Tatum O'Neal's Paper Life



As you prolly know, this book, Tatum O'Neal's A Paper Life is amazing. Even Oprie had to get a slice of this, cause it's mm-mmm good. A couple of passages really came out at me as The Corsair read the book in a Cutty Sark induced stupor. Most of the Amazon reviewers felt Tatum's honesty about the Hollywierd freakshow was apot on.

Here's one haunting passage:

"... We checked into tha Plaza Athenee. Maria Schneider, who had made Last Tango in Paris with Marlon Brando, was staying with a male hairdresser in the room next door. They had some drugs and were into wild partying, so (her and Melanie Griffith) wound up hooking up with them.

"One night we all smoked opium and hash. I sank into the bed, dizzy from the drugs, getting so nauseated from the opium that I leaned over the edge and three up. When I raised my head, a very confusing scene was taking place before my eyes. Melanie, Maria and the guy were tangled up together. As an added touch, one of the women was apparently menstruating -- something I was too young to have experienced myself -- and there was a lot of blood. It was surreal, because I was so high and embroiled in such a strange blurry scenario, yet I had a cool, objective voice running through my head, like a tape loop, saying 'Tatum, where are you? What are these people doing?'

"Then one of them reached out for me, drawing me into yet another confusing erotic experience. Overwhelmed with conflicting emotions, I didn't resist."

And another:

" ... It was during (The French Open 1988) that I first suspected John (McEnroe) of being on steroids because his moods swung wildly and his behavior was so erratic. Sometimes he bullied me physically, jerking my arms up behind my back, squeezing my neck, or grabbing my nose between two of his knuckles and twisting so in a way that brought tears to my eyes. At the end of 2003, John would tell the press that for six years he'd been given a form of steroid of the legal kind they give to horses -- before they decided it was too strong for horses,' without knowing what he was taking."

How about that, the infamous McEnroe tantrum was just a case of 'rhoid rage.

Finally:

"... Determined to beat discouragement, I kept trying to develop my skills. Back in New York I enrolled in Sandra Seacast's topflight acting workshop, which met three days a week. My fellow students included Don Johnson, Lynda Carter, Jessica Lange and Isabella Rossellini.

"I was assigned to do a scene from Chekhov's Three Sisters with Don playing my lover. He was grossly flirtatious. I was mortified at the way he kept grabbing and hugging and kissing me in front of the class and calling me at home.

"Then we were paired for a sensory awareness exercise, exploring each others faces with our fingertips for many long minutes. It made him tremble, he told me. He kept tilting his face close to my neck, so he could deeply inhale my perfume.

"The whole encounter made me queasy. Even when I was single, I never went in for that playing-with-fire kind of dallying -- not that I was a prude. But Don, like me, was a spouse and a parent -- and his wife was my old pal Melanie Griffith, whom he'd married and divorced in his youth and recently re-wed.

"It was all so incestuous."

Buy this book, you won't be able to get your ass to sleep.