June 2, 2022 • 53 mins
On today's episode of Good Friend, Jamie speaks with her friend Melanie Griffith. They discuss being the daughters of Hitchcock blondes, how they met, and the importance of reconnecting with friends. Tune in to find out how Melanie found herself with a full-grown lion in her room as a child.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
If something unlogative. I'm a good friend. Hi everybody, it's
Jamie Lee Curtis. You're listening to the Good Friend Podcast,
presented to you by I Heart Radio. It's a podcast
(00:22):
about friendship, sort of the good, the bad, and the ugly,
the triumphs of friendship, the immense connection and emotion of friendship,
the laughter and occasionally the tears. We explore it all
in an unscripted, very free form way with many many
(00:42):
different guests, some I'm very close friends with, some I've
never met. And I hope that you will take away
from it something that connects you to your friends, and
that the ideas that we talk about can maybe be
taken into your own friendships. So sit back or take
a walk, or however you listen. I hope you enjoy
(01:03):
it and stay tuned and the good Friends. You know,
it's so funny because you get in front of a
microphone and you want, like immediately your voice lowers. You
get into that FM DJ voice, and you get into
that weird sense of you know, um a a silent
(01:27):
world late at night where you're the only person who's
listening and I'm the only person who's talking, and it's
super intimate and then what the uninformed listeners right now
don't understand is Melanie is sitting there in a T
shirt with her head set or headphones what are they
called headphones? Headphones perfectly on her head and mine we're backwards,
(01:53):
and you just don't ever see that. What's great about
the Good Friend podcast is you get truth, is that
I'm a sixty two year old woman who just put
on her earphones improperly right, and you had your phone
your phone strap thought in the wires, and before even
we began, I got up to do a quick pe
(02:15):
and forgot to take off my headphones and did one
of those comedy heads snaps back. Um. So what I
like though about the Good Friend Podcast, which you are
listening to apparently, is truth that this is. I'm not
I'm not offering some predigested idea of anything. Really, It's
(02:38):
really just inviting people to have a human experience with
me and you in this moment whatever happens, however it goes.
And as it went earlier before we even began, is
my headphones were like on crooked. So welcome everyone, my
guest today I am We're going to call each other
(03:00):
something and you're going to be listening going like, okay,
that's like really weird. But we call each other miskiss. Yes,
we do. When I say hi, miskiss, or when the
phone rings and she picks it up, she goes high miskiss.
How did it begin? I thought it began before we
realized that it was keep it simple, stupid. Oh oh, way,
(03:24):
so I think, like, way way before. Yeah, I think
it was actually in the eighties. We did that because
we were buds, big buds. Yeah. So, but we don't
know what where it came from because I think a
lot of girlfriends or friends listening to this we do
(03:45):
adopt pet names for each other in friendship, um, and
ours is miskiss for each other, and we don't We're
not sure really where it began. It was around owned
when Alexander was born. Okay, so what you need to
(04:05):
know for the uninformed listener who's joining us either driving
or doing chores at home or just sitting in a
chair while a child sleeps um or a pet sleeps
or husband sleeps um. We met in nine or on
(04:28):
a TV movie of the week called go for It.
She's in the Army Now. It was right when women
were starting to be included in the army. And it
was a TV movie about a group of women who
met and Melanie and I. Strangely enough, even though as
(04:50):
we unpack our backgrounds a tiny bit, you will wonder
how the heck we never knew each other? Are virtually
the same age. You're a year older than me, Um.
We are both daughters of Hitchcock Blond's Melanie's mother uh
(05:10):
is Tippy Hedron, fantastic actress who did a lot of
work with Hitchcock, and my mother Janet Lee, who was
in Psycho with Alfred Hitchcock. And so Melanie and I
were both young actresses. We had never for meet and
we were both cast in this TV movie. And did
(05:32):
we first did the first time we meet? Is that
when we went to Barney's Beanery in Playpool? Yes? Yeah,
I think the idea was that we would bond, right,
And it was Julie Carmen and Kathleen Quinlan and you
and me, and we just decided. I don't even know
how that was arranged, because there were no cell phones.
(05:54):
You didn't text, you had to call people exactly. I
think it was because as you and I both lived,
didn't we live right? Near Barney's Beanery. Yes, I think
I moved there later, but yeah. And we decided as
a group to sort of go shoot pool together and
(06:15):
probably have a beer or two or three or something.
And we so we met here where we were I
was twenty one years old, twenty two years old, or
you were twenty two or twenty three, and we had
never met, even though we had shared so much in
(06:35):
this sense of pedigree, pedigree and probably experiences from that pedigree,
and obviously, as we have unpacked it many years later,
a lot of emotional pedigree, not just the cinema pedigree,
(06:56):
but the emotional pedigree. But we didn't know that then.
We didn't. And Melanie played the green horn girl off
the farm who was a young mother who was joining
the army to sort of basically have a career because
as by the way, many many, many, many many people do,
(07:19):
because the military is a career. And I was the
bad girl. Oh don't any listener, do not just be
like duh, I was the bad girl. I had a
toothpick in my mouth the whole time, which I thought
was a great affectation. I'm sure it topick. So that's
how we met. We met where I was the bad girl,
(07:42):
she was the super good girl. But we met and
fell hard with each other. We it was as if
we had been waiting for each other. Yeah, and um,
you know we are both sober women. Um, I think
I can say that openly. We both are sober women,
(08:03):
and there was a period of time where we weren't.
And um, let's just say we met when we were
young and as the as the parents call it, Yeah,
do you remember that first time? I meant like that
first connection as friends, Not exactly not the first, but
(08:27):
I know it happened immediately. I remember things that we did.
I remember how close we got on that film. I
remember shooting it and having so much fun, all the
things that we were doing, And we really had this
like special thing where we could just look at each
(08:47):
other and know what was going on, like no words,
you know. I do think the no words aspect is
what people relate to. It is an unspoken yeah connect
and that happens when you really feel like you've met
somebody that's yeah, we were in our twenties. Now. I
(09:07):
just want to unpack a tiny bit and go backwards
a little tiny bit because although I know you pretty well,
I as we have gotten to know each other even
better now as two women in our sixties. I don't
really have a full snapshot of you as a little girl.
(09:28):
And you know, friendships that first beginning, very gentle exploration
with another person, where you say, let's be friends. Can
we be friends? Did you have those close friends when
you were little? I did not really. UM. I went
(09:50):
back and forth between my mother and my father. My
mother lived here in l A. My father lived in
New York, UM up into until I was from when
I was like and then my mother remarried UM my stepfather.
We lived in a house from a age five to
fourteen for me, and I went to three different schools
(10:15):
in that period of time, actually four UM. I was
very left alone. My mother was always gone, going to Vietnam,
going to some to fix people somewhere else, and I
was left either with my stepfather or with my stepbrothers,
and so I had responsibilities and I couldn't be as
(10:41):
I wasn't taken care of. So I was scared and
I would go and spend the night at girlfriend's houses
or they would come to my house. But I never
really got close with anybody because I didn't know how
I didn't know that that was you know what I mean.
I wasn't taught what to do. There was a real
lapse there of of unconditional love. I did not feel
(11:06):
well and a lot of people, you know, you grow
where you're planted. I grew up in a house on
a dirt road in Benedict Canyon, and there was my
stepfather had bought this piece of land, put a fence
in between the pool, the pool house and the tennis
court and the main house and the stable, you know,
(11:27):
and the orchard, and he sold that part to a
family with five daughters, and then he lived as a
bachelor in the bachelor pad of the pool house, the
pool and the tennis court. And then he married Janet Lee,
who brought with her two small daughters. So I grew
(11:47):
up with a fence, a chain link fence with a
gate separating me and five other girls. So we Kelly
and I grew up with the Keith girls, my abers,
and we had immediate friends. And Kelly and I went
to the same school John Thomas Die and had that
(12:08):
sort of lifelong childhood friends. Um, and you didn't have
any of that continuity. Well I didn't really because I
met don when I was fourteen, and that threw me
into a whole different that's a different kind of friend. Friend.
That's the friend with a lot of benefits and issues. Yeah. Yeah,
(12:31):
well we'll get there in a minute. Um. Um, but
I do want to go back to the young you
and the young me about wanting to be friends with people, um,
because you have such a unique um situation that I
think listeners. Certainly, I am a listener because I'm your
(12:53):
friend and I have listened to you. Tell me about it.
Your stepfather, Mum and your mother started a foundation with
big cats lions. Yes, yes, And it didn't start out
(13:15):
as a foundation. It started out as the movie. It
started out as an idea to make a movie. Um,
because they were in Africa. Mom was making a movie.
They saw the plight of the animals, how they were
being killed so rapidly, and they and at that time
it was like seventy three or something. Um, the prediction
(13:36):
was that most of them would be killed by the
year two thousand if the rate of killing kept on.
And so they took on this thing of wanting to
make a film about the wild animals, the wildcats, and
thus started, Um, we got to know this full grown
male lion named Neil. Um his owner on Oxley would
(14:01):
come in a big van and bring Neil over to
the house. Uh. So we'd have a full grown male
lion in the living room, in the kitchen, in my bed.
There are pictures from Life magazine with I was twelve
and I had a full grown male lion in my bed. Um.
I did become very good friends with Neil. I loved him. Um. Yeah,
(14:25):
it was. It was very interesting. It was the main
thing that I've realized is that in being with wildcats,
you can show no fear at all. So I went
from this very timid, shy, scared little girl who was
already starting to feel totally unloved and troubled two having
(14:50):
someone say, here you go, here's this lion. You gotta
sit with the lion. But you can show no fear
because he will go for you, you know. So there's
a metaphor about sort of swallowing your feelings and stuffing
your feelings and creating a sort of alternative persona exactly,
(15:12):
and I did the same. The reason why it's funny
because you and I did sort of lock on each other.
I've been to I went to visit the I did
write an elephant with you, but when I visited the Shambala,
preserve that your mother still UM is a big part
(15:34):
of and it's a foundation. UM. I remember when we
visited and you were walking us around the enclosures. One
of them locked on me and did that thing where
as I started to walk by it, it locked on
my eyes, and I remember it followed me down like
the enclosure, never taking its eyes off me. And I
(15:57):
remember that. I'm they're not a lot of things. I remember, Melanie.
I remember that, yeah, and that feeling, that feeling of
uh fear and strength and show no fear. And it's
(16:17):
funny because the minute you said show no, I was
a child who was looking for contact. You said your
mom was gone. You know, you and I probably had
very similar backgrounds, although I think Janet didn't go to Vietnam.
You know, she she probably fashioned herself more of a
traditional mom I, you know, kind of on a dirt
(16:40):
road with big dogs, and she married my stepfather and
had a very but not dissimilar I think emotionally we've
shared that with each other. And because of that, UM,
I think it's so poignant that you're this young child
where once in a while you were with step siblings,
(17:00):
you know, other kids that were part of another part
of your family, and then you were alone. And then
and then you were my dad right right, right, and
he had a new family, had a new family, my
little brother and sister. Right. So there was that feeling
(17:21):
of being alone and then being with others, but then
being alone. And this idea of you being partnered with, um,
this giant wild animal that you weren't allowed to show
any fear to that you did create a relationship with. Anyway,
I find it a fascinating world. Um it makes me
(17:44):
laugh because you know, most people go, hey, you want
to come over and play play barbies? I've got a
new Stewart's barbie and you know we can play and
you can change the clothes and we can you know
what I mean, That's what normally people do. And I
love You're like, you want to come over, and um,
you don't have a lot, like you know, how do
you have friends come over? I know, I know it
(18:06):
was a problem. Yeah, yeah, something. I get it from
a good friend. We'll be right back with more good
friend after this quick break, so stick around. I'll get
it from a good friend, I do so for the
(18:32):
listener and me. You know, you're getting a sense that
it was an unusual upbringing. And then, as you just said, uh,
in a weird way, you you just got in bed
with another lion. Um when you got married or when
you were starting to be in a partnership at what age? Well,
(18:54):
I moved in with Dawn for real when I was sixteen,
and I also did my first movie that year and
graduated from high school that year. M Um. I interviewed
my friend Michelle Williams, who also was emancipated very young.
And I think that also does something in the sense
(19:16):
of immediately making you kind of wear the mantle of
an adult, when in fact we look at a sixteen
year old now, um as so so young. And I'm,
without being indelicate, I'm going to assume that when you
said you moved in with Don for good at sixteen,
(19:36):
that meant that you had been with Don at a
younger age, right, So that and so the idea of
forming super deep friendships, Um, it didn't happen, did it. No? Mhm?
And And we're I mean, I'm you would make relationships
(20:02):
with people, you would have friendships, Um, when you're young
and you're in an intense romantic relationship, it's hard to
sort of break free from that. And the truth of
the matter, Melanie, is that in our own friendship, and
I think people will relate to this um our relationship
(20:25):
didn't splinter, but we took big sections away from each other,
predominantly at sort of the beginnings of relationships with men. Yeah. True,
that's true, where we would subsume ourselves into the male relationship.
And I think for listeners, particularly women, that probably hopefully
(20:50):
there'll be a dude or two. But for for the
women listening, I think it's a very common thing. My
mother did it. I'm guessing Tippy did it with your stepfather.
My mother subsumed herself to Robert Brandt and put away
Janet Lee and became the businessman's wife and was and
(21:15):
just sort of put Janet Lee in a box and
put it in the corner. And I think you and
I both in our relationships with men, we would do that.
And I think that's where you and I stepped away
from each other. Or when you started a relationship back
with Don. So you were married to Don at one
point and then you divorced and you met, well, we met,
(21:41):
we met. So Melanie's eldest child as Alexander, and Alexander's
father is an actor named Stephen Bauer to you that
you guys would know, um listeners, But when we met
Stephen Bauer on the TV movie She in the Army Now, Um,
(22:02):
he was a young actor with his given name which
was Rocky at Chevaria at Chevalio excuse me. And you know, um,
it was a TV movie with nothing but women, right,
I mean, it's just it's it's called She's in the Army. Now.
(22:23):
Was a lot of women, and this very handsome guy
showed up, who was to play my boyfriend by the way,
in the show the bad boy to My Bad Girl.
But Melanie set her eyes on him, and the two
of them, you know, the stars fell on Alabama and
Texas and Tennessee and the entire continental US and they
(22:50):
um partnered and married and had a child. So it's
interesting that moment. I remember it right after when after
we got married as and you met Chris, we were
at your wedding reception. Yes, yeah, crazy um so, but
it's interesting to me because I mean, obviously we have
(23:14):
just for again, the uninitiated listener. Melanie and I are
closer now than we have been probably in a very
very very very very very long time. There's been a
total um opening to each other through hearts and minds,
and it's so satisfying to know that. I really what
(23:38):
I was excited about when you agreed to be on
the podcast was that this is the state of our
friendship now and that we have weathered a lot. Yes,
and it's I think it's beautiful that that we have
such a history with our friendship. We've gone through times
when we didn't speak for serious reasons, We've gone through
(24:03):
times when we were both busy doing other things. We
have come together in deep situations with deep meaning, and
now here we are later in our life, in our
second act and having a blast. It is having a blast.
(24:24):
There is something so trust trusting about an old friend
that you reconnected with that that amount of history really
does UM gives such strength and solidity for me to
to the feelings of that safety of that friendship. UM.
(24:48):
It's it's been extraordinary for me and and an unexpected treat.
And you know the podcast is called good Friend, How
do you be a good friend? And how to how
do you find a good friend. How do you keep
a good friend and how do you reconnect? You are
the best friend. I must say. You are such a
(25:10):
beautiful friend. You're just amazing. You are amazing you also
for the listener. You have these beautiful, little charming things
that you do for people, for friends, and I imagine
for people that some people that you don't know. I
(25:31):
actually I know that for people you don't even know,
and you stay anonymous. But you are the queen of
sending a little gift like the one that I got
for for this that says friend and has two hankies
handkerchiefs in them when black and when white, and it's
(25:52):
stunningly beautiful, but so simple and elegant. You are never
over the top. You are classy and classy, old fashioned, elegant, classy.
You're really quite extraordinary it I mean, and I say
that not because of the presence, but because of your intentions.
(26:13):
Your intentions are always good, they are always deep. Okay,
I appreciate that very very much. And I and by
the way, I'm not going to deny you because the
truth is that my intentions are what they are. I
would hope I live by my intentions like that. That's
(26:37):
the legacies your intention, because I can't I can't tell
you how to feel. I can only put it in
the path. I can only do what I can do
and put it in your path and hope that you
receive it. Um. So it's I knew I was going
to start crying. I knew it because the minute you
(26:59):
started talking. When we met, it was before I was married,
And yes, I was in relationships and I was trying
to figure out who I was in those relationships and
outside of those relationships and all of the forming of
ourselves as young people. But I hadn't really dealt with
(27:23):
any real life stuff really, and when we met, you
were a friend to someone whose life had been shattered
and completely. I'm gonna have you explain m Heidi story
(27:49):
for the uninitiated listener, because but what I want to
say this first. Okay, it's really easy to send a
hanky to a friend that says friend as a gratitude
for doing my good Friend podcast. That is a gesture
of friendship and kindness and gratitude. Right when I met you, Heidi,
(28:16):
when Hi so, Heidi von von Belts was a stunt
woman who was in a catastrophic accident on a movie
right before we did the we did She's are in
the army. Now it was four months before that. Oh wow,
Oh I didn't know that. And she was, please explain
(28:39):
and then I'll tell you what I'm feeling about it. Okay. Um,
she was Heidi. I met her when I was fifteen.
She also was dating an older man who was a
friend of Dawn's. She was three years older than me,
so she was eighteen and Um, she was a stunt woman.
She became a stunt woman, so she did a lot
(29:01):
of crazy things. She was also raised to be an
incredible skier. She was one of the first freestyle skiers.
She was six ft tall. She was absolutely stunningly beautiful.
She was a model. She was full of life and
could would do anything like she would She was crazy,
(29:24):
like we took a lot of chances. Um. And she
had another another boyfriend named Bobby Bass who was a
stunt coordinator and he was doing I think he was
smoking the bandit too. Um. And there was cannonball run
maybe it was for some reason, Cannibal. Whatever was she doubling?
(29:46):
Fara do remember? I think she might have been or
Sally Field, one of them I'm not sure. I don't
remember that part. I do know that how Medham was
in a hurry. There was a car that was a
I think it was a left hand drive and they
switched it it was a right hand drive, they switched
(30:07):
it to a left hand drive. They were it wasn't
stable yet, but they were in a hurry to get
the shot. And the shot was of a car speating.
This car speeding down the freeway with they big coming
towards it head on and supposed to be a swerve
in not a collision, but a swerve. So because the
(30:28):
steering wheel had been messed with, UM, I didn't didn't
have a seatbelt on. The guy didn't have a seatbelt
on UM and they when he went to turn the car,
the steering wheel locked and so they rammed right into
the truck and Heidi put it her left arm out
on the dashboard to brace herself, and her arm her
(30:52):
shoulder blade broke her neck at the fifth vertebrae and
she was paralyzed, totally paralyzed, quadriplegic. So when we met,
that's fascinating that that had just happened. But the reason
I brought it up, the reason why it's so incredibly
(31:15):
moving to me is you are a really young woman,
and she was a young woman, and you were now
facing a reality. And there are many people listening who
didn't get the ease of a young life for whatever reason,
either an ill parent or something happened in their lives
(31:36):
that made them grow up very quickly. And I remember
how dedicated you were two Heidi and her care and
her life, her complete life became something that you focused
your complete life. So although you were young and trying
(31:59):
to be in relationship with people and trying to be
a professional and trying to have girlfriends like me m hm,
you also had this very deep connection to Heidi, and
you were as good a friend as ever has been
anywhere in the world to another person. To Heidi, we
(32:23):
really tried, but you just how can you even know
how to do it? And you helped her so much
and her family, and you know, tried to help her
get some money and try to help her hold on
to that money from lawsuits, which you know, and yeah,
(32:44):
I just remember how overwhelmed I was with the little
issues in my life that we're causing me strong and drong,
and and there you were every time you did anything
you brought her with you, and that involved literally lifting
(33:06):
her or carrying her from cars into parties. I remember
a party in Malibu. Yeah, I guess it was your apartment. Yeah,
that on it's the little tiny yeah where where we
were out on the deck. It was yes, And I
remember someone I think it was Gotten. Her dad had
(33:28):
carried her into this party, and I just I I
think I knew then the depth of your friendships, the
way that you would show up for someone, and I
remember I will always remember it um as being one
of the great examples. And I'm going to be really
(33:50):
honest with you now, which is embarrassing to say. I'm
going to out myself now in a somewhat public kind
of public way. It feels like we're not public because
it's just us talking. But the truth is people are
gonna listen to this. I had a friend of mine,
(34:13):
a beautiful, blonde, gorgeous model actress friend of mine who
was on that TV series I did Operation Petticoat back
in the day, Dory Forceman, who I lost contact with
when I got married and had children and just totally
lost contact with. And she was an equestrian and she
(34:36):
was in an accident um with a horse and she
was a quadriplegic. And I didn't show up for her
at all. Um, I wasn't in contact with her then.
This was probably a twenty year friendship difference now. And
(34:59):
I didn't show up for her. Other people showed up
for her, her family and Um, but what happened and
it just it's so funny. I haven't thought about this,
But it's crucial, is I. I wrote her at one
(35:20):
point and I said, I have been a terrible friend
and I feel I'm so sorry and I would like
to repair that and I would like to try to
connect again. And she wrote me, Actually she called me.
(35:43):
I think I had left my number in this letter,
and she called me, how is that? It was exactly
like it is with you and me when we reconnect.
It was as if nothing had happened. And she said
she called me Jamie Kins, and she was like miss Kins.
Funny enough, she was like, miss Kins, come see me.
(36:06):
And I went to Palm Springs and we reconnected, um
for the last year of her life. She ultimately died
about a year later. Um, But you got that in
and and I remember when I went there, there were
pictures of us all over her house, and I realized
that's what happens is even though we aren't close. And
(36:28):
by the way, I don't know what I could have done.
I mean, obviously I could have done something, and I'm
ashamed of myself that I didn't. And she looked at
me in the eye and said, Jamie, I love you,
and you know it. There is no I had no
ill feeling for that. It was I understood that was
just time and tide that we had just separated. And
(36:51):
you know, I'm so happy that we were able to
have that moment. Um. Oh, I have so much I
want to talk to you about, but I haven't thought
about that. And I just realized your example. You see,
this is what's so interesting is I didn't follow your example.
Here God put in front of me a young woman
(37:11):
who had a friend who had that experience, and yet
I didn't follow the example that you did. Um, I
ignored it. I've focused on you know. And by the way,
I think people listening, if you have young kids, you understand,
you know, it's you did connect with her. Yes, I
think I think it's important. Um, even even as we
(37:35):
get older and we have been separated from friends, I
think it's important for us to try to reconnect, to
say your friendship matter to me at that moment in
our lives, and that I'm not I'm I'm not. I
don't forget it. I don't. It doesn't have any memory
(37:56):
for me. It did, like there were memories. I remember
skateboarding with Dory in Westwood. She was thirty two and
I was eighteen. I mean it was crazy. She you know,
she looked like fair. I mean, she was a gorgeous
blonde woman. And we I think maybe it smoked marijuana,
maybe diet, And we went skateboarding in Westwood, skateboarding a
(38:23):
good friend. We'll be right back with more good friend
after this quick break. So you and I was sort
of separated. Um, you married Don a second time. Um.
(38:46):
I was married to Chris before that. We had Um,
you had you had Annie. We were in London. Yes,
that picture that I sent you this morning? You were
in London working right, you were making stormy Monday. Yes. Um,
we we reconnected a bunch of times, even even when
(39:07):
you reconnected with Don. I remember I we talked about
it recently where I came over to your guy's house
and I ended up playing tennis. With Don. I think
when we hit balls and I remembered the room and
I described it to you sort of deco Gray. I
just have this memory of and I always looked up
(39:28):
at you as someone and I think it was you
were older than your years. That example that you brought
at the beginning of the podcast of being a young
child with a wild animal that you had to show
no fear in order to survive. That carried all the
(39:52):
way through our friendships. And you were more sophisticated, more
um world lee than me. You traveled in you know,
some very big circles, and it felt um. I felt
like I looked forward and there you were doing many,
many things, and you've had just an extraordinary career and family,
(40:16):
and you married Don and you had Dakota, and then
you married Antonio and had Stella. And again, during that
point in our friendship, we weren't close. We would connect
a dot here and there, we would see each other,
and I don't think I ever felt angry at you.
(40:38):
I don't remember feeling that we were angry at each
other never, But it we weren't intersecting, and I felt
that your life and people's and my life and people's
just didn't intersect, and it began again for us with
(40:59):
our utters who both danced, and we started to reconnect
that way. And then we reconnected through our um, through
our adult lives in recovery and in kind of our
(41:19):
new understanding of ourselves. And I think the most important
message to anybody listening is that I am more interested
and now at sixty two, the idea of having a
sort of calcified life, some predigested life that is fixed
(41:46):
and rigid and this is your life and that's it
is not happening. Yeah, And I was gonna say for
either one of us, and that's where we have reconnected
in a way. The reconnection for me is the freedom. Yes, yeah,
(42:09):
that it's the calcified ideas are gone. Yeah. Now it's
wide open. And now we can, like a wide open field,
grab each other's hand like little kids in a funny way.
We now are children, are grown ish. Yeah, and we
(42:35):
now can have the girl friend ship. Yeah. True, and
kind of not to say that the world is our oyster,
but the world is sort of our oyster right now
in terms of friendship. Yeah. Definitely. Imagine if it wasn't
in the time of COVID, the things we would be
(42:57):
doing right, right, right exactly. But it's it's a it's
a testament to time and maturity and keeping an open
mind m hm, keeping ourselves open. Two sort of receive uh,
(43:23):
something new at a time when I wouldn't expect it
to be new, it would feel like an old thing. Yeah.
And you know, I've known you. You have wonderful women friends.
And you know I've I have watched you with your
women friends, and I see how you are with your girlfriends,
(43:49):
and it's I'm not jealous of I. And I think
it's important to be able to say that I see
you with your girlfriends and your friendships, and I love it.
I love what I see. I love what you have.
When you have friendships that you have and you have deep,
long friendships, you really do. You you have many more
(44:14):
than I do. But but we have room for them, yeah,
with each other. And that's the other thing I think
for good friends is making this space of having other experiences,
other friendships that that that you love and nurture and
(44:37):
enjoy for what they bring you. And yet you and
I have something that no one else will ever have.
It's it's the beauty of a good, long, many generational um,
(44:58):
children and husband, friends and careers and um, yeah, I
think I hope that I have instilled that in my children.
I think it took me a while to to to
to I mean, hopefully I taught them the importance of
(45:20):
good friends. I see it with them that they have
friends that have been friends since they were little. So
that's good. But do you find that you try to
do things very differently than your mother did with you,
that you're different with your children, or at least you
(45:40):
hope that you're different with your children and that do
you know what I mean? I mean, I have hoped
my whole motherhood that I was being different with my
children than I was when then how I was treated
with my mother, that I was doing better and being
better for them. And now I look at it and
(46:02):
see look at them, and see that I have dropped
the ball in so many areas, you know, like, yeah,
I do. Yeah, And I think I think that is
you know, I think we all go into it saying
I'm going to be so different, I'm going to do
(46:24):
things so differently. I'm so evolved. She was so unevolved.
She was hobbled by whatever was going on in her
own life. But I am not. I am going to
and then you wake up one day and realize you've
done the exact same thing to your children. Yeah exactly.
But with with one thing that I love about you,
(46:44):
about us is that we talk about our kids. That
we can talk together about our children and you know,
help each other in in dealing with them even now,
in being the best mothers that we can possibly be,
and getting getting each other through rough times. Yeah right, yeah, yeah,
(47:10):
well life on life's terms, life is tricky and there's
a lot people get thrown a lot. And you know
the genesis of this podcast, I am not Jamie is
by nature not going to be like, oh, I'm going
to do a podcast. You know, I'm gonna do a
(47:31):
podcast about friendship. It. I heard this song, our theme song,
Emily King, thank you so much, um, and I heard
that song and one day did during COVID go. I
want to talk to my friends. I want to find
out how other people are doing friendship. UM. So let's
(47:55):
just talk about the last year because you know it
it COVID will not be gone. But COVID is on
the on the down slope when this podcast is going
to be you know, we're not in the hot spot,
or at least we don't think we will be in
the hot spot again at this time. Um um. What
(48:19):
has been your experienced with your friends? Have you been
able to stay fairly current and or did you isolate?
I have, well kind of all of it. I have
definitely isolated a lot. I my kids don't live with
me anymore. I have I live in a new house
(48:42):
that I bought literally six months before the pandemics started.
Um so it's not finished. I haven't been able to
go anywhere. It's been a very lonely time for me,
really truly lonely. But it's been a time where I've
had great reflection, been able to be in therapy, um
(49:08):
heavy therapy this past year. And and then you and
I have a a community that we partake in and
are part of that is extremely beautiful and I enjoyed
those meetings so much and our little pods that we
(49:30):
have as friends. And by the way, I think a
lot of people have found whatever it is, whether or
not it's uh in a sober world, but just girlfriend world.
You know, there are friend groups, there are book groups,
and there are a lot of book groups now. People
(49:52):
have come together surrounding a common idea of visiting for
a little while, everybody downloading a little about what's going on,
and then coming up with something to unify them and
to kind of bring them together. I have friends who
do cooking stuff, you know what I mean, like some
sort of cooking share where again the visit with each
(50:15):
other and then they talk about the thing that they
all cooked. You know, you find a point of connection.
And it really goes back to the beginning of you
and me, which was that moment of seeing each other.
You know, our moment of connection, um being these two
(50:38):
actress daughters whose mothers were these legendary Hitchcock actresses. That
it it gave us like this little club, and we
then built our own lives. And you know, as we've said,
(51:00):
you know, not broke up, but separated, came back. Separated,
came back and it's all I want. Honestly, life is
full in session. There's a lot of work we have
to do philanthropically, there's a lot of work we also,
let's just say this, we also reconnected through children's hospitals
(51:22):
angelists where you start to show up together as public
people to support an institution. And that also that also
was a very big reconnection for us, and thank you
for that, because thank you for that. But it's it is,
(51:45):
it is those those connections that ultimately make really someone
when you look back, a good, good, to delicious friend,
and you have continued to be one. And I am
so excited for our future as good friends. Like I'm
(52:09):
as I said, I feel like we have a real opportunity. Yeah,
and um, I love you so much and me you
and I thank you for coming here. I could, I mean,
obviously we could talk four days about this. But I
hope whoever is listening, I hope that you have a
(52:30):
friend like Jamie and they have a friendship like you
like we have. That's what I hope for the listeners,
a deep friendship. Mm hmm. Thanks thanks for being here, Miskiss,
Thank you, Miskiss, and I love you very much. Good
(52:59):
Friend is produced by Dylan Fagin and is a production
of I Heart Radio. Our theme song good Friend is written, produced,
and performed by Emily King. Already unlogative from a good Friend?
(53:24):
Don't already Native from a Good Friend. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
If something unlogative. I'm a good friend. Hi everybody, it's
Jamie Lee Curtis. You're listening to the Good Friend Podcast,
presented to you by I Heart Radio. It's a podcast
(00:22):
about friendship, sort of the good, the bad, and the ugly,
the triumphs of friendship, the immense connection and emotion of friendship,
the laughter and occasionally the tears. We explore it all
in an unscripted, very free form way with many many
(00:42):
different guests, some I'm very close friends with, some I've
never met. And I hope that you will take away
from it something that connects you to your friends, and
that the ideas that we talk about can maybe be
taken into your own friendships. So sit back or take
a walk, or however you listen. I hope you enjoy
(01:03):
it and stay tuned and the good Friends. You know,
it's so funny because you get in front of a
microphone and you want, like immediately your voice lowers. You
get into that FM DJ voice, and you get into
that weird sense of you know, um a a silent
(01:27):
world late at night where you're the only person who's
listening and I'm the only person who's talking, and it's
super intimate and then what the uninformed listeners right now
don't understand is Melanie is sitting there in a T
shirt with her head set or headphones what are they
called headphones? Headphones perfectly on her head and mine we're backwards,
(01:53):
and you just don't ever see that. What's great about
the Good Friend podcast is you get truth, is that
I'm a sixty two year old woman who just put
on her earphones improperly right, and you had your phone
your phone strap thought in the wires, and before even
we began, I got up to do a quick pe
(02:15):
and forgot to take off my headphones and did one
of those comedy heads snaps back. Um. So what I
like though about the Good Friend Podcast, which you are
listening to apparently, is truth that this is. I'm not
I'm not offering some predigested idea of anything. Really, It's
(02:38):
really just inviting people to have a human experience with
me and you in this moment whatever happens, however it goes.
And as it went earlier before we even began, is
my headphones were like on crooked. So welcome everyone, my
guest today I am We're going to call each other
(03:00):
something and you're going to be listening going like, okay,
that's like really weird. But we call each other miskiss. Yes,
we do. When I say hi, miskiss, or when the
phone rings and she picks it up, she goes high miskiss.
How did it begin? I thought it began before we
realized that it was keep it simple, stupid. Oh oh, way,
(03:24):
so I think, like, way way before. Yeah, I think
it was actually in the eighties. We did that because
we were buds, big buds. Yeah. So, but we don't
know what where it came from because I think a
lot of girlfriends or friends listening to this we do
(03:45):
adopt pet names for each other in friendship, um, and
ours is miskiss for each other, and we don't We're
not sure really where it began. It was around owned
when Alexander was born. Okay, so what you need to
(04:05):
know for the uninformed listener who's joining us either driving
or doing chores at home or just sitting in a
chair while a child sleeps um or a pet sleeps
or husband sleeps um. We met in nine or on
(04:28):
a TV movie of the week called go for It.
She's in the Army Now. It was right when women
were starting to be included in the army. And it
was a TV movie about a group of women who
met and Melanie and I. Strangely enough, even though as
(04:50):
we unpack our backgrounds a tiny bit, you will wonder
how the heck we never knew each other? Are virtually
the same age. You're a year older than me, Um.
We are both daughters of Hitchcock Blond's Melanie's mother uh
(05:10):
is Tippy Hedron, fantastic actress who did a lot of
work with Hitchcock, and my mother Janet Lee, who was
in Psycho with Alfred Hitchcock. And so Melanie and I
were both young actresses. We had never for meet and
we were both cast in this TV movie. And did
(05:32):
we first did the first time we meet? Is that
when we went to Barney's Beanery in Playpool? Yes? Yeah,
I think the idea was that we would bond, right,
And it was Julie Carmen and Kathleen Quinlan and you
and me, and we just decided. I don't even know
how that was arranged, because there were no cell phones.
(05:54):
You didn't text, you had to call people exactly. I
think it was because as you and I both lived,
didn't we live right? Near Barney's Beanery. Yes, I think
I moved there later, but yeah. And we decided as
a group to sort of go shoot pool together and
(06:15):
probably have a beer or two or three or something.
And we so we met here where we were I
was twenty one years old, twenty two years old, or
you were twenty two or twenty three, and we had
never met, even though we had shared so much in
(06:35):
this sense of pedigree, pedigree and probably experiences from that pedigree,
and obviously, as we have unpacked it many years later,
a lot of emotional pedigree, not just the cinema pedigree,
(06:56):
but the emotional pedigree. But we didn't know that then.
We didn't. And Melanie played the green horn girl off
the farm who was a young mother who was joining
the army to sort of basically have a career because
as by the way, many many, many, many many people do,
(07:19):
because the military is a career. And I was the
bad girl. Oh don't any listener, do not just be
like duh, I was the bad girl. I had a
toothpick in my mouth the whole time, which I thought
was a great affectation. I'm sure it topick. So that's
how we met. We met where I was the bad girl,
(07:42):
she was the super good girl. But we met and
fell hard with each other. We it was as if
we had been waiting for each other. Yeah, and um,
you know we are both sober women. Um, I think
I can say that openly. We both are sober women,
(08:03):
and there was a period of time where we weren't.
And um, let's just say we met when we were
young and as the as the parents call it, Yeah,
do you remember that first time? I meant like that
first connection as friends, Not exactly not the first, but
(08:27):
I know it happened immediately. I remember things that we did.
I remember how close we got on that film. I
remember shooting it and having so much fun, all the
things that we were doing, And we really had this
like special thing where we could just look at each
(08:47):
other and know what was going on, like no words,
you know. I do think the no words aspect is
what people relate to. It is an unspoken yeah connect
and that happens when you really feel like you've met
somebody that's yeah, we were in our twenties. Now. I
(09:07):
just want to unpack a tiny bit and go backwards
a little tiny bit because although I know you pretty well,
I as we have gotten to know each other even
better now as two women in our sixties. I don't
really have a full snapshot of you as a little girl.
(09:28):
And you know, friendships that first beginning, very gentle exploration
with another person, where you say, let's be friends. Can
we be friends? Did you have those close friends when
you were little? I did not really. UM. I went
(09:50):
back and forth between my mother and my father. My
mother lived here in l A. My father lived in
New York, UM up into until I was from when
I was like and then my mother remarried UM my stepfather.
We lived in a house from a age five to
fourteen for me, and I went to three different schools
(10:15):
in that period of time, actually four UM. I was
very left alone. My mother was always gone, going to Vietnam,
going to some to fix people somewhere else, and I
was left either with my stepfather or with my stepbrothers,
and so I had responsibilities and I couldn't be as
(10:41):
I wasn't taken care of. So I was scared and
I would go and spend the night at girlfriend's houses
or they would come to my house. But I never
really got close with anybody because I didn't know how
I didn't know that that was you know what I mean.
I wasn't taught what to do. There was a real
lapse there of of unconditional love. I did not feel
(11:06):
well and a lot of people, you know, you grow
where you're planted. I grew up in a house on
a dirt road in Benedict Canyon, and there was my
stepfather had bought this piece of land, put a fence
in between the pool, the pool house and the tennis
court and the main house and the stable, you know,
(11:27):
and the orchard, and he sold that part to a
family with five daughters, and then he lived as a
bachelor in the bachelor pad of the pool house, the
pool and the tennis court. And then he married Janet Lee,
who brought with her two small daughters. So I grew
(11:47):
up with a fence, a chain link fence with a
gate separating me and five other girls. So we Kelly
and I grew up with the Keith girls, my abers,
and we had immediate friends. And Kelly and I went
to the same school John Thomas Die and had that
(12:08):
sort of lifelong childhood friends. Um, and you didn't have
any of that continuity. Well I didn't really because I
met don when I was fourteen, and that threw me
into a whole different that's a different kind of friend. Friend.
That's the friend with a lot of benefits and issues. Yeah. Yeah,
(12:31):
well we'll get there in a minute. Um. Um, but
I do want to go back to the young you
and the young me about wanting to be friends with people, um,
because you have such a unique um situation that I
think listeners. Certainly, I am a listener because I'm your
(12:53):
friend and I have listened to you. Tell me about it.
Your stepfather, Mum and your mother started a foundation with
big cats lions. Yes, yes, And it didn't start out
(13:15):
as a foundation. It started out as the movie. It
started out as an idea to make a movie. Um,
because they were in Africa. Mom was making a movie.
They saw the plight of the animals, how they were
being killed so rapidly, and they and at that time
it was like seventy three or something. Um, the prediction
(13:36):
was that most of them would be killed by the
year two thousand if the rate of killing kept on.
And so they took on this thing of wanting to
make a film about the wild animals, the wildcats, and
thus started, Um, we got to know this full grown
male lion named Neil. Um his owner on Oxley would
(14:01):
come in a big van and bring Neil over to
the house. Uh. So we'd have a full grown male
lion in the living room, in the kitchen, in my bed.
There are pictures from Life magazine with I was twelve
and I had a full grown male lion in my bed. Um.
I did become very good friends with Neil. I loved him. Um. Yeah,
(14:25):
it was. It was very interesting. It was the main
thing that I've realized is that in being with wildcats,
you can show no fear at all. So I went
from this very timid, shy, scared little girl who was
already starting to feel totally unloved and troubled two having
(14:50):
someone say, here you go, here's this lion. You gotta
sit with the lion. But you can show no fear
because he will go for you, you know. So there's
a metaphor about sort of swallowing your feelings and stuffing
your feelings and creating a sort of alternative persona exactly,
(15:12):
and I did the same. The reason why it's funny
because you and I did sort of lock on each other.
I've been to I went to visit the I did
write an elephant with you, but when I visited the Shambala,
preserve that your mother still UM is a big part
(15:34):
of and it's a foundation. UM. I remember when we
visited and you were walking us around the enclosures. One
of them locked on me and did that thing where
as I started to walk by it, it locked on
my eyes, and I remember it followed me down like
the enclosure, never taking its eyes off me. And I
(15:57):
remember that. I'm they're not a lot of things. I remember, Melanie.
I remember that, yeah, and that feeling, that feeling of
uh fear and strength and show no fear. And it's
(16:17):
funny because the minute you said show no, I was
a child who was looking for contact. You said your
mom was gone. You know, you and I probably had
very similar backgrounds, although I think Janet didn't go to Vietnam.
You know, she she probably fashioned herself more of a
traditional mom I, you know, kind of on a dirt
(16:40):
road with big dogs, and she married my stepfather and
had a very but not dissimilar I think emotionally we've
shared that with each other. And because of that, UM,
I think it's so poignant that you're this young child
where once in a while you were with step siblings,
(17:00):
you know, other kids that were part of another part
of your family, and then you were alone. And then
and then you were my dad right right, right, and
he had a new family, had a new family, my
little brother and sister. Right. So there was that feeling
(17:21):
of being alone and then being with others, but then
being alone. And this idea of you being partnered with, um,
this giant wild animal that you weren't allowed to show
any fear to that you did create a relationship with. Anyway,
I find it a fascinating world. Um it makes me
(17:44):
laugh because you know, most people go, hey, you want
to come over and play play barbies? I've got a
new Stewart's barbie and you know we can play and
you can change the clothes and we can you know
what I mean, That's what normally people do. And I
love You're like, you want to come over, and um,
you don't have a lot, like you know, how do
you have friends come over? I know, I know it
(18:06):
was a problem. Yeah, yeah, something. I get it from
a good friend. We'll be right back with more good
friend after this quick break, so stick around. I'll get
it from a good friend, I do so for the
(18:32):
listener and me. You know, you're getting a sense that
it was an unusual upbringing. And then, as you just said, uh,
in a weird way, you you just got in bed
with another lion. Um when you got married or when
you were starting to be in a partnership at what age? Well,
(18:54):
I moved in with Dawn for real when I was sixteen,
and I also did my first movie that year and
graduated from high school that year. M Um. I interviewed
my friend Michelle Williams, who also was emancipated very young.
And I think that also does something in the sense
(19:16):
of immediately making you kind of wear the mantle of
an adult, when in fact we look at a sixteen
year old now, um as so so young. And I'm,
without being indelicate, I'm going to assume that when you
said you moved in with Don for good at sixteen,
(19:36):
that meant that you had been with Don at a
younger age, right, So that and so the idea of
forming super deep friendships, Um, it didn't happen, did it. No? Mhm?
And And we're I mean, I'm you would make relationships
(20:02):
with people, you would have friendships, Um, when you're young
and you're in an intense romantic relationship, it's hard to
sort of break free from that. And the truth of
the matter, Melanie, is that in our own friendship, and
I think people will relate to this um our relationship
(20:25):
didn't splinter, but we took big sections away from each other,
predominantly at sort of the beginnings of relationships with men. Yeah. True,
that's true, where we would subsume ourselves into the male relationship.
And I think for listeners, particularly women, that probably hopefully
(20:50):
there'll be a dude or two. But for for the
women listening, I think it's a very common thing. My
mother did it. I'm guessing Tippy did it with your stepfather.
My mother subsumed herself to Robert Brandt and put away
Janet Lee and became the businessman's wife and was and
(21:15):
just sort of put Janet Lee in a box and
put it in the corner. And I think you and
I both in our relationships with men, we would do that.
And I think that's where you and I stepped away
from each other. Or when you started a relationship back
with Don. So you were married to Don at one
point and then you divorced and you met, well, we met,
(21:41):
we met. So Melanie's eldest child as Alexander, and Alexander's
father is an actor named Stephen Bauer to you that
you guys would know, um listeners, But when we met
Stephen Bauer on the TV movie She in the Army Now, Um,
(22:02):
he was a young actor with his given name which
was Rocky at Chevaria at Chevalio excuse me. And you know, um,
it was a TV movie with nothing but women, right,
I mean, it's just it's it's called She's in the Army. Now.
(22:23):
Was a lot of women, and this very handsome guy
showed up, who was to play my boyfriend by the way,
in the show the bad boy to My Bad Girl.
But Melanie set her eyes on him, and the two
of them, you know, the stars fell on Alabama and
Texas and Tennessee and the entire continental US and they
(22:50):
um partnered and married and had a child. So it's
interesting that moment. I remember it right after when after
we got married as and you met Chris, we were
at your wedding reception. Yes, yeah, crazy um so, but
it's interesting to me because I mean, obviously we have
(23:14):
just for again, the uninitiated listener. Melanie and I are
closer now than we have been probably in a very
very very very very very long time. There's been a
total um opening to each other through hearts and minds,
and it's so satisfying to know that. I really what
(23:38):
I was excited about when you agreed to be on
the podcast was that this is the state of our
friendship now and that we have weathered a lot. Yes,
and it's I think it's beautiful that that we have
such a history with our friendship. We've gone through times
when we didn't speak for serious reasons, We've gone through
(24:03):
times when we were both busy doing other things. We
have come together in deep situations with deep meaning, and
now here we are later in our life, in our
second act and having a blast. It is having a blast.
(24:24):
There is something so trust trusting about an old friend
that you reconnected with that that amount of history really
does UM gives such strength and solidity for me to
to the feelings of that safety of that friendship. UM.
(24:48):
It's it's been extraordinary for me and and an unexpected treat.
And you know the podcast is called good Friend, How
do you be a good friend? And how to how
do you find a good friend. How do you keep
a good friend and how do you reconnect? You are
the best friend. I must say. You are such a
(25:10):
beautiful friend. You're just amazing. You are amazing you also
for the listener. You have these beautiful, little charming things
that you do for people, for friends, and I imagine
for people that some people that you don't know. I
(25:31):
actually I know that for people you don't even know,
and you stay anonymous. But you are the queen of
sending a little gift like the one that I got
for for this that says friend and has two hankies
handkerchiefs in them when black and when white, and it's
(25:52):
stunningly beautiful, but so simple and elegant. You are never
over the top. You are classy and classy, old fashioned, elegant, classy.
You're really quite extraordinary it I mean, and I say
that not because of the presence, but because of your intentions.
(26:13):
Your intentions are always good, they are always deep. Okay,
I appreciate that very very much. And I and by
the way, I'm not going to deny you because the
truth is that my intentions are what they are. I
would hope I live by my intentions like that. That's
(26:37):
the legacies your intention, because I can't I can't tell
you how to feel. I can only put it in
the path. I can only do what I can do
and put it in your path and hope that you
receive it. Um. So it's I knew I was going
to start crying. I knew it because the minute you
(26:59):
started talking. When we met, it was before I was married,
And yes, I was in relationships and I was trying
to figure out who I was in those relationships and
outside of those relationships and all of the forming of
ourselves as young people. But I hadn't really dealt with
(27:23):
any real life stuff really, and when we met, you
were a friend to someone whose life had been shattered
and completely. I'm gonna have you explain m Heidi story
(27:49):
for the uninitiated listener, because but what I want to
say this first. Okay, it's really easy to send a
hanky to a friend that says friend as a gratitude
for doing my good Friend podcast. That is a gesture
of friendship and kindness and gratitude. Right when I met you, Heidi,
(28:16):
when Hi so, Heidi von von Belts was a stunt
woman who was in a catastrophic accident on a movie
right before we did the we did She's are in
the army. Now it was four months before that. Oh wow,
Oh I didn't know that. And she was, please explain
(28:39):
and then I'll tell you what I'm feeling about it. Okay. Um,
she was Heidi. I met her when I was fifteen.
She also was dating an older man who was a
friend of Dawn's. She was three years older than me,
so she was eighteen and Um, she was a stunt woman.
She became a stunt woman, so she did a lot
(29:01):
of crazy things. She was also raised to be an
incredible skier. She was one of the first freestyle skiers.
She was six ft tall. She was absolutely stunningly beautiful.
She was a model. She was full of life and
could would do anything like she would She was crazy,
(29:24):
like we took a lot of chances. Um. And she
had another another boyfriend named Bobby Bass who was a
stunt coordinator and he was doing I think he was
smoking the bandit too. Um. And there was cannonball run
maybe it was for some reason, Cannibal. Whatever was she doubling?
(29:46):
Fara do remember? I think she might have been or
Sally Field, one of them I'm not sure. I don't
remember that part. I do know that how Medham was
in a hurry. There was a car that was a
I think it was a left hand drive and they
switched it it was a right hand drive, they switched
(30:07):
it to a left hand drive. They were it wasn't
stable yet, but they were in a hurry to get
the shot. And the shot was of a car speating.
This car speeding down the freeway with they big coming
towards it head on and supposed to be a swerve
in not a collision, but a swerve. So because the
(30:28):
steering wheel had been messed with, UM, I didn't didn't
have a seatbelt on. The guy didn't have a seatbelt
on UM and they when he went to turn the car,
the steering wheel locked and so they rammed right into
the truck and Heidi put it her left arm out
on the dashboard to brace herself, and her arm her
(30:52):
shoulder blade broke her neck at the fifth vertebrae and
she was paralyzed, totally paralyzed, quadriplegic. So when we met,
that's fascinating that that had just happened. But the reason
I brought it up, the reason why it's so incredibly
(31:15):
moving to me is you are a really young woman,
and she was a young woman, and you were now
facing a reality. And there are many people listening who
didn't get the ease of a young life for whatever reason,
either an ill parent or something happened in their lives
(31:36):
that made them grow up very quickly. And I remember
how dedicated you were two Heidi and her care and
her life, her complete life became something that you focused
your complete life. So although you were young and trying
(31:59):
to be in relationship with people and trying to be
a professional and trying to have girlfriends like me m hm,
you also had this very deep connection to Heidi, and
you were as good a friend as ever has been
anywhere in the world to another person. To Heidi, we
(32:23):
really tried, but you just how can you even know
how to do it? And you helped her so much
and her family, and you know, tried to help her
get some money and try to help her hold on
to that money from lawsuits, which you know, and yeah,
(32:44):
I just remember how overwhelmed I was with the little
issues in my life that we're causing me strong and drong,
and and there you were every time you did anything
you brought her with you, and that involved literally lifting
(33:06):
her or carrying her from cars into parties. I remember
a party in Malibu. Yeah, I guess it was your apartment. Yeah,
that on it's the little tiny yeah where where we
were out on the deck. It was yes, And I
remember someone I think it was Gotten. Her dad had
(33:28):
carried her into this party, and I just I I
think I knew then the depth of your friendships, the
way that you would show up for someone, and I
remember I will always remember it um as being one
of the great examples. And I'm going to be really
(33:50):
honest with you now, which is embarrassing to say. I'm
going to out myself now in a somewhat public kind
of public way. It feels like we're not public because
it's just us talking. But the truth is people are
gonna listen to this. I had a friend of mine,
(34:13):
a beautiful, blonde, gorgeous model actress friend of mine who
was on that TV series I did Operation Petticoat back
in the day, Dory Forceman, who I lost contact with
when I got married and had children and just totally
lost contact with. And she was an equestrian and she
(34:36):
was in an accident um with a horse and she
was a quadriplegic. And I didn't show up for her
at all. Um, I wasn't in contact with her then.
This was probably a twenty year friendship difference now. And
(34:59):
I didn't show up for her. Other people showed up
for her, her family and Um, but what happened and
it just it's so funny. I haven't thought about this,
But it's crucial, is I. I wrote her at one
(35:20):
point and I said, I have been a terrible friend
and I feel I'm so sorry and I would like
to repair that and I would like to try to
connect again. And she wrote me, Actually she called me.
(35:43):
I think I had left my number in this letter,
and she called me, how is that? It was exactly
like it is with you and me when we reconnect.
It was as if nothing had happened. And she said
she called me Jamie Kins, and she was like miss Kins.
Funny enough, she was like, miss Kins, come see me.
(36:06):
And I went to Palm Springs and we reconnected, um
for the last year of her life. She ultimately died
about a year later. Um, But you got that in
and and I remember when I went there, there were
pictures of us all over her house, and I realized
that's what happens is even though we aren't close. And
(36:28):
by the way, I don't know what I could have done.
I mean, obviously I could have done something, and I'm
ashamed of myself that I didn't. And she looked at
me in the eye and said, Jamie, I love you,
and you know it. There is no I had no
ill feeling for that. It was I understood that was
just time and tide that we had just separated. And
(36:51):
you know, I'm so happy that we were able to
have that moment. Um. Oh, I have so much I
want to talk to you about, but I haven't thought
about that. And I just realized your example. You see,
this is what's so interesting is I didn't follow your example.
Here God put in front of me a young woman
(37:11):
who had a friend who had that experience, and yet
I didn't follow the example that you did. Um, I
ignored it. I've focused on you know. And by the way,
I think people listening, if you have young kids, you understand,
you know, it's you did connect with her. Yes, I
think I think it's important. Um, even even as we
(37:35):
get older and we have been separated from friends, I
think it's important for us to try to reconnect, to
say your friendship matter to me at that moment in
our lives, and that I'm not I'm I'm not. I
don't forget it. I don't. It doesn't have any memory
(37:56):
for me. It did, like there were memories. I remember
skateboarding with Dory in Westwood. She was thirty two and
I was eighteen. I mean it was crazy. She you know,
she looked like fair. I mean, she was a gorgeous
blonde woman. And we I think maybe it smoked marijuana,
maybe diet, And we went skateboarding in Westwood, skateboarding a
(38:23):
good friend. We'll be right back with more good friend
after this quick break. So you and I was sort
of separated. Um, you married Don a second time. Um.
(38:46):
I was married to Chris before that. We had Um,
you had you had Annie. We were in London. Yes,
that picture that I sent you this morning? You were
in London working right, you were making stormy Monday. Yes. Um,
we we reconnected a bunch of times, even even when
(39:07):
you reconnected with Don. I remember I we talked about
it recently where I came over to your guy's house
and I ended up playing tennis. With Don. I think
when we hit balls and I remembered the room and
I described it to you sort of deco Gray. I
just have this memory of and I always looked up
(39:28):
at you as someone and I think it was you
were older than your years. That example that you brought
at the beginning of the podcast of being a young
child with a wild animal that you had to show
no fear in order to survive. That carried all the
(39:52):
way through our friendships. And you were more sophisticated, more
um world lee than me. You traveled in you know,
some very big circles, and it felt um. I felt
like I looked forward and there you were doing many,
many things, and you've had just an extraordinary career and family,
(40:16):
and you married Don and you had Dakota, and then
you married Antonio and had Stella. And again, during that
point in our friendship, we weren't close. We would connect
a dot here and there, we would see each other,
and I don't think I ever felt angry at you.
(40:38):
I don't remember feeling that we were angry at each
other never, But it we weren't intersecting, and I felt
that your life and people's and my life and people's
just didn't intersect, and it began again for us with
(40:59):
our utters who both danced, and we started to reconnect
that way. And then we reconnected through our um, through
our adult lives in recovery and in kind of our
(41:19):
new understanding of ourselves. And I think the most important
message to anybody listening is that I am more interested
and now at sixty two, the idea of having a
sort of calcified life, some predigested life that is fixed
(41:46):
and rigid and this is your life and that's it
is not happening. Yeah, And I was gonna say for
either one of us, and that's where we have reconnected
in a way. The reconnection for me is the freedom. Yes, yeah,
(42:09):
that it's the calcified ideas are gone. Yeah. Now it's
wide open. And now we can, like a wide open field,
grab each other's hand like little kids in a funny way.
We now are children, are grown ish. Yeah, and we
(42:35):
now can have the girl friend ship. Yeah. True, and
kind of not to say that the world is our oyster,
but the world is sort of our oyster right now
in terms of friendship. Yeah. Definitely. Imagine if it wasn't
in the time of COVID, the things we would be
(42:57):
doing right, right, right exactly. But it's it's a it's
a testament to time and maturity and keeping an open
mind m hm, keeping ourselves open. Two sort of receive uh,
(43:23):
something new at a time when I wouldn't expect it
to be new, it would feel like an old thing. Yeah.
And you know, I've known you. You have wonderful women friends.
And you know I've I have watched you with your
women friends, and I see how you are with your girlfriends,
(43:49):
and it's I'm not jealous of I. And I think
it's important to be able to say that I see
you with your girlfriends and your friendships, and I love it.
I love what I see. I love what you have.
When you have friendships that you have and you have deep,
long friendships, you really do. You you have many more
(44:14):
than I do. But but we have room for them, yeah,
with each other. And that's the other thing I think
for good friends is making this space of having other experiences,
other friendships that that that you love and nurture and
(44:37):
enjoy for what they bring you. And yet you and
I have something that no one else will ever have.
It's it's the beauty of a good, long, many generational um,
(44:58):
children and husband, friends and careers and um, yeah, I
think I hope that I have instilled that in my children.
I think it took me a while to to to
to I mean, hopefully I taught them the importance of
(45:20):
good friends. I see it with them that they have
friends that have been friends since they were little. So
that's good. But do you find that you try to
do things very differently than your mother did with you,
that you're different with your children, or at least you
(45:40):
hope that you're different with your children and that do
you know what I mean? I mean, I have hoped
my whole motherhood that I was being different with my
children than I was when then how I was treated
with my mother, that I was doing better and being
better for them. And now I look at it and
(46:02):
see look at them, and see that I have dropped
the ball in so many areas, you know, like, yeah,
I do. Yeah, And I think I think that is
you know, I think we all go into it saying
I'm going to be so different, I'm going to do
(46:24):
things so differently. I'm so evolved. She was so unevolved.
She was hobbled by whatever was going on in her
own life. But I am not. I am going to
and then you wake up one day and realize you've
done the exact same thing to your children. Yeah exactly.
But with with one thing that I love about you,
(46:44):
about us is that we talk about our kids. That
we can talk together about our children and you know,
help each other in in dealing with them even now,
in being the best mothers that we can possibly be,
and getting getting each other through rough times. Yeah right, yeah, yeah,
(47:10):
well life on life's terms, life is tricky and there's
a lot people get thrown a lot. And you know
the genesis of this podcast, I am not Jamie is
by nature not going to be like, oh, I'm going
to do a podcast. You know, I'm gonna do a
(47:31):
podcast about friendship. It. I heard this song, our theme song,
Emily King, thank you so much, um, and I heard
that song and one day did during COVID go. I
want to talk to my friends. I want to find
out how other people are doing friendship. UM. So let's
(47:55):
just talk about the last year because you know it
it COVID will not be gone. But COVID is on
the on the down slope when this podcast is going
to be you know, we're not in the hot spot,
or at least we don't think we will be in
the hot spot again at this time. Um um. What
(48:19):
has been your experienced with your friends? Have you been
able to stay fairly current and or did you isolate?
I have, well kind of all of it. I have
definitely isolated a lot. I my kids don't live with
me anymore. I have I live in a new house
(48:42):
that I bought literally six months before the pandemics started.
Um so it's not finished. I haven't been able to
go anywhere. It's been a very lonely time for me,
really truly lonely. But it's been a time where I've
had great reflection, been able to be in therapy, um
(49:08):
heavy therapy this past year. And and then you and
I have a a community that we partake in and
are part of that is extremely beautiful and I enjoyed
those meetings so much and our little pods that we
(49:30):
have as friends. And by the way, I think a
lot of people have found whatever it is, whether or
not it's uh in a sober world, but just girlfriend world.
You know, there are friend groups, there are book groups,
and there are a lot of book groups now. People
(49:52):
have come together surrounding a common idea of visiting for
a little while, everybody downloading a little about what's going on,
and then coming up with something to unify them and
to kind of bring them together. I have friends who
do cooking stuff, you know what I mean, like some
sort of cooking share where again the visit with each
(50:15):
other and then they talk about the thing that they
all cooked. You know, you find a point of connection.
And it really goes back to the beginning of you
and me, which was that moment of seeing each other.
You know, our moment of connection, um being these two
(50:38):
actress daughters whose mothers were these legendary Hitchcock actresses. That
it it gave us like this little club, and we
then built our own lives. And you know, as we've said,
(51:00):
you know, not broke up, but separated, came back. Separated,
came back and it's all I want. Honestly, life is
full in session. There's a lot of work we have
to do philanthropically, there's a lot of work we also,
let's just say this, we also reconnected through children's hospitals
(51:22):
angelists where you start to show up together as public
people to support an institution. And that also that also
was a very big reconnection for us, and thank you
for that, because thank you for that. But it's it is,
(51:45):
it is those those connections that ultimately make really someone
when you look back, a good, good, to delicious friend,
and you have continued to be one. And I am
so excited for our future as good friends. Like I'm
(52:09):
as I said, I feel like we have a real opportunity. Yeah,
and um, I love you so much and me you
and I thank you for coming here. I could, I mean,
obviously we could talk four days about this. But I
hope whoever is listening, I hope that you have a
(52:30):
friend like Jamie and they have a friendship like you
like we have. That's what I hope for the listeners,
a deep friendship. Mm hmm. Thanks thanks for being here, Miskiss,
Thank you, Miskiss, and I love you very much. Good
(52:59):
Friend is produced by Dylan Fagin and is a production
of I Heart Radio. Our theme song good Friend is written, produced,
and performed by Emily King. Already unlogative from a good Friend?
(53:24):
Don't already Native from a Good Friend. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
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