The Thousand-Yard Stare
In which I already knew I was just an accessory.
The movie Twelve Angry Men, in which my father, Edward Binns, was starring alongside Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Jack Klugman, and my guardian E.G. Marshall, among others, was out in theaters. His father-son cop show Brenner, in which his co-star was James Broderick, aka Matthew’s dad, had been picked up for a second season. TV Guide sent a camera crew to our Santa Monica house for a photo feature; this included several patently polished set pieces by the pool. One showed my bathing-suit-clad mother leaning forward so that Dad could light her cigarette (my mother was rabidly anti-smoking all her life). In another image, my parents are apparently attempting to show their deep and abiding adoration for small me. But I, for one, am not fooled.
Forty-some years later, Saveur magazine sent a camera crew to shoot the kitchen in my almost-finished barnhouse in the Hudson Valley; I’d just signed the contract for my 21st cookbook and had appeared on The Today Show twice in the previous six months. We had to tie back the power cords for the nail gun and compressor so they wouldn’t intrude on the overhead shot and mar the bucolic scene. Of course, the final glossy images didn’t show the wires or dust, nor my puffy eyes—resulting from a contentious conversation with my mother that I’d just cut short. They showed only the ideal of a rustic and enviable “gourmet” lifestyle.
The road in between these two photo shoots was rocky, paved with embarrassing mistakes and, in earlier years, a crippling lack of self-confidence. There were dangerous pitfalls for which a glaringly privileged Hollywood childhood left me ill-prepared to cope. Many of my friends from that early era ended up as movie stars, or dead. Sometimes both.
Brett Easton Ellis was a few years behind me, and we went to the same prep school—although I left after fourth grade. The Los Angeles he portrayed in Less than Zero is the one I escaped by being sent off to boarding school at age 14.
Some people had claimed to love me, but evidence seemed to prove that they didn’t even like me. To manifest self-confidence in the world when you have never known unconditional love is, possibly, impossible. The simple goal has always been just to carry on, ideally with a sense of humor and a bit of style.
But a few rules have always stood fast, from beginning to end: Do not look behind the curtain. Do what you must to survive.
Four Tidbits For The Week of February 12
Brigit’s What I’m
DOING NOW ➡️ Counting the days (21) to the launch of Rottenkid: A Succulent Story of Survival CURRENTLY LOVING ➡️ Folks are booking their spring/summer getaways at Refugio THINKING ABOUT ➡️ It's gonna be a WEEK! LISTENING TO ➡️ Andrew Weissman's indispensable podcast
Thank you.