A Behind the Scenes look at being called to meet the “Pope of Publishing: Oprah W, a king sized purchase, and burned hair.
Landing in Chicago, the nighttime sky shimmered with diamond-like stars. Plentiful and brilliant. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to see them once nearer the city, but they were sharp now. A reminder that something greater was always there. Silent. Reliable.
Off the plane, through the jetway, and down a set of stairs, a chauffeur stood among other drivers and balanced a white sign before him, my name in large black letters. “Luck with an A,” Steve liked to say.
Steve had taken to my success now. Had no problem with my earning potential. Hadn’t said a word about my needing to “pull my weight” or help him “turn the wheel” which included making our mortgage and insurance payments, depositing money into retirement and college accounts, and paying our electric and gas bills. I was, apparently, doing my part. At last. Depending on how my appearance on Oprah went, there was discussion of a book deal for the sequel to Blackbird. A six-figure advance could be on the table, according to A-Ma.
“Welcome to Bean Town,” the driver said, tipping the brim of his cap and tucking the sign under his arm. In a crisp uniform, he directed me to the luggage area, then took my bag and waved me through a set of doors that opened to the curb and a waiting car; A stretch limo big enough for a family of ten.
Like standing in front of a podium and talking about my book, you’d think this would be so exciting, so great, such a testimony of accomplishment. But it was terrifying. Horrifying, even. This kind of power, this kind of money, this kind of treatment was way beyond my understanding of myself. I was a simple woman, a mother and a writer with a sad story of loss. I didn’t want to like this “star” treatment. I didn’t want to lose my soul to it, either. I didn’t want to be a person who puffed herself up to be something she wasn’t, but who was I kidding? I was as human as the next person, and there was a bubbling river of pride welling under my terror. Look at me. Look at what I’ve done. It would take years to shake off that pride and my identification with this person. Success was a drug, like any other. But it would wear off. It should wear off. We come in naked, and we die alone. I wanted to remember that.
But I was now in that limo, several feet away from the driver and separated from him by bulletproof glass. Off we went into the heart of the city, which was a ghost town at that hour. Into a swank hotel, glass and metal, and courtesy and perfection. I was insulated from the homeless men and women on the street, from the sorrows of poverty and loss and disease. I rode an elevator to a top-floor suite. Door open. Behold. A grand piano over there, a living room arrangement of plush furniture over there, a kitchen appointed with everything I might need, a full refrigerator of sparkling water, beer, wine. Over there on a marble-topped table was a personally signed note of welcome from Ms. Winfrey positioned artfully next to an overflowing vase of roses and lilies from someone’s hot house because it was too damn cold here for the blooms to survive. Chocolates in a foil box. A bathroom as big as our bedroom back home. A deep tub, and shower, and towels so plush they might as well be clouds. A master bedroom with a bed the size of New Jersey. Pillow top.
Steve and I slept on a thin queen mattress that dipped in the middle.
After tipping the man who brought me to this wondrous room that must cost seven fifty a night, I lowered myself onto the spectacular bed that hardly moved at all and resolved to buy one as soon as I returned home. This is the best bed in the world, I thought. I must have one.
I couldn’t sleep though. Who could sleep in such a room? I was a nervous wreck, looking at this excess and shaking my head. Finally, after wandering around that suite for a couple of hours, touching nothing, I finally pulled a blanket from the armoire and laid on the fully made bed. Blanket over me and stared at the ceiling in the dark.
Believe it or not, the next morning, the hymn in my prayer book was this:
Morning has broken
like the first morning,
blackbird has spoken
like the first bird.
Praise for the singing!
Praise for the morning!
Praise for them, springing
fresh from the Word!
I swear on the graves of my parents. I was dumbstruck as I sat there, reading the lines that weren’t from a Cat Steven’s song, though that’s how I knew the hymn, but written by a remarkable English writer, Eleanor Farjeon, who grew up in London and died two years after I was born. In 1965.
It didn’t mean anything, but it meant everything at the same time. And I was shored up enough to meet the new day, which, soon enough, would end like every other day.
Harpo Studios was downtown, but I knew nothing of Chicago at the time. Less than nothing (though many years forward from that moment, I would be back with a daughter I hadn’t yet conceived, who would attend college in that town).
My impression, as the driver took me there, was of squat and solid iron and brick buildings, of impeccably laid sidewalks, of wide streets. It seemed a sturdy, heavy place and likely built that way in response to the punishing and relentless winds.
Once we arrived, I was shuttled through a series of side doors and put through an inspection of my bags, and person, that pre-dated the aggressive security checks that would come after 9-11. A metal detector and wands and two men patting me down.
Soon, I was released to reassemble myself and then escorted through the building by a security guard. We passed through halls hung with so many framed photos of Ms. Winfrey with this or that guest, I marveled at the work it must have taken to put all of them up. Thousands of photos, it seemed, though it might have been less. All of them with different versions of Ms. Winfrey wearing different outfits and hairstyles. Each guest, across from her, someone famous and fabulous. Actors. Actresses. Athletes. Leading doctors, speakers, teachers. The best of the best.
Pocket Books was flying in the publicity people who would be watching the taping of the show in order to call back to the offices in New York, and let them know how many more books would need to be printed by the time the show aired. Already, Pocket had sent cases of books to Harpo, and one hardcover would be placed on each chair. I had already signed these books, while in New York. If the PR people were there, I wasn’t sure yet. I didn’t expect to see them, as I was to have my hair and makeup done and then it would be time to go.
Once left in the Green Room, I faced a buffet of pastries and fruit next to carafes of coffee and hot water, a sofa and two chairs before a low coffee table, and another long wall with mirrors and a counter, and swivel stools. I only stood there a moment before a woman swept in with her chin raised and her eyes taking me in, not as a person, but as a task. She was small. Thin. And, as sharp as a razor blade.
“Hello,” she said in a thick French accent and squeezed of my fingers in a kind of handshake. Evette? Ivette? I cannot tell you, but she introduced herself and said she would be doing my hair.
With a wave, I sat down on a stool before the wall of mirrors, and she wiggled her fingers into my hair. It was long at this time, crazy long, and I was one of those vain women who frequented a ridiculously expensive stylist to shape and color it just so. My hair was “my thing.” Long. Wild. Curly. Abundant.
“Very nice,” she said. “We can do much with ‘tis. What you think? How do you like?”
“I don’t know,” I said, looking at her looking at me in the mirror.
I was crazy skinny at the time (all this touring had killed my appetite) and wore a slim-fitting long black skirt adorned with black sequins and a burgundy velvet top with quarter sleeves and a draping neckline. Fancy. Elegant. Expensive.
“Maybe put it up?” I asked.
“If you want to put it up, cut it off!” she said, her voice snapping with irritation.
I wanted to snap back, “Jesus-H-on-a-popsicle-stick lady, why did you ask?” but this was too big a deal to blow now. Polite. Kind. Patient, I reminded myself.
“Perhaps you have an idea?” I asked.
“Hmmm,” she said, once more lifting it through her fingers and examining the ends. “I say we straighten it and leave it long.”
Out came a hot iron and moments later, the smell of burning hair. This blade of a woman ruined a mane I had cultivated for years. My long and lovely hair burned to a crisp (though it did look nice for the taping, I will give her that). Once home, I’d have to cut it off (as she had said) and start again.
The taping was set for like nine or ten, and I stood waiting with my now steaming but perfectly flat sheet of hair and makeup applied by yet another woman who had appeared after Evette or Ivette was finished.
I was in a lobby area, just outside a darkened production booth filled with men and women in headsets calling over intercoms to camera people.
Before me a set of closed double doors through which I could hear a lot of noise and movement. Next to me, Mary, who kept looking at her watch and shaking her head.
I thought to myself that Ms. Winfrey had likely just read the book. In the press, she was quoted as saying she was a speed reader, and could take in hundreds of pages in moments. I didn’t know if this was true or not but felt sure that with her schedule, there was very little time to lounge around reading. It wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine that my book had only recently arrived and that she probably hadn’t touched it until that morning, or perhaps the night prior.
Who knew?
While I stood there, I mourned the ruination of my lovely hair and felt rather sad but so what, it would grow back. What was about to happen would impact the rest of my life. Suck it up, Lauck, I kept telling myself.
After another hour of standing around, a set of elevator doors opened across the way. That pneumatic sound.
Out stepped two huge suited men—certainly former NFL linebackers—who peered around for suspicious activity with narrowed eyes. From between them stepped a woman so tiny, I was shocked.
High, high heels. Impeccably styled hair. That glowing smile and shimmering eyes. It was her. Ms. Winfrey. The woman who, whenever I looked at her on the cover of a magazine or caught her show, was on and on about her weight. But as she crossed the lobby, I couldn’t imagine why. Sure, she was sturdy, but not heavy. It must be the camera, I thought because she looked great.
“I’m Oprah Winfrey,” she said, extending a hand.
No kidding, I wanted to say. But I had interviewed presidential candidates, a few celebrities, cops, criminals. I knew better than to be a wise ass. Best to be polite and play it cool. We shook, and her grip was solid, confident, and brief. In her other hand, she held my book.
“I’ve just finished this,” she said to me, and then to the others who had congregated around us; Mary, the bodyguards, and a few people from the booth who were wringing their hands with the delay. “Why isn’t this a Book of the Month pick?”
It was, of course, the thing any writer worth anything would want to hear. The equivalent of the Holy Grail. Better than a blessing from the Pope.
“I can come back,” I said.
“No, no, no,” someone said. Mary? One of the other producers?
“We’ve taped and put the whole show together around this,” someone else said.
“She leads the show,” came another voice. “We’re ready.”
Ms. Winfrey looked at these people, her expression a mix of irritation or frustration or impatience, or maybe all three, and then looked at me for a long moment, a decision being made.
I almost said I would come back again, and do so happily. Whatever she wanted. But she tossed her hands up, that one still holding my book.
“Fine,” she said, giving into the situation of people waiting. “Let’s go.”
She turned then and strode toward those double doors. Like spirits, the bodyguards had managed to get there first and pulled them open to reveal blinding white light so shocking, I lifted my hand to my eyes.
The producers scurried back into the booth now, talking rapidly into their headsets. And Ms. Winfrey continued through the doors into what was clearly an auditorium.
“Well, come on,” she called back to me and continued up a long aisle. As she went, a roar of voices lifted. Cheers, people crying out her name, and others screaming in ecstasy. It was like when the Beatles hit the height of their fame, the audiences undone by something powerful and inexplicable.
Crossing the threshold, my shoulders hunched against the noise, I hurried to catch up with this single brilliant star shining in her singular universe.
Thank you for reading, being with me here, and for your comments.
~ Jennifer, 💫
(Go directly to the next post on the Blackbird journey now).