Prologue

"There’s no mother-fucking way, I’m going to pay alimony to a healthy woman. Tell her to get a job!" Richard Forest yelled this at my attorney and me from across a conference table.

Irving Buter, his attorney, put a restraining arm on Richard and barked, "Shut up, big mouth."

Buter (rhymes with cuter) was already annoyed at his client’s previous refusal to take his advice. So was my attorney, Gary Zimmerman. The four of us were sweating it out, literally, in a small windowless room off the hall of the Superior Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles on Hill Street.

Southern California was in the midst of an August heat wave that brought the Santanas "Devil" winds. These were desert winds, warned the newscasters, that caused garbage cans to roll down the alleys of Palm Drive in Beverly Hills, the city where I lived.

Throughout six months of negotiations, Buter had assured my attorney Zimmerman that we would settle out of court. "My clients do exactly what I tell them to do," he said.

Zimmerman had told me that our case did not warrant a trial. I was not exactly divorcing an actor in the same league as Kirk Douglas or Clint Eastwood. In fact, there was very little community property to divide as Richard and I had spent most of our marriage renting an apartment in New York.

The only thing to share was Richard’s ability to make money as an actor. In the past four years, his earnings from his television appearances had been in the six figures. But right now in the summer of 1980, the Screen Actors Guild was into its third month of strike. The SAG board promised that it would not capitulate to the producers’ demands. Richard was now an out-of-work actor who claimed he probably would never work again. His leading man days were over.

All actors when they are between roles are technically unemployed as no play or TV series runs forever. Actors accept that as the norm in show business. They don’t lose their agents, managers or their talents, just because a play closed out of town or a television series was canceled. And as all things come to an end, so would the current SAG strike.

“Jesus, what rotten timing for us," Zimmerman repeated like a mantra when the news of the strike hit the papers before our court date.

It was nearly noon, and the lawyers were anxious to finalize everything and go to lunch. Wiping the perspiration from his brow with his forehand, Buter leaned over to Richard and said, "Pay her a thousand a month, and let’s get out of here."

"I’ll pay for 90 days of support, and that’s all."

Buter tried to control himself as he said quietly, "That’s not long enough. No judge will agree to that, Richard. You were married too long—twenty years. Trust me!"

"Then I’ll declare bankruptcy!"

"You’re not going to do that so shut up, big mouth."

I could tell that Zimmerman was masking his disappointment with Richard, who remained so uncooperative. Last June, Zimmerman had assured me that no reasonable man wants to face a court battle. "The closer we get to the trial date, the more likely Richard will back down. Reality will hit him."

That very day, when we arrived at the courthouse, Zimmerman kept up his delusions. "Once we’re inside, and Richard takes in the cold atmosphere of the court and the unsmiling judge’s face, he’ll settle. We’ll never go to trial. I’ve seen many men in the twelfth hour drop this macho facade and come to their senses."

My attorney doesn’t understand the psyche, not to mention the narcissistic ego of an actor. Richard needs drama in his life, particularly when he’s unemployed and between roles. He will relish standing in the witness box as if he were on stage and projecting to us, his captive audience.

Years ago, a well-respected critic wrote that no man with any brains has ever been an actor. I have to agree. Any man lured upon the stage as politicians are sometimes lured into bordellos, would have his mind almost immediately destroyed by the gaudy nonsense spilling out of his mouth every night.

(I have to step aside here and admit that Richard Forest is not his real name. I changed it, not to protect him, but because he doesn’t deserve this much free publicity.)

This is my first life experience at retaining an attorney and preparing for court. I tried to find someone who was not too expensive. Then I was nervous about retaining an attorney who seemed too cheap in comparison with his colleagues. I didn’t want to feel like the astronaut who climbed into the spaceship and remembered it was built by the lowest bidder.

Zimmerman, in his upbeat way, had tried to explain to me how California was in the avant-garde of the divorce game. In this state, divorce is called dissolution. Plaintiff and defendant have been replaced with petitioner and respondent. These new terms make it look as if it were a proceeding, not a lawsuit, a less adversarial nomenclature.

As Zimmerman said, "Previously, divorce stated that someone was at fault and could be denied. Now we have ‘no-fault’ divorce, and that’s why Richard has pleaded irreconcilable differences."

In Richard’s case, irreconcilable differences meant he had found a twenty-two-year-old girlfriend. Hell hath no fury like a man who wishes to marry a girl half his age. I studied Richard for a moment as he conferred with Buter. Richard was still handsome for someone in his mid-forties. He had just begun to tint his prematurely gray hair. The chlorine from his swimming pool must have affected it, for his chestnut brown locks had a strange cast that resembled menopause red. Perhaps his new young friend didn’t notice or care. I reminded myself that she would have been about two years old on the day Richard and I married. I wondered what Richard would have thought if he had known at our wedding that somewhere in the universe, there was a toddler running about who would someday become his second wife.

Zimmerman started speaking as he flipped through his files. "According to our budget, Candace will need around $2,000 a month to live on if she’s to keep her Beverly Hills apartment and maintain her standard of living."

"No shit!" Richard said. His face flushed like a sunburn.

"Hey now, I live in Beverly Hills," Buter said, "and I don’t need $2,000 a month, and neither does she. Look at her, she could easily make $1,500 a month. Candace, why don’t you go to real estate school? It’s a six-week course. You get your license, and you can make a million dollars. I know a lady who did that last year."

"Ninety days of alimony would be enough to see you through real estate school." Richard said, nodding.

Buter nodded in unison with Richard. "You’ve had a free ride for twenty years. You can’t expect him to support you forever. Your husband and I want to know what you plan to do to rehabilitate yourself."

I asked, "Isn’t the word ‘rehabilitation’ used for criminals when they’re sent to factories to make license plates? Or for drug addicts?"

Buter snapped back with, "What we’re asking is, how do you plan to re-enter society?"

"I’ve never left."

Zimmerman put his hand on my arm as though he could calm us both down. "They want to know how much time you need for retraining in order to support yourself."

"Maybe I could revive my acting career. It was as an actress that I had supported both Richard and myself in the early days of our marriage."

There were rolling of eyes and exasperated sighs from the enemy camp. Richard’s attorney turned to mine and said, "She needs to be tested. I recommend that we set up an appointment for psychological evaluation and some vocational tests. That can be arranged at UCLA. I know a shrink over there, who’s the best in his field."

My attorney made note of this in one of his files as though it were a good idea. I wanted to ask how a psychiatrist would evaluate me, when my only employment history had been that of an actress? How does one transfer the skills of a middle-aged homemaker, mother of two daughters, ego-booster of the actor-husband into a job market that competes with college grads and their impressive résumés? No one seemed concerned about the impact of the trauma that I was feeling, the grief or the loss of my self-esteem at having been replaced by a younger woman. True, we live in a modern, disposable society where we either throw things away or recycle them, but should a mature woman be treated no better than used Pampers?     

Buter focused on me and continued: "No judge is going to put a husband in shackles for the rest of his life to support a wife. Forget any career as an actress; you’re too old."

The perspiration on Richard’s upper lip seemed to dissolve into a slight foam around his mouth as he said, "Don’t let her use my good name of Forest as an actress! Make her use her maiden name! Hell, I’ve worked damn hard for years to build my reputation as an actor. I won’t have her ruining my name!"

"I can go by any name I choose, Richard. Maybe I’ll be like Mrs. Patrick Campbell at the turn of the century. Remember G.B. Shaw’s favorite actress? She acted under her married surname.  If I do the same, critics will review me as...