Untied by Meredith Baxter

Author:Meredith Baxter [Meredith Baxter]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Autobiography
ISBN: 9780307719324
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2011-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

Thank God for work. I think I would have lost my mind if I didn't have a place to go to feel valuable, where I could make a contribution, where people actually seemed to like me. Working, I could have ideas that wouldn't get shot down; I could make choices that weren't belittled. Working, I could discuss approaches to a scene, argue a character's point of view with give-and-take and not be humiliated if I made a wrong step or didn't understand something. I was funny, I was smart, I was present and felt in command of myself. All this left me when I headed home. So I was thrilled to keep the work coming in.

During one hiatus from Family, I landed the miniseries adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, playing the eldest sister, Meg March. What a great cast: William Shatner, Susan Dey, William Schallert; Dorothy McGuire was the March sisters' beloved Marmee, and our aunt was played by the stunning Oscar-winning actress Greer Garson.

However, classic stories and stellar casts do not guarantee a successful movie, and this remake was no exception. Ultimately, I thought it was dull and uncompelling.

The most remarkable element in it to me was that the incredible Edith Head did the costumes: another Oscar-winning Hollywood legend in our midst. I was intimidated by her reputation as a stickler for period accuracy and the impressive history and temper of this tiny woman when I met her in the Universal wardrobe department. She looked just as she always had: short dark blunt-cut hair with bangs and thick oversized glasses. She had pulled several costumes for me from the Civil War costume archives and they were hung around the room on display. My heart sank as she watched me try them on. The style of the time was a pretty high neckline, sort of a crewneck shape, and the long full skirt had a fairly high waist, several inches above the navel. This was not a flattering look for the big-busted girl. Now, having already been working with fitters and looking at myself in wardrobe for a few years and having lived with this body for years more than that, I had a good sense of what suited me and how to fix what didn't. I needed more skin, more of a dip in the bodice, and not such a high waist, but wasn't this accurate for the period? I certainly wasn't about to start giving Edith Head pointers on how to make my wardrobe look better for me.

I just stood there miserably in one dress after another, afraid to say anything as she tapped a pencil and looked me up and down. "Okay," she said, "this is what we will do. We'll lengthen this"--showing me how she would drop the waistline slightly--"which will give you a longer line and pull you in here but drop this down just enough," showing how she would create a lacy faux V-line over the bodice that totally solved my bust problem! "Is that consistent with the period, though?" I asked.

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