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  While Dick landed a respectable number of jobs, including a Broadway comedy by Jules Feiffer called Little Murders, starring old chum Elliott Gould, at times our financial situation got pretty dire. I remember one time we were literally down to a quarter. Not kidding. But then work would come, as well as my unemployment check for fifty bucks a week. One great job we did together was as stand-ins for Carl Reiner’s Broadway play Something Different. Dick stood by for Bob Dishy and Gabe Dell, and I stood by for Linda Lavin and Maureen Arthur. Linda and I became great pals. We used to take an Italian class together before matinees. During periods of waiting to get hired, I never gave up my focus of becoming an actor, but I did involve myself with something quite important to me—the nonviolent fight for civil rights.

  I was fortunate enough to have been raised in a fair and open-minded household. My mom never tolerated an inkling of prejudice, no matter how accidental or unaware, from Leah, Don, or me. They raised us to see everyone as equal. Whenever anyone used a prejudicial term to dismiss black people or any other race, my mother would bristle. “Remember,” she would say, “women, like minorities, are considered second-class citizens. Treat everyone as you wish to be treated yourself.”

  It would be several years before I truly understood what she was saying.

  After John F. Kennedy was assassinated, a galavanizing event for me, I began to look for more direct ways to get involved in one of the many organizations fighting for social justice in the world. Initially, I thought of joining the Peace Corps—the phenomenal plan put forth by the president’s brother-in-law Sargent Shriver. But I had just been cast in Subways Are for Sleeping, so it was impossible for me to leave the country. Instead, I decided to take action closer to home.

  One of the first protests I attended was a peaceful demonstration in front of a restaurant that served South African lobster tails. I’d read about the event in a free liberal weekly. Although I wasn’t sure what effect the action would have on ending apartheid, I felt that I should participate in trying to bring attention to the issue. I showed up at the restaurant and was given a sign to hold. I joined the picket line, circling with a decent-size group of protesters that included James Farmer, the executive director of CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality.

  One of my closest friends was a gorgeous African-American singer and actress named Norma Donaldson, who often looked after Wendy when Dick and I were out of town. Norma and I had met at an audition in the early sixties and hit it off right away. Shortly after Subways opened, Norma paid me a visit. “Valerie,” she said, “I have a friend named Chuck Gordone. He’s involved in the Committee for the Employment of Negro Performers [CENP], and they’ve decided to picket Subways.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because of the redcaps,” Norma explained. Subways Are for Sleeping had a musical number set in Grand Central Station that included three dancers dressed as redcaps—the porters who brought passengers’ luggage to and from the trains. “In the entire history of Grand Central,” Norma said, “there has never been a single white redcap. And now, on your stage, there are three of them. The producers could have used black dancers and they didn’t. It was a conscious choice.”

  Her logic immediately resonated with me. “I’ll join you on the picket line,” I said.

  Every evening before the show, I’d arrive at the theater half an hour early and sign in to work. Then I’d go outside and walk around the picket line with Norma until it was time for us to go to our respective shows. (Norma was just across the street in Bravo Giovanni, starring Michele Lee.) While some of my cast mates thought what I was doing was admirable, others thought I was a fool for jeopardizing my job. They also thought I was trying to get them replaced. “I’m not trying to get you fired,” I explained to the three guys who played the redcaps. “I’m just trying to make a point for the future.”

  Norma and I attended meetings of the CENP. Chuck Gordone was an African-American director, writer, and actor who had grown tired of seeing black performers passed over for jobs because of their skin color. I began to understand the difficulty of the struggle. I thought that I had it hard getting cast on Broadway, but for this group of supremely talented performers, even my small sliver of success was an impossibility. The larger issue was lack of diversity onstage. An all-white cast announced to the audience, “These others don’t exist.”

  Around the time I was attending CENP meetings, Arlene introduced me to a man named John Randolph, one of the great progressives who had stood up during the McCarthy witch hunt in Hollywood and was blacklisted. John was a strong unionist and a social justice advocate. He began holding meetings to educate and inspire performers at St. Clement’s Church on West Forty-seventh Street.

  The primary focus of these meetings was how to aid in the civil rights movement. CORE volunteers Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman had been murdered in Mississippi in 1964. People were marching on Washington in record numbers. While the theater community was slightly more forward-thinking than the rest of the country, there was a lot of room for improvement. It was not enough to stand at the front of theaters shaking a can to raise money for the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), uniting voter registration and other civil rights activities in the South, as I had been. Much more involvement was necessary to effect change. We needed to organize.

  In the middle of a meeting, during a heated discussion of how best to take action, an elegant woman from Westchester took the floor. She was wearing pearls and a beautiful tailored suit, and she began to talk about women’s rights. The reaction to her speech was vehement. “Go back to your suburb,” someone cried. Other people, myself included, laughed at her. Women’s rights? No one was lynching white women. Why waste our time? It seemed like a silly cause. How unenlightened we all were.

  After rudely dismissing women’s rights as a social issue unworthy of our attention, the group at St. Clement’s decided that we should start a CORE chapter in New York City whose sole focus would be trying to integrate the entertainment industry. We called ourselves Seven Arts CORE, which implied activism across a wide spectrum of the entertainment world, including film, television, theater, and commercials.

  Except for one or two all-black shows, Broadway was pretty much lily-white. Seven Arts CORE vowed to change this. Subways Are for Sleeping had closed, so all of my free time could be devoted to the endeavor. I discovered that I loved organizing, sharing facts that would compel others to join the effort. I didn’t seek to lead but was a dedicated participant, a persistent and energetic soldier for the cause.

  When we held sit-ins, I would often volunteer as part of a cadre of protesters who abstained from civil disobedience in order to help bail out those who would inevitably be arrested. I spent a great deal of time at the various courthouses around New York signing protesters out of jail, doing my best to see that they weren’t abused, and letting their family members know where they’d been taken.

  Eventually, Seven Arts CORE raised enough money to rent a tiny office on Forty-third and Eighth, in the middle of the Times Square melee. During the day, I’d go in and cover the phones and collect donations. From this office we began to organize our actions.

  One of our initial goals was to integrate industrial shows. We didn’t know if we could tackle commercials right off the bat, so we thought that industrial shows would be a better area to start. We set up a picket line in front of Don Allen Chevrolet in Columbus Circle, demanding that they employ nonwhite performers in their trade shows. The demonstrations took place every weekday and went on for months. Harry Belafonte even joined the picket line. At Easter, we hardboiled white eggs and dipped their bottom halves into black paint as a symbol of integration. Then we sent them to the executives at General Motors as part of our ongoing action. It was either incredibly brave or incredibly foolish of me to take on industrial shows as forcefully as I did. At that time these shows, including the Chevrolet show that I was picketing, were my primary source of income. And at that time it
seemed exactly the right thing to do.

  Finally, General Motors granted Seven Arts CORE a meeting. They even brought the black-and-white eggs and asked, “What do these mean, and what do you want?”

  “The eggs were a little seasonal-integration message,” we explained. “And since many nonwhites buy your cars, we’d like you to employ nonwhite performers in your shows.” To our surprise, they did. In their next industrial show, Chevrolet hired one black male dancer and one black female singer—Paul Reid Roman and Norma Donaldson! Of course, these two had to perform together (Chevrolet wasn’t ready for mixed-race couples), but it was a step in the right direction.

  After our success with General Motors, other industrial shows began to employ nonwhite performers. Since I had been hired for these shows for years, the producers knew me. They began to call and ask for my help casting minorities. “We need an Asian-American actor,” they’d say. “Do you know some teenage African-American dancers?” For a moment I became the go-to girl for minority casting—a small-time volunteer agent.

  Every week Seven Arts CORE picketed alongside one of the many other organizations in the city. When a civil rights activist was beaten or killed in the South, we marched in Harlem, in Queens, on Broadway. It was an emotional and turbulent time, although exhilarating as we felt we were making incremental progress. And it simply was not an option for me to sit back and do nothing.

  The biggest action that Seven Arts CORE took was organizing an event called Freedom and All That Jazz, a fund-raising concert to bring awareness to the issue of racial equality in the performing arts, held at Central Plaza Ballroom on the Lower East Side, which donated the space for the event.

  Civil rights groups from across the city helped us publicize. The auditorium was packed with people drinking and talking. We had a parade of talented singers and dancers on the stage. Then a young unknown comic named Richard Pryor started to perform. He was really skinny and really appealing.

  The sound in the auditorium was deafening, and no one could hear his jokes. Instead of giving up, Richard turned to one small section of the audience and focused his attention on them. Soon they were rapt and laughing. People from other sections of the audience wanted to know what was going on. Eventually, everyone was paying attention to his extremely funny act. Richard was really sensational. A great lesson: Do what it takes to get heard.

  As the sixties progressed, so did my consciousness. Lack of equality wasn’t solely an issue of color; it was also one of gender. The statement I had so carelessly dismissed back at St. Clement’s began to make complete sense. It became clear to me that sexism was so widespread, so insidious, so accepted that it was invisible.

  I began to recognize sexism and misogyny within the very organizations fighting for equality. In my spare time, I began to read Kate Millet’s Sexual Politics and Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique—I was becoming a feminist. I was capable of continuing my commitment to civil rights and of expanding it to include my gender. This shift in my awareness was a fascinating process. I could feel myself opening up, learning facts, wising up. It reminded me of a saying of Mom’s: “When are you going to wake up and smell the coffee?” or Dad’s entreaty: “Come conscious.” I guess I was doing both.

  chapter

  FOUR

  We’d been married a year when, oh boy, Dick landed a feature film! It was the role of a deputy sheriff in The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming, an outrageous comedy directed by Norman Jewison. The fantastic cast included stars Carl Reiner, Eva Marie Saint, Jonathan Winters, character actors Phil Ford, Theo Bikel, and newcomer and Dick’s compatriot from Second City, Alan Arkin.

  The film was shot in Fort Bragg, a small coastal town in Northern California that the director needed to pass off as a New England village. He even filmed a sunset on the Pacific and played it backward so it would look like a sunrise on the East Coast. When the fog rolled in to Fort Bragg, as it did day after day, shooting would be canceled and we’d all trundle off to Carl’s motel room and play dictionary or charades. Eva Marie, quietly competitive, invariably won, while Carl’s jokes had us in stitches. Here Dick and I were, on location with a big-budget Hollywood movie, but it felt as if we were at sleepaway camp.

  Even while Dick was busy working, I had a wonderful time in Fort Bragg. I took knitting lessons from a gentle English woman named Vera House in her modest cottage. Over the course of the shoot, I knitted Dick a beige Irish fisherman pullover that he wore for years.

  I took a side trip up north to visit my brother, Don, in Ashland, where he now lived with his sweet wife, Diane, and two beautiful kids, Valerie (my namesake!) and Russell. By now Don was a professional race car driver. He won so many trophies over the years (two hundred!). Diane lined them up in rows in the attic. Val and Russ used to play hide-and-seek amongst them. My Emmys and other awards aren’t on display either. I guess Mom had successfully drummed into us, “Don’t show off.”

  After The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming wrapped, Carl Reiner enthusiastically proposed that Dick move to Hollywood in order to pursue film and television work. I considered myself a theater person, but over time Dick convinced me that there would be work for both of us in California. Iva and her husband, Ron, were already in L.A., which was a big draw. Arlene had moved to Los Angeles several years earlier and had been working steadily in television. In fact, when she heard we were coming west, she gave us the use of her apartment until we found a place of our own. Iva, the source of all great tips, showed me the bounteous Farmers’ Market and introduced me to the best dry cleaners, fabric shops, shoe repair guys, and doctors for every kind of ailment. What a pal! Soon Dick, Wendy, and I moved into one of those typically Californian houses in Laurel Canyon that was perched on what looked like sticks driven into the hillside. I spent a lot of time worrying about what would happen in an earthquake.

  I already had my SAG (Screen Actors Guild) card and was able to work. Generous and helpful as always, Arlene got me auditions for small acting jobs and a role on Mayberry R.F.D., on which she played Millie. While I was primarily interested in theater, I was thrilled to be getting any work at all and hoped these little parts would lead to something juicier.

  Auditioning is an odd process, because you live in perpetual anticipation of being given a chance. Though auditions were few and far between for me, when one came up, it was a real investment of time, especially since I had to worry about hair, makeup, and what to wear. (Guys have it easy. They shave, throw on a shirt, and go.)

  In between auditions, life went on as usual. I was focused on making a home for our family and being a good mother to Wendy. She was the most sweet-natured kid, not an ounce of trouble. However, since she was only fourteen, she needed to be driven to school—and having lived mostly in New York since I turned sixteen, I hadn’t had a reason to get my license until we got to Los Angeles. So Dick had to teach me to drive (poor devil!). While I hated it at first and was a bit of a menace on the roads, I came to love how much freedom came with getting behind the wheel of the black Ford station wagon, which I called Blackie, that I bought from our cleaning guy. Why should I spend a lot of money on wheels when I wasn’t working? Sweet, tolerant Wendy patiently put up with my tentative driving, never complaining as I banged poor Blackie into the sides of Laurel Canyon, terrified of driving too close to the yellow line and crashing into an oncoming car. “It’s okay, Val,” she’d say calmly as I bumped into canyon walls over and over again like a pinball.

  During those first months in Los Angeles, Wendy and I spent a lot of time together. When Second City was performing at the Lindy Opera House on La Brea and Wilshire, she and I would have a late lunch between shows at Imperial Garden, an enormous, ornate Japanese restaurant on the Sunset Strip. One afternoon while we were sitting at our table, a shaggy-haired guy in weathered jeans came over and asked if we would join him for dinner. I wasn’t sure whether he was interested in me or Wendy. Either seemed highly inappropriate, so I politely declined.


  Wendy and I continued with our meal until a less hippie-looking fellow came over. “My brother would really like it if you joined us,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “We’re happy eating by ourselves.”

  Finally, a pregnant young woman approached us. “It’s just a family gathering,” she said. “Please come and eat with us.”

  Wendy and I exchanged glances. We were in a public restaurant. What harm could there be in eating dinner with these three? They seemed perfectly nice, not to mention enthusiastic for us to join them. Wendy and I followed the young lady through shoji screen doors into a small, private dining room.

  As we all sat on the floor, eating Japanese style, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had seen the cool-looking, long-haired young guy (the one who’d first approached us) somewhere before. Then again, in 1968 on Sunset Boulevard, his look was a dime a dozen.

  Over tempura, he asked, “What’s your favorite song right now?”

  “ ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’ by Marvin Gaye,” I said.

  “Yeah, wow,” he said. “He’s very cool.”

  When we were finished eating, Wendy and I excused ourselves and thanked our very pleasant hosts. On the way out of the restaurant, she grabbed my arm. “Val,” Wendy whispered, “that was Jim Morrison.”

  I may not have been hip enough to recognize the lead singer of the Doors, but at least I’d been cool enough to join him for dinner and give Wendy a unique experience she’d never forget. I regret the missed opportunity to tell him he had the soul of a poet.