SYTB 19: The Kid Stays in the Picture
It's your choice.
Bob Evans, former head of Paramount Pictures made a fantastic film about his life from his own point of view. It’s a tell-all tale with thousands of photos from his amazing career in pictures from Love Story to China Town. He also relives his affairs with his 7 wives, but none more than the love of his life, Ali McGraw who ultimately left him for Steve McQueen. It’s essentially a photo montage of his own intimate portraits with his voice-over narrating the film.
He opened the movie with a story about one of his first starring roles in film. He was cast as Pedro Romero in The Sun Also Rises opposite Ava Gardner. He was essentially placed in this role in which Hemingway had depicted himself as this powerful matador. Hemingway was extremely dynamic, a force of nature in his own right. Everyone associated with the film was complaining about Evans who was cast in the role after being spotted in a night club of all places. He was an unknown. In their minds first, he was not a serious actor and second, no more than a pretty face. No one wanted him in the film. Ernest Hemingway, Ava Gardner, Tyrone Power and Eddie Albert all signed a letter to the director which simply read, “With Robert Evans playing Pedro Romero, The Sun Also Rises will be a disaster.” Meanwhile, Evans had already been sent to Mexico to become a bullfighter and train for the role. He was wearing a rubber cummerbund all day while training in the hot sun of a bullfighting ring to shed pounds around his waist to look the part. Evans knew he was going to be fired, so he essentially said fuck it in his mind to the whole ordeal. Evans had never seen a bull in his life prior to his time in Mexico. He explained that the very day when he learned of the letter and his dismissal, he inhabited the character Pedro Romero. His director showed up in Mexico just after to check on Bob’s progress working in the ring. Bob did a sort of screen test for the director, reading some lines, but was sure this was it for his film career. To his surprise, Darryl Zanuck, the director picked up the bullhorn on the spot and said, “The kid stays in the picture. And anybody who doesn’t like it can quit.” Zanuck dropped the bullhorn and walked out. Old school mic drop.
But the amazing thing is Evans right there decided, he didn’t want to be “some actor shitting his pants” hoping to keep a role for the rest of his life. He wanted to be the guy who decides that “the kid stays in the picture.” Obviously, his legacy as not just a director but eventually the head of one of the largest motion picture studios of all time demonstrated his commitment to his vision.
One of the things I am famous for is/was dating more than any living creature. I am sure there are pick-up artists who may have covered more ground. I was dating for a solid twenty years looking for the love of my life, my soul mate, and eventually, the father of my children.
For the first ten years of dating, I had no desire for kids. I just wanted a partner to be with me who could accept that I wanted to be loved for me. I didn’t want the role of wife and mother. I was terrified of losing my identity and autonomy. I was sure motherhood painted women into a corner wherein their individuality and character just vanished. I saw so much of that from women like my mom and her mom having kids and losing themselves in motherhood. They just blurred into the background of family life. Both women ended up in mental hospitals at a certain point in their marriages with distant, uncaring husbands. The first ten years, I dated hoping I could find someone who wanted me, no kids, no marriage really. I wanted to be special. I needed to keep my sovereignty and my creative license for how my picture turned out. Still, I couldn’t get a clear picture of what that could look like.
One day, though, just as I turned 30, I held my baby brother, Wyatt for the first time. He was almost 12 months old at the time. Since I had a strained relationship with my dad, this was my first time really being with my brother, my dad and his wife who was just about 40 years old at the time. She owned her own business, a self-made woman. My dad owned his since before I was born. Wyatt was sweet. He was the first baby I’d ever held. Can you believe I’d never held a baby until I was nearly 30 years old? I looked more like I could have been his parent than either of his actual parents. My dad looked like a grandfather. My dad’s wife has dark hair and eyes and doesn’t have much of a familial resemblance to her eldest. I remember, I had a blondie after my lunch. It was a white chocolate brownie with ice cream. As I held Wyatt, I dipped just the tip of my finger into the melted ice cream and put the tiniest dab into Wyatt’s mouth for a taste. My dad’s wife lurched at me across the table with a gasp. “He can’t have dairy!”
I immediately apologized. “I didn’t realize he was allergic. Is there something we should do?”
“Oh, no,” she explained. “He’s not allergic. It’s just that the book, What To Expect When You Are Expecting says not to give them dairy until they are one year old.”
Wyatt was essentially a year old. I tried to act respectful, but looked at my dad like he was an idiot. I was raised on milk, as were both my sisters. Had he not noticed or forgotten? Certainly, a tiny taste on a finger when the kid is almost one wasn’t worthy of such an intense outburst. Nevertheless, I laughed to myself. These two business owning, autonomous, professionals who are complete morons about child rearing are doing alright. This kid looks surprisingly fine despite their ignorance. I could totally do this.
It was at that very moment, walking out of Applebee’s holding my brother, almost 30 years my junior that I decided I could be a mother and that I wanted to be a mother.
It’s now 20 years later. I have my own kids, an amazing husband, and I still have my own voice. But, it took me another ten years to get from I can do this to I am doing this. A major part of building that bridge of actualization for me was knowing what I wanted inside my boundaries to defend. I had to have a clear vision. Holding Wyatt helped me see my vision.
If you don’t make choices, if you don’t want anything that you choose for yourself, there’s no point in boundaries at all. Let other people decide. Let other people run your life. What difference does it make if you don’t care who or what goes in the picture?
I knew I wanted kids, that I would be a mom one day. I was certain me, my practical, pragmatic, no-nonsense self could do a pretty good job raising a kid, certainly better than my dad who was still fumbling with his fourth. I realized that I could still be me while doing it, too. That’s when everything changed for me.
Shortly after this epiphany, a friend of mine, Adam, had a dream about a Tarot card and how it related to me. This was long before I left California to meet the love of my life, Aaron. The card he saw was the Six of Cups. He said it had two children on it. The card depicted a little boy and a smaller girl near a village holding flowers. He said, often the card meant something about the card recipient’s innocence, but that in his dream, he knew it meant something different for me. He knew these were to be my children. Somehow, I believed he was right about these being my children. I didn’t know their names. I knew they were fair like me, likely blonde haired and had blue eyes like me, too.
After learning of this dream, I started talking to them. They gave me little input. They were mainly just angelic and innocent. When I dated, I would ask them if the person I was dating was their dad. They couldn’t tell me. They wanted me to be the adult and make the decisions in their best interest. “Please, mommy. Find us the right father!” They would plead with me. I made a commitment to them, my unrealized children. I said I would not give them a horrible father who didn’t respect me or wouldn’t value them. I truly committed to them to give them a happy life with the best father I could find. I promised them their father would be a good role model in his marriage. He would be someone they could emulate or could find someone like him to partner with. I was so committed to my children-who didn’t exist. I would have defended the dream of them with my life. This is what kept me many times from settling for the wrong men and yanked me out of my close calls with some truly, awful and unsuitable suitors. These children mattered more to me than my strongest infatuation. They deserved no less than the best dad on earth. There were times I felt discouraged. It was getting late in my life. I was closing in on 40, and I thought I might not be able to have kids. I remained committed to bringing them into reality and to not compromise who I procreated with for their sakes. Desperation was never an option.
I had to put my kids in the picture. I made these children such a huge priority before they were born, staying true to my boundaries and agreements. I made a promise to them to hold this vision of them and our life together before they even existed. This helped inform me of who belonged in that vision with us and who to filter out. I didn’t want someone around me or them that I couldn’t trust. It helped me with friendships as well as personal relationships. These children were precious angels. They were absolutely defenseless and dependent on me as they only existed in my own mind for the time being. I felt in my heart that I knew them so well, though, and that they deserved everything I could give them.
Again, I put it to you. What do you want in your picture? You are that director, the studio head. You will have what you are willing to work to defend. Paint those boundaries around your dreams and visions. Stay committed to them. Know that what you put in your vision will be yours. Do what it takes to defend it from others as well as yourself, your own addictions or habits. Make commitments to yourself and your dreams that you will not give up or give in. Nothing is more important than this.
That’s it. Wake up each day, state your vision to yourself and boldly declare, “Nothing is more important than this.”