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Performing and Pretending
Our readers complain a lot about the way Hollywood people live their lives: no values, no discipline, spoiled kids. Well, listen to this.Nearly six years ago, Jamie Lee Curtis called a halt to her dependency on alcohol and painkillers -- not because her problem had made it into the gossip columns, or was getting in the way of her movie career. She got sober because her daughter, Annie, at the age of 8, told her she needed her.
About the same time, long before Beverly Hills had been struck by mommy mania, Curtis, 46, cut back on the number of movies she took on, accepting roles only if the work schedule lined up perfectly with her family's calendar. Her life at her home near the beach in Los Angeles -- which revolves around Annie, son Thomas, 8, and her husband of 20 years, actor Christopher Guest -- became her No. 1 priority.
And two years ago, for a cover story to promote one of her children's books, she insisted that More magazine run a photo of her, alongside all the glam shots, standing there in just her high-rise underpants and bra. No makeup, no retouching.
After a lifetime in an industry where being real or honest rarely pays off, Curtis, the daughter of screen stars Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, says, "I just wanted to tell the truth for a moment."
Shortly before the release of Christmas With the Kranks (November 24), in which she stars opposite Tim Allen, Curtis sat down with Reader's Digest and convinced us that telling the truth is something she does all the time.
RD: Your mother just passed away. What was it like to grow up the child of such famous people?
Curtis: Growing up for me was very normal. After my mother and father divorced -- I was three -- my mother married a stockbroker. I had a very steady life, for which I credit my stepdad, Bob Brandt, to whom my latest book, It's Hard to Be Five, is dedicated. And I credit my mom for choosing that life over the much more moth-to-the-flame life of show business.
RD: You've taken a break from working as much so you can be home with your children. Once they're grown, will you go back to acting more?
Curtis: I think I'll phase out acting. Hollywood is the backdrop of my family, and I know that the movie business is incredibly cruel as you get older. I've been going through photos of my mother, looking back on her life and trying to put it into context. Very few people age gracefully enough to be photographed through their aging. Most spend 20 years trying to hold on to [youth]. I don't want to do that.
RD: Tell us about deciding not to work so much.
Curtis: I love performing and pretending -- it's very easy for me. Yet as soon as I had a child -- my daughter was a baby, and we were in London making A Fish Called Wanda -- I was guilt-saturated every day when I left her. It's never gotten easier.
RD: You said you're much more interested in just being yourself these days. What brought that change about?
Curtis: It started when my 18-year-old daughter, who was eight at the time, basically called me on the path I was on. She had a crisis, and it was made very clear to me that I was just not present enough. It was a real gift.
RD: How did an eight-year-old grasp something so complicated?
Curtis: I think it was an unconscious thing, and that she just needed me. It made me start to examine stuff. That cracked it -- and then I got sober. I'll be sober six years in February.
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