Garth Jennie - Deep Thoughts From a Hollywood Blonde

B eing a blonde is both a blessing and a curse. Theres an assumption that if youre blonde you have no brains, and because you have no brains youre the life of the party, and when youre the life of the party, everything is easy and your life is carefree and... Wait a minute. Really? Is that what the world thinks of us?

My blondeness has long been one of my most identifying features, and at some point, it became part of my identity. So when I thought about what I wanted to call my memoir, I knew Id have to capture the truth behind being a blonde. And it came to me: Deep Thoughts from a Hollywood Blonde.

I felt like this might be a good opportunity to debunk some myths about the fairest among us and, in my own personal case, demonstrate that some of the clichs about blondes are clichs precisely because they are so damn true. Surely I am the right person to write this book, because I am the rarest of blondes: a natural one.

Clich number one: Blondes are dumb. Of course! People say this so often that it must be true! And lets not forget its ugly stepsisters: blondes are ditzy, naive, and have bad memories. In my case, the memory part is absolutely true: I happen to have the worst memory of any human being I have ever encountered.

My memory is so bad that the people closest to me actually feel comfortable joking about it, because they know I wont remember that they were just making fun of me. Recently I even had a series of CAT scans done of my brain, and I was certain that these detailed photographs would finally reveal the giant, gaping hole where my memory is supposed to be. Imagine my surpriseand horrorwhen the images revealed nothing more than a normal, run-of-the-mill brain. There was no weird eraser-shaped growth in there, no evidence of shrinkage or damagethere was nothing to explain why I cant remember so many things, including what I had for dinner last night.

You would think that having such a dim memory would make writing a memoir very, very difficult, but actually, once I got started, writing seemed to activate the dormant recollection part of my brain, and my life as I had forgotten it began to come back to me. The more I wrote, the more I remembered. And the more I remembered, the more I began to realize how good this process was for me. About halfway through, something even clicked, and I realized that by writing about my life, warts and all, I was really getting to know myself in a way that was at times humbling, at times horrifying, and definitely always eye-opening and entertaining.

On top of that, I know that there is an e at the end of the word blonde, so clearly Im no dummy. So myth onedebunked!

Clich number two: Blondes are bad drivers. In my case, totally false. One of the things Im most proud of is the fact that I can parallel-park a forty-foot RV on La Cienega Boulevard in one shot. At rush hour. Ive done this while watching many a guy struggle to maneuver a Prius into a parking spot in a completely empty lot. Ive also driven that very same RV across the country with four kids, two dogs, and a baby pig on board. Need I say more? Clich number two, squashed.

Clich number three: Blondes get more attention. True! But whether or not this kind of attention is welcome is another thing. I know every woman, regardless of hair color, has been on the receiving end of unwanted catcalls while shes minding her own business, or lame come-ons when shes out with friends. But for blondes, this kind of attention can be relentless. Let me tell you, its a drag. And it doesnt help when youre a blonde who has been on several hit television shows and you are recognized wherever you go. (There goes that blonde!) On the other hand, when youre a blonde, people assume youre the life of the party and so youre never left out. The downside of this is that you can never be the wallflower, not even when you might want to be.

Another blonde clich: Blondes have more fun. This is a pretty complicated concept, believe it or not, because sometimes its true; sometimes its not. Youll have to read on to find out what blonde fun is all about!

In the end, I realized that by writing a book, I could, in my own humble way, represent for the fair-haired team, and show the world that we blondes actually do have something to say, at least when we can remember what it is.

And as it turns out, I have quite a lot to say.

Im at a point where its time to reflect. I went through a very public divorce, I am now on my own with my three kids, and I just crossed that tricky invisible line into my forties. Maybe because of all these things, or maybe despite them, in many important ways I feel like my life is just beginning. Could it be that theres something to share about starting over, or starting wiser, or just deciding that sometimes theres a story to be told in the middle of it all? And maybe its a story that other people might relate to?

Opening myself up doesnt come naturally. I was in the media spotlight very young with the success of Beverly Hills, 90210, but I did my best to maintain my privacy and stay out of the tabloids. Until recently, of course, when my very public divorce thrust me into the spotlight. And yet I have never really shared my experiences or my side of the story. Very little is known about me or how Ive gotten to this really gnarly, enlightening, important moment in my life.

I had to work up the courage to put my story down on the page. This meant owning up to all of the choices, mistakes, triumphs, and experiences that have propelled my life along in seemingly mysterious, often amazing, sometimes devastatingly painful ways. But once I got started, I realized that there is a great gift in this kind of stocktaking, because when I added up all these things, they became the story of me. And learning the story of me has been the most liberating experience of my life.