My Days Page 13

  And so he returned to L.A., to a darling home, a beautiful son, and a wife who hoped this would now be the real start of our life together as a normal family. I was thrilled to have him home and enjoyed hearing all his stories about New York. He seemed more energized than I had ever seen him, and I thought that, perhaps, having had the opportunity to act in a professional production and earn a paycheck would serve as the spark that would ignite his ambition and motivate him to seek auditions and find work. That was not the case, not during the first few weeks after his return nor as the months went by. The setting may have been different—our own little home, which I just loved—but the story line was the same, as we fell back into the same routine of me working and him staying home with Jim.

  It is amazing to me when I think back on this time, how, as the first few years of the sixties passed, my dream of becoming a big, famous star slowly gave way to my approaching acting as a job, in some ways not unlike being a file clerk or demonstrating Scarfinets. I was no longer a girl in her twenties with a five-year plan that would lead to stardom. I was a woman in her early thirties with a three-year-old child and a husband who, in spite of what I had hoped for upon his return from New York, was still drifting through life and was becoming more and more dependent on the bottles of Scotch he was going through at an ever-escalating pace. I was also something else: pregnant!

  While the mere mention of the year 1963 conjures up all sorts of images in people’s minds, from the Beatles and the Vietnam War to the elevation of Giovanni Montini to Pope Paul VI in the wake of Pope John XXIII’s death and the assassination of President Kennedy, to me, that year will always be overshadowed by one thing: the addition to our family of Ellen Loveless Meskimen.

  Unlike the anger he had displayed when I told him I was pregnant the first time, Effie was accepting of the fact that we would be having another child. I would have loved to say he was ecstatic or jubilant about it, but I think to say he was happy might have even been a stretch. What he was, was accepting.

  While breaking the news to Effie was much easier the second time around, the actual process of bringing another child into the world was, for me, quite a bit harder. For some reason, my daughter made her entrance on to the world’s stage in a much more dramatic fashion than her older brother—for me, that is. Everything about Jim was easygoing, right from my pregnancy and his travel down the birth canal to the well-mannered and cheerful disposition he always displayed. Ellen was just the opposite. They say that no matter how painful a birth may be, the mother forgets it all once her newborn baby is placed on her chest. That wasn’t the case with me. All these years later, I still remember the pain. While I had given birth to Jim without much effort and little pain, my second round of childbirth was enough to have me screaming for something—anything—to help me get through it.

  Having been told I had already been given everything they could give, my daughter finally popped out and a feeling of peace came over me. As I held her for the first time, I once again had the feeling that this would be the thing to change everything. We now had our own home and two children, and I was finding regular work. As for Effie, well, what can I say? Effie was Effie. His search, as well as his desire, for acting work had all but disappeared. He rarely sought work, and it had got to the point where he never even talked about the possibility of being an actor.

  That was, of course, nothing new for me, and by that time I had pretty much given up on him ever changing. Just as it had never really bothered me in the past, neither did it then. It was simply the way things were. And besides, I was consumed with being a mother again, just thrilled to have a beautiful little girl, whom we named after my mother, with a middle name that paid homage to Effie’s side of the family.

  Jim may have been the best baby ever as far as demeanor goes, but Ellen was physically perfect. I would sit holding her as she slept and would just stare at her—in awe over what a pretty baby she was. I was also very conscientious about Jim’s feelings. In the weeks after Ellen’s birth, I felt this strong need to be very protective of Jim. I didn’t want him to feel shunned in any way because of the new baby, and so I believe I may have overcompensated by giving him even more attention than I was giving Ellen.

  When I look back at that time, I think I became so overly protective of Jim, with his sweet nature, that I began treating Ellen in much the same way I felt I had been treated by my parents. Because they had had their hands full with caring for a disabled child, I had always felt that I was expected to toughen up, fend for myself, and that I certainly should not expect any fawning attention. I had grown up feeling that because of the way I was treated as a child, I became a strong-willed woman, and while it may not have really been a conscious thing on my part, I think I felt that because she was so pretty, Ellen would benefit by being treated the same way.

  “Come on. Shape up and be strong,” I began telling her before she was even crawling. “You have to be a strong girl so you can grow up to be a strong woman.”

  Almost from the day I brought him home, Jim had been so tremendously cooperative and fun loving. I loved to get down on the floor with him and play, which would make him laugh and laugh. Ellen was very different. She had a tendency to keep to herself. She was also far more opinionated and demanding than her older brother, and yet from a very early age, she was also much more introverted and private. She is still, to some extent, that way today. When something is bothering her or she has a lot on her mind, she doesn’t tell me much, and sometimes nothing. Jim is just the opposite. I pretty much always know what is going on with him.

  Was that just the way they were born? Was that just the individual personalities they were bequeathed? Or did the way I raised them have something to do with that? I’m sure those are questions every mother asks herself. But I feel I worked very hard with my children when they were young, and while conceit isn’t a part of my makeup, being pragmatic is: I may not have been the world’s greatest mother, but I think I was a damn good one—certainly the best I knew how to be—especially when they were very young. I felt a lot of pressure to be a good parent. I was, for all intents and purposes, the one who had to be the good parent, the one who had to take care of everything—as was the case in so many aspects of our family’s life.

  I would not say that Effie was a bad father as much as I would say he was simply—for the most part—a nonexistent one, even when he was with Jim and Ellen. He did take care of the children while I worked, but I never felt as if he ever truly connected with them. I do believe, in his own way, he loved them, but children had never been a part of the plan for him, if in fact there had really ever been any sort of plan at all.

  When Ellen was still a young baby, Effie and I began arguing more than we ever had before. There was a lot of yelling, especially when he was drinking. I think he was very unhappy and depressed, and while he had never been given to really step up to the plate and do something about that, or anything, I do believe he got to the point in which he knew, to preserve his own sanity as well as mine, he had to get out of the house and start doing something. By that time, even though he never admitted it to me, I think he knew his chances of getting even an audition, much less a role, were remote. And so, as surprising as it was, to me more than anyone, he got a job in banking—a management position with a savings and loan.

  This was the first time in our marriage that Effie had an actual, real full-time job, and again, in what was a surprise to me, he seemed to fit into the work world. He would get up really early, read the newspaper, study the business page, and head on out to Encino, where his office was located. He was still handsome, and because of that, along with the brooding charm that had first attracted me to him, all the women at the bank liked him . . . a lot! I think, in a way, that was what really motivated him, and as we began to get used to having his income along with mine, he decided it was time for us to upgrade to a bigger house that was closer to his work.

  And so we made the move from Studio City to Tarzana, where, for
all the world, it appeared we had it all. Effie had a good, stable job, we had two beautiful children, and I was working very regularly and getting some good roles in just about every popular television series of the time, including Route 66, Dr. Kildare, The Outer Limits and Mr. Novak. I also, for the first time in our marriage, didn’t feel the pressure to have to take every job and work as much as I could because I was the sole breadwinner. And yet, unlike so many other times, our life in Encino—ironically, the most “normal” one we would ever have—never gave me the feeling that now things would be the way I had always wanted them to be. Maybe that was because I had been burned too many times in the past, or, more likely, it was because there was another factor at play, one I was still, unbelievably, unaware of: Effie was an alcoholic.

  How could it have been, I have often wondered, that I didn’t realize just what a negative effect alcohol had on my husband and my family during that time? I don’t believe I was in denial at all about his alcoholism. I just think I was still downright naïve and not at all aware of it. I think that had been the case since he was in his early twenties and in the service. I also think I was not out of the ordinary when it came to my cluelessness. This was the early sixties; everyone we knew smoked and drank; no one, even if they were an alcoholic, discussed it publicly; and there were very limited resources—certainly nothing like today’s overabundance of available information—as to what separated a person who was suffering from the clinical disease of alcoholism from someone who was just a social drinker or even a heavy drinker.

  I may have grown up in a family of Midwestern Presbyterians for whom liquor played a very little role, but as a woman approaching her midthirties who had now lived more of her life in California than Minnesota, I just thought every man came home from the office and poured himself a big glass of Scotch, and then another, and then another.

  And yet Effie was, as I would later learn, a “functioning alcoholic.” Yes, he drank every evening until he got drunk and passed out, but he also got up early, read his paper, accepted my heartfelt encouragement as he headed off to work and, seemingly, did a good job. But, unlike other times during our marriage, the arguing and yelling continued. He also seemed to fluctuate more than ever before between being happy about life and being extremely discouraged. He had always been moody, but this was different. He had become increasingly crabby and critical of me—in fact, by his own admission, he was downright sick of me. Our sex life had become nonexistent because he was always passing out, and while he did continue to function, he got to the point where he was always either drunk or hungover.

  During this time, I had begun to attend church with our neighbors. They attended a Methodist church, and I felt welcome and at home there, and so I became a Methodist. I think I found solace in the church, because I knew that the love that had once existed between Effie and me, which had been quietly leaving our marriage for some time, was now dwindling at a far more rapid pace.

  Our marriage, like any marriage, wasn’t all rosy and, by all means, had had its ups and downs. But where we were now was a very different place than any we had ever been in before. I remembered that shortly after our quickie marriage, which had caused such a drama, I had read a book on relationships that said something to the effect that most marriages tended to be good for two or three years before real difficulties and challenges started creeping in. So, all right, I thought. We had our few good years, passed through the difficult and challenging years, and we are now, very possibly, heading toward the end.

  When we had a few people over for a party, that feeling moved from being a quiet and painful belief that things were really not going well to the realization that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to maintain our marriage. Effie had been drinking heavily, and for some unknown reason, he flew into a rage. He picked up one of my scripts and began tearing it up and throwing the pages all over. Then it escalated, and he started throwing pots and pans around and screaming. That was the first time I had ever been frightened of him, and in the days following that event, I think we both sensed our marriage was falling apart.

  We had a mutual friend who hung around with us a lot, and shortly after Effie’s blowup at the party, he decided he was going to go and stay with him for a while. Shortly thereafter, our friend called me when Effie was at work and, in a roundabout way, told me to be careful and to look out for myself and the children. I wasn’t totally sure what he meant by that, but what I did know was that it wasn’t good. I had already been scared, and that call really struck a note with me. I began to worry about everything: my safety, my children’s safety, Effie. It seemed like every ounce of my energy was going into worrying. And then, one day, Effie came home. We sat on the couch, and he told me he was an alcoholic.

  As I sat listening to him, I remember thinking, What’s an alcoholic? I know that sounds simply unbelievable, but remember, during that time the terms alcoholic and alcoholism were not ones that were familiar to most people, and certainly not to me.

  He told me that he was very unhappy and that he was going to check himself into a hospital to dry out. I told him I understood (but I didn’t) and went to the hospital with him. Being that I was so naïve and this was all so new to me, I remember thinking, Okay, so he’ll stay here in the hospital for a few days, until he has all the alcohol out of his system, and then that will be that. He won’t be an alcoholic anymore.

  When I say I didn’t understand anything about alcoholism, I really mean not anything. Even today, all these years later, the disease still has a stigma associated with it, but back then, it just wasn’t ever talked about. I did, however, talk about it with a dear friend. I confided in her that Effie had to be hospitalized and was in the process of getting better. She sat quietly listening to me. She didn’t seem to be surprised or to stare at me with any sort of wide-eyed wonder. She just listened, and when I told her that Effie would soon be all better, she explained to me that it wasn’t that simple and that he had a very long and possibly difficult road ahead of him. Now I was the one sitting wide-eyed.

  “Marion,” she said quietly. “I know what he is going through, because I’m an alcoholic.”

  I sat in stunned silence for a few moments before saying something along the lines of that just not being possible, and then I was assured by her that not only was it possible, but it was also a fact. I was flabbergasted and began asking her all sorts of questions. She was able to provide me with answers to many of those questions I posed. I felt as if my eyes had been opened to a world that, even though it had existed right under my nose for many years, I had never been aware of.

  I became somewhat obsessed with learning everything I could about alcoholism, and my friend became my go-to source for answers. She told me about Alcoholics Anonymous, that they had regular meetings both for people suffering with alcoholism and for family members who were impacted by their disease. I went to a few meetings but felt very uncomfortable being there and much preferred leaning on my friend for answers and support.

  When Effie finally left the hospital, he made the decision he was not going to return home immediately. He felt that until he really had things under control, it would be best for everyone if we lived apart for a while. With his absence, I spent more and more time with my friend, who, as time went by, introduced me to an elderly friend of hers who was also an alcoholic. I spent a lot of time with them, studying them and asking all sorts of questions. I was determined to understand this mysterious disease, and one night, when the kids were staying with a neighbor because I had an early morning call to do a commercial, I decided to do some research of my own.

  We had always had a good supply of alcohol in the house, and with Effie gone, it wasn’t dwindling by even a drop. I remember, on this night, going over, opening up a bottle, smelling it, pouring myself a Scotch and water, and downing it. When I finished it, I poured myself another, and then another one after that. I remember feeling pretty good. In fact, I was having myself a downright wonderful time and began cal
ling old friends I hadn’t spoken to in a long time. Who knows what I may have said to them? I certainly don’t, but what I do remember is realizing that I had to be up early to do that commercial and so I should really get to bed. I got up off the couch and realized that wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought it would be. I wobbled around the living room, bounced off a wall or two, and could barely make it down the hallway to my bedroom, where I flopped on the bed as the room spun around me.

  I had never been much of a drinker, and the three or four Scotches I had that night were by far the most alcohol I had ever consumed in one evening. Heck, it was more than I had ever had in any given month! I don’t remember anything else about that night, but I do have a vivid memory of my alarm clock going off at some ungodly hour, reaching over to turn it off and, for the first time, experiencing the excruciating wave of nausea, the throbbing headache, and the feeling that my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth that come with a night of overindulging.

  I had the worst hangover I have ever experienced, and the fact that I somehow pulled myself together, got to the studio, and did that commercial is a testament to the strength a human being can somehow summon to accomplish what seems to be an impossible feat. I felt as if I had been run over by a train, which had then dragged me along and finally deposited me in a hot and dusty field where both the ground and the horizon were unsteady and even the slightest sound or movement caused pain in every inch of my body.

  My God, I thought to myself as I somehow got through that day. If this is what drinking does to you, why in the world would anyone ever do it?

  I do remember, as the day wore on and my pain somewhat subsided, reminding myself that this had all been done for a noble reason: as an experiment to educate myself on the effects of alcohol. “Fine,” I recall muttering to myself as I drove home from the studio. “My experiment was completed, and now I shall swear to God, on the lives of my children, to myself, and to anything else I should be swearing to that I am still in too much pain to think of, that I will never do that again.”