Part Swan, Part Goose: An Uncommon Memoir of Womanhood, Work, and Family - Hardcover

Kurtz, Swoosie; Rodgers, Joni

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0399168508 ISBN 13: 9780399168505

Publisher: TarcherPerigee, 2014

Synopsis

In a wise, warmhearted memoir that celebrates her extraordinary life and stellar career, Swoosie Kurtz shares just the right combination of personal misadventure and showbiz lore, candidly reflecting on the right choices that empowered her, the wrong choices that enlightened her, and the intimate journey of caring for an aging parent.

Animating this remarkable memoir is Swoosie’s relationship with her equally remarkable parents. Her father, Frank, was an Olympic athlete and highly decorated World War II airman. He flew a record number of missions in a cobbled-together B-17D called the Swoose. Her mother, Margo, was the quintessential military wife but with the spunk and will to match her husband’s. Her 1945 memoir, My Rival, the Sky, chronicled their lives up to the time of the birth of their daughter.

Today, Margo, who is fast approaching her hundredth birthday, lives with Swoosie. And Swoosie’s life has become a precarious and precious balancing act as she struggles to stay ahead of her mother’s increasing needs while navigating a showbiz career that keeps one foot in Hollywood and the other on Broadway.
The critics love Swoosie Kurtz....

“Inimitable...one of the best comic actors of our time.” —USA Today

“[An] expert comic actress...may just be the most seductive woman on the New York stage right now.” —Charles Isherwood, The New York Times

and “full of surprises...expressive...devastating...unforgettable.” —Ben Brantley, The New York Times

About this title

About the Author:

A multiple Tony, Emmy, Obie and Drama Desk Award winner, Swoosie Kurtz is a Broadway icon whose work also includes big screen blockbusters like Liar, Liar and Dangerous Liaisons, indie favorites like Citizen Ruth, True Stories and Cruel Intentions and beloved TV hits Sisters and Pushing Daisies. She is currently starring in the CBS hit series Mike & Molly. Her distinctive name comes from The Swoose, the famed B-17 bomber flown by her father, Col. Frank Kurtz, the most decorated Air Force pilot of World War II.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected proof.***

Copyright © 2014 by Swoosie Inc.

Chapter One

Enter Breathing

There are two time-honored professions in which the ?rst thing you do when you get to work is take off your clothes.

I’m in the other one.

Arriving backstage or on a back lot, ascending the winding staircase in a Broadway theater or climbing into my trailer at Warner Brothers, my ?rst order of business is to shed my street clothes (my father would have called them “civvies”) and be delivered into the skin of whomever it is I’m getting paid to be that day. I’m surrounded by nimble artists who appraise my appearance with unforgiving technical eyes and craft me from heel to eyelash, evaluating my rear end, propping up my meager décolletage, making sure my earlobes and knuckles don’t clash, checking for knee wrinkles and hem threads.

Rarely does all this happen with any deference to my dignity. In my line of work, while humility is an asset, modesty is a bother. I’m lucky enough to have been brought up by two people who knew the difference.

My father, Frank Kurtz, was an Olympic diver in his youth. There’s not much room for modesty up there on the ten-meter platform and even less room in a pair of aerodynamically snug swim trunks. But to make that leap without humility—without respect for gravity, without remembering how applause disappears under water—that would be a terrible mistake.

My mother, Margo Rogers Kurtz, was Frankie’s foil in witty dinner table repartee and his staunch ally in every other aspect of life. She was the “ever-?xed mark” Shakespeare noted in sonnet, a small, brilliant pin on his private map of the world. Margo was the model wartime bride in the 1940s: industrious, beautiful, capable, the perfect combination of stiff upper lip and ?re-engine red lipstick. She could pilot a small airplane, feed a small army and ?t nicely into those tailored peplum skirt suits that were all the rage.

Newspapers and newsreels couldn’t help noticing her as my father ?ew higher and farther, collecting scars and medals. Every time he made it home in one piece, it was a stunning blow in the cause of hope, and during World War II—under the darkness and din of the air-raid sirens, as inhumanity sucked innocence into a genocidal oven—hope was highly prized. It was sought after.

Frankie and Margo were recruited along with Hollywood stars and other celebrities for war-bond tours. These junkets were utterly purpose driven: no frills, no egos, just as many recognizable names as the organizer could cram into a train car and parade to the autograph tables. One town after another, starstruck fans lined up to buy bonds. Even the most pampered celebrities were gung ho about these rustic excursions. I’m certain any attempts at modesty would have been laughed out of the tiny train car water closet, so Margo and Frankie ?t right in. He was a hero, and she was the classy, garrulous sidekick who kept his clay feet warm.

My mother’s book, My Rival, the Sky, came into the world the same year I did. We both grew inside her while my father ?ew bombing runs over Italy in 1944. G. P. Putnam (the publishing magnate who was also the husband of Amelia Earhart) had taken an interest in my parents after they collaborated with W. L. White on the book Queens Die Proudly, which told the story of the great Flying Fortress bombers, including my father’s heroically cobbled together B-17D, the Swoose. A contract was proposed and accepted: Margo was to write a war memoir from the home-front perspective, title to be determined, $250 to be remitted on signing and $250 on delivery of the manuscript.

I was born in the fall of 1944, a few weeks after Nazi forces put a brutal end to Hungarian resistance, a few weeks before US troops landed in the Philippines. My father was somewhere in the thick of that as my mother and day-old me were being photographed for the newspaper. People desperately needed to see this beautiful, young mother treasuring her fresh baby and believe in a God who would either bring that baby’s daddy home or send straight to Hell the scurvy tail gunner who took him out.

I look at that photograph on a bookshelf behind my desk and see nothing but hope, hope, hope. My mother’s face is ?lled with optimism and love. It’s hard to turn away. But it’s time.

“Margo, darling?” I call on my way to the car. “I’m off.”

“No, you’re not,” she says. “You’re just right.”

A quick hug, and I’m out the door. I drive myself to work (mechanically and metaphorically), and it doesn’t take long. Every day I’m grateful for this ?ve-minute commute to the studio. The kismet is unbelievable. After decades of bicoastal and intercontinental commutes, almost always working more than one job at any given time, just when I needed it most, I landed a steady gig on that rarest of beasts: a television show that is a critical and commercial success. That’s something we hardly dare hope for in this business. Most people have no idea how many pilots disappear into the mosh pit, how many promising starts go the way of the pet rock before a show comes along with a genuine heart and exactly the right creative team, writers, cast and production crew. You’re more likely to ?nd narwhal steaks on special at Ralph’s. Above and beyond that, this particular cast and crew—all souls counted—are smart, delightful, mellow, ego-light professionals who’ve become my dear friends.

When I saw the pilot script, I knew this show, Mike & Molly, had the potential to go the distance. In the back of my mind, I heard Frankie telling me the same thing he told me when I started Sisters on NBC in the early 1990s: “Five years,” he said with certainty. When I puffed something about not counting chickens, he smiled a con?dent ready-for-takeoff smile and repeated, “Five years.” The show lasted six more seasons. As did Frankie.

Ready to wrap our third season of Mike & Molly, I believe this one could last even longer, but every time I allow myself to speculate, I feel the urge to spit, throw salt over my shoulder and sacri?ce a goat. Karma is a bitch, as they say; we all must have suffered tremendously in our previous lives to have this great job. I don’t want to jinx it.

The main characters, Mike Biggs and Molly Flynn (Billy Gardell and Melissa McCarthy) are so easy to be with, on screen and off, our merry cast and crew quickly developed a healthy chemistry. I think people truly can feel that through the screen; the show immediately attracted a large audience of loyal fans, despite the fact (or perhaps because of the fact) that precious few successful sitcoms feature characters who look like real people instead of successful sitcom characters.

At ?rst blush, the show is about a schoolteacher and a police of?cer who meet at Overeaters Anonymous. In their quest to lose weight, they ?nd each other. That sweetly simple premise is injected with an impossible amalgam of highly evolved and low-brow. The moral scruples of this show are refreshingly intolerant of cynicism. A lot of the humor is below the belly button, and the zingy dialogue is boner blunt, but it doesn’t feel crass because the relationships are so authentic, the atmosphere so unabashedly romantic and the storyline so much about love.

I’ve played broad, and I’ve played bawdy, but I’ve never inhabited a character quite like Joyce Flynn, Molly’s mother. She’s given me the opportunity to be more free-spirited and painfully candid than I could even dream of being when I’m being myself. If Holly Golightly and Groucho Marx got drunk and slept together, the unapologetic fruit of that union would be Joyce Flynn. She’s a ?ercely loving mother, but she sees herself as a contemporary of her beautiful young daughters, a sensual woman in her sexual prime. She has a good soul, but her moral compass is slightly bent. (And you could count on her to jump on the word “bent” with a double entendre that leaves the rest of the room blushing.)

When Joyce is asked by her daughters if she was lonely while their late father was in Vietnam, Joyce quips, “Lonely, no. Horny, yes.” With a nostalgic sigh, she goes on to overshare that her remedy for that was sitting on the washing machine. Joyce not only inspires me to be more direct and less self-censoring, she provides me a vehicle in which to do it with impunity on a weekly basis.

I learn something from every character I play. Each one of them bears a gift. The personal reward for doing the work of developing the character is the excavation of that gift and the sharing of it with an audience. To a large extent, that’s what the craft of acting is about: the joy of that challenge, whether you’re doing Molière or a Monday night sitcom. I noticed early in my career that almost every role I play is somewhat off-kilter—a bit dark, driven or crazy or driven crazy during the course of the show— and playing characters so utterly unlike myself is a job and a vacation at the same time; climbing into their lives, I get to leave my own reality behind for a little while. I don’t hide behind the character—quite the opposite; I’m liberated in one way or another by every character I play, hitting my marks with sternum held high. “Lead with the breastbone,” Michael Bennett used to say.

When I arrive on the set, Billy Gardell is sitting in the makeup chair where he and I take turns, since we share a makeup artist.

“I’m afraid we’re starting to look alike,” I tease him, and he laughs his big laugh.

Before we walk out in front of the cameras, he gathers us in a tight circle to pray. Usually it’s something like, “Dear God, once again here we are. Help us do our best for the people who came to see us. We want to thank you for the gift of this amazing job. Please, help us remember it’s a privilege, not an entitlement. Help us keep everyone in this building employed.”

I always ?nd myself profoundly affected, enormously grateful for each of these people and just plain happy to be here with them. Sometimes I’m so moved, I have to pay another visit to the makeup chair. And I’m not the only one. Particularly tonight.

“Lord, we have some troubled souls tonight,” Billy says. “Give us strength to do what we need to do. Help us support and love each other.”

I blink, trying to preserve my mascara. Around the tight circle, we grip each other’s hands, clearing throats, swallowing hard. Reno Wilson’s mother has died, and Reno, who plays Mike’s partner, Of?cer Carl, has a lot of material to deliver in this episode.

The news took my breath away when I heard it. Our ?rst week on the set, I mentioned to Reno how thrilled I was to be working a steady gig just a few minutes from the home Margo and I share. Since then, he and I have talked a lot about our moms, sharing memories, fears and funny stories. We talked about what home remedies and pharmaceuticals worked—or not—for various symptoms. Oh, stay away from that one. Margo went psycho after the ?rst two hundred milligrams. Organic black licorice root for constipation? I wouldn’t have thought of that. Eldercare is an odd conversation in a speci?c language that is by turns clinical, sentimental and cringe-inducing.

All week, Reno’s sisters have kept him posted on his mother’s rapid decline. Oh, God, I kept thinking, don’t let it be this week. Having to get out there and be hilarious just a few hours after losing one’s mother takes the body slam of losing one’s mother to a whole new level. Reno is a multitalented pro who’s been doing this work since he was one of the college kids on The Cosby Show. We’re not worried about Reno’s performance; we’re just heartbroken for him. It’s one of the moments theatre elitists forget about when they say that TV acting is for sissies.

We Broadway actors are legendary troupers, famous for our “show must go on” work ethic. We’re tasked with nailing every scene, every time, eight shows a week—fractured ankles, broken hearts and vocal nodes be damned. On a TV show, you get do-overs. But you don’t get understudies, and your missteps are not contained in the hallowed walls of one theater for one afternoon. On the day your mother dies, not only do you go to work, you go to work in front of millions of people, and whatever you do will be available for applause and/or ridicule until YouTube perishes from Earth.

At the end of the day, Reno is completely focused and funny, while the rest of us work our butts off, determined not to let him down. The audience leaves aching from laughter. Reno departs for his mother’s funeral. Billy ?ies to Vegas where he burns the other end of the candle with a stand-up show. The rest of us go home emotionally exhausted. We’ll all be back in less than ?fty hours to start the whole process over again.

“How are you, my darling?” Margo asks when I walk in the door.

“Tired,” I admit. “But it’s a joyful tired.”

I’m quoting her, but she opens her hands and collects the phrase from the air as if she’s never heard it before.

“Frankie’s coming home tonight, isn’t he?” she asks.

“Yes, I think he is,” I tell her.

Sometimes I say he’s in Japan, at the Pentagon on a mission or at his of?ce in Washington. The lies trip from my tongue without hesitation. (I’m a professional!) The truth is, Margo was resilient and digni?ed when Frankie died in 1996, but no one should have to be that resilient every damn day. Can you imagine what it would be like to roll out of bed every morning and be clobbered with that? No, darling, you’re not twenty-seven, you’re ninety-seven, and that ardent lover lying beside you a few minutes ago was a dream, and now even the dream is dead. Good morning, sunshine!

I think it’s healthier—and more honest, ironically—to tell her the emotional truth: that she is loved, that she is young in spirit and enduringly beautiful and will see her great love soon. She won’t remember what I said six minutes from now anyway.

“Why stand on ceremony?” Margo says. “Take a look at my breasts.”

“Oh. Okay. Let’s see.”

Margo raises her soft jersey tunic, and we both look lovingly at her breasts. She nudges the one that hangs somewhat lower than the other.

“They’re beautiful,” I tell her, pulling her into my arms.

“I could tuck this one into my waistband if I wanted to,” she says, and then distracted by the waistband of her black yoga pants, she says, “Look at the color of this thread. What would make them use blue? My God, what a wonderful world we live in!”

This way of looking at the world can’t be entirely put down to the dementia. The increasing seepage of non sequiturs and apparitions has made conversation a challenge, but Margo’s personality is essentially intact. I have an early memory of my Aunt Mici striding into the kitchen stark naked and smoking a cigarette. Getting ready for a bath, she’d had a thought and didn’t want to lose it. This made perfect sense to Margo. Logic over convention. Action over inhibition. This hierarchy of necessary values worked well for my mother throughout her unconventional and uninhibited life, and it’s worked well for me in mine.

Nonetheless, thinking about that moment makes me laugh now, and as if she heard the story brush by the back of my mind, Margo laughs too, pressing her palms to my cheeks as she gives me a kiss.

I relis...

About this edition

• Publisher: TarcherPerigee
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0399168508
• ISBN 13: 9780399168505
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336