Stori Telling Read online

  My Malibu illusions were shattered when I was twelve. We took a family trip to Europe, but because my father refused to fly, we took the scenic route. It started with a three-day train trip to New York in a private train car attached to the back of a regular Amtrak train. We brought two nannies, my mother’s assistant, and two security guards. From New York we took the Queen Elizabeth II to Europe. I loved the boat—it had a shopping mall, restaurants, and a movie theater—but what excited me most was that they had little arts-and-crafts activities scheduled for the kids. It was the closest to summer camp I ever got. (It was also the farthest from home I ever got. Every other family vacation was spent in Vegas, mostly because you could get there by car.) In England we made the tourist rounds: Trafalgar Square, Madame Tussaud’s, and so on. Of course, when my mother saw the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London she commented, “I have a necklace bigger than that.” It was true. She did.

  But I was talking about the breaking of the Malibu seashell mythology. In England I was reading OK! or Hello!—one of those gossip magazines that were more respectable back in the eighties—and I came across an interview with my parents. In it my mother talks about how she used to buy exotic seashells and hide them for me on the beach in Malibu. Total shock to me. So much for the beautiful seashells of Malibu. You know your family doesn’t exactly communicate well when you find out things like this in weekly magazines.

  Part of why I was upset about the seashells (beyond normal almost-teenage angst) was that it had only been the year before that I realized there was no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny. All I knew was that every year on the night before Easter, the Easter Bunny would call me on the phone and tell me to be a good girl. And every Christmas Eve the phone would ring and Santa’s workers would inform my father that Santa had landed and he was approaching our house. A few moments later there’d be a knock at the door and…there was Santa. My brother and I would rush to greet him in our coordinated Christmas outfits. I’d be wearing a red overalls dress with a white shirt and red kneesocks, and Randy would be wearing red overalls shorts with a white shirt and red kneesocks. We’d sit on Santa’s lap, one on each knee, and tell him what we wanted for Christmas. Then he’d tell us to get to bed early, that tomorrow was a big day, and he’d ho-ho-ho out the door. It didn’t always go so smoothly—like the time that Randy peed on Santa’s knee—but for the most part that was what had gone on for years, and I saw no reason to believe the kids at school when they said Santa was bunk. I saw him with my own eyes.

  I probably would have kept believing if my cousin Meredith hadn’t come over for a sleepover when I was eleven. She was a year older than I was, and that fact alone made her cool. I was really psyched that she was spending the night. It was Easter, and I must have said something about the Easter Bunny’s imminent arrival because she was like, “You’re kidding that you think there’s an Easter Bunny.” I said, “Yes, there is.” Then she said, “Don’t tell me you believe in Santa, too!” The kids at school were eleven like I was—what did they know? Why should I believe them? But Meredith was twelve. She knew stuff. I had to concede. If it hadn’t been for her, who knows how long the charade might have gone on. Oh, and after that I never saw Meredith again. I think her disclosures convinced my parents that she was a bad influence.

  As a kid I felt deceived to discover my parents had been lying, but now I realize it was pretty lovely. My mother loved decorating for and with us—coloring Easter eggs, carving jack-o’-lanterns, setting up moving Santa scenes at Christmastime. The seashells, the holiday characters, the decorations, these were pure, sweet moments that weren’t about putting on a show, they were about making us happy. These were the heartfelt private gifts from my parents for which I never knew to thank them.

  Looking back, what I remember with the most affection is being four years old and having a dad who would sit in the Jacuzzi with me and make up stories. My father was a slight man with slouchy shoulders that made him appear even smaller. For all his power in Hollywood, most of the time he’d appear in a jogging suit with a pipe. He spoke in a soft voice with a hint of Texas twang and would come right up to you to shake your hand or give you a hug even if he didn’t know you well. The overall effect was very Wizard of Oz man-behind-the curtain—this unimposing, gentle guy is the famous Aaron Spelling? People always felt comfortable with him right away.

  He and I would sit in the hot tub, and he’d be Hansel and I’d be Gretel and my mom (upstairs with a migraine) would be the witch. (Yes, I now think this is weird, if not psychologically damaging, that my father let me cast my unwitting mother as the villain. At least I can say that on the day I have in mind I kept looking up at the window of my mother’s bedroom, hoping to see the shade go up, which meant the witch felt better and might join us at the pool.) Or we’d play Chasen’s.

  Chasen’s restaurant, which is now closed, was a legendary celebrity hangout on Beverly Boulevard in Beverly Hills. Frank Sinatra, Alfred Hitchcock, Marilyn Monroe, Jimmy Stewart, and most of the Hollywood elite were regulars in their day. When I was a kid, the family would go to Chasen’s on Mother’s Day or Father’s Day for a fancy celebration. So my dad and I would recline in the Jacuzzi and say, “We’ve just arrived at Chasen’s. What should we order?”

  A few years later I asked my parents for an allowance because the other kids at school had allowances. My father wanted to give me five dollars, but I wanted only twenty-five cents because that’s what the other kids got. Dad told me that in order to earn my allowance, I’d have to help out around the house, so he gave me a job and said he’d do it with me. Every weekend we’d go out into the yard to scoop up dog poo and rake leaves.

  That’s right, every weekend TV mogul Aaron Spelling, net worth equivalent to some small island nation, went out and scooped poo with his daughter. We hadn’t yet moved to the Manor—that enormous house that the press can’t get over—but we still had a large yard and four dogs. And of course we had gardeners who were supposed to be taking care of all that. But there was always plenty for us to pick up, and I suspect he told the gardeners to leave it be. Sort of like the seashells, I guess—but a lot grosser. No matter, I loved it. I remember spending a lot of time out on that lawn, hanging out with my dad, playing softball, or working in the vegetable garden with him and my mother. One year we grew a zucchini that was as big as a baby. There are photos of me cradling it. My father was very proud—no matter what it was, our family liked the biggest and the best.

  For the most part my father thought that money was the way to show love. Where do you think all those lavish jewels my mother wore came from? Every holiday he bought her a bigger and brighter bauble as if to prove his love. When I asked Aunt Kay to help me remember some of the extravagances, she said, “Money was no object. That’s how much he loved you. There was no limit to what he would do for you.” When my mom and I were planning my wedding, my father said almost the same thing: “She loves you so much. Do you know how much she’s paying for this wedding? That’s how much she loves you.” When it comes down to it, luxury wasn’t the substance of my childhood. Love was, simply, the time my parents gave me. What I wish my father had understood before he died is that of all those large-scale memories he and my mother spent so much money and energy creating, picking up poo is what has stayed with me my whole life.

  CHAPTER TWO

  How to Sell Lemonade

  Unlike most kids my age, I never went away for summers—not only did my father refuse to fly, he wouldn’t allow me to go to summer camp. (My father was pretty overprotective. I wasn’t allowed to sleep out at friends’ houses until I was really old. I mean, really old. I remember crying to my friends about not ever getting to sleep over—and this was when I was a senior in high school and already owned my first car!) My father said he forbade summer camp because he’d miss me too much. But he worked such long hours. Maybe he was afraid I’d be kidnapped and held for ransom? Who knows. I never questioned decisions like that in our house. I was a polite kid. I never talked back.
My parents made the rules and I respected them. So no August evenings spent around a campfire roasting marshmallows and telling ghost stories.

  Instead, I spent plenty of summer days at my father’s office on the Twentieth Century Fox lot. My dad was a big shot in TV. By the time I was six or seven, he’d created Starsky and Hutch, Charlie’s Angels, Fantasy Island, Vega$, Hart to Hart, and others, and commanded respect on the studio lot where his production company, then Spelling-Goldberg Productions, had a mini-compound of bungalows out of which they worked. It was like a little town to me—all the bungalows were like little houses, but there were very few cars on the streets. One of my father’s assistants would keep an eye on me while he was busy inventing hit shows. Sometimes Dad’s driver would zoom me around the lot in a golf cart or let me take a turn at the wheel.

  One day I decided to set up a lemonade stand on the lot. I put out Minute Maid lemonade and started selling it along with some little watercolors I’d done on tracing paper. They weren’t prodigy art, just fingerpaint-level doodles. It was a hot day and I was doing some good lemonade business, and I must say I was pretty proud of my operation. Then a guy came up and said, “That’s a great painting. I’m going to buy that.” I knew it was just kid art and was kind of embarrassed, so I said, “You don’t have to.” He paused, seemed to glance around quickly, then said, “Yes, yes I do.”

  So I knew. I knew early on that I was Aaron Spelling’s daughter and that fact made the people around me act differently. Because of that, I guess, all I wanted was to be normal. (Isn’t that the way it always goes? Plenty of children spend their days wishing they were rich, and what do the rich kids do? Wish they were normal. I guess we all glamorize whatever it is that we aren’t, but I know we rich kids can’t go around asking for sympathy.)

  One thing I had going for me was Nanny. I had a nanny for all of my childhood (and beyond). But to call her “a nanny” doesn’t come close to doing her justice. For years I thought her name was actually Nanny—I had no idea to be a nanny was a job; I thought there was this woman in our family named Nanny, a confidante and guide and angel with whom I spent almost all my time. In the photos of my parents carrying me home from the hospital, my mother is pushing the pram, and my father and Nanny are on either side of her. And that’s the way it was, except that in later pictures Nanny is often the one who was holding me.

  Nanny, whose real name was Margaret, was like a mother to me. If we’re all a mix of nature and nurture, my parents gave me my nature and Nanny was the nurture. Everything I learned, I learned from her. She was an African-American woman in her fifties, heavyset, with tightly curled hair she had set every week. She was always impeccably dressed in a white uniform, and nobody messed with Nanny, not even my parents, but she had a beautiful warm smile and an easy laugh. Nanny was like a family member and lived with us five days a week—and she stayed on with my parents when my brother and I moved out, until I was twenty-seven years old. Even after she moved out, Nanny was still at every family dinner, every holiday celebration, every Mother’s Day. She was a permanent part of our family.

  Nanny and I were so close—I’m sure at times it was tough on my mother. In third grade I wasn’t doing well in math. It came to a head on one of Nanny’s days off. I refused to go to school, claiming I was sick. I must not have been a good actress (who, me?) because my mother saw that I was faking. She sat me down to talk it through, and it finally came out that I never wanted to go to school again because I was afraid of the math teacher. My mother was very understanding, trying to calm me down and telling me we’d hire a tutor. But I got more and more worked up. All I would say through my tears was “I want Nanny, I want Nanny.” Finally my mother called Nanny at home and put me on the phone with her. Even though it was her day off, Nanny came over. That was all I needed. Nanny’s presence calmed me down. The anxiety about math had transformed—the real issue became needing my Nanny, and when she appeared, I knew everything would be okay. The three of us went out to dinner at Delores’, my favorite hamburger joint. My mother couldn’t have been thrilled. She’d done everything she could to help, and calling the off-duty nanny can’t be a mother’s best moment. I can still picture what her face looked like—chin up but not happy—even as a child I noticed her consternation, but only later did I understand what it meant.

  I sometimes think this was a turning point for the relationship between my mother and Nanny. It must have hit her then or at another moment that I was closer to a woman she had hired than I was to her. It shouldn’t have been a surprise to her—it was a dynamic she created and financed. But from then on my mother seemed to see Nanny as something of a threat. They had an up-and-down relationship. My dad didn’t help matters by putting his arm around Nanny and saying, “I have two wives,” and then winking and saying, “We all know who the real wife is.” But ultimately, I’m grateful to my mother for doing what was best for me. She called Nanny that day. She kept Nanny on for my entire childhood and beyond. She let the relationship exist and flourish. When people ask me what it would have been like to grow up without money, what comes to mind is that I wouldn’t have had Nanny. And if that were the case, I’d be a completely different person.

  As far as I’m concerned, my time with Nanny was the real world. It kept me grounded. Lots of my childhood memories are with Nanny, and most of them don’t match anyone’s idea of how Aaron Spelling’s daughter spent her youth. Nanny lived in Crenshaw, a mostly middle-class African-American district in South L.A. On weekends when I was young, Nanny would load me, then later me and Randy, into the station wagon, the family house car, and take me to her world. In Crenshaw we’d hang out with her friends and family. I remember spending hot afternoons sitting out on a small square of lawn in Crenshaw running back and forth through the sprinklers with playmates while Nanny chatted with her friends. A familiar jingle would sound and the ice-cream truck would come around the corner. I’d run over to buy a Push-Up, the only white kid as far as the eye could see. I loved going to Crenshaw with Nanny. I liked the small lawn and how all of Nanny’s neighbors seemed to know each other. I liked being surrounded by other kids my age, playing whatever games occurred to us. I liked feeling like just another American kid. It made me feel completely safe. I don’t know if my overprotective parents knew where we went with Nanny, but I have a feeling that they wouldn’t have considered Crenshaw as safe for me as I did.

  Like I said, I was stuck at home all summer, and when I wasn’t in Crenshaw with Nanny or on the Fox lot inducing my father’s employees to drop big bucks on powdered lemonade and overpriced scribbles, I’d hang around our house. Playing with my little brother or watching TV or anything that kids seem to do during long, unstructured summers seemed boring. I couldn’t exactly go outside and play with the other kids on the block—our house was the block. The most happening thing in my neck of the woods was the housekeepers going about their daily activities. All I wanted was to be a part of it. So I’d ask if I could work with them. They’d scrub floors, I’d scrub floors. They’d clean windows, I’d clean windows. They’d fold laundry, I’d fold laundry. When they broke for lunch, I’d eat what they ate, when they ate, where they ate it. It was the closest to normal I could find.

  At some point during the summer I was seven, I informed my mother that I was moving. She gamely asked where it was that I planned to go. It was the laundry room cupboard. I liked the idea of settling into someplace relatively small and warm. So I brought my bedding, my portable TV, and a stock of provisions, including a can of corn—I had no can opener, but a can of corn was somehow critical to survival—into the laundry room and took up residence. I lasted until bedtime.

  Actually, it wasn’t just my desire to be like everyone else that made me move to a smaller, less decorated, cozy room. The truth is that I didn’t exactly feel safe in my own room. See, all those gorgeous Madame Alexander dolls (collectors’ items, don’t forget!) were lined up in cases along the wall facing my bed. Can you imagine how scary it was for a seven-year
-old girl to see all those eyes staring down at you in the darkness? Couple that with the fact that my mom loved horror films and screened them for company. There I was, four years old, sitting on my mother’s lap in a big, comfy chair, watching Invasion of the Body Snatchers starring Donald Sutherland. I never slept soundly again. Eventually, terror drove me into Nanny’s room, where I slept in a twin bed next to hers until I was thirteen. That’s right, Nanny and I were roommates.

  As for my bed, the one I slept in only sometimes, for some reason it had bed railings to prevent me from falling out of bed. Bed railings. Until I was ten. As far as I know, I had no history of falling out of bed. Nobody ever talked to me about the dangers of falling out of bed or how I might avoid falling out of bed. That’s just the way it was. My bed was pretty much a glorified crib. All this bed-sharing and crib-sleeping came to an embarrassing head when I was in the Brownies. I was about seven, and my mom was a troop leader. She may not have been reading me bedtime stories and playing Chasen’s with me, but she was an involved parent in the ways that suited her personality. For her, involvement in Brownies was not unlike working at a charity event. She could organize brunches or troop activities.