Read My Lips: Stories of a Hollywood Life

Read My Lips: Stories of a Hollywood Life

Sally Kellerman

Language: English

Pages: 280

ISBN: 1602861676

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


Sally Kellerman’s portrayal of Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan in Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H remains a landmark performance.  Throughout her long career Kellerman has been a real dame—honest, down-to-earth, sultry, funny, and unfiltered.  In READ MY LIPS, Kellerman shares colorful tales of her years as an up-and-coming actress in the early 60s, when Hollywood was a small neighborhood full of chance encounters. To pay for acting classes (ten dollars each, alongside the likes of Jack Nicholson) she waited tables at a coffee house on the Sunset Strip that was a hangout for Marlon Brando, Steve McQueen, and Warren Beatty.  While she watered her lawn one morning in her bathrobe, Ringo Starr stopped in his convertible to say he’d just moved into the neighborhood and she should drop by; during the Vietnam War, she dated Henry Kissinger. Over the years, there were drugs, affairs, diets, and therapy, a music album, a marriage, and motherhood. As the innocence of the 1950s collided with the free spirit of the 1960s, everything felt new and exciting, and Sally Kellerman was right in the middle of it. In READ MY LIPS Sally transports us back to that unique era and shares the challenges and rewards of her marriage, children, and her iconic career.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Now roll your hair and then take it down again.” Well, I tell you, when I saw what he had shot that day, I said to myself, “Tinfoil, baby, cool!” I’d never looked so beautiful in my life. Tinfoil. At times we’d get together at Larry’s house, which was never my preference because it was far too filthy for me; I’d bring my own sheets just to sit down on his bed. Sometimes we’d smoke some grass first, which helped me relax a little. Occasionally there was also a cameraman present for this film

started to get distracting and was making me paranoid. Instead of becoming my character, I felt like I was trying to please Neil. So I had the director, Gene Saks, ask Neil if he would mind not sitting in on our rehearsals. Neil never said anything to me about it, but he did stop showing up when I was filming. As our director, Gene was tenacious about getting what he wanted from his actors and crew. He always wanted me to play harder and tougher, displaying no vulnerability whatsoever. Gene was

my damaged marriage. First I did Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf at Hasty Pudding Theatricals in Boston. Larry Arrick was directing. At the outset he nearly changed his mind about using me as Martha, the troubled female lead. But I called and said, “I need to do this. I am doing this. I’m coming. Just get ready.” Now, I didn’t know this guy from a hole in the wall, but I knew in my core that the play was just what I needed, for distraction and to keep up my chops. So off to Boston I went, with

relationship. On the good days—and there are more good than bad—I’m so glad we stuck together. Jonathan and I are so well suited for each other. He said he likes me a little needy. Well, honey, you’re in luck! He believes in my music—always has. He doesn’t let me wallow in self-pity. I remember that when I used to ask Rick if I looked good, he’d get frustrated and say, “Stop asking those rhetorical questions!” When I ask the same thing of Jonathan, to this day—even if he isn’t looking at me—he

were possible because I followed my passion and somehow didn’t worry about the consequences. ONE NIGHT IN LA I EVEN GOT TO PERFORM WITH DAVID GATES from the band Bread, my imaginary serial killer–cult neighbors back in the 1970s. Funny how life sometimes comes full circle. My family—Jonathan, Claire, Jack, and Hanna—inspire me to keep chasing my passions. Now when I pass a mirror, I think about all my good fortune, all the dreams that have come true for me, and, luckily, all the ones I have

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