Mariette Hartley is probably best known, regrettably, for the Polaroid TV commercials she made with James Garner in the late '70s. They were so popular that viewers thought she was married to Garner. She even had T-shirts made for herself ("I am NOT Mrs. James Garner") and for her two children ("No, I'm not James Garmer's baby" and "My father's name is Patrick").

For those who may be too young to remember those commercials, you might recall My Two Loves, a well-intentioned 1986 TV movie, in which Hartley's heterosexual character has an affair with a lesbian. One reviewer wrote, "Hartley is excellent as the widow with a teenage daughter who is dating her late husband's partner but is attracted to a woman exec (Lynn Redgrave) she meets in her new job." It was bold for the its time and bold for Hartley to do it.

If you don't remember either of those events: Hartley has been nominated for an Emmy Award six times and won a Best Actress statuette in 1979 for her guest-starring role in a special two-hour Incredible Hulk. She has starred on stage in straight plays, musicals, and an autobiographical one-woman show; in five television series; countless TV movies; and more than a dozen feature films. In 1987, she spent a year hosting The CBS Morning Program, and presently [1996], you can catch her in the recurring role as Lea Thompson's mother on the sitcom Caroline in the City.

So that this introduction doesn't go on for another page, a PARTIAL list of what else keeps her busy includes: being national spokesperson for the American Suicide Foundation (her father committed suicide); involvement with the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence and M.A.D.D. (she hosted an educational video entitled "How to Stop the One You Love From Drinking and Using Drugs"); being named Outstanding Mother of the Year by the National Mother's Day Committee in Washington, D.C.; receiving the Woman of Achievement Award from the Anti-Defamation League of B'Nai B'rith; being saluted with the installment of her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; playing tennis and scuba diving; and reading "everything under the sun."

Much to her dismay, Hartley will not be spending the Christmas holidays with her children, because she will be here in Houston performing with Elliott Gould in Deathtrap. Her only consolations are that her role in the play is a good one and that she loves playing regional theater. "The audiences are very bright and very welcoming," she says. "And I appreciate that."

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Blase DiStefano: Do people still think you're James Garner's wife?
Mariette Hartley: Now, it's done more in the past tense. "We always thought you WERE married to James Garner," and I always say, "Well, I wouldn't have him, he's got bum knees. You never marry a guy with bum knees." And that usually puts an end to the whole question.

In your book, Breaking the Silence [1990], you said your grandfather "argued that institutions like the Boy Scouts and the YMCA could lead to homosexuality" . . .
Isn't that incredible?

. . . and that "Girls were even more in danger because they held hands, kissed, and slept in the same bed at pajama parties. 'Our whole social fabric is woven so as to make all women slightly homosexual.'" What effect did that have on your view of homosexuality when you were growing up?
Oh fuck. I don't know where I came from. I have no idea where I came from. I DO know that none of that has ever affected me.

Oh really!?
Never, never. But I think my mother was deeply effected by it. One of the comments she made—this was after my father had died—we were walking across the street, and I held her hand and she said, "Don't hold my hand. People will think we're lesbians." I of course stopped holding her hand, as only a good daughter would do.

In this issue of our magazine, we're focusing on non-traditional families and their holiday traditions.
Boy, am I ever an example of that. I mean, we're gonna be performing on Christmas Eve and Christmas day! Talk about non-traditional.

Do you know any gay parents and, if so, how have they adjusted to the holidays?
I don't think it has anything to do with whether you're gay or straight. The holidays are a terrible kind of social pressure. I've spent a lot of traditional Christmases and created a lot of traditional Christmases, and I LOVE traditional Christmases. But I think it's true for both the gay and straight communities, that you just have to stay in the now, creating the best Christmas with you've got.

Since you're the spokesperson for American Suicide Foundation, do you happen to know if the percentage of gay suicide is higher than others?
There's an absolutely wonderful book by a young man who is gay whose father committed suicide. It's called Why Suicide? He and I recently had an article in USA Today. I don't keep up with the actual statistics, but my hunch is that teenage suicide is often based on gender confusion and depression that's non-medicated and the inability to talk about the secrets. The crack seems to be when someone leaves them—"My girlfriend left me, so what's the point of living?" But my hunch is that that opens up another chasm of things that they had no control over and didn't know how to talk about. We are as sick as our secrets, and without making it sound too cute, the reason I'm such an advocate of mental illness and talking about suicide is that there are so many myths that have to be broken and so much education that has to be done. I believe there is absolutely no shame with these biochemically induced situations, and I believe gayness is one of those.

Just one more question. How long did your affair with Lynn Redgrave last?
Oh, well, it would have gone on forever if . . .

But it only lasted two hours, right?
[Laughing] Well, yes, it was a TWO-hour movie [My Two Loves, 1986]. But she's a good kisser. If I was ever gonna have an affair with a woman—I'm fairly heterosexual, and I've had plenty of chances up until now, but the choice has always been heterosexual—she would be high on the list. She's just a gem of a woman. It was a wonderful show and a very gutsy show. It was a subject nobody had touched up until then, except That Certain Summer [1972]. I just feel that the only way people can understand what it's like to be in somebody else's shoes is perhaps through someone they trust. And I think, at least in those days, I had—and I don't why—a sense of normalcy for people. So if I could do that, then it could happen to anybody. Do you know what I'm saying?

Yes.
And I also thought it was a very interesting concept of a woman who had been involved in a straight relationship, but in her vulnerability—it was kind of a cop-out—was pursued by this woman.

I guess that's just one of many kinds of relationships that happen.
I can sure see that. In my divorce, it was just devastating, so I do understand that need to connect. But I don't know that it would have to be an apology as in the movie, but that's the way it was done, and that's OK. There were no answers. Hopefully, some people felt validated by it. I do believe in the lesbian community there was an enormous sense of relief and validation, at least from the response I got from it—and continue to get from it, by the way. We got to some level of society with it, and that's good.

Considering it was 10 years ago, it was a breakthrough.
It was astonishing. And I'm very proud of it.

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Mariette Hartley starred with Elliott Gould in Ira Levin's "Deathtrap"
from December 24-29, 1996, at Houston's Jones Hall.

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Mariette Hartley 2 - The Straight Interview

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