Free Is My Bow Too Big? How I Went From Saturday Night Live to the Tea Party by Victoria Jackson Page B

meekly.
    “What?” He was always in a hurry.
    “Nothing.”
    “Uh, you have to sign a paper, a nudity clause. It’s standard procedure.”
    “What’s a nudity clause?”
    “Basically, it says that you will show partial buttocks or breast in the movie. They can sue you if you don’t.”
    Well, I had no intention of being nude, but I signed the paper. I had already invested too much into this Lacey character.
    One day in Tacoma, WA, where we were shooting the movie, Kasdan told the cast that we were to go to the Pizzeria at 6 p.m., where we were to improvise, walk about, chat, and mingle “in character.” I wanted to do everything right. I wanted to be a movie star. I wanted to be Julie Andrews. Did she have to do all this? This was a bit of a dilemma, because “Lacey” is a mistress, therefore, she would probably never mingle with Kevin Kline’s character’s wife and family. Should I hide in the shadows or under a table? I was trying to figure this out when the phone rang.
    My mom said, “Vicki, your Washington relatives are coming to see you. They live real close to where you’re shooting that movie. Only a couple hours away.”
    “Oh? But I hardly know them. I only met them once when I was eight. I don’t even know what they look like. And didn’t they say that show business was a sin?”
    “Yes, well…”
    “I guess it isn’t a sin if they want to meet Kevin Kline and Lawrence Kasdan, or whatever.”
    “Well, they’re on their way. I gave them your number.”
    “Okay. Bye.”
    I slinked into the pizzeria at 6 p.m. trying to look invisible. I supposed that’s what a mistress would do if she were showing up at the place that her lover’s family would be. I noticed that William Hurt and River Phoenix didn’t really seem to be “in character.” Maybe they are such good actors they are “in character” and I can’t tell, or maybe, they think this is stupid and they are just sitting there laughing at the rest of us. I’d never heard of this before. But this was only my fourth movie (sixth if you count Stoogemania and Double Exposure. In Stoogemania , I was Nurse Grabatit—pronounced Grab-at-it, if you don’t want to be vulgar—and I was supposed to help the patients in a mental hospital overcome their addiction to the Three Stooges. Somehow I ended up doing a handstand on a table in a nurse’s uniform and landing on my butt in a big bowl of spaghetti!)
    I shuffled around the Tacoma Pizzeria, close to the wall. When I saw Tracey Ullman, my eyes quickly darted away. She was playing Kline’s wife. My character wants Kline’s character to leave Ullman’s character. It was confusing, but on top of it all, a group of gawking strangers were standing at the restaurant door. A production assistant slipped in and whispered, “These people say they’re your relatives. Do you want me to get rid of them?”
    “Uh, no, uh, they are my relatives. Uh, I guess I should say hi.”
    I started walking toward the door nervously. No one from the real world was supposed to know we were here. We were working. This was a movie—a serious one with serious stars—not a tourist attraction. Kasdan will wonder why they are here and how they found me. I didn’t know what to say when my Aunt called and asked for my address. They couldn’t afford to spend the night there, yet they drove all that way. They would think I was a prima-Donna if I ignored them. How was I supposed to explain to them that I was “in character”? “Hi, Aunt Shirley, I’m not Vicki, I’m Lacey, the pretend fornicator of Kevin Kline who’s pretending to be Joey.”
    How was I going to carry on a conversation with her if I was Lacey? If I was Lacey, I wouldn’t even recognize her or know her. If I was not Lacey, the famous Kasdan would fire me, and I wanted to be a movie star!
    I saw Hurt tell Phoenix a joke. I couldn’t tell if the joke was “in character” or not, so I quietly slipped out the door and told my relatives it wasn’t