Marlo Thomas - The Right Words at the Right Time

The
RIGHT WORDS
at the
RIGHT TIME

Other Books by Marlo Thomas

Free to Be... You and Me

Free to Be... A Family

ATRIA BOOKS
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New York, NY 10020
www.simonandschuster.com

Copyright 2002 by The Right Words, LLC

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Atria Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

Lyrics from Pick Yourself Up by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields appear in Dr. Peter Dohertys essay. Reprinted by permission of Universal-Polygram International Publishing, Inc., and Songwriters Guild of America. 1936 (ASCAP).

Lyrics from Who am I?-The Trial from the musicale Les Miserables by Alain Boublil & Claude Michel-Schonberg appear in Rosie ODonnells essay. Lyrics by Alain Boublil, Herbert Kretzmer & Jean-Marc Natel. Alain Boublil Music Ltd. (ASCAP).

ISBN: 0-7434-5138-4
ISBN: 978-0-7434-4650-1
eISBN: 978-0-7434-5138-3

ATRIA is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Designed by C. Linda Dingler

Composition by Melissa Isriprashad and Davina Mock

The
RIGHT WORDS
at the
RIGHT TIME

EDITOR
Marlo Thomas

EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Elizabeth Mitchell

MANAGING EDITOR
Carl Robbins

For
The children
of
St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital
and
Their Parents

I owe thanks to so many people for their work on this project. First of all, to my husband, Phillip, who knows a thing or two about the right wordsand volumes about love and support; to my assistant Gail Newman, who never looks at the clockbut only into her heart, for ways in which she can help; to my cherished friend Kathie Berlin, a mover and shaker who always uses all her moves and shakes to help me get where I want to go. To Judith Curr, publisher of Atria Books, whose irresistible enthusiasm and intelligence told me right away that the book had found a home; and thanks to her terrific staff, especially Greer Hendricks and Seale Ballenger for their energy and expertise.

To my attorney, Bob Levine, who steered this enormous project through a thicket of negotiations and paperwork, all the while believing in it whole-heartedly.

Thanks also to Cari Ross for getting the right word out in her savvy and caring way, and to the tireless team of interviewers and writers who helped bring the magic of more than one hundred stories to the printed page: especially Bruce Kluger, who was a devoted part of our team; Sam Lipsyte, Noah Hawley, Smith Galtney, Sean Neary, Tony Karon, Josh Young, Lawrence Grobel, Dorothy Atcheson, Carl Sferrazza-Anthony, Richard Sullivan, Pat Beard, Doug Brinkley, Mara Friedman, Ted Grossman, James Higgins, A. E. Hotchner, David Huchings, Mark Katz, Elizabeth Kaye, Paul ODonnell, D. J. Wilson, Jessica Yellin and Lucinda Franks. And a special thanks to Jen Miller, RoseMarie Terenzio, Ralph Goldman, Rochelle Korman, John Moses and Jerry Chipman.

And to Elizabeth Mitchell and Carl Robbins, whose passionate commitment and peerless professionalism made this book such a joy to work on.

Tell me a fact and Ill learn. Tell me a truth and Ill believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.

Indian Proverb

W hen I was a child I loved to watch my father shave. I sat on the closed toilet seat and marveled at the sound of the razor gliding over his face, pushing aside the foamy soap like a shovel in the snow. I adored him, this grand figure who slapped lotion on his cheeks every morning, buttoned his clean white shirt and hugged me good-bye.

Once, my father made a movie with Margaret OBrien and he often took me to the set. I would cue his lines as we drove to the MGM studios with the windows open and the heady mix of Old Spice and a Cuban cigar swirling about us as we carried on a kind of rehearsal in transit. On the set I played jacks with Margaret between takes, and when the bell rang, I would join the crew in their silence as the cameras rolled and the boom mike moved into position to record the dialogue I knew by heart.

I was in awe of my father and sinfully envious of Margaret OBrien. I wore pigtails. I wanted freckles. I wanted to be Margaret OBrien. Ten years later, at age seventeen, I got my chance.

I played the lead in Gigi in a summer stock production at the Laguna Playhouse south of Los Angeles. The excitement of finally being a real actress was painfully short-lived. All the interviews and all the reviews focused on my father. Would I be as good as my father? Was I as gifted, as funny? Would I be as popular? I was devastated.

I loved my father; my problem was Danny Thomas.

Daddy, I began, please dont be hurt when I tell you this. I want to change my name. I love you but I dont want to be a Thomas anymore.

I tried not to cry during the long silence. And then he said, I raised you to be a thoroughbred. When thoroughbreds run they wear blinders to keep their eyes focused straight ahead with no distractions, no other horses. They hear the crowd but they dont listen. They just run their own race. Thats what you have to do. Dont listen to anyone comparing you to me or to anyone else. You just run your own race.

The next night as the crowd filed into the theater, the stage manager knocked on my dressing room door and handed me a white box with a red ribbon. I opened it up and inside was a pair of old horse blinders with a little note that read, Run your own race, Baby.

Run your own race, Baby. He could have said it a dozen other ways: Be independent; Dont be influenced by others. But it wouldnt have been the same. He chose the right words at the right time. The old horse blinders were the right gift. And all through my life, Ive been able to cut to the chase by asking myself, Am I running my race or somebody elses?

The impact those words had on me made me wonder if others had such words too. What follows on these pages are the stories that changed the lives of more than one hundred remarkable people who responded to my invitation to reach back into their own lives in search of that moment when words made all the difference. Each one is a brief glimpse into the heart, a moment of awakening, a lightbulb that revealed a truth that has stayed with them for a lifetime, or a challenge that moved them to action. Muhammad Ali responded to a teachers assertion that he aint never gonna be nuthin. Billy Crystal, Walter Cronkite, Katie Couric and Kenneth Cole also received words of discouragement that goaded them on to achievement. The right words moved Al Pacino to pull out of a downward spiral. Paul McCartneys words came in a dream; Steven Spielbergs came from Davey Crockett. Chris Rocks words, like mine, came from his father; Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburgs from her mother-in-law on the eve of her wedding. Rudolph Giuliani, Cindy Crawford and Gwyneth Paltrow heard the words that changed their lives during a moment of crisis. Itzhak Perlman spent his entire career, almost forty years, living by a single, eight-letter word first spoken to him by a Russian music teacher when he was ten years old.

All of these stories confirmed something Ive always suspected: that whether we know it or not, each of us carries our own unique slogan, a custom-made catchphrase that resonates throughout our lives.

The royalties from this book will help fund research now underway at St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital, the hospital my father founded in 1962. Along with our Nobel laureate Dr. Peter Doherty, our talented physicians, researchers and nurses strive every day to save the lives of children who come to our doors from all over the world and who are never turned away because of a familys inability to pay.