Jeannie Out Of The Bottle (23 page)

I did meet Sinatra through him, though, when we went to a dinner at Sinatra’s house in Palm Springs. Mr. Sinatra was lovely to me, although clearly a man’s man who much preferred the company of other men to that of women.

I never met President Reagan with Chuck at all. I did with Michael, however, when we attended his inaugural ball, and twice after that, once with a boyfriend, and then with my husband, Jon. To me, Reagan looked like a businessman. A big man in a big coat.

On the subject of presidents, when I was working at the Fairmont Hotel in Atlanta, future president Jimmy Carter, then governor of Georgia, came to see the show with his daughter, Amy. After the show, he invited me to the governor’s mansion, where I met his wife, Rosalynn. Amy was jumping around on the furniture, eating an orange—sweet, innocent, and unaffected.

Still worse than Chuck’s name-dropping was his continual drive to be the center of attention, his constant and overweening need for applause. Before we met, he had been a popular after-dinner speaker. Now that we were an item, the demand for him to perform speaking engagements increased, and Chuck loved it. His yearning to be onstage at all times was such that I sometimes caught myself wondering if he was the actor, not me.

The truth was that he wanted to be the star. Looking back, I see that although he was a brilliant man and a talented salesman, Chuck was very insecure. He was like a spoiled child who wanted to hog all the attention and couldn’t endure it if he didn’t get it. He just had to entertain at all costs, even if the jokes he cracked constantly weren’t funny.

The problem was that I was the entertainer, not him, and in his heart he knew it and resented me. And the longer we spent together, the stronger his resentment. In fact, one of his favorite quotes, which he later served out with relish to journalists who asked him about our marriage, was, “Before I met her, I always told jokes at parties and had developed a reputation as an emcee and raconteur. Now people come up to her and say, ‘Hey, aren’t you the famous Barbara Fegert?’ ”

All my doubts aside, I was in love with Chuck and he with me, and soon I was dividing my time between Los Angeles and Chuck’s luxurious apartment on the forty-second floor of the Water Tower. He had a bachelor pad with spectacular views of the lake and the glittering lights of the city below.

The apartment boasted a bedroom with mirrored ceilings and a Jacuzzi. Chuck was so proud of that bedroom, because it epitomized the playboy image he always tried so hard to project (not that it was entirely false). Many of his friends were playboys, late-night parties were de rigueur for him, and whenever Sinatra was in town (which was often), he and Chuck hung out together.

At the start of our relationship, I commuted between LA and Chicago, and Chuck did the same, later grousing that he had made the trip thirty-one times. Then, in the same breath, he’d boast to the press, “Barbara is such an old-fashioned girl, she refuses to live with me. Her values are so traditional.”

From the first, part of the problem was that I still wanted to work, and work I did. We tried to spend as much time as possible together, but I kept being offered jobs, and I took them, not just because I loved working but also because I didn’t want to put my life on hold and become a stay-at-home wife. That wasn’t whom Chuck had fallen in love with or who I intrinsically am. But the reality was that while Chuck loved to have me work, he also hated it because it took time away from him, and also because, no matter how hard I tried not to, I inevitably upstaged him.

I told myself that because my career made Chuck feel so insecure, the only solution was for me to marry him. That way, I reasoned, he would know that we were a unit, a couple, and then he’d be secure, settled, and content and we’d go on and have a good life together.

So although I was riddled with doubts about the wisdom of what I was about to do, I agreed to marry Chuck. The wedding took place in a storybook setting: a lakeside horse ranch, with a large main house, owned by one of Chuck’s friends. Unfortunately, I was one and a half hours late for my own wedding. Not that it was my fault (the hairdresser driving me there got lost), but in retrospect, it seems symbolic.

Despite my mother’s distaste for Chuck, she still attended the wedding, though afterward she sniffed, “He acted like the bride, not the groom.” At that point, I was still far too loyal to Chuck to ask her exactly what she meant by that remark.

But even without her spelling it out, I knew that, unlike Michael, Chuck was not good husband material. Everything about Chuck was the opposite of Michael Ansara, with his honesty, his integrity, his steadfastness. Chuck was all about frivolity, excitement, and drama.

By then, I knew his character. I knew that he could be mean, but I didn’t quite accept it, and blamed myself instead. I thought that his unkindness to Matthew and his friends, his controlling way with me, were all down to the fact that he wasn’t used to living with a career woman.

Matthew didn’t warm to my new husband, either. He was nine when I first met Chuck. Soon after, Chuck and I took his two children and Matthew to a Nevada dude ranch for a vacation. We rode horses and had fun. But when I broke the news to Matthew that I was marrying Chuck and that we very much wanted him to be part of the wedding, his answer was brief and to the point.

“Oh boy! We’re going to have trouble with Daddy.”

Trouble?

I dug deeper and got the real story out of Matthew. Michael had made it clear to our son that if I married Chuck, he didn’t want Matthew to live with us in Chicago; rather, he wanted him to stay in Los Angeles with him.

I prepared for battle and contacted my attorney, Joe Taback. To my surprise, Joe suggested that I take a meeting with Michael’s attorney.

In advance of the meeting, I consulted a child psychologist, who confirmed my deepest fears at the time: experts firmly believed that it was better for a teenage boy to live with his father, not his mother.

Perhaps. But not in my case, I told myself. Not in my case, given all the love I possessed for Matthew, how much I adored him, and how I lived to make him happy. Besides, I was his mother, and no man could ever compete with that.

I arrived at the meeting with all guns blazing, my attorney by my side, ready to battle to the death for custody of Matthew.

So I was floored when Michael’s attorney greeted us with the announcement that Matthew wanted to live with Michael, not vice versa. I didn’t believe him. Then he produced a letter in Matthew’s childlike writing.

I want to live with my daddy, it said, almost breaking my heart.

I left the office in tears and rushed home to talk to Matthew. I wanted to find out what had prompted his decision, and how much pressure his father had put on him to make it.

At the same time, I was determined to be understanding. I took one look at his face and saw how crushed and hurt he was, how tragically his loyalties were divided between Michael and me. That was my worst nightmare. So I kissed him and said, “Don’t worry, Matthew. It’s all right, it’s your daddy, and of course you want to live with him. I understand.”

From then on, I did and said what I thought was best for Matthew, no matter how tough that was for me. I believed that a good parent shouldn’t put an innocent child in the middle of a conflict between a mother and a father, and I lived up to my beliefs, no matter how much it killed me emotionally.

Back in Chicago, Chuck still wanted to promote his playboy image, despite the fact that he now had a wife. To that end, when the Chicago Sun-Times came to photograph us for a feature, he insisted that I be photographed in a bubble bath, while he lounged next to me in a cherry-red satin dressing gown, Hugh Hefner style.

They say that the universe sometimes sends you subtle—and not-so-subtle—signals that show you what is really going on in your life, if only you pay attention. And I believe that what happened next was the perfect example.

Just before Christmas, I was in the elevator, taking the dry cleaning downstairs, when all of a sudden the elevator ground to a halt between floors. Then it began bouncing up and down frighteningly fast.

Someone once told me that if an elevator drops, you should lie flat on the floor, so that you can protect your spine and spread the shock when the elevator hits the ground. So that’s what I did: I threw myself onto the elevator floor.

Just then I heard a cable snap. Then another one. I reached up and pushed the emergency button, trying hard not to panic. As I did, I felt the elevator drop further. All I could think of was the movie The Towering Inferno, and I prayed.

Then I heard more cables unravel, and the sound of the broken pieces tumbling down the shaft. I held my breath. Would the elevator itself be next?

There was another shudder; the elevator dropped once more and then ground to a halt.

I spent the next ninety-three minutes cowering on the elevator floor, trapped.

Finally the door was yanked open and I was helped out onto the thirty-second floor, where the elevator had stopped. As the elevator repairman helped me out, he took one look at my ashen face and yelled, “Jeannie! Why didn’t you get yourself out?” I almost socked him.

But what I didn’t recognize until later was that the universe was signaling me big-time.

In 1978, soon after Chuck and I married, I was cast as Stella Johnson, owner of La Moderna Beauty Parlor, in my first major movie role in fourteen years, Harper Valley PTA. The movie was inspired by the hit Jeannie C. Riley song, written by Tom T. Hall, but the film had echoes of Peyton Place as well.

Stella, an unconventional single mom, wore short skirts, drank beer, and wasn’t afraid to speak her mind, frequently embarrassing her young daughter. The turning point in the script came when the Harper Valley PTA vented their disapproval of Stella on her daughter, whereupon an outraged Stella stormed into the PTA and gave them a piece of her mind.

The movie was low-budget, filmed on location in southern Illinois. I hadn’t realized that part of Illinois is virtually a part of the South, and the people there speak with a southern accent. But low-budget or not, Harper Valley PTA proved to be a surprise box office success.

Consequently, in 1981, NBC decided to create a TV series based on the movie, which was shot at Universal. It started out being a lot of fun. Matthew, now sixteen, appeared in one episode, in the role of a high school student.

Michael came over to the set and coached Matthew in his part because he was so nervous about his acting ability. I was also a basket case at the prospect of acting in a scene with my son, although he only had three lines to say, but he did very well in the part and I was vastly relieved.

The first year of the series went well, because we had wonderful producers—Sherwood Schwartz and his son, Lloyd. Then NBC decided they wanted to make a change, and brought in a new production team, which included a couple of guys who seemed to think that smoking pot was the way to make a hit series. I’ve never been judgmental about drugs, but the continual smell grossed me out.

After I reported them, they took their pot smoking elsewhere, but the fallout from their behavior was that the series suffered considerably and after two years and twenty-nine episodes was canceled.

One good thing that came out of Harper Valley PTA is that I was able to buy a beautiful four-bedroom home high above Beverly Hills with a spectacular view of the city, an infinity pool, and a library. When I first moved into the house, it had an overwhelming preponderance of dark wood. I tore down walls, created windows, replaced the floor with hardwood, made one bedroom into an office, and had most of the house decorated in peach, blue, and green—all happy colors. My living room and my bedroom are mirrored to reflect the outdoors.

During my brief stays in Chicago, to Chuck’s dismay, I became somewhat of a local celebrity. The columns seemed to follow my activities incessantly. I joined the board of a major Chicago bank (a kick, considering that I’d once worked as a humble bank employee in San Francisco) and socialized with friends, including the columnist Irv Kupcinet, whose wife, Essee, used to cook us delicious home-style meals.

During that time, Matthew came to visit. He got on well with Chuck’s daughter, but Chuck did his utmost to divide us. He didn’t want Matthew to love me, or anyone else to even like me. I could see that, but instead of fighting back, I grew very quiet and withdrawn, far from the bright, happy, effervescent woman Chuck had first met and professed to love.

The last straw was when, after we had planned to take a long summer vacation together, I received an offer to star in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and accepted it without consulting Chuck about my decision. In retrospect, I realize that, in the interests of keeping my husband happy, I probably shouldn’t have taken the job, but the part was good, and I really wanted to do the show.

Chuck was livid. Increasingly, he did all he could to put me down whenever the opportunity arose.

He was rude, controlling, and virulently competitive with me. For example, one evening, a maitre d’ welcomed me at a restaurant. Chuck erupted in fury and yelled, “I’m the one who pays the bill. He should greet me, not you!” A minor incident, but indicative of Chuck’s bitter mind-set and innate dissatisfaction with me and with our marriage.

One night we went to see Richard Burton in Camelot, then playing in Chicago. I’d loved Richard Burton ever since seeing him in The Robe (in which, incidentally, Michael also appeared), and I was excited to see him onstage in person.

I loved the show, but Chuck yawned loudly most of the way through the first act. As soon as the curtain came down for the interval, he got up, grabbed my arm, and said, “Come on, Barbara, we’re leaving!”

I was mortified, both because I was enjoying the show so much and because I was acutely aware of how big a snub it is to an actor if someone leaves the theater before the play is over, particularly if that person is someone you know. Although we hadn’t yet met Richard Burton, we had mutual friends, and we were scheduled to have dinner with Richard and his wife, Suzy, after the show.