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TV Guide - 5/99 |
In Wake Up, I’m Fat!, The Practice’s Camryn Manheim reveals how she shed a poor self-image and gained an Emmy-winning career.
"This is for all the fat girls," Camryn Manheim, 38, memorably crowed at the Emmy Awards last fall, holding aloft her trophy for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama in The Practice. The moment capped what had been a 25-year climb from self-loathing, chubby teen to fierce critic of society’s narrow definitions of beauty.
Growing up in Peoria, IL, Manheim was a skinny kid, but she gained weight with the onset of puberty and felt hopeless. At 16, though, Manheim got a job performing in a Renaissance fair and found that acting offered a way to reinvent herself. "From that moment on, I never looked back," Manheim writes in her new book, Wake Up, I’m Fat! Here, the highlights.
THE WAKE-UP CALL
Manheim lauds her mother, Sylvia, a former schoolteacher, and father, Jerry, a retired math professor, for instilling activist values. But family life could be a challenge, too.
Parents know how to push your buttons, because, hey, they sewed them on. Do you remember the go-with-the-parents rule? We all know this rule. Go with the folks, they pay; go alone, they don’t. When I was a kid I had no money, so I took advantage of this rule. Now I’m no longer a kid and make my own living, but I still take advantage of this rule. Let’s face it, you want your parents to buy you things. It’s a law of nature.
My mother and I set out on our obligatory shopping spree. Oh, joy. I was shopping for, a drum roll, please… a dress for my 10-year high school reunion. If I decided to go. I didn’t want to shop at the fat-girls’ stores, because it embarrassed my mother, which in turn embarrassed me. I remembered that Bloomingdale’s had a large women’s section, but it didn’t have an obvious fat-girl name to it, like Big and Beautiful, so we could shop there, and my mother would never know that we were in a (whispering) "fat-girls’ store."
As I was trying on clothes, my mom wanted to get into the dressing room with me. I don’t know why; maybe to marvel at my fat. Next stop, Judgment City. Now, there are two main reasons why I don’t want my mom in there. One, it makes me feel very uncomfortable. And two, because I am so fat, there’s no goddamn room for her. So I always send her out to get me things. "Can you get me this in blue? Can you get me shoes that match the dress? Can you go down to housewares and look around for an hour?" So I’m trying on this dress, which I liked but was a little too small, and I asked my mother if she would get me the next size up—a 22. While my mom disappeared for the next five minutes, I stood there amazed that I was actually considering wearing a dress to this reunion.
She returned with the dress, tossed it over the door and waited patiently for me to model it. I tried it on, and it didn’t fit. I couldn’t believe I didn’t even fit into a 22 anymore. I was devastated. My mom called out, "How does it look?" Let’s sum up: tiny cell; ill-fitting dress; mirrors on every wall, revealing all my inadequacies; a thin unlockable door, barely protecting me from my overly enthusiastic mother; and no emergency exit, no fire escape, no secret trapdoor, no way out. And again: "Honey, do you like it? Come on out and let me see it."
Oh, my God, panic mode. There was no way in hell I was going to model a size 22 that was way too small. "Uh, it’s not really…uh…me. It’s too…uh…blue." I started beating myself up and, defeated, I took the dress off and hung it back up. And then I noticed the tag. My mother had not brought me a size 22; she had brought me a size 16.
Now, my mother is a teacher. I did not ask her to bring me a whole new selection. I did not ask her to bring me a new color. I simply asked for the next size up, a 22. But no. My mother thought that if she brought me a smaller size, she’d throw it over the door, I wouldn’t notice the size, I’d put it on, it wouldn’t fit, I’d be so frustrated that I’d beat myself up and that would be the day I would miraculously decide to lose all the weight. But what really happened is my mother threw the dress over the door, I didn’t notice the size, I put it on, it didn’t fit, I got so frustrated that I did, indeed, beat myself up and I wanted to go home and eat a single-serving pint of Häagen-Dazs!
It wasn’t the first time she had used subtle sleight of hand to trick me. But this time I’d had enough. I checked the dress tag again to be sure, swung open the door, and in the middle of the fat-girls’ section of Bloomingdale’s I screamed, "Mom, WAKE UP…I’M FAT!"
P.S.: There is no such thing as a free dress.
Right about now, you might be rolling your eyes and worrying that this is the it’s-all-my-parents’-fault chapter. Well, it’s not. I’m simply acknowledging the truth. It’s not my interpretation, not my revisionism. It’s just what happened. And it has shaped me, made me who I am today. I have a fierce I’ll-show-you attitude, largely due to the disparity between what my parents thought the world would offer a fat girl and what I knew I could achieve. All parents want their adult children to experience love, respect and lucrative employment, all of which my folks thought would be beyond my grasp if I didn’t lose weight. I understand their concern. In fact, sadly, in many cases they are right. The world isn’t lining up to love, respect and employ fat people.
POSTGRAD BLUES
Manheim earned a fine-arts master’s degree from New York University in 1987. She was initially elated when the school accepted her.
I had found my mecca. Inspiring words were tossed around, pumping our egos and feeding our dreams. I thought, "Wow! Here I can take risks, here I will be nurtured, here I will become an actor, with a master’s degree." Then out of nowhere—well, from hell, perhaps—our chairperson delivered the most horrifying announcement. The NYU Masters of Fine Arts Program had cuts.
If anyone was going to get cut, it was going to be me.
Two years into the program, she found her battles with acting teachers over her size and "attitude" led to real trouble.
Because I see the world through fat-colored glasses, in my demented little mind I heard, "Either lose weight or get kicked out." That’s when I discovered crystal meth. SPEED! Imagine dumping some Ajax kitchen cleanser onto a mirror, cutting it into two narrow lines, grabbing an ordinary straw and snorting with all your might. It felt like shards of glass, tearing at my septum. Ouch. But, hey, gotta lose weight, gotta get that master’s degree. I had never been into drugs. But I had heard about speed. I even knew someone who dealt speed.
The scary thing about speed is, it works. Sure, it may kill you, but you will look great in that coffin. Life was going by at a hundred miles a minute. I wasn’t eating a thing, and I was exercising more than ever. I was playing tennis, racquetball, swimming. I was really improving my cardiovascular system and destroying it at the same time. By the end of the summer, I had lost about 35 pounds, and when I returned to NYU, I was celebrated by peers. My teachers took a brand-new interest in me, and I felt like a star. By spring I was the thinnest I had ever been in my adult life, about 80 pounds less than I am now. I don’t think anyone noticed I was on speed. But then, ya know, I could have been in denial.
Men paid more attention to me. I was less self-conscious, but I was also numb with despair. I was less self-conscious because I just didn’t care anymore. So there I was, at some guy’s house doing speed, when my chest began to tighten. I was short of breath. I lost my bearings. Waves of fear and paranoia swept over me. I thought I was dying. I asked this guy to call an ambulance, but he refused because he said he had so much stuff lying around the house that he was afraid he’d get busted. So I sat on his bathroom floor until morning. When he went to work, I called two friends to come over and watch me sleep, so they could wake me up if I stopped breathing.
My heart just couldn’t take any more, and I mean that in every sense. After that near-fatal overdose, I had two choices. I could continue down this path of self-destruction, or I could grow up. But as we all know, growing up is rough. In the next few months, I quit smoking, quit speed, quit having gratuitous sex, quit lying and I went into a period of major withdrawals. I was regaining control of my life, but at a price. I was also gaining all the weight back. But I had decided that it was better to go into a bathroom, get on a scale and be disappointed than to be lying on a cold bathroom floor wondering if I was going to die. Now I had to face the rest of my life.
BATTLING PRACTICE
After getting her master’s degree, Manheim struggled to find roles that didn’t stereotype large women. So she decided to create a job for herself, launching a one-woman show in 1994 called "Wake Up, I’m Fat!" It got the attention of a casting director for a new TV legal drama.
When I found out I had been cast in The Practice, I nearly threw my back out jumping for joy. At every turn people had told me I would never be on TV. "Just not the TV type, I guess." For 10 years I rejected their close-minded worldview and relied on that I’ll-show-you attitude. The pilot was going to take three weeks to shoot. One week in Boston and the rest of the time in Los Angeles. I had never even flown first-class before. Something I would struggle with as my career took off. And contrary to my old beliefs that first class was much ado about nothing, I finally got a taste of warm pistachios just before take-off.
The day I arrived in Boston was such a thrill. My hotel room was a suite. Five people could have slept there. So different from the road trips I had taken before, when six people would get a single room and sleep on the floor. There was a basket of fruit and chocolate from David Kelley Productions and an enormous bouquet of flowers from ABC. La dolce vita, indeed. I went to the makeshift production office in the hotel, and they handed me a wad of cash—per diem. I pretended not to look too ecstatic.
The next morning I was picked up and taken to the Boston courthouse where we would be filming for the next five days. The first scene in the pilot had Dylan McDermott and me walking briskly through the courtyard, discussing the day’s events. The prop guy gave me a cup of coffee and a doughnut to hold. Dylan was holding files. Already it had started. I tentatively approached the director and told him I wasn’t really comfortable eating a doughnut on-screen, especially since it was my character’s introductory scene. He said, "Oh, you don’t have to eat it, I just want you to hold it. It gives that we’re-rushing-to-work feeling to the show."
Although I had become more comfortable speaking up for myself, it was my first day, and I wasn’t sure if I should whip out my "Fat Police" badge just yet. I acquiesced. I may have dropped it with the director, but my mind was racing a mile a minute. How was I going to get out of this bind? I walked over to Dylan and said, "Hey, what do you think about this? I’m your right-hand woman, right? Don’t you think that I’d be holding your doughnut and your cup of coffee and all your files while we walk up to the courthouse?" And Dylan, with whom my only encounter prior to that moment was a starstruck "hello," said, "That’s a great idea."
And if you were to look back at the first episode of The Practice, your first glimpse of Dylan McDermott will be of me stuffing a doughnut into his mouth as we give you that rushing-to-work feeling. Small battles, huge victories! After we finished in Boston, we headed back to L.A. I was shown the different sets: McCall’s Bar, the witness room, the judge’s chambers. Then they showed me the office complex, where if all went well, I’d be spending the next five years. And then the director showed me Ellenor’s desk, and I don’t know why I was surprised, but there was a big bowl of candy on it.
Well, I guess the week in Boston had toughened me up, because I turned to the director and said, "Let me tell you a little secret: Fat girls don’t keep candy on the desk. They keep it in the drawer. So if you want to have candy on someone’s desk, put it on the skinny girl’s desk, and I promise I’ll give it a little glance every time I walk by." Before the director could tell me he was trying to get that we’re-rushing-and-don’t-have-time-to-eat-lunch feeling, the prop guy took the candy bowl off my desk and put it next to the coffee machine. If you ever get a chance to see old episodes of The Practice, check out the candy bowl by the coffee machine.
EMMY-DELIRIOUS
Ring! Should I let the machine get it? What if it’s one of my friends prone to early-a.m. faux crises?
"Hello?"
"Congratulations."
The voice was familiar, friendly. "Who is this?"
"It’s Jeffrey Kramer."
My producer from The Practice. Maybe they really were all gathered on the set waiting for me.
"Jeffrey, I’m not late. My call time’s not until 8:30."
"Camryn, congratulations. You were nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama."
I never imagined I would have responded this way, but the second it registered, I burst into tears. My reaction was not a conscious evaluation of the wonderful news but a physical response to the fulfillment of the desperate desire to be accepted. I had spent the previous 25 years erecting defenses and developing a sheet of armor and still had the scars from battles lost, and in that moment, for the first time I could remember, I didn’t feel like an outcast. I still had to go to work. Not only had I been nominated, but the show had been nominated for Best Drama.
So everyone was already in high spirits. I was greeted by shouts and hugs. Just when I thought my heart couldn’t be touched any more, I went to my dressing room and found it filled with flowers. Calista Flockhart had sent me a beautiful bouquet. The light on my phone was telling me I had messages. Friends and network executives had left congratulations. And in his own inimitable style, David Kelley left this gem:
"Hey, Camryn, it’s David. Just calling to say ‘Hi.’ See ya."
Yeah, calling to say "Hi" at 8:28 am. Good ol’ David, never one to use 12 words when 11 will do.
Sunday (Emmy) morning arrived, and my eyes popped open like a kid at Christmas. And I’m Jewish. That’s how excited I was. As the white stretch limo pulled up, I had to give myself the first of many reality checks. OK, let me make sure I’ve got this right. This is my limo, taking me to my first Emmy Awards ceremony, where my name will be read as a nominee. These are my parents in a gown and tuxedo. This is my dream. This is my life. Somebody pinch me. As we neared the Shrine, the limo slowed to a halt, and Jerry the driver called back, "Ms. Manheim, you’ve arrived."
THE END
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