self-conscious for the entire eleven minutes but not embarrassed. And I can tell you that Candy Barr had nothing on Farrah. We were still glowing when we woke up the next morning.
We enter into a development deal with Atlantic Pictures. We already have one enthusiastic investor who once saw Farrah dance and thinks she would be perfect for the burlesque scenes. It’s my first time playing producer and I want to get it right, so I hire George Axelrod to write the script. He’d written
Bus Stop
and
The Seven Year Itch
for Marilyn Monroe,
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
with Audrey Hepburn,
The Manchurian Candidate;
his credits read like a graduate course at the USC film school. Unfortunately, George and I disagree vehemently on the screenplay. I want to tell the story of Candy Barr as a young woman, and he insists on writing the story of her as an old woman. The project is stillborn. The experience gives me new appreciationfor the responsibilities and challenges of being a producer. Putting all those elements together ain’t easy. Could it have been a great start vehicle for Farrah? Might it have begun a new career for me as a producer/director?
S pring 1984 arrives, and with it big news. Farrah is pregnant. I’m surprised and delighted. Though I know she had always wanted children, it’s not something we ever discussed. While I’m overjoyed, she’s veiled, ambiguous. My problems with Griffin and Tatum have taken their toll. She’s afraid to bring another O’Neal into the world. That fear has been simmering for years and we’ve avoided talking about it. We avoid it again now. As the months pass, the slow expansion of her belly will ease her fears. But that first trimester will prove challenging.
T he pregnancy proves more difficult than we anticipate. Morning sickness saps Farrah’s energy. I spend many hours holding her head over the toilet. Farrah and I attend birthing classes together, a new experience for me. I’m the modern father-to-be, rubbing cream on my girl’s tummy, massaging her calves, and tending to her needs. I’ve been an expectant father before, but I never loved Joanna or Leigh the same way I love Farrah. The traditionalist in me says that Farrah and I should make things legal now, but with three failed marriages between us, there’s another part that says why change something that’s working? After the baby is born, Farrah will ask me to marry her. I’ll foolishly sidestep the question and she won’t press me.
After Redmond’s birth, she begins the made-for-TV movie
The Burning Bed
. It’s based on the true story of a battered wife who after being brutally raped by her husband kills him in his sleep by setting the bed on fire. Though her recent run off-Broadway with
Extremities
was a success, theater doesn’t have the same reach as television. All during the production of
The Burning Bed
I could feel it. This would be the one. I watch Farrah abandon herself tothe role. There’s a courtroom scene in which her character is on the witness stand describing how her husband let her puppy freeze to death. Farrah is crying and mucous is running from her nose. This is Farrah Fawcett at her best, her considerable skills fully realized. Her risky performance will astound both the public and the industry. Reviewers will comment that they’d never seen anybody that disheveled look so beautiful.
The Burning Bed
is huge. It isn’t just a successful movie. It makes the editorial pages for revealing a dirty secret in America: the judges and the lawyers, the policemen and the politicians, the doctors and the investment bankers, the men considered part of society’s elite who beat their wives and then get away with it, hiding behind their badges and their gavels and their thousand-dollar suits.
The Burning Bed
exposes them. It sparks new legislation against domestic violence and becomes part of the women’s rights agenda. And when it airs, the ratings are historic. The network’s publicity department sends
We enter into a development deal with Atlantic Pictures. We already have one enthusiastic investor who once saw Farrah dance and thinks she would be perfect for the burlesque scenes. It’s my first time playing producer and I want to get it right, so I hire George Axelrod to write the script. He’d written
Bus Stop
and
The Seven Year Itch
for Marilyn Monroe,
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
with Audrey Hepburn,
The Manchurian Candidate;
his credits read like a graduate course at the USC film school. Unfortunately, George and I disagree vehemently on the screenplay. I want to tell the story of Candy Barr as a young woman, and he insists on writing the story of her as an old woman. The project is stillborn. The experience gives me new appreciationfor the responsibilities and challenges of being a producer. Putting all those elements together ain’t easy. Could it have been a great start vehicle for Farrah? Might it have begun a new career for me as a producer/director?
S pring 1984 arrives, and with it big news. Farrah is pregnant. I’m surprised and delighted. Though I know she had always wanted children, it’s not something we ever discussed. While I’m overjoyed, she’s veiled, ambiguous. My problems with Griffin and Tatum have taken their toll. She’s afraid to bring another O’Neal into the world. That fear has been simmering for years and we’ve avoided talking about it. We avoid it again now. As the months pass, the slow expansion of her belly will ease her fears. But that first trimester will prove challenging.
T he pregnancy proves more difficult than we anticipate. Morning sickness saps Farrah’s energy. I spend many hours holding her head over the toilet. Farrah and I attend birthing classes together, a new experience for me. I’m the modern father-to-be, rubbing cream on my girl’s tummy, massaging her calves, and tending to her needs. I’ve been an expectant father before, but I never loved Joanna or Leigh the same way I love Farrah. The traditionalist in me says that Farrah and I should make things legal now, but with three failed marriages between us, there’s another part that says why change something that’s working? After the baby is born, Farrah will ask me to marry her. I’ll foolishly sidestep the question and she won’t press me.
After Redmond’s birth, she begins the made-for-TV movie
The Burning Bed
. It’s based on the true story of a battered wife who after being brutally raped by her husband kills him in his sleep by setting the bed on fire. Though her recent run off-Broadway with
Extremities
was a success, theater doesn’t have the same reach as television. All during the production of
The Burning Bed
I could feel it. This would be the one. I watch Farrah abandon herself tothe role. There’s a courtroom scene in which her character is on the witness stand describing how her husband let her puppy freeze to death. Farrah is crying and mucous is running from her nose. This is Farrah Fawcett at her best, her considerable skills fully realized. Her risky performance will astound both the public and the industry. Reviewers will comment that they’d never seen anybody that disheveled look so beautiful.
The Burning Bed
is huge. It isn’t just a successful movie. It makes the editorial pages for revealing a dirty secret in America: the judges and the lawyers, the policemen and the politicians, the doctors and the investment bankers, the men considered part of society’s elite who beat their wives and then get away with it, hiding behind their badges and their gavels and their thousand-dollar suits.
The Burning Bed
exposes them. It sparks new legislation against domestic violence and becomes part of the women’s rights agenda. And when it airs, the ratings are historic. The network’s publicity department sends
Similar Books
