"Confessions of A Married Woman"

This was told to Jane Wilkie and appeared in the January 1963 issue of Motion Picture Magazine.

I LOVE:

I love staying up all night and snoozing in bed as long as possible the next day!
Meat loaf. It's the only thing I can cook, so it's on the menu every week on the maid's night out. I still love it, but I'm not sure how my husband is holding up.
Jewelry.
Yellow roses.
Taking care of my baby.
Nature, but I don't want to have to tramp around to see it. I like to look at all those trees and flowers and bugs through a window.
All animals except cats. And goats, come to think of it.
Lettuce.
The smell of a dank, dirty cellar.
Shoes.
Hands.
Water.
Amusement parks. That centrifugal force thing, and the roller-coaster. I could stay on them forever, until the machines break down.
My husband, my son, my home.

I HATE:

I hate soft-boiled eggs. That runny look.
The color maroon.
The baby's temper tantrums, because I don't know what to do.
Talking on the phone.
All food before noon.
Shopping. I used to love it, but not any more.
Longhair music, particularly operas. To me, it's all unhappy music.
Goats. I've had to work with one in the Tammy pictures, and they never do what they're supposed to do.
Fire hydrants. They're always there when I'm looking for a parking space.
Prune juice.
Make-up. That goes for both work and private life. I hate the feel of the base.
To give up smoking, because I always fail and then I know it's a crutch and that I'm a weakling.
All sports, except swimming.
The smell of cabbage cooking. And shrimp.

I FORGET:

I forget everything.
Names.
Appointments.
To return phone calls.
To get up in the morning.
To set the alarm. Who wants to?
To go to bed.
To eat.
Everything.

I LAUGH:

I laugh at myself, thank God.
At my baby when he tries to sit up or walk. And at feeding time. There's more food on me than there is in him.
At Jose Jimenez's Astronaut.
With the crew on a picture. I have the same basic crew on every movie and they make it fun for me to work.
At my Yorkshire terrier, the mop.
At the way Bobby puts tomato sauce on everything he eats.

I'M BORED:

With anything that takes longer than ten minutes.
With repetition.
When I'm idle.
If I have to take care of the house myself.
Traveling on the night club circuit. The boredom sets in about the third night.
When people aren't as enthusiastic as I am about something, when somebody's down when I'm up.

I DRESS:
To please myself.

I'M NOSTALGIC:

About my grand- mother's homemade sausage.
About the street where I was born and lived the first three years of my life. I go back to see it often.
About Jones Beach.
About the first movie I made. I've seen it twice since.
When I see any kind of memento from my father, a letter he wrote, his watch, any- thing that belonged to him.
When I look at my own home movies.
About New York. I cry every time I go back and see the tall buildings,

I ADMIT:

To my true age, 20.
That I'm not a natural blonde.
That I'm impatient.
And that I'm lazy.
That I spend money foolishly.
That I tell white lies, even though I inow how desperately Bobby dislikes them.
That I'm afraid I won't be mature enough to raise my son when he gets older.
To being spoiled, and loving the fact.
To loving my work most of the time and rating it sometimes. I don't understand the .witch in my attitude toward it; I probably iced a psychiatrist.

I'M AFRAID:

Of death.
Of sickness for the baby.
Of planes.
Of snakes,
On the freeway.
Of growing old. That first wrinkle is going to be a personal catastrophe.
Of the day when I lose my zest for living.
Of telegrams.

I SLEEP:

In a big bed with lots of covers.
With three enormous pillows.
With difficulty. Sometimes when it seems I'll never get to sleep, I can solve it by lying on my side with my feet on a pillow.

I LOSE MY TEMPER:

With goats.
With my husband.
When I have to wear a wig.
Waiting—in line, for people, for anything.
Trying to remember a name I can't recall.
With a busy signal on a telephone.
Looking for something that refuses to be found.
When I break anything I like very much.

I'M PROMPT:

I am. But it's only because I have enough people around me to push me there on time. They're wonderful; I grumble at them but they get me there.

I REMEMBER:

Being bathed in a bassinette during the war when there was a blackout. I remember being bathed in the dark and then there was light, and then dark again. I must have been very small, still an infant, but I do remember it and won't be told it's something I've heard about. The impression is very clear—that black and white and black and white.
I remember the day I opened the eclair cake box and found my Pomeranian pup inside.
Meeting my husband.
Nothing at all about the birth of my son, which infuriates me. I'd hoped to chew people's ears off about it, and now I can't remember a thing.
My first swat, administered by my father. I was 4, and had just bitten the boy next door. Which reminds me that when I was 5, I threw my cousin down a hill. The two families haven't spoken to each other since.
My first home, back East.
The day I first wore stockings.

I WORRY:

About my husband's health, my baby's health, my own health.
About my ability to combine a career and marriage.
About the fires in California. I've been through one and don't want to be involved in another.
About my son growing up with a healthy attitude toward life. He has two strikes against him already, because both parents are in show business.
About the fast pace Bobby keeps.
About traveling. None of it seems safe.

I'M HAPPIEST:
When I get off work for the day.
On Fridays, therefore.
When my husband is home and not traveling, and the three of us are together where we should be.
When I'm barbecuing, for some strange reason I don't understand.
When I listen to Ray Charles sing Born To ,ose. It's such a sad song and I cry like mad, and therefore am happy.

I REGRET:

Not going to school with children my own age.
Having become a blonde. Because on dye days it seems so much easier to be a brunette. Or, that is to say, my own natural shade of kind of dark blonde.
My father's death.
That the rest Of my family lives in New Jersey. It's so far away.
Not having brought back tons of perfume from Paris.
Losing the jade ring Bobby gave me the day I learned I was pregnant.
Not dating more before I married. Be cause now I'm afraid I won't be able to understand my son when he starts dating— or to be able to give him the advice and understanding he might need.
That I haven't lived long enough to re- gret many things. But I bet I will!

I'M EMBARRASSED:
Easily.
When I have to do love scenes in front of my mother or my husband.
When a seam is ripped and I don't know it.
Watching performers with a disadvantage. A sore throat, for instance. I always want to get up there and help them out.
When I say the wrong things, which I do often because I say things so bluntly.
When anyone catches me with my hair up in curlers. I'll never forget the day I was having a dye job at the studio and Rock Hudson walked in.

I WISH:

Goats had more brains.
That my dogs would live forever.
That when I'm happy the whole world could be as happy as I am.
That my son will grow up into the best, brightest, most handsome man in the world,
That they'd find a cure for cancer.
That I were a natural blonde. Desperately.
That I'll always be as lucky as I have been in the past two years in arranging schedules so that Bobby and I are not often apart.
That still cameras could be stamped out —wiped off the face of the earth.
That Bobby and I will always be able to argue as well as we do now. I don't like things to be too compatible.
That the world would kind of settle down.

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