April 04, 2008 |
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"YOU JUST don't get it, do you . It was not a dream come true! All I ever wanted was . a baby, a husband who really loved me, a home; all the happiness that they could bring never got that, and that's all I really wanted."
That's Doris Day, years after she retired from the screen, upset, and speaking with unusual candor to a friend who was pressing Doris about the glories of her career. The quote comes from a Vanity Fair excerpt of the big David Kaufman biography on Doris.
Miss Day is one of the great stars in Hollywood history. (It's always a toss-up between Day and another oft-underrated blonde, Betty Grable, as to which was the most consistently valuable at the box office.) But Doris Day never really seemed to enjoy her career, though her professionalism was legend. Her personal life was troubled, her marriages unhappy - sometimes devastatingly so. She was abused physically, emotionally and financially.
Toward the end, she saw her screen image distorted grotesquely. The feisty, independent, sexy persona was somehow transformed into that of an aging, eternal virgin. Most of her films - even the later, hugely successful sex comedies - belie this. But the damage was done.
She long ago gave her life over to caring for animals; they shower her with the unconditional love she felt she never experienced with creatures walking upright on two legs.
Even though I know Doris Day wouldn't dream of ever accepting an honorary Academy Award, I won't stop pressing the Academy to give her one. So she won't appear in person - big deal. Show some class, Hollywood. Doris Day always did.
I WAS especially struck by Doris Day's VF quote, because in the same issue, on the cover, is a woman for whom fame is everything - Madonna. Yes, she is hanging onto her marriage to director Guy Ritchie. Yes, she has three children. Yes, she talks a good (if often confounding) game of spiritual enlightenment. And now she is a lady bountiful of charitable good-deed-doing. But there is, I find, something poignant in her incredibly driven race to stay on top, to remain relevant, to expand her potentialities.
She is on the cusp of 50, still young in our 50-is-the-new-30 era. And there's certainly no reason for her to retire. Yet the fire that burns in her is so obvious, the need to fill the hole in her soul so naked, her effort is so effortful. (Unlike Cher, who has her demons and drives for sure, but makes her long career and hard work look easy, no sweat.)
Under the steel of Madonna's professional ethic, the taut, beautiful face and the body she has re-shaped into a monument of control and power rather than of yielding sensuality, there is vulnerability and insecurity. She has said it herself, but I don't think many people believe her. Or they don't want to believe her. That's not their Madonna. Who would ever have believed Marlene Dietrich, especially in her later years - going on and on with the glossy, frozen image - had she said, "Beneath the beads, I'm tewwibly sensitive!"
Nobody wanted a sensitive Marlene, a happy Judy Garland, a powerful Marilyn, a sober Jim Morrison or Janis Joplin.
I don't know what people want of Madonna, really. She continues to astound, without being terribly convincing. This might be our problem, rather than hers, because she certainly never falters in her public belief of herself, never cops a plea, and will not beg for love and understanding. I think even those who insist her talents do not move them, are impressed by her single-mindedness.
As for me, I have seen her at her most charming, and I always advise her to have another cocktail and for heaven's sake, put on 10 pounds. I don't want Madonna to retire. I want her to relax.
BUT - WHO can ever relax? Not when you've just topped Elvis Presley for most Top Ten singles ever. Madonna's new song, "4 Minutes" is her 37th to reach the Top Ten. Elvis racked up 36.
And Mariah Carey - another favorite diva of mine - also bested the late King of Rock and Roll. Her "Touch My Body" single is No.1, her 18th top song, to Presley's 17. Mariah is fast closing in on The Beatles, who have 20 No. 1 hits.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD wrote that there are no second acts in American life.
Perhaps that was true at the beginning of the 20th century when Scott made his observation, but second and even third acts are commonplace now.
Why, we need only look to Miss Britney Spears. It might be too early to call her cameo on TV's "How I Met Your Mother" a "second act," but it was a cute, tentative first step into public rehabilitation. She looked fresh. She performed charmingly. She has some acting talent. (Her feature film, "Crossroads" though a flop, revealed an attractive and malleable presence.)
The real prize? Ten million viewers tuned in to see Britney! Sure, many were looking for a train wreck, but some train wrecks can't get noticed. Britney can.
Perhaps a little career on TV, a series of her own is what the doctor ordered? Or maybe playing the wacky sitcom sidekick - a new-style Rhoda to somebody else's Mary? The music world is so high pressure, and Spears, harassed 24/7, does not need pressure. (Late flash - they want her back on "How I Met Your Mother.")
Tomorrow's headlines, next week's glossy magazines, the daily, heartless TMZ invasions might bring another story, but for the moment, I'm betting Britney can pull her life together. I believe in the power of women and in second acts.
(E-mail Liz Smith at MES3838@aol.com, or write to her c/o Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY 14207.)
©2008 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
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