Then Again - Diane Keaton [33]
It was always the same: After the first too-good-to-be-true bites turned into the third and fourth, adjustments had to be made to re-create the original taste. When that didn’t work, the menu reverted to reliable standbys like toasted white bread with butter and strawberry jam. When that took a dive, there was another switch, and another and another. The more I ate, the more disenchanted I was with the results. It didn’t matter, because the impact of the first few bites triumphed over all setbacks.
My new life was labor intensive. Think of hauling all that food in all those brown paper bags up a flight of stairs and into the darkness of my room on West 82nd Street. Think of the tiny un-defrosted freezer/refrigerator and the yellowing cabinets slid open to an ever-changing array of canned goods and baked items. Think of me throwing my body into convulsions three times a day with a box of baking soda standing on the floor next to the toilet. It was as numbing as it was compulsive.
After six months of knocking off twenty thousand calories a day, I became hypoglycemic. I had heartburn, indigestion, irregular periods, and low blood pressure. I was dogged by sore throats. All of which created unwanted activity—namely, calls to doctors and trips to the pharmacy for over-the-counter Ex-Lax. Dr. Stanley Darrow, my dentist, found twenty-six cavities in one visit. Soon my front teeth had to be capped. More work. More pain. But worse were the psychological effects. I became increasingly isolated. I didn’t think about friendships. I didn’t acknowledge the shame. I was busy ignoring reality. I had work to do.
Woody Allen and I met in the fall of 1968 at the Broadhurst Theatre while I was auditioning for Play It Again, Sam. We read together. He was funny but not intimidating. I got the part, or, as Woody teased me and I used to say, “I created the role of Linda Christie.” Play It Again, Sam was a showcase for Woody’s talents. My husband, Dick Christie, played by Tony Roberts, and I took Allan Felix, played by Woody, under our wing. After he was dumped by his wife, we encouraged him to date. Unbeknownst to us, he was also getting help from Humphrey Bogart, who appeared to him during failed dating attempts with gorgeous women. Allan and Linda, both insecure, fell for each other.
During rehearsal, I fell for Allan as scripted but for Woody as well. How could I not? I was in love with him before I knew him. He was Woody Allen. Our entire family used to gather around the TV set and watch him on Johnny Carson. He was so hip, with his thick glasses and cool suits. But it was his manner that got me, his way of gesturing, his hands, his coughing and looking down in a self-deprecating way while he told jokes like “I couldn’t get a date for New Year’s Eve so I went home and I jumped naked into a vat of Roosevelt dimes.” Or “I’d rather be with a beautiful woman than anything else except my stamp collection.” Things like that. He was even better-looking in real life. He had a great body, and he was physically very graceful.
As in the play, we became friends. I was a good audience. I laughed in between the jokes. I think he liked that, even though he would always remind me I wouldn’t know a joke if it hit me in the face. But I knew behavior, and his behavior was way more interesting to me than jokes could ever be. Woody got used to me. He couldn’t help himself; he loved neurotic girls.
While I continued to try to convince him that I was more than a goofy sidekick, many of our conversations—even those centered on my favorite subject, me—were distracting. I was all too often pulled away by a commitment that overshadowed my crush on Woody Allen. For instance, let’s say he wanted to see a three o’clock screening of The Sorrow and the Pity at 59th and Third. How could it work?