My Mother Was Nuts Read online

  Text copyright © 2012 Penny Marshall

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Amazon Publishing

  P.O. Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  eISBN: 9781477850015

  To my Mommy and Daddy, who gave me their best; my brother, who gave me a job; my sister, who helped me cross the street; and my daughter, Tracy, and my grandchildren, Spencer, Bella, and Viva, who provided me with the opportunity to love them forever.

  Contents

  INTRODUCTION: Night of the Ninjas

  CHAPTER 1. FIVE MORE MINUTES

  CHAPTER 2. WHAT DID’YA EXPECT—HEDY LAMARR?

  CHAPTER 3. THE GRAND CONCOURSE

  CHAPTER 4. DINNERTIME

  CHAPTER 5. STRICTLY BALLROOM

  CHAPTER 6. DEAR MOM & DAD

  CHAPTER 7. THE MARSHALL PLAN

  CHAPTER 8. MUCHO GRATH-E-ATH

  CHAPTER 9. THE FACTS OF LIFE

  CHAPTER 10. MRS. HENRY

  CHAPTER 11. FORGET THE GAS, I WANT THE JELL-O

  CHAPTER 12. TAKE EVERYTHING

  CHAPTER 13. A WORK IN PROGRESS

  CHAPTER 14. THANK GOD MY BROTHER HAD A JOB

  CHAPTER 15. THE MANSON MURDERS

  CHAPTER 16. I MADE HIM SICK

  CHAPTER 17. ALL IN THE FAMILY

  CHAPTER 18. FUNNY BUSINESS

  CHAPTER 19. OUT WITH A LAUGH

  CHAPTER 20. LIVE FROM NEW YORK

  CHAPTER 21. READY FOR PRIME TIME

  CHAPTER 22. CHICK FIGHT

  CHAPTER 23. FROM SUDS TO STARDOM

  CHAPTER 24. LIVE FROM NEW ORLEANS

  CHAPTER 25. WHERE’S MOM?

  CHAPTER 26. THE REMODEL

  CHAPTER 27. TRIPPING

  CHAPTER 28. DIRTY LAUNDRY

  CHAPTER 29. TAKING DIRECTION

  CHAPTER 30. OLD FRIENDS

  CHAPTER 31. GOOD-BYE SHIRL

  CHAPTER 32. IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH

  CHAPTER 33. PEGGY SUE BLUES

  CHAPTER 34. JUMPIN’ JACK FLASH

  CHAPTER 35. KEEPING THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE

  CHAPTER 36. GETTING STREET CRED

  CHAPTER 37. HEART AND SOUL

  CHAPTER 38. A MEDICAL MYSTERY TOUR

  CHAPTER 39. BATTER UP

  CHAPTER 40. ADDING WOOD

  CHAPTER 41. THE GOSPEL

  CHAPTER 42. THE LAST BULL RUN

  CHAPTER 43. RIDING IN CARS

  CHAPTER 44. MAKE IT FUNNY, HONEY

  CHAPTER 45. GET ME SOME WHITE CASTLES

  CHAPTER 46. FIVE MORE MINUTES

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’ve always been crazy but it’s kept me from going insane.

  —WAYLON JENNINGS (framed in my bathroom)

  INTRODUCTION

  Night of the Ninjas

  I’M NOT SOMEONE who’s had to deal with much personal drama outside of the usual: growing up with parents who hated each other, two marriages and divorces, the ups and downs of various relationships, raising a daughter, and watching friends crack up and overdose. There was the cancer thing, too. As you can see, though, there’s nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that most people don’t go through, nothing that says, “Penny, you were lucky to get through that one.”

  Oh, except for when I was robbed by the knife-wielding ninjas.

  Let me explain. I had come home one night after watching dailies of myself, something I never do because I think I look terrible. I pulled on my favorite flannel nightgown, the one with a New York Times crossword puzzle pattern on it, and applied a facial mask, one of those thick pastes. As it began to harden, I heard a strange, unsettling noise inside one of the other rooms. I thought it was my daughter, Tracy, and her boyfriend, Gio Coppola, who were supposed to be there, or my niece, Penny Lee, who was living downstairs in an outside apartment.

  “Tray,” I called.

  Nothing.

  “P-Lee,” I said, trying my niece.

  No answer.

  I walked out of my bedroom and looked in the living room. It was long and narrow, with sliding glass doors that provided a 180-degree view of Los Angeles, spanning the high-rise buildings downtown to the Pacific Ocean. At night, though, it was a black carpet of shimmering lights. As I stared across the room, I saw someone run into the den and try a terrace door, which didn’t open. I don’t startle easily. I’ve directed seven movies and know a thing or two about dealing with unexpected crises. In an emergency, I’m as calm as a heart surgeon.

  Moving methodically, I found the clicker for my alarm system on top of the bookcase, and just as I did, a guy emerged from the den. He had a stocking over his head and a knife in his hand. From his stance, I sensed he was nervous.

  “Who’d you let out?” he asked, thinking I’d opened the front gate.

  I took a breath.

  “My assistant,” I said, lying.

  Another guy then appeared, this one dressed like a ninja and holding a large sword. That was a nice touch, I thought. I assumed they must have watched Tracy, Gio, and my niece leave and then come up the hill, thinking the house was empty. They told me that we had to go to the bedroom, but we were interrupted by the phone. The first ring caused all of us to freeze and stare at the blinking light. It was the third line, I noticed—the alarm company.

  I guessed the clicker had worked.

  I picked up the phone and immediately hung it up again. They glanced at me, then at each other, then back at me.

  “Otherwise it’ll keep ringing,” I said.

  I knew they wanted to steal something and, unfortunately for them, I didn’t have much in the house to steal. I had only lived there a little more than a year after renting a couple of different homes over the years. I had some old couches downstairs, and a piano in the living room. None of it was expensive, valuable, or movable. I noticed them checking me out for jewelry. I had on a necklace and a ring that had been my grandmother’s.

  The bad robber—the one with the stocking over his head and the knife in his hand—told me to hand over my jewelry. “I can’t,” I said. “I’m doing a movie. I wore them on camera. I have to match in the shots.”

  They exchanged looks, and I suppose, this being Hollywood, they understood. They grabbed some cameras on a shelf instead.

  By now, my facial mask had hardened, making it difficult to talk. As the bad robber went to look around the house again, he instructed his ninja partner, aka the good robber, to watch me. He said something along the lines of, “If she moves, kill her.” He had watched too many movies. Still, I wondered how that would work. Would he impale me with his ninja sword? Cut off my head? Would his blade go through my facemask?

  When the bad robber was gone, I turned to his partner and said, “I’m going to wash this mask off my face.” I didn’t ask. I told him. Then, without waiting for an answer, I went into the bathroom, scrubbed my face, and returned. My robber was surprised when he saw my face.

  “Oh, my God,” he said. “If we’d known it was you, we never would’ve come up.”

  “Well, you can leave anytime,” I said.

  He didn’t move. Neither did I. We stared at each other, unsure what to say next. It was like being in a bad improv class.

  “Is this going to be your career?” I asked.

  “No, I’m going to college,” he said.

  “All right,” I said. “So this is just a part-time job?”

  Then the bad robber returned. He was frustrated by how little I had in the way of loot. He looked at me as if that was my fault. I started to explain that had I known I was going
to be robbed … But I did have traveler’s checks, which I got out. In the meantime, the phone had continued to ring, and this time I picked it up. It was my friend Susan Forristal from New York checking in. I told her that I couldn’t talk. Later, she told me that because I had hung up so quickly she thought I was with someone having sex.

  Not quite. And when the phone rang again, the bad robber, now annoyed, took the ninja’s sword and destroyed it, reminding me of my old friend John Belushi’s Samurai Warrior character. Of course, this being my life, as soon as the phone was in pieces, another extension began to ring.

  “What can I do?” I said, shrugging.

  “Just sign the traveler’s checks,” he said.

  “You know, I think I have to be there in person when you cash these,” I said.

  “Just sign,” he said.

  “I’m sorry I don’t have more for you,” I said. “I have a Roy Rogers plate in the kitchen. I think it might be a collector’s item.”

  The phone rang again, and I answered it. This time it was the police, a Lieutenant So-and-so.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “So far,” I said.

  “Do you know these people?”

  “No.”

  He asked a number of additional questions. Since we had already established the basics, they struck me as superfluous. Actually, they struck me as stupid and pointless. I was being robbed. The robbery was in progress. The robbers were in my home. I did not know them. They were robbers. What more mattered? Annoyed and frustrated, I turned to the bad robber and held out the receiver.

  “It’s for you,” I said.

  I just couldn’t deal with the cop anymore.

  “It’s okay, we know her,” I heard the robber say. “She owes us money.”

  Then he handed the phone back to me. He looked just as irritated with the cop as I was. Neither of us wanted to talk to him.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Do you know him?” the cop asked.

  “No.”

  “Do you owe him money?”

  “No.”

  “Are there weapons?”

  “Yes.”

  All of a sudden we heard a helicopter hovering overhead, and the house filled with bright light from its spotlight. I have a lot of glass doors and windows, and all I could think was that the police were going to shoot through the glass and I was going to have to pay for it—in more ways than one. I told the cop on the phone that I had to go. Then I turned to the robbers. It was time to talk common sense, not dollars and cents.

  “Listen, you see the helicopter up there,” I said. “Now the three of us are in the same situation. They’re going to come through here and probably shoot you—and maybe me, too. I don’t know. But there is a way out of here, out the back and down the hill.”

  So they took off one way and I went upstairs. There were cops everywhere. I told them the robbers had scrambled down the hill, adding that they didn’t have guns. I didn’t want them shooting anyone—especially the ninja going to college. He seemed like a nice kid. I didn’t have to wait long for a resolution. Within a few minutes, cops down the hill radioed that they had caught the bad robber. He was hiding in the neighbor’s bushes down the street.

  They wanted me to identify him. But they wouldn’t bring him back to my place because he wasn’t on my property. Instead, I had to go outside in my pajamas, in front of all the press that had gathered, get in a cop car, and let them drive me to the bottom of the street where they were holding him. His mask was off, but I nodded in acknowledgment; that was the same guy.

  Like a bad ninja, he scowled at me.

  “I should’ve killed you when I had a chance,” he said.

  “That’s pleasant,” I said.

  The next morning the press knew of the story and media outlets around the world reported “Laverne Foils Ninjas.” Around 6 a.m., my phone started to ring. Randy Newman called. “Are you okay?” Paul Schrader called from Guam. “You defended yourself against ninjas?” Jack Nicholson called. “You okay, Pendal? You want to stay here? Only you would wash your face in front of robbers.” Others checked in, too. It was nice.

  Later that morning I went to work. That’s just the way I am. One night I’m at a basketball game, the next I’m being held up by armed ninjas. Shit happens. So even though my life had been in danger, time didn’t stop for me. I didn’t reevaluate my priorities. They were already in a pretty decent place. I stayed calm and did what I had to do.

  As you’re going to discover on the following pages, this is the real me. I don’t rattle easily. I’m wonderfully, oddly, almost irrationally calm and together in a crisis. It’s when everything is calm that I get a little nutty. I’ve been this way since I was a kid growing up in the Bronx. I’ve come pretty far since those days, yet in some ways—no, make that in many ways—I’m still the same girl stuck in an aging body. I may not suck my thumb, wear braces, run after boys, or hang out on the Parkway rail anymore, but I rely on the lessons that I learned back then. They’ve gotten me this far. There must be something to ’em.

  CHAPTER 1

  Five More Minutes

  Penny in her dance costume at the Marjorie Marshall Dance School

  Hal Altman

  NO MATTER WHAT it is that happens to us as adults—and as we all know, shit does happen—we can usually trace the reasons back to the things that happened in our childhood. Here’s the short version of everything you’re about to learn: My mother was nuts. My father was boring. My older brother was funny. My older sister was girly. And I just wanted to play.

  I still do. I attend basketball, football, and baseball games. I waste a stupid amount of time playing Angry Birds on my iPad. I watch movies. I talk on the phone. I’m just like I was as a kid. I like to play. My whole childhood was spent pleading with my mother to play outside for five more minutes.

  “No, Penny, come in.”

  “Five more minutes. Please?”

  “It’s dark.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “But I can still see the ball.”

  “How can you see it in the dark?”

  “Just five more minutes.”

  That was me.

  All the kids from my apartment building played together on the sidewalk and in nearby vacant lots. Popular games were stick ball, Skelly, Three Box Baseball, Hot Beans and Fried Potatoes, and I Declare War. It was fun. It was social. Boys and girls mixed. Age didn’t matter. If you could round up enough people for a game, everyone was happy, especially me.

  I am not much different now. I have never wanted to grow up and stop playing. In many ways, I haven’t. In my work and in my personal life, I still try to maintain a connection to the sense of play that I remember from my childhood. Those experiences taught me the lessons that came in handy later in my life: Try hard, play by the rules, help your friends, don’t get too crazy, and have fun.

  Through all the changes and the challenges of adulthood, I have never strayed too far from those golden rules or from that little girl with the ponytail and the overbite who wanted to keep playing for five more minutes.

  Why would I want to be inside at home?

  My mother was there. Her name was Marjorie, and she was known across the Bronx as the owner, teacher, and chief choreographer of the Marjorie Marshall Dance School. She had 360 students, and she was beloved by 359 of them. The one that didn’t love her unconditionally was the one who she compared unfavorably to all the other girls, the one who wanted to be outside playing, and the one who regularly heard, “Why can’t you be more like Lois Rosenberg?”

  Lois Rosenberg took dance lessons from my mother. She was blond and beautiful, polite and smart, and she loved dance school. She paid attention and tried hard. She was everything I was not. I was extremely skinny. I had a face like a monkey and an overbite that defied orthodontics three times. My study habits were poor, and I thought telling the truth to one’s parents was overrated. It was not for nothing that m
y mother referred to me as “the bad seed.”

  In retrospect, my mother and I were more alike than we acknowledged. Blond and sassy, she was from the Bronx, the only child of Margie and Willie Ward, a homemaker and an accountant. She played the piano and taught herself to dance, and then she began teaching the neighborhood kids how to dance. If she got A’s on her report cards, her father took her to the latest Broadway musical, and she adapted what she saw onstage for her own students. Though her technique wasn’t perfect, she knew how to entertain, and with kids as her stars, her recitals were crowd-pleasers.

  She was in college when she met my father, Anthony “Tony” Masciarelli, a handsome, athletic young man majoring in advertising at New York University. He was a clever writer and cartoonist. He wanted to be a big wheel on Madison Avenue. To better his chances, he changed his last name from Masciarelli to Marshall and forevermore denied that he was both Italian and Catholic.

  My mother didn’t give a shit about religion or ethnicity, not then when they first got together, or anytime afterward. If he wanted to change his name, fine, she didn’t care. In him she saw someone who possessed the skills and smarts to be a good provider. She was also interested in his ability to draw and write. She wanted him to make programs for her recitals.

  My father was no less guilty when it came to ulterior motives. He thought my mother came from a wealthy family that would help him into a comfortable life of commuter trains and country clubs.

  As it turned out, both of their assumptions were wrong.

  Later in their lives, my mother and father both kept a glass of water next to their beds and at night they put their dentures in them. Other than children, it may have been the only thing they had in common during their marriage. They married in 1932. My mother said that he fell asleep on their honeymoon, and that was probably the most romantic thing I ever heard her say about him.

  After she died, I found some notes that she had typed to herself about the early years of her marriage. They revealed a time more difficult than I ever realized. The first one, written in 1932 following their three-day honeymoon, said, “Tony was rotten to me.”