Somebody to Love? by Grace Slick, Andrea Cagan Page A

old party animal—she's sitting home again.
    Another missed opportunity occurred when Cece introduced me to a very funny and not yet famous Richard Donner, future director of the
Lethal Weapon
movies,
Ladyhawke, The Omen, Maverick, Radio Flyer,
and
Conspiracy Theory,
and the producer of
Free Willy.
He lived in a small, comfortable house in one of the canyons, and I spent an afternoon with him at home, chatting. If I hadn't had that stupid he's-five-minutes-older-than-I-am-so-he-must-be-dead attitude, I probably would have jumped his bones. Happily married now, he's a great director as well as a humane human being, and in his movies he's able to both entertain and inform without compromising either goal.
    Hi, Dick! You reading this shit? You wanna make a movie based on the life of an animal-loving, shotgun-toting, eccentric, upper-middle-class rock goddess? No? Okay. Just a thought.
    I accompanied Cece to lots of fancy gatherings, where I loved being the only “outsider” in a room full of Robin Leach subjects. We went to a party once where I saw Julie Newmar, an outstanding example of the kind of beauty that drops your jaw. She stood talking to some people in the middle of the living room, and her bright red dress and shoes added to the Nordic Amazon shock value. Standing over six feet, she was taller than most of the men and towered over all of the women. I couldn't imagine what it must be like to be inside such a spectacular body and have a completely stunning effect on everybody within fifty feet of you at all times. There was no costume I could put together to imitate that.
    But I
did
get to put on a showy outfit of sorts. Cece got a call for us to be “Kennedy Girls” at a Democratic party fund-raiser for JFK. We wore red-white-and-blue dresses with white straw hats and spike heels, and our function was to mingle, smile, and make the men with the bucks feel like they not only had it, but that if they gave enough of it away … maybe—?
    We weren't expected to screw any of them, but we weren't told not to, either. Cece certainly didn't have to do anything she didn't want to do to get wealthy boyfriends, and with my aversion to “old” men, we both managed to go home without putting out anything more than conversation. But for Yours Truly, meeting John Kennedy, even if it was only in a long, fast-moving line of starlet types, was the high point of the evening. This was my favorite summer vacation, and to top it all off, Darlene's ex-boyfriend, Johnny Schwartz, asked me out on a date when I stopped by Palo Alto to prepare for my trip to the University of Miami.
    Insignificant events can take on monumental proportions when your head is full of practically nothing.

11
    Convulsive Decision
    T he University of Miami. The humidity dropped me in my tracks (too much cold Norwegian blood?), the palmetto bugs swarmed in red, flying clouds fifty feet wide, splattering on my windshield like blood clots, and everybody on campus was an athlete. But, if you can't beat 'em …
    I cut my hair short, bleached it blonde, got a Coppertone tan, wore white shorts and tennis shoes, and learned how to throw a mean shot put. Variety and eccentricity. I also acquired a king snake who stayed in my dorm room and ensured my privacy by being one of the world's least popular animals. In fact, the best athletic move I've ever witnessed was executed by a pudgy girl who, upon sighting the snake, jumped five feet in the air onto the top of my dresser in about one tenth of a second. She was not ordinarily agile, but the snake's presence called forth instant Olympic ability. Encouraged by that performance, I kept the snake, more for entertainment value than an actual affinity for reptiles.
    Less intimidating attractions at the U of Miami were plaid madras sport shirts, Cuban music (Castro's fatigue-clad soldiers made up fifty percent of the nightclub clientele), lots of beer and umbrella-topped rum drinks, any sporting event (not my first choice for