway and the theater, in Central Park and in the fountain on the plaza of the Seagram Building, where we went wading on a deserted Fourth of July when it felt like we had the city to ourselves.

I was sharing an apartment on Sutton Place with three other models (two bedrooms, two bathrooms, two locks on the door). When I got a bad srep throat, John brought me an Italian chicken soup called stracciatella stracciatella and held me until I fell asleep. I've always felt that foreplay should be like a good meal, going from soup to... nuts, and we consummated the relations.h.i.+p when I recovered. Leaving the apartment, a chorus of "You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman" ringing in our ears, we danced our way toward the East River, not caring that the sky was gloomy and certainly not noticing the piles of steaming dog s.h.i.+t before we stepped in it. (p.o.o.per-scooper laws were not yet in effect, but I later learned the traditional theatrical superst.i.tion that stepping in dog doo on the way to a performance will bring luck.) Eventually I asked John to help me find a small apartment of my own and moved into a studio in the East Sixties, with a sleeping loft and a pullman kitchen that cost $500 a month (my day rate was up to $60). I indulged my innate disordered s...o...b..ness, with nothing in the refrigerator but unrecognizable leftovers. (Could it be that the green fuzz ball was once a piece of cheese?) and held me until I fell asleep. I've always felt that foreplay should be like a good meal, going from soup to... nuts, and we consummated the relations.h.i.+p when I recovered. Leaving the apartment, a chorus of "You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman" ringing in our ears, we danced our way toward the East River, not caring that the sky was gloomy and certainly not noticing the piles of steaming dog s.h.i.+t before we stepped in it. (p.o.o.per-scooper laws were not yet in effect, but I later learned the traditional theatrical superst.i.tion that stepping in dog doo on the way to a performance will bring luck.) Eventually I asked John to help me find a small apartment of my own and moved into a studio in the East Sixties, with a sleeping loft and a pullman kitchen that cost $500 a month (my day rate was up to $60). I indulged my innate disordered s...o...b..ness, with nothing in the refrigerator but unrecognizable leftovers. (Could it be that the green fuzz ball was once a piece of cheese?) I'd never even heard of brownstones, the nineteenth-century town houses built from the stones of river quarries up the Hudson, until I saw where John lived on the Upper East Side. When he led me up the spiral staircase for the grand tour, I gasped at a room with grand gilded mirrors, plush curved couches, and Victorian bibelots. "That's where my mother lives," he explained. "I'm upstairs."

He lives with his mother...? I was rea.s.sured when I saw his own bachelor quarters, complete with bearskin rugs and leopard upholstery, even as a cover for the bathtub. And John's mother turned out to be one of his best a.s.sets. Frances Bruno was a good head shorter than I and shaped like a Sumo wrestler--she looked as if she could roll right over anyone who got in her way. She had a big nose, short brown hair, and the gravelly voice of an ex-smoker, with an earthy, unedited laugh. She was involved in almost every aspect of the restaurant business, and no task was too insignificant: she had even reupholstered the chairs in the powder room herself. She suffered from bad arthritis and sometimes joined me in the bas.e.m.e.nt swimming pool at the Barbizon, even after I was no longer living there, wearing a thick white rubber cap (although she didn't put her face in the water) and a bathing suit with a "modesty panel." Her street wear was more fas.h.i.+onable. Years before, she'd been the head fitter at Saks Fifth Avenue and took me to see how, in the days before computerized everything, the salespeople would send a customer's money up to the cas.h.i.+er through a system of polished brash pneumatic tubes. She loved to shop, sometimes handing me a suede jacket or a pearl necklace with an apology: "Forgive me, I just had to buy this for you."

Everything Frances did seemed sophisticated too, not just going to the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center but eating afterward. afterward. (Dinner was at six o'clock when I was growing up.) She ordered steak tartare and so did I. I didn't know from tartare; I figured it was steak, and how wrong could you go? When the plate of ground raw meat arrived at the table, I didn't want to admit that I had no idea what I'd ordered. I took a bite, managed to swallow, and asked, "Isn't this too rare for you?" Frances always poured water into her wine, saying, "... or else I'll be tipsy." And she was so easily, physically demonstrative. I felt that her hugs were untainted by any envy or reservation. That time had pa.s.sed with my own parents, who conveyed a subtle discomfort about physical affection. p.u.b.erty and lies had distanced us. (Dinner was at six o'clock when I was growing up.) She ordered steak tartare and so did I. I didn't know from tartare; I figured it was steak, and how wrong could you go? When the plate of ground raw meat arrived at the table, I didn't want to admit that I had no idea what I'd ordered. I took a bite, managed to swallow, and asked, "Isn't this too rare for you?" Frances always poured water into her wine, saying, "... or else I'll be tipsy." And she was so easily, physically demonstrative. I felt that her hugs were untainted by any envy or reservation. That time had pa.s.sed with my own parents, who conveyed a subtle discomfort about physical affection. p.u.b.erty and lies had distanced us.

Christmas 1968 should have been a triumphant homecoming for me. When the Commercial Appeal was delivered to our house, I was on the cover of the magazine supplement. After dinner, my father and I took one of our traditional walks around the neighborh, where a suburban building boom had created lots of new construction. We hadn't gotten out of our yard before he said, "Your mother doesn't turn me on anymore."

Long pause. My first thought was: I don't want to hear this. I don't want to hear this. I felt as if I was outside the scene, which looked small and distant, as if viewed through the wrong end of a telescope. But I said, "So who does?" I felt as if I was outside the scene, which looked small and distant, as if viewed through the wrong end of a telescope. But I said, "So who does?"

And he answered. "Her name is Ellen. She's my secretary. She's quite a bit younger than I am."

My father was never supposed to leave, no matter what his behavior to my mother, no matter how she might have failed him. They were, after all, the best jitterb.u.g.g.e.rs in Memphis. For years I asked my mother, "Why did you and Dad stay together if you were incompatible?" and she always answered, "It was a perfect relations.h.i.+p. We were so in love." I remember reading somewhere that the urge to defend your failures can be so strong that you invent another world to inhabit, a coc.o.o.n of denial in your own head and in the public eye. My mother had invested in a kind of fantasy goodness about my father, and it wasn't until years later, when I'd confided the worst heartache of my life, that she acknowledged her futile convictions about her husband and the societal pressure to stay married. You get to know the bad mask of a person, she would say, and you stay, hoping there is a good person underneath who really loves you and will never leave.

My father always said he left Memphis with nothing but the s.h.i.+rt on his back. In truth, he drove away in a white Ford LTD, with a nice severance package, having failed to usurp control of Shobe, Inc., from Da-Dee. He married Ellen, then divorced her, then remarried her, and along the way they had a daughter, Mary Catherine. They were living in St. Louis and he had stopped paying my mother alimony. I begged her not to have his wages garnisheed, which got him fired because of the corporate policy at the company where he worked. A lifetime of heavy drinking caught up with his liver, and the doctor said he'd be dead within the year, a censure that seemed to impress him. He stopped drinking, and when he rented a vacation cabin in Ponca, Arkansas, deep in the Ozarks, I went to see him. The opposite of in vino verita vino veritas is that liquor can camouflage the true person, and in sobriety my father turned out to be lively, kind, intelligent, unpretentious, fun. But mostly he was alive.

JOHN BRUNO LIKED SKINNY MODELS, BUT HE FED ME A little too well. He belonged to the oldest gourmet society in the world, called La Chaine de Rotisseurs, and wanted to eat in a different restaurant every night. The meals were glorious--silken smoked salmon with fat capers at The Colony, foie gras and duck a l'orange at Quo Vadis--but disastrous for my figure. The paradox of modeling was that I represented the cynosure of female beauty, selling an illusion of perfection, and the tacit promise of an ad or commercial with my likeness was that those products and services would make other women look like me, but in my private life, even I couldn't look like that me. The moment the Model of the Year contest was over, I started gaining weight, back up to my prestarvation pounds. On weekends I went running around the Central Park reservoir with John, but he couldn't join me on the days he worked, and I felt unsafe going alone. little too well. He belonged to the oldest gourmet society in the world, called La Chaine de Rotisseurs, and wanted to eat in a different restaurant every night. The meals were glorious--silken smoked salmon with fat capers at The Colony, foie gras and duck a l'orange at Quo Vadis--but disastrous for my figure. The paradox of modeling was that I represented the cynosure of female beauty, selling an illusion of perfection, and the tacit promise of an ad or commercial with my likeness was that those products and services would make other women look like me, but in my private life, even I couldn't look like that me. The moment the Model of the Year contest was over, I started gaining weight, back up to my prestarvation pounds. On weekends I went running around the Central Park reservoir with John, but he couldn't join me on the days he worked, and I felt unsafe going alone.

Every week I'd pa.s.s thinner, younger, prettier girls on go-sees, and John made disparaging comments about my ample hips and thighs, even as he was ordering a Grand Marnier souffle from one of his gourmand buddies. Twice I stuck my finger down my throat after a meal but fortunately found the experience too repulsive to make it a habit. The average model of my height weighed no more than 108 pounds (110 was considered fat), and I weighed 150. Nothing ever fit. I didn't fit. On a photo shoot for Vogue, the editor had to cut the dreses up the back and affix the b.u.t.terflied pieces to my skin with Scotch tape.

Sometimes when we were shooting on the streets of New York, the magazine would rent a big black limousine, the driver would look the other way, and that would be the changing room. I'd jump out, do the picture, and jump back in again. Once when I was doing a Glamour Glamour shoot, the editor handed me a long-sleeved s.h.i.+rt that would not go past my elbows and pants that would not go past my knees. shoot, the editor handed me a long-sleeved s.h.i.+rt that would not go past my elbows and pants that would not go past my knees.

"What size are these?" I asked, poking around for a label.

"These clothes are French," she said with a sniff.

"Well, these are not French shoulders," I said. "My elbow must be the size of a French woman's thigh."

"You can go home," said the editor with a sigh. Getting paid to go home was one of my favorite days of modeling.

On a shoot in Saint Martin, the other model had spent much of the past year in Mexico, obviously sitting in the sun with iodine and baby oil, and it was the middle of winter in New York. When we lay on the beach together, we looked like the black and white keys on a piano, and I was told to stay out in the sun so we would "match." I had baked myself for years, but this time I had an allergic reaction, and the next morning, my eyes were swollen shut. I stayed indoors for twenty-four hours with compresses of wet tea bags, but it didn't do any good. I got paid for not working that time too.

Most models casually took appet.i.te suppressants that were pure speed, professing satiety after nibbling what I considered hamster food. Practically everyone smoked, a habit I'd avoided because of childhood pneumonia, with the added incentive of my mother's hacking cough as morning reveille and evening taps from her three packs a day. On location for Glamour in Key West, my roommate was a former Miss Universe who convinced me to try her prescribed amphetamines.

"Are you sure they won't make me feel weird?" I asked. "And aren't they addictive?"

"Not at all," she answered. "I take them every day."

She a.s.sured me there'd be no unpleasant side effects, and I'd watched her sleep sound as a baby, so I swallowed a few pills. I lay a wake all night, sweating and staring at the ceiling, my heart pounding as if it was going to pop out of my chest and my teeth gnas.h.i.+ng like a hungry beaver. When she woke up and asked, "Would you like--" I quickly said, "No, thanks."

The photographer on that shoot was a man named Frank Horvath-scruffy and obese, partly shaven before it was chic, wearing supersize dark army fatigues, utterly unappealing and initially interested in me. At our first meeting, in a dark room at the magazine offices, he'd looked me up and down for about two seconds, shrugged, and muttered, "Okay, she'll do," and left the room. We were working at Hemmingway's house in Key West, with a resident collection of six-toed cats living in the garden, and Horvath didn't bother to knock when he came into the room where I was being dressed by the editors, demanding of no one in particular, "Is she ready yet?" We were working on a second-story veranda, and he hadn't even shot a whole roll of film before he said, "You're not very good at this." I stared at him, struck dumb by his blunt candor. "Stop posing," he said. "You're trying too hard, and you've developed some bad habits. Just think, be in the moment, actually see what you're looking at." I didn't know it at the time, but he was giving me my first acting lesson. The camera captures what you're thinking, so it had better be something besides: if I hold my hands like this, I'll look thinner if I hold my hands like this, I'll look thinner. Jimmy Cagney said that acting was stand up tall, look the other guy in the eye, and tell the truth. what Horvath led me to that day was a kind of photographie veriti. photographie veriti.

Glamour put me on the cover and used 101 photographs of me inside that issue (my grandmother counted) followed by seven put me on the cover and used 101 photographs of me inside that issue (my grandmother counted) followed by seven Glamour Glamour covers that year. The era of Twiggy and Jean ("the Shrimp") Shrimpton was over, and there seemed to be a little window of opportunity for a healthier look, personified by Tiegs and me. Everybody is supposed to have a better side, and I was always photographed from the left for covers, but Richard took this as a challenge. "Let's try the right side," he'd say each of the half dozen times we worked together, but his "cover tries" were never used because editors were unaccustomed to seeing me that way. covers that year. The era of Twiggy and Jean ("the Shrimp") Shrimpton was over, and there seemed to be a little window of opportunity for a healthier look, personified by Tiegs and me. Everybody is supposed to have a better side, and I was always photographed from the left for covers, but Richard took this as a challenge. "Let's try the right side," he'd say each of the half dozen times we worked together, but his "cover tries" were never used because editors were unaccustomed to seeing me that way.

Sometimes the photographs looked like another person altogether. By the time they'd been retouched, there were no flaws, asymmetry of any kind. Things you didn't know you had were eliminated from your face. I'm still shocked at what Kodak did on the full-length cutout of me that stood in drugstores to introduce the first Instamatic camera--there wasn't a dimple or ripple of flesh. The countertop version had a mechanical arm that swung the camera up and down, rubbing an unfortunate line across my face. I inherited the cutout that my grandmother kept in her garage (she said "Hi" to it every time she pulled in), and one year my caretaker stuck a Santa hat on its head and a sign that said MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL. I still have my original "Breck girl" portrait too, an idealized vision of a woman, all misty and dew-eyed like a Stepford wife. These relics seem to migrate to my home in Memphis. Maybe they talk to one another when I'm not around, like the toys in Santa's workshop that come alive at night.

I was clueless about the future beyond modeling, but not out of contentment with the status quo--I was frantically trying to figure out what was my Job in the universe. Stewart Cowley was opening a talent division to maneuver models into lucrative television and film work. He suggested that I meet a man who'd made a violent, low-budget, successful movie and was preparing to direct the sequel. The gold-leafed hotel suite was far more sumptuous than I expected for a B-list mogul. Stewart brought me upstairs but left quite abruptly, whispering "I'll be right back" while I arranged myself on the sofa. As we were talking, Mr. B-list took my elbow and steered me to one of the tall windows overlooking Central Park. Then his hand moved from my elbow to my shoulder, he leaned in close and thrust his tongue down my throat. Naively, I asked what was going on.

"'This is a scene in the new film," he said. "I thought we'd rehea.r.s.e."

I pushed him away saying, "I don't think this is working for me," just as I heard a knock at the door signaling Stewart's return. I made an excuse about needing to be somewhere else, and the moment we were in the hallway, I hissed, "Don't ever leave me alone with one of those creeps again!" I never knew whether his sudden departure was prearranged or an innocent mistake.

With the memory of that lechery still fresh, I learned with some trepidation that Roger Vadim had offered me a screen test for a film called Peryl, Peryl, and I insisted that a chaperone accompany me to Los Angeles: my booker at the agency, Donna DeCita, whose sister is Bernadette Peters. We stayed in the grizzled old Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard, where some of the regulars were wandering around the lobby in their bathrobes. Because there was no script yet, I was instructed to rehea.r.s.e a scene from and I insisted that a chaperone accompany me to Los Angeles: my booker at the agency, Donna DeCita, whose sister is Bernadette Peters. We stayed in the grizzled old Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard, where some of the regulars were wandering around the lobby in their bathrobes. Because there was no script yet, I was instructed to rehea.r.s.e a scene from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. I sat on the lawn reading lines with Vadim's a.s.sistant, who then drove me to Malibu for the screen test. Vadim was tall and slender with thinning hair, a creamy s.h.i.+rt that he said was made of Egyptian cotton. Three years of Memphis high school French didt help me understand a word as he conversed with a French actor named Christian Marquand (also tall and slender with thinning hair), whose home we were using for the audition. I definitely knew what the term menage a trois menage a trois meant and was glad for the chaperone. meant and was glad for the chaperone.

Most of the test consisted of filming me, with no sound, dancing to the Rolling Stones singing "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." (The old-time Hollywood producers, many of them German, would refer to this as "M.O.S."--mit out sound.) The film never got produced; I was told that the financing fell through. But I had started something interesting with the a.s.sistant (younger, hairier, and shorter than either of the Frenchmen), and as my friend Wanda used to say, "How do you know if a shoe fits unless you try it on?" A few weeks later, I lied to John Bruno and flew to San Francisco for the weekend. The a.s.sistant picked me up on a motorcycle and strapped my suitcase to the back. I kept looking over my shoulder as we rode, expecting to see the highway littered with my bras and underpants. Vadim later offered me a role in Pretty Pretty Maids Maids All All in a Row, but the character was set to die, early and gruesomely, in the girls' rest room of a high school. I declined, thinking surely I could do better than death on a toilet seat, and my acting career was stalled at the gate. in a Row, but the character was set to die, early and gruesomely, in the girls' rest room of a high school. I declined, thinking surely I could do better than death on a toilet seat, and my acting career was stalled at the gate.

Chapter Five.

"MAKE SURE THERE'S A LOT OF NUDITY"

IT'S A NOD TO THE HYPERREALITY OF THE FILM BUSINESS that everybody in Hollywood knows the maxim: no names on location. Cast and crew conspire in an implicit acceptance and discretion about the phenomenon of musical beds, about who is seen emerging from which star's trailer or which grip's room at the Motel 6. The set is like an office Christmas party, where indiscretions are absolved when the party's over, or like the miniature village around the model trains that I coveted as a child, a bantam community a.s.sembled for fun. Everyone has a common purpose, everyone is paid to be creative, and everyone can pretend to be someone else. It's a dreamscape of sorts, basically free of familial and adult responsibilities. I was twenty years old when I entered that world, mischievous and recklessly self-absorbed. that everybody in Hollywood knows the maxim: no names on location. Cast and crew conspire in an implicit acceptance and discretion about the phenomenon of musical beds, about who is seen emerging from which star's trailer or which grip's room at the Motel 6. The set is like an office Christmas party, where indiscretions are absolved when the party's over, or like the miniature village around the model trains that I coveted as a child, a bantam community a.s.sembled for fun. Everyone has a common purpose, everyone is paid to be creative, and everyone can pretend to be someone else. It's a dreamscape of sorts, basically free of familial and adult responsibilities. I was twenty years old when I entered that world, mischievous and recklessly self-absorbed.

In the spring of 1970, there was a mounting pile of scripts in one corner of my apartment, so daunting that I virtually ignored them. I was content to give the movie business a wide berth anyway. The Hollywood people I'd met so far were creeps, and every model I knew was taking acting lessons. I was determined to be different. My friend Jim Rogers offered to help sift through the scripts and found one he thought I should consider. It was called The Last Picture Show, The Last Picture Show, from a coming-of-age novel by Larry McMurtry about the lives of small-town Texas teenagers in 1951. I would be considered for the part of Jacy Farrow, the character whose imprudent promiscuity wreaks havoc with her friends and neighbors. from a coming-of-age novel by Larry McMurtry about the lives of small-town Texas teenagers in 1951. I would be considered for the part of Jacy Farrow, the character whose imprudent promiscuity wreaks havoc with her friends and neighbors.

I went to meet the director, Peter Bogdanovich, in his suite at the Ess.e.x House facing Central Park, and my deportment conveyed an intentional lack of interest: jeans and denim jacket streaked and softened in the was.h.i.+ng machine with rocks and bleach, Dr. Scholl's wooden sandals, and a paperback book. Zen philosophers talk about hitting the target without aiming at it, is surely what I did. I hated the idea of playing Jacy, a self- absorbed ice princess whose persona had often been a.s.signed (erroneously, I thought) to me. She stings men and moves on, making them s.e.xual objects as men traditionally do to women, but she never finds anything satisfying. Plus the script called for two nude scenes, which seemed anathema. Nudity as an inherently moral concept is one thing; actually dropping my skivvies was another.

Peter opened the door to his suite. He looked to be thirtyish, six feet tall but sh a high forehead, dark eyes, a shock of thick near-black hair, and a goofy smile. The immediate attraction was so strong, I was flummoxed.

"What are you reading?" he asked.

"Dostoyevsky," I said.

"Which one?" he asked.

"War and Peace." I was so unnerved, I might have fumbled my own name, let alone Tolstoy's. But we both laughed out loud, and he invited me to sit down. As he headed for the couch, I curled up on the floor next to a coffee table with a tray that held the remains of a room-service breakfast and a small crystal vase with a single red rose. During the course of our conversation about the film, I picked up the flower and slowly plucked the petals off one by one, making a little pile of vanquished foliage. Peter later told me that he imagined Jacy could do to any man what I had done to that rose. I was so unnerved, I might have fumbled my own name, let alone Tolstoy's. But we both laughed out loud, and he invited me to sit down. As he headed for the couch, I curled up on the floor next to a coffee table with a tray that held the remains of a room-service breakfast and a small crystal vase with a single red rose. During the course of our conversation about the film, I picked up the flower and slowly plucked the petals off one by one, making a little pile of vanquished foliage. Peter later told me that he imagined Jacy could do to any man what I had done to that rose.

Pages of a new script shuttled between Peter in California and Larry McMurtry in Texas, a virgin screenwriter who typed scenes on cheap yellow paper. They established a basic construction for the story that was not in the book (a year that spanned from one football season to the next), added some important material (like a graduation scene), and began casting pivotal roles. Cloris Leachman and Ellen Burstyn were to play two middle-aged women a.s.suaging loveless marriages with infidelity. Ben Johnson, who'd played opposite John Wayne in several of John Ford's seminal westerns, turned down the part of Sam the Lion, the ethical heart of Anarene, Texas. He didn't like the four-letter words in the script, said he didn't talk that way in front of women and children. So Peter had Ford call him.

"Are you gonna be the Duke's sidekick for the rest of your life?" Ford demanded.

"Well, they've got to rewrite the dialogue," said Johnson.

Peter complied and called to tell Johnson that some of the objectionable language had been removed. "I hope you understand," Peter said a.s.suredly, "you're going to get an Academy Award for this picture."

"G.o.ddammit," Johnson said, "I'll do the G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing."

Peter chewed on toothpicks in those days, part of his program to quit smoking, and had stopped to pick some up at a Food Giant in the San Fernando Valley. While standing in the checkout line, he saw my face on the cover of Glamour, my hair in tendrils over the collar of a pink and white s.h.i.+rt imprinted with the words "I love you" over and over. There was a fresh s.e.xual threat in the photograph that made him think of Jacy Farrow. He'd considered two Texas girls for the part: one was Sissy s.p.a.cek, and the other was named Patsy McClenny until she started working in soap operas and reinvented herself as Morgan Fairchild. But I learned much later that his immediate reaction to that magazine cover was the kind of disorientation that Jacy engendered in men. If anybody ever projected an image of completeness when at the core was emptiness, it was Jacy Farrow. Peter couldn't know it was also me.

He was convinced that not only would my lack of acting experience not prevent me from playing the role successfully, it might even enhance my work because I wasn't coming into the process with preconceived notions about the character. I was a blank slate, fresh clay. He didn't want me to do a screen test, but the producer, Bert Schneider, was less a.s.sured. He even dug up the test I'd made for Roger Vadim in an effort to convince Peter that I didn't have enough innate talent to compensate for my amateur status. It was the only time Peter would ever doubt me. I was asked to do a reading in California with Jeff Bridges, who'd already been cast as Duane Jackson, the callous boy on his way to war, and two young actors who were up for the part of the more sensitive and vulnerable Sonny Crawford: John Ritter, son of the country music star Tex Ritter, and ChriMitchum, son of Robert Mitchum. Eventually the part went to Timothy Bottoms, who had just played the lead as a quadruple amputee in Dalton Trumbo's World War I film Johnny Got His Gun. Got His Gun.

My modeling agent Stewart Cowley arranged for his Los Angeles representative to pick me up at the airport, where he announced, "For your first lunch in town, I'm taking you to Pinks," a local landmark for chilidogs. I'd been to L.A. before on modeling a.s.signments, but this was Hollywood. Hollywood. Tinseltown. Take the suns.h.i.+ne, mix in a little smog, and the city actually looks tan. I was anxious, excited, and hungry, wolfing down several chili cheese dogs with sauerkraut and mustard. I was fumbling in my purse for breath mints when we got to the BBS office. A young man with a lean face, receding hairline, and dazzling smile was reclining in a swivel chair with his feet on the desk, smoking a joint. I'd seen Tinseltown. Take the suns.h.i.+ne, mix in a little smog, and the city actually looks tan. I was anxious, excited, and hungry, wolfing down several chili cheese dogs with sauerkraut and mustard. I was fumbling in my purse for breath mints when we got to the BBS office. A young man with a lean face, receding hairline, and dazzling smile was reclining in a swivel chair with his feet on the desk, smoking a joint. I'd seen Easy Rider Easy Rider and and Five Easy Pieces Five Easy Pieces so I recognized Jack Nicholson, who lurched to his feet and made an elaborate attempt to bow in greeting, making jokes I didn't get but laughed at anyway. so I recognized Jack Nicholson, who lurched to his feet and made an elaborate attempt to bow in greeting, making jokes I didn't get but laughed at anyway.

I got the job but not without Schneider's growling insistence to Peter, "Make sure there's a lot of nudity." My entire salary was $5,000 for twelve weeks of work, an amount I could have earned in a week of modeling, but by this time I began to believe that the compelling story of these teenagers whose options seem so limited by their dusty small town would be painful but important to tell. By thinking back to the paintings of the bare-breasted women I'd seen in the great museums of Europe, I'd determined that the nude scenes had nothing to do with morality. But my boyfriend, John Bruno, had other ideas. "You do a nude scene and I will never marry you," he declared. "If everybody in the world sees my future wife naked, you won't turn me on anymore." This from a man supposed to be so sophisticated? I was never really interested in marriage to John or anybody else: it represented a kind of indentured servitude, and I was hardly alone in rethinking the inst.i.tution. The atmosphere of the late 1960s was one of s.e.xual libertinism, from the b.u.mper stickers that said MAKE LOVE-NOT-WAR to the newly endorsed forms of socializing (mate swapping, orgies, and "key parties--couples played grab bag with their car keys, throwing them in a bowl from which the wives fished out a set and went home with the owner).

I don't need to hear Billie Holidays "G.o.d bless the child who's got his own" to know that I had to make sure I could take care of myself in the world so I wouldn't be beholden to men. I was disturbed by John's possessiveness and his insistence, from the beginning of our affair, that if either one of us was in the mood for s.e.x, the other had to comply--not a great basis for pa.s.sionate lovemaking. But it was Frances Bruno who provided the final impetus for me to leave. "If you wanna do this movie, you gotta do this movie," she said. "You know I love ya, but don't let Johnnie hold you back." I knew enough not to do Pretty Maids All in a Row Pretty Maids All in a Row and enough to do and enough to do The Last Picture Show. The Last Picture Show.

Production began that October in north central Texas, a time of golden Indian summer sunlight combined with fierce freezing winds. To a large extent, we were persona non grata in the community. The locals resented Larry McMurtry's portrayal of their foibles--when Peter met Larry's father, the elder McMurtry said, "If you'll pour kerosene on him, I'll light the match--and the real town, called Archer City, was given the pseudonym of "Anarene" for the film. Our provisional home was the Ramada Inn in Wichita Falls, a two-story construction of red brick built around an unheated pool. Every day for two weeks I worked with an accent coach in my cheerless room right next to the soft-drink machine and rehea.r.s.ed in the optimistically named Presidential Suite, an orange nightmare that Peter shared with his wife, Polly, the film's production designer. Peter was twenty-three when they married, and just three weeks before filming began, she had given birth to a second daughter, Alexandra, who was left in the care of Peter's parents in Arizona along with three-year-old Antonia.

I sometimes ask guests in my home to take their clean hands and touch the patina on my treasured canvases from Borislav Bogdanovich, Peter's talented and eccentric Serbian father, a painter who worked in his pajamas and allowed no one to touch his hair. His wife came from a prosperous Jewish family in Vienna, and though many of her relatives perished in the Holocaust, she managed to escape to America in 1939, already pregnant with Peter. Her first child had died after a horrifying accident, scalded by the hot soup she was making and succ.u.mbing to anaphylactic shock. Peter knew that an elder brother had died, but Herma Bogdanovich mentioned it to him only once toward the end of her life, barely able to get the words out, and I can't help but think that Peter suffers from survivor's guilt.

Peter once had a perforated ulcer and has had to be very careful about what he eats ever since, so he didn't accompany the cast and crew each morning as we ate eggs and grits at the motel diner, opened especially early for us. We rode to Archer City in a circa-1950 bus--the chug of its diesel engine in the predawn stillness was my wake-up call. I spent twenty-five dollars on a used bicycle with fat tires and no gears so I could explore the area, but there wasn't much to see except trailer parks and junkyards. We had so much time on our hands that I read voraciously Kate Millett's s.e.xual Politics s.e.xual Politics, Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch The Female Eunuch, and Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique The Feminine Mystique. These three feminist books revolutionized my thinking and put his-story into perspective. I was born again as a radical feminist, and began a search for her-story.

My dressing room was on the second floor of a seedy old hotel whose street-level s.p.a.ce was a hamburger joint--the burgers were put in paper bags that would be dripping with grease within moments. My wardrobe consisted of thin cotton dresses from a vintage clothing store and a pair of jeans from the Columbia wardrobe graveyard erroneously labeled "Debbie Reynolds" - many inches shorter and pounds lighter than I.

For my first scene as an actress, I was in a convertible parked in an open field, making out with Timothy Bottoms, who was to reach under my halter-top and grab a handful of breast. There was a rumor that Tim refused to bathe in protest before his love scenes with Cloris Leachman, but he smelled fine to me and seemed almost as nervous as I was, furiously chewing gum all during rehearsal. The mid-autumn sun of the Texas plains was so blinding that I couldn't keep my eyes open, and it seemed like half the town was recruited to hold blackout flags made of a heavy opaque material called dubatine to block the glare. Right before he said "Action" Peter leaned in close to me and instructed, "No tongue." I disobeyed.

But for the most part I listened attentively to everything Peter said: how to do a double take or overlap dialogue with another actor, how to brush my hair lightly between takes so it would match in the next scene, how a task (called a piece of business) or an article of clothing or the town itself could help to capture and reflect the character. Casually taking Sonny's milkshake away from him, loudly slurping the last drops out of his cup, all the while professing my devotion, showed in a humorous way that Jacy always gets what she wants--like a spider sucking the innards out of her victims. Peter often repeated Orson Welles' dictum that a good director presides over accidents. During the scene with Sonny and Sam the Lion at the water tank, the sun was doing gymnastics, in and out of the clouds several times. Instead of saying "Cut!" Peter motioned for everyone to keep going. He loved the moody chiaroscuro created by the contrasting light. It became his homage to the great American director John Ford. More than twenty years earlier, when Ford was filming She Wore a Yellow Ribbon She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (with a much younger Ben Johnson), a terrible rainstorm approached. Ford liked the threatening look of the dark sky and decided to shoot anyway. Fearing for his reputation the director of photography wrote directly on the celluloid, "Shot under protest." He won the Academy Award. (with a much younger Ben Johnson), a terrible rainstorm approached. Ford liked the threatening look of the dark sky and decided to shoot anyway. Fearing for his reputation the director of photography wrote directly on the celluloid, "Shot under protest." He won the Academy Award.

I witnessed the quintessential oblivious wielding of power of a pa.s.sionate director: in one outdoor scene, two children were playing behind a house that was in the camera's frame, and Peter called to them, "Hey, you kids, get out of your yard." With each pa.s.sing day I began to feel more and more invested in every scene, worrying: Oh, G.o.d, is he going to get this take? Oh, G.o.d, is he going to get this take? or or Has it stopped raining so we can finish this scene? Has it stopped raining so we can finish this scene? Every chance I got I stayed up all night to watch the shooting, drinking Dixie cups of coffee and brandy to stay awake. I loved to see the cables snaking across the wet streets (always hosed down for night filming because the reflection makes them more visually exciting), the huge wind machines that had to be moved by three brawny grips, the smoke wafting out of chimneys above the bulbs of the arc lights in the cold night air. Peter had decided to shoot the film in black and white because it would portray the 1950s more convincingly and because color can distract the audience. Gradations of gray allow people to concentrate on dramatic content and performance, rather than the tone of red in an actress's lipstick or dress. The sharpness and depth of field in black and white have never been surpa.s.sed in color photography. Every chance I got I stayed up all night to watch the shooting, drinking Dixie cups of coffee and brandy to stay awake. I loved to see the cables snaking across the wet streets (always hosed down for night filming because the reflection makes them more visually exciting), the huge wind machines that had to be moved by three brawny grips, the smoke wafting out of chimneys above the bulbs of the arc lights in the cold night air. Peter had decided to shoot the film in black and white because it would portray the 1950s more convincingly and because color can distract the audience. Gradations of gray allow people to concentrate on dramatic content and performance, rather than the tone of red in an actress's lipstick or dress. The sharpness and depth of field in black and white have never been surpa.s.sed in color photography.

Several weeks into the shooting, Peter got a request from Bert Schneider: Could Stephen Friedman visit the set? He was a producer only because he owned the movie rights to the book and Peter reluctantly agreed to let him observe for a few days. Friedman asked me to take a walk with him one afternoon and gave me notes on my performance. Returning to the hotel, I saw Peter.

"Do you think my acting is enthusiastic enough?" I asked.

"Who's been talking to you?" said Peter. When he learned that it was Friedman, I thought smoke would come out of his nostrils. Then, crossing the lobby, he ran into Ellen Burstyn.

"Who's this Friedman character?" she asked. "Is he a producer or what?"

"Well, he's a nominal producer," Peter said.

"He's giving me line readings," said Ellen. "He told me about one of his favorite lines in the book, how he always imagined it being said like-"

Peter exploded and ran for a phone to call Bert Schneider. "If that c.o.c.ksucker isn't out of Texas by tonight," he screamed, "I'm going to borrow a hunting knife from one of these good ol' boys and kill him.''

Friedman was gone the next morning, and we didn't see him again until the Academy Awards, where he was dressed in a green tuxedo. When a still photographer on the set talked to me about my scenes, Peter sent him packing too. The joke was: if you want to get fired from this picture, talk to Cybill Shepherd.

Jacy makes her initial appearance in the movie theater where Father Father of of the Bride the Bride is playing. Sonny is necking with his girlfriend in the back row, keeping one eye on Elizabeth Taylor, whom he really wants to be kissing, and Jacy walks up the aisle with Duane to ask teasingly, "Whatcha'all doin' back here in the dark?" I was sitting in a row just ahead of Peter as we waited until the shot was lit to the satisfaction of the Oscar-winning director of photography Robert Surtees. Peter leaned ovprod.u.c.h.e worn velvet seat and spoke in a low voice right next to my ear. is playing. Sonny is necking with his girlfriend in the back row, keeping one eye on Elizabeth Taylor, whom he really wants to be kissing, and Jacy walks up the aisle with Duane to ask teasingly, "Whatcha'all doin' back here in the dark?" I was sitting in a row just ahead of Peter as we waited until the shot was lit to the satisfaction of the Oscar-winning director of photography Robert Surtees. Peter leaned ovprod.u.c.h.e worn velvet seat and spoke in a low voice right next to my ear.

"How are you doing?" he said.

"I'm a little nervous, but I'm okay "I answered. "How are you?"

He bent an elbow on the seat and rested one cheek in his hand. "I don't know who I'd rather sleep with," he said, "you or the character you're playing."

The moment was so intense that I covered my face with my hands to hide the rising color. Just then I heard from the back of the theater, "We're ready for you, Cybill."

Even if he hadn't meant it, Peter's words would have been terrific motivation for the scene. I felt s.e.xy, playful, inspired. And I couldn't stop thinking about him, about the corners of his mouth as he spoke before I covered my eyes.

Not long after, Polly was away scouting locations, and Jeff Bridges had left for a week of army reserve duty. As we wrapped for the day, Peter said, "I guess you're going to be alone tonight." It was his first reference to the open secret that Jeff and I had been keeping company after hours.

Jeff was adorable, but n.o.body could compare to Peter. What he had to offer was authority, maturity, guidance, and a palpable attraction. The force field that had started in the Ess.e.x House, when I didn't know what book I was reading, would grow to the point that even Polly remarked on it--she said facetiously that Peter was always drawn to women with big b.r.e.a.s.t.s and small feet (neither of which she had).

There was a moment of silence and expectation before I responded to Peter's comment.

"I'm alone every, night," I said. It was as if the lighting in the room changed, everything fading to black until there was just one spotlight on the couple.

We made plans for dinner that night at a cowboy steakhouse outside of town that we hoped would not be frequented by any of the cast or crew. I nervously tried on every outfit in my suitcase, finally settling on blue jeans. It was the time of night when the ambient temperature in Texas seemed to drop like a stone, but the s.h.i.+ver I felt down the back of my neck as I saw Peter at his car wasn't meteorological. In that flat country, the sky gets bigger and the sunset surrounds you like a dome. We stopped and stood by the bridge that crosses the Red River, watching the ball of fire drop behind the horizon. He sang a cappella to me in the car on the way home-"I'm a Fool to Love You" and "Glad to Be Unhappy." No suitor had ever serenaded me like that, and it felt like the most romantic kind of wooing. When we got back to the motel, we both went to my room.

An emotional archaeologist might speculate about how much bought into the mythology of The Last Picture Show The Last Picture Show and a character who represents the height of narcissism: damaging other people but focusing on how bad it makes her feel. Jacy was doing that in the film, and I was doing it in real life, aware of the pain we would cause but unable to resist causing it. The inability to tolerate the truths about oneself is an essential element of narcissism, and I had a blithely unexamined life. The partic.i.p.ants in a love triangle are often neatly categorized as innocent victim, faithless destroyer, and erotic enabler. But the roles are mutable, and I don't think you can play one without ending up playing them all. and a character who represents the height of narcissism: damaging other people but focusing on how bad it makes her feel. Jacy was doing that in the film, and I was doing it in real life, aware of the pain we would cause but unable to resist causing it. The inability to tolerate the truths about oneself is an essential element of narcissism, and I had a blithely unexamined life. The partic.i.p.ants in a love triangle are often neatly categorized as innocent victim, faithless destroyer, and erotic enabler. But the roles are mutable, and I don't think you can play one without ending up playing them all.

When Polly returned from her scouting expedition the truth became impossible for her to ignore. We weren't doing anything obvious--on the contrary, we were even more guarded, trying to stay away from each other--but the energy changes when an illicit affair is consummated. Polly would later tell Peter that she knew for sure when she saw a box of pralines in their room that were not meant for her, even though they were her favorites. One night she was eating dinner in the restaurant at the Tradewinds Motel when she saw us come in. Kning it was best not to have a confrontation until the work was done, she crawled out of the restaurant on her knees. She moved to another room at the Ramada Inn, hoping that she could resurrect her marriage after a location affair had lost its heat.

On those charts that measure stress in life, where the death of a spouse rates 100 and a bad haircut is a 3, Peter was hovering near the top, and he went off the chart entirely when he got the news that his father lay in a coma after a catastrophic stroke. He went to Arizona for the weekend, but three days after he returned to work, Borislav Bogdanovich died.

Peter's father's death drew us closer together as I made myself available to hold and comfort him. But it would have been completely inappropriate for me to accompany him to the funeral--I was the chippie who had broken up his marriage--and Polly declined to go, so he had no support for the trip. When he returned, he had to shoot the funeral scene for Sam the Lion, a brutal piece of bad timing. It would become one of the most powerful sequences of the film, informed by Peter's personal loss and infused with an extra dimension of raw emotion that affected all of us.

All my life I'd been told I could use my beauty, but it had been slippery footing: I was never thin enough, my b.r.e.a.s.t.s were not the right shape, and the area under my eyes was too puffy. But in 1970 I had the right look for the right time-a genetic roll of the dice in my favor. If I had resembled one of Modigliani's fragile waifs rather than Botticelli's ample voluptuaries, maybe n.o.body would know who I am today. Peter told me, "Don't you dare lose weight," and for the first time in my life, I felt confident about my looks. But I was still petrified by the thought of the striptease on a diving board at a midnight pool party and the deflowering at the Cactus Motel that has all the romance of root ca.n.a.l.

An a.s.sistant director was given what he considered the plum a.s.signment of going to talent agencies in Dallas and finding a body double for me, in case I refused to do the nude scene. But I wouldn't let him see me naked or pose for photographs, so I was put in the bizarre position of describing my b.r.e.a.s.t.s to him. (Wildly embarra.s.sed, I said "eggs over easy.") Peter kept rea.s.suring me that there would be only a skeletal crew, that none of the other actors would be present when we filmed, and that it wouldn't mean the end of my career before it even started. A friend had pointed out to me that once an actress appears nude on film, the stills often fall into the wrong hands, and I wanted a signed affidavit from Peter and the producer Bert Schneider that no still photographs would be printed. I continued to nag Peter about this until one day he snapped, "If you ever mention this again, I will never give you another piece of direction." I never did speak of it again. The day we shot the diving board scene, I wore two pairs of underpants so I could remove one and still be covered. My anxiety was impeccable motivation, since Jacy's bravado covers up sheer terror.

I had another naked moment of truth in the scene at the motel. As an impotent Duane keeps mumbling, "I dunno what happened," Jacy finally explodes, "Oh, if you say that one more time, I'll bite you," throwing her panties at his head. Since Peter was framing the shot for a close-up, I was thrilled to get to put my bra back on. There's a comic juxtaposition of music and action in the scene, a florid arrangement of "Wish You Were Here" mocking Duane's inability to get it up. Nudity and comedy in the same scene is a rare combination in film.

(Years later, when Peter reedited the movie for a new release, he reinstated a scene where Jacy has s.e.x on a pool table with "Abilene," a callous older man who works for her father and has an affair with her mother. The s.e.x is not violent or coerced but so cold and bloodless that it seems tantamount to an act of aggression against Jacy, stopping just short of rape. Including this scene makes my character more sympathetic, gives her more dimension. The original sound had been lost, so I had to go into a studio and rerecord the audible implications of lovemaking, looking at footage of myself from twenty-five years earlier while Peter stood next to me giggling.) At the time I thought that G.o.d was going to strike me dead for appearing nude in a movie. But the morning after, I got up and ate oatmeal and realized that I was going to live. I thought surely I'd be struck down after I had s.e.x with a married man. But the morning after, I woke up quite healthy. I knew the affair was wrong, but I rationalized it by thinking that I hadn't exchanged any vows with Polly, and that I was only doing what men have been doing for eons, taking their pleasure wherever they find it. John Bruno, who had come for one visit, sent me a pithy present: a s.h.i.+ny steel heart-shaped dog tag on a chain that said: MY NAME IS CYBILL, I BELONG TO NO ONE. Now it seems like an estimable motto, but at the time it saddened me.

When a film wraps, the actors often like to keep some of their props or wardrobe as mementos. I wanted the heart-shaped locket and the brown and white saddle shoes that Jacy wore, but Polly was in charge of costumes and wouldn't give them to me. I guess she figured I had enough of a souvenir: her husband.

Peter and I had made no promises to one another beyond the boundaries of Texas. I'd never experienced anything so powerful before and didn't know where it would lead. I still thought of marriage as an outdated inst.i.tution left over from the era of chast.i.ty belts, but Peter said he had to give his own marriage a chance. I went back to Memphis before returning to New York City and Peter and Polly returned to their home in Los Angeles. Right away he began sneaking out to phone me, and Polly finally said, "If you can't stay away from her, why don't you just go with her?" He called me from his room at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

"Do you want to come out here and live with me?" he asked wearily.

"Okay," I said, the calmness of my voice belying the joy and trepidation in my heart. "When do you want me to come?"

"On the next plane," he said.

We rented a furnished apartment on the seventh floor of a landmark Art Deco building on the Sunset Strip. But many nights I camped out on the couch at the production company, living on those chili dogs from Pinks and watching Peter edit The Last Picture Show The Last Picture Show on an old Moviola. Since he had no a.s.sistant, he a.s.sembled the raw footage himself--twenty-four frames per second, like twenty-four still photographs. He marked with a white wax pencil between the frames where he wanted to cut. Then he rolled his chair over to a splicer table, rea.s.sembling the film with a special Scotch tape that had sprocket perforations. He would then run the scene for me, demonstrating the powerful effect of adding or removing even a single frame to the "head" or the "tail" of the shot. Watching Peter work was an education in film, and it served me well when I got involved in the editing of the on an old Moviola. Since he had no a.s.sistant, he a.s.sembled the raw footage himself--twenty-four frames per second, like twenty-four still photographs. He marked with a white wax pencil between the frames where he wanted to cut. Then he rolled his chair over to a splicer table, rea.s.sembling the film with a special Scotch tape that had sprocket perforations. He would then run the scene for me, demonstrating the powerful effect of adding or removing even a single frame to the "head" or the "tail" of the shot. Watching Peter work was an education in film, and it served me well when I got involved in the editing of the Cybill Cybill show. I like it when I hear this process called "montage." It seems to convey the hope that the whole will add up to even more than the sum of its parts. Film is visual music. It's put together with more than logic and announces when it's right. Many a performance can be made or destroyed by what is left in or cut out. show. I like it when I hear this process called "montage." It seems to convey the hope that the whole will add up to even more than the sum of its parts. Film is visual music. It's put together with more than logic and announces when it's right. Many a performance can be made or destroyed by what is left in or cut out.

Columbia fought hard to rename The Last Picture Show, The Last Picture Show, afraid it would be confused with afraid it would be confused with The Last Movie, The Last Movie, Dennis Hopper's follow-up to Dennis Hopper's follow-up to Easy Rider Easy Rider that was to be released just a few weeks earlier. Studio executives submitted about five hundred alternative t.i.tles, all of which were resoundingly rejected--it was, after all, the t.i.tle that had originlly attracted Peter to the project. Bert Schneider called with the disheartening news that the picture had been given an X rating because of the nudity, but Peter said, "I don't see how we can cut any of it. Tell them to look at it again." Bert appealed to his brother, Columbia's head of production, who had been an earlier advocate, arguing against the corporate executives who questioned why anybody would want to see a black and white film, much less make one. The rating was changed to R. We never knew why this happened. that was to be released just a few weeks earlier. Studio executives submitted about five hundred alternative t.i.tles, all of which were resoundingly rejected--it was, after all, the t.i.tle that had originlly attracted Peter to the project. Bert Schneider called with the disheartening news that the picture had been given an X rating because of the nudity, but Peter said, "I don't see how we can cut any of it. Tell them to look at it again." Bert appealed to his brother, Columbia's head of production, who had been an earlier advocate, arguing against the corporate executives who questioned why anybody would want to see a black and white film, much less make one. The rating was changed to R. We never knew why this happened.

My mother's response to the news about Peter and me was "If you're going to be with a married man, you might as well be a wh.o.r.e." But her moral stance didn't prevent her from accepting my invitation to the premiere at the New York Film Festival or from sharing the suite reserved for Peter and me at the Ess.e.x House. (In a romantic gesture, he had tried but failed to get the same suite where we first met.) There was only time for brief introductions because we had to leave early for the requisite media interviews and Mother was not happy that she didn't get to ride to Lincoln Center in the same limousine with us and share the glory. I was ambivalent about her presence: I wanted her to partic.i.p.ate, but she'd already declared me a harlot, and I knew she'd have a hard time watching a movie featuring my bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

The Last Picture Show starts in silence that continues for a long time-no music, stark black lettering for the credits, and a slow pan during which the only sound is a blowing wind. The first voice you hear is Peter's, as an off-camera disc jockey with a thick Texas drawl introducing Hank Williams's recording of "Cold Cold Heart." Peter and I held hands as the lights dimmed. I didn't relax until Jacy's first line-"Whatcha'all doin' back here in the dark?"-for the first time, I felt the magic of an audience laughing at something I said. starts in silence that continues for a long time-no music, stark black lettering for the credits, and a slow pan during which the only sound is a blowing wind. The first voice you hear is Peter's, as an off-camera disc jockey with a thick Texas drawl introducing Hank Williams's recording of "Cold Cold Heart." Peter and I held hands as the lights dimmed. I didn't relax until Jacy's first line-"Whatcha'all doin' back here in the dark?"-f