A couple of years back I was at a writing salon in New York City and struck up a conversation with writer Nancy Balbirer. She was working on a book about her years trying to make it as an actor in NY and LA. I "ran into her" on shewrites.com, a new social networking site for women writers and found out the book she'd been working on had been published. She agreed to an interview for this blog, for which I am grateful and will forever think she's the coolest. 1) When/how did you decide to write your book?
I had been circling the questions posed by Beverly D’Angelo’s Former Manager (one of the people in the book, as well as the title of the second to last chapter…) for years: Why Aren’t You Successful? It was something that, at the time, I took as an affront: this guy, whom I did not know, but who nonetheless asked me to a meeting, ostensibly to discuss his representing me, was implying that, basically, I was a loser. I couldn’t escape the question and how pissed off I was about it. And THEN, I was literally haunted by Beverly D’Angelo’s Former Manager: he’d appear in dreams, when I was running on the treadmill, etc. and I knew it meant something beyond what my ego was so attached to. Once I had my daughter, a few years later when I was living back in New York, I started thinking about him again—chiefly, because I was thinking about my life pre-baby; who I was before and who I had become, and all the stories I would one day tell her. I knew how the stories ended, and what they were about, etc, except for the one about Beverly D’Angelo’s Former Manager, because I still had no answer for the question. And, that’s when I started to think that the question itself was perhaps far more important the answer. And almost instantly, this question, which I had once considered so hideous and awful, morphed into a thing of great possibility. I had, theretofore been looking at my failed acting career as a closed door, and in that instant, I began to imagine that closed door, instead, as a portal to a whole new life. I wondered what would happen if I embraced the notion that I was, in fact, a failure, and rather than running from it, reveling in it. At first, I thought it would be another solo show (which is the form of writing that I knew then and the only writing I had done at that time, really…), but once I started writing I knew pretty much instantly it was a memoir.
2) I was reading Take Your Shirt Off and Cry, and at the same time reading another memoir called The Guru Looked Good (two timin' you I was, thinking they were vastly different stories), about a woman who spent years in the Eat Pray Love ashram in India. Half way through, it occurred to me both books were about the same thing. Searching for love and acceptance somewhere outside ourselves. Self doubt. The "am I worthy?" question. The universal question!
Do you feel like you've been able to answer that question for yourself yet? Has being a parent upped the ante?
Well, being a parent, you really have to come to terms with your own shit. You just do. And, I knew I wanted to face some painful truths about myself—my shame and various disappointments, my various heartbreaks, etc, and had wanted to for years, but hadn’t out of some kind of irrational fear that in doing so, I would fall apart or spontaneously combust or whatever. Having my daughter made me very brave, because it wasn’t just about me anymore. And, you are absolutely right: Take Your Shirt Off and Cry is primarily about coming to terms with how very much I was looking outside of self for approval, for love and self-worth.
3) Your book was often heartbreaking (your golden retrievers!) but also so funny. I laughed out loud over the Joan Collins bathroom scene, over the names you give characters "Beverley D'Angelo's Former Manager," and so on. You also write about some really famous people, (some by name) were you afraid of their reactions? Has there been any fallout from their camps?I think any memoirist feels scared or freaked out by the prospect of writing about their life, because in sharing your story, you are sharing the stories of others’ as well. I haven’t thus far had any fallout or negative feedback from anyone in the book—famous or otherwise. And my friends who appear in the book have all read it and felt comfortable about how they were portrayed and the accuracy of my memories. One funny side note on this: in the title chapter, there is a part about how promiscuous we all were in drama school and to illustrate just how slutty we all were, I divulge that there was once an entire Hamlet cast who gave one another crabs. I didn’t actually remember who was in that cast specifically anymore; it was a huge cast and a million years ago, and I only remembered that tidbit and how the whole drama department snickered about it at the time. So one day, a couple of months ago, I was having drinks with a few old friends from school and one of them—who’d just read the book—gleefully exclaimed: “I WAS IN HAMLET!!! I WAS ONE OF THE CRAB PEOPLE!!!”
I just about fell off the barstool, let me tell you!
4) What I appreciate about the book is- it is YOUR story. Sure there are celebs in it, but it isn't a tell all. They are bit characters in your very interesting story. Was there a temptation to just spill it and air dirty laundry?
Never. It’s not interesting to me. “Tell-Alls” might be dishy and great fun and all that, but they don’t provide much in the way of insight. I’m interested in literary memoir: how a person can tell a story about a specific life experience and make it universal enough to resonate for other people. The backdrop of my book is show business, which I was in for a long time. It would be virtually impossible to be in that world and NOT come into contact with famous people. But, as you said, they were really bit players in this story and as “characters” they work to illustrate, by virtue of their fame, the disparity between someone like me, who’s on the other side of the fame-fence and someone who’s “made it”. Most memoirs written by actors are from the point of view of someone who is ridiculously successful. Take Your Shirt Off and Cry is from the point of view of someone who was not, and hopefully this is what makes it relatable to people in or out of “The Business.”
5) How did you get your literary agent? I love "how I got my agent" stories.
Also, how is the lit agent process different than the acting agent process?
How are acting and writing linked, and how are they different?
One of my friends is the writer Cintra Wilson and she was always encouraging of my work, which was such a huge compliment because she is just a total genius. Anyway, when I first started writing down the stories that ultimately became Take Your Shirt Off and Cry, I’d give them to her and also to my other writer friend, Mike Albo, another absolutely fabulous writer, and they’d give me notes. When I was done with 3 chapters and a detailed chapter list, Cintra recommended I send them to her agent, Bill Clegg. I did and he called me pretty much right away and within a week, with his help, I had written a proposal letter, and the following week after that, we were meeting with a bunch of editors. This experience, by the way, is VASTLY different than the one I had as an actor. I had a much, much tougher time as an actor—even getting a decent agent at times seemed impossible! It didn’t hurt that I was extremely lucky to have such great and talented friends, who believed in me and supported me the way Cintra and Mike have, and also fortunate that an outstanding agent like Bill “got me” and loved the book so much. I am eternally grateful!!
Funny that you should ask about the differences between acting and writing, because I just wrote a piece about this very thing for Slate’s Double X that you can read here:
http://www.doublex.com/blog/yourcomeback/i-used-act-private-public-now-i-act-public-private6) Have you bought yourself a new pea coat?Too funny—you know what? Lately I have been OBSESSED with getting a new one!! I really want that same one I had from J. Crew, but I’m gonna also look in some thrift stores…
7) What are you working on now? More books?I am working on a new book—another memoir, this one about my complicated relationship with my father. It will have some commingling with the time period Take Your Shirt Off and Cry takes place in, but mostly it will be about the period before that and also after. I’m also working on an idea for a play and a novel, as well.
Click
here to see Nancy read a hilarious excerpt from Take Your Shirt Off and Cry.
Abigail Thomas
Love & writing,
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