Smitherman Dave - Shirley, I jest!: a storied life

Shirley,

I

Jest!

Shirley,

I

Jest!

A Storied Life

Cindy Williams

with Dave Smitherman

Taylor Trade Publishing

Lanham Boulder New York London

Use of photos from Laverne & Shirley Courtesy of CBS Television Studios

Published by Taylor Trade Publishing

An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706

www.rowman.com

Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB

Distributed by NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK

Copyright 2015 by Cindy Williams

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Williams, Cindy, 1947 August 22

Shirley, I Jest! : a storied life / Cindy Williams.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-63076-012-0 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-63076-013-7 (electronic)

1. Williams, Cindy, 1947 August 22- 2. ActorsUnited StatesBiography. I. Title.

PN2287.W465A3 2015

791.43028092dc23

[B] 2014042840

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

I dedicate this book not only to my treasure of family and friends, but also to all the animals I have had the privilege to know and love. Thank you all for your encouragement and unconditional love.

And this goes for Boo Boo Kitty too!

jest (jest) n . 1. To act or speak in a playful manner

Contents

Foreword

Ed Begley Jr.

America fell in love with Cindy Williams in 1977, when she began her hit show Laverne & Shirley . But, I fell in love with her seven years prior to that, at the wrap party for Room 222 .

Though ours was never the romantic relationship I had hoped for after that first meeting, it wasnt for lack of trying. Our first date consisted of me picking her up in a three-wheel 1970 electric vehicle, which was not exactly a babe magnet. It was so slow that a kid on a scooter passed us by and gave us the finger. I decided to bide my time and wait for the right moment to pounce on her, but that didnt work out so well either.

I lulled her into a false sense of security, and convinced her to spend a weekend with me at Two Bunch Palms. After two years of waiting, I had little pride remaining. I did what any red-blooded male would do under those conditions. I begged her to let me into her room in hopes of getting to first base. I tried her door. Locked! And she probably had it bolted from inside. I thought about going around back to jimmy the window, but then the police might get involved. No, I had to make my peace with it. I had long ago become like a brother to her, and after weeping and begging, I quickly surmised that being her brother was a pretty sweet deal.

Her generosity in my life was endless. She became one of the biggest champions of my work as an actor, a stand-up comic, and an environmentalist. She loaned me a huge sum of money so I could buy my first house. She introduced me to a holistic doctor who kept me healthy for decades. She became the godmother to my daughter, Amanda. She got me cast as her brother on Laverne & Shirley . She introduced me to a long list of brilliant and creative people that are still an important part of my life.

We saved trees together, went on trips together, broke down on the highway together, and had many fantastic adventures together.

Though it wasnt what I had in mind at first, being considered family by this talented and dynamic woman is simply wonderful.

I suppose I should pay her back the money I borrowed.

Photo by Tricia Lee Pascoe

One

Valley Texas Gal

I gingerly opened the door to the smoke-filled Green Room at the Pasadena Playhouse and immediately started coughing. Everyone seemed to have a lit cigarette except for Betty Garrett and Cyd Charisse, who were sitting on a couch, chatting. I caught a glimpse of Frank Sinatra and Liza Minnelli sharing a laugh. Lucille Ball and her husband, Gary Morton, were playing mah-jongg. I made a hasty retreat, shutting the door quickly, hoping no one saw me. My coughing subsided, but now my head was spinning. How could they be so calm, carefree, and collected while I was having a full-blown anxiety attack? It was 1978; Laverne & Shirley was a huge success and I should have had the confidence of a gladiator. The corridor seemed to be swaying back and forth. Afraid I was going to faint, I leaned against the wall for support and dropped like a bag of bricks straight to the floor! I had leaned into a clothing rack by mistake. How had I gotten myself into this? In less than an hour I would step out onto the stage at the Pasadena Playhouse and sing You Wonderful You from the movie Summer Stock as a duet with Gene Kelly. My mouth was dry. How would I ever be able to sing, let alone on key? My heart was pounding like a sledgehammer.

Even as a little girl I suffered from anxiety. My mother was always telling me to stop biting my nails, or commenting on how I could never sit still. In school I was punished for not being able to keep quiet. One time in second grade, I had to sit on a stool in the corner with a dunce cap on my head for talking too much and too loud. I was also painfully shy, which seems contradictory, but its true. As much as I wanted to socialize and be a leader, a part of me resisted. Still, there was another ever-present part of me that longed to express the fantastic things I was imagining, share the fun of my shadow worldloudly and with exuberance. This is what earned me the dunce cap.

I started life in Van Nuys, California, in the San Fernando Valley. Im what you might call a Valley Girl. When I was born I had rickets; a vitamin D deficiency that affects the bones. My mother, Frances, loved to tell the story as though it were the Holy Grail of medical riddles. She would say,

Rickets, of all things. Your little legs were bowed and I had to give you goats milk, because you couldnt tolerate cows milk. You also had the colic, poor little thing... crying and throwing up all the time. I labored for thirty-six hours. They finally knocked me out with ether, and then used the forceps on you.

(I have always blamed this use of forceps at my birth for my egg-shaped head!) My mother vigilantly researched this condition and eventually got me over it. And as a result, she started taking an avid interest in health and preventative medicine, ultimately becoming a lifelong devotee of Jack LaLanne and other health gurus. She collected tomes on the subject of wellness, and if anyone around her had a health complaint, she would check their tongue and skin coloring and then look it up. She became excellent at diagnosing and suggesting remedies for any maladies that crossed her path. Frances was ahead of her time.

My fathers name was Beachard Williams, but he liked to be called Bill; which was odd because that was his brothers name. His family was from Texas and Louisiana. Their origins were Welsh, French, and Cherokee. My father was the kindest man Ive ever knownfun-loving and affableuntil he was drinking. When he drank he became the devil, and a very dangerous character to deal with. When I was a year old my mother left my father because of his drinking and aggressive behavior. We took the train to live with my grandmother Anna in Dallas, Texas, where my mother and father had met years before.