Dry Heat

What Happened to Keri Sullivan

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by 

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Malka Daskal

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           There was a guy who used to work in my office whose right side of his face was badly scarred from a burn he sustained as a child. The whole entire right side. I think it was an accident involving a pot of boiling water or maybe it was oil. When I first started working with him, it was the only thing I could see. I would stand there talking to him about market projections and project deadlines and all I could think was good God, you look horrible. And then a few months went by and one day I realized I could talk to this guy like a normal human being, actually look him in the eye and focus on the things he was saying. Pretty soon, I didn’t even notice his scar anymore. I mean, sure, if people asked me, who’s Jim Chase again, I would lower my voice and say, you know the guy with the scar, and the person would nod sympathetically and say right, right and look guilty for not remembering his name which is just silly because their failed memory retrieval has nothing to do with his scar. But I think his scar just made people uncomfortable all around. That is, until you saw him long enough, consistently enough, worked in the cubicle across the hall from him day in and day out and then you just stopped noticing it anymore and, to you, he just became Jim, not Jim with the messed-up face.

            That’s how it is for me and Keri. You know her as Kera Sullivan, of course, but she was Keri growing up and that’s still how I think of her. It sounds weird, I know, comparing Keri to Jim. Extreme beauty and extreme ugliness. It’s funny how both cause people to stop and stare, to treat you differently, to make assumptions. But I guess what I mean is, everyone sees her as really beautiful, just drop dead gorgeous, but I knew her before all that and I guess I can never quite see her that way. On posters, her face blown up six times its normal size, her hair is long and glossy with the kind of effortless waves it takes a team of people to create, but all I can see is the time the school nurse found lice in her hair and she had to be sent home and the other kids called her “dirty Keri” and I was the only one who would sit with her while she waited for her mom to come pick her up.  I mean, I’m not blind. I know she’s pretty. And if I stop and look at her, I can be like, ok, sure, I see it. I see what all the fuss is about. Just like I can see Jim’s scar when I care to notice it. But, I’m not distracted by it, you know. She’s still Keri. Plus or minus two nose jobs, numerous hair extensions and an expensive set of glossy veneers, she’s still Keri.

            And there’s other things too. I’m not trying to deny she’s talented. I would never say that. But, when you know someone, I mean really know someone, it’s hard to believe in the Hollywood myth of them. Like the time she won best actress for that role where she played a recovering alcoholic and everyone was blown away when she did that scene where she is screaming until the veins are bursting from her neck. The one where she has a complete and total meltdown in the middle of the neighborhood pool party, shouting at her husband, the manipulative philanderer.  I mean, she pretty much yelled like that at her younger brother two or three times a week when she would find him snooping in her room. It didn’t seem like that much of a stretch to me. 

            Keri was always dramatic growing up. Nothing was easy. Everything had to be a production. If we wanted to go to the beach for a few hours in the afternoon, there had to be two hours of prep time minimum. Two hours to try on bathing suits in front of the mirror, a few short breaks to anguish over the width of her hips, a couple half-hearted attempts at applying false eyelashes and we were ready to hit the boardwalk. Even then, she knew her audience. The guys, California surfer dudes and tanned volleyball players, appreciated her attention to detail. It was at times like that, when they flocked to her like hungry seagulls to a discarded sandwich crust, I would remember that she was beautiful, really beautiful. That I was in the presence of something unusual.

            She had a magic that drew people to her. She still does. It got amplified by fame and money over the years, but back then, all she had were her looks. No, that’s not fair. She had talent, too. She was the lead in all the school plays and people said her performance as Anne Frank was unforgettable, not a dry eye in the house. But her magic, her ability to pull people into her orbit and keep them floating there satisfied with their proximity to her heat, it was about more than just looks and talent. As her oldest friend, I am impervious to her charm, but I see its effect on people, the double takes, the stares. Her agent has another way of putting it. He says that to make it in Hollywood, you can’t just be pretty, you have to be memorable. And that’s Keri. There’s something unmistakably memorable about her. Her voice is just the right amount of husky, her features are delicate and defined, her movements are graceful, her smile is wide and her laugh is just ridiculous enough to be endearing without being irritating.

              I think Keri knew even back in high school. Even way back then, I think she knew she had what it takes. She wore her mother down, and in tenth grade Mrs. Sullivan let her sign a modeling contract. (Poor Mrs. Sullivan, I think she was hoping Keri would be a librarian like herself so they could spend their days together shelving books and running story hour for runny nosed toddlers.) It didn’t take long for Keri to make the transition from modeling to commercials, and from commercials to bit parts in movies, and then finally to mega-watt superstar. She got lucky, of course. I watched Somewhere over Mexico three times, the one where she starred opposite Carter Reynolds, and her performance, I mean, wow. She was like a lit stick of dynamite. You couldn’t take your eyes off of her. She crackled and sizzled on the screen. That’s when people sat up and took notice. Audiences, of course, but also important people like movie critics and directors. That’s when she started to collect fans. Not many people know this, but she was the studio’s third pick for that role. She only got that part after Amy Chandler and Sarah Kerr passed it up first.  And yes, the script was pretty awful, I mean who torches down an opera house because their dog got run over and what was with all those aerial shots of abandoned toilets in junkyards? It was just weird. But Keri kept you watching. When she was on the screen, you forgot the plot didn’t make sense and that the dialogue all sounded vaguely like something you’ve heard before and the camera work was self-indulgent. You almost forgot to breathe. 

              It didn’t take long after that for Keri to get bigger parts in bigger movies. There were nights she would call me up and be like is this for real? Is this really happening? And I was just as giddy as she was. She could talk to me. She knew she could tell me anything and I would be straight with her. It’s because I know the real Keri, not Kera the made-up movie star, but the real Keri who passed American History class by cheating off my test, who never learned how to ride a bike, who cried for a week after a particularly awful haircut, who one time stole a pair of leather gloves by accident from Bloomingdales but was too embarrassed to go back and return it.

             And I was really happy for her. I mean, she deserved it. All the applause and attention. It’s what she always wanted. The spotlight. The special treatment. Not that she let it get to her head. She told me I kept her grounded. She said I was the only one who she could be real with, just totally be herself. This was during the early years, before her name dripped off of everyone’s lips more familiar than the names of their loved ones, when she was still hovering in your peripheral vision, a recognizable shadow. That’s when she really needed me. She was unsure of herself then, self-conscience of having never had any formal acting lessons, afraid of being exposed as a fraud. It was my job to remind her that she had natural talent, more raw, more real, and more unique than anything taught at some fancy theatre school.

             Even after she moved into the new house in Hollywood Hills, we would spend hours watching old comedies, I Love Lucy marathons and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. She had this really cool home theatre with reclining seats and one of those old-fashioned popcorn makers that make the whole room smell like melted butter. Keri said there was a lot you could learn as an actress from those old shows. She said comedy is the hardest form of acting. You have to be totally in tune with your audience, even when your audience doesn’t exist yet but are just out there wandering around, shopping at the grocery store, changing diapers, living their lives. Then one day they buy a ticket and find a seat and are transformed into your audience, and they watch your performance and a year after the joke is performed, it lands straight and true right between their eyes just like you intended. Keri said that’s who she thinks about when she’s acting, that unknown person in seat 22G who paid $11 for his ticket, not the gold statues, Harry Winston diamonds, and Judith Leiber handbags. Not that those hurt, she would laugh, that charming throaty laugh, and you would forgive her for her success. 

             Then came the years when she was so busy traveling we didn’t have time to see each other much. She was always on location.  First it was Scotland for her role in Castle on a Lake, then Australia to shoot A Love Song for Muriel, three weeks in Africa for that epic tear-jerker Only the Hungry Survive (not giving her the Academy Award for that was blasphemous), and then I lost track.  I was busy too. I had a new job at Simon, Gallagher & Shulman and my boss could be a real stickler about deadlines and paperwork. I watched all her movies though. Even the one the critics hated, where Keri plays a mobster’s wife who takes over the family business and turns it into a charity for single mothers, Sally Robin Hood. Not her best work, but mostly that was the fault of the studio who were intent on pushing the boundaries of sexual explicitness at the expense of good plot.

             There were times I wanted to pick up the phone and call her, but I guess I was afraid to bother her. I knew her life had become hectic, demanding.  I thought about calling just to tell her how much I enjoyed her movies but I didn’t want to sound like one of her sycophantic fans, clawing at her in a desperate plea for attention. Anyway, it was enough to see her in the movie theatres, larger than life, taking up all the space on the screen just like she takes up all the air in the room in real life. Of course, that was the packaged Kera Sullivan, glowing on the screen and strutting down the red carpets at movie premiers, bold and shiny as a lollypop. That was not my Keri. But it was enough to know that she was still out there. That’s what it’s like with really old friends, you know? You can go months or years without talking to them but when you see them again, when you talk to them again, you can pick up right where you left off. It’s that kind of friendship.

              Besides, she was all over the place back then, it was like I couldn’t get away from her even if I wanted to. Two or three movies a year, that time she hosted Saturday Night Live, and then she became the spokesperson for Aspire Cosmetics and her pretty face was in all the magazines, her teeth a dazzling white between Cherry Berry lips. And the award shows. All those people waiting for hours to catch a glimpse of her, screaming her name to get her attention, desperate to get an autograph, a picture, a smile. But she never lost focus. I think towards the end, she made some of her best movies, her most honest performances. That’s when she started drawing from within, really digging deep. I loved watching her in Catching a Train to Casablanca as the mentally unhinged daughter of a business tycoon. And she was brilliant in that period movie where she played a sex therapist in the 1920’s, A Hundred Ways to Skin a Cat. Truly phenomenal.

              That was the real tragedy when the industry turned its back on her. All that talent and no outlet for it. What a waste.  I felt bad for the public really. That they would never see her perform again on the big screen. What a loss.  Of course, they were the ones who cast her out of Hollywood. I wasn’t going to talk about it. I really wasn’t. I mean you all know what happened to Keri. She fell in love with Scott Savoy on the set of Seal it with a Kiss, that moody action thriller that’s told from the point of view of the gun. Scott left his wife to be with Keri and people would have forgiven them for that if it hadn’t been for the fact that Scott’s wife was pregnant at the time. As it was, Keri (why is it always the girl?) was cast as the villain, the homewrecker, an evil temptress and her name became class one toxic to all but her most loyal fans.

              Keri took it hard. It’s not easy to be abandoned by your public and then by your boyfriend too. Scott saw which way the winds were blowing and he changed course in time to salvage his public image. That five-page glossy photo spread in People helped a lot too. Don’t pretend you didn’t see it. Everyone saw it. The one where Scott and his wife are snuggling on their California King bed, their little bundle of joy held securely in love’s tight grip. The one where they refer to the challenges they’ve overcome in their relationship and how their bond is stronger than ever. And that little baby, the size of a shoe box, a sweet gift from heaven, his eyes unfocused but content, looking pretty pleased with himself for ruining someone else’s life with the arrival of his own.

             When she called me, I wasn’t surprised. Who would you turn to when you’re most in need? You’re best friend. And that is what I am. Through all the years when we didn’t speak or see each other, I still considered Keri my best friend, and when she called, I knew she did too. I was the only one who she could count on, the only one she was willing to let see her at her worst, because she knew I never valued her only for her stardom, for her success, I saw her for herself, the real Keri. When I came to her, she was just a total wreck. Is this real, is this really happening? she kept asking and I had to tell her it was real. This was the end of Kera Sullivan. It was time to get back to being Keri.

             Keri says she’s planning to go to college, take some classes and start her life over, move in a positive direction, and maybe she will. She wants to learn about script writing. She says she could write a script better than the crap that she was forced to work with. She says she could do it with one hand tied behind her back and a monkey on her lap. She sold her house in the Hollywood Hills, it was too modern for her anyways, and she’s been staying in my townhouse in Brentwood until she can find another place. People at work want to know what it’s like having a famous movie star live with me and I don’t know how to explain to them that to me she’s always just been Keri. She likes Cinnamon Toast Crunch in the morning, she sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night to watch infomercials, she plays music with volume cranked up high when she showers, and I’ll be here for her as long as she needs me to be. Just like I stayed with her in the principal’s office pretending not to hear the muffled laughter of the kids on the other side of the door while we waited for her mother to pick her up from school that day she had lice in the sixth grade.

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